What Is to Be Done?
The consequences of the big steal are terrifying. But the interests behind it are vast. America is facing its most serious national crisis since the Civil War, and it is not helpful to pretend otherwise.
By Theodore R. Malloch and Nicholas Capaldi
August 29, 2022
The consequences of the big steal are terrifying. But the interests behind it are vast.
America is facing its most serious national crisis since the Civil War, and it is not helpful to pretend otherwise.
In the wake of the contentious 2020 presidential election and the January 6 fiasco, we should not expect there will be any kind of spontaneous national unity or that we can or should go about our business as if nothing fundamental has changed. America is a deeply divided nation, and the sooner we recognize and deal with it, the better off we’ll be.
What’s most appalling is the way we are told to ignore the evidence we can see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears, and reason with our own minds. We are told to ignore all contradictions and disregard basic methodological consistency. We find it astonishing that anyone can still say there is no evidence of election fraud at this late date. But this “truth” has to be put alongside all the other “truths” the mainstream media has dictated over the last few years and even prior to the 2016 election, from the Russian collusion hoax to two impeachments, and now an unlawful raid of a former president’s residence.
The evidence of fraud is abundant, and no matter how much the Democrats and their allies spin it, that evidence continues to accumulate. The only way to have satisfied the doubters would have been to conduct a full and serious audit of the election results. The Democrats and Joe Biden would never agree to this. This is a tragedy since such a gesture would have gone a long way to achieving unity and healing wounds—either confirming the Biden “win” or elevating Biden to the status of cultural hero—perhaps deserving of having his face on some monument.
The Futility of Politics as Usual
There is a larger misperception about what happened. The last election was not a case of Biden “defeating” Trump, or Democrats “defeating” Republicans. The expressions “Democrat” and “Republican” may appear on the ballot, but the names of the real winners were written in invisible ink. As we survey it, we are reminded that it’s not who votes or how many voted but who does the counting and how and when the votes are counted.
Right now, this process is controlled by an “establishment” or “ruling class” (identified long ago by C. Wright Mills and, more recently, by Angelo Codevilla) that encompasses both major political parties—a bipartisan political elite. Under the false guise of social activism, a consortium of 21st-century globalist robber-barons seeks to monopolize both domestic and international economies. The seemingly innocuous concept of corporate social responsibility has morphed from a mildly leftist concern for equality into the idea that social media giants (a technocracy) and their allies have the duty to control the political process and speech.
The Republican portion of the establishment (Republicans in name only, such as Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove, and a raft of others), with a few notable exceptions, will continue to be run by lackeys who are corrupt careerists lacking in courage or integrity.
The Democratic Party has its own version consisting of a consortium of billionaires (who live in gated communities and whose children are assured entrance into the Ivy League) aided and abetted by their spokespersons (who may also live in lesser gated communities) of the grievance universe (e.g., the civil rights industry). The latter will mobilize the aggrieved—the poor, the angry, and hypercritical intellectuals, along with the dysfunctional—to vote and to serve as the shock troops whose job it is to intimidate all who oppose the establishment. Part of the national tragedy is that the “aggrieved” do not understand that they are being manipulated.
An example of this commonality of interests among the bipartisan elite is their support for open borders by all members of the establishment, Republicans and Democrats alike.
It strikes many as counterintuitive that billionaire globalists are allied with the aggrieved who advocate democratic socialism. Part of the reason for this is that many are not familiar with “globalism.”
The main tenet of globalism is that nation-states (e.g., the United States, the U.K., or France) are passé. Global commerce requires and leads to the breaking down of borders and institutions associated with them. “Super-states” (the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, U.N., the EU, China) or would-be super-states (the U.S. Big Tech sector) vie to fill the vacuum.
What Big Tech globalists and the aggrieved have in common is the desire for the destruction of the United States as a nation-state and, of course, the undermining of American culture. That means removing Donald Trump and making sure he cannot run again, manipulating the Constitution by packing the Supreme Court, and destroying every vestige of traditional American identity (e.g., tearing down statues).
Who are the people left out, the people who are to be marginalized or intimidated? They are the working class, small businesses, and anyone who takes traditional America or faith seriously—in short, the entire middle class.
It is a utopian scheme (the opiate of the aggrieved) that renders crony capitalism and crony socialism indistinguishable. In both cases, government is the servant and junior partner of big business. The only thing that changes is which particular vested economic interest groups get government contracts and largesse and which politicians get in on the action. This is precisely why serious Marxists have always despised socialism. The object of winning is not to ameliorate genuine difficulties but merely to gain access to riches and the power to protect and extend those riches. Donald Trump was the lone outsider who threatened to overturn all the apple carts to deconstruct the administrative state.
As a consequence, political reform alone is irrelevant and ineffective. The political world is a carousel where the riders and the tunes may change, but progress is an illusion.
A Dire Prognosis
The following seems most likely to us. We pray we are wrong.
Fascism could become triumphant. China’s combination of party-market-state is the new future all over the world.
The future of the United States consists of fabricated race wars and disintegration.
China replaces the United States as the world’s hegemon. Beijing, and radical Islamists, are in the best position to take advantage of Western disintegration.
Western Europe becomes Muslim—and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is proven right. Central Europe will move eastward.
