Unmasked

 

Here is another superb Chris Rufo subscribed email article that I just received, and which I will paste below in its entirety and then comment on. He sent it to me on 12/2/24, and it is entitled, Unmasking the “Whole-of-Government” DEI Agenda.

 

 

Rufo”

Unmasking the “Whole-of-Government” DEI Agenda

 

Christopher F. Rufo <rufo@substack.com>		Wed, Oct 2, 7:05 AM (1 day ago)

 

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Unmasking the “Whole-of-Government” DEI Agenda The real-world effects of the White House’s diversity initiatives will soon be revealed. Christopher F. Rufo Oct 2     READ IN APP   Every nation has an operating ideology. In a country that hews faithfully to the principles embedded in its written constitution, that ideology is overt. In a tyrannical government, however, it is concealed, as the regime preaches one set of values in principle but pursues the opposite in practice.” My response: Yes, every nation has an operating ideology. A democratic country, as traditional America was, hewed faithfully to the principles embedded in its written constitution, so that ideology is over. Rufo wisely is observing that people that are just, good, and wise, are overt and share their agenda—they say what they mean and mean what they say. They share their noble ideology overtly because transparency from them is their signal to the public that they are trustworthy and have nothing to hide, and that is true. Where an ideology is noble or reasonable, people of good faith can quit playing games, self-refraining from seeking to one-up each other. Rather, they aim to see and understand their opponent’s overtly shared agenda, and the public discourse is then conducted productively in good faith, as the masses sort out their differences and disputes, and go about crafting practical scenarios about working out compromise and consensus where both sides give a little, and gain a lot by combining their ideologies for the common good—or at least that is the ideal outcome, which sensible people of good faith should be able to make real, and often are able to amicably approximate in reality. Under a tyrannical government, or, in our case, where cultural Marxists are scheming to inflict a totalitarian Marxist regime upon the American people before they wise up, sneakily inserting that totalitarian state into our federal governance, under the cover of darkness, not being exposed as the traitors they are, unstopped while the masses and conservatives are still strong enough to withstand victoriously this sneaky revolution. The DEI-obsessed and morally bankrupt Progressives and Democrats conceal their ideology because it is evil and bad for the people. Evil people conceal their evil ideology, not because they believe it is inferior, or because they feel guilty—neither is their motive:; no they are moving against the whole people in secret, hoping the element of surprise will see them installed in power before their wicked agenda is revealed for what it is: they want to take over and  capture the ruling dispensation undetected before they are caught and defeated. These hypocrites disguise and conceal their immoral, wasteful ideology, preaching one set of values in principle, but practice the opposite set of values in practice. They want to keep and gather all power unto themselves; they want all control, and will lie, cheat betray and conceal to win gain the government to impose their sick agenda upon all who can no longer resist them.   Rufo: “Most Americans believe that our nation today lives up to its founding principle that all men are created equal. The letter of the law seems to provide for colorblind equality, according to which individuals are judged on their talents and virtues, rather than on their ancestry, religion, or place of origin. This has not held true in practice, however. Most obviously, of course, was the long American history of slavery and disenfranchisement of African Americans. Since 1965, however, when Lyndon Johnson first implemented the policy of affirmative action in federal contracting, the United States has racially discriminated in favor of minority groups—maintaining discrimination, but changing the target.”   My response: America is not a perfect place, never was and never will be, but it historically and presently has been and is pretty darn good republic despite being such a populous, large nation, despite past excesses like slavery and treatment of indigenous peoples. We did the affirmative action thing here since the 1960s, fine and okay, but it is time to move on the legal discrimination of affirmative action which favors minorities over whites, Asians, and the majority. We need now to abandon group rights and group preference for any group, and both the letter of the law, the legal underpinning, and the practice of the law in the land must be confined supporting a society for individuals and individualists that maverize, a society of colorblind equality, where citizens compete and succeed—or not—and are rewarded or punished based upon merited effort, no longer exalted or humbled, grounded in identity political standards. People are to judge and be judged on their talents and virtues, not groupist membership based in ancestry, religion, or place of origin.   Rufo: “The old rationale was that achieving equal rights for the previously disenfranchised required a short period of favoritism on their behalf, which would wither away. But the withering never happened. Instead, our institutions intensified their commitment to racial favoritism, right up to the present day, and most recently under the mandate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI.”   My response: We cannot be a free people judging and rewarding ourselves and each other on any basis except merit and colorblind equality of individual opportunity to make it or fail on one’s own. As our governmental and other private institutions intensified their commitment to racial favoritism, right up to the present day, under the mandate of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, that sets up a racialist and racist totalitarian, socialist regime of vicious toxicity where formerly oppressed groups are now the new oppressors, and the vanquished, formerly alleged or actual or partially oppressing groups or offenders, are now the new victims of racial discrimination. This perverted, inverted hellish nightmare is the revenge of the social justice warriors upon lovely American, the least racist, most free and prosperous, large multi-ethnic country in the world.     