On JD Vance and Counterelites

The REAL revolution is coming

For those who may have already forgotten (and who could blame them?), the Democrats held their national convention in Chicago last week. During this event, we were treated to the spectacle of a speech by Tim Walz. In it, Walz - the coach that students warn other students not to be alone with - went after his opponent in the vice-presidential race, JD Vance. In and of itself, this is certainly not too surprising. However, what he was criticising Vance for was. It was interesting to see him castigate Vance for attending Yale, for starting out poor and becoming a millionaire, for making something of himself in life. He pursued this point to the extent of observing that none of his own students ever did this, essentially bragging about what a terrible teacher he was.

Now, why would someone do this at the DNC? After all, a large percentage of the higher-level attendees, at least, themselves went to Yale or some other equivalent elite, Ivy League university. Ivy League attendance is coded as high status, which is something that every left-wing progressive PMC want to think of xim or xerself as. Attending an elite university is part of the high-level managerial cursus honorum for entry into and subsequent elevation through the ranks of the Regime. Why was Walz seemingly countersignaling this in front of that crowd in particular?

The answer is that JD Vance is Not One Of Them. He grew up poor in rural(ish) (sorta)Appalachia. He doesn’t come from an elite family. He joined the Marines and went to an actual combat zone (unlike his opponent). He later got into Yale on the strength of his own merit and intelligence instead of family connexions, political sway, or DEI initiatives. He was a lawyer and venture capitalist before getting into politics but did all of these without trying to join the progressive managerial class or being coopted by the Regime. All of this is an affront to these folks, he doesn’t deserve to be where he is, he should still be stuck in flyover country with all the other white trash hicks that the Regime hates so much. He is an elite-passing individual who nevertheless was not suctioned into the current Regime’s elite caste. Because of this, he is dangerous.

Therein lies the rub. JD Vance represents the formation of an incipient counterelite, which is something that the various elements of the progressive Regime cannot safely allow.

Let’s ask a question - why are counterelites important? It’s because they are the nexus about which credible opposition to a current Regime can form. Take a look at the recent situation in the UK. You have a very large portion of the population - into the 40%+ in some cases - which is angry enough about being flooded with violent invaders, about the child sex trafficking, Rotherham, and all the rest, that they are willing to tell pollsters that they consider violence to be a reasonable response. We recently saw widespread rioting as native Englishmen finally started having enough of immigrant violence. And yet…nothing has really come from it. Even the “right wing” parties in the UK condemned the rioting. The rioters were all basically divided and disorganised and have no elite support, so they’re all just being rounded up and jailed. The British elites are unified against them. If this weren’t the case, the rioters would have been a LOT more effective in the long run.

One of the elements existing within Peter Turchin’s discussion of secular cycles is that of intraelite competition. In any system - ancient or modern, monarchial, aristocratic, or democratic - you’re always going to have an elite stratum from which the rulers and other “movers and shakers” in a society will be drawn. However, not everyone who is an elite stratum individual is always going to be part of the ruling group, even if they do possess the requisite money/credentials/bloodline/whatever else. There will always be some out-of-power elites who have to find something else to do with themselves and their time.

In times of growth and expansion, the “upward swing” of a secular cycle, these types of people won’t present as much of a threat to the ruling elites simply because there are so many other options available to them that their energies can be channeled in directions that don’t involve direct conflict with the rulers. However, when the cycles take a downward turn towards collapse, intraelite competition increases drastically. Within the elite stratum, competition increases as the rulers and their clients gather (i.e. loot) more and more wealth to themselves from the people at large, including out of power elites. This tends to create political and social instability because out-of-power elites, who can do something about this, eventually do do something about it. The more competition there is within elite strata, the more vicious in-power elites become and the more desperate out-of-power elites have to be. This is, and always has been, a recipe for conflict.

This is currently the situation that many of our out-of-power elites are finding themselves in. It’s where Trump is at - a rich real estate mogul who served a term as president, was undercut constantly by the managerial elite, and who is even facing imprisonment because of the danger he poses to the Regime. Vance is an elite status individual who got into politics but consciously opposes Regime priorities. Tech bros like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel (and some might even suggest Mark Zuckerberg himself is moving in this direction) who oppose the sort of controls on information and discourse that the Regime demands for itself to stay in power are also a part of this. Members of the political class who have been shunted off and silenced like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will surely play a growing role as well.

