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January 8, 2024

Three years ago, several hundred MAGA conservatives followed a man wearing a buffalo skull on his head into the Capitol.

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Oh, I know there’s more to it – and we’ll get to that – but that will do for shorthand.  Jacob Chansley, AKA QAnon Shaman. Yellowstone Wolf, etc., a professional activist of somewhat eclectic convictions and eccentric sartorial tastes, led the MAGA election fraud protestors up the steps and into the Capitol on Jan. 6, and they went straight in, without any hesitation or sign of second thoughts. Yes, there were others, but the Shaman pretty much became the avatar of the whole affair. The majority of those people, who did no harm and committed no felonies, have, in one of the most vindictive actions is recent political history, spent the last few years in prison under rough conditions, some of them in solitary, some denied counsel, most either overcharged or mischarged, and many of them still awaiting trial. That is wrong, and I am not suggesting that it isn’t wrong, or that it should not be corrected. But at the same time, it’s awfully difficult to generate any passion over people who act this stupid.

Conservatives like to accuse others of being sheep. But many of them say it while baaing.

The Jan. 6 “insurrection” was clearly a setup — Nancy Pelosi refusing to bring in the National Guard, the doors opened by welcoming Capitol staffers and Capitol Police, unidentified masked figures racing around shouting “Let’s take the place!” This kind of thing doesn’t happen by itself. It is made to happen. The D.C. elites were desperate for their own personal Reichstag fire.  When none was forthcoming, they lit it themselves.

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It’s not likely that Chansley was actually in on any of this. But he is part of the problem, along with  QAnon, the Oath Keepers, and the attempt by the Wicked Papist Guy Fawkes and company to Seize upon and commit a Mischief upon the Person of the Ladye Governour of the state of Michigan – just in time to pull Whitmer’s fading poll numbers out of their nosedive.

One of the major failings of conservatism, and populist conservatism in particular, is something that could be termed “malignant naivete.” It’s a tendency toward hero worship, toward faddism, toward leaping onto the next flashy bandwagon without looking first. We see it all the time, with political campaigns, with books, with radio, and particularly with personalities.

What we also see is large-scale disappointment.  Ross Perot turns out to be as crazy as a rat in a sack. Ann Coulter the golden girl turns into Ann Coulter the NeverTrumper. The rebel Nikki Haley turns out to be a closet elitist. Ron DeSantis has a staff packed with WEF alumni.

Too many populist conservatives (the old movement conservatives are no more pertinent here than they are regarding anything else) are simply too gullible, too eager for easy solutions, and too content to settle for a handful of magic beans. It is a serious failing, one of several, but as bad as some of the others are, this one could turn out to be fatal.

The Left knows this, and has learned how to take advantage of it. That’s what we saw on January 6. We will see it again this year. Leftists on all levels from your local supervisor of elections to the upper reaches of the WEF have learned how to manipulate the conservative yearning for quick and easy answers and turn to it to their benefit. It has worked superbly. Jan. 6 alone has caused serious problems for Trump and the MAGA movement that continue to this very day. Of course they’ll try it again.

Current anti-Trump campaigns are in a state of collapse. The Republican bullpen is irrelevant. Efforts by the media to destroy the Orange Godzilla have generated backlash after backlash. NeverTrumpers don’t even create an echo at this point. The lawfare campaign against Trump is circling the drain.  The New York fraud “trial” is deep into mistrial territory, with Judge Arthur Engoron channeling his inner Vyshinsky in his eagerness to muzzle and insult Donald Trump. Jack “Manson Lamps” Smith’s end-run involving the Supreme Court crashed and burned in a classic case of the conniver outconniving himself. Both the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s secretary of State have scuttled back into their holes after a brief turn enacting Macbeth’s Act 5 soliloquy.