Conversations with Prince Metternich –
‘The entire difference,’ said the Prince, ‘between enlightened politicians and the advocates of violent measures may be exemplified by the difference in the signification of the singular and the plural of the word Reform. A man who uses this term in the singular, exclaiming, “ I am for Reform,” is a revolutionist and an advocate of every kind of Violent change which would suit his selfish ends or his vague conceited notions of things; but the term reforms means the salutary removal of certain impediments to the welfare of society which powerful minds, after a thorough investigation and consideration of circumstances, have found to be such: therefore every enlightened politician may pronounce himself an advocate 0f reforms.’ The same distinction of parties and motives he added, might be applied to the use of the word ‘liberty’ in its singular and plural meanings (Freiheit und Freheiten). Those who were always crying out for liberty, he said, wanted exemption from control, a general licence to gratify their individual desires and passions, and moreover power to tyrannize over others;
This question asked by Christopher Hitchens remains a great question.
Great not only on narrow academic merits, but great because its answer relates directly to the explanation for why the American lamestream right and the American inferior reich failed completely against the Progressive.
Aside from Trump, the best all other wings of the Right could point to were successful Conservative lobbying groups like the NRA that scored tactical (but not strategic) victories, and some useful observations here and there by Conservative writers on specific policy matters. But observation only goes so far – all else being equal, a deer caught in the headlights will still be runover no matter how perfectly it observes the headlights.
Otherwise, they have nothing to point to but failure.
Their collapse is what created the political opportunity on the Right now being capitalized on by President Donald Trump’s de facto Party, Hamilton’s Federalist Party (which is also the de facto Party of this de jure Republican website to redefine) to completely redefine the American Right’s understanding of what American Conservatism and American Nationalism are.
Not an official reestablishment of the Federalist Party as a third party strategy. The third party game was played perfectly by Nigel Farage, but would be a mistake in America’s political environment .
No.
What Trump has pulled off is a greater maneuver than orchestrating Britain’s exit from the European Union: The reconversion of the Republican Party itself back into its Federalist Party origins; without officially, and unnecessarily, renaming the Party of Lincoln.
Where Trump succeeded, and every other Republican politician and writer came up short, was in governing Alexander Hamilton’s governing bodies.
Hamilton’s governing structures can all be categorized as those levers of Federal power that were endorsed and/or founded by Hamilton that Trump either loves having Presidential oversight over, or, wants more Presidential power over.
The powerful, Conservative-Nationalist, Hamiltonian structures of the Federal Government that Trump finds so alluring are –
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- The Electoral College.
- The Military-Industrial Complex.
- Trade Protectionism & Trade Policy.
- The Federal Reserve & Central Banking.
- The Nuclear Triad.
- Dollar Supremacy.
- Federal Law Enforcement Authority.
- Urbanization.
- Expansive Executive Powers.
- Foreign Policy.
- Economic Policy.
- Infrastructure Policy.
On the flip side, the Progressive bodies are everything that Trump hates about politics and which interfere with the proper operation in Washington of Hamilton’s Corporatist governing structures.
The Wilsonian structures are –
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- The Media.
- Academia.
- The Social Engineering Complex.
- Expansive Government Bureaucrat Authority.
- Globalist Forums.
- Public & Private Sector Unions.
- “Non-profit” Political Organizations.
- Urbanization.
- International Law.
- The Green Industrial Complex.
- The Celebrity Industrial Complex.
Wilsonian structures remain in place no matter how many buildings named after Wilson are renamed or how many statues of Wilson are torn down – the social justice tyrants are simply the useful idiots of Wilson’s entrenched paradise of the scientific bureaucrats.
Hamiltonian governing structures were originally built by (or, best advocated by) a visionary New Yorker two hundred years ago; they could only be restored two hundred years later by an even more visionary New Yorker.
In his article Hitchens, without realizing it, was in the ballpark of why the long overdue acquisition of the GOP by the Federalist Party is underway.
As was his method of operation, Hitchens struck multiple targets in a violent display of literary firepower.
But he never landed a clear hit on his sought after answer.
His main explanation for the inadequacy of American historical education is that all sides prefer simplistic interpretations – Progressives want a simplistically negative interpretation of American history (except, of course, for Progressive history which is almost always simplistically interpreted as positive) and Conservatives want a simplistically positive interpretation of American history.
