https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=23764
For generations now, the political system has been selecting for people who defend the interests of he system and the people in it. You cannot get a job at any level of politics unless you are useful to the people in the system. The entry points of the system, primaries, elections, staffing jobs, are all designed to filter out people who could be unhealthy for the system and select for those who will defend the system. Even if a reformer sneaks in, they are surrounded by antibodies of the system.
This is something the paleoconservative thinker Sam Francis recognized with the conservative movement a million years ago. As soon as they decided to engage in democratic politics, they would be forced to trade their conservative principles for access to the system. Otherwise, they would be shut off from the system. Over the years conservatism has traded everything away. They are now a shuffling husk that staggers long behind the Left living on scraps.
This is the inevitable crisis of liberal democracy. Those “liberal principles” that are supposed to constrain the excesses of democracy end up becoming obstacles to democratic reform. On the other hand, a genuine effort to reform the system from outside is framed as a threat to liberal principles. Trump immediately became Hitler, the great bogeyman of liberalism, solely on the grounds that he was a creature that existed outside the liberal democratic system.
That is the real lesson of the Trump years. There is no way to reform liberal democracy from the inside, as it has evolved to prevent reform. It is impossible to reform from the outside as liberal democracy is defined by opposition to outside pressure. That means the only reform possible is replacement, which requires a rejection of both liberalism and democracy as anything more than expedients. Real reform begins with the rejection of the system and its moral framework.
Personally, I doubt it.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/alma/60?lang=eng
Yea, great has been your neglect towards us. And now behold, we desire to know the cause of this exceedingly great neglect; yea, we desire to know the cause of your thoughtless state. Can you think to sit upon your thrones in a state of thoughtless stupor, while your enemies are spreading the work of death around you? [...] Yea, even they who have looked up to you for protection, yea, have placed you in a situation that ye might have succored them, yea...
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And I will come unto you, and if there be any among you that has a desire for freedom, yea, if there be even a spark of freedom remaining, behold I will stir up insurrections among you, even until those who have desires to usurp power and authority shall become extinct. Yea, behold I do not fear your power nor your authority, but it is myaGod whom I fear; and it is according to his commandments that I do take my sword to defend the cause of my country, and it is because of your iniquity that we have suffered so much loss. Behold it is time, yea, the time is now at hand, that except ye do bestir yourselves in the defence of your country and your little ones, the asword of justice doth hang over you; yea, and it shall fall upon you and visit you even to your utter destruction. Behold, I wait for assistance from you; and, except ye do administer unto our relief, behold, I come unto you, even in the land of [Washington, D.C.], and smite you with the sword, insomuch that ye can have no more power to impede the progress of this people in the cause of our freedom. For behold, the Lord will not suffer that ye shall live and wax strong in your iniquities to destroy his righteous people.
Of course, Moroni's epistle depends on there actually being people willing to stand up and fight for their country, which doesn't seem to be the case for us. I'm actually optimistic that there are, but lacking leadership, they don't know what to do or where to start. On the other hand, there's a great deal of virtue-signaling about a great deal of hoaxes in our society; those who should be fighting for the preservation of our freedoms are instead wringing their hands over the hoax of racism against black people, or celebrating the fact that tens of millions of invaders from south of the border have made us literally the victims of a massive act of war and conquest. I'm on the other hand pessimistic listening to General Conference, that seems to suggest that hunkering down and trying to preserve what righteousness we can in our families is the order of the day, and that we'll have to be delivered by the Lord if we're to be delivered at all, rather than the Lord suffering the righteous to fall so that the wicked may be judged, as Moroni alludes to..
Sigh. When I was younger, this was all very theoretical, and academic. Actually living through it and seeing it play out before my eyes to my people is infinite more difficult than I ever imagined it would be. And seeing my people willfully going to the slaughter, so to speak, blind to reality and believing in wishful thinking delusions is the most difficult part of it all.
https://www.takimag.com/article/when-fools-rule/
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