Civil conflict varies in intensity and kind. I'd expect plenty of conflict ahead, but an actual civil war is unlikely. Riots, assassinations, state-sponsored crime waves, pogroms are certain IMO. The George Floyd upheaval was a dress rehearsal for worse.
Once the next economic crisis breaks, the decade after will look like Yeltsin's Russia on steroids. Mass pauperisation. State failure. A further spike in mortality rates. Organised crime will take control in many places and will operate more freely than ever before in others.
The key issue for the Red States will not be to take over from Washington, but simply keeping the non-productive and disruptive types from the Blue States overwhelming them via internal migration. At the moment the Red States are receiving the more productive and law-abiding people as refugees from state failure in California, Illinois, Ohio and New York. Constraining the movement of undesirables will be the number one priority, alongside maintaining a viable financial system once the petrodollar goes.
"Your thesis seems to be that the Empire can live on, despite this decline, for a long time.". Yeah, I always thought this would lead to break but maybe I've always been wrong. Is it possible all these signs of degeneration actually help the elites maintain power?
Not just that, but open immigration and awful demographics everywhere effectively guarantees that the U.S. wins the long game. It may not be the finest edition of the U.S. that history could have in theory produced, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to best the competition and gradually expand its sphere of influence.
Turkey is breaking away from the US. The Turks have rejected US expressions of sympathy over a recent terrorist attack in Istanbul. They have attacked US proxies in northern Syria. They have done several important economic deals with Russia, in particular a deal that will set Turkey up as a key hub for Russian natural gas exports.
The USA has in my estimation at least a 20 year head start on any global competitor (if not more), so has room to experiment with the idiocy that we are currently witness to. As "the business of America is business", once things begin to negatively impact that maxim they get shelved. The genius of America is in its ability to co-opt, re-purpose, monetize, and weaponize any potential threat, turning it to its own advantage. We are already seeing that with ESG/DEI/etc.
Flyover America means fuck all. All that matters is Acela Corridor, LA, Bay Area, and Texas, The rest are just energy/transport logistics/corporate farmland. All you need is elites. The middle class is disappearing, yet they continue to grant legitimacy to the ruling system, as we saw this past Tuesday.
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Nov 9, 2022·edited Nov 9, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo
"In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first American Empire! For a safe and secure society!"
If you have the time, do read the articles that I linked to in the above piece. I know that many of you will have questions, and some of the answers are in those essays.
I will get accused of demoralization. Consider it a splash of cold water in the face instead. I am never 'blackpilled' as the kids call it.
A splash of cold water is what we need. I laugh thinking how politically excited I was several years ago. You’re right, we all want to live in exciting times. But we ought to accept reality and make the best of it.
As excited as we Americans got, I can only imagine your disappointment to see your nation become independent after being occupied by for hundreds of years, only to be neutered by the US and incorporated into the EU.
“You’re right, we all want to live in exciting times. But we ought to accept reality and make the best of it.
As excited as we Americans got, I can only imagine your disappointment to see your nation become independent after being occupied by for hundreds of years, only to be neutered by the US and incorporated into the EU.<<<“ THERE
The qualifier at the very end is of course important. Nothing lasts forever and the US, like the USSR, is stable until it isn't. But it's a very good bet the US will persist in its present form for our remaining lifetimes.
But the scary part is that Deep State Empires follow their arc--they never, ever deviate from their self-destructive path and historians always wonder, why didn't they see this coming. The older I get the more it puzzles me; we never learn.
"America no longer belongs to you, but to its elites" election day is always a win for the system, all the screeching about democracy on the ballot...and the choices generally fall to two pre-approved, banal jabronis. The illusion of choice.
Post election predictions: continued move away from free thought and morality, a coming green-tastrophy as they turn off fossil fuels with no realistic backup, continued flow of money and arms to the proxy war, rampant inflation, and maybe a netflix special or two on how the 'good guys' overcame the odds
Interesting predictions, and I guess Niccolo at least partley agrees, but I do have questions. Niccolo, who I have read some of but not all of, predicts a long and unbroken reign of the current elites, united as they are, but here you suggest a coming catastrophe. Furthermore we seem to have pretty wild issues like trans children dominating things. Are these issues not destabilizing? Or is it asserted that even if it's destabilizing the elites still have enough control, and agreement, to maintain their hold regardless?
Let me clarify my position, because I think we're on the same page...
I agree the elites are firmly in charge. They are driving destabilization of the masses. Their goal is pretty simple - to continue to hold and accumulate power and wealth for themselves.
Infanticide, child mutilation, sexual 'liberation', etc are all part of the move away from morality but they are aimed at everyday people to further divide & conquer us. They the catalyst for more state intervention into all facets of life.
Same goes for what I call the green-tastrophy...the modern world is built on cheap energy from fossil fuels. The absolutely unserious goals and plans that the elite have foisted on us will off course effect the people first. You and I will be without heat and electricity far, far before them. Just look at private jet usage today.
Thank you for the clarification. I used to hear stuff like this and think it couldn't be true, as you would need a cartoonishly evil intent that is only seen in movies. However, if they feel they have a moral imperative to do so then that changes everything and of course all these things are foisted with complete moral zeal.
Do you think the divide and conquer is deliberate, born in smoky rooms, or just elites working around natural incentives?
I've always assumed that this stuff will keep working until people get hungry or cold..
"Do you think the divide and conquer is deliberate, born in smoky rooms, or just elites working around natural incentives?"
Why the either/or? Would you not, as a clever person in a smoky room, prefer approaches that had their own natural gravitational force, so long as the outcomes were mostly compatible with your preferences?
Little could be inferred about whether or not there were even other forces at play. It's ideal. I would only turn toward more blatant alternatives if there were no other way to game things out.
"I've always assumed that this stuff will keep working until people get hungry or cold.."
Democracy is an incredibly useful pressure release valve. People are already looking forward to 2024. It's awesome to watch.
