At the beginning of my political journey, one of the books recommended to me as a must-read was James Burnham’s The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom. This book was billed as a lens with which to view politics not as it’s taught in high school social studies, but as it really is. Separating the formal from the informal.
This idea was particularly intriguing once the dust settled following the Unholy Trinity of 2020 (covid lockdowns, race riots, a “fortified” election). I had lots of questions. The conservative pundits that I had previously listened to and read didn’t answer those questions in a satisfactory manner.
Many conservatives respond to the bad things that the government does with statements such as “they can’t do that” or “that’s not in the constitution”, then find themselves wondering why they’ve been putting up with tyranny and expanding leftism for decades. We’re also bombarded with hypocrisy and doublespeak from our rulers, yet there are never any consequences.
Joe Biden’s recent speech at Independence Hall is a great case study in exactly what Burnham talks about in The Machiavellians. While many conservatives were apoplectic toward Biden’s (handlers’) incendiary rhetoric, there were some lessons to be learned.
If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve been hearing from the left how “MAGA” Republicans are a threat to “our democracy”. I emphasize the phrase “our democracy” because in practice, it is not “ours” and it’s not much of a democracy. If anything, MAGA populism is a manifestation of the popular will (hence the term populism).
On the YouTube video above, Pete Quinones and his guest break down the speech, not from a fact-checker standpoint, but from an effectiveness and strategy standpoint.
One of the most interesting parts was when Quinones’ guest (Aaron from Timeline Earth) mentioned how if he were in Biden’s position, he’d say very similar things.
“If I were (Biden) and I were in power, and I was seeing these threats from this dissident faction, this is exactly what I would do while simultaneously behind the scenes by…encouraging political violence, rigging votes….”
A reference also was made to Saul Alinsky’s line of “accuse your enemy of that which you are guilty”, which fits into this Machiavellian framework.
As is easy to see in contemporary political discourse, Carl Schmitt’s “friend-enemy distinction” is clear and apparent in the speech, and the guys in the video point this out. Biden declares a friend-enemy distinction when he points out “democrats, independents, and mainstream republicans” as those “friends” he can work with. Presumably those who disagree with his policies, such as the infrastructure deal and other various massive spending plans (including hiring 87,000 new IRS agents) fall outside this category, and are lumped in with his MAGA enemies. When one side is a “threat to democracy” and various forms of un-American, it’s easy to see where this goes. Anyone who holds dissident views will shut up and not even think about organizing, if they know what’s good for them.
It doesn’t seem to be coincidental that this speech is coinciding with the FBI raiding many of Trump’s closest political allies, even a humble pillow salesman.
Part of Burnham’s message in his book is that it is a natural inclination of those in power to label any dissent as beyond the pale, and to use “democracy” and “the will of the people” as a mandate for an executive to do whatever he wants, what Burnham refers to as “Bonapartism” (after Napoleon Bonaparte, of course).
Joe Biden won’t soon be mistaken for a Napoleonic figure, but those handling this old, doddering buffoon are very well versed in propaganda and narrative manipulation. James Burnham pointed this out many years ago. Human nature remains constant.