All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Over at the American Mind, Michael Anton has a long essay about the desirability of re-drawing the borders between some of the states and also allowing the states more independence to live their own way. On paper it sounds great. But how does it happen with the Left in charge of the federal government?
The only way I see this happening in reality is for one or more of the strong Red States to nullify the most unconstitutional federal laws and then make it stick. I’m looking at you Ron DeSantis.
Recently I watched a discussion on the Jack Murphy Live show that featured Michael Anton and Curtis Yarvin. If you are unfamiliar with either one of them, I’ll say a few words about them.
Michael Anton was a former senior national security official in the Trump administration but is best known for writing the “The Flight 93 Election” back in March 2016 under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus. He received graduate education at Claremont Graduate University where he learned from faculty that followed in the tradition of noted academic Leo Strauss. Anton is a social conservative and a pretty pessimistic critic of the current state of American politics. With the failure of the 2020 election Anton does not believe the Republicans will ever win the presidency again.
Curtis Yarvin is a computer scientist who also has become known for his political beliefs which some have called “neo-reactionary.” Yarvin believes that government should be almost like the management of a publicly owned corporation with the CEO taking the place of the “king” and the citizens as stockholders. He also had a pseudonym under which he wrote his thoughts, Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin is extremely unenthusiastic about democracy in general and doesn’t hold out much hope for the American form at this point in its evolution.
Anton and Yarvin are both very smart guys. They’re both academics in a sense. Both of them would be part of the elite if they happened to follow left-wing ideologies. Because of what they do believe they are pariahs in our present political climate. I think listening to them in the discussion both of them are extremely pessimistic about the United States escaping from the control of the progressive corporate, bureaucratic, academic complex.
So why listen to these guys talk? Well, that’s a good question. Neither of them has an action plan to reverse the damage and move things back to a normal country. There isn’t a website where I can join the underground and fight for the day when we take back the country. I think I read them so I can feel like I shouldn’t just give up. As long as I know that there are other intelligent people who don’t accept the idea that there is no use resisting the woke state, I feel like I can figure out a way to hold onto the good things that used to be the basis of our way of life.
I can think of one line that Yarvin made pretty close to the end of the video. When asked what he thought people should do he said no one should try to use force to stand up to the feds alone. That would be suicide and it would accomplish the opposite of what you intended. That would be sort of what happened on January 6th. The government would destroy you and use it as a propaganda argument for destroying everyone else they didn’t like. Instead, he said we need to say no!
In other words, we have to figure out a way to reject their program. We need to build up organizations, businesses, groups that don’t depend on their approval. There’s nothing new about that message. That’s the old “build your own platforms” line. But what he is saying is that it’s the only way. And we need everyone on our side, all 70 or 100 million of us to form a single organization to say no to what is going on. And that’s the only encouragement I take from all this. If two guys like Anton and Yarvin sort of agree about where we are and what we must do then basically the whole gamut of people who aren’t leftists agree. We have to stop trying to do everything at once and take concrete steps one at a time. First order of business, we pool our resources and identify one important thing we can get done and do it. Maybe we decide that the most important possible thing is crushing Amazon. And maybe we buy the votes of Democrat senators and congressmen to make it happen. But we move heaven and earth and we get it done. That alone would be an enormous shot in the arm for our country. Suddenly a million small stores all over the country would find business that had been strangled out of existence by Jeff Bezos.
But whatever it is we decide to do; rein in the social media companies or re-establish freedom of religion or outlaw child transgender mutilation; we need to win a battle and win it decisively. Donald Trump and Peter Thiel are renegade members of the elite. They are the ones with the resources to organize new platforms. Anton and Yarvin are members of the intellectual class who would disseminate the ideas and help implement the actions we want to see happen. We are to some extent their customers.
We want to hear more and soon about any real plan to get something new started. Anyone who has the ambition to lead a movement has a once in a lifetime opportunity right now. We’re ready to be led. There is a nation looking for a savior. We could make this a great country again. If that doesn’t happen soon then we need to leave.
Michael Anton and Curtis Yarvin are sort of the polar opposites of the intellectual world that opposes the Woke establishment. If you are interested in what the intellectuals think about our current mess these two men will sort of cover the territory and listening to them disagree about what it means and where it is going might clarify your own thinking. But if you don’t like that sort of thing don’t touch it. I think it’s about two hours long and I’ve only gotten through the first thirty minutes.
My sentiments are with Anton’s point of view. But Yarvin’s cynicism and pessimism is something that I hesitate to ignore. I read his substack and it by turns, angers, depresses and sometimes makes me think. Yarvin is a renegade elitist. But he is at least honest about it. But so is Anton in the sense that he is an academic and a government apparatchik. But Anton’s sympathies are with us. Yarvin doesn’t really have any sympathies. Mostly he is full of scorn. I’m going to watch the whole thing and then I might write a post about it.
