For Europeans the result may be a pan-European identity as a complement and/or competitor to national identities. Some may not like it, but it sure beats Third World globohomo.
Sounds like it's time to revive Holy Roman Empire once again under Habsburgs and have Europe without nation states but different kingdoms united under one crown given by the Pope (not Francis).
There's certainly a secularized digital Christendom ring to this phenomenon, an Anglodom, for better or worse, owing to the American character and English language of this digital space.
Alliances among people who believe in national identity, in order to remove a transnational parasite, leaves a bunch of allies who understand each other better, and foster their individual cultures in their individual countries. Above all, they will be able to recognize and neutralize a common type of enemy.
Having a global immune system doesn't turn all organs into the same thing.
Mass propaganda and other social engineering tactics, this time from the American right, is going to cause new cultural shifts to counter the transnational parasite. You already see this with the "Maple Maga" movement shown in the article. It won't be as harsh as the globalist woke movement, but it's still diluting a national identity.
The only winning strategy in maintaining your unique culture is to wall yourself off from the rest of the world, and it's doubtful anyone will let you do that.
I miss the Isolationist party in the US. even though it predates my existence here, it sums up my views on how America should handle the rest of the world fairly well compared to the WorldEmperorGloboCap government style currently in vogue.
I mention it under the context of walling off the rest of the world.
"It used to be you would take your neighbor’s side against someone in the neighboring town, simply because you know him and he’s your neighbor. Tribes would declare total war for a slight against a member of their tribe, and they might know maybe a couple of prominent figures from your rival tribe, and God help anyone who is deemed to be sympathetic to the enemy."
This wasn't the historical norm, or you wouldn't ever see Polities and dense populations form. You look at any anthropological study, and it was a low level, tit for tat style justice if anything got started at all. Because tribes, towns, cities, etc all were reliant upon each other for trade, marriage, etc - everything was in balance - they often knew they couldn't do so. So, if something happened, there were maybe a few killings, a few kidnappings, and then things would be smoothed over with giving a few animals, maybe some territory, and a big ceremonious wedding. You can see this everywhere from the tribes of Africa to the Medieval kingdoms of Europe. The only variance is one of scale.
But, it is an important distinction because it changes how culture thrives, how we pursue the common good on a geopolitical level, how we view neighboring societies, a good (and healthy) us/them relationship that can still be overcome when necessary, and so on.
"Americans are a strange and unique polity, in that the nation is incredibly young and composed of multiple ethnic groups with more being constantly imported throughout its short history."
Maybe this is just quibbling over semantics, and you can certainly take it that way if you wish! But I would call America as an Empire, state, or country depending on context. I would never call it a Polity. Polity implies that it has one ethnicity, culture, idea of what the common good is (while also pursuing it), and a whole other host of things that Aristotle would hold to. It's a fairly loaded term, where as the others a not.
And this gets into why I wouldn't even call America a nation, as you go on to do. Because prior generations that term had bloodline, ethnicity, and cultural implications. I get that today is has (mostly) shed those and simply means the geographical area of a country and not the state. But then what is the Creek nation? The Cherokee nation?
This is why I think your writing goes on to be a little bit... off. You're writing about multiple different nations that have picked their ideological allegiances within the Empire of the United States. It's not that "a nation" is tearing itself in two. It's that an Empire is tearing apart because it refuses to accept that it is ruling over multiple nations, that have different concerns, cares, ideologies, religions, cultures, etc - and that the Empire has pushed a retarded vision in which they were told to pursue their own dreams on an individual level while also calling for globalism to united the whole world
This has obviously resulted in a crazy citizenry of the Empire, in which we are now seeing various people create their own Polities and movements. Some people want to be job stacking pirates. Some people think we'll be saved by robots. Some people go to Mars. Some people a neo-futuristic dreamland. Some fascist, some communist. Some traditional Catholics (such as myself) are trying to band together into Polities.
