King of the Losers

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

Everyone knows the type. He's the guy who can date any girl in existence, but a year or two into a relationship he self-destructs when marriage enters the realm of possibility. He's the co-worker who should be two levels above his current status, but that violent temper and ego he can't keep in check pisses off the wrong person. He's the star athlete who always gets black-out drunk the night before a big game, and someone who is less talented but more disciplined bests him. A tragedy of wasted potential.

In contrast to the man who works his way up to his innate skill then contenting himself with his station in life, there's the type who is mildly successful, has a decent job and a respectable social life, but is capable of far more. He’s the type who, if he would just listen to what every successful man is telling him, if he would just step back and make an honest assessment of his behavior, his issues would be solved. He would finally ascend to where he can make full use of his talents. Instead, he moans about how his relationships never work out, how his boss is an asshole, and how the refs cheated him of his win. The same thing happens in a loop with every defeat, and he laments his plight with the same script over and over.

What's worse is his mild success leads him to have a following with lesser people, the type who are attracted to his defeatist, self-centered attitude. The ones who will welcome him to their crab bucket with the promise of support, sympathy, never needing to show more agency and never, ever, needing to change.

With President Trump's victory last week, lobbing bomb after bomb at the mythology of the 20th century with gleeful abandon, even his most loyal followers were shocked that he went that hard. While a lot of the executive orders will get shot down in the courts, and much of the legislation he wants rammed through will reach roadblocks, the last week was one of the most aggressive displays of power our country has seen in ages. He has shown no interest in being an old guy who's full of bluster, a flim-flam man on a reality TV show. He wants to be the real deal and has shown surprising resilience in his elderly age to learn and adapt.

The dissident sphere has always been a cantankerous bunch. Hanania is not wrong when he says the right has very high disagreeability, as can be seen from the relentless infighting that happens in this sphere. Dissidents, while obviously having its share of idiots, tends to also be more intellectual and curious than the average person. There's a sort of pride in thinking you've acquired knowledge through your intellect, bringing into focus what most are unable or unwilling to see. It's also true there is a decent sized contingent that gets an ego boost from being edgy, and hard-right shitposting is the best arena to do it.

As your status in social life changes, within a few years going from the fear you would be banned from the internet entirely or even jailed to have a man in the highest office of the land wanting to do 75% of what you’ve been screaming from the rooftops to do. The sort of opinions that once would remove you from all respectable company now gives you access to the keys of power. It's a shock. It's also shown the sort of person who can manage this new prestige. The outsider now has a lot of the same views as the average person due to the Overton Window making a rapid realignment. The edgy poster with his hot takes is finding his apolitical neighbor saying the exact same thing. The power of passionate rhetoric and social connections has caused a cascade preference among the general population. In the age of Social Media, this is the first win of this sort, done against the best efforts of every established institution. Randos on Twitter fought against a media juggernaut with billions in resources, forced the hand of a tech billionaire, and won. Schizos with podcasts battled against prestigious academics and won. This should be a great victory.

That is, if your ego doesn't get in the way.

On the first day of Trump’s presidency, you start to see the contrarians who can't stand being in the realm of normal politics. To them, it's like the general population walked into their club and destroyed the vibe. You have posters who Trump would cuck and refuse to release the J6 prisoners to saying he should have kept them in to radicalize people. You have people who said Trump would never rescind Birthright Citizenship say that the Executive Orders were lame. You have old-school wignat guys who have been outcasts since the 20th century unimpressed with, without a doubt, the most pro-white president in our lifetime. Then, of course, you have the one-note people who blame everything on a certain middle eastern ethnic group say he's just controlled opposition. The old guard of conservatives, of course, are complaining about norms being broken, but no one cares about them anymore.

This isn't to say you're a crab-bucket loser for giving Trump reasonable criticism. He's going to make bad decisions, support policies that help his tech-bro friends but not us, and let his temper get the best of him. People on his side are going to have their share of disappointments, and being a mindless Maga-head will make you just as bad as those who uncritically praised Bush's war on terror (I was one of those idiots). A single man is not going to be our savior, but a single man has already plowed a path for us, and it’s on us to use it.

