The Peculiar Partisans of Ostentatious Obedience

Democrats Were Told to Love Kamala, and They Do

“They have succeeded, and put over their country an insolent tyranny, made up of cruel and inexorable masters, and that too of a description hitherto not known in the world. The powers and policies by which they have succeeded, are not those of great statesmen, or great military commanders…Accordingly the spirit of their rule is exactly correspondent to the means by which they obtained it.”
- Edmund Burke [Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791¹]

This insane real cover of New York Magazine celebrates Kamala, whose grandmother once said some Indian equivalent of “Bless your heart” which involved referencing a coconut tree.

In mid-July America was treated to an incredible spectacle: our Gerontocrat-in-Chief Joe Biden broke up with the country via Tweet, announcing that after “winning” an entirely non-competitive primary he would not be pursuing another four years in office. Though he did not give a concrete reason, it was obviously due to his inability to perform the job, which is not stopping him from staying in office until the end of his term. While Biden was still MIA, the Democrat Party, which should have been thrown into chaos, was remarkably orderly. At breakneck speed all of their bigwigs and luminaries came together to support Vice President Kamala Harris. Within 36 hours she had the pledged delegates to be nominated in the first round of of the Democratic National Convention, assuring that no democracy would get in the way of their defending of Democracy™. Even letting the “inner party” decide was too much for them, it was the inner-inner party, which seemingly doesn’t even include former President Obama. As Edmund Burke once wrote, “The usurpation no longer seeks plausibility, it trusts to power.” Suddenly, the wheels were spinning and the liberals were learning that their memes work from New York Times articles about how their memes work. These people often remind me of a scene in the show Arrested Development where everyone in the family keeps bringing up the same thing with Michael and he says, “Is there like a chat room you all use?” Except it isn’t a chat room, it is just believing Democrat politicians and their sycophants in the media. Some phrase called “Kamala is brat” gained prominence which I still don’t understand but I guess they are playing up her being a petulant child, and in this final rebellion against rational adulthood that is a good thing. One way or another “brat summer” apparently advertises a campaign for President of the United States, not sausages for the barbecue…how American has fallen.

The peak of all of this is the New York Magazine cover above, which Matt Taibbi referred to as the “Everest of Cringe.”

These are strange things to observe. The sudden Kamala-mania seems fake. One wonders how Democrats could have so little pride as to go along with this. One would call it “astroturfed,” except no one is pretending it is grassroots: by all accounts this is the elites imposing this candidate top-down on the party. It only makes sense when you realize they love this. They have been relieved of the burden of responsibility.

When the elites failed to admit the many reasons Trump won in 2016 [the great majority of which reflect elite failure] they began pulling this crowd from one manufactured panic to the next. Kamala is the ultimate culmination of the NPC-ization of the Party. For the Russiagate > men have periods > covid > Black Lives Matter > 1/6 was worse than 9/11 > vaccines > Ukraine people, it is time for the test for which, unknowingly, they have been studying for almost a decade. They passed with flying colors. This is their Winston Smith moment: loving Kamala Harris is the Party’s final command. And they do. There were perhaps times when they were uncomfortable in the knowledge that they were living by lies, when they were affirming that men could get pregnant or that 400 pound women are beautiful and healthy or whatever latest nonsense they were told to swallow. That time is over. They are proud of their blind faith and obedience. What was once owed to God is now owed to the Mandarins, to the “they” Joe Biden refers to as being in charge. Democracy is too dangerous. Its form must remain for ceremonial purposes, but it is vestigial. Our state will be a dodo proud of its unused wings.

Takei, who of course was famously put in a literal concentration camp by the Democrats, could have just said “I like them all more than Trump/Vance” or “The VP isn’t a big deal” but instead said what used to be the quiet part out loud: he understands he is supposed to be obedient.

