Even San Fransicko supports freedom of assembly

There's a group on the West Coast called "Patriot Prayer", headed by a guy named Joey Gibson. He could pass as Puerto Rican. His group heavily utilizes traditional patriotic aesthetics--the American flag, the Gadsden flag, etc--and is now prominently signalling the "no nazis, no antifa" thing.

While my knowledge of the organization is admittedly limited to the research I've done in the last hour, it looks to be a mild flavor of Alt Lite, less 'objectionable' than even someone like Mike Cernovich. The group has a free speech rally planned in San Francisco in a week. It may get the Boston treatment.

Here's to hoping it does. The more normies see mobs of bloodthirsty thugs from antifa and BLM clashing with cops, the better.

When there's a sacrificial contingent from the right to target, the optics end up being bad for us. When that sacrificial contingent turns the other cheek, they look like pathetic losers. When they respond tit-for-tat, the public has to dig through alternative media outlets to find the tits (!) while the major media reports on and shows the tats again and again without proper context.

When that contingent is a phantom one, however--as was the case in Boston and Dallas this weekend--the maniacs end up attacking the police and one another:




Those optics are great. The assertion that they are somehow speaking "truth to power" is strained to the breaking point. It starts dawning on normies that the mob is actually speaking power to truth.

There is still a Silent Majority out there who dislikes the stifling intellectual--and increasingly, physical--totalitarianism of the cult Marxists. They're skittish, sheepish, and when confronted, supine. But they're out there, apparently even in California!

A recent SurveyUSA poll germane to this discussion confirms as much. It was conducted days after Charlottesville and a week after the Damore Affair, but prior to Boston and Dallas. The poll was conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area--not exactly fertile ground for the ideas on the dissident right. On the question of whether or not the Bay Area is becoming more or less tolerant of differing opinions ("not sure" responses are excluded, n = 500):

It's worth disclaiming that I'm operating on the assumption that most people polled, even in San Francisco, think intellectual tolerance is a virtue rather than a vice. That may be a naive assumption.

On whether or not Patriot Prayer group should be allowed to hold its scheduled rally:

There's little difference by race. Blacks are modestly less supportive of allowing the rally than non-blacks are, but not by much. The larger gap is by sex. The poll doesn't provide information on marital status, but it's a safe bet that most of that blue bar for women is coming from those without rings on their fingers:

Women are more conforming than men. Win the Chads and the Thots will follow.

As Z-Man lays out in his most recent podcast, we have to be smart in the way we appeal to normies, but now is not the time to let up.

Overwhelming bipartisan support for sanctions on new axis of evil

An understandably exacerbated Dan:

It's all so easy. Populism is a winning concept. Trump can just tell the Republicans what to say and they only have to follow.

But no, they have to have more third world poor, more stupid wars, more deficits, and some tax cuts for the rich.

The sanctions on Russia in Congress were unanimous. Is there anyone who cares a fig about that?

Dear God, I must be living in a simulation. Such desire to lose continuously cannot be possible.

To leftist plaudits, Evil in 2017 includes welcome white face

My sentiments being in general agreement with Dan's, it must be pointed out that sanctions--at least against the new axis of evil--are populist!

From Reuters-Ipsos polling, the percentages of Americans, by partisan affiliation, who support and who oppose sanctions on North Korea, Russia, and Iran. The balance of respondents said they "don't know" (n = 4,033):

The identical "oppose" figures for Republicans and Democrats isn't a transcription error. There is grassroots bipartisan opposition to, well, opposition to sanctioning countries whose combined annual military spending is 14% that of the US.

Even those aged 18-29 are broadly in favor, with 56% supporting to 17% who oppose.

The physical infrastructure of the American Empire may have to come crumbling down before popular support for maintaining it does.

Reconfiguring the American political landscape

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has occupied the upper chamber for as long as I've been alive. Every six years, Kentucky Republicans dutifully return him to office, and his colleagues have honored him as the ultimate Establishment Republican by awarding him the position of majority leader.