This is in many ways true.
But simplicity doesn’t explain why there is so much energy devoted to arguing over US history.
If he were told today what it is, he – a man with many bêtes noires – would be embarrassed because the answer was nothing more or less than one of his very favorite bêtes noires –
Organized religion.
Or, specifically, organized political religion.
You see, America’s various political ideologies have become political religions on account of America becoming the most powerful nation in history.
No better proof that American ideology is really American theology can be offered than the fact each one of America’s political/religious doctrines frequently contradict other political/theological doctrines; contradictory theology such as –
Woodrow Wilson, April 2, 1917
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
FDR – December 29, 1940
We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.
JFK – January 20, 1961
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
John Quincy Adams – July 4, 1821
Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
George Washington – September 19, 1796
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
These respective Presidential stances became religious principles because those Presidents are, effectively, political “saints” in the American political pantheon which makes their words excerpts of America’s contradictory “religious” doctrine.
Moreover, American “theological” contradictions are hardly limited to foreign policy.
On every dispute of policy and principle, important American “saints” can be quoted as taking a “definitive” position on a given matter where another, equally important, American “saint” took exactly the opposite, equally “definitive”, position.
And therein lies the answer Hitchens sought: American history is treated as “theological” justification for the policies of today.
Because American “theology” is a composite of multiple American “religions” with doctrines that usually conflict with other “doctrines”, American history is not taught properly because different interpretations of that history would weaken the justifications of today’s preferred policies.
And by “not taught properly” we mean Americans are not taught history in context. Historical facts are often not disputed. When facts are disputed, and if there is no serious uncertainty about a particular event, then the debate is really over the context that historical fact existed in.
Progressives would still be the most notorious for this even if they were not inclined to statue toppling. But all strands of American political thought engage in this type of contextual malpractice, and have been since before the Declaration of Independence was signed.
This political-religious fanaticism often leaves Europeans like Hitchens exasperated.
Now, to an extent, all nations refer to their history as justification for whatever policy is being implemented in the present.
But in no other European nation is history-as-justification for politics as fervently argued to the degree or importance than in America. Indeed, none of them, except for Great Britain, have existed without interruption as Democracies for more than century. Some, like Spain, have been Democratic for less than fifty years.
European political ideologies have nothing like the importance they do in America because their politics are too inconsequential to the rest of the world compared to whatever “theology” is dominant in America; European ideology has no American-like romanticism left after Europe declined in the 20th century no matter what ideology was practiced on the Continent; and, aside from Britain, their political parties and experience with Democracy are too recent for any of its 20 century Democratic leaders to have the “theological” importance acquired by American figures such as Lincoln, Washington, JFK, and FDR.
Even in Britain the oldest political parties have few, strongly held, policies or traditions that would generate anything close to the religious passion with which American political parties generate.
At best, voting for the Tories or British Labour is a grim, ritual duty that British households carry out because they inherited it from their ancestors; comparable to inviting hated in-laws over each year for Christmas dinner.
Continental European parties are only empty vessels for an ideology; none of which have any grip over European minds except for a weakly held hope that clinging to EU Supranationalism (the Continental equivalent of Progressivism) will prevent a third, fratricidal war that will obliterate Europe.
Hitchens can be excused for missing this considering his European mindset.
But answering Hitchens still leaves unsettled why, except for the Federalist Party, all branches of the American Right have collapsed?
And, considering how contradictory American political theology is, how is it that America manages to settle on any consistent policy at all instead of having each American doctrine being cancelled out by an opposite doctrine?
For those answers, we will switch gears from theology to the field of mathematics known as game theory.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of studying game theory is that by learning it one becomes able to recognize the design of games of competition and games of cooperation.
All games that can be studied by game theory always have a type of architectural structure to them that share similar strategic components and elements with other games.
By understanding this architecture one can not just gain insight into the best strategy (or dominant strategy) for playing a certain game. Frequently, those insights can be applied to different games if they possess similar elements.
The implosion of the lamestream right and the inferior reich is likewise a matter of structural causes.
To understand this structural makeup we turn to the elements of American political competition and how American politics works as a system.
