Conservatism is dead. This is a class election not an ideology election.

The Flight 93 Election revisited By Vox Day September 14, 2016

Publius Decius Mus is taking a considerable amount of flak from conservatives because he is directly over the target, which is the staunchly pusillanimous way in which they have betrayed America and Americans for at least 50 years, and the way some of them are stilltrying to do so:

Conservatives have shouted since the beginning of Trump’s improbable rise: He’s not one of us! He is not conservative! And, indeed, in many ways, Trump is downright liberal. You might think that would make him more acceptable to the Left. But no. As “compassionate conservatism” did nothing to blunt leftist hatred of George W. Bush, neither do Trump’s quasi-liberal economic positions. In fact, they hate Trump much more. Trump is not conservative enough for the conservatives but way too conservative for the Left, yet somehow they find common cause. Earlier I posited that the reason is Trump’s position on immigration. Let me add two others.

The first is simply that Trump might win. He is not playing his assigned role of gentlemanly loser the way McCain and Romney did, and may well have tapped into some previously untapped sentiment that he can ride to victory. This is a problem for both the Right and the Left. The professional Right (correctly) fears that a Trump victory will finally make their irrelevance undeniable. The Left knows that so long as Republicans kept playing by the same rules and appealing to the same dwindling base of voters, there was no danger. Even if one of the old breed had won, nothing much would have changed, since their positions on the most decisive issues were effectively the same as the Democrats and because they posed no serious challenge to the administrative state.

Which points to the far more important reason. I urge readers to go back through John Marini’s argument, to which I cannot do anything close to full justice. Suffice to say here, the current governing arrangement of the United States is rule by a transnational managerial class in conjunction with the administrative state. To the extent that the parties are adversarial at the national level, it is merely to determine who gets to run the administrative state for four years. Challenging the administrative state is out of the question. The Democrats are united on this point. The Republicans are at least nominally divided. But those nominally opposed (to the extent that they even understand the problem, which is: not much) are unwilling or unable to actually do anything about it. Are challenges to the administrative state allowed only if they are guaranteed to be ineffectual? If so, the current conservative movement is tailor-made for the task. Meanwhile, the much stronger Ryan wing of the Party actively abets the administrative state and works to further the managerial class agenda.

Trump is the first candidate since Reagan to threaten this arrangement. To again oversimplify Marini (and Aristotle), the question here is: who rules? The many or the few? The people or the oligarchs? Our Constitution says: the people are sovereign, and their rule is mediated through representative institutions, limited by written Constitutional norms. The administrative state says: experts must rule because various advances (the march of history) have made governing too complicated for public deliberation, and besides, the unwise people often lack knowledge of their own best interests even on rudimentary matters. When the people want something that they shouldn’t want or mustn’t have, the administrative state prevents it, no matter what the people vote for. When the people don’t want something that the administrative state sees as salutary or necessary, it is simply imposed by fiat.

Don’t want more immigration? Too bad, we know what’s best. Think bathrooms should be reserved for the two biological sexes? Too bad, we rule. And so on and on.

To all the “conservatives” yammering about my supposed opposition to Constitutional principle (more on that below) and who hate Trump, I say: Trump is mounting the first serious national-political defense of the Constitution in a generation. He may not see himself in those terms. I believe he sees himself as a straightforward patriot who just wants to do what is best for his country and its people. Whatever the case, he is asserting the right of the sovereign people to make their government do what they want it to do, and not do things they don’t want it to do, in the teeth of determined opposition from a managerial class and administrative state that want not merely different policies but above all to perpetuate their own rule.

If the Constitution has any force or meaning, then “We the People” get to decide not merely who gets to run the administrative state—which, whatever the outcome, will always continue on the same path—more fundamentally, we get to decide what policies we want and which we don’t.

Conservatism as we have known it since Reagan is dead. Whether the Alt Right or NeoTrumpism or something else will ascend in its place is presently unknown, but we can be fairly certain that conservatives will never win another national election, thanks to the demographic transformation they supported, and, in many cases, still support.