I've often considered how woke'ism, identity politics, is a dividing force just like you are describing. I just always felt that it must be adopted based on innate human incentives rather than careful consideration of how to conquer a population. It just seemed too evil otherwise. Maybe I'm too naive, wouldn't be the first time.
You are right about Democracy. I even keep getting suckered into that. I was hopeful for a red wave even as a former lefty, while fully acknowledging that it's unlikely to actually help change the direction of the country.
I wouldn't call it naivete. I'd just encourage you to consider how to conquer a population from a vantage point of where natural forces are and aren't on your side. To some extent, even natural forces can be influenced as long as it's done well in advance (woke-ism, hint hint).
Humans, like all other creatures, are exquisitely tuned to adapt to our environment. If you shape the environment, you shape the future of humanity. This first happens in an epigenetic and adaptive sense, but it radiates into genetics themselves as selective forces work their magic.
Back to what Niccolo starts this piece with, we have to be careful not to impose a narrative arc.
But, I think about it in the context of family history.
Take for example a farmer that comes from a line of farmers that has lived in a region for generations. They are likely networked with many other local famers (who are also multigenerational), maybe are part of the local co-op or trade group, and on the local board for school, fire, or county.
Now think about Sigmund Freud. He was a pioneer in understanding how people think. His nephew was Edward Bernays, king of propaganda in the 20's and 30's. Marc Bernays Randolph is founder of Netflix and great nephew of the previous two. Arguably you have a multigenerational powerhouse of molding how people think and perceive their world. Evil cabal of masterminds like out of a comic book, maybe not. But, they work to further their interests and their friends interests. Multiply across all elites.
It is deliberate because it provides easy results. Imagine any new friend/enemy distinction you want, propagate it with the masses, rake in rewards.
As to smokey rooms, I'd answer a question with a question. When you're a billionaire globalist who are you friends and where do you meet and talk shop? To narrow the example, think about a largish corporation. Execs and VPs generally socialize/interact with mostly themselves and maybe some useful supporters, they're not spending time with the mail clerk, janitor, or unwashed masses making a wage. Point being they already run the same circle.
I live 40 minutes away from Aspen, along the only road to there during the winter. We are their employees, and they can buy and sell us on a whim. It's a fascinating place to be.
From what I've seen, it's sotto voce. It's couched in appropriate terms. The subtext is there for people who can and will see it.
I'll never forget being the only guy dumb and poor enough to show up to the Aspen Symphony wearing a suit.
I grew up on the west edge of NE and am familiar with the front range...it's as good an example as any for elite theory.
I had the pleasure of working for a multibillion dollar retailer in a manager position below director where we would occasionally win 'lunch with the ceo' type stuff...pretty enlightening to make chit chat...
Exactly - the primary obstacle to commercial neo-feudalism is the western middle class, primarily in the US. Wokeism is a key mechanism (along with financialization of all segments of the economy) to demoralize and degrade this opposition (notably one of the original uses was as an intelligence tool to undermine the Soviets on the left during the Cold War)
I envision a continuing transformation of the regime and the perpetuation of the US Empire, but it would be arrogant of me to predict elite continuity very far into the future.
I'm having a chicken and the egg moment. Sorry if I get circular and confusing; I'm still working out my theory here.
What comes first - the particular crop of elites or the ideology they drive?
I'm thinking back to your chart of left/right non/systemic (https://niccolo.substack.com/p/no-the-usa-is-not-headed-towards) and if you added a time element, say across a person's life or day even, we interact most with left/center left systemic hierarchy. And each group is working to expand their own influence and power, thus always trying to convince or coerce you to be and think like them. This constant recruitment helps Elites continue to bulwark against outside ideas by controlling the Overton window and raising up new elites.
In the game of tug of war, the left elites has been extremely successful. I wholeheartedly agree with your position in Desquamation that the chosen ideology of the left is Marxist/Leninist. From the outside looking in, it appears as up and comers have been rewarded and elevated by being more extreme than the last guy. Hence the 'center' keeps getting pulled left and the cycle repeats. No one person is in charge, but the incentives and punishments are easy to see and the group stays in relative cohesion. Like all 'office politics' sometimes people fall out of favor, drop out, change their minds, etc but the core group and goals keep pointing in their direction.
So, if the blueprint is unadulterated leftism and people at the top reward their own is it the idea or the man?
After typing all this...I think I agree with your statement 99%...I'd only add continuity of *An Elite is probably inconsequential because there will always be elites and that I view the regime and it's heroes as two sides of the same coin. Whether Bezos or Thiel is ruling a particular fiefdom doesn't matter because there's always another waiting to step up to the plate.
We will continue to be prisoners in the death camp of tolerance and 'liberalism' until another, more appealing ideology comes along and it's elites are sufficiently convincing. I don't see this happening for a while.
The important thing to note about inflation is that it is striking harder outside the U.S. than within it, and attempts to fight it have bolstered the value of the U.S. Dollar against most things that matter geopolitically.
The dollar is too critical a component of the machine of empire to let it acquire much wear. The cleanest dirty shirt will continue to be the one worn.
One of the more interesting aspects of this conflict is the currency war. It doesn't get as much air time I think because it's difficult for most to understand (US population is wildly mis-educated re: banking/economics) and that's where the REAL power struggle is. From early sanctions, cutting off of swift, some Saudi oil transactions moving to yuan and ruble, Russia starting up their own bullion markets, there are a lot of moving pieces here.
If you spelled this out somewhere that I missed, sorry, but when exactly was the US a "nation" and what are the hallmarks of "nationhood" that are missing today?
Nov 9, 2022·edited Nov 9, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo
Greetings from the Western edge of the Imperium, where Apollo's chariot always rides high and where our beloved optimate Gavinus Newsomius has just received another term as colony Governor. He earned the love of the populace by winning the war on those blood-sucking parasites known as The Feti (delenda est Feti!) and has promised us a week of bread & circuses, with the bread gluten-free of course as is our custom, and the highlight a promised spectacle of Gary Busey and Jon Voight being fed to some free-range lions.
