'The new Trumpian order may have many flaws but Trump is obviously and irreducibly real and human.' Photo: GREG NASH/POOL/AFP/Getty Images.
With hindsight, Covid was a high-water mark of elite idealism: an apparently widespread belief that you could simply decide what was real, then make it so via a combination of fiat declaration and media censorship. And whatever else Trump brings, the end of the Biden administration stands as a sharp rebuke to elite hubris. But what kind of “real” can we expect from the Trumpian New Normal?
Last week the Biden era’s devotion to reality-as-fiat climaxed not with a bang, but an internet whimper: an apparent effort to meme an amendment to the US Constitution into force, by posting about it online. This bizarre moment saw Joe Biden (or, more likely, someone else writing on his official account) announce that the Equal Rights Amendment is “the law of the land” — even though the National Archive declared in December that it was not.
It was the perfect finale to a regime characterised from its inception by eerie fakeness: what Nathan Pinkoski recently called “a simulacrum of a functioning progressive presidency”. This order treated as stage-managed and artificial even meetings normally understood as living, relational politics. Donors, for example, were given scripted questions to read out at supposedly private meet-and-greet events.
Between Biden’s increasingly obviously scripted appearances and the accumulating visual evidence for his frailty, conspiracies proliferated. He was characterised as fake, played by actors, or even computer-generated. Such claims were easy enough to “fact check”, but they conveyed a fundamentally true intuition: Biden was a cipher, and no one knew who was really in charge. Consensus just seemed to coalesce, as if by otherworldly telepathy, often followed by policies everyone was assumed to agree with, and which you’d then be ostracised for questioning.
This sense of rule by a headless, faceless and monolithically ideologically aligned swarm was characterised by writer Curtis Yarvin as “the Cathedral”: an architecture of political coordination that comprises journalism plus academia, NGOs, foundations, the permanent bureaucracy and other institutional actors. In Britain we might just call this “the Establishment” and shrug; but as David Samuels showed recently, the digital revolution turbocharged a specifically modern, progressive American version of this “Cathedral” to such potency, that its partisans seemingly came to believe they really could re-write reality just by posting.
The phenomenon gained momentum through the early 20th century with the Obama-era discovery that digital communications could be wielded to transform public opinion in progressive directions, using an activist technique known as “permission structures”. This method of persuasion, developed by consultant David Axelrod, induces people to vote against their own prior convictions, by convincing them they’ll gain moral standing among their peers by adopting the approved viewpoint.
To those who grasped the method, social media provided a powerful new tool for engineering political permission structures. The resulting consensus-manufacture machine then swiftly ate the legacy press, reaching a peak of ideological dominance during the Covid years. At its ascendancy, the moral outlook that came bundled with this approach was perhaps best encapsulated by the famous “In This House, We Believe…” lawn sign: a utopian creed associated with the progressive knowledge class, mainly because it’s largely those rich enough to delegate the material side of life to underlings who cannot see its obvious shortcomings. Its moment of peak hubris (and, arguably, a crucial nemesis) was encapsulated in its adherents’ adoption of the belief that someone could become the opposite sex simply by verbal declaration: as though words really were magic spells.
And if there’s a lesson from the pitiful end of the Biden simulation, in a wholly ineffectual attempt to make lawn-sign type updates to the US Constitution via blog post, it’s that this mechanism always had hard limits. Around this time four years ago, I glimpsed a harbinger of these limits, in the strange story of Hilaria Baldwin. Hilaria, wife of the actor Alec Baldwin, was accused of having spent a decade pretending to be Spanish — even though she grew up in Massachusetts. Even four years ago, this read as a cautionary tale for the reality-engineers: no matter what you say, if the gap between “Hilarity” and reality is too large, eventually someone will point this out and the whole thing will implode.
And so it has transpired with the civilisation-scale Hilarity that was the Biden simulation. The first and most significant crack in its architecture came the year after Hilaria-gate and the (simulated) Biden inauguration: the sale of Twitter to Elon Musk. Musk then promptly fired most of the website’s Trust and Safety team, released documents revealing the website’s routine government-requested censorship, and unbanned Right-wing accounts including Donald Trump himself. And this triggered a cascade which culminated in Trump‘s re-election.
It’s not quite right to say that the information-repression mechanism broke, and allowed reality to shine through. The alteration in tone and content since Twitter was rebranded as X has not been principally in the service of “facts”, as such. But Elon bought the Cathedral’s Rolls-Royce permission-structure machine, retuned the engine, and took the silencer off the exhaust. Now a vehicle meticulously assembled under Obama, and driven with reckless hubris by Biden’s carers, is full of tipsy anons and doing doughnuts in the public square.
What will reality look like, once the dust settles on their antics? There is reason to expect at least a correction toward pragmatic engagement with the world as it is and away from Hilarity’s progressive dream of the world as it should be. Signals include Trump’s scepticism toward Net Zero, already prompting a cascade of corporate indifference to its once sacrosanct green edicts. American foreign policy shows indications of an analogous turn away from liberal internationalism; a shift with uncertain geopolitical implications, but that would at least mean an end to the “peacekeeping” bellicosity characteristic of the “global policeman” stance.
And, importantly, from almost the moment he became President, Trump signalled an explicit re-orientation away from utopian gender politics, declaring in his inauguration speech itself that “as of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female”. He also signed a Day One executive order legislating against the notion that sex is a matter of verbal fiat rather than physiological reality.
In this context, the effort to meme the ERA into the constitution is a powerfully symbolic damp squib. For while Trump surely owes his new mandate prosaically to reality — notably prices, Ukraine, and the southern US border — it was Hilarity’s gender politics that came to stand totemically for that regime’s faltering grip on the facts.
In this context the ERA was also totemic, as a longstanding flagship cause for the liberal-feminist Valkyries of progressivism — America’s “Affluent White Female Liberals” or AWFLs — since it was first proposed in 1923. And it stood for reality-as-fiat in that the ERA’s wording would have enshrined in the US constitution an assertion that the sexes are always interchangeable: the OG effort to re-engineer reality using language. Thus, as transgenderism followed logically from the ERA’s liberal-feminist claim that men and women are always interchangeable, AWFLs slid into their Hilarity-era position as the noisiest and most self-righteous caucus in its favour.
And now the whole thing is in ruins. Even the efforts to revive a Women’s March (now renamed, and I’m not making this up, the “People’s March” because the organisers refused to define “woman”) drew barely a tenth of the 2016 numbers. “Vibeshift” doesn’t really do justice to the seeming completeness of Hilarity’s rout. But it would be naïve to imagine we can escape unreality altogether — or that the incoming administration would want to. Handing a different group the keys to the Current Thing machine is not at all the same as dismantling it.
Consider: media titans who until recently operated in lockstep with progressive consensus are hurriedly updating their bylines in line with the new normal. The house journal of Yarvin’s “Cathedral”, the New York Times, signalled its change of stance recently by interviewing Yarvin himself; the Grey Lady has also parted company with several longstanding columnists and brought on board new voices such as James Pogue, long a well-connected observer of the New Right and its paradoxes.
Similarly, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has opted to PR-blitz himself a new backstory as — if not exactly Right-wing — at least Right-curious. More substantially, Facebook has replaced the erstwhile Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, as head of global affairs with the former Bush staffer Joel Kaplan. What we are witnessing is, in other words, less a dismantling of the reality-formation apparatus than an imperial-scale reshuffling of its moral sensibility. Likewise, the long-running TikTok saga is less about banning the platform, than ensuring American control of its propaganda power. We shouldn’t necessarily expect any of this to result in more reality.