Rufo: “One prominent proponent of that policy is Vice President Kamala Harris, who rose to power on the coattails of racial politics and, as vice president, has worked to entrench DEI into every aspect of the federal government. This agenda was made explicit by her running mate. During the Democratic primary campaign in 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden committed to choosing a woman as vice president and to appointing an administration that “will look like the country,” a polite way of saying that he would consider identity first and merit second. The following month, he noted that among his list of potential VPs were “four black women,” and amid a pressure campaign to select one, eventually chose Harris, then senator from California. Since then, both Biden and Harris have reinforced their commitment to racial preferences. “To me, the values of diversity, equality, inclusion are literally—and this is not kidding—the core strengths of America,” the president said earlier this year. The vice president, for her part, has denounced those who “say that it is a bad term to talk about DEI.” “   My response: The reverse racist policies of Biden and Harris, is the Marxist, totalitarian future America unless Trump and Vance get elected, to thwart their evil designs upon America.     Rufo: “Those commitments have since become federal policy. On his first day in the Oval Office, President Biden rescinded former president Donald Trump’s order to “combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating,” and replaced it with a new executive order on “racial equity,” which “charged the Federal Government with . . . addressing systemic racism in our Nation’s policies and programs” via “an ambitious, whole-of-government approach.” A few months later, the president issued another executive order, directing the head of each agency to “establish a position of chief diversity officer,” to “take steps to implement or increase the availability and use of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility training programs,” and to issue annual DEI plans and reports to the president—all in the interest of advancing the administration’s “racial equity agenda.” The key word here is “equity.” As Harris explained in a campaign video, an important distinction exists between “equity” and “equality.” Equity is about “giving people the resources and support they need, so that everyone can be on equal footing and then compete on equal footing.” The goal, as distinct from equality’s directive of equal standing in the law, is equal outcomes: “Equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.” “   My response: Equity means the government controls hiring, firing, wages and entails wealth confiscation and redistribution, for communism guarantees that totalitarian control of all aspects of government, institutions, the economy, and money dictates that all have an equal share of the wealth, enforced equality of outcome. Karl Marx is smiling wherever he is. Equality meant strictly and solely as equality under the law rewards and protects equality of opportunity, but each individual is free and responsible for how far he goes, and how much he earns.     Rufo: “In other words, Harris wanted to replace the equal treatment of all individuals with preferential treatment for certain racial groups. Her desire that all “end up at the same place” recalls the basic formula of Communism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” While these executive orders have drawn attention in the press, their real-world effects have remained mostly hidden—until now. My team and I have spent months meticulously reviewing internal documents, contracts, budgets, and ideological material across a range of federal departments. Together, they paint a stunning portrait. The federal government not only punishes and rewards individuals based on racial identity but also has dispensed billions of dollars toward building a DEI regime spanning government, academia, medicine, and contracting. The administration has abandoned the old notion of equality in favor of a pseudo-Marxist ideology that condemns the United States as a fundamentally racist country, an evil that can only be corrected through the forced equalization of outcomes.”   My response: Rufo has a rather impressive record for careful research, not accusing anyone of anything unless he can document their misbehavior. We are in great and grave danger: if Kamala Harris becomes President, the soft tyranny version of the totalitarian Marxist state with legal, enforced and embedded racist policies, previously concealed, reverse discrimination as a Democratic/leftist ideology now implemented as the law of the land against whites and other unpopular minorities, will be the open practice of federal racism all across our great nation when and if she is President in 2025.   Rufo: “The letter of the law seems to provide for colorblind equality, according to which individuals are judged on their talents and virtues, rather than on their ancestry, religion, or place of origin. Over the course of this month, we will publish a series of stories investigating these policies and their impact on science, foreign policy, finance, and government contracting. Together, they will underscore the need to dismantle DEI and to pursue the only real solution to America’s racial woes: the principle of colorblind equality.” My response: The hour is late and America the Greatest could soon be brought down and destroyed by the Left: they desire so, but they may realize their dream by inflicting their nightmare future upon all of us, be we willing to receive it or not.   Rufo: “Christopher Rufo is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribed This article was originally published in City Journal.”