Gavinus is also rumored to be a future Emperor based on his brilliant strategy to defeat the barbarians by luring their children to our territory then having them castrated. Even his enemies have to admit that pure noble blood flows through his veins and he also has vast holdings of prime land and vineyards, which is always a qualification for supreme leader.
Soon I will be lining up for my daily gas ration and then a prayer service at the Temple of the Transgender, our most sacred shrine.
This is the best thing I've read in awhile. I must share this with a friend, if you don't mind. BTW, how would you characterize Nancy and Paul Pelosi in this psychodrama?
Nov 9, 2022·edited Nov 9, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo
If we are to be honest, we must recognize that the majority of Republican candidates are simply stupid, and they have no mainstream institutions on their side to whitewash their lies like with the Dems.
The general feeling from Dems is corrupt degeneracy, but political competence.
General feeling from Reps is low IQ grug corruption and brain rot, some fake machismo, and zero political competence.
Don't you have the sense that America's best and brightest are not being fielded by either party? I could haul out examples, but it feels cruel to do so.
Do you believe that there are plenty of clever people with ample ambition who would relish the opportunity to be in power? I can't haul out examples, but as with dark matter, I can infer its existence even if I don't know precisely what it is.
If you agree with my comments but penned your own, then you seem to be watching The Show, not the main event. Working as intended, but perhaps you should change the channel.
I'd read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Granted, he was in a corporation, but many of those are appendages of the State. I'm certain there are equally interesting positions of power in the belly of the beast.
Note that he openly confesses to having had to accept a bribe to get it published -- about three-quarters of the way through the read, after you've had ample time to wonder about some of the inconsistencies and gaps in his stories.
I take everything he wrote as a true but incomplete account and I'm grateful that he had the chance to signal the validity of that interpretation. As enthralling and enlightening as it all is, I'm sure the secrets that he agreed to keep wrapped in exchange for a modicum of journalistic freedom are more salacious.
Anyway, yes. I presume that anyone who is on stage is deeply compromised, and anyone within the system itself has gone through an arduous process to ensure utter fealty. This includes Trump, where I break from Niccolo's beliefs to some degree. There are certainly safeguards in place in case someone makes it through the vetting only to attempt to break free later.
I would not want to be anywhere near the reins of power in any form. It's not safe.
I’ve seen Chomsky in half a dozen interviews and he eventually says to his interviewer, who is always incredulous with Chomsky’s argument: “ you wouldn’t be sitting in that seat if you believed what I believe”.  Curtis Yarvin calls your’ arduous process to ensure utter fealty’ The selective advantage of dominant ideas. I think this is the mechanism of human affairs, it explains an enormous amount
Absolutely. The mark of true insider narratives is their strategic discretion.
A long time ago a boss of mine, the son of a nationally significant figure in the mid 20th c. and a true insider, said to me that no one ever gets to any seniority within the system without being totally compromised one way or another. He was incredulous that people ever believed that the world worked any other way.
The crypto-nobility sustained by the serfs and helots of the precariat, whose rule is maintained by sponsoring Maoist games amongst the graduates/yeoman. All of it legitimised by treacly ethics applied with cold contempt and opportunism.
My impression is that the smart, competent people want nothing to do with the federal imperial shitshow. They hunker down in specialized, highly technical roles and work for 20 years so they can retreat behind big walls of money. So the field is left to clowns like the Clintons and Obamas (smart clowns, but still clowns) and the truly clownish bumpkins, the Bidens--how did these potato-eaters end up in power? It's embarrassing.
The billionaires and C-suite millionaires are loyal to the regime and take pains to signal that they will not cause trouble. There are a few mavericks like Peter Thiel but until he starts buying his own military nobody will mind him.
I have personal experience with very smart, very competent people who are deeply embedded within the Federal Imperial show. They indeed do hunker down in specialized, highly technical roles, and almost nobody knows they're even there.
The DOE's National Labs would be an excellent example that I'm at liberty to discuss. They have some exquisitely talented staff members. They work more closely with academia and corporations than you might realize. At all times, they keep a low profile, and they like it that way.
They are entirely insulated and disconnected from the clown show. It has nothing to do with what they do. Public, published, and intermittent grant funding is much more of an issue for people who are actually in academia.
I have had a lot of other alphabets agencies in my life (as well as high-level interaction with Big Tech before it got so Big), but little interaction with the Department of State. That said, I would be absolutely gobsmacked if they didn't have similar amazing people tucked away doing the real work.
Pay little heed to the facade. There is an incredibly good engine whirring beneath.
Wake up. The good people will stuff you into a gas chamber if their performance rating required it.
Competence is rationed to essential services/functions only. It is never used for the advantage of anyone or thing that does not serve the regime. And never will be.
I don't think their performance rating is going to require that any time soon, but as I indicated, I'm keeping a wary eye on the political side of things to ensure it doesn't descend into madness.
There will be madness aplenty within and without the regime. Nothing will prevent that. The competent sector will weaponise the madness and use it for whatever plans are being cooked up for the next regime. We can already see Surkovian hypernormalisation at work in the USA. This is a constructed destabilisation of perception on a mass level and it is working a treat.
The question is not madness versus competency, but what forms both of these will take and the costs involved in the evolution of these forms. Politics will take on a truly surreal quality in the years ahead. This need not distract you. The competent core will make progress of a sort, but the results may well surprise us all. At best I expect that the USA will create a superior version of Brazil. If not a superior version of South Africa. The surplus population will live poorly enough in the former, very, very badly in the latter.
EXACTLY!!! They were happy for the rest of us to eat shit (served in ever less nutritious and vilely flavoured portions) so long as they got to deplore the cruelty and futility from a very safe distance. Few things enrage me quite like hearing such types casually acknowledge what is going on (as they readily do in private) while making perfectly rehearsed excuses for why they are best utilised doing anything that does not involve solving the problems. And they collect the rent on it all while it is happening and they are on best terms with the worst sociopaths.