But we might, perhaps, benefit from a change of utopia. What scotched Hilarity was how disappointing its utopianism was in practice: a blend of idealism and levelling-down that grew increasingly unpalatable in the atmosphere of scarcity and suspicion that succeeded the Global Financial Crash. By contrast, the Trumpian caucus has no shortage of grandiose visions — at least off the record, after a few beers.
There’s a lot about those visions that trigger my scepticism. And the real reality of Trump 2.0 is likely to disappoint many of his true believers: expect ambivalent dealmaking on actually realist hard-policy questions such as Nato, mass migration, and how best to manage America’s oligarchs to be richly gilded with “real” Trumpian Ws on gender and DEI.
This aside, though, having a vision at all surely beats the pod and the bugs. And the incoming regime has one characteristic we should all welcome: personalism. When the progressives tried to save democracy and bring about their vision of utopia on earth, what we got was Hilarity: democracy-like simulacra as a skinsuit for managerial tyranny, all enforced by a distributed digital propaganda machine. Against this, the new Trumpian order may have many flaws but Trump is obviously and irreducibly real and human. That is the point of him.
So with his coronation, we leave behind Hilarity, hopefully for good, along with its dogma, its shrillness, and its glass-eyed Presidential golem. In its place I expect politics to remain mostly as technocratic, de-materialised, unequal, and fractious as ever, and perhaps in some ways just as unreal — but now, at least, with a chance of re-centring human thought and needs in human politics. There is a great deal of mopping up to do, but the 21st century is upon us. Bring it on.
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SubscribeThe rise of misinformation and disinformation has shattered our ability to discern factual facts, worsening the world. COVID-19 marked the pinnacle of reality manipulation, where censorship and curated narratives allowed elites to define “truth” by fiat. This era of engineered realities, described as Yarvin’s “Cathedral,” prioritised ideological dominance over genuine engagement with facts.
Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter as X exposed these mechanisms, not by restoring truth, but by highlighting the extent of narrative control. The manipulation of information has created a society where trust is eroded, conspiracies thrive, and shared realities crumble.
The world now needs authenticity—politics rooted in human thought and real-world needs, not illusions of progress or utopian promises. To rebuild trust, we must reclaim transparency, demand accountability, and prioritise the pursuit of truth over convenience.
Without this, our fractured world will only grow darker.
The word “authenticity” has itself been hijacked by Progressives, so we can’t use that any more.
Luckily we can just refer to things like evidence and argument, supported by freedom of expression. We can go further and seek to punish anyone caught in the act of suppressing the right of others to freedom of expression, whether that takes the form of digital media giants shadow-banning certain views through algorithmic visibility demotion, or protestors physically blocking or organisationally deplatforming people with so-called “problematic” opinions.
It is not true that “disinformation” has destroyed our ability to discern truth. It is the suppression of freedom of expression that has partly done this, and it’s easily fixed.
And “Believe the Science” has also been co-opted. Perhaps: Test the Hypothesis.
The entire phrase “Believe the Science” is propaganda from the start. there is no such thing as THE science. There is science which describes a particular way of doing things. As in the scientific method,
THE science is a phrase coined by the very good Progressive propagandists. It serves to manipulate people into thinking that there is one definable set of facts called science. This allows them to then act to define those facts in a manner that suits their purposes.
The phrase itself is the propaganda.
The word ‘sincerity’ might be used instead.
“We can go further and seek to punish anyone caught in the act of suppressing the right of others to freedom of expression, whether that takes the form of digital media giants shadow-banning certain views through algorithmic visibility demotion, or protestors physically blocking or organisationally deplatforming people with so-called “problematic” opinions.”
Your post concerns me…
So, where is the difference between this and what the progressive hive have been doing.This reads like the instructional manual. ….We cannot do the same as they did to create the problem and expect the problem to be solved by doing so. We cannot apply an equal force but in the opposite direction.and simply push the pile back and so erase the past. Becoming the negative image is not any different nor better.
Sadly, there is no way to turn back the clock on this. The artifice is now with us, the falseness, the gaslighting, and the Identity Politics are now just common tools which, as your post proves, will be tempting for all agendas to use. Hopefully the ethical agendas will resist. The important thing that we know now for a fact is the we are not being led by who we thought we were. we have seen a glimpse of the man behind the curtain and that is, I hope enough to start changes that will fix the other problems. The odds however are against anything being righted. That man behind the curtain is still running things and we still don’t know his identity.
Remember what Bertrand Russell said,”It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals”.
And with 2TK in charge absolutely none of that is happening here in Britain.
Vote Reform.
Only a matter of time.
With respect to your excellent comment I wonder if I might offer a thought in other terms.
I wonder if what we have seen develop in the last 20 years might bear comparison with what the Gospels describe, when they mention the corrupt programme of rule shared by the Pharisees and the Herodians in Christs own day.
Judgement-without-truth allied to power-without-accountability.
This incestuous bed is the reality of the ‘Them’ and the ‘They’ that people often find themselves reaching for when trying to describe what’s been going on. ‘They want us to feel ashamed’, for example.
The people and their real-life needs, crying out for help, have been treated like the ‘man of the withered hand’ standing before the Pharisees.
1 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.
2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.
3 And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.
4 And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace.
5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
6 And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him
Mark 3 1-6
“Pharisees and Herodians…” Is an example of Gospel misinformation. There is no way that they would have worked together. In fact, there is no way the Pharisees would have been opposed to the Pharisaic arguments that Jesus was expressing. The withered hand example is classic application of the Pharisaic doctrine of “Piqua’h Nefesh” – that the demands of life and health override the Sabbath. What seems to have happened is that clashes with Sadducees have been relabelled “Pharisees”.
Why the relabelling? By the time the earliest New Testament (NT) Gospel was written (after 70 ce), the temple had been destroyed and the Sadducees no more a power. The Jewish mainstream was Pharisaic and grassroots, and threatened the ascendancy of Pauline doctrines within the Jesus movement.
The authentically Jewish branch of the Jesus movement came to be known as “Ebionites” and they excoriated Paul. What you have in the NT is a Polemic crafted to promote Pauline Christianity and has very little to do with Jesus.
Thank you.
I believe I have seen such an interpretation disputed by NT Wright in his short book Who Was Jesus but you throw me back on myself and I will look over the argument again this evening.
The Sadducees were totally uncompromising on the question of Sabbath observance, which led to the fall of Jerusalem to the invading Romans when the defenders refused to fight on the Sabbath. Jesus himself, an observant Jew, was aligned with a liberal faction of the Pharisees and opposed a radical Pharisee faction that wanted to extend prohibitions on defilement. This is believably described in Mark 7. Other parts of the Gospels distort the truth in a manner quite similar to that carried out by contemporary reality engineers, as described by Mary Harrington. Thus disagreements between Pharisee factions and Pharisees and Sadducees become conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees, and between Jesus and the Jews. Abominations such as John’s “Jews are the children of Satan” crept in, most recently repeated by Pope Francis. And Matthew’s account of the spectators at the crucifiction baying “His blood is on our hands and on our children” has the flavour of an incendiary concoction.
Fighting on the Sabbath in self defence was permitted by virtually all sects at the time of the great revolt. This pragmatic doctrine was confirmed at the time of the Maccabee revolt some two and a quarter centuries previously.
Ritual purity was a very particular concern of the Sadducees.
The Pharisaic attitude was one of pragmatic interpretation. In this respect, I would say that Jesus was at the more restrictive end of the movement, and even wanted restrictions beyond the written Torah. See for example his notions about divorce, or “you commit adultery in your heart”.
Fascinating!
In Ricky Gervais’ brilliant The Invention of Lying, his character discovers he can, in effect, create his own reality. Those around him are incapable of disbelieving what he says no matter how patently absurd precisely because no one has ever had to. Without mis/disinformation and the right to call b*llsh*t, critical reasoning atrophies, the fertile soil for what Mary aptly calls Hilarity.