And some haven't even woken up to the changing world yet.
Anyways, it's a good essay! Don't take my TL/DR for anything but trying to be helpful criticism (or delusional ramblings on my coffee break!)
> This wasn't the historical norm, or you wouldn't ever see Polities and dense populations form. You look at any anthropological study, and it was a low level, tit for tat style justice if anything got started at all. Because tribes, towns, cities, etc all were reliant upon each other for trade, marriage, etc
Yeah, I got carried away with hyperbole here. I will update for accuracy.
Unfortunately the whole western world has become a branch plant of the United States and what happens there does affect us as much or more than domestic policy. For example, if the US government mandates electric vehicles, Canadians are going to get electric vehicles no matter what we want. Similarly our social media sites are all controlled by American companies. And US border vaccine mandates were a minor inconvenience for my family, but could have been a big problem if I needed to travel for work or we wanted to access US medical care.
I would also add that the US government can’t leave well enough alone and you get endless interference in countries that buck US preferences. For example you have ended up with situations where the US ambassador in places like Poland and Hungary openly allies with leftist parties. (Interestingly there was also a particularly bossy American Jewish woman during the Trump administration who loved issuing diktats to Poland. Hopefully he shows more respect this time considering the support he received from Polish Americans.)
This also isn’t exclusive to the right. Trudeau often talks as if he is running against Trump and the US right.
I didn’t read your link but I think it’s unfair to criticize the Freedom Convoy. It was a genuine Canadian movement of rural and small town Anglos, along with some ethnics (including some noteworthy Slavic influence, I’m happy to say). It had a genuine rural Canadian character: pro gun, pro military, pro Crown, ornery and difficult but also optimistic and in the end good natured. Think Don Cherry and Doug Ford.
There has historically been a lot of population flow between Canada and the US, so it isn’t necessarily illegitimate for Canadians to take inspiration from the US. The countries are historically and economically intertwined. Many of the people with both flags in their bios may have dual citizenship or other links.
This really seems like something that anti-globalists should worry about after they completely reconquered all of the powerful social institutions lost to the Left, and not a moment sooner.
I just sent this (below) out like an hour ago, and this is now the SECOND essay which takes a different angle (and does it much better). Reform is in the air I guess...
The Left's international solidarity was a double-edged sword for them. On the one hand, it allowed them to organize and agitate across borders. On the other hand, it made them and their policies too easy to recognize and fight effectively. The right did, of course, have to adapt to this, and adapt they did. But isn't that what culture is? A framework a community develops to help its members weather the hardships of life? To do that, a culture needs to be adaptable.
America brought a peculiar can-do attitude to the world stage, the sort that MAGA grew straight out of. As Nick Land pointed out recently, that's going to make America's war against global Leftistm far more palatable than what Europe will have to resort to. Europeans love to accuse Americans of being uncultured, but Europe hasn't really produced its own equivalent of the MAGA movement. What they do instead of adopting the exceptional American vitality is to lean as hard as they can into whatever the present version of their culture is. We saw that in France with the far-Left and center-Left parties forming a coalition against the RN. We're seeing this right now in Germany with the ongoing attempt to ban AfD from elections. We see it time and again with Russia constantly throwing its weight behind the unfathomably corrupt and inefficient Kremlin system that's been in place since the days of Peter.
There will no doubt be some sort of loss of cultural identity as MAGA copycats arise across the world, but I think calling it the knell of global cultural death is rather alarmist. I'm optimistic that it's the American can-do attitude that will spread rather than the imagery. The internet can only bleed over into real life so much, but bleed it will, and those countries that cannot adapt their cultures to retain some sort of uniqueness in the face of it will not deserve to retain that uniqueness.
Besides, is there really anything that sets Canadian culture aside from American culture besides, well, not being American?
> Besides, is there really anything that sets Canadian culture aside from American culture besides, well, not being American?