This is a problem for conservative philosophy, that the degenerate party is more competent. They aren't supposed to be. It should be theoretically impossible.
It's a problem for both parties. Why would anyone capable of attaining power seek to do so in a decorative democratic system rather than pursuing it from the inside, where the real muscle is?
I'm sure they're both well-insulated against subversion. Trump demonstrated this, if nothing else.
I'll grant that it's doubly true for conservativism: who with the talent and charisma to gain power through either route would then gladly relinquish it to the people?
John Locke is dead. I'm agnostic as to whether that's bad, but I think it's indisputable.
I’ve had to look up two things: autodidact and John Locke. I am largely an autodidact, not particularly well read but tenacious and possessed of a middling native capacity.
As for John Locke, yup, his highfaluting ideas are actually ironic now. Hobbesian leviathan is our fate, The managed state has engulfed everything.
Nah, the Dems are stupid and incompetent, too, but as Nic points out, they focus on getting and keeping power (and the graft, grifting & sexual degeneracy that it supports). The Left started this 50+ years ago (DrZ was ranting about it before I met him in '70) and now has the culture and the deep state. The Reps thought they'd always be The Establishment, and now that they aren't, they have no clue how to get back there (not that I want a return to the '50s, thank you, already been there). Guys like Bill Kristol shift toward the current Establishment; any principled conservatives are think-tank wankers. Never underestimate the awesome power of human stupidity & cupidity.
'The desire to see yourself at the centre of a tumultuous era, where the end of a regime takes place...It’s no different than the apocalyptic cults surrounding extremist Climate Change activists, or the various “end of the world” sects throughout human history. This is perfectly natural behaviour.
In other words, narcissism and a longing for excitement as a philosophy of history. Alternately, one could say that even an apocalypse is preferable to living through more of the same.
I suspect that there would be a substantial number who would be thrilled by a Clown World apocalypse out of sheer spite or a desperate desire for a climactic event to make life more entertaining or meaningful. The larpers who rioted over George Floyd seem like that sort of people.
Nov 9, 2022·edited Nov 9, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo
As usual hitting out of the park analysis.I personally believe The Empire is at its height of its power and this bunch of empire operatives are kinda of the last functioning sort who manages anything with any level of decent standard. As for the fall of empire I believe US will be destroyed from within than some outsider doing to them but here is my question - "Is that the slow speed of decline of the empire would be because of other countries(expect China and to some extent Russia) not wanting to disturb the world order as elites of other countries do not want to disturb their own status in the pecking order?"
I obviously can't answer for Niccolo, but I think it's dangerous to play with fire. I would sooner avoid a tussle with the U.S. and its assembled flock of nation states if I could; it's better to remain independent than suffer grievous wounds, only to be absorbed by the Empire.
As written in Turbo-America, we would not be making so many enemies if it weren't a calculated decision. Would we really opine openly about ousting Putin if we didn't have better backing for the bluff than MAD?
The USA has a lot of slack at present because it is simply so far ahead of its competitors. This gives America the opportunity to experiment socially (e.g. ESG/DEI) because if it doesn't work out, it can put a stop to it before it does real damage.
Niccolo, you nailed it with the observation that "Americans, especially those on the populist right, need to realize that they live in the Empire’s Metropole, and that they are no longer a nation...America no longer belongs to you, but to its elites."
The further transformation of the USA now seems assured. A weakened version of the populist Right, a very Loyal Opposition led by De Santis, will likely function as a safety valve for discontent, while MAGA is pushed to the margins and then suppressed.
I believe Matt Christman had a tweet that said “dems are the normie party now” and I think he’s basically correct. The “silent majority” that would support even someone like Reagan is mostly 6 feet under. The average person was brought up on Howard zinn and has no concept of older American small r Republican virtue. It’s going to be extremely difficult to win on a right wing message given the state of the populace. Elite capture as cringe as that sounds is probably the only viable route
The centre of gravity has indeed shifted. The new norm incorporates transgender indoctrination of children and the abolition of borders.
There is no viable route. Civil war is not happening. Elite capture is not possible. The dissenting/dissident element needs to look at the survival tactics of the Afrikaners under ANC rule and prepare a suitable version for North America. A 'Helms Deep' or two.
Yes, essentially. The one positive is that for decades, it was attractive for smart young people to hold progressive values to differentiate themselves from the cracker Reagan or bush supporting masses. I’m not going to delude myself into believing that zoomers are going to be a mostly conservative voting block. If you are a zoomer though it’s very hard to grow up thinking that there’s anything transgressive or intellectual about progressivism. It’s pure dogma echoed by every powerful institution with pure mediocrities as its biggest spokespeople. At the higher end (I’m not talking about Charlie Kirk) the contemporary reactionaries are absolutely outclassing progressives in terms of intellectual quality. They’re also more fun. If the most ambitious and smart 5-10% of zoomers get into it like previous generations got into communism or even Chomsky, it could have some unforeseen impacts
Civil conflict varies in intensity and kind. I'd expect plenty of conflict ahead, but an actual civil war is unlikely. Riots, assassinations, state-sponsored crime waves, pogroms are certain IMO. The George Floyd upheaval was a dress rehearsal for worse.
Once the next economic crisis breaks, the decade after will look like Yeltsin's Russia on steroids. Mass pauperisation. State failure. A further spike in mortality rates. Organised crime will take control in many places and will operate more freely than ever before in others.
The key issue for the Red States will not be to take over from Washington, but simply keeping the non-productive and disruptive types from the Blue States overwhelming them via internal migration. At the moment the Red States are receiving the more productive and law-abiding people as refugees from state failure in California, Illinois, Ohio and New York. Constraining the movement of undesirables will be the number one priority, alongside maintaining a viable financial system once the petrodollar goes.
