The lack of representation for right wing populists in American democracy: An examination
Illustrated by the recent voting record of the U.S. Senate
I often link to an argument European blogger Kynosarges made in 2019 regarding the deficiencies of right-wing populism. One of those deficiencies he discussed, which you can read here, is that “Right-wing populists do not command parliamentary majorities or sole governments - neither in the past nor in the present, nor likely in the future. They are always in opposition or dependent on coalition partners who are not right-wing populists.”
Now, Trump had won the presidency in 2016 with roughly 63 million votes, which was 46.1% of the vote with a 60.1% turnout. He ran as a protest candidate with positions of hard-right immigration-restrictionism and trade protectionism, along with an attitude of humor, irreverence and anti-political correctness. So these positions certainly resonate strongly with about half of the American public, and especially with Republican voters. But how well are those positions represented within Congress?
I thought it would be interesting to test Knosarges’s argument by analyzing the beliefs of the current Republicans in the Senate via their recent voting histories. There are currently 49 Republican Senators, 48 Democrat Senators, and 3 Independents who caucus with the Democrats. Except for one standout, which I will discuss later, the Democrats are uninteresting and monolithic — all viciously anti-white, pro-unlimited monetary printing, pro-wide open borders and pro-intelligence agency control. By comparison, the Republicans are ideologically diverse. But ideologically diverse on what basis?
The unifying beliefs that animate American society
“Ideologically diverse” is a relative, not an absolute term. The blogger
explains political theorist Carl Schmitt’s argument that all societies possess core beliefs which unites them, and if they didn’t then there would be civil war:For Schmitt, morality is not a private thing and cannot be a private thing. All laws are an expression of morality, an expression of norms. You cannot have two competing sets of norms in society, because that would create two competing sets of laws, two legal realities. This would create the conditions for civil war. The idea of the separation of religion and politics, church and state, is a fiction. If you have laws in a society, you have an operative morality. And if you have an operative morality, there is a set of beliefs, almost always some form of religious belief, for which those norms are an expression.
What he is laying out in these early portions is the foundation for a critique of the “marketplace of ideas.” Schmitt argues that this is a fiction. It simply is not the case that there are numerous ideas out there in society competing equally and fairly for attention. We are told that when ideas emerge from that competition they will be true or the best. Any functioning state must by definition be unitary, working from one set of norms over and above all others. Its system of laws will give expression to that set of norms. There is always a dominant set of beliefs that “ground” a legal system and the state. If you have two genuine competing set of beliefs, you have the conditions for either civil war or for the oppression of the minority, or minorities. Ideas do not compete on a level playing field, and the best ideas do not emerge out of that competition. The very fact that a society has a legal system says that one idea has already won that battle.
In the case of America and western countries, the operative morality underlying society is egalitarianism rooted in Christianity, regardless of whether people consciously identify as secular, religious or atheist (such as self-described “atheist” Richard Dawkins). Every Senator regardless of party affiliation operates under this framework. Differences in the operative morality are of degree, not of kind. Political debates revolve around the question: should we have fast societal-leveling egalitarianism (Democrats) or slow societal-leveling egalitarianism (Republicans)?
Robert Lewis Dabney, the Chief of Staff to Stonewall Jackson, bitterly complained about this fast/slow egalitarian belief system in an 1897 screed, which is as relevant now as it was then:
Powerful words.
Because politics is downstream of belief, a societal transvaluation of values must occur before any true change of representation is possible within Congress. Still, from a dissident perspective there are gradations; some are better than others.
Which Senate votes will be tabulated, and on what basis?
Much of politics is kayfabe; Senate leadership can whip its members to comply with their demands with bribes or threats (such as providing or withholding campaign funding, or offering committee seats) or let them vote their conscience, depending on political necessity. For example, 2021’s Inflation Reduction Act (an Orwellian name given it vastly increased spending and led to much higher inflation) passed on a party-line 51-50 vote with Kamala serving as tiebreaker. Republican leadership thought it would look better to their voters to oppose it in a uniform fashion, but would some have broken rank and helped pass it if their votes were actually needed (like John McCain did to scuttle the Obamacare repeal)? To what extent was their opposition performative to fool voters?