For the rest of us, this is all too much. The most distressing thing is that this is primarily authentic, though only among the most hopelessly brainwashed members of society. It is easier, or at least less depressing, to imagine cynicism or conspiracy, but for the majority of enthusiasts and the media it is not. They want nothing more than to be ruled, and hopefully to play some small part in managing that rule. So long as it is not Trump, they will take as a ruler who will have them. They are the trees of the parable:

Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon. [Judges, 9.14-15, KJV]

The selection of Kamala somehow feels like the final insult to our intelligence, of course like it was every time before. Still, we need to take a step back for a minute. This is a hard article to write for a couple of reasons. The first of which is that it isn’t particularly chronological. The much bigger issue is that as near as I can tell we are in uncharted territory. Though I can find several historic events that are adjacent to this, the exact situation is a new one. If it was Trump’s supporters deciding democracy is hopelessly broken and we need a god-emperor, that would fall right into classical political theory, our exact point in the “cycle of constitutions” of Polybius Book VI. But people accustomed to freedom and political rights deciding power needs to be ceded to an incompetent Mandarin class under the guise of defending democracy is unprecedented, to the best of my knowledge.

It’s true that the over-educated have aligned with financial interests to mislead the masses in the past, and that often a veneer of democracy covers bureaucratic control, but with Kamala’s selection the mask is removed. These people could sing “Please Let Me Work on Maggie’s Farm.” Optimates may have had Plebeian partisans who were against giving themselves power, but at least Rome’s Patricians were strong and brave and often genuinely noble. Those that this faction want in power are a new nobility of vaccinated blood and cat-soiled pantsuits. How could anyone support this new ruling class? They may lack the qualities of Rome’s Patricians, but certainly share their faults. We are horribly abused,

“They ne’er cared for /
us yet: suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with /
grain; make edicts for usury to support usurers; repeal daily /
any wholesome act established against the rich; and provide /
more piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor. /
If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there’s all the love they /
bear us.” - First Citizen
[Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, 1.1.70-76]

To again reference the great conversation between Michael Tracey, Matt Taibbi, and Walter Kirn which was also in my last article, Taibbi says, for Trump’s faults, he would love to go back to “just” having a shitty President to write about, you know, corruption and bad policy decisions and that sort of thing. However, Taibbi, a man rarely lacking for vocabulary, says he cannot really put a name to what has happened since 2016, but it isn’t electoral politics like in the past. It is indeed the case that some sort of cabal of bureaucratic insiders, financial interests, tech companies, the media, and ridiculous academics have sought to control our society because they have determined any form of fair democracy is too dangerous, all with the support of the myriad of pawns who would make Orwell proud of his skill at prognostication. And now, it is in the open:

While this group spent the whole first Trump Administration on various forms of conspiracy mongering, lawfare, and sabotage, with the Joe Biden campaign in 2020 it was enough to oppose Trump in favor of this elderly, staid authority figure who cared too much about covid to campaign but was vigorous behind closed doors. Few were excited, but they didn’t have to be: there was a “pandemic” on and anyway by hook or crook the Democrats were getting their man in. Few went around pretending anyone was excited about Biden. That, at least, is easy enough to understand.

On the other side, there are many valid criticisms of Donald Trump, and he did in many ways short-circuit our country’s more conventional politics, but he is undeniably the result of a democratic process. Sure, as Michael Tracey consistently points out, there is a cult of personality surrounding Trump that ignores his positions and relies on fantasy, not his record, to explain or predict his behavior [and of course, the Democrats are the same way about Trump but in the opposite direction.] It should be mentioned that, with the exception of Trump’s support for Ukraine funding, about which they are generally denialists, his supporters will commonly disagree with his policies or decisions and publicly say so, even if they then make up absurd excuses for him. Regardless, there was still opposition to him within the party.

Republicans had a real primary, even though Trump did seem annoyed by it and didn’t participate in debates. Sure, candidates besides Nikki Haley dropped out sooner than usual because Trump managed to pull a bit over 50% in early contests. But along with a horde of “also-rans” there was Nikki Haley representing the neocons and Ron DeSantis, who, though the had a neocon foreign policy in many ways, represented a conventional Republican “responsible” and socially conservative government [albeit with more of a willingness to use government than has been common in the party over the last decades.] These are two leading party members, a former and current governor, who challenged Trump. There was also Vivek Ramaswamy, a classic “ideas man” candidate who brought meaningful debate into the primary. The field was as strong and serious as any in recent years, which is to say it was a ship of fools, but still, on paper it had major political figures qualified to be President. I was able to write a 10,000+ word guide to the foreign policy of the candidates, and though they all sucked to a greater or less degree, there were substantive differences in policy and approach. For constant accusations of Republicans being a “cult” of Trump, almost 50% of them in early states supported other candidates and then ultimately got together behind the winner, as one does.