There is no civil war for the foreseeable future.
https://niccolo.substack.com/p/no-the-usa-is-not-headed-towards
That is impossible to foresee.
"Your thesis seems to be that the Empire can live on, despite this decline, for a long time.". Yeah, I always thought this would lead to break but maybe I've always been wrong. Is it possible all these signs of degeneration actually help the elites maintain power?
No one is competing with the US for hegemony. Russia and China (and everyone else outside of the Anglosphere) wants a multipolar world.
Not just that, but open immigration and awful demographics everywhere effectively guarantees that the U.S. wins the long game. It may not be the finest edition of the U.S. that history could have in theory produced, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to best the competition and gradually expand its sphere of influence.
NDK, you may find this interesting/relevant.
https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/08/16/in-an-aging-world-the-metropole-beckons/
climate change won't do a number on anyone, but no fossil fuels will kill civilization
Turkey?
Turkey is breaking away from the US. The Turks have rejected US expressions of sympathy over a recent terrorist attack in Istanbul. They have attacked US proxies in northern Syria. They have done several important economic deals with Russia, in particular a deal that will set Turkey up as a key hub for Russian natural gas exports.
As long as there are enough smart people to keep the lights on the rest do not matter.
Yes, but Lebanon and South Africa are not the USA.
The USA has in my estimation at least a 20 year head start on any global competitor (if not more), so has room to experiment with the idiocy that we are currently witness to. As "the business of America is business", once things begin to negatively impact that maxim they get shelved. The genius of America is in its ability to co-opt, re-purpose, monetize, and weaponize any potential threat, turning it to its own advantage. We are already seeing that with ESG/DEI/etc.
Flyover America means fuck all. All that matters is Acela Corridor, LA, Bay Area, and Texas, The rest are just energy/transport logistics/corporate farmland. All you need is elites. The middle class is disappearing, yet they continue to grant legitimacy to the ruling system, as we saw this past Tuesday.
You overestimate...
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No
Jebem ti Mater.
Tis done
"In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first American Empire! For a safe and secure society!"
If you have the time, do read the articles that I linked to in the above piece. I know that many of you will have questions, and some of the answers are in those essays.
I will get accused of demoralization. Consider it a splash of cold water in the face instead. I am never 'blackpilled' as the kids call it.
A splash of cold water is what we need. I laugh thinking how politically excited I was several years ago. You’re right, we all want to live in exciting times. But we ought to accept reality and make the best of it.
As excited as we Americans got, I can only imagine your disappointment to see your nation become independent after being occupied by for hundreds of years, only to be neutered by the US and incorporated into the EU.
Ooohh
I see what you did there
What?
what did you do
I didn’t Andrew did to Nico
“You’re right, we all want to live in exciting times. But we ought to accept reality and make the best of it.
As excited as we Americans got, I can only imagine your disappointment to see your nation become independent after being occupied by for hundreds of years, only to be neutered by the US and incorporated into the EU.<<<“ THERE
The qualifier at the very end is of course important. Nothing lasts forever and the US, like the USSR, is stable until it isn't. But it's a very good bet the US will persist in its present form for our remaining lifetimes.
But the scary part is that Deep State Empires follow their arc--they never, ever deviate from their self-destructive path and historians always wonder, why didn't they see this coming. The older I get the more it puzzles me; we never learn.
The kids? I was around in the 90s old timer!!!
Thank you, this was extremely spot on!
It's all so tiresome
Astute as always.
"America no longer belongs to you, but to its elites" election day is always a win for the system, all the screeching about democracy on the ballot...and the choices generally fall to two pre-approved, banal jabronis. The illusion of choice.
Post election predictions: continued move away from free thought and morality, a coming green-tastrophy as they turn off fossil fuels with no realistic backup, continued flow of money and arms to the proxy war, rampant inflation, and maybe a netflix special or two on how the 'good guys' overcame the odds
Interesting predictions, and I guess Niccolo at least partley agrees, but I do have questions. Niccolo, who I have read some of but not all of, predicts a long and unbroken reign of the current elites, united as they are, but here you suggest a coming catastrophe. Furthermore we seem to have pretty wild issues like trans children dominating things. Are these issues not destabilizing? Or is it asserted that even if it's destabilizing the elites still have enough control, and agreement, to maintain their hold regardless?
Let me clarify my position, because I think we're on the same page...
I agree the elites are firmly in charge. They are driving destabilization of the masses. Their goal is pretty simple - to continue to hold and accumulate power and wealth for themselves.
Infanticide, child mutilation, sexual 'liberation', etc are all part of the move away from morality but they are aimed at everyday people to further divide & conquer us. They the catalyst for more state intervention into all facets of life.
Same goes for what I call the green-tastrophy...the modern world is built on cheap energy from fossil fuels. The absolutely unserious goals and plans that the elite have foisted on us will off course effect the people first. You and I will be without heat and electricity far, far before them. Just look at private jet usage today.
Thank you for the clarification. I used to hear stuff like this and think it couldn't be true, as you would need a cartoonishly evil intent that is only seen in movies. However, if they feel they have a moral imperative to do so then that changes everything and of course all these things are foisted with complete moral zeal.
Do you think the divide and conquer is deliberate, born in smoky rooms, or just elites working around natural incentives?
I've always assumed that this stuff will keep working until people get hungry or cold..
"Do you think the divide and conquer is deliberate, born in smoky rooms, or just elites working around natural incentives?"
Why the either/or? Would you not, as a clever person in a smoky room, prefer approaches that had their own natural gravitational force, so long as the outcomes were mostly compatible with your preferences?
Little could be inferred about whether or not there were even other forces at play. It's ideal. I would only turn toward more blatant alternatives if there were no other way to game things out.
"I've always assumed that this stuff will keep working until people get hungry or cold.."
Democracy is an incredibly useful pressure release valve. People are already looking forward to 2024. It's awesome to watch.
