In the 1976 film Network, the angry man television anchor, Howard Beale and his audiences, chant his singular message, “We’re as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this anymore!” What they were mad as hell about was a reaction to the materialism that was in the process of reducing people to economic units. As The Z man writes, it was the managerial class that had staged a coup only a couple of years’ previously that were largely responsible for the state of affairs.
Fifty years ago, the managerial class staged a coup against Nixon. Like the Rump Parliament that deposed Charles I, they acted extrajudicially but claimed to be doing so in defense of the law, which is a contradiction that cannot be resolved. They rid themselves of the imperial presidency, reducing the office and the rest of the political structures to committees controlled by the managerial class.
In response to a post by Jim on the Thermidor coup, JM Smith penned the following:
Our thermidorian reaction likewise aims to save the cultural revolution by slowing it down and taking the fanatics and wild men off the national stage. Our thermidorians see that the Progressive project has been harmed by the aggressive and flamboyant zeal that has characterized the Left for the last decade or so. They see that the whole trans-storyhour-no-bail-antifa-riot-immigrant-invasion-DEI-eat-the-bugs-global-warming-covid-lockdown shitshow had gotten out of hand …
… Make no mistake. Our thermidorians are still revolutionaries. They are just revolutionaries who will avoid the flagrant outrages that trigger stampedes to the Right.
A lot of people on the right are now happy that the loony left are going to be taken to task and that adults are in charge again. The mistake with this supposed future satisfaction is the assumption that the loony left were ever in charge. They have not been in charge; they have been allowed to run amok, much like the BLM animals were allowed to burn down cities for a summer. They were a tool, and it looks like that tool has outlived its purpose.
What happens to them is up for conjecture. The rioting blacks were allowed to keep their looted merchandise but were instructed to go to being as docile as they are able to be when they perceive themselves as being a sufficient majority to cause problems. The loony left are another thing entirely, as they are just as opportunistic but their timeline is far longer. But most importantly, they truly believe whatever they are supposed to believe so as not to be outside the group. Which makes dealing with them trickier in this nice and civilized day and age.
But they were tools, and they were tools of the managerial elite. And that elite are themselves revolutionaries and the ones who are front and center at pulling the strings. That’s not to say that there are no strings attached to them themselves, but in the context of oppositional power, they are at the forefront.
How Trump and his officials deal with the tools of the managerial elite is one thing – illegal immigrants are another tool that has been widely utilized. But it is the managerial elite that are directly responsible for the mess and they are still true believers. They don’t want to stop men being in little girls’ bathrooms; they just want to slow things down. The question is not whether they went too far; they did. The question is whether they will be dealt with. And whom will replace them. Not a great deal of surplus IQ points floating around at the moment.
Howard Beale was ultimately assassinated for the ratings. It was farce and tragedy, but it was believable. The managerial elite have already staged a couple of potshots at Trump. With a video recorder in every citizens’ hand, the question amounts to who is desperate enough to get down and dirty in our modern, civilized, recordable and collapsing society.
Originally published at Pushing Rubber Downhill. You can purchase Adam’s books here.