Before we continue about these structures, keep in mind that you are best served by putting aside for the moment your own political preferences. Instead, simply focus on how the system of American politics functions when it is translated into game theory terms, no matter whether you agree or disagree with a structure’s policies.
We start by following the example of Metternich and define the three main components of America’s political structures.
They are the components of –
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- System of Government.
- System of Economics.
- Political “Religion”
In America there are many political religions.
But, like the number of genders, there are only two American political religions that are also viable systems of government.
The two systems are the structures outlined earlier and defined as the ones Trump enjoys governing (Hamiltonian) or is having his governance hampered by (Wilsonian).
The topic of American political “theology” is a discussion about what should be done.
The topic of American systems is the discussion of what and why something was done, what is being done, and what will be done.
Let’s return to our Presidential quotations and the question of America derives policy from these contradictory statements? Watch what America did in the context of its two systems, not what its theology said, because what America did was according to either of the Hamiltonian or Wilsonian systems.
America has never practiced isolationism because there was no system of isolationism in American governmental structures. At no time did pre-1914 America ever practice Isolationism: 19th century America was in a constant state of violent military-industrial expansion at gunpoint. For two hundred and fifty years America has fought for the sake of maintaining strategic regions as its own zone of economic influence (Hamiltonian Realism) or it fought for Global government objectives cloaked under “Democratic” rhetoric (Wilsonian).
Remember Washington’s condition was restricted to Europe. Adams was referring to the Greek War of Independence from the Ottomans (the predominant foreign policy crisis which Metternich dealt with in Volume IV of his Memoirs), which some Americans wanted the country to enter into on behalf of the Greeks.
System infrastructure is also another, significant, difference between American and European politics. The structures Hamilton designed to support America’s Nationalist political infrastructure are already thoroughly developed, active since the Constitutional Convention, legendary in American lore, and the most powerful in all of history. European Conservative-Nationalist politics has little infrastructure because those systems (Monarchism, Fascism, and Military Dictatorship) were either abdicated, destroyed, or disbanded in the 20th century.
Hamiltonian and Wilsonian systems are the only systems capable of implementing comprehensive American policies because they are the only ones with governing infrastructure to implement their policies. It follows that every other type of American political ideology is non-viable because they have no way to consistently convert their religious doctrines into policy.
The way to express these two systems in game theory is by their priorities.
Priorities determine systems function in most game theory scenarios of cooperation and/or competition.
Priorities determine how a system ACTS, with each actor’s highest ranked priority having the most impact on their decisions; the second highest priority having the second most impact; and so on, down the ranked priorities, all the way to the least important priority which has the least affect.
Priorities affect everything that a system does. For example, in the case of how venture capital funds act in their business environment compared to how financial planners for retirees act in theirs how those two different financial businesses prioritize risk affects everything from the psychology of the employees they hire, to what type of customers they will attract, where they will choose to be geographically located, and on.
Hamilton and Wilsonian systems are no different, their goals determine the operations of their system.
Hamiltonian system priorities are as follows –
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- Hamilton’s Republican system of government serves the economic system of Capitalism (see earlier list of Hamiltonian structures).
Progressive system priorities are as follows –
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- Wilson’s Progressive system of “scientific” dictatorship where the nation’s economic system (directly or indirectly) is controlled by a “scientific” political elite (see earlier list of Progressive structures).
Like all great systems Hamilton’s Conservative-Nationalist power structures, working in combination, are powerful because they act as a self-reinforcing system.
Hamiltonian trade protectionism & dollar supremacy enhance the power of the military-industrial complex with financing for military projects.
In turn, the military-industrial complex enhances the power of America to implement trade protectionism & convincing the First World to accept dollar supremacy by giving America enhanced negotiation leverage over the rest of the First World since America is the guarantor of the commercial security of the world’s most important economic chokepoints for the rest of the First World.
Without military-industrial supremacy, America does not have the necessary negotiation leverage to implement trade protectionism, dollar supremacy, or generally shape the First World’s economic system to our liking. And without trade and dollar supremacy, the military-industrial complex cannot be financed.
The strength of each Hamiltonian structure enhances the power of the total Hamiltonian system, any weakness of one weakens them in totality.
Exactly the same principle of self-reinforcing strength or weakness applies to Progressive structures.