The Regime, of course, will do everything in its power to tamp down the tide of rising opposition from within this stratum. They tried using their control of the media to discredit Vance using the “weird” attack vector. This largely failed because Vance really is just too much of a normal, regular American dude for something like that to really resonate. He grew up poor, joined the military, got an education, worked hard, made something of himself - though these kinds of things don’t appeal to the type of dysgenic bugmen who populate the progressive Left’s ranks, they DO resonate with regular joe American voters. Meanwhile, the “weird” line of attack merely invites comparison with the people making the charge, in this case the clown car full of fruitcakes and nutbars that the Biden-Harris administration has staffed our government with.

I mean, how bad can you really feel about being called “weird” by these people?

So yeah, I guess that JD Vance is “weird” when those people are considered the standard - and that’s most definitely a good thing. In a mad world, the sane will be the ones viewed as mad, or as Saint Anthony the Great said, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, "You are mad; you are not like us."

It’s also why they don’t like Trump. For nearly a decade, Trump has provided a rally point for regular Heritage Americans over and against the opposition of Regime factions and their clients, providing a needed service that the Republican Party as a whole has simply refused to produce. He’s been as effective as he has been because he comes from that elite stratum and therefore has access that most of us never could have had a hope of getting.

This is why they’re so adamant about bringing up “J6” as a constant boogeyman even though the average American basically doesn’t give two rips off a heater about it. They were afraid that there could have been organisation built around Trump that might actually upend them, had Trump chosen to cross the Rubicon rather than stay within the lanes of American political action. They still worry that this might happen, hence why they want to jail him on the basis of spurious “convictions” obtained from biased juries in deep Blue parts of the country.

So yeah, Vance, Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and the rest represent the formation of a nascent but coalescing counterelite, something which the Regime simply cannot tolerate.

It’s not a surprise to see this counterelite form outside of the established political class. Vance still counts because he’s only been a senator for two years and had no prior political experience (which is a GOOD thing). Our current political system (which means all those elected and hangers-on who are “allowed on the inside” and enjoy advancement) selects for weirdos and freaks - specifically because this type of person is corruptible and blackmailable. Why does it seem like so many fiery GOPers go up to Washington only to sell out within six months? It’s because of this. Collectively, there are more skeletons in the closets of DC politicians, pundits, and journalists than there are in the Roman catacombs. Just look at how we recently found out about Adam Kinzinger’s Grinder profile. No, a credible counterelite that can actually pushback against the Regime almost assuredly must and will come from outside the “regular” political establishment in this country.

This has already started to take place, by the way. The astute observe will note that there is currently a once-in-a-generation realignment taking place in American politics. The old post-WWII consensus that focused on “left vs. right” in the sense of “Communism vs. classical liberalism/Neo-Con globohomoism” is rapidly being replaced by a new paradigm of populism vs. Regime elitism. Do you support the people or do you support the managerial PMCs? Do you want the working classes to have jobs and safe communities or do you want people to be atomised individuals who live in pods and eat bugs while funding useless wars all over the world? That is increasingly the axis upon which people will need to find their place.

The thing is, the masses are not useless in this at all. They just need the counterelite to provide leadership, which is starting to take place. But with a leadership that is in line with them, the people can, in fact, reassert their own interests over and against those of the Regime, which is something the progressive managerial elite is going to try to suppress by every means at their disposal. Arrest opponents, rig elections, crank the propaganda machines into high gear - all of this will be and is being done, or at least attempted.

So the whole message of Tim Walz’s speech at the DNC was essentially, “we don’t want smart kids from the sticks getting elite status if we can’t find a way to integrate (i.e. subvert) them into the Regime.” Elite level individuals who aren’t on board with the Regime’s program are a classic source of Turchinian intraelite competition, and the record of history is that out-of-power elites have had a better than even chance of overthrowing old regimes and taking power themselves, in most cases initiating a new secular cycle accompanied by decentralisation and real growth. This is scary if you’re a Regimist currently dipping his or her hand into the till as (for a completely random example) Kamala Harris’ brother-in-law was caught doing, taking billions from taxpayer-funded programs and redistributing it to his cronies within the Democratic Party. But for those of us who actually care about the people of our respective countries, this is an exciting development.