I know I irritate some folks here who are enthusiastic for “National Conservatism,” Trump, Leo Strauss, Carl Schmitt (brought back to the fore by Peter Thiel), and Strauss’s BAF and most loyal acolyte, Willmoore Kendall, who is claimed by some to be anti-Straussian, though that is belied by actual facts. As particularly seen in correspondence between the two men from 1949 - 1967, to the end of Kendall’s life. And continued by his wife Nellie to Strauss in 1970 after his death in asking Strauss for permission to dedicate Kendall’s translation of Rousseau’s “The Government of Poland” to him. Which he granted and as Nellie wrote: “Dedication: To Leo Strauss, the colleague and teacher under whom, Willmoore often said, he put himself to school again to learn what the ancients and the moderns have to teach us.”
This personal “dedication” to Strauss during Kendall’s lifetime after 1949 was thereafter a lifelong promotion of Leo Strauss’s ideas after “his happy discovery of Strauss,” as he put it to Nellie, until he died in 1967. It can be seen in his first gushing, sycophantic letter to Strauss in 1949, praising him for a piece Strauss wrote on Rousseau: “Your piece on Rousseau gave me quite a jolt, for which I am deeply grateful.” (Willmoore Kendall: Maverick of American Conservatives,” p. 191). That led eventually to Kendall’s translation of Rousseau’s said book, with a revealing Introduction by Kendall entitled: "How to read Rousseau’s Government in Poland.” In it, Kendall reveals how, with Machiavelli and Hobbes, he is not critical of Rousseau, nor of these two particular “Moderns,” but is in fact, with Strauss, an admirer of their “political theory.” Which unless one studies their political theory, as right-wing political theorists did in Italy in forming a political party post-WW I, and Carl Schmitt and fellow “right-thinking” Germans did in the same time period, or as Hannah Arendt did as a “Critical Political Theorist,” in tracing that particular political theory to “The Origins of Totalitarianism” post-WW II, one can only fail to see where such “theory” can lead.
In that Introduction to Rousseau, Kendall goes through his usual praise of Strauss, and Rousseau, but not only translates from the French to English, but also “translates” its “secret writing.” Meaning to put into plain English what Rousseau intended to mean. In this, Kendall reveals his own “secret writing” elsewhere. I don’t have time for block quotes, but one point Kendall approvingly cites is this: “The first task of the founder of a political regime for a modern people is to refashion the attitudes of his potential citizenry; only after this task has been successfully completed can one hope that laws will be obeyed.” One has to read more of both Kendall’s “translation,” with its approval of Rousseau’s proposed Polish government, and Rousseau’s text, to realize how despotic as we use that term that that government would be. Which in turn provides a window into Kendall’s own “secret writing” of his proposals of how the US government should operate, beginning with repression of those free speech and free press “rights” guaranteed under the 1st Amendment in the Bill of Rights which Kendall, and his collaborator, so despised.
So to “refashioning” the attitudes of the American population, to include Peter Thiel’s manifesto on the “Straussian Moment” I shared yesterday, I believe, the following
"And the way conservatives can actually win in America, he has argued, is for a Caesar-like figure to take power back from this devolved oligarchy and replace it with a monarchical regime run like a start-up. As early as 2012, he proposed the acronym RAGE—Retire All Government Employees—as a shorthand for a first step in the overthrow of the American “regime.” What we needed, Yarvin thought, was a “national CEO, [or] what’s called a dictator.” Yarvin now shies away from the word dictator and seems to be trying to promote a friendlier face of authoritarianism as the solution to our political warfare: “If you’re going to have a monarchy, it has to be a monarchy of everyone,” he said.
. . .
“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” he said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”
“And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”
"This is a description, essentially, of a coup.
“We are in a late republican period,” Vance said later, evoking the common New Right view of America as Rome awaiting its Caesar. “If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”
“Indeed,” Murphy said. “Among some of my circle, the phrase ‘extra-constitutional’ has come up quite a bit.”
