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Belte's avatar

What counter revolutionaries have in their favor is that the normal person wishes for order and a general low level of violence/aggression. Any authority who wishes to stop these unlawful and violent actions must emphasize this goal. I cringed when Abbott made his actions out to be against antisemitism rather than the willful disregard for basic rules on campus and freedom of movement. He really undercut his hand and gave ammo to the local DA to undermine cases made against the activists. You can see the escalation in real time. A weak authority like the Egyptian President of Columbia University gives a 2pm deadline to leave or be forced out. Then she doesn’t allow the police to go in. So that same day, the activists rush and occupy the admin buildings. Any weakness or divided leadership will be seized upon. That Pepperdine episode reminds me of that great ethnographic study of “Left Behind In Rosedale: Race Relations And The Collapse Of Community Institutions” by Scott Cummings who documented a city in which one side was causing mayhem and destruction but would not be stopped by authorities. You can find it on Internet Archives (https://archive.org/details/leftbehindinrose0000cumm). Do you have a book recommendation on Finland and Mannerheim? I liked “Frozen Hell” about the battles between Finland and USSR but have not read anything about the earlier civil war and unrest in Finland.

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Teodorico's avatar

Great article and super well written. I think the focus of our movement, whatever it is, has to be just neutering faux "tough guy" conservatives like Hawley, Abbott, etc...A broken clock may be right twice a day but they are still broken clocks. I think the most telling thing about these red state "reactionaries" is that they just genuinely care only about outrage farming and staying in office. Hawley will grift a ton of engagement off of telling people to "remove" these protestors while knowing that we already have the police and national guard, we know what institutions they are organizing at, and we shouldn't subject private citizens to this or expect them to get involved mostly because they really shouldn't have to but if they do they will at worst, be killed or maimed, and at best be subjected to a kangaroo trial for lawfully defending themselves even in a deep red state. I'm unsure if Gov. Abbott even pardoned that one guy who was forced to defend himself from that kook with an AK in Austin. But they'll gladly make Yellowstone-esque platitudes about "retaking our states". Have they bothered to clean house at the universities their states fund? Are they going to fire all these leftists professors and expel these rabblerousers so that they lose not only institutional funding but institutional capture and legitimacy? The universities serve under the guidance of a state legislature and a genuinely easy way to get involved is to run or support candidates for local state office that will actually do this stuff. The state and local scene is far more easy for /ourguys/ to get involved in anyways. I worked at a state legislature once and ironically the biggest issue we had was absolute nutball candidates getting elected because there genuinely is such a low barrier of entry. If some gutterball idiot who can post about insane conspiracy theories can get elected, I'm certain the average CC paid subscriber-smart, handsome, physically capable, promethean level IQ-could make a good go of it!

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