DEI Corrupts

 

I received subscribed emails from Chris Rufo, the bright, principled, young conservative thinker and journalist. I enclose his entire 6/29/24 email to me and then will comment where appropriate.

 

 

 

Rufo: “How DEI Corrupts America’s Universities

Christopher F. Rufo <rufo@substack.com>		Sat, Jun 29, 7:01 AM

 

to me Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more How DEI Corrupts America’s Universities The ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is not what it purports to be. Christopher F. Rufo Jun 29       READ IN APP       The idea of public universities in the United States originally rested on a compact between the citizen and the republic. The agreement was that the citizen would provide funding for the university in order to train young people to advance the public interest and the common good. In recent years, however, this compact has shattered, and considerable efforts will be needed to rebuild it.”   My response: Like hesitant Rufo critic, Jordan Peterson, recently suggested, it is concerning that conservatives activists like Rufo are politically inserting themselves in the process of running universities, a needed correction to offset the corrupt, ideological excesses of DEI promoted there by staff and professors; Peterson worries that right-wing ideologues running campuses with intellectual purity tests would be no improvement on left-wing ideologues currently terrorizing and suppressing intellectual dissidents at campuses across America. Rufo, denies this criticism because he claims conservatives becoming regents and curbing woke ideological tyranny on campus will not go overboard, because they want balance in views, not control and conformity, and I believe Rufo. Second, Rufo does seem to offer a historical basis for the idea that public universities here originally rested on a compact between the citizen and the republic. The citizens fund the universities so colleges and professors will train the young, and this advanced the public interest and the common good. Rufo is angry that Leftist postmodernists have shattered this compact, and considerable efforts are necessary to rebuild it. I think Rufo should be unleashed to show what he can do to improve a university, and I have not forgotten Peterson’s warning. I would offer my solution that if each 18 year-old is an individuating supercitizen on the way and in training to assume her adult role, no professor, no ideologue, no institution will be strong enough or cruel enough to make her submit to their brainwashing and mind control. Her powerful original thinking, her force of personality, and her indomitable courage will render it impossible to force her to sumbit to their threats and bullying. This is the best corrective prevention to any institutional attempt anywhere—including colleges-to tyrannize and mind-control the students or the young, the favorite target for ambitious authoritarians.   Rufo: “The clearest expression of what has gone wrong is DEI. At first glance, a commitment to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” might seem laudable. But DEI employs a propagandistic language to conceal its real intentions. It is, in fact, the opposite of what it appears to be.” My response: DEI is propagandistic language pushed by postmodernist true believers to capture and control all free young people at college.   Rufo: “We can review the acronym in parts. First, “diversity.” The initial connotation of the word suggests a variety of people, experiences, and knowledge. But in practice, universities use diversity to justify a policy of sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, racial discrimination: a total inversion of the principles of colorblind equality and individual merit.” My response: Diversity for Progressives means monolithic sameness of viewpoint, and there are no individuals: their policy of reverse discrimination inverts the principles of colorblind equality and individual merit, as all people are avatars of their intersectionally assigned group memberships, favoring some groups and putting down other groups: these are cruel people with evil intentions towards those disfavored by them. Rufo: “Second, “inclusion.” In kindergarten, teaching kids to be inclusive means encouraging them to share and be polite to classmates. But in the context of a university, inclusion is used as justification for excluding people and ideas that are seen as a threat to prevailing ideologies and sentiments.”   My response: For Leftists inclusion does not mean inclusion: it means radical excluding of people, ideas and disfavored group members viewed as antithetical to the prevailing ideology and sentiment of Leftists.  Rufo: “Finally, “equity.” The immediate association is with the principle of equality. But equity is actually a radically opposed idea. Equality is the principle that every man or woman should be judged as an individual, neither punished nor rewarded based on ancestry. Equity demands the opposite: categorizing individuals into group identities and assigning disparate treatment to members of those groups, seeking to “equalize” what would otherwise be considered unjust outcomes. What this means in practice is that members of certain groups get favored, others disfavored: in short, inequality justified under the ideology of “equity.” “   My response: I cannot improve on his definition of equity. Postmodernist Marxist equity is actually pure inequity, pure inequality, pure injustice visited upon disfavored groups like males, whites, Christians, Jews, conservatives, individualists, Americans, capitalists and heterosexuals, by those now running the institution and their favored groups elevated above the disfavored groups, a naked display of reverse discrimination unfolding.   Rufo: “You see this hiding in plain sight. Universities publish in their own materials prima facie evidence of their commitments to racial discrimination, quotas, and disparate treatment on the basis of identity in hiring, admissions, promotions, and in other programs. Administrators, who are supposed to administer services and manage programs neutrally, use DEI ideology to impose political criteria on the speech and behavior of faculty, students, and staff. They subordinate the pursuit of truth, which should be a university’s highest commitment, to the dogmas of ideological activism.”   