A Dose of Political Reality

Have you taken the second red pill?

What Americans want is a question fundamental to any political project in this country. Fortunately, there is evidence that key issues for the dissident right matter to voters too. A recent Quinnipiac poll revealed that immigration was the single most important issue to Americans, followed by the economy. This should come as no surprise, as polls regularly reveal that Republicans have the edge on leading issues. 

But you would never guess that if you only paid attention to the online right. Log into Twitter right now. What do you see? Probably extreme racism, extreme anti-Semitism, absurd conspiracy theories, among other things. That isn’t all you’ll find on Twitter, of course, assuming you haven’t carefully curated your following list to that end. You will also find edifying information on subjects like history, literature, and philosophy, and a discussion of more mundane political issues. 

It is a great thing to be able to speak freely, online or offline, without powerful entities silencing you. We should be grateful that Elon bought Twitter. And there is admittedly still value in exploring ideas regardless of whether or not they appeal to the masses. But the combination of relatively high levels of free speech and online anonymity – I am a stalwart defender of both – sometimes leads to delusion rather than enlightenment. As such, the right must aspire to remain in touch with political reality. 

How, you might ask, could taking the red pill – seeing things as they truly are – separate one from reality? Allow me to explain. 

First, most are unaware that there are actually two red-pills. The first is descriptive. Taking it initiates a radical process of unlearning and relearning. You unlearn the lies you have been taught about various subjects from a young age, and you replace those lies with the truth. At least that’s how it’s supposed to go. Sometimes there are complications and people go insane. (See: Paul Nehlen.) 

Whereas the first red-pill grants one a new understanding of the nature of reality – that is, how things work – the second is prescriptive in nature. It instills in you a sense of strategy. Having learned the truth, what does victory look like? How do we get there? What the hell do we do? There are no easy answers to these questions, but some are better than others. 

Bad answers to questions of strategy are those out of touch with political reality, that is, the state of the political landscape as it exists, rather than how we would like it to exist. Bismarck famously noted that politics is the art of the possible. With that in mind, any serious political actor must first understand the parameters within which change can occur. While the limitations on political change are prone to fluctuation and at times difficult to discern, that they exist at all seems to elude many on the right. 

Under any form of representative government, understanding the electorate is critical to being in touch with political reality. You can tell when people on the right are totally divorced from what the electorate thinks. They mistake online trends for real world trends. But just because a niche topic is rewarded with considerable engagement on Twitter does not mean it will be similarly well received by the base. Bear in mind that there are many Republican voters, perhaps even most, who do not use Twitter. But they do watch Fox News and listen to conservative talk radio. 

Take race realism for an example. It is a scientific, biological reality that there are measurable differences between racial and ethnic groups. IQ is the big one because it is a powerful predictor of outcomes. It is the Achilles Heel of the entire woke project, which ascribes differences in group outcomes to systemic racism.

But while race realism is descriptively correct, no political candidate now or in the near future will gain office discussing it. It’s too controversial for the time being. It doesn’t resonate with the masses. As such it is prescriptively incorrect to build a political coalition around that issue. But we absolutely want the people at the helm of such a coalition to quietly understand the niche red pills. Many already do, and more are coming around every day. Keep posting!

Don’t get me wrong, shifting the proverbial Overton Window is just as important now as it has ever been. Many longtime dissident right issues have exploded in popularity. But fully red-pilling everyone on every esoteric issue is not only not a prerequisite for victory, it is actually counterproductive. Why? Because eventually you run up against a wall: the red pill wall, or the furthest you can push the masses rightward prior to regime change. 

Without control of the institutions of cultural creation, there’s only so much we can do. We can’t reach everyone. Twitter is a useful platform, to be sure, but most people don’t use it. Those who do tend to be more politically engaged than the average person, to be fair, but compared to television, the education system, universities, talk radio, newspapers, etc., the ability for us to reach the masses on social media is limited. 

This isn’t defeatism – it’s a recognition of reality. As I’ve written, we don’t need to red-pill the masses on every niche issue to restore order. The way some people online seem to think, we just need to keep promoting X (X being your favorite issue: JQ stuff, race realism, white identity, monarchism, etc.) and eventually there will be enough people in the country ready to vote for someone who runs on an explicitly X platform. This is delusional thinking. 

If order is restored through the electoral process – there are other ways, but those approach LARP territory and are beyond the scope of this article – then we do not need to first get the masses on board with Atlantean revisionist history or something of that sort. All we have to do is appeal to issues that are both popular and meaningful: immigration, crime, and anti-white discrimination to name a few. 

Then, ideally, a political coalition helmed by men who privately understand every niche red pill can (peacefully) consolidate power and create a new political orde rooted in truth. People are conformists; eventually, they will come around. If there’s a silver lining to the noxious social changes we’ve seen in recent decades, it’s that the masses are remarkably malleable. If the left could convince people that children can and should undergo gender transitions, then surely we, with sufficient power, can convince them of the opposite. 

To be clear, this is not a call for us to dumb down our positions in order to better relate to the electorate. I’m not telling the average guy on right-wing Twitter to limit their posting to mundane issues. It is unlikely that you or I will ever run for office, so we are not obligated to limit our focus to the issues voters care about. We should continue talking about the things many people in more conventional right-wing politics know to be true but cannot express. That is the unique purpose of the so-called dissident right. 

However, we are only fulfilling that purpose successfully if we are both descriptively and prescriptively correct. Red-pilling people on the realities of immigration and group differences is pointless if those people are not also given a crash course in pragmatism, strategy, and tact.

The challenge we face is ensuring that people take both red-pills. It isn’t enough to promulgate forbidden truths – we need people on our side to think strategically. We don’t need red-pilled retards. We need winners.