Orthodox Reflections

By Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America

Life is hard for MAGA true believers, and getting harder by the minute. Most MAGA Republicans are in favor of free speech, free association, and privacy rights. The Trump Administration has given them curbs on free speech to protect the Zionist narrative, a DOJ Law suit against a coffee shop for allegedly being mean to two Jews in 2024, and a massive contract with Palantir to complete the last few miles of digital fencing needed to securely lock Americans into a digital concentration camp. Palantir is the deepest of Deep State assets. It is very hard to pretend Trump is draining the swamp, when he is handing the U.S. government over to alligators.

MAGA are also big on fiscal sanity, which they have now had to concede is never going to happen. There will be no spending cuts. Just endlessly growing deficits until the death of the dollar forces whatever is left of the Federal Government to adopt a different course. There is no way to dress up Trump’s continued assault on the dollar in a way that is palatable to his base.

MAGA also supports mass deportations of illegal aliens. Trump’s aggressive use of ICE to round up illegals has provided the pretext for violent mass protests in many places, but most noticeably in LA. Trump initially took a tough stance on law and order, bringing in military assets to help quell violence and committing to expanded border security. Then Trump waivered, announcing that he will not be aggressively pursuing deportation of illegals who work for hotels, farms, and restaurants. Your Mexican yard guy, however, is still at risk of deportation. Please tell him to get a part time job waiting tables in a hotel restaurant to get on the ‘protected list’.

To add insult to injury, Trump also announced that we will be welcoming 500,000 Chinese students to American universities. He is also happy for them to stay in America after they complete their education. Perhaps we’ll just staple their naturalization papers directly to their diplomas.

The final kick to the head for MAGA is the new Middle Eastern war with Iran. Launched at the same time Trump was caving on illegal immigration and China, and right before planned nationwide anti-ICE protests, the anti-war base of MAGA has exploded with rage. Trump has admitted to knowing about the Israeli attacks in advance. Meaning, at best, he did nothing to stop them. At worst, America is complicit in launching yet another unprovoked war. Worse yet, Trump has since made comments indicating that the U.S. will “defend itself and Israel if Iran retaliates.” Of course, the American Ruling Elite welcomed the new war, displaying Israeli flags on their social media, and calling on Americans to pray for Israel while it bombs innocent civilians in yet another country.

Meanwhile, normal Americans (including most MAGA types) reacted by loudly rejecting U.S. participation in yet another Middle Eastern war. Americans didn’t vote for more expenditure of blood and treasure on behalf of Israel, and desperately do not want it.

The demoralizing combination of so many hits so close together seems to have completely broken many MAGA influencers.

Politicians betraying their base, betraying their country even, is nothing new. In fact, even the scale of what Trump is doing has been exceeded by other presidents. What makes this time different, however, is that so-called ‘democratic’ systems usually do a better job of covering their tracks and avoiding accountability. Mainstream politicians (those allowed to have a realistic shot at winning) usually run relatively content-free campaigns. They talk about personal histories (“I’m a veteran!”), how cute the family dog is, and spin out various slogans such as “Hope and Change” which can mean anything to anyone. When they do make actual promises, they usually try to keep them vague on details and limited in scope.

Think McCain versus Obama, or Romney versus Obama, or Bush versus Gore, or even Bush versus Kerry. Does anyone even remember anything meaningful about those elections? In the 2004 election, John Kerry tried to run on his record of Naval Service, as opposed to any serious policy considerations. Kerry wouldn’t even commit to ending the Middle Eastern wars that Americans were already sick of in 2004. Presidential campaigns in the U.S. are usually snooze fests that only diehard political junkies can convince themselves to take seriously.

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But Trump wasn’t like that. Trump made big, bold, sometimes very specific promises about immigration enforcement, ending wars, bringing back jobs, reducing inflation, restoring fiscal sanity, protecting civil liberties, and focusing on the American working class. Americans are, of course, not getting any of that. As noted, this isn’t new. Americans never get what they vote for. Representative government is just usually better at making citizens believe that there is a possibility of getting future progress. Thanks to the massive deviation between Trump’s over-the-top campaign promises (likely necessary to convince Americans to continuing believing in a demonstrably failed system) and objective reality, Americans are finally waking up to the truth.

A government ‘by the people and for the people’ doesn’t exist. It has never existed. It will never exist.

Representative government is a scam to convince citizen voters to enthusiastically embrace their own enslavement. It has always been this way under elective systems of government, and there have always been people who noticed. Most people did not, however, until recently. Before the last 80 years or so, the Ruling Elite’s goals were normally at least somewhat aligned with the overall welfare of the societies they ruled. That is no longer the case, of course. The Ruling Elite in the West alternates between just exploiting, and outright hating, their own peoples. They owe their only real allegiance to a sort of globalist religion known as The Open Society – a key tenet of which is suppression of any form of nationalism in Western societies. Trump’s betrayal of his own overblown promises has now made the truth of the situation undeniable. Voting is useless, except as a ‘civic sacrament’ that encourages the citizenry to play along.

The uselessness of voting is explained by a political science concept called Elite Theory. Before defining that term, keep this in mind. Elite Theorists are not trying to describe the world, in its fallen state, as it should be. This is not prescriptive. It is descriptive. Elite Theorists are merely telling you how the world really is.

