The Pendulum As I See It.
The word pendulum has 4 horseshoes in it. The ‘p’ and ‘d’ form natural opposites or apposite mirrors, while the ‘u’ and ‘u’ remain pending. This won't be a long post, at least I hope it won’t be. I can never tell because unlike a lot of successful writers; I don’t begin an essay with an end in mind. I mean that both literally and subtextual. I have never much understood ‘the end justifies the means’ or its opposite, if there is one, other than a well formed plot, not have I understood that outcomes and intent are often the same in law.
Wow, did I write all of that? That actually sounds like a 3rd or 4th year undergraduate in political psychology class. I was curious about Gemini’s essay so I researched or more precisely Googled the meaning of ‘moral exceptionalism’ and ‘executive revanchism’. So like, is moral exceptionalism similar to American exceptionalism in geopolitics, I had the gall to ask. Moral exceptionalism is when a person considers themselves or is perceived as ‘holier than thou’ and according to Google, that is precisely the Liberal formulation of America and its founding principles. There was a distinct time, hard it may be to believe, when American diplomats went around the world politely asking other countries to not behave like Trump does. And legend has it, that people would listen to what Americans said, because…we had a great story to sell…or a systemic structural founding story…where we created these interlocking structures that checked the balances of power distribution. The executive was never unchecked, its main power was that the executive held a veto. That in essence was how the center was supposed to hold, while the states did their own thing. Now if a logical person who has visited China understands that sort of a bewitched structure, they’ll see it for what it is. A nation of fools charmed by charms themselves.
After such a thorough introduction, it is almost un-necessary to explain the pendulum, is it not? The pendulum, in its essence is what we’re seeing as a regular part of American life since World War II and probably a great deal prior. I’ll take the most recent examples, since some of you are rather young. Remember Woke? I never researched it a great deal myself, it seemed to be a phenomenon that was discussed a great deal in liberal media and Fox News. It wasn’t about acceptance as much as it was about a pushing or shoving into a certain agenda: a ‘mobbing’ if you will. The accusation, if there is any, is that the architects of woke weren’t unaware of the effect on the average American slumbering public. They were fully aware of the backlash, the blowback, the whiplash… the knew that at some point there would those elements in the American psyche. And then the anti-woke was awaken and take the reins to reign. That is the accusation that invited Trump into the White House. That was the first swing of the pendulum as it moved from the extreme left to the extreme right.
You can almost structure the swing back in your mind, can’t you? CAN’T YOU?
That is the second accusation. Not only did woke set the pendulum in motion, they fully expected the swing back into ever more woeness. Perhaps that’s unfair. Yet surely there are thinkers who are fully capable of thinking the pendulum through, if I can think it through here with you. And if you think there aren’t such thinkers….then that’s it own sort of self fulfilling daydream is it not? We deserve the leaders we end up with.
So here we are on the cusp of November and the Trump team: Miller, Rubio, Bessent et all are dutifully parroting the dangers of the extreme left. Yet people are voting in record numbers in democratic primaries to elect people, some of who have very flaky past statements and credentials. And so the pendulum shall swing to that extreme, it will come with its own set of inherent dangers and by November of 2030, the voters shall be more tired and more angry at having being misled by the “Trump Opposites” that they voted into power. And so having reached the other end of the pendulum on the left…it will be time for it to swing again…
Meanwhile, the true trajectory of whatever the System wants to achieve will continue unabated regardless of whoever is in power. I could give you specific examples of what Obama started that Trump and Biden continued. Or what Reagan started that continues to this day.
That’s how I see the pendulum.