Also, old habits die hard, and it's likely many of them will change direction, learning that they may not be getting hoodwinked this time, that there is real potential for improvement without total collapse. There's a possibility, though still remote, that we could enter a new era of prosperity as the excesses of the 20th century mythology gives way for something new. When you have watched politics for decades and were continuously lied to by politicians who pretended to be on your side, there's going to be some bitterness and hesitation. This is natural. The past, as in two weeks ago, is already a foreign country. It will take some time to adjust.

This is the first time dissidents can really work out in the open without dealing with the inevitable violence of Antifa and other government supported goons, or lawfare by the Managerial Class. Before, both the competent builders and the egotists were on the same field, solely because neither of them had any freedom of movement. That's not true anymore, and we're already starting to see informal hierarchies forming, built by counter-elites that, while not as hardline, most certainly read our stuff and nod along. A massive vacuum formed where legacy media lost nearly all its clout except with the true believers. The boomers who are stuck in the feel-good story of the civil rights era are dying off, and radical academic institutions are mired in a civil war over the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Soon, a clear bifurcation is going to form between those who take opportunities to try the same old thing again with his sycophants versus those who understand this new playing field allows for new strategies and advancement. We're going to see the visionaries who are willing to make changes, both small and large, that slowly cascade the entire west into reconstruction. We will also see those who point at every setback and smugly tell everyone they told them so. It's between those who can admit they were wrong and adapt and those whose views flutter with whatever gives them instant engagement.

A lot of people once respected are going to prove themselves unworthy of the task, while many once nobodies will ascend to shocking heights. One of the hardest things to do is to let go of the chaff who ended up only wanting to feel unique and edgy, and taking his followers with him. We want strong, charismatic, capable leadership who has both their personal and political life together. The new era will require someone who not only demands the best from himself, but the best from his followers. The online commentators and pundits prone to heavy infighting and purity spiraling need to accept they will never be the top dog, but they can work for the cause of a man with a common vision.

When you see a useless cabal of self-pitying, temperamental chaff, let them go. It doesn't matter if you followed him for a year or decades, he can only just drag you down. His success in the past does not prove future success, and we can't waste our time on people unwilling to adapt to new realities, letting their personal flaws sink their vision again and again. Like the talented but self-defeating man in your life who has potential he’ll likely never realize, you need to grow immune to his gripes and whining. Let him fall back into obscurity. Let his followers, too immature to demand more of themselves, keep their outrage and edgy hot takes. Let him be King of the Losers.

This is just the beginning, and victory will depend on the visionaries who step up after Trump leaves the limelight. They will work in education, whether in building parallel institutions or using their new-found freedom to push for radical change in our schools. They will work in family formation, creating covenant communities that are resistant to the homogenizing force of modernity. They will work in politics as the views once said over anonymous accounts and dark rooms become campaign slogans. They will create works of art in areas once totally controlled by their most ferocious enemies. There's practically nothing that's not available to those who want to make their ideals, once thought impossible, become reality.

The way to reach the contingent that wants to self-ghettoize is not to engage them in their negativity and echo-chambers, but to reach your hand out, showing him a better way. It’s the man who through his actions show a better way, who cherish his optimistic view of the future, and is willing to put the sweat in to make it happen that will release them from their self-administered shackles.

You’ll notice I didn’t give any examples in this article. That’s by design, because the time for drama, negativity, and other mentally wasteful pursuits is over. There is no point in being outraged anymore, no point in giving their arguments the time of day. It’s over. Their only power lies in sucking your attention away. Kill that, and either they can come on board or soon the internet will forget they ever existed.

Worst case, maybe they’ll end up being right. Maybe everyone will fail, the progress of the last week coming to nothing, culminating in the destruction of everyone's work and retreating again to the ghetto. Maybe it's inevitable. Still, only a coward refuses to leave the basement once the storm passes, and only a natural slave convinces himself all efforts are futile. Now's the time to show what we're made of and be thankful to live in such an exciting time.

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