So what is Elite Theory? Here is a summary of the key tenets:

• An organized minority will always be able to force its will upon the disorganized majority
• This fact leads to the so-called ‘iron law of oligarchy’: political parties, trade unions, and other mass organizations are invariably ruled by largely self-serving and self-perpetuating oligarchies, which defy attempts at democratic control or participation
• Benefits of government policy accrue to a distinct minority, while costs are widely distributed
• The ruling minority always seeks to justify and legitimize its rule through ‘ideological’ formulae, without which the social structure would disintegrate. This is precisely what the theory of democracy as self-government boils down to: a myth.
• Voters have no viable way, working within ‘the system’, to hold the Ruling Elite accountable (see no bankers going to jail for the Global Financial Crash, among thousands of other examples)

While the points above largely critique the legal form of representative government, Elite Theory equally applies to any type of mass governance including monarchy, communism, and authoritarianism. All that differs between them is the underlying mythos used to justify what is always oligarchical rule. As one political scientist put, “All over the world it’s just blah, blah, blah – that’s why we are in charge.”

Sometimes, of course, you will get competition within a society between different potential Ruling Elites. That can lead to meaningful changes in power (in terms of policy trajectory), and even to civil war. But as for the common people? They are just along for the ride.

Western societies, America included, are governed by a post-national, rapacious elite which uses those temporarily holding government offices (‘elected’ or ‘appointed’ or ‘civil service’) to rig the entire economy for their benefit. The Ruling Elite feels no kinship with, no loyalty to, and no concern for the average citizen. The common people are just so many consumers and workers from which to exploit maximum profit. The future of any given nation or people is irrelevant to the elite. They can pass on their money, connections, and influence to future generations. But not any kind of hereditary, meaningful office that would connect them permanently to the lands and people they rule. Many members of the Western Ruling Elite are more than just indifferent to the well being of the people they rule. These rich and powerful nihilists actually hate their own populations, pursuing policies designed to further enrich themselves while destroying their own nations. If they succeed, of course, then they’ll simply relocate somewhere else. Billions of dollars buys power in Geneva the same as it does Washington, so when you’ve bilked Americans for all you can – why not move on to your next mansion elsewhere?

So the question is not, “Will you be ruled?” You are going to be ruled, regardless of what kind of rights you think your constitution entitles you to. The only real question is – will you be ruled well or badly? And if you are ruled badly, are you going to pretend “we are doing this to ourselves” because you had a chance to cast a vote for a lying politician? Any future we have is predicated on understanding that we owe the Ruling Elite nothing – not loyalty, not service, nothing. Their job is to exploit us to their own advantage. Our job is to survive it all the best we can, while maintaining the purity of our Christian Faith. God’s judgement will eventually set all things aright.

Elite Theory is descriptive in nature, as is almost all of political science. To find the answer to good governance, then, you have to look outside of political science and to either philosophy or religion. If you are going to have an oligarchy at the top, how do you get a decent one that actually cares about the people it governs?

Which is where the Orthodox Catholic and Roman Catholic faiths come into the picture. To be and remain good men and good rulers, oligarchs must be answerable to a power higher than themselves. While they may personally not believe in God, social demands must force them to always behave in their public duties as if they were absolutely devout. Oligarchical power must be tempered by civil and religious traditions / laws which the oligarchs have no authority to change. An independent mass power structure (the Church) must exist whose cooperation the oligarchs need to maintain the legitimacy of their rule. Loss of legitimacy in openly oligarchical systems results in tax avoidance and mass uprisings. (Most of the time, the only real threat to an oligarch is physical violence by angry citizens.)

Further, to really govern effectively across multiple generations, oligarchs must have a deep connection to the people and places they rule. This has historically been accomplished through hereditary holding of offices of nobility, including the kingship. The Duke of York couldn’t simply flee to Paris with his millions in gold, because the common people of his fiefdom wished to see him hanged for his poor rule. His wealth, power, and prestige were all tied to the rule of a specific area of land, and the rule of a specific people. His future offspring will be tied to the same land and people. Any hereditary noble has serious incentives to get along well with the locals, as taking the money and run isn’t really an option.

Hereditary office holders, those with real power anyway (unlike the fake royals we have today), have a vested interest in the health and prosperity of their specific domains. They are also notoriously stubborn about yielding power to the centralized government, usually represented by a King or Emperor. Their position encourages long-term thinking of the kind that brings long-term investment and widespread prosperity. Short-term thinking leads to inflation, excessive taxation, debt, disastrous wars, and allegiance to foreign powers.

Cathedrals were built by men thinking generationally. Strip malls are built by men thinking about the next quarterly profit report. Even Trump would be a better ruler if he hoped to pass on the Kingship to one of his sons upon his death.

Combine self-interest with an externally provided Christian moral structure, and you have the makings of decent government. The oligarchs are no longer amoral managers exploiting and extracting the wealth of others to enrich themselves. Rather, hereditary Christian oligarchs are the owners of much of society. As society improves, so do their own prospects and those of their descendants. All of the above is why monarchical systems (which always have an entitled nobility) managed to endure for thousands of years, while ‘representative’ government is on life support after a couple centuries. All of this is also why the Orthodox Catholic and Roman Catholic traditions have historically been most supportive of monarchical systems. Both traditions have recognized multiple royals (Kings, Queens, Emperors, Empresses) as saints, but not a single President or Prime Minister. There are solid reasons why.

‘Representative’ government is the Matrix. It is the wool pulled over your eyes keeping you inline, thinking that someday you will be able to vote hard enough to get a government that cares about you. That will never happen, so it is more than time for Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics to stop pretending our religious traditions are compatible with this sham. They aren’t. We need to focus on our own souls, and on building our own local parish communities. All of us will need help to survive the absolute societal wreckage the Ruling Elite is bringing down on us.

Stop wasting your time and energy on politics above the village level (where it might actually matter at times). If Jesus tarries, then perhaps we will someday have an opportunity to live under a better governing system that is more in tune with human nature. If Trump has taught us anything positive, it is that such a system will not be ‘democratic’.