But how did we determine Progressive priorities in the first place?
We outlined Federalist priorities because those are the preferences of this website.
But how did we figure out the mind of the Progressive machine? Putting oneself into the mind of another actor is, admittedly, the point in game theory where mathematics can no longer help and intuition must take over.
The way to find an actor’s preferences is by observing their actions and statements, and then estimating how they rank those preferences in order to find the causal relationships between their preferences and their expected actions.
Which may seem like guesswork, but isn’t really since one does not need to know how an actor’s mind works perfectly; only enough to get a reasonable understanding of their preferences.
With training and depending on how inherently good one’s instincts are, this psychological aspect of game theory can be implemented, and is implemented, successfully by businessmen, criminologists & investigators, intelligence agents, diplomats, hostage negotiators, labor dispute arbitrators, lawyers, the military, and any in other field where humans cooperate or compete with others.
Applying all this to Progressivism the first thing to note is that one cannot derive their objectives from the stated purpose of their policies because their policies never achieve their stated goals.
“Dealing with structural racism” or “Having a dialogue about race” results in the primary beneficiaries of the “dialogue” being white Progressive elites. Of course, minorities gain extra welfare handouts, but handouts that are spread out over tens of millions of minorities. On a per capita basis all those billions redistributed by Progressives only amounts to a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to each recipient.
Nor does “Fighting climate change” cool the climate. Since China is the largest carbon emitter in the world, and since Progressives have no control over what China does, cutting Western emissions barely has any effect. And “green energy” like batteries for electric cars often release more carbon during their production, or, as is the case with solar panels, release more toxic waste into the soil after they are disposed of.
The way to find their priorities is by inferring it from the system requirements of each individual policy.
In every instance, what is theoretically needed to implement a Progressive policy requires handing absurd levels of power and tax money over to Progressive elites.
The perpetual acquisition of power and money to their structures is the priority of Progressivism, not actually achieving their stated policy goals.
By “dealing with structural racism” Progressives mean their system requires dictatorial power over speech and trillions in tax revenue to a white Progressive elite.
By “dealing with climate change” Progressives mean their system requires giving their governing structures dictatorial power over energy production and trillions in tax revenue.
At achieving each one of its stated aims, Progressive government is useless.
At gaining dictatorial power for itself, Progressive government is genius.
The failure of their stated policies never stops the Progressive system from its actual priority: Gaining ever more absurd levels of power for Progressive governing structures.
What about those Progressives who for 150 years genuinely believed in freedom of speech and civil liberties? They were simply useful idiots.
In that light you should start to understand that the Progressive system, in its entirety, is smarter and stronger than any one Progressive or group of Progressives: Any Progressive whose more moderate priorities deviate from the operation of the complete system (such as sincere civil liberties Progressives) is overwhelmed or ignored by the momentum of the complete machine’s tyrannical desires.
For the rest, the quest for personal power is cause enough.
Because Progressive dictatorship is justified on grounds of “science”, by saying “Because science” Progressives really mean they deserve to be part of the dictatorial scientific elite because they believe in “science” and “scientists” are the governing elites, no matter how many anti-scientific beliefs they hold, such as the existence of more than two genders or lighting sage to ward off evil spirits.
Likewise, their compassion for the dysfunctional is only a cover for ambition.
From this analysis of Metternich –
Following Metternich’s reasoning, the importance of each aggrieved group is not by race but by dysfunctionality. Hence, primarily white transgender patients are ranked at least as high as, or higher than, black prison inmates. Not because of any genuine sympathy for the predicament of the dysfunctional but because by “tolerating” dysfunction the Liberals are hoping to create a purely radical autonomy for their own will: In other words, if society tolerates the most dysfunctional behaviors the Liberals themselves are freed of all restraints on their own autonomous will. By “abolishing borders” what they actually mean is “abolishing any and all boundaries restraining the expression of their own autonomy”, everything from legal boundaries right down to their very biological makeup.
However, unless one is stranded by oneself on an island, the dream of reaching a state of radical autonomy can only lead to anarchy and end with absolute dictatorship. Eventually one’s own will clashes with that of someone else, leaving the only way to impose one’s will is the construction of an even more tyrannical system than what Liberals initially were rebelling against.