I’ve decided to trust, or listen to, people, not institutions. Individual voices. I look for their names and bylines. When I come across someone new I try them on for size. I wish I could
have a conversationargue with them — eg when Mary defended the January 6 rioters at Unherd’s inauguration debate.“COVID-19 marked the pinnacle of reality manipulation”. What happens when some variant of the Bird Flu turns out to be far more potent and deadly than Covid? Will that also be “reality manipulation”? Will a far more brutally contagious variant only be real if it is painfully killing you personally? Tens of thousands of people died of Covid and thousands more will have long COVID symptoms the rest of their lives. But that is just some phantom pseudo reality you can reduce to “ reality manipulation “ until it is you suffering miserably on a ventilator in some ICU ridiculously denying the henchmen are real.
Oh, good lord. Nobody’s claiming COVID was fake. But it was not the Captain Trips/superflu, either; the people that died (and I do not claim those deaths were anything but tragic, because of course they were) were mostly people who would likely have died from any other severe flu: the elderly, the obese, the immunocompromised. But we were told it was killing untold millions every second, that our hospitals were being overrun, that it was an automatic death sentence for anyone who caught it, that our children would die if they went to school. None of that was true.
We were also told that the vaccine would prevent us from catching it. We were told that if we got the two shots, we were safe from it–we could not catch it and could not pass it on. Then we were told, “Oh, okay, you can still get it, but you won’t be able to pass it on.” Then we were told, “Well, so you can still get it and pass it on, but you won’t get sick from it.” Then, “You can still get it and pass it on and get sick, but it won’t be serious and you won’t die from it.” Then we were told, “Oh, wait, if you get a third shot [and then a fourth, and fifth, and so on], THEN you won’t get sick.” “If you get a third, fourth, fifth shot you will get sick, but won’t die from it.” We were told, “Only the unvaccinated are dying from it.” None of that was true, either.
THAT is the reality manipulation being discussed. That manipulation and the measures taken in its name did immeasurable damage.
Well stated. We were told so many things about so many topics that were all complete BS during the last 8 years. It seems, however, that anyone who had obtained critical thinking skills believed, as I did, that the world had turned upside down. Suddenly, and literally overnight, this has changed and I assume many now don’t have preface their statements with ridiculous qualifiers, such as “of course I hate Trump, but…..”
I feel like an anvil has been lifted from the chain around my neck.
And perhaps the virtue signalers can now remove those hideous lawn signs!
I agree. When trump was elected I couldn’t hide a smile.
Nor did I want to hide it.
Yes, “Tens of thousands of people died of Covid”. But interestingly, as the hospitals were paid money for each case of Covid that they dealt with, very few people died of flu, heart disease or from much of anything else during that period.
Fear is not a place you want to make decisions from.
You can replace “COVID” with “climate alarmism” and still have excellent and valid points.
Great article and insightful summary (also good pointers to follow up). But my comment is on something else related.
Did Musk just do a N**i salute and basically got away with it? So we went from a relatively mundane opinion (e.g. biological sex is real leading to physical differences) being labelled far-Right, to everyone jumping from their seats to deny the significance of someone literally making a N**i salute on live TV?
It doesn’t feel like sanity is coming back to America (and by implication the world). It’s more the current insanity of the world is becoming more apparent or obvious. This is kind of what Mary seems to be saying above anyhow.
EDIT:
I just noticed the Fox version of the same speech is edited to look away from him at the exact point he does the salute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjr0tAafxxE&t=57s
But you can still hear him, and you can see him doing the salute turning his back right afterwards.
This is the same moment but from The Telegraph that shows what’s happening clearly without turning away from him:
https://youtu.be/e2bbb-6Clhs?si=HR3JRcqQRMOwntxt
There’s also a bunch of debunk videos that show the end of the speech where he says thank you and waves to the audience (after having done the salutes at the start) – and they complain he’s being frame captured to look like he’s doing the salute.
Musk is such a flamboyant, quirky character he might, indeed, have given such a salute if only to emphasize the magnitude of Trump’s victory and the woke’s current inability to censor him and his followers.
Agree, that’d be the benevolent explanation for what happened – and given how eccentric he’s, it wouldn’t be out of character.
I still don’t see it as a good sign that on the very first day of being welcomed into power the great (co-)saviour starts with a N**i salute whether intended to make a point or not.
Also funny how you got ratioed even for accepting the possibility that he may have done it – so much for Unherd.
The point is that Elon Musk is weird but not stupid. He wouldn’t give a N**i salute unless he wanted to make a statement. Then he would unmistakeably make the salute.
It’s not like this never happened – he did stupid things and walked back before. There was that big controversy where he was publicly espousing a Twitter post about how Jews were supporting anti-White policies.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67446800
I spoke with Elon and he confirmed to me that he was saluting the money he will be making during the next 4 years for space X from the Mars program, and from ending EV mandates which will eliminate most of the EV competition thus benefiting Tesla. The thought of all that money caused that sudden uncontrollable reaction in his right arm.
No, Elon Musk did not do a N**i salute.
Anyone who thinks that was a Nazi salute is suffering one or more of the following: complete Musk Derangement Syndrome, sheer laziness to go and look at at least one minute of the speech leading it up to it or just desperation to be accepted by fellow members of their (now discredited) liberal tribe.
The left are desperate to focus on anything except the absolute beating they have taken at the ballot box.
Another body language specialist. I remember seeing a great interview with Konstantin Kisin to a “smart” guy from the BBC. The poor “smart” guy had to interrupt the interview, citing a lack of time, because his stupidity had become too obvious to the viewers.
Just shooting fish in the BBC barrel.
No, Musk did not do the N salute. Watch the whole clip rather then edited extract and it is clear what he was doing.
I did. I was tuned in when he’d did it and I rewatched it. I know Musk is atypical, but have you ever seen a “my heart goes out to you” that looks anything close to that? I think this South African plutocrat is drawing on some deep and dark roots of late. That’s not based on whatever the hell that eerie, familiar gesture was meant to be.
Did you listen to the audio with the video? Listen to what he says as he makes the motion and it is clear he wasn’t mimicking a nazi salute.
The point of the N-salute is that the crowd were to mimic the posture of the leader. Did any of the audience do that to Musk? If not, they confirm that is was not such a use of the right arm.
Though given the netherworld of unreality that some live in as described by Ms Harrington, any use of the right arm could be construed as such.
Many moons ago in the embryonic time of this ‘simulacrum’ I had a head teacher who banned pupils from wearing black shirts because, as he saw it, it was an reincarnation of fascism. As if the (discredited) political associations of this shirt colour might somehow seep into the body of the wearer, possessing them.
I wonder if Musk was aiming for Dieudonne’s “quennelle” but had a cramp?
A propensity to believe – or even to take seriously as a possibility – the risible fantasy that Musk gave a Nazi salute is a good litmus test for how far gone the believer is down the road of utter derangement. It seems clear that for many, there is no way back.
I wonder how so many self-declared white nationalists fell into the same state of derangement. Wishful thinking perhaps. In any case, whatever it was is less important than what the world’s richest man does with his media platform and unelected political power, outside of any victory rally. The Tech Bros lined up behind Trump, seemingly onboard the MAGA train. Guess they’re nothing to worry about anymore.
I like it when they out themselves.
Did you actually listen to the audio as well as watch the video? He clearly said, my heart goes out to you with his hand on his heart, and then threw his arm out, mimicking the same motion as throwing a kiss. Talk about avoiding reality to perpetuate a preferred theme.