Regardless of leadership’s tactics, over a significant amount of time one can get a sense for each Senator’s philosophy based on their voting record, and we can grade them on that basis. For purposes of this analysis we will take the votes cast at face value. Let’s look at the major bills passed since 2020, provide a description of each bill, the final vote tally, explain the dissident position (from my perspective, which you are free to disagree with), and then review the votes cast per each Senator.
As a caveat, we will not be reviewing the Senate’s extremely fast confirmation of many radical leftist judges chosen on the basis of race and gender (except for covering Ketanji Brown in the Supreme Court). According to Lauren Witzske, “A study reveals how Biden has appointed 97 Federal Judges. [Only] 5 of the 97 judges were white men, 2 of those white male judges were gay. They are completely rebuilding the US judiciary with people that hate us.”1 Many Republicans have voted in favor of Biden’s bioleninist, anti-western civilization judicial nominees.
The Senate votes and analysis
The relevant Senate votes from 2020-present are as follows: (1) the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020, (2) the Wyden-Daines amendment to that Act, (3) the Alejandro Mayorkas Vote for Homeland Security, (4) the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, (5) the confirmation of Ketanji Brown to the Supreme Court, (6) the $40 billion Ukraine aid package, (7) the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, (8) the Respect for (Gay) Marriage Act, and (9) the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. Let’s go through each of these briefly.
USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020: This bill reauthorized the FISA spying provisions of the NSA, despite well-known and extensive abuse of the NSA search databases by illegally spying on the Trump campaign and against non-establishment figures. A 2018 declassified FISA report stated that the FBI ran 3.1 million illegal FISA searches on American citizens in 2017 alone, compared to 7,500 combined searches by the NSA and CIA in the same year. Regardless, the bill passed the Senate on a 80-16-4 vote and the Trump administration incompetently supported it, satisfying itself with minimal surface-level reforms.
Dissident position: According to Noah Carl in what he calls the “The Diversity Trilemma”, “You can pick two out of the following three: social stability, civil liberties, non-selective immigration. If you want social stability and civil liberties, you have to be picky with immigration. If you want civil liberties and non-selective immigration, you won’t get social stability. And if you want non-selective immigration and social stability, you’ll have to infringe civil liberties.” The establishment chooses social stability and non-selective immigration and eschews civil liberties. The dissident position is that unchecked immigration is wrong and emphasizes social stability and civil liberties. Therefore a dissident would have voted no on FISA spying reauthorization and pushed instead to tighten and enforce immigration laws.
Additional commentary: After this Act was reauthorized the FISA abuse continued and got much worse. In 2023 the DOJ Inspector General revealed that more than 10,000 federal employees have access to the NSA database for surveillance inquiries, more than 3.4 million search queries were ran between 12/1/2020 and 11/30/2021, and approximately 30% were outside the rules and regulations that govern warrantless search, showing the pattern of illegal governmental behavior had only expanded with no repercussions for its offenders. A general rule is that when bad behavior is unchecked it metastasizes (bad behavior only stops when, with a South Park example, it is properly addressed and punished), so expect it to be abused even worse in the future. Great move on the FISA reauthorization, Orange Man.
The Wyden-Daines amendment to the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020. The vote was for an amendment to the above Act, which would have expressly forbidden the government from collecting internet browsing and history without a warrant provided to the FISA court. It failed the Senate vote by a single vote, 59-37-4 (it needed 60 votes to pass).
Dissident position: A dissident would have voted yes on the amendment if the Act itself was unfortunately passed, for the same reasons described above.
Additional commentary: This is a good example demonstrating why Senate votes are performative. The establishment will ensure they receive the votes they need to pass their dictates, and anything beyond that depends on the politics surrounding the issue. Here globohomo wanted to be able to spy on citizens without a warrant, and that’s what they got, but they didn’t feel the need to “punish” Senators by forcing their no vote more than required for passage because the optics of voting no looked so bad.
Alejandro Mayorkas Vote for Homeland Security, November 2020. Mayorkas was known as a radical leftist who would open the southern border. He was confirmed on a 56–43 vote.
Dissident position: Easy self-explanatory no.