Amazingly, American Conservatives have always wondered why Progressive institutions have been Liberal for the last 90 to 150 years.
The roughly hundred year old reason was nothing other than those Progressive institutions (which were never considered governing institutions) simply wanted dictatorial power for themselves, exactly what motivated Hitler and Stalin.
And it is that quest for the means and opportunity to tyrannize (more than the logical coherence of any “Right” or “Left” ideology) that is truly the animating force shared by the three, great, scientific dictatorships of the 20th century, Communism, Nazism, and Progressivism. If the only route to absolute power for Hitler was Communism and the route for Stalin was Nazism, then Hitler would have converted Hitlerism into Communism as surely as Stalin would have converted Stalinism into Nazism.
Granted, Communism would have been a very distant second choice for Hitler; while Nazism would have been a very close second choice for Stalin.
Since today’s route for, say, the American academic tyrant is giving dictatorial powers to the academies, the academic tyrant happily votes for the Party that includes academics among its elite of “scientific” dictators.
The same self-interest applies to the green tyrant, the social justice tyrant, the bureautyrant, the globalist tyrant, and so forth. This has been true from the start of Progressivism 150 years ago in the days of all the reform tyrants like Woodrow Wilson who ran under the curtailed banner of “Reform”.
But if those were the only respective roads available to them then those would surely have been the roads taken.
You should also see by now that any hope atheists like Hitchens had that secularism would improve human political decision making has failed – the absence of religion simply lead to the invention of new, “scientific” religions.
We now have the dominant priorities of Hamiltonian and Wilsonian systems.
But there is a third system in this political relationship – The competitive relationship between Hamiltonian and Wilsonian governing structures.
The competition itself forms its own, third system because in game theory the only other priorities that influence the actions of an actor (aside from their own) are the priorities and actions of other actors in the game system.
The game theory terminology for Hamiltonian vs Wilsonian competition is a two player, zero-sum game –
In game theory and economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant’s gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero.
The system of Hamiltonian vs Wilsonian competition is zero sum because their priorities are in direct conflict over the question of which system is the governing system and which is the servant system.
In Hamiltonian governance, Hamilton’s governing structures like the military-industrial complex are power centers designed to serve Capitalism. Wilsonian structures like academia are not governing institutions. Instead they are merely servant, or advisory, structures.
In Wilsonian governance, Hamiltonian governing structures and the Capitalist economy are the servants of the social engineering tyrants in academia and other Wilsonian power centers.
Their priorities are mutually exclusive conditions – either Hamiltonian structures are the governing institutions or the Wilsonian institutions govern, but not both.
Any gains one makes at becoming the Federal center of power comes at the proportional expense of the other.
One may ask is it necessary for Hamiltonian and Wilsonian power centers to be in purely adversarial relationship? Is there a possibility for power sharing?
The answer is a firm no.
The reason circles back to the sheer scope of the system requirements of Progressive government. Their radical policies require radical levels of power and money to make their projects feasible.
If their policies were less ambitious, the competitive system would be less antagonistic. However it is not likely a movement, whose energy policies literally require Federal Bureaucrats controlling the temperature of every last molecule of the Earth’s atmosphere, will become less demanding tyrants.
But what does all of this “theology” and game theory have to do with American Conservatism in the real world?
Everything.
Why?
Because what has been laid out explains why all other, non-Federalist Party, branches of American Conservative failed. They failed because they weren’t playing their dominant strategy because they didn’t see the architectural design of the Left-Right competition.
A dominant strategy in game theory is one that outperforms every other strategy.
The strategy Conservatives should have been playing was one that frees the Hamiltonian structures listed at the beginning from the control of Wilsonian structures, and then transforming the Progressive structures back into purely servant structures without decision making power.
There are two reasons why this has always been their dominant strategy.
The first is because of the zero-sum nature of America’s political competition.
The second is because that dominant strategy has already been chosen for them by Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln.
The Conservative-Nationalist structures built by Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln already exist as governing structures, they have their own powerful, self-reinforcing, dynamics in operation, and only Hamiltonian systems are strong enough to demote Progressive institutions into purely servant institutions. This system dynamic, with existing political infrastructure, has locked the rest of the American Right into an optimal strategy, whether it wants to follow it or not.