My response: Again, Rufo incomparably and simply reveals how DEI ideology in practice is the imposition of totalitarian practices, employed in Red China or in modern Russia, upon once open, free liberal arts colleges. DEI advocates have critically and perhaps irreversibly damaged our universities. Rufo’s modest but powerful of reasonable public retaking of that university in Florida is critically needed, despite Jordan Peterson’s worries of Rufo and his ilk going to far. Rufo: “To give an example of how DEI is actually practiced, consider the following training materials from University of Colorado Boulder’s DEI program. The basic predicate of CU Boulder’s DEI program is that “Black, Indigenous and People of Color,” or “BIPOC,” students are failing because of “white supremacy culture.” What is white supremacy culture? According to CU Boulder’s DEI documentation, it includes “individualism,” “perfectionism,” “a sense of urgency,” “worship of the written word,” and “objectivity.” These traits are supposedly vestiges of “whiteness” and unavailable to racial minorities—an unintentionally bigoted attitude.  Next, CU Boulder’s DEI bureaucrats would have you engage in a 21-day “Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge.” One of the resources included in this program is a guide on “How to Be a Better White Person.” The document supplied a protocol on how to accomplish this task. Step one: “Realize you’re white.” Step two: “Recognize your privilege.” Step three: “Know things.” Finally, from a related resource, instructions on how to be an “ally” to racial minorities: “Transfer the benefits of your privilege to those who lack it”; “amplify the voices of the oppressed before your own”; “acknowledge that, even though you feel pain, the conversation is not about you.”   This is not the language of an academic program but of an abusive relationship.” My response: These cultural Marxist fanatics are sick, vicious, and could lead to murderous persecution of targeted groups. Pol Pot would have been proud of their attempts. Rufo: “Unfortunately, the language of DEI has also taken hold in CU Boulder’s curriculum. For example, the university has recently included a course on “Critical Whiteness Studies.” The syllabus is replete with activist terms, such as “institutionalized whiteness,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility.” The basic concept is that “whiteness” is an irreducibly malicious essence, loaded with ancestral guilt. Human history is brutal and filled with injustice. But to scapegoat one population group, European whites, as the essence of evil is nothing but propaganda. Obviously, none of this meets any genuine scholarly standards—and that’s a pattern characteristic of DEI.”   My response: To scapegoat onto European whites is to make us the new Jews, and these lying blood liberlists will put whites in chains and mark them for death camps in 2077 (if they go forward unchecked) like the Nazis did to Jews in the 30s and 40s. Rufo: “Finally, DEI is used as a justification to hire scholars of favored demographics and ideologies. CU Boulder has explicit and implicit racial quotas in hiring, which, in theory, violate the law. According to one professor, more than 90 percent of recent hires at CU Boulder’s College of Arts and Sciences have been diversity hires. Of the remaining 10 percent, some might lay claim to other protected identities, such as “LGBTQ,” reducing the percentage of “oppressors” even further. This is unethical and immoral. But under DEI, it is a requirement of social justice. The problem with DEI is not merely administrative or curricular. When its principles are adopted wholesale, DEI compromises the fundamental purpose of the university and the basic compact between the citizen and the state. In fact, the degeneration of universities into centers of ideological activism—which American taxpayers are currently subsidizing—violates basic democratic principle to such an extraordinary degree that we urgently need to implement dramatic reforms.” My response: I am pleased that Rufo understands the problem and how to make it better. Rufo: “Fortunately, this is now beginning to happen. We have already abolished or curtailed DEI bureaucracies in 12 states. In Florida, where I have worked on the reform campaign, Governor Ron DeSantis has not only abolished DEI but also enacted reforms to faculty hiring, university governance, and the core curriculum. The vision for these reforms is simple: to prioritize merit over ancestry, and to govern by the principle of colorblind equality, rather than left-wing racialism. The university should judge everyone as an individual, rather than as avatars of the “oppressor” and the “oppressed.” “ My response: One is not civilized, moral or just unless one judges everyone as individuals, based in their merited treatment under the umbrella of colorblind equality. Each person is a sovereign individual, and no more must group identity allow people to be mendaciously reduced to being group representatives as groupists, belonging to condemned, attacked oppressor groups, against the favored, elevated oppressed groups, now the new elite, now granted special privileges, to made permanent. Rufo: “And, most of all, the university should be oriented toward truth. In the coming years, state leaders will have to choose: to prioritize the pursuit of knowledge, or to prioritize racial activism. We can encourage genuine diversity—a range of opinion, from a variety of people—but universities under DEI have demonstrated, time and again, a basic hostility to scholarly standards and fair conduct.  America’s universities have been a boon to our society. They deserve public support. But only if the universities meet their end of the bargain. Abolish DEI. Restore merit. And let the universities pursue their true mission, without ideological interference. That is what we are working toward. And we will win. Christopher F. Rufo is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribed This article was originally published in City Journal. “

