Weekend Reflections: Red Wave, Beer Daze, Wet Souls

The drunken gang rape of Brett Kavanaugh’s life, career, and family by the Democratic Party, its supporters, and its propaganda arm (aka “the mainstream media”) — based on a flimsy thirty-five-year-old allegation that would, were there any evidence or witnesses to support it, amount at most to a misdemeanor committed by a minor at an underage drinking party — has some Republicans excited about November.

As American progressives let all their cats out of every bag in the final weeks before the midterm elections — with special emphasis on the dead and rotting cats — some self-described conservatives are beginning to chatter about a GOP landslide in November. Surely, they tell themselves, every normal American sees what is happening here, and what it portends for the future, should the Democrats be allowed to get away with it. Surely, they muse enthusiastically, this will bring the Trump and Bush wings of the Republican voter base together like nothing else could. Surely, they wax, “the right” will be motivated and energized for this election like never before.

Does all this excitement really indicate such a sure thing? And what, exactly, would be so wonderful about this sure thing, should it materialize?

First of all, the problem with echo chambers is that they tend to be quite echoey. That there is outrage and high motivation among those Republican voters who are focused on the Kavanaugh atrocity and inclined to rally together on “conservative media” websites and comment forums, is certain. Does this translate into massive Republican voter turnout in November? Maybe. But given that a large proportion of the American voting public is sympathetic to the Democrats, in favor of a national pro-abortion policy (which, of course, is what all of this is really about for the left), and on permanent intravenous feeding from the mainstream media, entertainment industry, and internet surrogates for its news and opinion, it is also entirely possible that the “enthusiasm” (i.e., hatred and paranoia) of progressive voters will be just as vehement, and cancel out any extra Republican votes.

And then there is my second question: What would be so wonderful about this prospective “red wave,” should it materialize?

This situation is looking increasingly similar to 2016, with the Republican Party establishment seeking to exploit and manipulate the frustration and outrage of so-called conservatives for their own political gain, by presenting themselves and their status quo as the only alternative in a “binary choice,” and their anti-conservative candidate(s) and agenda as the last rebel outpost for constitutionalists looking to “drain the swamp.”

“But if we turn out in big numbers,” hope the breathless conservatives, “then the Republicans will have control of the White House and both houses of Congress, and then, um…”

Mm-hmmm?

I have written extensively and vociferously about the sickening assault on Judge Kavanaugh. It has been thoroughly Marxist in methods and orientation — not metaphorically Marxist, not hyperbolically Marxist, but Marxist plain and simple — and the Democratic Senate and media (yes, it is the “Democratic media,” once again neither metaphorically nor hyperbolically, but plainly and simply) have demonstrated extremes of brazen amorality that I doubt even they knew they had in them. (Well, some of them knew what they had in them, of course, because they live with their own stench every day.) I hope, therefore, that the Republicans in the Senate can muster enough collective courage, or at least enough calculated self-interest, to resist this assault and get Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court, if only to avoid establishing such a grotesque precedent for future Democratic operations.

Having said that, I must admit that I was less than overwhelmed by Judge Kavanaugh’s performance during his final Senate hearing September 27th, particularly in his opening statement, which I watched the next day on YouTube. Though sympathizing with the absurdity of his plight, I was disappointed by his emotionalism and lack of self-control. Yes, I know he has been through a corrupt and appalling process, and I do not blame him for feeling under siege and offended; but that was all the more reason for him to bring his best, most mature and sober self to the table. If that was his best, then he has some growing up to do — and I say that sincerely and respectfully, not as a meanspirited jibe.

(To be fair, he was speaking while looking at the faces of his Democratic attackers, and I wasn’t. I don’t know whether I would be have been able to behave calmly and resolutely either while staring at the revoltingly smug mug of spiritual rape-gang leader Dianne Feinstein.)

One more point related to his testimony and the surrounding issues, but a point which I separate from the above comment on the man himself, because this is more of a general observation about the cultural moment than a comment on Kavanaugh per se.

Part of the pseudo-case against Kavanaugh rides on the idea that he might have been drunk enough to “black out,” and therefore not even remember, the next day, what kind of sexual assaults he might have participated in the night before. In his defense, Kavanaugh repeatedly declared that he had never blacked out after drinking, or woken up unable to remember what he had done the night before.

Nevertheless, he did admit freely to having been, and continuing to be, an avid beer drinker. Or rather, a beer lover. He raised the matter as part of his defense, and showed considerable pride in declaring himself a man who loves to drink beer with friends, one who has done so often since his school days, and yes, by implication, one who has often drunk to excess, i.e., gotten drunk.

He was not merely saying “There is nothing wrong with having a beer on a hot summer day.” He was reaching out for sympathy from his brethren in the American “regular guy world,” who agree that getting drunk — not as a rare minor mishap, but as a purposeful social activity in which inebriation is the goal — is a normal, acceptable, almost sacrosanct part of being a true blue American.

Getting drunk, as a widespread and almost universally-approved means of “relaxing,” “having fun,” or “making friends,” is one of the great moral calamities of the age, evidence of a society constitutionally inclined to aggrandize irrationality and excessive emotionality. A society that tends to mistake deliberate mindlessness for relaxation, transient physical pleasure for happiness, and mutual diminution for friendship, is a society on its last wobbly legs as a free republic grounded in the twin principles of individual self-determination and personal self-restraint, i.e., responsible adulthood. For such a society is slowly weakening its moral resolve in favor of the comforts of easy gratification, while dissolving the higher aspirations of man in favor of the self-limiting sentimentality of “belonging” and “being normal.”

Nineteenth-century Germany’s beer-soaked romanticism was truly, as Nietzsche observed with great disdain, in part a romanticism of German beer-drinking itself — the sentimental rationalization of a corrupted and wet-souled populace.

Much of the modern advanced world, and certainly the North American vanguard of that world, is following the German model, in this as in so many other things. Of course, we North Americans continue to tell ourselves the results will be entirely different this time.

“I’m okay,” we collectively slur, “I know when to stop!”

A man, when he gets drunk, is led by a beardless lad, tripping, knowing not where he steps, having his soul moist.

A dry gleam of light is the wisest and best soul.

— Heraclitus, Fragments 117 & 118