For those who want to see the Stupid Party burned to the ground and replaced by what Trump was groping for during the presidential campaign, the following graph should be heartening. It shows the percentages of Reuters-Ipsos poll respondents, by partisan affiliation, who approve* of president Trump and of senator McConnell (n = 26,772 and 5,127, respectively):

Their overall approval ratings are nearly equal, with Caesar enjoying an edge of less than 3 points on Brutus. Trump gets there on the backs of Republicans. In contrast, while nearly half of McConnell's support comes from non-Republicans, scarcely half of Republicans support him.

Trump is no longer a novelty. He's been in office for eight months and he's been the most talked about person in the world for years now. For all his trials and tribulations, his political vision is replacing that of McConnell and his coterie among the red deme's rabble.

Some of those who called themselves Republicans five years ago no longer do so even though their high opinion of McConnell hasn't wavered. And many of those who couldn't stand McConnell and wouldn't wear a scarlet R five years ago, still can't stand McConnell today but do now consider themselves Republicans on account of their president.

* The Trump poll asks about "approval", the McConnell poll about "favorability". "Mixed feelings" responses are excluded.

Get Z Trump supporters were far more than Clinton supporters (and slightly more so than Sanders supporters)

As we wrap up with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation's surveys of high school students in 2016 (a sincere thanks again to Sid for pointing it out), we'll look beyond the strong preference for Trump over Clinton among non-Hispanic whites and look at the enthusiasm gap among those expressing a preference.

There's nothing edgy about being a pawn of the power structure, every major branch of which supported Clinton without reservation. The choice is between defiance, self-confidence, and reclamation on the one hand and perpetual, humorless tsk-tsking on the other. How many young people want to devote all their creative energies into finding different ways of saying "that is not okay"?

The primary survey asked students about their voting plans for the 2016 general election. Most chose the option "not eligible" on account of not being eighteen by November 8. There were 14,712, however, who would be of age on election day.

The following graph shows the distribution of votes among whites who either supported Trump or Clinton by how they described their voting plans:

It's worth reiterating how uninspiring Clinton was. The distribution among those who supported either Clinton or Sanders by the same:

Trump still revved the engine even harder than Sanders did. The same among those who supported either Trump or Sanders:

That Sanders wins across the board is a little misleading here, since preferences for Republicans were spread across several candidates while preferences for Democrats were theoretically spread across three but in actuality between just two (O'Malley's support is reported as "0%" at all levels of intention--even Christie and ¡Jabe! do better than that!).

Unfortunately the survey doesn't offer any insight into how Gen Z would've voted if the contest was between Trump and Sanders.

Deus Vult

The Nazism and the swastika have to go. A modest suggestion for a replacement:

- The Nazis mostly killed Europeans. The Crusaders mostly did not. Repelling Saracens is relevant. Conquering Celts is not.

- Many of those who make up the Alt Right's prime recruitment base had grandfathers and great-grandfathers who fought the Nazis. Vanishingly few are descended from those who fought the Crusaders, and those who are have to go back anyway.

- The Crusades were about reclamation. The Nazis were, after a short time, about conquest. Effective ethnostates work. Colonial societies, not so much. The Crusades fit into a framework of white nationalism and the "14", but not one of white supremacy and the "88". The latter fits a Nazi framework, and it's a disaster.

- While the martial aspect of the Alt Right is masturbatory--at least for now--the combative imagery is still important. Warfare in the 12th century lends itself much better to the virile virtues--strength, honor, courage, mastery--men are grasping for today than warfare in the 20th century does. This is awe-inspiring. This is nauseating.

- Christianity is fecund. Vague spirituality or outright atheism is not.

- The Crusades evoke a sort of pan-Europeanism. The Nazis evoke civilization-destroying European civil war.

- The Templars' ultimate undoing was the work of an Establishment power structure--both the Church and the State--that putatively had the same objectives as the Crusaders while in reality had been working to destroy them for decades. There's a sharp resonance in that.