There is a very old way of thinking about politics as the deliberate ordering/organizing of a society. Our politics, anno Domini 2024, seem rather to be a deliberate disordering or disorganizing of our society. If I were a rhetorically effeminate mainstream conservative, I might spend the rest of this article composing a heartfelt plea for reason and fantasize about the days of “civilized politics”. Personally, I suspect that reason is no longer valued in public discourse because public discourse is not about reality, and reason is simply a set of mental techniques and methods for navigating reality. You cannot apply the techniques of reason to unreality, and still sound reasonable.
For example, one of today’s noisiest public discourses is about whether a man can become a woman, and whether, after becoming a woman, he ought to have unrestricted access to female spaces—including female competitive sports. But if we enter into a discussion of whether a man can become a woman, reason is already valueless, except, perhaps, as a rhetorical tool. The fact that the question of transgenderism can be raised, seriously, in the public square, is not an indication that reason is tenuous. It is rather an indication that reason is untenable, that reality is no longer the limit of the discourse. Rather than composing a passionate appeal to reason, let me try to resuscitate it. In the process, let me make reason blunt, more vernacular. Let me turn reason into a big, orange, blunt politician. Let me explain why if Donald Trump does not win on November 5, the American Republic will no longer be possible.
To begin with, for the first time in U.S. history, we are facing the threat of a permanent tyranny, an irreversible transition from a representative democracy to a techno-bureaucratic oligarchy. The transition, like many of the transitions pushed by the Left, began in adolescence, when America was still a child—about a century ago, what today is called the progressive era. The title is a misnomer. We ought to call it the regressive era.
The progressives mainly regressed on the concept of rights, the central concept of American politics. Today, rights defined by the left are merely a euphemism for political “privileges”, something you get if you behave well—for example, if you take all the vaccines you’re told to take, if you accept the fact that not every election will be left up to the people, and if you don’t try to come back and win another term for President after your second term was stolen from you. Rights, in the old way of thinking, defined a three-way relationship (and its attendant obligations) between a citizen and his government and his God; inalienable rights defined an unchanging relationship (and consequently unchanging obligations) between a citizen, his government, and his God. Behind this vision of relationship was a metaphysic: that human beings were essentially moral and spiritual.
That metaphysic became unacceptable in the materialist 20th century, and so rights became slightly problematic. If human beings were not essentially moral and spiritual, but merely physical, then the moral and spiritual dimensions of man had to be fabricated, created by government in lieu of a god.
Government merged with God, and became Big Government, or authoritarian government. Formerly, since rights were created by God, an eternal authority, they were seen as temporal expressions of permanent realities. Now, since rights are created by government, a temporal authority, they are temporary. The government does not have an unchanging obligation to guarantee your life and liberty; it has a temporary obligation to guarantee your life and liberty so long as you abide by government-created norms. This is why John Adams said the American form of government is fit only for a religious people.
RELIGIOUS, not merely moral. One has to believe in God, and one must believe in an ontologically real moral and spiritual dimension to humanity in order to accept the American/Constitutional theory of rights.
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The New Left has not only abandoned God-given rights. They openly mock the tradition by coining rights on a daily basis and using newly-minted rights to justify the suppression of (usually very old) rights. Up until Covid-19, the left had been screeching “my body, my choice” for five decades. But the secular “right to bodily autonomy” was quickly suppressed by appeal to the fresh-out-of-the-factory “right to be safe”. Now, the right of women to be safe in exclusively female spaces is being suppressed, paradoxically, by appeal to the “right to self-expression” of trans women (con men). The left does not actually believe in any right at all, which is why it wields rights as weapons, creating them out of thin air, applying them unequally or inconsistently, or even using them as excuses for suppressing freedom and well-being.
Because government does not have rights to worry about protecting and preserving, it now has a much easier time governing in the interest of the few over the many. Ah, that word governing! It’s like gravity; it brings us down out of the clouds of theory to the solid ground of practice, where the measure of any politician is his performance. For example, what did Donald Trump do during his time as president? Were rights violated? Well, under Donald Trump, for a start, fewer babies were killed by abortion because of his pro-life policies and the judges he appointed who overturned Roe. This is a victory for the inalienable right to life. Under Donald Trump, more people owned their own businesses, fewer children were being trafficked across the border, and America was not financing the mass slaughter of an entire country in Eastern Europe. These were victories for all three inalienable rights—life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness—enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.
Then again, we can drop any standard of rights entirely, and rely solely on reason and reason’s vernacular, common sense – to tell us whether Trump or Biden would prove a better President for a post-2024 America.
Would it be better, for instance, if America did, or did not, print a trillion dollars every hundred days? Would it be better that our deficit not exceed 34 trillion, and America not be paying 1 trillion dollars per annum on interest-bearing debt? Would it be better that America did not have the worst military recruiting crisis in decades? Would it be better that 11 million people did not cross unvetted into the country over 3 years, including a disturbingly large number of military-aged single males? Would it be better that 100,000 Americans did not die every year from fentanyl and illicit drugs? Would it be better that our major cities did not experience unprecedented crime surges? Would it be better that China did not openly mock and insult the United States and encroach on our air space? Would it be better that the State Department not make statements encouraging China to take Taiwan? Would it be better if the occupant of the White House had clarity on which side to support, an open and functioning middle eastern democracy, or an anti-Western terrorist state governed by 10th century barbarians? Would it be better that consumers not pay 7-30% inflation on essential products and services?
Would it be better if monthly housing payments did not rise, on average, by $2,000? Would it be better that Americans not be forced to make 60% of their car purchases electric vehicles by 2030? Would it be better to live in a country where the leading political opponent of the White House incumbent could be jailed by the incumbent administration? In short, would it be better—more reasonable—to live in Trump’s America, or Biden’s America?
Many people have suggested that democracy is on the ballot. Allow me to express how something far more fundamental than democracy is on the ballot: reality is on the ballot. Reason is on the ballot. Read the previous paragraph and then ask whether it isn’t a crime against REALITY, not DEMOCRACY, if Joe Biden is re-elected.
Is it REASONABLE for Americans to vote for more violent crime, higher rates of inflation, less prosperity, less fiscal responsibility, more illegal immigration, more war, more drug overdoses, a weaker military, and a less respected United States of America? It is sensible to live in a country where women do not possess civil rights, do not have their own spaces? Is it reasonable to support people who believe that your child should be able to pay a stranger to cut off his penis, or her breasts, without your permission?
Of course, Leftism is always unreasonable, but never before has an election been a referendum on reality and reason itself. I say reason itself is on the ballot because if America re-elects Biden or his possible replacement, it will be absolute confirmation that the American voters cannot act reasonably, that they cannot choose in their own best interests. And of course, that is what makes democracy a reasonable form of government – how in choosing who governs, we are capable of choosing politicians who, at the bare minimum, govern so that there is more freedom, more money, and more safety for us, We the People.
The 2024 election will pose this question to Americans and to the world – is democracy silly? Is giving people the right to choose those who govern them a waste of time? If Joe Biden wins, democracy is silly; nay, it is irrational. Even dogs act in self-interest. It is buffoonery to entrust a group with power who cannot even act in self-interest. At least the elites do that. Indeed, a second Biden term will be a confirmation of the old elitist suspicion: the average American cannot vote in his own best interests, and therefore need not really have the right to vote at all.
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Conlan Salgado is a college senior. He is an astute political observer and highly informed conservative. America needs more young patriots and gifted writers to awaken citizens to the existential danger our nation faces in the decades-long political war with a radical leftist party and culture increasingly out-of-control. We recommend all of his superb writings. Access Conlan Salgado’s essays in The Prickly Pear here.