Meanwhile, on the other side, all competition was suppressed, no debates were held, and some primaries were outright cancelled. It is normal to have a limited process with an incumbent President, but less so with a historically unpopular one who everyone with eyes knows is failing. And of course, not just failing at being President, but in the sense that his time on Earth is rapidly running out. Actually cancelling a primary was, in my memory, unheard of. The only current or former elected Democrat who was willing to run against Biden was a relatively unknown Minnesota Democrat Congressman named Dean Phillips, who was mostly protesting the lack of a primary and the extreme age of the President. There was also Robert F Kennedy Jr who was trying to move us towards the future by reminding us his uncle was President back in 1963, and whom the party relentlessly suppressed due to his vaccine skepticism and concerns about the power of his last name among their many elderly members. The orb lady self-help guru Marianne Williamson was more safely ignored. The three of them were it. I don’t want to make too much of Biden refusing primaries, which incumbents will try to do if possible, but in retrospect to many it looked like a mistake to not make Biden show he was up to the job he currently has. One imagines everyone knew that, despite that the Boomers have largely suppressed leadership growth among Democrats since 1992, one of the few major politicians in the party, such as Woke Caesar Gavin Newsom, could have had a serious chance of unseating Biden in the primary. Whether it was planned or not, it’s another win for the right wing conspiracy theorists that they got him through the primaries and placed someone else.

To the Democratic base seeking protection from the masses, this was all fine. To the more skeptically inclined- and bear in mind only perhaps 20% of American adults are enthusiastic Democrats, when you consider non-voters, lesser evil voters, third party voters and the like, as well as Republicans- it was obvious that history’s stuffed corpse was unlikely to make it to 2028. This brings us to another important point: this group is commonly called “shitlibs” because they will shamelessly say anything, but we have to consider that they were actually deceived until the debate. After all, just because Biden is an old man whose “stutter” came back doesn’t mean he is incompetent [of course that could only be caused by cognitive decline and that behavior wasn’t stuttering anyway.] All the lapses we were shown though, those were dishonest editing, “cheapfakes!” Republicans are just bullying a guy with a speech impediment. Republicans are mean, we Democrats are the nice party, you can tell by how nasty we are to anyone who disagrees with us. All is well.

And then, suddenly it wasn’t. We can only speculate on how many Democrats knew something was wrong but are sheep who were too scared to say and how many were genuinely shocked. This is like covid, where when they said it could be treated like a cold they didn’t admit they had previously lied, they simply said it had become that way now. Granted, Biden, who wasn’t fit to be President in his prime and was in clear decline in 2020, had fallen much further by July of 2024. Having him run again was an insane decision in the first place, if this wasn’t the plan. The sane among us saw this decline the whole time. He was getting lost on TV. The thing is, to those of us aware of the situation, the debate wasn’t that bad. This was the Joe Biden we knew. Every time before we were surprised to see him looking alert with his black methed out eyes, somehow mostly holding it together. But to the liberal base it was some sort of great awakening, and well, as you know, Biden was out in no time.

What is incredible, though, is while the Republicans thrashed about having spent their convention attacking a guy who ended up not being the candidate, many in the Democrat base took glee in what a fast one they said the Democratic leadership had pulled, though they were themselves deceived in the supposed scheme. They somehow don’t believe the DNC was already deceiving them about Biden’s fitness, but also it was a plot perfectly implemented, and they consider themselves proud dupes at the hands of some brilliant cynical genius. There is something I’ve noticed in ancient histories, which is that a lot of plans require a general’s best troops, but when a plan specifically calls for a general’s worst troops, you’re about to read something fucked up. These are those worst troops. They are happily the untrained peasants you send to the wrong gate so your real soldiers can get in while they’re being slaughtered. Fortunately, it is an honor to die for Kamalot.

