What they call “capitalism” increasingly isn’t capitalism at all. It is a bastardized system of privatized profits and socialized losses, where multinational corporations demand free markets when they want cheap foreign labor, unrestricted capital flows, tax advantages, deregulation, and access to American consumers, then sprint to Washington for bailouts, subsidies, contracts, tariffs, loan guarantees, and Federal Reserve intervention the moment the market threatens their societal Ponzi scheme. Americans are told this is the “free market.” It is capitalism for the losers and socialism for the winners, with working Americans given the bill. That system was exposed this week in conversations about a $20 burrito.
I love saying, “I told you so.” It ranks somewhere between finding twenty dollars in an old pair of jeans, right after finding out I still fit in them, and watching chickens peck their new barnyard toy. It’s one of those simple joys in life. The problem is that opportunities to say it usually arrive wrapped in really bad news, and this one just arrived inside a tortilla.
Several months ago, I warned that the next phase of Establishment Conservatism™ wouldn’t revolve around calling everyone “racist,” “Nazi,” or “antisemite.” Those labels have been dragged behind the political pickup truck for so many miles they’re nothing but frayed rope and broken bumper stickers now. Every time someone is called “literally Hitler,” those bugbears stop being monsters under the bed and start becoming laughingstocks. The power of those accusations loses currency the more they use them. Instead, I argued that the new accusation would be something simpler. As soon as ordinary Americans started questioning the economic order that has quietly hollowed out the middle class, the establishment would reach back into the Cold War junk drawer and dust off the word “Communist.” It wouldn’t matter whether anyone had read Karl Marx, understood Marx, or could have picked Marx out of a police lineup. The label wouldn’t exist to describe reality. It would exist to stop the conversation before it begins.
I wrote on X at the time…
I warned I2I followers yesterday that Establishmentarian globalists and NeoCon Unipartyists would soon begin alleging that the “dissidents” are secret Commies. I explained that James Lindsay just invented “Woke Right 2.0” with “Marxist” as a descriptor for people who believe in Nationalism and oppose globalism, and these two are led around by James Lindsay on a leash because they’re incapable of original thoughts. They got the memo with full talking points.
That is the go-to reaction of the Boomers who have managed American decline for 70 years. It’s all they know. It’s the only familiar card they have left. Challenge the existing power structure, the Post War Consensus corporate globalism that has ruined America and sold us out to foreign nations and interests, and they reach for, “Marxist.”
It’s the last, drying gasp of geriatric geezer middle-managers, terrified of losing the reigns of political power, too dumb to realize they never had them. It is the sad, pathetic last go-round of the very generation that has brought the U.S. to its current laughingstock status on the world stage, turned the greatest empire in world history into a vassal state of Israel that couldn’t win a war against Iran, and turned every generation after them into rentoid debtors and tax cattle.
So, when they say “Communist,” what they mean is, “People who give a damn about Americans and our best interests.”
When they say “Critical Theory” they mean caring about your family and personal well-being.
And whatever globalist economic forces are raping America’s interests, gutting our children’s future, and turning the U.S. into a borderless economic zone of homeless, indebted paupers in a post-modern hellscape? That’s just “capitalism,” and you had BETTER support our continued plundering or else we’ll call you “Commies.”
https://insighttoincite.substack.com/p/burrito-gate-why-establishment-boomercons?publication_id=2838293&post_id=210313549&isFreemail=true&r=24tlta&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
....Last weekend, my family watched the new Animal Farm animated film. It was hot garbage, so far as cinematic quality goes, but I was happy to explain to my kids the allegory and particularly that of Boxer, Orwell’s representation of the working class, the laborers whose strength and loyalty actually built the farm's success but who get exploited by the ruling class in the end and ultimately turned into glue. You can hear the voice of Dan Crenshaw somewhere off in the distance, saying, “Work harder, horse. Work harder and eat the Ramen.”
Don’t let the “Eat Ramen” people tell you that we are the Commies in this scenario. Clearly, we are Boxer. They are Napoleon and the pigs. That they’d have the gall to claim they are the Capitalists is really beyond the pale. “All animals are equal. Some are more equal than others” is the only explanation for the modern American nation in which the wealthy are getting wealthier, and everyone else is told to eat Japanese junk food.
A HUMAN-CENTERED VALUE SYSTEM AND LABEL CONSERVATISM
And this is where the argument gets much bigger than burritos, healthcare, BlackRock, or whether somebody on Fox Business thinks you’re insufficiently enthusiastic about capitalism. Those are merely the opening skirmishes. We are entering a technological revolution that is going to force Christians to answer questions our grandparents never imagined, and “Well, I’m a conservative” is going to be about as useful as bringing a Blockbuster membership card to an ATM.
