It has long been my habit now and then to point out new conservative Southern writers. So I am happy to call attention to Auron MacIntyre’s recent book The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies (Regnery, 2024).

​This work is an insightful chapter and verse account of how the old constitutional republic of the United States has now become a regime under the near-total control of globalist capitalists and bureaucrats entirely antagonistic to the will and interests of the American people. What we are living under ain’t no “government of the people.”


One of several virtues of the work is, as one reader puts it: “The Total State is a detailed analysis of modern political power that is still accessible to the average guy.”


A basic point of the writer is the damage that has been done by the institutionalising of a false concept of “individual rights.” The right of the individual to do as he pleases without reference to others makes him into a lonely member of a cultureless society. He has lost the identity formed by family, group, and religion. The inevitable fate of a society of such individuals is collectivism, the loss of genuine individual will. MacIntyre writes that in such a society, human beings “become a concept rather than an essence.”


The author stresses that the recovery of self-government by the American people will not be easy. He kills off the shallow reformists’ hope that a change of officeholders or restoration of the Constitution is all that is needed. As any Southerner knows, the Constitution ceased to mean anything long ago, except for trivial matters.

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Another reader rightly comments: "Bold, lucid, and chilling. The Total State takes a flamethrower to every comforting belief conservatives hold about how our political order really works.”

​Our globalist rulers have managed to use their unelected courts to prevent the people from voting for independent candidates in France and Rumania. Trump and the American people deserve credit for defeating their plan here.


Trump’s rule is not a Southern administration, even though the unanimous South made Trump’s victory possible. We can hope it will do some good and will not be anti-Southern, although it contains strong elements of Yankee nationalism.


Many people are leaving the decadent blue States and fleeing to the South. Whether this will be positive for the South remains to be seen.


Trump’s style is leaving many of his supporters in some confusion and doubt. He needs a good television news channel. It would be news reporting of a new, or rather old type. Now the media never report what Trump says or does. Along with unflattering pictures they only report the criticism of what he says or does.


Suppose some channel simply reported the news of the administration’s position. Then the critics, when they are creditable.


Such a channel could be on two or three hours in the evening, and be nothing but a report on the world. Two hours of factual reporting would be enough to support revolution. The channel should avoid advertising and entertainment and avoid all the current media people who are hopelessly stupid or biased. If serious and well done it only needs two hours. It should be free on the air. A subscription network would only attract the already committed. It needs to reach the ordinary suppertime and evening viewer.


Imagine a news organization that had real investigative reporting. Imagine investigation and presentation of facts about all the leftist celebrities: Fauci and other bad bureaucrats, Biden officials and their evil and corrupt acts, ridiculous Congresspersons, dishonest reporters, lying generals, phony philanthropists.


Trump’s people have brought up the corruption of the federal bureaucracy tellingly but they have not at all exposed fully the evil, only seen a drop in the bucket.


The reasons for such acts would be vastly convincing to any honest common-sense observer. The reason for Trumps puzzling moves over tariffs and the Ukraine need to be made clear to his sympathisers.


​Whether this is possible I don’t know, but I give this good plan for free.

Donald Trump is not the kind of character who appeals readily to Southerners.  However, he is a recognisable un-Woke American type who deserves credit for some virtues.


His is certainly not a Southern administration although a solid South made possible his big victory in the popular vote and the Electoral College.


It is nice to see steps being taken against the bloated and destructive nature of the U.S. government - something truly revolutionary that we never expected to see happen. How good to see the DEI fraud attacked and 10,000 bureaucrats leaving the Department of Health and Human Services. It will be a long-term benefit to society and the economy, though the government will probably still have to pay their lavish pensions. And the destructive and unconstitutional Department of Education brought into question.


The same process needs to be applied to the military brass, who are all devious bureaucrats and not soldiers at all.


All that is really just a drop in the bucket.  There are still many tens of thousands of federal drones to be eliminated. Where will they find work? It will be nice to see them as WalMart employees and waiters.


I have to say that my opinion of Trump rose greatly with his inaugural and state of the Union speeches.  They were actually statesmanlike, something not seen from a President in a long, long time.  He told the big picture like it is, while surrounded by all the empty-suit and corrupt officials who were responsible for the evils he was describing.


Trump’s biggest obstacle remains the Republican Party.  The grassroots is populist but the mainstream Republicans, like Speaker Johnson, want to get back to their comfortable power and pelf.  They have never been a real opposition party but have aided and abetted creation of the evil regime that Trump and his followers have attacked.


Some of Trump’s moves seem bombastic and a bit ridiculous.  Why acquire Greenland when we already have all the military bases there that we need?  Acquire Canada which has 10 states, making our country, already too big, even bigger?  We ought to be getting rid of useless territory - like Puerto Rico. Reclaiming the Panama Canal might make sense. 


I am hopeful that all the noise being made about Ukraine and Russia is just jockeying and things will come right.


Trump’s rabidly excessive Zionism is a deep moral failure that is inexcusable.  The only explanation may be that no American President can survive without obedience to Israeli interests. Then there are the stupid Evangelicals and their deceitful and opportunistic leaders.


In the 1980s some of us begin to project a Southern nationalism.  We thought that the U.S. was hopeless, that only independence could save the South, and that devolution was the wave of the future.  We were mostly right, but history has moved on and it is hard to see for sure where we stand now.  And sadly, some of those who dishonestly present themselves as Southern spokesmen are fascists, which there is nothing more un-Southern.


Trumpians have made some noise about restoring the historic monuments and symbols that were trashed in recent years. During World War II a lot of army bases were named for Confederate generals to encourage Southern support for the war---Bragg, Benning, Hood, Polk, etc.


It seems that the old names have been restored to Forts Bragg and Benning.  But the names now represent not Confederates but other people with the same names.  This is a bit of a dirty trick.


I am withholding judgment and approval until I see the noble Reconciliation Monument restored to Arlington.