Of course watched it in full including a debunk video or two which funnily didn’t show the full thing. This is what I see: https://youtu.be/e2bbb-6Clhs?si=HR3JRcqQRMOwntxt
Speech, two salutes, then “my heart goes out…”
EDIT: Btw I just noticed the Fox version of the same speech is edited to look away from him at the exact point he does the salute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjr0tAafxxE&t=57s
But you can still hear him, and you can see him doing the salute turning his back right afterwards.
Whereas the link above from Telegraph shows him actually doing the salute at that moment without turning back to the audience:
So the real sequence is then:
Coming to the scene, thanks the audience, two salutes (Fox video cuts this part out), more speech, and then leave waving. The debunk videos keep showing this last part of the speech declaring there was no salute.
I agree with you, but even extending Musk a very generous benefit of the doubt—the ‘anti-derangement’ approach of his fans—we’re watching his far-right creep in real time.
You’re also right that this moment doesn’t represent a return to what passes for sanity in America, but the rise of a different madness that is very resistant to balance or medicine in its own right.
Honestly I’ve no more sympathy for the Woke-Right than I had with the Woke-Left. N**is and Communists shared equal blame, as far as I’m concerned, in taking Germany down. Woke-Left and Woke-Right are equally destructive.
I’m in strong agreement. We are not forced to choose either Warring Extreme. Those who excuse far-wingers on one side or the other participate in a high-stakes game that helps to hollow-out the more-and-more exhausted center. I hope more people wake up soon— from allying themselves with either version of “wokeness”—but I suspect things will have to get quite a bit worse for a while first.
Viable third party now! In the U.S. I think this could have a major positive impact.
Please seek help. i can come up with at least 50 examples of Progressives captured in photos giving the same salute. and pretty much any and all politicians as well. Of course I am not stupid enough to think that they are giving Hitler’s saute. You, who are not criticizing Hillary (whose version is MUCH more like an actual Nazi salute), Harris, Warren,Obama and etc for the same gesture are simply showing yourself as a pathetic dupe or partisan hack.
But I thank you and the others for showing us how you intend to attack us going forward. You people just cannot learn. You are still going to go for trying to convince people that what you want them to believe should trump what they know.
You lost the elections because of this and yet here you are doing the same thing…and ironically doing so in the comments section of a brilliant article that calls you out for doing exactly what you are here doing….
You can’t fix stupid.
You seem to be quite triggered about this – perhaps you should calm down a little.
Outstanding analysis by Mary H, imo, written with her usual flair.
Somehow I always glom onto minor details within large, important stories. For example, I’m currently very curious about the fate of the woke cogs within the corporate machine.
For years, it seemed as if in any organization, no matter how big, a few twenty-something administrative assistants could band together, make a fuss about some culture wars issue and the corporation would pander to their whims, apparently unable to resist them.
So what happens to these half-baked activists if the “vibe” has truly shifted? Will they simply stop demanding implementation of the progressive agenda within the business world? Will corporations simply ignore them? Will companies announce layoffs, under the cover of “efficiency”, and lay them off?
I do wonder, though, if their moment has truly passed, or will they stop acting like invading Roman legions and become stealthy guerilla fighters instead?
Yes, truly outstanding article; enriches the understanding and almost nothing one could disagree with. Having two decades of activist experience I can help with your query there. Most activists are just going to disengage and focus on other areas of their lives. Activists – especially the sort Mary might see as ‘members of the Swarm’ or youre calling ‘corporate cogs’ – tend to be at least half decent at reading the room. And typically they don’t feel passionate enough to fight for something that doesn’t seem achievable. Of course there will be exceptions, and these will use whatever tactics seem better to them, depending partly on the cause and their local environment; sometimes might involve stealth mode as you say. Biggest exception might be climate activists – preserving a liveable world for future generations is something many care deeply enough even to risk long jail terms, regardless of any vibe shift.
Yes there will always be “true believers” – religions like “Greens”, ISIS, Hamas etc and even some pretty extreme Buddhist and Christian actors in some parts of the world. I consider them to be a military or law and order issue rather than a political one. No debate or any rational engagement is possible when the “one truth” cannot be tested or refuted. The damage from ISIS is a binary bad guys with guns against the rest of us. The “greens” are actually more dangerous – whilst they divert attention with their “warmism”, paint throwing and pro Hamas stunts, humanity is pumping inorganic chlorides and di-oxins into the Earth’s biome, depleting both species and our environment and using finite resources with no regard to the future. Coltan for iphones and electric cars is a good case in point – ironically greenies are mostly white, wealthy and female but seem to have no feelings for the civilians in East Congo massacred, raped or mutilated in the wars over the coltan mines.
Excellent point! The ‘greens’ have hijacked the environmentalist movement and wasted massive amounts of resources on the chimera of ‘climate change.’ Much, much more dangerous to humans and the Earth in general are the toxic chemicals that spew into the environment both from manufacturers and the public. If only the resources wasted on net zero were put to positive use cleaning up poisonous materials we would be far, far better off.
Indeed. I would be quite happy to use EVs (but not forced to) if it was to reduce the amount of local pollution I breathe in, instead of grandiose claims about so-called climate change. All the rest is propaganda.
No sane person denies Climae Change.. the only issues are the degree to which CO² is the cause or whether it might be ‘natural’.. about which I have considerable doubt!
It’s not “climae change” people are talking about, its climate warming. The latest scientific papers on the subject indicate that CO2 is not the agent it was thought to be.
Even if it were CO2 is food for plants and the animals that eat plants and the animals that eat these herbivores ( inc homo sapiens) The more life on the planet the better -it seems the warmists just want to kill everything. In terms of violent and intolerant ideologies they are top of the tree. No other outfit comes close – not ISIS , not drug cartels, not dictators like Putin or Xi. You’ve got to be beyond “out there” to be an eco-loon, warmist or greenie. As the Marvel villain Wilson Fisk (The Kingpin) once remarked in a comic strip, not a movie: “They must be stopped – destruction of the planet is VERY bad for business”.
Let’s have some citations!
Of course it is hard to deny what is actually happening to the climate on our earth. It has been this way for 4+ billion years. The issue, or non-issue is what can be done about it? I have not seen any way to prevent solar flares, volcanoes or meteorites, all which have directly caused catastrophic climate change over eons. A recent trip to the my local natural history museum only made it more clear that humans have had zero impact on these hellacious climate changes.
Totally Agree… On a different point, not against EVs as such, IF, they are a real environmental improvement. But, taking into a/c all factors, are they? Secondly, still on vehicles, taxing them by WEIGHT seems like a good idea. Each of us weighs, typically 50-100 kilos or 110-200 lbs, how does it make sense, then, to create vehicles, petrol (gas) or electric, which weigh c.1,500 kilos (3,300 lbs) more, on average, than 20 times the weight of the single driver that most of them carry? A huge amount of pollution in manufacture, pollution in use, and pollution in disposal. Vote for LIGHTER vehicles, and higher taxes on heavier ones.
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…or vote not to tax vehicles at all?
Our cars are more designed for conspicuous consumption than for actual use. Same with our houses. How many of us need to live in a house the size of the ones we live in? My house, modest as it is, could easily hold three families instead of one. It’s funny how we have to show our status and evaluate the status of others by the things we own and the appearance we present.
I note you omitted t list the craziest lunatics of all, the mirderous, genocidal, evil Zionists! Was that an oversight? ..or is it possible… no, surely not?
Ah, but then the Globalist elites are making big money on poisoning the world, so another even bigger cause had to be invented that would channel all the fear and concern away from the Industrial havoc that feeds their greed. ideally something so big that it would never expire as a cause….you know, something that could be elevated to a religion.