I've often considered how woke'ism, identity politics, is a dividing force just like you are describing. I just always felt that it must be adopted based on innate human incentives rather than careful consideration of how to conquer a population. It just seemed too evil otherwise. Maybe I'm too naive, wouldn't be the first time.
You are right about Democracy. I even keep getting suckered into that. I was hopeful for a red wave even as a former lefty, while fully acknowledging that it's unlikely to actually help change the direction of the country.
I wouldn't call it naivete. I'd just encourage you to consider how to conquer a population from a vantage point of where natural forces are and aren't on your side. To some extent, even natural forces can be influenced as long as it's done well in advance (woke-ism, hint hint).
Humans, like all other creatures, are exquisitely tuned to adapt to our environment. If you shape the environment, you shape the future of humanity. This first happens in an epigenetic and adaptive sense, but it radiates into genetics themselves as selective forces work their magic.
Back to what Niccolo starts this piece with, we have to be careful not to impose a narrative arc.
But, I think about it in the context of family history.
Take for example a farmer that comes from a line of farmers that has lived in a region for generations. They are likely networked with many other local famers (who are also multigenerational), maybe are part of the local co-op or trade group, and on the local board for school, fire, or county.
Now think about Sigmund Freud. He was a pioneer in understanding how people think. His nephew was Edward Bernays, king of propaganda in the 20's and 30's. Marc Bernays Randolph is founder of Netflix and great nephew of the previous two. Arguably you have a multigenerational powerhouse of molding how people think and perceive their world. Evil cabal of masterminds like out of a comic book, maybe not. But, they work to further their interests and their friends interests. Multiply across all elites.
It is deliberate because it provides easy results. Imagine any new friend/enemy distinction you want, propagate it with the masses, rake in rewards.
As to smokey rooms, I'd answer a question with a question. When you're a billionaire globalist who are you friends and where do you meet and talk shop? To narrow the example, think about a largish corporation. Execs and VPs generally socialize/interact with mostly themselves and maybe some useful supporters, they're not spending time with the mail clerk, janitor, or unwashed masses making a wage. Point being they already run the same circle.
I live 40 minutes away from Aspen, along the only road to there during the winter. We are their employees, and they can buy and sell us on a whim. It's a fascinating place to be.
From what I've seen, it's sotto voce. It's couched in appropriate terms. The subtext is there for people who can and will see it.
I'll never forget being the only guy dumb and poor enough to show up to the Aspen Symphony wearing a suit.
I grew up on the west edge of NE and am familiar with the front range...it's as good an example as any for elite theory.
I had the pleasure of working for a multibillion dollar retailer in a manager position below director where we would occasionally win 'lunch with the ceo' type stuff...pretty enlightening to make chit chat...
Exactly - the primary obstacle to commercial neo-feudalism is the western middle class, primarily in the US. Wokeism is a key mechanism (along with financialization of all segments of the economy) to demoralize and degrade this opposition (notably one of the original uses was as an intelligence tool to undermine the Soviets on the left during the Cold War)
I envision a continuing transformation of the regime and the perpetuation of the US Empire, but it would be arrogant of me to predict elite continuity very far into the future.
https://niccolo.substack.com/p/the-desquamation-of-america
I'm having a chicken and the egg moment. Sorry if I get circular and confusing; I'm still working out my theory here.
What comes first - the particular crop of elites or the ideology they drive?
I'm thinking back to your chart of left/right non/systemic (https://niccolo.substack.com/p/no-the-usa-is-not-headed-towards) and if you added a time element, say across a person's life or day even, we interact most with left/center left systemic hierarchy. And each group is working to expand their own influence and power, thus always trying to convince or coerce you to be and think like them. This constant recruitment helps Elites continue to bulwark against outside ideas by controlling the Overton window and raising up new elites.
In the game of tug of war, the left elites has been extremely successful. I wholeheartedly agree with your position in Desquamation that the chosen ideology of the left is Marxist/Leninist. From the outside looking in, it appears as up and comers have been rewarded and elevated by being more extreme than the last guy. Hence the 'center' keeps getting pulled left and the cycle repeats. No one person is in charge, but the incentives and punishments are easy to see and the group stays in relative cohesion. Like all 'office politics' sometimes people fall out of favor, drop out, change their minds, etc but the core group and goals keep pointing in their direction.
So, if the blueprint is unadulterated leftism and people at the top reward their own is it the idea or the man?
After typing all this...I think I agree with your statement 99%...I'd only add continuity of *An Elite is probably inconsequential because there will always be elites and that I view the regime and it's heroes as two sides of the same coin. Whether Bezos or Thiel is ruling a particular fiefdom doesn't matter because there's always another waiting to step up to the plate.
We will continue to be prisoners in the death camp of tolerance and 'liberalism' until another, more appealing ideology comes along and it's elites are sufficiently convincing. I don't see this happening for a while.
The important thing to note about inflation is that it is striking harder outside the U.S. than within it, and attempts to fight it have bolstered the value of the U.S. Dollar against most things that matter geopolitically.
The dollar is too critical a component of the machine of empire to let it acquire much wear. The cleanest dirty shirt will continue to be the one worn.
Oh, not claiming US has it worst.
One of the more interesting aspects of this conflict is the currency war. It doesn't get as much air time I think because it's difficult for most to understand (US population is wildly mis-educated re: banking/economics) and that's where the REAL power struggle is. From early sanctions, cutting off of swift, some Saudi oil transactions moving to yuan and ruble, Russia starting up their own bullion markets, there are a lot of moving pieces here.
If you spelled this out somewhere that I missed, sorry, but when exactly was the US a "nation" and what are the hallmarks of "nationhood" that are missing today?
I'll have to dig through at least one or two of the above linked essays.
Greetings from the Western edge of the Imperium, where Apollo's chariot always rides high and where our beloved optimate Gavinus Newsomius has just received another term as colony Governor. He earned the love of the populace by winning the war on those blood-sucking parasites known as The Feti (delenda est Feti!) and has promised us a week of bread & circuses, with the bread gluten-free of course as is our custom, and the highlight a promised spectacle of Gary Busey and Jon Voight being fed to some free-range lions.