China and its allies and vassals versus Islamism is the geopolitics of the future. Farewell to the liberties that we in the West once treasured and took for granted. Islamism at least will be localized by China, but that will not help Western Europeans preserve their freedom. They will be Muslim and subject to China’s persecution.
The only good thing is that the world will not turn out the way the progressives think it will and should. Portland and such left-wing cities are the future of the progressive world in embryo, i.e., solar energy, vegan burgers, children choosing their sex organs, toppled statues, and burning and looting; to be followed by the seizure of white property. All whites who are leaders of this anti-white movement eventually lose their property and lives too.
So, too, will we see the rise of white fascism (the academics and journalists will have successfully created this, by way of reaction against what they falsely perceive and condemn as present reality). It will be an all-out race war in the United States, creating the distraction needed for the opportunity of new geopolitical powers.
The United States could also become an extension of Latin America which will be a Chinese vassal (press “9” to speak to someone in English).
Another scenario is the break-up of the United States and the race war scenario limited to progressive urban centers, but the problem of depleted U.S. power remains even in that more hopeful scenario.
The consequences of the big steal are terrifying. But the interests behind it are vast. If this sounds crazy, just ask yourself: What would Queen Victoria have said in 1880, if told that by 1945 Britain would be a third-rate power?
What Is To Be Done?
Does 2020-2024 mark the death of American culture? Is there some way to claw it back? Nearly 75 million people voted for President Trump. Given additional family members who are not of voting age or who did not vote, we are probably talking about more than 100 million people. How significant is that number? By comparison, the entire population of the U.K. is 66 million; and the entire population of France is 67 million. What can 100 million people do?
We could establish some independent context where we operate within the system but are not of the system. That is, we return to Augustine’s notion of the two societies. We can fabricate symbols to show our membership.
We could establish an independent currency (like Bitcoin) impervious to governmental control. This currency could be exchanged for dollars while still retaining its value, which would not degenerate to toilet-paper levels.
We might establish a parallel non-politicized economy with our own social media, our own Securities and Exchange Commission, and our own banks. In short, we can duplicate a whole world that does business among its members who subscribe to the same principles—except we do not censor or cancel! Imagine the appeal to entrepreneurs. We do not refuse to do business with them, but they do not define our business ethics.
Further we could establish a parallel education system—we already have one in homeschooling and religious schools. We can create a whole new university system by purchasing and using (now cheap) abandoned malls. There are plenty of retired, semiretired, or soon-to-retire faculty members who are tired of participating in a charade, perhaps unemployed or employed otherwise. We need to break down the artificial barriers between practitioners and theoreticians, and we must surrender the conceit of expertise.
The establishment will not recognize our degrees, but that is irrelevant. Employers among our 100 million will. Our graduates will need to pass an exit exam showing they know the major opposing arguments of contentious public policy disputes and history. They will have met higher standards.
Similarly, we could establish a parallel medical system (self-insured and nationally portable) and establish independent sports teams (whole new leagues and franchises) as an alternative entertainment industry—all of it depoliticized.
Importantly we could establish an independent legal system that is based on mediation.
And most especially, we shall need a huge legal fund to defend these proposals from the inevitable establishment lawsuits.
The New Politics
It is important not to continue to play the old game while attempting to establish a new one. Hence, there is no point in trying to reform the Republican Party. We need a renewed political party or one that invites former Republicans, as well as perceptive independents and Democrats, to join. Ousting the RINOs is the only way to save and recast the true Republican Party.
What would be its features?
Political Reform Clubs everywhere—open to all—we might begin by meeting in private homes or on Zoom and progress from there.
Within a national network of such clubs, new articulate and responsible leadership (candidates) will emerge on a continuous basis.
We should run candidates for every office—dogcatcher, school boards, district attorneys, judges, sheriffs, poll watchers—with the aim of taking control of local communities and working from the bottom up.
We should insist on term limits. We want public servants, not careerists. Real achievement comes in the real world of careers, jobs, homes, schools, arts, etc. We reject the myth that politics is somehow a specialized practice. It isn’t. Nor should it be.
This is not a retreat, and it is not a surrender or any form of escapism. Instead, we are digging in our heels, and we are prepared to accept the burden, the responsibility, and the occasional joy of living in the Two Cities.
Ted Roosevelt Malloch is CEO of Roosevelt Global Fiduciary LLC. He served as Research Professor for the Spiritual Capital Initiative at Yale University, Senior Fellow Said Business School, Oxford University and Professor of Governance and Leadership at Henley Business School where he co-led the Director’s Forum. His most recent books concern the nature of virtuous enterprise, the practices of practical wisdom and “virtuous business,” the pursuit of happiness, the virtue of generosity and the virtue of thrift. His latest book is Common Sense Business, co-authored with Whitney MacMillan, former Chairman and CEO of Cargill, the world’s largest privately held company. He has served on the executive board of the World Economic Forum (DAVOS); has held an ambassadorial level position at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland; worked in the US State Department and Senate; did capital markets at Salomon Brothers on Wall Street, and has sat on a number of corporate, mutual fund, and not-for-profit boards. He was very active in the Trump campaign of 2016. Ted earned his Ph.D. in international political economy from the University of Toronto and took his B.A. from Gordon College and an M.Litt. from the University of Aberdeen on a St. Andrews Fellowship.