Shed no tears and spare no pity for them. Like every ideology that stands in opposition to observable reality, their eventual irrelevance is assured, it is merely a question of time.

The True Blue Conservative Club-Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York

“I say Will old man I believe we are on the horns of a dilemma” mewled a diffident David Brooks as he sipped from his sherry and straightened his silk cravat. He was sitting in the book lined study of his club. The True Blue Conservative Club of the Upper East Side. Founded by the original Henry Cabot Lodge and John Jacob Astor at the dawn of the Republic it is the epicenter of the Conservative movement in the United States. “I fear that we have not only lost the nomination. I fear that we have lost the party.”

“Balderdash Brooks. Don’t be such a ninny. The Republican Party belongs to us. Even my retarded son knows that. Trump is a fad. An aberration. Like not wearing spats. You know it will all blow over soon enough once he is destroyed in the general election by the wretched harridan.” Will adjusted his well- worn rump on his well-worn armchair. Thoughts of Trump agitated him. It cause his anus to constrict. Much as the sight of his headmaster used to do before he called him in for discipline. It was not a pleasant memory.

Another voiced piped into the conversation. “I don’t know I think David might be right” whimpered Bill Kristol as he marked up the large globe with new countries he needed to talk about on FOX news to lay the ground work for America to invade and nation build. Equatorial Guinea looked like a possibility. He had always disliked Italians.

“Trump seems to have triumphed. Even the delegates that we thought we could steal have backed away. Young Sasse has been rebuked by those witless burghers in his benighted home state of Nebraska or wherever he is from. They voted to censure and primary anyone who refused to support the Republican nominee. I doubt anyone would risk their sinecures to fight on against Trump if their seats are at risk.”

“Hurrrumph” growled Will as he moved flem from one part of his sinus to the other. It was a gift he had. Having a calm exterior will being a roiling mass of flem underneath. “Don’t go all wobbly on me Kristol. You are only here on sufferance you know. We only let Jews in to count money and influence their fellows who control the banks that the Trilateral commission does not yet control. So be silent while your betters converse. Sasse is not an issue. When the press digs into his past and find out his history of being in charge of the Congressional pages when they were molested by Hasbert and Foley his career will be at end. If we have to expend him now it is for the best. Cannon fodder at the best my dear Yiddish chap. No. We will continue the fight. We are taking names of those who support these upstarts and fools. We drum them out of the party and have the party we were always meant to have. Now call a Mexican to bring my car around. I have to go home to my estate to flog my manservant.”

The True Blue Conservative Club-Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York

“I say Will old man I believe we have a problem” huffed David Brooks as he sipped from his sherry. He was sitting in the book lined study of his club. The True Blue Conservative Club of the Upper East Side. Founded by the original Henry Cabot Lodge and John Jacob Astor at the dawn of the Republic it is the epicenter of the Conservative movement in the United States. “I fear we might have fallen out of touch.”

“Not all of us. I know that Denny Hastert is in touch. In fact he got convicted of touching. What exactly do mean Brooks?” George Will adjusted his bow tie. It was his trademark. He first wore it when he was a young whipper snapper on the McLaughlin Group when he was hired to condescend to Carl Rowan without seeming to be racist. It is an art. “Not this damnable Trump fellow.”

“I fear that we must take into account what the hoi polli think my dear fellow. We cannot simple pish and tosh at them. He did in fact win the nomination.”

“We need not listen to them. Peasants. They are revolting.” George rearranged his copy of the Economist and his collected works of Edmund Burke. He had not read the book since college but it was a very serviceable coaster.

“I know that they are somewhat odious but still revolting is a little strong. If you soak your cravat in a strong toilet water you will not have to endure their odor of hot dogs, beer and nationalism. I know it works for me.” Brooks shifted in his chair. His legs have always bothered him since he first glimpsed the perfect creased pant leg of Barack Obama. He could never really sit still since that fateful day.

“I will not submit to the whims of the mob. I agree with young Ben Sasse. He is young but quite sound in his views. It is more important that we stay true to our principles than that we win an election. Most importantly that only the right sort get power. Not a short armed vulgarian reality television star. Never.”