The roots of Canada followed a very different trajectory than the United States, and their institutions show that. A lot of the nuances of their society got flattened in the 1960's though.
The woke shall inherit the Earth! Some salient points but I don't think it's truly binary, just two arms of the same beast. It's my firm and well founded belief that the woke/maga dichotomy is designed to get everyone onboard with the Hegelian synthesis of the two: the extremities of wokism will either be dropped or swept under the rug but the maga camp will adopt their core ideas and drop their more right-wing aspects (has already happened with abortion, is beginning to happen with trans and we'll see what comes next -- probably immigration as Trump has no problem with legal immigration). It's critical to keep your eye on the prize in this colossal game of 3 card Monte: look at who backs all the players and what organizations are behind it all. Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, all the WEF young global leaders in Trump's cabinet picks and inner circle... It's all appearances, both sides are working towards the same agenda, there's no duality of choice both lead to the same outcome
Perhaps it might be a pyrrhic victory but I think that victory is still worth achieving because I think an organic (accidental) globalization under right wing hegemony permissive to cultural autonomy is preferable to the proactive and intentional globalization of the left wing that is currently trying to take our options away from us. Some cultures might lose and fade out, but you can't win it all.
While we labour under American dominance, I would put more stock in Nativist movements - they borrow what works, but they are still insulated by the advantages of having a majority monoethnic societies they fight to preserve. As pointed out by others, its the American problem of fitting their multicultural peg into a uniform polity hole - it cannot be done and a propositional nation can hold only so long as the proposition in place can draw on common cultural assumptions. Unfortunately American democracy is a distinctly Enlightenment-derived project, which only has purchase with Europeans and European-descended people.
Worrying about all of the problems with victory seems a peculiarly conservative behavior.
Guilty.
For Europeans the result may be a pan-European identity as a complement and/or competitor to national identities. Some may not like it, but it sure beats Third World globohomo.
Sounds like it's time to revive Holy Roman Empire once again under Habsburgs and have Europe without nation states but different kingdoms united under one crown given by the Pope (not Francis).
There's certainly a secularized digital Christendom ring to this phenomenon, an Anglodom, for better or worse, owing to the American character and English language of this digital space.
No. This is profoundly stupid binary thinking.
Alliances among people who believe in national identity, in order to remove a transnational parasite, leaves a bunch of allies who understand each other better, and foster their individual cultures in their individual countries. Above all, they will be able to recognize and neutralize a common type of enemy.
Having a global immune system doesn't turn all organs into the same thing.
Mass propaganda and other social engineering tactics, this time from the American right, is going to cause new cultural shifts to counter the transnational parasite. You already see this with the "Maple Maga" movement shown in the article. It won't be as harsh as the globalist woke movement, but it's still diluting a national identity.
The only winning strategy in maintaining your unique culture is to wall yourself off from the rest of the world, and it's doubtful anyone will let you do that.
I miss the Isolationist party in the US. even though it predates my existence here, it sums up my views on how America should handle the rest of the world fairly well compared to the WorldEmperorGloboCap government style currently in vogue.
I mention it under the context of walling off the rest of the world.
"The only winning strategy in maintaining your unique culture is to wall yourself off from the rest of the world..."
There are quite a few ancient cultures who would like a word with you. It does not have to be this absolute, and rarely has been.
Good essay. A few things.
"It used to be you would take your neighbor’s side against someone in the neighboring town, simply because you know him and he’s your neighbor. Tribes would declare total war for a slight against a member of their tribe, and they might know maybe a couple of prominent figures from your rival tribe, and God help anyone who is deemed to be sympathetic to the enemy."
This wasn't the historical norm, or you wouldn't ever see Polities and dense populations form. You look at any anthropological study, and it was a low level, tit for tat style justice if anything got started at all. Because tribes, towns, cities, etc all were reliant upon each other for trade, marriage, etc - everything was in balance - they often knew they couldn't do so. So, if something happened, there were maybe a few killings, a few kidnappings, and then things would be smoothed over with giving a few animals, maybe some territory, and a big ceremonious wedding. You can see this everywhere from the tribes of Africa to the Medieval kingdoms of Europe. The only variance is one of scale.