Honestly, it is giving the Democrats a pretty large benefit of the doubt that this was a scheme at all, and not a desperate Plan D made possible by the acquiescent nature of their party. It seems clear they expected to carry Biden over the finish line again. And lest they try to mislead you, there was no signalling to the inner or outer party that this was coming These are leaked DNC footnotes from only a couple of weeks before the palace coup:

Mere days before Democrats had the joy of not questioning Kamala, they were not allowed to question Biden.

The enthusiasm for the supposed bait and switch is where I feel we enter uncharted territory. Though one should always be able to find a historical parallel, maybe we have reached the level of technology where this can only be explained by dystopian fiction. This is a really high degree of brainwashing that was not possible before this part of the Information Age. You know, when it is out with the old King in with the new King, “please don’t notice this man was wearing an iron mask five minutes ago” is one thing, because it is monarchy anyway. However, to be the democracy faction whose entire shtick is saving Democracy™ and to take this in good spirits is something else. Still, there is a near parallel in Rome’s transition from the Republic to the Principate.

The nearly forgotten Book 52 of the underappreciated historian Cassius Dio is an excellent work of political theory, rarely mentioned by historians or political scientists. Here we see Octavian Caesar with his closest friends and allies, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Gaius Cilnius Maecenas.² Both men advise him about how to manage Rome following their victory in the most recent civil war. At this point, there had been around a century of repeated civil strife in the empire, since the murder of the Gracchi introduced bloodshed into Roman domestic politics. After a long speech in favor of democracy from Agrippa, followed by a speech in favor of a kind of monarchy by Maecenas, they decide to keep the appearance of the old forms while keeping power with Octavian. In many ways his power was de facto, at times only having the role of People’s Tribune [broadly equivalent to a representative in the United States, but also quite different.] The ancient constitution still existed, but wasn’t really in effect. The reason for this mixed decision is that they didn’t want all they have done to avenge Caesar to seem self-serving but also feared returning power to the people. Agrippa advises that if Augustus openly takes sole power the world would believe that their stated motives were,

“A mere screen behind which we were all the time striving for power and that we were using the people and the Senate as a facade, with the aim not of freeing them from those who plotted against their liberties, but enslaving them to our rule. In either case, our action would stand condemned. For who will not be angry when he observes we have said one thing, and then finds that we mean something different. Surely he will hate us more bitterly than if we had revealed our ambitions from the very beginning, and aimed directly at the monarchy.” [52.2]

That is what one would think, but Romans were not partisans of the American Democratic Party. This is, of course, exactly what the Democrats did, publicly and without shame. The entire premise of their campaign was that Donald Trump would end Democracy™ and that by November, January 6th and saving Democracy™ would be the only thing anyone was talking about. Then, of course, they held a non-competitive primary and openly replaced the elected candidate Joe Biden with Kamala Harris, who had not received a single delegate.

Even Democrat insiders did not believe that Democrats would do this or that the party members would go for it. There were countless articles in the roughly three week campaign against Biden about the options the Democrats had to replace him, once the dam broke at the debate and last week’s fake news was today’s obvious reality. Here is just one article from the venerable Democratic strategist James Carville, published in The New York Times on July 8th,

“The jig is up, and the sooner Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders accept this, the better. We need to move forward.

But it can’t be by anointing Vice President Kamala Harris or anyone else as the presumptive Democratic nominee. We’ve got to do it out in the open — the exact opposite of what Donald Trump wants us to do.

…he needs Democrats to make the wrong moves in the coming days — namely, to appear to rig the nomination for a fading president or the sitting vice president or some other heir apparent. He needs to be able to type ALL CAPS posts about power brokers and big donors putting the fix in. He needs, in other words, for Democrats to blow it.

We’re not going to do that.

We’re going to nominate a new ticket in a highly democratic and novel way, not in the backrooms of Washington, D.C., or Chicago.”