Sadly, the deluded climate activists will never live long enough to realise they are completely mistaken, just like all the other The End Is Nigh prophets I have seen in my lifetime. The latest, feeding cows some noxious substance to stop them farting so much to save the planet, is surely a scenario even Monty Python would have rejected as too far-fetched?
Most of the actual corporate decision makers were never all that sincere in their concern for all those issues. Corporations aren’t run by the pink haired activists or ivory tower intellectuals that constitute the true believers in globalist ideology. They are run by people whose one job is to make profits for shareholders, however that can be accomplished. It was always an exercise in marketing to the public and political positioning for favorable treatment from the government. It was partially an appeal to young people, what they thought would draw younger customers and good employees, the marketing side, and it was partially an implied submission to the narratives the establishment and government were pushing, the political side. The end result is to make profits.
When the people elected Trump, they sent a message of disapproval towards DEI and other social/environmental justice activism. The corporations know that such initiatives are more likely to get them targets of the new administration rather than allies, and they can read the demographic trends that got Trump elected as well as anybody else. They’re sensibly concluding that the appeal of these issues is in decline so they’re dumping it the way they would dump any department or business arm that isn’t profitable and isn’t necessary.. They don’t want to make themselves a target of a vindictive and unpredictable man and there’s much less reason to believe actual people care about these issues the way the activists do. Thus, they’ll fire their DEI departments to cut costs and to get themselves out of the crosshairs. As for what the activist types who lost these jobs will do? Who knows and frankly who cares. The people have already rejected their nonsense when it was backed by the power of corporate America. What reason is there to believe they’ll be any more successful without such backing? Perhaps they’ll actually learn something about how the unemployed factory workers in middle America feel and maybe start to sympathize. Well, probably not, but at least their corporate money megaphone has been taken away.
Would someone please tell me what the underlines mean?
They’re links. Click on them and they’ll take you to an article supporting the underlined statement.
Progressives do seem to think they can bend reality with words. And they have – in the powerful realm of ideas. They have convinced several generations that western democracies are worse and more racist then the rest of the world, that diversity is our strength, that white people are bad and men and women are identical. But the Covid virus and sex are part of the material world. A man with his p***s hanging out in the women’s charge room is still a man with his p***s hanging out in the women’s change room. The male boxers always win. We all got Covid (three times!) despite the ‘vaccine.’ But where the rubber of ideas really meets the road of reality is energy policy. How’s that decision to shut down functioning nuclear power plants going Germany? How’s that green energy going Australia? If you close your eyes, tap your heals and wish three times will the lights turn back on? Up next on the chopping block of reality is global warming. The same people who say there are 72 genders are it’s biggest boosters. A lot fewer people believe in it – or that we can control it – or frankly care enough to impoverish themselves over. I’m one of them and I will take Elon’s and Trump’s chaos any day over the progressive puppeteers they are replacing.
Very well put
Be careful what you wish for.. the assumption that it couldn’t be any worse is by no means assured.. Remain happy the Germans were when they dumped the crazy Weimar Republic?
“I will take Elon’s and Trump’s chaos any day over the progressive puppeteers they are replacing.”
Hallelujah!
Chaos doesn’t get enough appreciation. It is chaos and unpredictability that lead to change, innovation, and new possibilities. The alternative, order, in its most extreme state is simply a predictable, unchanging, and ultimately pointless. Too much order, too much control, leads to a stagnation and atrophy.
Which is why new ideas, new technology, patents, etc. are rare in authoritarian regimes.
Indeed. I’m confident that in the long run, American freedom will defeat Chinese totalitarianism, if we can just get our stupid elites to stop giving them money and technology. At least the government is actually trying to do that now, albeit with debatable success.
They do believe they can change reality, that’s what post-modernists like Foucault think – that reality is shaped by words, that objective reality either does not exist or is to all intents and purposes unknowable. That’s where ‘my truth’ and a seeming willingness to act like a toddler with reality comes from, even if many on the left who espouse post-colonialism and gender identity ideas don’t realise it.
Many have been conned into repeating what superficially looks like rights for trans people (they already, rightly, have full human rights) – (gender studies claims there is no such thing as objective gender), or that the British empire was some sort of proto-Third Reich because some bad things happened, forgetting all the good, for example ending slavery (post-colonialism and CRT claim that white societies oppressed all non-white societies they brought into their orbit unequivocally) and or that Maori stories should sit alongside science (again, no objective reality so magic things in the night sky are just as valid as giant gravity powered fusion reactors. Oh and ‘western’ science is oppressive too)
Agreed some actual reality and a bit of madness and horrible tweets is infinitely preferable to slow stagnation and regression into superstition as we are forced to turn away from objective facts. I hope Vance can carry this on.
Correction needed for the date attributed to the Obama era 🙂
David Samuels is a great writer. I’ve been back to read “How Trump crushed Obama’s legacy” (as published on Unherd, link below) several times, as it’s one of the best things I’ve read about the election and its meaning. So well done.
https://unherd.com/2024/12/how-trump-crushed-obamas-legacy-2/
(I’m assuming it is the same David Samuels, btw. There can’t be too many writers called that…)
Well done to Mary also for this great article – and for resisting the urge to write “red-pill” (as a noun, adjective or verb) at any point. The temptation must have been great.
Still drinking the Kool-Aid, Mary?
It is rather bizarre to praise the Trump regime as a return to reality when it is based on the false idea that there is widespread pro-Democrat electoral fraud, that Trump won the 2020 election, and that Jan 6 was a friendly picnic and not an insurrection Not to mention the idea that you can cure COVID by Ivermectin or bleach injection.
Still, it is certainly personalised – which is why we can now expect US foreign and domestic policy to be dominated by Trump’s petty vanity, vindictiveness, and need for ego-boosting. Was that really worth a more sensible stance on gender identity’?
Don’t forget your next booster
This article starts of well but then disappears up its backside. Harrington trying to cover her all bases and sitting on the proverbial fence. Reads like awful dirge written by a post grad international journalism student. Please write in plain English. Trumpism exposed the nasty and vile dishonesty of the leftist liberal agenda. That’s basically it.
True enough. In doing so it has also exposed its own vile and nasty dimension: vengeful, greedy, mean.
I don’t understand her, but I know she’s right.
I agree. It is difficult to imagine a more destructive idea than the denial of biological facts. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The progressive left have abandoned objective truth for sophistry and post-modernism. They are then shocked when their political opponents adopt similar tactics, so they cry foul. All that is left is a shattered low trust society with angry and anxious citizens.
Is this the utopia that progressives have always dreamt of?
This was always the endgame of marxism. They claimed to be able to predict history (but not stock or commodity prices – how modest). Once they realised normal people could see through the “predict history” bit they modified it to claiming they could “analyse” history the way you might analyse a chemical or a mix of them – eg a food product. This was called “evolutionary marxism” – lol. Now that magic trick has been discredited they are back where they started – just like the religions they claimed to replace. All that’s left is “its true because i say so, OR ELSE!”. So they were just thugs and criminals after all.
Mary you’re a treasure, one of the best writers on here. Thank you for a great article.
Mary is correct. Trump is ‘irreducibly real’. And this is what attracts people to him after years of being urged to worship phantasms, both people and ideologies.
Trump real? ..that’s the most fake statement I’ve heard in a good while! Trump varies like the wind and so too does his ‘reality’. A reality that is likely to become the complete opposite a day later is an odd kind of ‘reality’.
YOU WISH!
Liam is wrong because he equates reality with consistency. Trump is described elsewhere as a Trickster, the legendary figure that brings results out of chaos. Since the world is, as usual, chaotic who better to step on stage. The Trickster is real and his supporters recognise him as such.
N.B. This reply was destined for Liam. But the reply function on his post would not open, so I have, impolitely sent it to you, Peter Lee.
