Scandalicious¶
Who could have imagined that Obama’s second term would prove so bullish for popcorn sales? There’s a moment of pressure-cooker catastrophe beyond which the very idea of ‘keeping a lid on things’ becomes hysterically comical. The lid isn’t even in the kitchen, it’s blasted through three stories of apartment ceilings and compromised the structural integrity of an entire housing block. The media has no choice but to join the feeding-frenzy — under scandal-max conditions that would look ridiculous — and besides, they’ve been scandalized.
Unlike euphoric conservatives, still less ecstatic Republicans, neoreactionaries are motivated to stay calm and focused. Runaway scandal meltdown only furthers Dark Enlightenment when it overspills party-political point-scoring to corrode the foundations of the regime.
When government is understood realistically, as a complex ideologically-saturated institution distinct from the superficial vicissitudes of electoral politics, it is revealed as an essentially deep-partisan project (the Cathedral). The government is not commanded by progressives, it is progressive. It’s not ‘us’, it’s ‘who, whom’. Once this is exposed in detail, and lucidly comprehended, the neoreactionary case has been made in its entirety.
That the Cathedral is indistinguishable from radical
democratization does not at all imply that it is democratically
answerable, through electoral mechanisms. As its project of
spreading the religion of democracy to the whole world enters the
phase of scandal-prone dementia, exhibited equally in both
domestic and international affairs, two features become blatant (=
scandalous)
(1) Mature democracies outgrow the last vestiges of electoral
control (because the retarded masses can’t be trusted to vote for
more democracy always and everywhere, they require structural
‘guidance’ by those enlightened people and institutions who know
how best to empower them).
(2) Since eschatological dreams do not convert into practical
policy, escalating dysfunction drowns-out coherent purpose,
resulting eventually in fanatically-motivated total disorder
(because doing what can’t possibly work is an unconditional
imperative). It’s consummate deontology made visible. Good
intentions float sanctimoniously above the ruins.
The Cathedral is completing its self-fabrication as an autonomized, morally-frenzied lunatic, extensively and intensively paperclipping the world for democracy, and thus destroying it in order to save us. As scandal erupts from everything it touches, this fundamental sociopolitical reality is becoming ever more difficult not to see.
ADDED: Some (disappointing) Koolaid-drinking from Richard Fernandez: “That is probably the single most disturbing thing about these scandals. The Valkyr-fueled rage has undermined the political mechanisms and trashed the processes through which persons of disparate political persuasions of the nation are supposed to come to an understanding.” — The obvious problem with this? There’s only ever been one ‘understanding’ you’re permitted to come to, and that’s progression to the left.