Gavinus is also rumored to be a future Emperor based on his brilliant strategy to defeat the barbarians by luring their children to our territory then having them castrated. Even his enemies have to admit that pure noble blood flows through his veins and he also has vast holdings of prime land and vineyards, which is always a qualification for supreme leader.
Soon I will be lining up for my daily gas ration and then a prayer service at the Temple of the Transgender, our most sacred shrine.
Praise Jupiter for making me an American!
This is the best thing I've read in awhile. I must share this with a friend, if you don't mind. BTW, how would you characterize Nancy and Paul Pelosi in this psychodrama?
hey is this for me or for our host?
thx
Clever Pseudonym -- for you.
hey thanks! you're very kind...
but i know absolutely nothing about the pelosi fam and hope to keep it that way.
cheers!
Ha!!
If we are to be honest, we must recognize that the majority of Republican candidates are simply stupid, and they have no mainstream institutions on their side to whitewash their lies like with the Dems.
The general feeling from Dems is corrupt degeneracy, but political competence.
General feeling from Reps is low IQ grug corruption and brain rot, some fake machismo, and zero political competence.
Don't you have the sense that America's best and brightest are not being fielded by either party? I could haul out examples, but it feels cruel to do so.
Do you believe that there are plenty of clever people with ample ambition who would relish the opportunity to be in power? I can't haul out examples, but as with dark matter, I can infer its existence even if I don't know precisely what it is.
If you agree with my comments but penned your own, then you seem to be watching The Show, not the main event. Working as intended, but perhaps you should change the channel.
Power? The office-holders are entertainers. Clever people would be bored by their company.
Ambitious, power-fixated types, focus on corporate power.
I'd read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Granted, he was in a corporation, but many of those are appendages of the State. I'm certain there are equally interesting positions of power in the belly of the beast.
BRILLIANT BOOK!!!!!!!!
There would be people within the system who have real power, but they would be outnumbered by the others who front the regime.
Note that he openly confesses to having had to accept a bribe to get it published -- about three-quarters of the way through the read, after you've had ample time to wonder about some of the inconsistencies and gaps in his stories.
I take everything he wrote as a true but incomplete account and I'm grateful that he had the chance to signal the validity of that interpretation. As enthralling and enlightening as it all is, I'm sure the secrets that he agreed to keep wrapped in exchange for a modicum of journalistic freedom are more salacious.
Anyway, yes. I presume that anyone who is on stage is deeply compromised, and anyone within the system itself has gone through an arduous process to ensure utter fealty. This includes Trump, where I break from Niccolo's beliefs to some degree. There are certainly safeguards in place in case someone makes it through the vetting only to attempt to break free later.
I would not want to be anywhere near the reins of power in any form. It's not safe.
I’ve seen Chomsky in half a dozen interviews and he eventually says to his interviewer, who is always incredulous with Chomsky’s argument: “ you wouldn’t be sitting in that seat if you believed what I believe”.  Curtis Yarvin calls your’ arduous process to ensure utter fealty’ The selective advantage of dominant ideas. I think this is the mechanism of human affairs, it explains an enormous amount
Absolutely. The mark of true insider narratives is their strategic discretion.
A long time ago a boss of mine, the son of a nationally significant figure in the mid 20th c. and a true insider, said to me that no one ever gets to any seniority within the system without being totally compromised one way or another. He was incredulous that people ever believed that the world worked any other way.
The power by Law in DC is held by the unelected, in a sort of Feudalism in Federal Skin.
The crypto-nobility sustained by the serfs and helots of the precariat, whose rule is maintained by sponsoring Maoist games amongst the graduates/yeoman. All of it legitimised by treacly ethics applied with cold contempt and opportunism.
My impression is that the smart, competent people want nothing to do with the federal imperial shitshow. They hunker down in specialized, highly technical roles and work for 20 years so they can retreat behind big walls of money. So the field is left to clowns like the Clintons and Obamas (smart clowns, but still clowns) and the truly clownish bumpkins, the Bidens--how did these potato-eaters end up in power? It's embarrassing.
The billionaires and C-suite millionaires are loyal to the regime and take pains to signal that they will not cause trouble. There are a few mavericks like Peter Thiel but until he starts buying his own military nobody will mind him.
I have personal experience with very smart, very competent people who are deeply embedded within the Federal Imperial show. They indeed do hunker down in specialized, highly technical roles, and almost nobody knows they're even there.
The DOE's National Labs would be an excellent example that I'm at liberty to discuss. They have some exquisitely talented staff members. They work more closely with academia and corporations than you might realize. At all times, they keep a low profile, and they like it that way.
They are entirely insulated and disconnected from the clown show. It has nothing to do with what they do. Public, published, and intermittent grant funding is much more of an issue for people who are actually in academia.
I have had a lot of other alphabets agencies in my life (as well as high-level interaction with Big Tech before it got so Big), but little interaction with the Department of State. That said, I would be absolutely gobsmacked if they didn't have similar amazing people tucked away doing the real work.
Pay little heed to the facade. There is an incredibly good engine whirring beneath.
Wake up. The good people will stuff you into a gas chamber if their performance rating required it.
Competence is rationed to essential services/functions only. It is never used for the advantage of anyone or thing that does not serve the regime. And never will be.
I don't think their performance rating is going to require that any time soon, but as I indicated, I'm keeping a wary eye on the political side of things to ensure it doesn't descend into madness.
There will be madness aplenty within and without the regime. Nothing will prevent that. The competent sector will weaponise the madness and use it for whatever plans are being cooked up for the next regime. We can already see Surkovian hypernormalisation at work in the USA. This is a constructed destabilisation of perception on a mass level and it is working a treat.