Trump is certainly more real than the A1 phantom they have been pretending has been POTUS for the last 4 yrs.
The Progressive mind has 2 native states. One is sanctimonious finger pointing and the other is pouting like a child.
No one can dispute that Mary Harrington can turn a phrase well, and does quite a bit, but what someone believes and communicates is only as valid and significant as it describes the world that is. That is what separates her from other good writers. She not only writes well, but she isn’t representing a side, or a group. She is simply comprehending and communicating truth. That is what makes her so good, and so dangerous to those to whom the truth is an enemy of their agenda, their power, their status, their lives. There are a lot of good writers here on Unherd, but I declare her to be the best. She’s proven it over time.
The truth yes, but the whole truth? ..I note she studiously avoided comparison with the UK’s notion of Democracy.. some commentators say the UK is an even bigger basket case that the US is! ..though probably less a basket case than the US is about to become under Hitlermp?
I assume you must be in the UK. Trump is anti-war, and you equate him with Hitler – LOL
Bear in mind Covid was leveraged by leftists after at least 2 generations of learners had been failed by the pseudo-marxist virus in schools and terciary education. As such STEM and critical thinking have been removed and repressed to the point where 98% of people have no more ability to use reason, logic or understand empirical evidence than a 3 year old – sadly this includes the current UK regime and Demrats in USA. Covid was not the high water mark IMO. Repressive or extractive regimes do not give up – witness the refusal to accept Trump’s election wins and Brexit in UK. They will eventually over-reach and there will doubtless be war of some sort. Only then can our better natures prevail and rebuild civic society. History is loaded with examples of this, but few examples of rational actors agreeing on how to cure the body politic and leaving those in dispute out of the town square in the immediate term.
Witness the ‘Pardon’s in advance’ for Biden’s family. Hmm, I wonder who pulled his strings? And Faucci, BUT NONE of those pardons are ANY admission of guilt mind you.
If I were Fauccii I’d go rob a few banks, then use his get out of jail free card afterwards.
The great thing about the Fauci “pardon” is it proves crimes were committed. It is inconceivable that an intensely able and motivated actor could’ve wreaked the havoc of the scamdemic alone. Fauci, being neither, had help. Many of his fellow crims are outside US jurisdiction – in the WHO and Russian/Chinese govts. Many are not. I suggest remanding them in custody with MS, Barrio 18 and Tren de Aragua suspects and let those guys have free passage home and a cash prize if they get the truth out of fauci’s dogs. Two birds, one stone etc.You can see why desperate poor people take to crime but its hard to see why politicians like fauci do…surely the MO is do speeches, put up posters, stand for election?
Actually, at least in the US judicial system using that pardon IS an admission of guilt. That is important legally because that pardon also removes any claim to 5th amendment protections against self-incrimination. So, if called to testify, these jokers cannot claim the 5th, they must answer or they can be imprisoned until they do. If they then lie, they are guilty of perjury.
I have been saying the same for a while. I believe that history hints that when the elites take too much from the populous there arises a season of Populism. Usually it spreads globally. In places where the warning is heeded you get mostly peaceful change such as the first progressive movement in the US. Or the Magna Carta.
In places where the warnings are stamped out you will have violent overthrow. When this happens, the elites never win. see the Bolshevik Revolution, Cuba, French Revolution, Shah of Iran. Spanish Civil War.
We’ll see how the current crop of bankers and rent seekers react.
“The phenomenon gained momentum through the early 20th century with the Obama-era discovery..”
21st century!
I noted Mary studiousy avoided comparisons with the current UK Govt and its distorted sense of Democracy.. In the opinion of some experts the UK is a bigger basket case that the US, in that regard! – although unlikely to be as big a basket case as the US is about to become under Hitlerump!
Repetition is an aid to memory, not confirmation of truth. Biden caused a war that is costing the very existence of The Ukraine, Trump would not have. Repeating your ludicrous assertion that Trump is any way reminiscent of Hitler simply marks you out as one of those ‘believers’ in unreality.
Ironically it was the President of Hungary who pointed out Biden has made his son’s banker state into a failed state. It survives only on the money the US and EU provide.
“Hitlerump” has me curious … is your final statement meant to be sarcasm?
Nevermind. The additional nonsense you’ve littered the comment section with has exposed you’re little more than a living meme.
Really good. I turn to England’s own to describe what has happened – and where we were: “If we can stand up to (they/them), all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
Amen. I think few understood just how close to the abyss that we were here in the States, but our journey to clean up the debris is just beginning; I feel like a citizen of post-war Dresden: I don’t know which brick to pick up first. Fortunately I have faith that there are people in charge now who do.
Once we get back on our feet here across the Pond, tell us how we can help you rid yourselves of Starmer and the others in Albion’s cadre of Lefty lunatics. (edited for clarity)
I’m sorry to break it to you but American’s dark age began several decades ago and has resulted in endless warmonering, several genocides (8 million dead and counting) thd latest genocide being the most public.. Surely you can see that America started as a genocide of 20 million natives, then sn enslavement of 10 million Africans followed by their abuse under a clealy Apartheid state to be following by one war after another.. and the US has NEVER been attacked (except Pearl Harbour an illegally conquered state)..
In point of fact, because facts do still matter, the enslavement of Africans started BEFORE there was an American nation. It was aided by Africans who sold other Africans into bondage, and the institution lasted longer during this land’s colony phase than during its nationhood. The practice was also not exclusive to these shores.
If you’re going to traffic in bullshit, make it plausible. Like the “eight million” killed in the several genocides, not of which is listed.
Sure Liam … right enough … what lunatic would ever want to emigrate to such a hellhole?
This is the ideal application essay to Columbia University. Congrats, you’re admitted!
I have the same sense of a war survivor…but I don’t think we have yet outed and banished the true power behind all that we have gone through and I’m not certain that electing Trump, the only hope we had, will lead to anything but a different group of oligarchs stealing us blind. I expect that the tech-bros will be chastised and the bankers will now take their turn again.
All very interesting to talk about. Just one thing though, the human race is totally insignificant and will pass. The earth and the universe don’t give a f**k we’re just a momentary blip in time.
So what?
That we are insignificant in way affects the fact that we are here in the universe nonetheless, so arguably then there would be no higher purpose for us than to find something interesting to do to amuse ourselves while we are.
What makes you think that time is sequential? Do you also see gravity as sequential?
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours. – Bertrand Russell
“This order is treated as stage-managed and artificial even meetings normally understood as living, relational politics.”
Please can a subeditor revisit this sentence.
You are right on that. The whole piece has to be carefully translated to understand large parts of it. I think Mary may have had a few glasses before she began. Advice from a retired Programmer – KISS. At last in terms of your English, not ALL simple words have been redefined by the Woke.
Thank you! I was starting to wonder what was wrong with me, that I couldn’t follow and make sense of that sentence.
Even if we comprehend each word, we can never know what a person actually means to say…ever. But words do have meanings. The question is whether we share those meanings.
I think I understood the gist of what she is trying to say here, as do you all I’m sure. Didactic is the enemy of conversation so let’s not become too exacting please.
She is saying that under the Progressive order even things like meetings that are conducted as face to face exchanges of information and opinion in order to make decisions or facilitate policies are not in fact. They are instead stage managed as a theatrical production is and are not really what they pretend to be. They are neither the source of any decision, nor where the implementation is planned.All is camouflage.
I will say that the sentence under consideration was clumsy, obtuse, and possibly confusing. It in any case did not read well.
What, of all their hysterical accusations against the right, have the left NOT now done themselves?
Attack the Constitution
Undermine democracy
A presidential coup displacing the sitting president
Lawfare against enemies
Censorship
State-controlled media
Weaponization of the state
Blanket pardons of family and cronies
Election interference…
Perhaps they believed that the ends justified the means… in which case they were wrong.
