The Nostalgia Loop

Guest Post by The Zman

Note: A good example of a small project in community building is this small documentary being made about the plight of small ranchers. The people behind it are the sorts of people dissidents should support. They are not the sort of people to wash the feet or take the knee. If you have a few bucks to spare, make a donation to a worthy project by and for our people. It would be nice to see them reach their rather modest goal this week and maybe move past it. Thank you in advance.

One of the strange things that turned up quickly in the Obama administration was the odd sense of nostalgia about the whole thing. Lost in all the gaudy rhetoric about the seas rising and the birds chirping for the black messiah, was the references to old slights and past failures. It was not explicit, but it was there when you looked at their agenda as a whole. It was clear that a big part of what was animating them was a commitment to revisit and settle all those old scores.

Vengeance has always been a big part of the America Left. This is due to it being a spiritual enterprise, rather than an ideological one. They are atoning for past sins, so addressing those past sins is always part of the agenda. For blacks, vengeance is part of their identity. They dream of exacting revenge on white people. Still, if you looked carefully, the Obama agenda was more like a nostalgia tour for the aging radicals who managed and underwrote his political career.

The best example is health care. This was a fresh wound for the Left and they were determined to have a do-over, no matter the cost. The distinguishing feature of that period was the total lack of a plan to engineer a new health care regime. Instead, they just replayed the early 1990’s, but slightly different. The Iran initiative was a re-do of the Carter years. This time, they would do negotiations right. The same was true for their Russia reset. They were spiting Reagan.

It is not just the Left that has been trapped in a nostalgia loop. The so-called conservatives curdled into a Bill Buckle mystery cult. They spent the Bush years comparing Bush to Reagan. Then they spent the Obama years pretending Obama was Carter and their next Reagan was due any minute. Even Trump has gone in for the nostalgia politics. His MAGA idea is right out of the 1980’s and he was all set to run a Morning in America campaign this fall.

You can’t help but notice that the current ructions look like a cheesy reenactment of the riots of the late 1960’s. There is a distinct lack of authenticity. For starters, the black riots have as many white people as blacks. In fact, the whole foot-washer thing is mostly old white people reminiscing about the old days. There is a very strong Baby Boomer vibe to the anti-racism thing. They are pretending nothing has changed since their youth as a way to feel young again.

The young people involved in this stuff are more like hobbyists playing a role in a historical reenactment than people with legitimate grievances. The black looters are certainly people from the ghetto getting some free stuff. The people organizing the actions are bourgeois bohemians living in the suburbs. In fact, they are upper class members of the ruling class. Instead of using peasants for a human chessboard, they are using morons for a game of urban riots.

The nostalgia is most evident in the racial component. They are so caught up in the role, they are incapable of seeing the absurdity. We just had four days of funerals for a drug-addled black criminal. All of the corporate oligarchs are imposing anti-racism on their customers, even refusing service to them if they are not enthusiastic enough for the cause, but we supposedly have a white racism problem. We’re literally worshiping black people right now, but we supposedly have a racism problem.

It is not just race either. Feminism has been caught in a nostalgia loop for quite some time now. The whole campus rape culture business was just a remake of the war on chauvinism from the 60’s and 70’s. In the original, women in polyester pantsuits complained about men treating them as sex objects. In the remake, it was frumpy coeds complaining about horse-faced guys named Haven Monahan ravaging them in their fraternity. Same bodice ripper, new scenery.

Go back to the Bush years and the anti-war movement was just a bunch of oldsters reliving their youth through college kids they hired to play them in the remake of the Vietnam protests. They even used the same language. Days into Afghanistan, they declared it a quagmire. Note too that as soon as Bush left the scene, the protests came to a screeching halt. There were no anti-war Left in the Obama years, despite the fact he was droning the Muslims on a daily basis.

Step back and look at the last couple of decades and what we seem to be experiencing is the end point of American Progressivism. They have run out of great moral crusades, so they are rebooting old franchises. Just as Hollywood has collapsed into a series of remakes and reboots of old ideas, the political elite is reduced to replaying old political battles, but with better graphics. Of course, they make sure they are the hero in all of these remakes, just in case that was not clear the first time.

There is also the fact that this ruling elite is probably the most spoiled and pampered elite since the French Revolution. Scan the resumes of the people at the top and you don’t find any signs of struggle. Even the financial elites have ridden the warm thermals of a rigged system. Jeff Bezos thinks he is Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but in reality, he is the product of a system that grants massive government subsidies and protections to a select group of insiders and friends of the system.

As a result, this ruling class operates on the assumption that there is never any consequence to their actions. The rioters did not burn down their houses or their businesses last week. They are not going to be forced into struggle sessions at their office or college job. None of this affects them. Again, like the aristocrats forcing peasants into a game of human chess, they get to take it all in as bemused spectators, enjoying the good life as an insulated ruling class.

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