The question is not madness versus competency, but what forms both of these will take and the costs involved in the evolution of these forms. Politics will take on a truly surreal quality in the years ahead. This need not distract you. The competent core will make progress of a sort, but the results may well surprise us all. At best I expect that the USA will create a superior version of Brazil. If not a superior version of South Africa. The surplus population will live poorly enough in the former, very, very badly in the latter.
They abandoned their nation and neighbors then and can’t complain.
EXACTLY!!! They were happy for the rest of us to eat shit (served in ever less nutritious and vilely flavoured portions) so long as they got to deplore the cruelty and futility from a very safe distance. Few things enrage me quite like hearing such types casually acknowledge what is going on (as they readily do in private) while making perfectly rehearsed excuses for why they are best utilised doing anything that does not involve solving the problems. And they collect the rent on it all while it is happening and they are on best terms with the worst sociopaths.
This is a problem for conservative philosophy, that the degenerate party is more competent. They aren't supposed to be. It should be theoretically impossible.
It's a problem for both parties. Why would anyone capable of attaining power seek to do so in a decorative democratic system rather than pursuing it from the inside, where the real muscle is?
I'm sure they're both well-insulated against subversion. Trump demonstrated this, if nothing else.
I'll grant that it's doubly true for conservativism: who with the talent and charisma to gain power through either route would then gladly relinquish it to the people?
John Locke is dead. I'm agnostic as to whether that's bad, but I think it's indisputable.
I’ve had to look up two things: autodidact and John Locke. I am largely an autodidact, not particularly well read but tenacious and possessed of a middling native capacity.
As for John Locke, yup, his highfaluting ideas are actually ironic now. Hobbesian leviathan is our fate, The managed state has engulfed everything.
Nah, the Dems are stupid and incompetent, too, but as Nic points out, they focus on getting and keeping power (and the graft, grifting & sexual degeneracy that it supports). The Left started this 50+ years ago (DrZ was ranting about it before I met him in '70) and now has the culture and the deep state. The Reps thought they'd always be The Establishment, and now that they aren't, they have no clue how to get back there (not that I want a return to the '50s, thank you, already been there). Guys like Bill Kristol shift toward the current Establishment; any principled conservatives are think-tank wankers. Never underestimate the awesome power of human stupidity & cupidity.
Random, that’s f’ing funny
'The desire to see yourself at the centre of a tumultuous era, where the end of a regime takes place...It’s no different than the apocalyptic cults surrounding extremist Climate Change activists, or the various “end of the world” sects throughout human history. This is perfectly natural behaviour.
In other words, narcissism and a longing for excitement as a philosophy of history. Alternately, one could say that even an apocalypse is preferable to living through more of the same.
Indeed. Americans don't want to be of any clown world accelerationism though. Some Republicans seemed determined to give it to them.
I suspect that there would be a substantial number who would be thrilled by a Clown World apocalypse out of sheer spite or a desperate desire for a climactic event to make life more entertaining or meaningful. The larpers who rioted over George Floyd seem like that sort of people.
As usual hitting out of the park analysis.I personally believe The Empire is at its height of its power and this bunch of empire operatives are kinda of the last functioning sort who manages anything with any level of decent standard. As for the fall of empire I believe US will be destroyed from within than some outsider doing to them but here is my question - "Is that the slow speed of decline of the empire would be because of other countries(expect China and to some extent Russia) not wanting to disturb the world order as elites of other countries do not want to disturb their own status in the pecking order?"
Great article as usual.
I obviously can't answer for Niccolo, but I think it's dangerous to play with fire. I would sooner avoid a tussle with the U.S. and its assembled flock of nation states if I could; it's better to remain independent than suffer grievous wounds, only to be absorbed by the Empire.
As written in Turbo-America, we would not be making so many enemies if it weren't a calculated decision. Would we really opine openly about ousting Putin if we didn't have better backing for the bluff than MAD?
The USA has a lot of slack at present because it is simply so far ahead of its competitors. This gives America the opportunity to experiment socially (e.g. ESG/DEI) because if it doesn't work out, it can put a stop to it before it does real damage.
Niccolo, you nailed it with the observation that "Americans, especially those on the populist right, need to realize that they live in the Empire’s Metropole, and that they are no longer a nation...America no longer belongs to you, but to its elites."
The further transformation of the USA now seems assured. A weakened version of the populist Right, a very Loyal Opposition led by De Santis, will likely function as a safety valve for discontent, while MAGA is pushed to the margins and then suppressed.
I believe Matt Christman had a tweet that said “dems are the normie party now” and I think he’s basically correct. The “silent majority” that would support even someone like Reagan is mostly 6 feet under. The average person was brought up on Howard zinn and has no concept of older American small r Republican virtue. It’s going to be extremely difficult to win on a right wing message given the state of the populace. Elite capture as cringe as that sounds is probably the only viable route
The centre of gravity has indeed shifted. The new norm incorporates transgender indoctrination of children and the abolition of borders.
There is no viable route. Civil war is not happening. Elite capture is not possible. The dissenting/dissident element needs to look at the survival tactics of the Afrikaners under ANC rule and prepare a suitable version for North America. A 'Helms Deep' or two.
The left has captured the means of cultural production so yes you’re right there will be no resistance, our children are indoctrinated
Yes, essentially. The one positive is that for decades, it was attractive for smart young people to hold progressive values to differentiate themselves from the cracker Reagan or bush supporting masses. I’m not going to delude myself into believing that zoomers are going to be a mostly conservative voting block. If you are a zoomer though it’s very hard to grow up thinking that there’s anything transgressive or intellectual about progressivism. It’s pure dogma echoed by every powerful institution with pure mediocrities as its biggest spokespeople. At the higher end (I’m not talking about Charlie Kirk) the contemporary reactionaries are absolutely outclassing progressives in terms of intellectual quality. They’re also more fun. If the most ambitious and smart 5-10% of zoomers get into it like previous generations got into communism or even Chomsky, it could have some unforeseen impacts
Yes sir (ma’am?), Curtis Yarvin’s my boy!
PS, stop smoking, bad for you.