There may be some people that read this blog and think “you’re criticizing the Left for doing these things, but the right-wing and American government do some of them, too. Does it not backfire for them? Why do right-wingers get a pass?”
And, in fact, it does backfire for them. It has been backfiring for decades, and has damaged them in the culture wars. Yes, they haven’t constantly lost electorally, but they’ve lost the mindshare they used to have, and the faith in the establishment. It’s a price paid in National Will.
What does America look like without anti-war counter-culture from the Vietnam War? What does America look like if people have higher trust in the national institutions, in families, and so on? There was, apparently, once a time when people talked of men of science, industry, and government working together to build a better world, but sadly, at that very time, that combination did not deserve that level of trust.
How many of these movements and shifts are reactions to betrayals that were not deserved?
To hold power over the long term, to create something that lasts, it isn’t enough just to seize control. One must be worthy.
The Right, in many ways, has not been. And they think that’s about Christian morality, but it isn’t really, not as they conceive it.
All this talk of “becoming worthy” makes you sound like NRx, my bro.
If I recall correctly (and I may not), one of the most famous emperors of China used deception and murder to achieve his rule - but under him, the people and the Empire prospered.
Less dramatically, and far more modern, Lee Kuan Yew and the People’s Action Party have used lawsuits and other means to suppress their political opposition. But what have they achieved? Did they exercise virtue in statecraft? Did the people under their rule prosper?
(Though even that modern example has had its risks - there is some worry that with LKY no longer at the helm, there may have been mismanagement of government funds at the very top.)
Not only must the people be worthy, but the structure and ideology must be worthy, too. Systems, interlocking, that must find those who are worthy and elevate them, reward virtue, and minimize vice.
The Neoreactionaries are wrong, though that does not mean their opponents are right.