Additional commentary: Mayorkas has performed as expected and the southern border is now more open than at any time in modern American history. The man should be criminally prosecuted for dereliction of duty, but he is carrying out orders from above to apply the tactics they employed in California on a national basis to bring forth a permanent one party state.
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, August 2021. The amended bill included approximately $1.2 trillion in spending, with $550 billion being newly authorized spending on top of what Congress was initially planning to authorize. The amended bill was passed 69–30 by the Senate.
Dissident position: Easy no. It should have been obvious that the bill would be a gross giveaway of graft and corruption to the worst elements in Congress; one Republican senator, Kevin Cramer, bragged on television that only about 1/3 of the spending would go toward infrastructure.
Additional commentary: Following the bill's passage by Congress, Trump criticized it as containing "only 11% for real Infrastructure", calling it "the Elect Democrats in 2022/24 Act", and attacked Republicans who had supported it, saying in particular that McConnell had lent "lifelines to those who are destroying" the country.
Confirmation of Ketanji Brown to Supreme Court, April 2022. She was confirmed on a 53–47 vote.
Dissident position: Another easy no. She had a reputation as a radical anti-white racist globohomo apparatchik and she was nominated on the basis of her race and gender.
$40 billion Ukraine aid package, May 2022. The legislation theoretically “provided money for military and humanitarian aid, including funding to assist Ukrainian military and national security forces, help replenish stores of US equipment sent to Ukraine, and provide public health and medical support for Ukrainian refugees.” It passed on an 86-11 vote.
Dissident position: The Rusia/Ukraine war is designed to be the next forever-war after Afghanistan. Here’s Assange on the purpose of these forever wars:
The vast majority of aid supplied gets funneled back into the military industrial complex and as bribes to U.S. politicians after Zelensky and co. take their cut. According to a CBS documentary, which was forcibly censored by globohomo, only 30% of U.S. supplied arms/munitions reached its final destination. Even if the war was legitimately being fought, only 16% of Americans can point out Ukraine, which means “Borderland” in Russia, on a map: is that really worth risking global nuclear war over? This is an easy no vote and there should have been a push for a negotiated settlement.
Additional commentary: Rand Paul tried to insert a special inspector general to oversee the funds but failed for the reasons stated above, and there have been tens of billions of additional funds sent to Ukraine to be washed-back subsequently.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, June 2022. Per Wiki, “It implemented several changes to the mental health system, school safety programs, and gun safety laws. Gun safety laws in the bill include extended background checks for gun purchasers under 21, clarification of Federal Firearms License requirements, funding for state red flag laws and other crisis intervention programs, further criminalization of arms trafficking and straw purchases, and partial closure of the boyfriend loophole.” The bill was passed by the Senate 65–33.
Dissident position: There’s nothing wrong in theory with limitations on the Second Amendment - for example, Americans can’t own functional tanks or F-16s. The problem is that liberals publicly claim to only want “reasonable and incremental gun control measures”, but they havn’t been and won’t be satisfied with any specific gun restriction. They weren’t satisfied with red flag laws and they weren’t satisfied with background checks or banning assault rifles; if they only wanted reasonable restrictions, they would eventually be content with the ones passed instead of turning around and demanding more. What they really want, but won’t say publicly, is a total prohibition on gun ownership.2 It is the same in other western countries: Trudeau announced a Canadian gun ban in 2022, Australia banned guns in 1996 and New Zealand banned guns in 2019. These only affect law abiding citizens, though: felons and jackbooted enforces of the regime are allowed to keep their weapons and avoid punishment for their crimes, which serves a useful purpose in terrorizing and distracting the middle class (i.e. anarcho-tyranny).
Therefore the only logical response to such an underhanded, devious strategy is to oppose it entirely. No new gun control laws, period, which is the NRA’s morally and strategically correct stance and which has been quite successful overall in protecting American’s constitutional right to bear arms. Compare this to the long-term failure of every other “conservative” issue.
Additional commentary: One should note that gun laws weren’t needed in earlier decades when America was homogenous and gun ownership was ubiquitous, giving further credence to Noah Carl’s argument above.
The Respect for (Gay) Marriage Act, Nov 2022. This Act repeals the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), requires the U.S. federal government and all U.S. states and territories to recognize the validity of same-sex marriages in the United States. The Senate passed it by a 61–36 vote.
