Parasocial/parapolitical gooning is infinitely easier and more immediately satisfying than fighting the war where it actually makes a difference—within one's own soul. The Enemy marks his victories by the conquest of each individual person. When he sees you cheering on the coming "golden age" just because a charismatic minstrel whom you have no affiliation with was allowed to win a "victory," all he does is draw satisfaction from your callowness. He even goes out of his way to make the entire process excessively and glaringly theatrical to make it that much more funny for him when you rabidly believe and indulge in it.

Aside from the fact that it’s 2024 and “endorsing” a candidate is inherently ridiculous, I have a reason for not endorsing Trump. It took me a long time to understand my deepest reason, but someone helped me out by giving a silly title to a talk of mine.

See, most people who are against Trump think he doesn’t deserve to be President—that America is too good for him. I’m totally in the opposite camp. It feels wrong for Trump to be President, not because America is too good for him, but because he is too good for us. We should not have elected Trump, because we are not ready to serve him.

How many Trump voters would vote to give their President unconditional control of the government? It can’t be 100%. Is it even 50%? Maybe it’s 50%. That’s 50% of 51%, which is not, in case math is hard for you, a majority.

It’s certainly not a mandate. It’s certainly not a mandate to end the “rule of law” (i.e., the unconstitutional capture of the executive branch by the legislative branch). So how can a Trump administration be anything but the usual bipartisan centaur?

Americans do not deserve Trump because they do not care enough about reality to see the structural differences between what they are actually doing, and what they think they were doing. Americans do not deserve Trump because they expect too little of him. They are fine with the exciting story. They don’t even know what a Plum Book is. Then, like children, they will be disappointed with the results, and never know why.

TLDR: Trump and Vance are not strong enough to replace Washington or even control it. They can do what any Republican adminstration does: bring in a different faction of staffers. This will change a few things that the government does in some ways. It will not involve any serious changes to the way government works or we live our lives.

Their lack of strength is not their fault. As democratic leaders, they have only the strength that the voters give them. The voters are not ready to trust them with full power over the government, which is the only way they could get anything done. They are not strong enough because we did not give them enough strength.

Worse, by refusing to see the difference between the dramatic narrative and the sordid reality, by investing emotional energy in the drama without any equivalent energy in wanting to make it real, or any anger that it is not real… you give your leaders no choice.

They would love to lead you for real. First, you would have to follow them for real—and you’re not ready to do that. So…

POPULAR revolt was for many centuries an essential feature of the English tradition, and the middle decades of the seventeenth century saw the greatest upheaval that has yet occurred in Britain.

The revolt within the Revolution which is my subject took many forms, some better known than others. Groups like Levellers, Diggers and Fifth Monarchists offered new political solutions (and in the case of the Diggers, new economic solutions too). The various sects - Baptists, Quakers, Muggletonians - offered new religious solutions. Other groups asked sceptical questions about all the institutions and beliefs of their society Seekers, Ranters, the Diggers too. Indeed it is perhaps misleading to differentiate too sharply between politics, religion and general scepticism. We know, as a result of hindsight, that some groups - Baptists, Quakers - will survive as religious sects and that most of the others will disappear. In consequence we unconsciously tend to impose too clear outlines on the early history of English sects, to read back later beliefs into the 1640s and 50s. One of the aims of this book will be to suggest that in this period things were much more blurred. From, say, 1645 to 1653, there was a great overturning, questioning, revaluing, of everything in England. Old institutions, old beliefs, old values came in question. Men moved easily from one critical group to another, and a Quaker of the early 1650s had far more in common with a Leveller, a Digger or a Ranter than with a modern member of the Society of Friends.

What was new in the seventeenth century was the idea that the world might be permanently turned upside down: that the dream world of the Land of Cokayne or the kingdom of heaven might be attainable on earth now.

One of the arguments advanced in propaganda for colonizing Ireland in 1594 was that 'the people poor and seditious, which were a burden to the commonwealth, are drawn forth, whereby the matter of sedition is removed out of the City'. The same argument was often used later to advocate exporting 'the rank multitude' to Virginia.

Further evidence of the unpopularity of the whole church establishment is to be found in the popular iconoclasm which broke out whenever opportunity offered: in the late 1630s and 40s altar rails were pulled down, altars desecrated, statues on tombs destroyed, ecclesiastical documents burnt, pigs and horses baptized.

A royalist looking back from 1648 noted that 'heresy is always the forerunner of rebellion.'