Is conservatism dead?
Content is nothing, context is everything. This is also what modern propaganda is all about. The emptiness of the word Conservatism has helped drive us into a deep epistemic crisis.
I think you are going to hate what this story means, but I have to tell it anyway. I confess that I have been going through several identity self-checks in a row while writing my second book, Feeding the Demons. I tried to understand what had happened to the Republican Party during the information warfare paid by Russian oligarchs and their American financial proxies. It´s scary. One half of American political body exhibits now strange signs of attachment to authoritarian regimes, which rightfully elicited fireworks of astonishment in the world media: What the heck is happening there? As a former conservative, a Canadian with Czech roots, a Catholic and a rather cautious person in accepting radical positions, I had to go through the painful journey of confronting my own political fandom (who among the Czechs would not have sentimental memories of “the winner of the Cold War Ronald Reagan”?).
Thanks to Trump's strategists and sponsors, the new “conservative” agenda is not political, but purely jingoist, anarchist, marketing-driven, with some normal political externalities as a byproduct, often unintended …Maybe it´s even worse: chaos, division, distraction and finally an attempt to overthrow government as an intended outcome. An agenda that has shrunk to what Steve Bannon called "the shallow American religion" in one of his top cynical moments: Guns, abortion, and whiteness.
It really took me a lot of work to go up to this point, to harsh criticism of my own tribe. Through a gradual examination of past events, I managed to get to the point of present rejection and opposition. As many of my tribe, I once naively believed the fabricated narrative that Russia has been defeated by Ronald Reagan. When I finished the writing of my second book based on research of a 25 years long Russian plan how to conquer America, I was pretty much sure it was a BS. With my long experience in political marketing, I was lucky that my cognitive dissonance never prevented me to think freely. After being proved wrong, I rejected this narrative as manufactured. In fact, Russia just regrouped, used the vast money of its organized crime to blind us by greed and changed the strategy of the conquest. Divide et impera.
¨
Today, as we come closer to the discovery of conservative sponsors plan how to end the American democracy and switch to a new form of fascism, we keep using Hitler as an example more often. Perhaps I can use Jaspers’ ideas instead. In his amazing book The Question of German Guilt (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy), he states: "If a political ideology is fundamentally wrong, then its individual positive consequences are not what they seem." Jaspers thus responds to the objections that Hitler had increased employment and built highways. So, is conservatism fundamentally wrong? Are we there yet? Is this the point where we must pronounce it dead? As you can see, I’m in pain.
The cultural shift to fascism created by Bannon and Flynn made the word conservative to a new slur. Where was Conservatism before they came with their treasonous plan? Is there any point of where we can go back in time and say: That is the Conservatism I remember and support? Was it all the time just a spin tweaked to empty tribal hysteria, starting with Nixon´s troubles and Roger Stone dirty tricks? We desperately need to tell the story of our time and stay honest in order to understand where we went wrong. To restore the powerful narrative of democracy, we need to understand what really happened to Conservatism.
People like David Troy, Ann Nelson, Nancy McLean and many others see the big picture and tell us the whole story supported by a wide historical context. They looked back into the American history to show us how different streams of American extremist politics joined the massive Anti-Communist narrative of right-wing businessmen and powerful operatives to merge into one powerful stream of multiple revolutionary motivations.
Myriads of cultural tribes from esoteric weirdos, religious cults, libertarian billionaires, former extreme leftists, unemployed incels, violent racist militia, veterans, disengaged members of intel, police and military personnel, associations of menopausal women who missed their opportunity to create their own identity, anti-communist think tanks, everybody was given his purpose to support its own value and hide under the umbrella of American Conservatism. But what about the American Conservatism itself?
What is the core of this politics? Is there anything left what can constitute the REAL political ground, the fundament which could get refurbished and restored?
Never in U.S. history has a foreign, hostile power attempted to smuggle money into the political campaign apparatus and launder it through friendly billionaires. Never in the history of America have U.S. military information and psychological operations been deployed against its own constituents (see Cambridge Analytica, Erik Prince, Michael Flynn, and Steve Bannon). Never in American history has a president tried to please hostile powers by attacking America's allies and praising the enemies.
This context thus creates a completely different insight into the ongoing political competition. I argue that before our eyes there has been an attempt to end American democracy in a slow, protracted manner of information warfare. This experiment has been openly described by the strategists themselves, within the group that carried it out, they simply didn’t expect us gradually trying to put their activities together in one puzzle picture. Steve Bannon himself (I spent a lot of time studying him), described his strategy as an ultimate hack of Republicans and the media. He identified centrist, moderate Republicans and the media as the enemies in his jihad. Both had to be destroyed.
The main consequence of their product: an algorithmically manufactured radicalization was a final epistemic chaos. A state in which people in the information distribution network no longer receive the same, not even similar information, and where natural information nodes are gradually being replaced by radicalization centers.
Due to the enormous power of illegal and extra-legal information operations thanks to Russia's active measures and a vast sum of money from different parts of the world, an election result was created that put in charge of the strongest state in the World a man whom the KGB itself, according to a note from the eighties, considered to be an intellectually weak, unstable individual.
The twenty-first century brought a crisis of conservative ideology, to which conservatives all around the World responded with nostalgic sighs for the unrelated past. Unfortunately for us, it was the left and the liberals who correctly understood the priorities of the information era. To them, it was no problem to adopt the problems of migration, climate change, the emergence of new information disciplines, education reform, artificial intelligence ethics and more. Instead of looking for our own solution, we began to deny the problem and denounce liberals as neo-Marxists. Our reaction to the dawn of information era was the illegal propaganda machine and an attempt to seize power forever. Is the idea of Conservatism so empty and shallow that everything what´s left after the Russian hijack and kompromat campaign, is the coup? I mean really? Is there anyone who thinks about the future?
I conclude my painful polemic with a friend in the Republican Party who enthusiastically adored Trump after the 2016 primary. "You could have lost only one election. Now you´re going to die on your knees soon."
No, seriously: What happens to American democracy if one half of its political spectrum effectively dies? How resilient might the second half stay without being properly challenged and critically corrected? And what about Russia? They had never problem to move from the scorched earth of the invaded territories to the new prospective fields. Look at Tulsi Gabbard for starters.
Great essay. Thank you. But It's okay. No need to worry about Democrats. At some point, when the support for them reaches the limits, the party will break into 2 on some issues, and democracy will continue. Now, let's focus on fascist who soon may control senate and WH, with the same cripple as before.
"Develop solidarity through your church or other associations;
In case of civil war, remember, that "love thy neighbor" will have literally vital importance. Without love you may find yourself and your family in a real "helter-skelter"
bloodbath;"
https://cosmolearning.org/documentaries/yuri-bezmenov-lecture-on-subversion-1983/2/