"But one thing that has long been clear is that he holds democracy in low regard. As Thiel put it in a 2009 essay, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
"There’s now a good chance that the man who holds that view will soon have two of his former employees serving in the Senate.” End
Notwithstanding the many legitimate grievances against the political “mainstream,” the “solutions” offered by Peter Thiel and his acolytes, as the “New Right,” have all the potential to “cure” our problems as did the same political theories put forward first in the 1920s, by political theorists such as Schmitt, Strauss, and the political parties they shared these theories with. To a greater, or lesser, degree, depending on circumstances. And as in the 1920s, one needs to attempt to see the “secret writings,” hidden behind duplicity, as exemplified most today by this so-called "New Right” represented by these budding despotic fanatics. For those Conservatives here who say "No Enemies on the Right,” but claim to to support the Constitution and the “Republic?” Crane your necks a little more to the Right, and open your eyes, as they’re in plain view, doing business as Trumpism, National Conservatism, Likudism, Brothers of Italy, et al. And they don’t have anything good in store for us "ordinary people!” At home, or abroad, where they have their own “Enemies” to wage war against with the massive military spending, even more than the Democrats, they always demand, giving the lie to their claims to want to “end the endless wars.”
Peter Thiel protege Blake Masters launches US Senate run in Arizona
Peter Thiel protege Blake Masters wants to "completely end illegal immigration."
Youtube
Peter Thiel protege Blake Masters wants to "completely end illegal immigration."
Youtube
An executive at Peter Thiel’s venture capital fund is running for a US Senate seat with $10 million in backing from his boss.
Blake Masters, the 34-year-old chief operating officer at investment firm Thiel Capital and a former protege of the billionaire at Stanford, announced Monday that he is running as a Republican to unseat Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022.
In his campaign launch, Masters pledged to “completely end illegal immigration” and fight “indoctrination” in the school system.
Masters has never held public office and faces a crowded GOP primary field that includes state Attorney General Mark Brnovich and wealthy energy executive Jim Lamon.
To put those numbers into perspective, the average Senate candidate in 2018 spent $15.7 million over the course of their entire campaign, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The group also told Politico that Thiel’s donations to PACs supporting Masters and Vance were the largest single contributions to outside groups supporting Senate candidates in history.
Peter Thiel’s donations to PACs supporting Blake Masters and J.D. Vance were the largest single contributions to outside groups supporting Senate candidates in history, according to the Center for Responsible Politics. AP
In an interview with The Post, Masters described having close ties to Thiel, with whom he co-authored the best-selling 2014 book “Zero to One.”
“He’s technically my boss and I’m working for him and with him and he’s also a friend,” Masters said of Thiel, adding that he planned to quit his job and campaign full time at some point in the future. “He’s a mentor type figure.”
But Masters also dismissed critics who say that Thiel’s hefty donations could mean that he would be in his former boss’ pocket if he wins.
Masters wants to unseat Democratic Arizona Senator Mark Kelly in 2022. AP
“Joke is on Peter if that’s what he thinks,” said Masters in regard to the prospect of Thiel buying influence. He said the pair would be “friends and that’s it” if Masters is elected.
Part of Masters’ anti-immigration platform calls for the use of more “surveillance technology” on the US border with Mexico.
That could be a boon for Thiel, who is the co-founder and chairman of Palantir — a multibillion-dollar data analysis company that has worked with agencies like Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Patrol — as well as a major investor in Anduril, another tech company that works with CBP.
Part of Masters’ anti-immigration platform calls for the use of more “surveillance technology” on the US border with Mexico. AFP via Getty Images
Asked if his plan for the border as Senator would include giving more government contracts to his current boss’ companies, Masters did not say.
“I’m familiar with those companies and bullish on them,” he said in reference to Palantir and Anduril. “I’m open to whatever works.”
He said other technology he would like to see deployed on the border includes drones and infrared beams and praised former President Donald Trump’s concept of a border wall as a “very nice, bold piece of technology.”
Masters is highly critical of the Democratic party and Joe Biden, but he offered praise of Lina Khan, the president’s pick to head the Federal Trade Commission who has taken aggressive antitrust stances against Amazon and other tech giants.