Any Conservatism that deviates from working to make Hamilton’s system the center of governing power turns this two player, zero-sum game into a three (or more) player, zero-sum game, with at least two Conservative players fighting each other at the same time as they are fighting against the Progressive center of power.
This divided effort on average will consistently give the advantage to the Progressive system because the Leftist player never deviates from its own optimal strategy which is to give as much power and control as possible over decision making to Progressive structures. For example, traditional news media always agree to fight for giving dictatorial political powers to universities, universities in turn always agree to fight for giving dictatorial political powers to traditional news media.
Do you know who on the Right did not deviate from a Federalist Party strategy?
President Trump!
Trump is a success because he never had an ideological opposition to Hamiltonian structures. What he opposed was how those structures were being managed. But once he got to the White House he couldn’t wait to bend those structures to his will and govern them because of their immense power. And in order to govern them, he has had to continually fight off Progressive institutions for control of the Hamiltonian institutions.
So Trump, amazingly, has been playing the optimal Hamiltonian strategy correctly, for his entire Presidency, instinctively!!!
The lamestream right and inferior reich, obviously, were not playing a Federalist Party strategy.
Usually, their mistakes fell into three categories –
- They missed competitive opportunities because they simply did not see or understand the architectural design of the Hamiltonian vs Wilsonian conflict.
- They were fighting among themselves and, unwittingly, created a three (or more) player, zero-sum game that threw the advantage to the Progressives.
- They refused to compete at all because they viewed the very existence of all, or almost all, of the Hamiltonian structures as illegitimate.
The second category was simple “theological” turf wars between the various Conservative “religions” arguing about this doctrine and that doctrine.
The third category chose political irrelevance and were then outraged when they were ignored by everyone else as irrelevant.
But the first category is the most interesting from an architectural point of view.
Let’s take an example of a significant, missed opportunity.
Did you know it turns out it is perfectly Constitutional (or, an “allowable move”) for American Conservatives to control a majority of American media? Not 100% control. But a majority will work most of the time without violating the Constitution.
I’ll bet you didn’t know that.
But it just so happens to be true.
Here is why.
Remember we discussed the three main components of America’s political structures.
They are the components of –
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- System of Government
- System of Economics
- Political “Religion”
We then defined the Hamiltonian system priorities are as –
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- Hamilton’s Republican system of government serves the economic system of Capitalism (see earlier list of Hamiltonian structures).
The First Amendment’s protection of speech binds the Government.
But our Hamiltonian system’s priority is the preservation of the economic system of Capitalism served by Hamiltonian governmental structures.
Therefore the economic system of Capitalism is not bound by the First Amendment to the degree the Government is.
Because of this looser system constraint, Republican-leaning businesses and Republican billionaires could have avoided the past 90 years of having the mainstream media dominated by Liberals simply by buying the traditional media!
Even having one third of the major traditional media outlets would have made a world of difference in American politics, probably forcing the Democrats to be more centrist, and making their current policy preferences non-viable.
If, say, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin collectively bought the New York Times, you bet the Times would be be more favorable towards to the military.
Had this been routine for Republican-leaning businesses or Republican billionaires, the Republicans would have easily ended up in control of most of the media industry – and without violating the Constitution in the slightest!
Conservatives are rules based, and they thought the rules of the First Amendment ruled out a Republican Government controlling media. But it is not so.
So they never saw this allowable opportunity because they didn’t see the system architecture of Hamiltonian vs Wilsonian competition.
But it was always as easy as a merger or takeover of any other type of business.
They still might be resistant to this idea because they will complain Republican leaning businesses and billionaires aren’t “Rightwing enough”. But this is foolish personnel thinking instead of systems thinking. The point of having a majority stake in the media is to shift the conversation to the Right, any weak-tea Republicanism by whatever business or billionaire controls the media outlet is still working towards a longer term system objective of moving partisan leanings right.
Aside from errors like this, there was the time wasted on particular, non-Hamiltonian, “theologies” on the Right.
In no particular order is this rundown of some of these specific theologies and why they failed to prove competitive.
Lamestream Right Theology– Aside from abject cowardice were been rolled year in, year, by the Left because did not understand the broader framework of Left-Right competition. They also preferred to compromise with the Left, without realizing the mathematics of the power competition is winner take all.