The Counter-Elite

 

I am quite impressed with the brilliance, wonderful articulateness, and grasp of the latest conservative thinking, captured by Chris Rufo, in all that he writes. I am older than him by at least 30 years, and my radical reclusiveness leaves me vulnerable to becoming stale and hackneyed in my thinking, because I have become severed from the marketplace of current ideas being exchanged. Following Rufo is one way for me to mitigate the effects of being isolated.

 

I agree with him 90% of the time, but a few months ago, I wrote how he is traditional and elitist in one respect. He worries rightly about the current cultural domination of all corporations, institutions, and government agencies by the cultural Marxists, that the ruling elite here is corrupt, totalitarian and addicted to power, a sickness that that eaten all the way through them. They are now rotten, cruel, wicked, stupid, arrogant people out to fundamentally finish the transformation/ruination of America, a most undesirable end which is imminent unless the conservative masses and a few conservative intellectuals are able to obviate the grandiose, destruction vision of the Progressives, mainly by electing Trump to a second term.

 

Rufo is one of the young conservative intellectuals leading the charge against the ravaging attack of the rabid Left, and he and his ilk have enjoyed some success.

 

Then he wrote an article that deeply offended and alarmed me: I became convinced that he is deeply mistaken and his reforms at best will restore America to its Enlightenment condition as a free market constitutional republic with a culture predicated on Judeo-Christian/Greek values,and the first principle that the sovereignty of the individual to think as he will for himself as a rational free agent.

 

I think Rufo believes that to restore America to its former greatness and its conservative, Western heritage, it requires the unified allegiance and joint sponsorship of that counter-revolution by a newly minted conservative, cultural, business, and political elite to run things.

 

I enthusiastically support the reform, but I believe in the masses, the people, the way that current elitist intellectuals like Rufo and Jordan Peterson do not.

 

It is my basic assumption that every human being is loaded and blessed with near infinite intelligence (regardless of the gradations of IQ difference lived by people—as individuators anyone can unlock more IQ from his mind to be smarter than he is right now), will, energy, courage and talent to self-realize as a living angel, as an individuating supercitizen, as such fit to live in America and make the laws that she will obey, and to run the country by consent and programmed fabricated and agreed to by the masses informally.

