Rape of the Locke

[excalibur]

Snippets from a longer piece.

Spot on quite often.

... That is, until Trump, whose America First project won over a number of erstwhile Democratic voters who found the ideological transformation of their Party, which they could sense by the end of the Obama Administration, was both actual and troublesome.​

​

Without being able to articulate the nature of the change, necessarily — but recognizing it nonetheless — these voters began to gravitate toward a policy parcel that seemed to make sense for the working class and middle class: an investment in American business and bringing businesses back to the US; de-regulation; securing the border to prevent cheap labor from undercutting American workers; a cessation of constant oversees adventurism, which kept the foreign policy mavens and the military-industrial complex flush and active in their noxious attempts to re-make the world in their own images. This return to first principles, embodied in the catchy “Make America Great Again,” was muddied by both the left, who described it as “nativist,” and the neocon right, who, worrying about its so-called “nationalism,” recognized that it was hostile to the kind of globalist worldview proponents of the Neo-Conservative wing of the GOP — essentially Wilsonian Democrats in foreign policy who happen to prefer lower taxes and more business-friendly policies (including open immigration) — embrace. In short, what Trump was offering was populism — and elites in both parties despise populism with all of their being, giving, as it does, a voice to the filthies, whose credentials are simply not in order, and whose threat to upset carefully maintained hierarchies is not only unsavory but presumptuous, especially given their lack of social status.​

​

All of this finds its metaphorical manifestation, I’d argue, in the E Jean Carroll case: there is simply no way to defend yourself against a rape charge nearly 30-years after the alleged incident took place — particularly when, as in this case, the accuser admits in her deposition that she didn’t say no, that she didn’t scream, and that she didn’t report the incident to police. Hell, she doesn’t even know with any specificity when the alleged incident happened! And yet a New York City jury, which was always going to be politically hostile to Trump, found the former President liable in the case.​

​

And we all knew they would, especially if they could establish plausible deniability for acting purely as political partisans. They wanted to punish Trump. And by allowing this ridiculous case to be brought, the courts let them. The verdict was practically baked in once the case was allowed to proceed. The populist ogre has now been legally vilified; order of the elites, with their rules for what democracy must look like, has been restored; the ends justified the means.​

​

This use of the legal system as punishment — lawfare — goes beyond mere political vindictiveness. This is, in fact, common practice post-Trump. It is the normalizing of political prosecution by partisan actors using the legal system as cover in a way that appeals to American sensibilities, especially the aesthetic, “rule of law,” which we’re conditioned to believe, in a neutral sense, we still live under. But we don’t. These aren’t real trials. They’re simulacra. We’ve become a Potemkin democracy. Nothing is as it seems. All is power. And power is all.​

​

...​

​

This is not the country you were born into. In fact, it is rapidly becoming its direct inverse.​

​

Up is down. Black is white. Meathead is Archie.​

​

Solidly into Obama’s third term — with Biden but a mumbling turnip doing precisely what he’s told to do by activists behind the scenes — it has become almost pedestrian to hear of dubious legal cases being pursued, always unequally, always by either a partisan DOJ or partisan state DAs. That is, by leftists who have been quite intentionally insinuated into positions of power from which they can best affect social disclocation — largely by fiat or by weaponization of process. We’ve seen this tactic repeat itself over and over again, rendering itself into a recognizable pattern: January 6 defendants are held without bail while BLM rioters are set free and never charged; Trump is the target of persistent lawfare, while our Intel Agencies and news media join forces to protect Hunter Biden from scrutiny before an election; certain mass shooters have biographical details revealed by law enforcement and media almost instantly while others receive the protection of those same institutions; “misinformation” and “disinformation” charges somehow always protect government narratives; and some whistleblowers are cheered on as heroes while others are characterized as seditious. The long march, it’s fair to say, has been wildly successful.​

​

The goal here seems to be to present us with the veneer of our own freedom — the familiarity of nostalgia — while eluding or simply tearing down every guard rail we’ve put in place to keep power from consolidating completely. And so it will eventually consolidate. Because leftism is incompatible with the liberalism upon which this country was founded and framed, there can be only one winner.​

​

And right now, the winner is not those of us who wish to remain free and autonomous individuals. The center cannot hold.​

​

This can’t go on much longer, I fear. Something has to give.​

​

​

​

****​

​

​

Rape of the Locke

Western liberalism is being replaced. What comes next is illiberal to its core.

jeffgoldstein.substack.com