State’s Rights & Secession Theology– Failures because of confusion about a number of definitions and are irrelevant in the context of the competitive system. State’s Rights was sold to Conservatives as a “Nationalist strategy”, except that the states are not nations. States do not have the power to sign treaties, set trade policy, conduct foreign policy, set national economic agendas, etc. The real Nationalist structures were built by Hamilton and Lincoln in Washington. Therefore, American Nationalism must play out in Washington by definition, not at the local level. Any victory for local governments was merely a tactical, delaying action because it did not reverse Liberal power in Washington. The Liberals remained ensconced in Washington and just for an opportunity to reverse that tactical defeat. The appeal of State’s rights is also geographically limited to the South because the term is really, a very confused, term for Southern Nationalism. But the South is not a nation, and there is no equivalent to that sentiment in the rest of the country: There is no Midwestern nationalism, Northeastern Nationalism, etc. Moreover there is no Nationalist possibility of secession in Hamiltonian systems because the Federalist structures like the military-industrial complex are too integrated with the most Nationalistic parts of the nation for them to ever break out of the Union. The Progressive portions of the country are also too integrated with Wilsonian systems to ever want to secede.
Mainstream Libertarian Theology– Lost because they wanted to simultaneously minimize the power of both the Hamiltonian governing institutions and the Progressive institutions. This led to them defeating neither because of a divided effort. The better strategy would have been to concentrate exclusively on fighting the Progressives structures first, and then negotiate minimizing the role of Hamiltonian structures afterwards.
Anarcho-Libertarian Theology– The purest version of Libertarianism. So pure that they did not lose because of a divided effort like their more moderate, GOP-integrated siblings. They lost because their effort was limited entirely to daydreaming about scenarios that will never happen, such as a currency crisis that ushers in a stateless-utopia (this has never happened in the wake of any economic crisis) or the magical economic powers of a gold standard.
Conspiracy Theory Theology– Let’s assume that every single conspiracy theory ever posted on the internet, without exception, is true. That would be quite something because many conspiracy theories are mutually exclusive conditions with others. But put that aside for a moment. Let’s say they are all true, everything from LBJ ordered Kennedy to be killed, to LBJ himself was the second shooter, and every conspiracy theory beyond. Suppose the government admitted they were all true. What would change? Absolutely nothing. The Progressives would still have their power structures operating just as they always have been. In fact, if the Government admitted to all of them, the conspiracy theorists would believe they were being lied to, even if it was the truth! Conspiracy theories are completely useless politically to the Right because they have nothing to do with system architecture.
Isolationist Theology– A policy of Neutrality in a part of the world is not the same as Isolationism across the board. As mentioned earlier, pre-1914 America never practiced Isolationism. The country has always been expanding its economic spheres of influence at gunpoint whenever diplomacy or economic coercion failed. Because there is no history of an Isolationist America existing for a second, there is no system to support an Isolationist policy, and hence no chance of it ever being implemented.
Historical Revisionist Theology– A surprisingly limited field given how much history there is to play revisionism with. In America it is limited to Hitler and the Confederacy. But there are no Ghibelline revisionists? Why not? Part of the reason is a lack of imagination. But the other reason is, again, the theological-policy link in American politics. The point of certain Americans revising the history of Nazi Germany and the Confederacy is to delegitimatize the very existence of American world power. To show you how bad of an idea this is, let me introduce you to another political religion – Classic International Law. In this political religion it doesn’t matter how immoral or evil the methods were that led America to become the world’s greatest power. It only matters that America is the greatest world power because the victorious nation gets to set the rules no matter how well or badly it acts. If the leaders of the nations America defeated on its road to the top were each more moral than Jesus, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to Classic International Law. It only matters that these moral titans of the Confederacy, Imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union lost to the United States. Classic International Law also happens to have the virtue of being a system, and not only a political religion. It is a system because there is no global power that can enforce a more moral system than “winner take all” on winning hegemonic powers. The religion of historical revisionism has no system, and therefore no hope of relevance.
Inferior Reich Theology– A confused mess of ideas taken here and there from other failed Conservative religions, such as Anarcho-Libertarianism, State’s Rights, Historical Revisionism, and Isolationism.
Pragmatically Distributed 