Of course, this is just what they have given Trump. Now, you could say that Carville is washed up and no longer an insider, and that is fine, but once again, it was all of them. I don’t remember seeing anyone actually advocating to go directly to Kamala with no public input. He finishes it off with this gem,

“A superdemocratic process — the opposite of what Mr. Trump and his MAGA minions would do — is how we’re going to honor that wisdom in our own “Will democracy prevail?” moment.”

“Mr. Trump and his MAGA minions” being the ones who held a real primary [which admittedly they perhaps would have avoided if they could, but the Republican Party is institutionally healthy enough to not allow it.] Further, why would Trump and his minions do that if Trump had to stand down? Who would they do it for? Regardless, the point is, Carville viewed it as something the public would not accept and that further it is a giveaway to Trump because of how bad it looks, and he was sure they wouldn’t do it. A day earlier, in another NYT editorial, Ezra Klein said of Harris, “To anoint her because it would minimize conflict would be madness.” He further notes,

“The cliché used to be that Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. In recent years, Republicans have fallen apart and Democrats have fallen in line. But a fear of disorder can become a pathology all its own. Some problems cannot be solved without opening yourself to uncertainty. Some information cannot be surfaced without a bit of chaos and conflict. We have all had seasons in our lives in which we lost control, only to discover new strengths and possibilities. As it is for people, so it is for parties.”

Surprisingly genuine wisdom, both political and personal, given the source. They certainly have fallen into a pathological fear of political disorder within their party [while being strangely comfortable with riots as long as they attack businesses and have no clear political goal.]

What we ended up seeing was the most rapid consolidation of elite opinion since by some unknown device lockdowns and “social distancing” were decided upon and implemented. This probably will all look bad to the perhaps 70% of voters who are not hardcore Democrat partisans [and a lot of unenthusiastic people vote for both candidates in any election] but I think even the coup plotters are surprised that their partisans are this pathetic. They must be wondering if they have not broken them too badly to be useful subjects [they have, of course.] That said, if the Democrats read their Burke [they don’t, of course] they might have some idea what is going on. He saw this in the worst partisans of the French Revolution,

“Nothing seems a surer antidote to the poison of fraud than its detection. It is true the fraud may be swallowed after this discovery; and perhaps even swallowed the more greedily for being detected fraud. Men sometimes make a point of honour not to be disabused…we cannot act on these anomalies in the minds of men. I do not conceive that the persons…can be made much the better or the worse for anything which can be said to them. They are reason proof.”

They are most certainly making it a point of honor to not be disabused, in their belief that this was a planned stealth coronation as a political dirty trick and that this shows the genius of their masters. They are, as ever, completely shameless, going so far as to press the message that Trump is “scared” to debate Kamala because he won’t schedule a debate until after they nominate her, given that he already wasted his time debating someone who turned out to not be the nominee [there is speculation the Democrats held the debate so early in case of this eventuality, something I doubt.]

What then, is their plan for the Queen of the Duped? Bear in mind, this woman is an absolute moron, whom Tucker Carlson memorably and accurately described as being like “the world’s worst kindergarten teacher on LSD.” Well, they got off to a strong start, applying their identitarian politics to white people in a way that maximally weaponizes cringe:

As well as this “White Dudes for Harris” event, which was a resounding success in terms of raising money from celebrities and others among the dumbest men in America. It has been pointed out if conservatives of any sort started a whites only group not only would the media lose their minds, but they would be investigated by Federal law enforcement. Of course, Kamala is primarily a women’s candidate, so they also had what has been called “Karens for Kamala,”

I won’t subject you to the risk of watching the video through morbid curiosity. Suffice to say I saw another short video of this Arielle Fodor explaining how to gaslight your uncle about the government coming for his gas stove, and she spoke in a way you wouldn’t speak to an infant. Apparently she is a “gentle parenting” guru. Notice they got insufferable soccer lady on here too.

They are also reaching out to Gen Z:

That is a sitting Congressman. I notice that Takei also said “understand the assignment” which must be something the kids use in a broader sense. They are also still going with “defend democracy.” As ever, these are new frontiers in shamelessness.