Michael Anton is an interesting character. Having been Publius Decius Mus of Flight 93 Election fame I like to see what he has to say. Here he receives a copy of Bronze Age Mindset from Curtis Yarvin ( also known as Mencius Moldbug) and actually manages to read it through. Read his reaction.
https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/are-the-kids-altright/
Apparently the unneutered millennial men are pretty pissed off about the world we are handing over to them. Can’t say that I blame them. This place is pretty awful.
Now I guess I have to try reading it. Is there no end?
Michael Anton wrote the Flight 93 election back in 2016 and he is one of the people who recognized how important it was to beat Hillary Clinton. He has served in the Trump White House and he is a Claremont guy. I think he is one of the smarter guys out there and he’s on our side. I found this podcast very interesting.
Publius Decius Mus (aka Michael Anton) seems to always be a go-to guy for every important argument. And birthright citizenship is no exception. Listen to Tucker Carlson question him on the history of the 14th Amendment and why it has been used to justify giving the children of illegal immigrants automatic citizenship.
Very useful information to have when you want to answer some idiot like Paul Ryan.
Michael Anton (aka Publius Decius Mus) very, very rarely underwhelms. This is no exception. He lays out the strategy of the left and the uselessness of the NeverTrump Right.
None of the indictment is novel or complicated. The bottom line is the Left has abandoned any recourse to objectivity, due process or even sanity. All’s fair in love and war and everything is war for the Left. Character assassination, perjury, intimidation, harassment of wives and children and any amount of media manipulation are not only acceptable but mandatory. The #metoo playbook requires the accused to curl up in the fetal position and allow every kick from the sisterhood to land squarely. And it requires every good Republican loser to join the accused on the floor for his well earned kicks. And right on cue Flake curls up and presents his “head” for kicking.
But, surprise, surprise, neither Kavanaugh, Trump or even McConnell played dead. They decided to fight back instead and they even won.
Anton says that the bright spot in this nightmare is that the orgy of dishonesty against one of their own (Kavanaugh is a Beltway insider) is bound to wake up many of the establishment Republicans from their stupor. He thinks this tawdry exercise is providing an example to the spineless Republican leadership of what it’s like to stand up to a leftist lynch mob and win. Maybe next time a psychotic leftist harpy accuses a man of some crime of passion that no one in his right mind would want to commit on her the Republicans will wise up and laugh her out of the Capitol Building. Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet on it, the worthless worms.
Michael Anton (aka Publius Decius Mus) performs a fisking of Bret Stephens’ paean to untrammeled immigration. It goes without saying Bret doesn’t come off very well. Can you imagine Stephens used to be considered conservative? It’s a long article and I doubt Bret even deserves the honor of this much attention but Mr. Anton does cover the bases very thoroughly. I would say this article is preaching to the choir but if you are interested in just how crazy the house conservatives at the New York Times have become check out Anton’s dissection of exhibit A.
Chris Buskirk interviewed Michael Anton ( link ) about his tenure in the Trump Administration. There are a number of interesting things in the interview. But toward the end they talk a bit about Anton’s opinion of Donald Trump. As opposed to the usual disillusionment we typically hear from former administration members Anton is extremely positive about his former boss. Here are the more important ones I gleaned from the audio interview.
“He was just right about the issues that mattered right now and that’s why I supported him.”
“I knew him reasonably well … wasn’t having dinner with him … was a staff guy … but was around him a lot over the course of fifteen, sixteen months.”
“Liked him enormously, respected him enormously … there is a patriotic core to him that burns very hot.”
“He’s in it for the right reason, is doing it for the right reason … he didn’t have to do any of this.”
“He’s governing as President almost purely out of love for this country.”
Both Buskirk and Anton were educated at Claremont-McKenna College and were pupils of Harry Jaffa who was associated with the Claremont Institute. I have found the people associated with the Claremont Institute to be extremely aware of what is currently at stake in our political situation and perceptive about the actual value of the various players on the political landscape.
Long time readers of this web site know I am a big fan of Michael Anton or as he was known when he authored the Flight 93 Election, “Publius Decius Mus.” He, Angelo Codevilla and other members of the Claremont Institute have thrown their support behind the Trump presidency and its attempt to save the country from the globalist cabal of democrats and establishment republicans who want to turn it into their private fiefdom. Anton went to work for the Trump administration and now is re-entering private life. And he is leaving on very good terms with the President and his administration despite what the press contends. I found this article interesting.
Michael Anton Addresses His Critics, Affirms Support for Trump