Again, the words of Bertrand Russell say it best…
“It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals. “
The divine grace of The Progressive Climate Cathedral liturgy included:
1960s – Oil will be gone in 10 years;
1970s Another ice age will arrive in 10 years;
1980s – Acid rain will destroy all crops in 10 years;
1990s – The ozone layer will be destroyed in 10 years;
2000s – The ice caps will be gone in 10 years.
All that happened was widespread hysteria, gratuitous government expansion, and punitive taxation. Enough is enough.
I have spent my entire 75 years on this planet being told I was about to freeze, boil, starve or drown in the next decade. Is it any wonder older people are not as enthused about the current “climate emergency” as those who have only been around a couple of decades?
What an astute article. The reason we love this journal, a rare beacon of sanity above the waves.
Two sexes. Yes. And let’s bin the word gender. It was invented by a man who distorted facts to prove his insane thesis that you are born sexually ambivalent.
Gender applies to words, not so much in English, but in French. Saying a door is femine (La Porte) is equally meaningless.
It all began many years ago and the widespread Roman civilisation’s usage was adopted into our own language
Gender is a grammatical concept that applies to Indo-European nouns, adjectives and participles. The application of a grammatical concept to people is merely a figure of speech or a metaphor. Metaphors are not literally true; if they were, they wouldn’t be metaphors. When policy is grounded on metaphors (things that are not in fact true), all sorts of problems arise which are not subject to rational solutions.
People don’t have logorithms either. I wonder what would happen if, when someone told you “their pronouns,” you were to ask, “And, by the way, what is your logorithm, and what is your exponent, and what is your numerical coefficient?”
Problem with that is that metaphors are often the only handle we have on reality. The downside arises when a metaphor comes to be treated like it was reality; that the simplifications and absences built into its framing can thereafter be ignored. I come to this through climate science which is replete with metaphors like those pretty diagrams purporting to represent the planet’s radiation budget, its carbon cycle, or the seemingly ineluctable upward march of global temperature. Consider that last – a metaphor constructed around a number which is specifically designed to smooth out and suppress spatial and temporal variability about the average. But it’s precisely that supressed variability that controls our landscape, the way we live, clothe ourselves, shelter, feed, energise our civilisation etc. A metaphor much loved by “the science” but irrelevant as a practical human-shaped metric.
Hear, Hear…
Those are the best grandiose visions – the ones you think of wistfully and put back on the shelf the next morning. The people that I worry about are the people like Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, and Osama Bin Laden – the people who try to put their grandiose visions into practice.
The BLM kneeling, the clanging of pots and pans in the empty streets during covid, the paper thin dust masks on all faces, the pronoun campaigns, the Controlled Spontaneity after Terror Attacks, the rainbow police cars and Facebook arrests…
Even if it is all to dissipate like the Ranters, Diggers and Fifth Monarchy Men of yore, those of us who lived through the utter madness of it all and somehow kept our heads, will never be able to look on our fellow ciizens in the same way or with the same confidence again, I feel.
It will be lovely to see the day when premier league players no longer take the knee.
Brilliant, but a little behind the curve. The instinctive ‘anti-woke’ position adopted by so many fuming realists is already more or less mainstream on the right but yet to gain effective traction on the left, though it’s detectably coming. What this article is doing is to focus on things that are more important than transient political fashions; that words are in the main only representative of real things, physical or not, yet some words are so powerful that they effectively alter whatever is being discussed. The past few years has seen millions of people who would normally consider themselves unapologetic bleeding-heart liberals thinking about woke shibboleths such as gender shifting and racial preferment hiring as being several steps too far away from the real world. The very people who are being told to find Trump disgusting in his frankness are actually finding him likably human.
Brilliant. Mary always does her research and encapsulates my thoughts as well. I find that so many things in life can be explained simply by old aphorisms. In this case, the operative phrase is that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. As men have known since the first caveman inventor showed off his revolutionary technique to harness the power of fire, the techniques used by one will eventually be adopted by others. It is not easy to keep a monopoly on any tactic, device, or invention. Obama pioneered the use of Internet and social media in his campaigning and government to control narratives, but Trump did better, successfully creating his own alternate narratives and pushing them through more obscure channels that turned his opponents’ attempts at censorship into part of his narrative.
I share Mary’s skepticism about what Trump will be able to actually accomplish. Campaigning is one thing and governing is another. Rare is the person who is able to do both competently. Nevertheless, I also agree that at least now there is the potential to begin to unravel the globalist blob of bureaucracy and internationalism and restore the sovereignty of elected governments. Politics has become, in many ways, a contest of competing narratives, and the direction of politics, the notion of what is politically popular and achievable, is greatly affected by the narratives the people embrace. The most important aspect of politics is thus not one of mechanical governance but of signaling. How do the people make it known what narrative they believe and what direction they prefer? By voting of course. Thus Trump’s greatest victory is already achieved, just as it was in 2016. In 2016, the message was sent that people are unhappy and demanding changes to the political establishment and the overall direction of the nation. By winning again in 2024 with a greater margin of victory, Trump established the new narrative is here to stay. Elections are about sending messages from We the People to whoever happens to hold office. This election sent a number of powerful messages that needed sending. Perhaps most important is that censorship will not go unnoticed and that they will not be hoodwinked so easily into believing whatever the establishment clearly wants. Ironically, by rejecting the Democratic narrative of Trump as a ‘threat to democracy’, they validated the actual democratic principle, which is, beneath all the structure of laws, elections, political parties, legislatures, and bureaucrats, the simple notion that the power of government comes from the people, and that the people have the right to choose how they are governed. The people have the power to elect a figurehead like Biden or a disruptive agent of chaos like Trump. That was, by far, the most important message that needed to be sent to and heard by the establishment. If the sudden corporate retreat from DEI, NetZero, and information control are any indication, that message has been received, loud and clear. It’s about time. Now that we’re all on the same page where the important things are concerned, maybe we can get to finally fixing some of the mess we’ve made in our foolish quest for global utopia. As Mary says, Trump probably won’t be able to fix everything in four years, but his victory has made it possible to shift the narrative back towards real issues, real problems, real people, and their real opinions.
Well-spoken, Mary. Perhaps a tad less optimistic than I read current history, but that may only be my own creeping optimism. Either way, it’s going to be YUUUGE! Bring it on indeed.
If democracy has utility, it’s surely that first of all the plebs get to have a say in the narrative generation machine.
The so called left think they can use crap memes to brainwash us into seeing the world from the perspective of decadent insiders.
But crap memes don’t hold water. The plebs like memes that reflect reality. The right can meme because they understand this.
We want a traditional christmas dinner with the family. Call it far right all you like, but that’s the reality we want. Narrative generation machine technicians have taken note.
Fortunately, we have also said farewell to Hillarity.
“The phenomenon gained momentum through the early 20th century with the Obama-era discovery…”
Copy editor please!
Great essay
How are we supposed to conclusively prove one way or another whether COVID evolved naturally or was geneticly engineered? The Chinese aren’t going to tell us. It’s entirely a matter of speculation. There has been no conspiracy or cover up because we simply don’t have enough evidence.
I imagine that there are quite a few, Fauci as an example, who probably kmow exactly whether it was natural or lab created.
Now that Fauci has been pardoned he’s no longer able to plead the fifth in any inquiry or judicial case so unless Covid is covered under official secrets act (which would be telling in itself) he would have to say or rusk perjery.
If Fauci is the only one who knows “exactly whether it was natural or lab created” how will you prove he committed perjury?
We must ask the question, however. “If Covid evolved naturally why would Fauci need a pardon?”