Dissident position: The two main problems with gay marriage, aside from the religious argument, are (1) it weakens and cheapens the institution as a whole, whose primary, perhaps sole purpose is to create a secure environment for the raising of children (and homosexuals raising children are far more likely to sexually abuse those children); and (2) the slippery slope argument, so often derided by liberals during the lead-up to gay marriage, has been conclusively proven to be true. “Don’t ask don’t tell” led to civil unions which led to gay marriage which led to transsexual rights which led to child sex grooming in schools, and which will sooner or later lead to pro-pedophelia legalization. The country has lurched so far left so rapidly that Republicans who are considered “further right” like Ted Cruz now viciously attack other countries for opposing gay marriage. Because of these issues, a dissident position on gay marriage would be “no”.
Additional commentary: Globohomo doesn’t actually care their minority grievance groups, whether gays or blacks or transsexuals. What they care about is having loyal shock troops who will do their bidding. This is why if an individual from one of these favored minority groups goes “off the reservation” and becomes a dissident, their special privileges are revoked without pity or remorse and they are attacked as viciously as white males. See how globohomo treats Kanye West, Kyrie Irving, Nick Cannon or Clarence Thomas as examples of this.
Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, June 2023. This would suspend the United States debt ceiling for two years as well as rubber stamp much of the Democrat’s previously passed legislation including on the expansion of the IRS (87,000 new IRS employees to shake down the middle class). This bill is passing 63-36-1.
Dissident perspective: This one is a bit tricky. America’s spending is completely out of control — non-military discretionary spending is only at most 15% of the total budget — and a default on debt could have very difficult consequences, like forcing a heroin addict to go cold turkey. Additionally, the globohomo controlled media would smear Republicans for their objections if they didn’t pass the increase, creating strong pressure on them to fold, and these debt increase negotiations occur every couple of years with the outcome known far in advance. That being said, dissidents could pick a stand and then stick to it, tying the debt ceiling increase to a closing of the southern border and then not budging from it, as Sundance argues, or tying it to a full rollback of the liberal’s previously passed items pertaining to the IRS and other graft.
Additional commentary: With all this said, this bill is passing without meaningful concessions because the Senate Republican leadership is compromised.
The Senate vote tallies
The chart is below. A vote with a green background is the dissident position; a vote with a red background is the establishment position.
Based on the votes, Rand Paul has the best dissident voting record since 2020, correct on every issue; he was the only Senator to oppose the FISA reauthorization in 2020. Tommy Tuberville, Roger Marshall, Mike Lee, Mike Braun, Bill Hagerty and Josh Hawley are behind him, correct on every issue except for FISA reauthorization.
That’s only 7 Republicans out of 49. If you open it further to include those with two wrong votes, there are an additional eight, still only 30% of Republican Senators.
Other “standouts” from these votes are Mitt Romney (it’s hard to believe “binders full of women” Romney was almost president) and Susan Collins, who are Democrats in all but name, having voted the wrong way on every issue. Lisa Murkowski and Shelley Moore Capito are one-vote behind them. Senate leader Mitch McConnell should be highlighted for voting on the wrong side of every issue except gay marriage, the confirmation of Ketanji Brown and Mayorkas (and he intentionally undermines and tries to destroy truly populist candidates like Blake Masters). Also, lol at Lindsay Graham for voting no on gay marriage. Who does he think he’s fooling?
Analysis of the senate vote tallies
This vote tally should explain in part the extreme difficulties Trump had as president dealing with Congress. The Republicans controlled the House, Senate and Presidency in 2017 with razor thin margins, but all that got passed were tax cuts for the ultra rich. How can one expect meaningful legislation favoring dissidents when Trump had, maybe, 7 out of 100 Senators on his side? Or the Senate to confirm decent cabinet picks? Compare this to Ron DeSantis in Florida where the Florida House and Senate are overwhelmingly Republican, so he has much greater margins to pass quasi-meaningful legislation.
Rand Paul being the biggest dissident in the Senate shouldn’t be much of a surprise given his father is “Audit the Fed” and “End the Fed” hero Ron Paul. But curiously note that Rand was viciously attacked by a “politically motivated” neighbor in 2017 and almost killed, and his aide was “brutally attacked” and stabbed in broad daylight in 2023. Being a high-profile enemy of globohomo carries with it a lot of risks.