 

It is the masses that will complete the conservative counter-revolution, and maintain it, and they need no elite, no hierarchy, no sprawling institutions of any kind (limit all institutions in size, scope, and reach, not just going for limited government) to tell them how to live, how to conduct themselves, and give them orders.

 

Rufo is suggesting that a new elite be formed to run things and direct the masses once the counter-revolution is victorious, and his implication is that the masses will go back to sleep, become indifferent, drift back into a way of life dominated by hierarchies, and destructive collectivist policies. As groupist, nonindividuating, altruistic group-livers that group-identify, they are what Rufo worries that they actually are and will return to being; such naughty adult children require elites to run things for them, which is fine as long as the elite is not entrenched and corrupted by centralize power, which eventually happens, and then the masses suffer mightily as abused, enslaved, oppressed and exploited victims of the ruling elite. The nonindividuating masses, as second-handers, are always re-enslaved.

 

That unenlightened masses require elites to rule them is the fault of the elite nearly as much as it is the fault of each of the masses for failing to assert herself and allow none to enslave her, and none to do her thinking for her.

 

To be ruled by elites on the Right, eventually and inevitably leads to fascism, monarchy, or strong-man dictatorship.

 

To be ruled by elites on the Left eventually and inevitably leads to Communism or mob-rule.

 

The people always suffer needlessly when elites run things. Better morally elite citizens to run things while part-elite, and part-common person.

 

With this introduction finished, let me now share all of Chris Rufo’s email with the reader as I respond to it where needed.

 

 

Rufo: “

 

 

J. D. Vance and the Emerging Counter-Elite

How a second Trump administration could avoid some of the pitfalls of the first.

Christopher F. Rufo

Jul 27, 2024

 

Former president Donald Trump’s selection of Ohio senator J. D. Vance as his running mate has generated much commentary. The mainstream media has tried to frame Vance as a postliberal “threat to democracy,” while Trump’s supporters have celebrated him as a bridge to a new generation.

But there is a deeper story here. The Vance selection is not a gambit to secure a particular demographic or region—white men are Trump’s base; Ohio is a safe red state—but an effort to cultivate an emerging counter-elite that could make the second Trump administration substantially more effective than the first.

This story is built into J. D. Vance’s biographical arc. He was the all-American kid who rose from humble beginnings to make his way in the world: the Marines; Yale Law; venture capital; a best-selling book. He learned the language of the prestige institutions, cultivated powerful patrons, and quickly climbed the ladder in academia, finance, and business. He had made it.”

 

My response: I like Vance a lot, and all that Rufo says about him is fair and accurate. Then, Rufo takes the plunge: The Vance selection is an intelligent step made by Trump to cultivate an emerging counter-elite to make the new Trump administration more effective.

Rufo is limited in his thinking in that he is reforming universities, and he is limited in his understanding and vision as he touts the new Vance-included conservative counter-elite to run the reconstituted American dream under Trump II Administration, should that come about.

The problem is always the individual, and that is the conclusion one must reach as an advocate of egoist morality, accepting that it is self-evident that the individual is  sovereign over all things.

The individual must self-realize and run all institutions as well as his personal affairs if society is to survive, function and flourish. Were 85% of the masses to maverize as individuating supercitizens, and they will eventually, once they learn how to live and behave optimally under Mavellonialist ethical instruction, the each citizen thinks and acts as an elite person would, while still being a commoner so democratically dispersed power-sharing arrangements prevent elites from forming and to be corrupted by power, which they then abused to bring injustice, malevolence and suffering to bear on all society, upon all the poor, subjugated citizens.

 

Rufo: “Then, his story takes a turn. Having entered the ranks of America’s elite, Vance became disillusioned and disenchanted with it, correctly identifying it as a force of hypocrisy and corruption. He defected—first, by parting ways with the respectable conservatism of the Beltway, and then by embracing Donald Trump.

 

Some have criticized this as a cynical move, but my sense is that it is the opposite. A cynic would have continued to build an elite résumé; Vance sacrificed his respectability within a certain stratum, assumed considerable risk by moving toward Trump, and, in my view, was genuinely convinced that the establishment, both Left and Right, had exhausted itself and had to be opposed.

Now, not only has Vance been selected as a vice-presidential nominee; more significantly, he has charted the path for an emerging new conservative counter-elite.”