….astute and hilarious essay, loved: “Now a vehicle meticulously assembled under Obama, and driven with reckless hubris by Biden’s carers, is full of tipsy anons and doing doughnuts in the public square.”
I agree…I think I am getting a whiff of the clever prose of the great P.J.O’Roarke here.
A few O’Roarke-isms:
“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
“Think what evil creeps liberals would be if their plans to enfeeble the individual, exhaust the economy, impede the rule of law, and cripple national defense were guided by a coherent ideology instead of smug ignorance.”
“The two most frightening words in Washington are ‘bipartisan consensus.’ Bipartisan consensus is when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.”
The President’s confidence and single mindedness (perhaps even narcissism) that will enable him to take down the walls of the progressive edifice are likely going to also cause harm as he focuses excessively on settling scores and bringing discord where it may not be needed (there is enough out there already).
Sadly, it takes an egotist like this, willing to be the target of harsh wrath by the progressive establishment (including the Ivy League, the mainstream press and Hollywood) to do so. Consequently, we’ll need to absorb the cost of these excesses as the cost of ridding ourselves, or at least tamping down, the curse of progressivism.
A price well worth paying to get rid.
The more great the man the greater are his foibles.
Shouldn’t that be “hilariarity” after la mentira Sra Baldwin? Also is there a phrase the big chief Squaw Sachim Elizabeth “born from herring” Warren can gift to our language – contributions invited – please bear in mind “moron”, “deluded con-woman” and “lying father-less person” are already in play. I suggest “Warrenism” – a neck so brassy that the appropriation of anyone elses’ heritage is fair because, er, well it just is that’s all. Lets have a big jollerse for Baldwin and whatever that is in Cherokee for Warren. If there’s no Cherokee equivalent then chingase it is!
Mary Harrington is my Walter Cronkite. Her competence is a reassurance and makes me want to see what comes next.
At first squeamish about this article’s title, I think this is one of Mary’s best. Coining the term “Hilarity” and the allegory of the Rolls Royce doing donuts in the public square left me laughing, alone, in my office, in the dark.
There are at least two points in this argument that I take umbrage with:
1). “Against this, the new Trumpian order may have many flaws but Trump is obviously and irreducibly real and human. That is the point of him.”
Nonsense- Donald Trump is a charlatan and superbly gifted showman capable of assuming many roles. For instance, his pampering of Evangelicals, where he portrays himself as having a religious based soul. And it goes beyond that, he may be psychotically beginning to believe that he is some how divinely inserted by “God” in this world to protect the wealth of himself and his fellow billionaires.
2.” You can change your sexuality simply by stating so.”
We live in a subjective world wherein the self is defined by the experience one drives for. I know several Trans people. Every one of them has invested heavily into the being they want to experience and express.
You are weighing hard on these people with your judgement, it’s sentiments acquired where? I found the irony of people jumping in with the Bible quotes to be rich. Again, I repeat: this is a subjective world and we are the creators of our existence. It has always been that way. Dredging up the harsh subjective visions of humanity posted in the past to rest your case on serves no purpose but to hinder the progress of humanity. To declare Donald Trump’s vision of reality to be the decisive real deal is pure hocus pocus. We liberals can and will rebel against this vision with every breath we take. I am WOKE!!!
They can “invest heavily into the being they want to experience and express,” all they like; that doesn’t change the biological truth that they will never fully experience or express being the opposite sex, because they are not. Children play dress-up and make-believe, too, but that doesn’t mean they experience exactly what it is to be a princess or fireman or doctor. What is, in fact, “pure hocus pocus,” is to think that a man can become a woman simply by declaring himself to be so, and trying to force others to play along with his delusion or fetish doesn’t make it reality, either.
I too know a few transpeople. Not one of them is convincing or feels “real,” in their performance. I knew one transperson very well: a member of my family. He threw away his inheritance and life savings on his autogynephilic fantasy, as well as destroying his marriage and damaging his relationships and his health, all to become a blurry and unconvincing facsimile of a woman–in reality, he never looked, spoke, or behaved like anything close to a woman. He died several years ago. Nothing will ever convince me or our other family members–all of who loved him, did not turn our backs on him, etc., lest you think that was the case–that the hormones and surgeries did not contribute heavily to his death. (And by the way, none of his “great [autogynephile] friends,” who encouraged him every step of the way and applauded his ridiculous clothing and behavior, bothered to show up for his funeral.)
Sterilizing and mutilating children in the name of gender stereotypes is not “progress.” Forcing women to share private spaces with leering men is not “progress.” Taking awards and victories from women to give to disturbed men is not “progress.” Convincing children that all of their problems would be solved if they become a eunuch is not “progress,” and telling people that if they do not conform to rigid gender stereotypes from the 1950s then they must be “born in the wrong body,” is absolutely not progress.
Be as woke as you want; “rebel against his vision,” all you want. Nobody cares. You cannot “rebel” against scientific reality, and the rest of us are done allowing you fascists to force us to play along with your destructive, regressive nonsense.
Mary is not just a national treasure, but an international one. UnHerd (and Mary specifically) delivers a cool refreshing stream of insightful writing that effectively drowns out the fetid group-think of US based MSM. It befuddles me why our US media falls so far short of much European writing. And thank you to the commenters who add vast perspective the UnHerd. Nothing in the US is remotely comparable.
“So with his coronation, we leave behind Hilarity, hopefully for good…”
We’ll see. Mary failed to mention that not only did a political hack or two try to meme the ERA into existence, the Georgetown University Law School came out with a legal case for it. And it wasn’t a couple of lefty students in a school newspaper. These were senior professors, people with real behind-the scenes power – power that shapes the legal profession and judiciary as well as the government. The real power behind someone like Biden is alive and well at countless places like Georgetown Law and they won’t give up easily. Worse yet, they have tenure and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Yes, if we’re ever to make meaningful change we need to clear out the kooks in academia. Every legal prof & scholar in the country could come out and declare the ERA ratified and that wouldn’t make a bit of difference wrt the Constitution, but it will teach (even more) nonsense and falsehoods to more young aspiring lawyers. That’s something we definitely do not want or need.
This is probably the most important thing that’s been said here. We got here due to the fact that the Marxists spent 50 years infiltrating and then assuming complete control over the Educational system.
We will not be free of them until we take it back. It will be difficult because they have long ago convinced everyone that the system and the morals, ethics, and beliefs that is is based on are bad to take any action to defend them is cause for violent reaction.
Ms. Harrington hits it again…
Amen
Well, I think the strong relationship between corporate and college America is and has been clearly bolstered by the feminist cause of female liberal graduates entering the workforce.
So the forces of DEI will be having it out with any US administration who wants to challenge the principles of left-liberalism in the racial and gender spheres.
Wow, what a brilliant article, thanks. I really enjoyed this. So may good lines but I loved this one in particular:
“When the progressives tried to save democracy and bring about their vision of utopia on earth, what we got was Hilarity: democracy-like simulacra as a skinsuit for managerial tyranny, all enforced by a distributed digital propaganda machine.”
Even apolitical Americans can only take the absurdities of loose-reined Progressivism for so long. Yes, we who voted for Trump are quite aware of his imperfections, but no one else would unabashedly blow up the ridiculous orthodoxies of the modern American Left as Trump is in the process of doing. Deo gratias.
Steve
Excellent as always, Mary.
I think it was Michael Malice who first coined the term ‘the cathedral’ rather than Yarvin.
No, climate alarmism is the high-water mark of elite idealism, and its harms reach further and are longer lasting than those of the COVID debacle.
Wow! As perceptive, fair, and challenging as I’ve learned to expect from this journalist — but more brilliant than ever (quotable quotes [sic] everywhere). Thank you, Dr Harrington.