But, it is an important distinction because it changes how culture thrives, how we pursue the common good on a geopolitical level, how we view neighboring societies, a good (and healthy) us/them relationship that can still be overcome when necessary, and so on.
"Americans are a strange and unique polity, in that the nation is incredibly young and composed of multiple ethnic groups with more being constantly imported throughout its short history."
Maybe this is just quibbling over semantics, and you can certainly take it that way if you wish! But I would call America as an Empire, state, or country depending on context. I would never call it a Polity. Polity implies that it has one ethnicity, culture, idea of what the common good is (while also pursuing it), and a whole other host of things that Aristotle would hold to. It's a fairly loaded term, where as the others a not.
And this gets into why I wouldn't even call America a nation, as you go on to do. Because prior generations that term had bloodline, ethnicity, and cultural implications. I get that today is has (mostly) shed those and simply means the geographical area of a country and not the state. But then what is the Creek nation? The Cherokee nation?
This is why I think your writing goes on to be a little bit... off. You're writing about multiple different nations that have picked their ideological allegiances within the Empire of the United States. It's not that "a nation" is tearing itself in two. It's that an Empire is tearing apart because it refuses to accept that it is ruling over multiple nations, that have different concerns, cares, ideologies, religions, cultures, etc - and that the Empire has pushed a retarded vision in which they were told to pursue their own dreams on an individual level while also calling for globalism to united the whole world
This has obviously resulted in a crazy citizenry of the Empire, in which we are now seeing various people create their own Polities and movements. Some people want to be job stacking pirates. Some people think we'll be saved by robots. Some people go to Mars. Some people a neo-futuristic dreamland. Some fascist, some communist. Some traditional Catholics (such as myself) are trying to band together into Polities.
And some haven't even woken up to the changing world yet.
Anyways, it's a good essay! Don't take my TL/DR for anything but trying to be helpful criticism (or delusional ramblings on my coffee break!)
Great thoughts!
> This wasn't the historical norm, or you wouldn't ever see Polities and dense populations form. You look at any anthropological study, and it was a low level, tit for tat style justice if anything got started at all. Because tribes, towns, cities, etc all were reliant upon each other for trade, marriage, etc
Yeah, I got carried away with hyperbole here. I will update for accuracy.
Unfortunately the whole western world has become a branch plant of the United States and what happens there does affect us as much or more than domestic policy. For example, if the US government mandates electric vehicles, Canadians are going to get electric vehicles no matter what we want. Similarly our social media sites are all controlled by American companies. And US border vaccine mandates were a minor inconvenience for my family, but could have been a big problem if I needed to travel for work or we wanted to access US medical care.
I would also add that the US government can’t leave well enough alone and you get endless interference in countries that buck US preferences. For example you have ended up with situations where the US ambassador in places like Poland and Hungary openly allies with leftist parties. (Interestingly there was also a particularly bossy American Jewish woman during the Trump administration who loved issuing diktats to Poland. Hopefully he shows more respect this time considering the support he received from Polish Americans.)
This also isn’t exclusive to the right. Trudeau often talks as if he is running against Trump and the US right.
I didn’t read your link but I think it’s unfair to criticize the Freedom Convoy. It was a genuine Canadian movement of rural and small town Anglos, along with some ethnics (including some noteworthy Slavic influence, I’m happy to say). It had a genuine rural Canadian character: pro gun, pro military, pro Crown, ornery and difficult but also optimistic and in the end good natured. Think Don Cherry and Doug Ford.
There has historically been a lot of population flow between Canada and the US, so it isn’t necessarily illegitimate for Canadians to take inspiration from the US. The countries are historically and economically intertwined. Many of the people with both flags in their bios may have dual citizenship or other links.