 

My response: Rufo is very, very sharp. He is right to be the first to state that Vance is emerging as a leader, perhaps the leader of the surfacing counter-elite Right, and that Vance is so standing out of principle, not an opportunistic grab for power.

What Vance and the emerging conservative counter-elite require—where will Rufo fit in as a potential political player in this new regime?—is the maverized, supercitizenized masses to direct them, and tell them how to govern—to obey or to be replaced.

 

Rufo: “The political balance is beginning to shift. A significant cohort of power brokers in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street have publicly moved toward Trump in this election cycle. Some of the names are familiar: Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Bill Ackman. But hundreds of other influential figures are assembling behind the scenes to support Trump’s campaign. Even some of Trump’s former adversaries, such as Mark Zuckerberg, have expressed cautious admiration for the former president.

Vance can now position himself at the center of this counter-elite. He has been in the boardrooms, made the pitches, and built the relationships. He speaks their language. They can do business together.

This could represent a sea-change. During the first Trump administration, especially following the death of George Floyd, institutional elites could neither express admiration for nor devote public support to Trump without paying a significant political price. Now the market has shifted, with a dissident elite moving along a similar path as Vance.”

 

My response: Again, Rufo is extremely bright to anticipate what will happen, and what should happen. I just wish Mavellonialism was better known, more popular and accepted, so we could reform our citizens, to make the wonderful American Way a permanent restoration.

 

Rufo: “Signals in these institutions always flow from the top down. When the All-In podcast members host a fundraiser for Trump, they give permission to others in Silicon Valley to do the same. When Bill Ackman endorses Trump without negative repercussions, he gives permission to others on Wall Street to speak their minds.

If the Trump-Vance ticket wins in November, this counter-elite support could pay significant dividends for the Trump agenda.”

 

My response: In my ideal constitutional republic, free marketed and brimming with feisty, organized, engaged and willful individuating supercitizens, no longer will institutional signals flow from the top down, as they always have. The maverized Americans masses will force all leaders and institutional functionaries to obey and step lively, as things will be signaled and sent from the bottom up for the first time in human history, a cultural and civilization-forging transformation of marvelous potential.

 

Rufo: “In his first administration, Trump led through charismatic authority, trusting his intuitions and using the force of his personality to bend policy from the White House. There were successes but also limitations. Trump endured considerable staff turnover, often lacking the institutional buy-in that would enable him to implement his agenda effectively. This is not a problem that Democrats face; their institutional strength is immense. For a Republican president, however, a supportive counter-elite has become an essential precondition for success.

This is where Vance can help with Trump’s agenda. He can serve as a translator, turning Trump’s charismatic vision into a rational-legalistic formula. And he can lead the emerging right-wing counter-elite, so that Trump’s policies, which enjoy a significant base of support among the working and middle classes, can gain greater traction within elite institutions.

We should note the irony. Trump’s childhood was gilded, while Vance’s was troubled. And yet, Trump has a magnetic attachment to the masses—think of his archetypal Rust Belt voter—while Vance holds appeal to a sector of the elite. For this reason, Trump’s picking Vance makes sense. He saw not only someone who could help advance the agenda but also a younger heir who could bring it into the future. 

In this way, it is a more ambitious gesture than typical VP picks by either party, which are more commonly driven by a need for “balance” on a ticket. If Trump wins in November, and Vance is able to form a durable counter-elite, Trump’s selection of him could prove to be one of the most consequential vice presidential choices in modern history.”

 

My response: Yes, Trump by himself is a charismatic flash-in-the-pan which the Deep State will resist and outlast without a conservative counter-elite to give the reform depth. However, the conservative counter-elite desperately requires 225 million anarchist individuating supercitizens to set them straight and keep them on the straight and narrow politically. This is real reform, perhaps the last political reform required.

 

Rufo is prophetic and an original thinker. What he sees in J.D. Vance seems realistic. I just wish Rufo was versed in Mavellonialist philosophy so he could take his conservative reforms to the next and perhaps ultimate level of reform, the liberation of each citizen. I conceive of myself as a Prometheus-type, hoping to provide humans with the fire of egoist ethics, so they can stay warm and cook their food.

 

Rufo: “Christopher F. Rufo is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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This article was originally published in City Journal.”