The Outliers
Perhaps even better than the seven semi-dissident senators is one Democrat Senator, along with one Republican congressman.
Newly elected Democrat Senator John Fetterman, who thankfully3 beat early pro-transsexualism, pro-China COVID shutdowns Republican candidate Mehmet Oz, exposes the joke of Congress for what it is by having a stroke and being consistently rambling, incoherent and unintelligible. This is a good thing.
Congress’s approval rating has averaged just 18% from 2010-2020; Senators say whatever platitudes they need to in order to get elected, then immediately turn around and do whatever their donors demand for the next six years. As Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, argued while addressing the U.S. Bankers’ Association, New York, Idaho Leader, 26 August 1924:
“Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of the government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers. These truths are well known among our principal men, who are now engaged in forming an imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance. It is thus, by discrete action, we can ensure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.”
Democracy equals rule by oligarchy; i.e. in a democracy (1) those who shape public opinion have the power, (2) mass media shapes public opinion, and (3) mass media is owned by the central bank owners. Senators and congressmen serve as play-actors, allowing oligarchs to pillage the masses who have no voice and no say.
Therefore Congress is unworthy of the respect one would otherwise accord such an institution, filled with smooth-talking men and women who lie to their constituents as they do the opposite of what they verbally espouse. I prefer my politicians to match up with the reality as much as possible, and Fetterman’s presence in Congress, along with George Santos’s, expose the whole thing as a farce (confirmed by others: “Afghanistan veteran challenging George Santos blasts embattled congressman's 'mockery of our political system’”). They discredit the establishment in the eyes of normal people as well as to foreigners and foreign governments.
It’s too bad they’re taking down poor Georgie, who unlike Fetterman does not have a krisha providing protection; he played as fast and loose as the establishment does with truth, but the establishment is a mafia and doesn’t allow others to act like they do. Like Icarus, Santos flew too close to the sun.
It’s very reminiscent of Caligula appointing his favorite horse, Incitatus, to the Senate in Rome; he, too, would likely have been my favorite Senator in an environment like this.
Interestingly, Biden-nominated and confirmed straight white male district judge Stephen H. Locher represented convicted felon Sholom Rubashkin, who was pardoned by Trump; a return of favors regardless of the change of administration?
As Ted Kaczynski argues in Industrial Society and Its Future, paragraph 219-221,
“The leftist seeks to satisfy his need for power through identification with a social movement and he tries to go through the power process by helping to pursue and attain the goals of the movement. But no matter how far the movement has gone in attaining its goals the leftist is never satisfied, because his activism is a surrogate activity. That is, the leftist’s real motive is not to attain the ostensible goals of leftism; in reality he is motivated by the sense of power he gets from struggling for and then reaching a social goal. Consequently the leftist is never satisfied with the goals he has already attained; his need for the power process leads him always to pursue some new goal….Suppose you asked leftists to make a list of ALL the things that were wrong with society, and then suppose you instituted EVERY social change that they demanded. It is safe to say that within a couple of years the majority of leftists would find something new to complain about, some new social “evil” to correct; because, once again, the leftist is motivated less by distress at society’s ills than by the need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his solutions on society. Because of the restrictions placed on their thoughts and behavior by their high level of socialization, many leftists of the over-socialized type cannot pursue power in the ways that other people do. For them the drive for power has only one morally acceptable outlet, and that is in the struggle to impose their morality on everyone.”
While some may argue it would be better to have Oz in place instead of Fetterman solely to prevent Biden’s judicial confirmations, the current Senate breakdown is 51-49 so even if it was 50-50 Kamala would still be breaking the tie and advancing confirmations.
The Neo-Conservatives backed Biden because they wanted the Ukraine War, and with it all the liberal judges. So-called liberal Biden supports War and Wall Street, thus he will remain in good graces with the War and Wall Street owned media.
I love what you have done here.
And what makes the unrepresentationalism of Congress even more tragic and destructive is that Congress has vastly diminished its own power, and empowered a massive and totally unaccountable deep state.