You can really get the tenor of the United States during an election year.
Let me start out with a few things that’ll help explain my perspective:
I live in a deeply, profoundly blue state, but out in the countryside in one of the few towns that is somewhat reliably Republican, albeit by like 53/47 margins. So it’s technically a red town, but it’s New England red, if you know what I mean. In other words, people are moderate here and basically just want to get on with their lives. There’s no zealotry here either way. Yes, there’s a Congregationalist church with a rainbow flag on it, but the school actually closes school on Good Friday and calls it Good Friday. Stuff like that.
I am of the opinion that democracy is a stupid way to run a society, especially when it’s mass democracy. I know we’re technically a republic and not a direct democracy, so don’t be pedantic and clever by pointing it out to me—we democratically elect our representatives who routinely go to Washington and ignore what their constituents’ want, so direct democracy couldn’t be any worse. In any event, mass democracy is just bribery on a civilizational scale mixed in with a high school popularity contest: candidates promise free stuff to group X taken from group Y, and screw group Y, who didn’t vote for them. The only thing Barack Obama said during his presidency that wasn’t a bald-faced lie was that politics is about punishing your enemies and rewarding your friends.
Keep this in mind as you read this post about my town and my thoughts on elections.
Back in 2022, I noticed a neighboring family up the hill put one of those “In this house, we believe . . .” signs in their yard. I rolled my eyes, but wasn’t too surprised even given out town’s relative political neutrality. I saw exactly one Hilary sign in 2016, and see exactly one Biden sign now. There have not been, nor are there currently, any advertisements for national, or even state, political figures—the overwhelming majority of signs are related to local elections. I don’t even remember seeing any BLM signs during the Summer of Love, and there are maybe two rainbow flags other than that church’s. Politics is kind of déclassé in town; if people wanted Twitter in real-life, they’d move to Northampton or Amherst or Concord or one of those towns. This is a pretty upper-middle-class, highly educated town, which affects the politics. I will say, though, people are pro-American here and pro-town; events on the common are always packed with families. It’s nice, classic Americana stuff all around.
Now, if you want to see full-on Trump country, you go to the areas that are even more rural than mine. It’s MAGA City out there. In the middle of the bluest state east of the Mississippi. Interesting times.
Anyway, upon closer inspection that summer two years ago, I noticed that this sign didn’t discuss how the home’s occupants were great people for believing in science and worshipping black people; it was a parody based on the 2007 movie Michael Clayton (note that none of the photos I’m posting are the actual house.).
Well-played, friends. Well-played. It’s a little too cute, too quirk chungus for my tastes (I am very sophisticated), but whatever.
And then I noticed that every month or so, they’d have a new one up, all some sort of pop-culture Reddit-tier jokes. There’s the South Park one . . .
. . . the Ghostbusters one . . .
. . . and the Wu-Tang Clan one:
Geez. These were even more cringe than an actual “In this house, we believe . . .” sign; at least the progressive weirdo dork putting that up actually believes in something, no matter how dumb. These were peak millennial noncommittal irony mixed with the kind of humor adults think kids will find funny.
I feel bad because I don’t know the people really well, and have only seen them at Halloween. They’re probably nice people, and my son is friends with their son and says he’s a really cool kid. Understand that I’m not knocking the people; I’m just sharing my reaction to the signs.
Speaking of which, the signs went away in 2023 but now there back. And I’ve noticed a change.
A different house now has this one in their yard:
I’ve also seen many banners and bumper stickers for “Any functioning adult,” which is funny because right now we have an adult who can’t control his bodily functions.
But I digress.
This tells me a few things. The most interesting thing is that normies are finally beginning to notice that everything sucks, for lack of a better term. I don’t think they’re yet at the point where they realize it’s systemic and that no functioning adult will save them because our system actively selects against good, honorable, decent people, but maybe their minds are open to these truths. Maybe things have gotten so bad and so embarrassing that the Griller-Americans are actually fertile soil for some sort of radical ideas, and I don’t mean warmed-over Marxism, which is as radical as Bernie Sanders’ flatulence.
Look: Donald Trump is not going to save anyone but himself. He’s a narcissistic psychopath, which would be fine if he bent his energies toward doing what’s right for the country, but he’s more concerned with his brand and being popular despite the fact that he’ll never be let back into the class he’s viewed as betraying. None of the GOP losers will save us. Joe Biden won’t save us. He was never a smart man and now he’s senile. The people truly running things won’t save us either because they’re responsible for deliberately creating this state of affairs. You’d have to replace everyone—peacefully, of course—and then maybe you’d have a shot at stoping the bleeding. Maybe.
I think our normie friends are amenable to these ideas. But their question then becomes, “Okay, so what party actually would help?”
And this is the hard part: getting them to realize that no party will.
Breaking people out of the false Republican/Democrat binary is one of the tasks of our day. Further breaking them out of the assumption that liberal democracy is the political end-state for civilization is the other. We don’t need to go full-monarchist, but what we have isn’t working and that which doesn’t work stops eventually. Minds need to be primed for what comes next.
This is why, even though partisan politics is déclassé, I still follow it and talk about it, albeit from the perspective of a disinterested observer than anyone with an emotional stake in the game. The ship is sinking and there’s nothing we can do about it. The U.S.S. America is taking on water at an alarming rate, while our ostensible captains loot the cargo hold. We should be focusing on how to survive the catastrophe and on what comes next.
Yes, I’m using my town to extrapolate the mood of the nation. But you have to understand that my town is Normieville—and this is why it’s a great place to live. If even this town is sick of the whole process and might be questioning the legitimacy of the entire enterprise, albeit gently, then maybe there is hope for us all yet.
So vote. Vote in your local and state elections, and on the national level vote for whoever would piss MSNBC viewers and National Review readers off the most. More importantly, be ready to discuss with regular people some ideas that might have seemed wacky just a year ago. Things have to change, and the will. The question is how.
- Alexander
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Based solely on this post, I hereby nominate Alexander Hellene for President of the United States of America.
A timely and important post. Too many on our side attack the Grillers. Someone with more experience once told me that's like trying to move a half-buried boulder by attacking it. Instead, it's more effective to attack the dirt around it.