More than anything though, they have gone with what some have described as a “Mean Girls” campaign. Donald Trump and JD Vance are not only weird, they are “just plain weird.”

Perhaps the “understand the assignment” fits. These people are trained seals. While I imagine, or at least hope, they will drop this mode of attack soon enough [because it is annoyingly stupid] it is notable that what they went with attacking them for is a lack of conformity. The Democrats have been the party of creatives for 60 years. They have been promoting bizarre and depraved lifestyles more and more in the past decade. But see, that isn’t “weird” it is “unique” or “brave” or worse yet, “living your truth.” I am reminded of the Rick Sanchez meme, “Your boos mean nothing to me, I’ve seen what makes you cheer.” I mean, look at them:

It speaks to a truly profound delusion that they somehow think they can win the “who is less weird” contest when they are a proud freak show, as Tacitus once said of Nero, “already corrupted by every lust, natural and unnatural [Annals, XV.37.] Of course, they somehow manage to simultaneously also be puritanical and prudish, never passing the test of non-contradiction. Clearly what is behind this is that it drives them mad that Republican voters won’t do as they’re told, not just in elections, but by the army of safetyist schoolmarms seeking to control society. And this “weird” messaging really is from the top level:

Bear in mind Trump made one joking pop culture reference, Vance said that in an interview once then had to defend it from Democrats, and DEI is the dread of the workplace for countless Americans, and incidentally the main thing on Kamala’s legislative record.

It is hard to know what they are thinking, though a few commentators have put it together better than I could:

It is actually a profoundly bad thing for society that our politics have become so gender coded, though this probably favors Republicans since they only believe in two genders whereas the left has Balkanized gender. Regardless, men and women have to live together and politics being a warzone between the sexes is not optimal. But they’re going for it, the bratty Kamala is having her “Mean Girls” election. It is, yet again, 1984:

“He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy.”

I spend more time than I should trying to understand what is wrong with these people, though it is more or less futile. Burke is certainly correct that they cannot be improved. I see no choice but to find a way to politically dominate them. On the upside, they want to be politically dominated, just not by us, instead by incompetent people with Master’s Degrees who “trust the science” and view all humans through their place in a hierarchy of oppression.

In April of 2020 there was an anti-lockdown protest in Moscow, the next city over, led by some folks from Christ Church. It already seemed like it had been an eternity in the wilderness, just a month after lockdowns started, though of course in some ways covid insanity continues, all these long years later: after all, removing him for a positive test is how they toppled Biden. The upside of this protest was we knew there were unlikely to be counter-protesters, given that they were scared of being around people and thought it was morally wrong to do so. There were still a few, going around in masks interrogating us, throwing eggs, shouting as they drove by, or that sort of thing. One particularly thoughtful counter-protester had parked a van at the site in advance. In its window was a sign that said “Bad Dogs, Go Home!” I thought to myself at the time, “This is incredible, what citizen of a republic would think of his fellow citizens that way. How could he expect any man to respond positively to that? Who aspires to be as obedient as a good dog?" But really, it explains everything. They have been beaten until they’re tame, and only have further resentment over anyone who might have any unapproved thoughts which go against the Mandarin masters. They are proud dogs. They may seem like miserable people, but this is the happiest they have ever been. They finally understand that thinking anything at all, however limited their critical capacities may have been, was the root of their unhappiness.

The Democrats love Kamala Harris, just as Winston Smith learned to love Big Brother. To feel any other way is just plain weird.

Thank you for reading! The Wayward Rabbler is written by Brad Pearce. If you enjoyed this content please subscribe and share. My main articles will always be free but paid subscriptions help me a huge amount. I also have a tip jar at Ko-Fi. I am now writing regularly for The Libertarian Institute. My Facebook page is The Wayward Rabbler. You can see my shitposting and serious commentary on Twitter @WaywardRabbler.

1. This is the only essay by Burke I cite in this article, and given the length of its title and Burke’s lack of internal organization, I am not putting a citation on further uses.

2. It is likely this section is largely the historian’s invention, as this “behind the curtain” debate about deceiving the public would not have been recorded. Regardless, it is the view of a leading early 3rd century Roman statesman.