This really seems like something that anti-globalists should worry about after they completely reconquered all of the powerful social institutions lost to the Left, and not a moment sooner.
I just sent this (below) out like an hour ago, and this is now the SECOND essay which takes a different angle (and does it much better). Reform is in the air I guess...
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/project-2026
The Left's international solidarity was a double-edged sword for them. On the one hand, it allowed them to organize and agitate across borders. On the other hand, it made them and their policies too easy to recognize and fight effectively. The right did, of course, have to adapt to this, and adapt they did. But isn't that what culture is? A framework a community develops to help its members weather the hardships of life? To do that, a culture needs to be adaptable.
America brought a peculiar can-do attitude to the world stage, the sort that MAGA grew straight out of. As Nick Land pointed out recently, that's going to make America's war against global Leftistm far more palatable than what Europe will have to resort to. Europeans love to accuse Americans of being uncultured, but Europe hasn't really produced its own equivalent of the MAGA movement. What they do instead of adopting the exceptional American vitality is to lean as hard as they can into whatever the present version of their culture is. We saw that in France with the far-Left and center-Left parties forming a coalition against the RN. We're seeing this right now in Germany with the ongoing attempt to ban AfD from elections. We see it time and again with Russia constantly throwing its weight behind the unfathomably corrupt and inefficient Kremlin system that's been in place since the days of Peter.
There will no doubt be some sort of loss of cultural identity as MAGA copycats arise across the world, but I think calling it the knell of global cultural death is rather alarmist. I'm optimistic that it's the American can-do attitude that will spread rather than the imagery. The internet can only bleed over into real life so much, but bleed it will, and those countries that cannot adapt their cultures to retain some sort of uniqueness in the face of it will not deserve to retain that uniqueness.
Besides, is there really anything that sets Canadian culture aside from American culture besides, well, not being American?
> Besides, is there really anything that sets Canadian culture aside from American culture besides, well, not being American?
The roots of Canada followed a very different trajectory than the United States, and their institutions show that. A lot of the nuances of their society got flattened in the 1960's though.
The woke shall inherit the Earth! Some salient points but I don't think it's truly binary, just two arms of the same beast. It's my firm and well founded belief that the woke/maga dichotomy is designed to get everyone onboard with the Hegelian synthesis of the two: the extremities of wokism will either be dropped or swept under the rug but the maga camp will adopt their core ideas and drop their more right-wing aspects (has already happened with abortion, is beginning to happen with trans and we'll see what comes next -- probably immigration as Trump has no problem with legal immigration). It's critical to keep your eye on the prize in this colossal game of 3 card Monte: look at who backs all the players and what organizations are behind it all. Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, all the WEF young global leaders in Trump's cabinet picks and inner circle... It's all appearances, both sides are working towards the same agenda, there's no duality of choice both lead to the same outcome
Perhaps it might be a pyrrhic victory but I think that victory is still worth achieving because I think an organic (accidental) globalization under right wing hegemony permissive to cultural autonomy is preferable to the proactive and intentional globalization of the left wing that is currently trying to take our options away from us. Some cultures might lose and fade out, but you can't win it all.
While we labour under American dominance, I would put more stock in Nativist movements - they borrow what works, but they are still insulated by the advantages of having a majority monoethnic societies they fight to preserve. As pointed out by others, its the American problem of fitting their multicultural peg into a uniform polity hole - it cannot be done and a propositional nation can hold only so long as the proposition in place can draw on common cultural assumptions. Unfortunately American democracy is a distinctly Enlightenment-derived project, which only has purchase with Europeans and European-descended people.
Interesting and prescient
Neo-Ciceronian Times talk about Whites being split into two ethnos now in America.
It's natural for the American Empire as a whole to also get involved in this.
The concept of a trans-national identity isn't all that foreign either - takes religions.
Nationalism has been dying for awhile anyway, the Right just had to catch up.