In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life. Our motto is “in God we trust.” Donald J. Trump, January 30, 2018

Whether I’ve been conditioned to be cynical or that I’ve become inured to the plastic rhetoric that’s all too common amongst the political class, I’ve never been one to get enthusiastic about a State of the Union Address. Setting aside its pomp and circumstance, the SOTU is meant to be an occasion for the POTUS to tout achievements, goad the opposition and rally the nation. It sounds good in theory, but is rather boring in practice. Given that the Trumpocalypse has sent progressives into unforeseen paroxysms of autistic derangement, I figured I had watch President Trump’s first SOTU simply to see what tack he would take. While it certainly had its fair share of applause lines, appeals to working-class sensibilities and overt tugs at the heartstrings, it struck me as perhaps the most sincere and heartfelt call to national unity I can remember. The fact that the Democrats struck an oppositional and belligerent pose was a foregone conclusion. Being the hateful, power hungry degenerates they are, the progressives revealed their true colors by both refusing to acknowledge Trump’s achievements and snubbing his cooperative overtures at every turn. For his part, it was, in many ways, another classic, if somewhat subdued, Trump performance peppered with a few choice digs at the progressives’ petulant, entitled intransigence. It was a reminder of why he won in the first place, but an utterly bewildering manifestation of how far the Democrats have moved the Overton Window of political discourse. Throughout the speech, Trump remained focused on achievements, optimism, patriotism, hope, faith, family and national unity irrespective of race, creed or religion. Things that were conventional, uncontroversial notions around which Americans could bond as little as a couple decades ago. It was quintessentially American, small “C” conservative and Trumpian all at once. And contrary to the never-ending accusations of #FASCISM emanating from the progressive mental asylum, it was in fact, classically small “L” liberal. But that’s just not going to pass for the ever vigilant revolutionaries of the #RESISTANCE. Just as anyone could predict, the Democrats went to the speech filled with bile, contempt, and a complete absence of any coherent position other than a naked thirst to undo the 2016 election.

This poses an obvious question around the viability of a national multicultural consensus. Is there anything that will satisfy the progressive grievance industrial complex that doesn’t involve absolute political dominion? What progressives refuse to acknowledge is that Trump fully embodies cosmopolitan, multicultural civic nationalism. Despite attempts to paint him as a virulent racist, Trump embraces the classically liberal multicultural ethos in every way. For Trump, regardless of who you are or from where you came, if you embrace the American ideal, uphold the law and contribute positively to the economy, you’re an American. And the numbers speak for themselves. Not only did Trump attract visible social media support from the likes of Diamond and Silk and Malik Obama, he pulled in respectable voter turnout numbers from the black and Latino communities alike.

For the progressive grievance industrial complex, none of this matters. No quantity of factual evidence that runs counter to the narrative makes a dent. Even the once venerable defender of civil liberties, the ACLU, have been stricken with the brain eating virus of intersectional social justice. Not content to protect civil liberties for actual American citizens, they are now complaining about the unspeakable injustice of hearing the word “America” spoken 80 times and the adverse effect it will have for Dreamers. The horror.

No matter how many Ben Carsons or Tim Scotts are presented, no matter how many gestures of goodwill or tangible economic gains, the relentless bleating of MUH WHITE SUPREMACY continues unabated. They remain hateful, embittered power hungry degenerates. As much as I wish there were more Larry Elders and Dinesh D’Souzas, they are simply outnumbered by the DeRay McKessons and Tariq Nasheeds.

Progressives continue to deploy this toxic brand of identity politics and then weaponize it by turning it on their opponents. It’s a way of simultaneously reinforcing the idea that an intractable metaphysical malady lies at the heart of society that only they apprehend while placing themselves on a loftier moral plane for having the depth of empathy necessary to acknowledge it. And the only way to telegraph your #WOKENESS is to attribute all social calamity to “whiteness” and police the thoughts of others for evidence of WrongThink. It’s an obnoxious and manipulative racket that everyone outside the echo chamber already recognizes, but it’s a tactic that they have no intention of relinquishing. No one likes to be called a racist, and accusing your opponents of being bigots is a great way to attempt to elicit shame and obedience while inoculating yourself with a balm of smug, in-group self-loathing.

Even Tree of Logic concedes a certain futility in combating this mental illness in her brilliant video about the Democratic Plantation. You’d think that a proper reading of the Democrats’ real historical record towards blacks would be enough to red pill the entire community, but it doesn’t. Instead, she resigns herself to the Republicans’ impotence on expanding their appeal. Making matters worse is the Democrats’ craven refusal to cut an immigration deal. They are making no effort to conceal that this is a Johnsonesque ploy secure a permanent power bloc for years to come. They’re essentially treating unlimited immigration as an unalloyed good, willfully ignoring cultural differences and criminal behavior, imposing no standards for assimilation and branding any deviation from this orthodoxy as tantamount to the reinstatement of Jim Crow.

If nothing else, Trump is masterful at exposing the progressives as the miserable hypocrites they are. The fact that the Democrats remain so imprisoned by their hatred continues to provide him with seemingly never-ending opportunities to troll them and unmask their vindictive, embittered rottenness. No matter what happens in the economy, no matter what he does, the progressive narrative remains the same. Trump is a racist, fascist piece of garbage. #LiterallyHitler. And right on cue, that’s exactly the reaction that gushed forth from the swine manure lagoons of the mainstream media and Twitterati. Throughout the speech, Trump took every opportunity to puncture holes in the narrative that progressives have so assiduously reinforced for the past year. It was a brilliant bit of theater, but the deeper problem becomes increasingly self-evident. The exemplary moment was the Congressional Black Caucus’ refusal to applaud the lowest black unemployment rate recorded. It is rightfully being acknowledged as a victory for Trump since it exposes the miserly moral vacuum at the center of the Democratic Party, but it casts doubt on whether a true American nationalist unity can ever be forged in a multicultural society.

So what does this bode for the future for liberty minded people? As far as I can tell, this leaves three options:

Advocacy for an increasingly unstable multicultural civic nationalism Globalist technocratic dictatorship Balkanization of the Union

It’s not entirely clear that libertarians have a meaningful solution to offer. The Rothbardians remain staunchly anti-state and rabidly individualistic. Those that haven’t been cucked by the Left aren’t building meaningful coalitions. Even if all the AnCaps in the world band together to form a stateless society, it will have to function as a mini nation state. The competition of ideas won’t remain a viable option when the number of people who simply don’t give a shit about anything other than in group preference outnumbers the knowledge seekers.

Not exactly an appealing set of options.

In essence, the progressives are simultaneously validating the existence of the alt-right while making their deranged fever dream of a rising #FASCISM a self-fulfilling prophecy. Progressives have no viable ideas, have given up debate and show no signs of abandoning their pathological attachment to weaponized identity politics. And why would they if it’s gotten them this far? They’ve set up the game to glorify non-white identity as legitimate cultural pride while branding pride in white identity as a call for camps, ovens and lynching. They have essentially constructed an entire moral universe which places white pride and male assertiveness as the source of all that is corrupt.

The Trump presidency is a welcome battering ram against the onslaught of the globalist elite. I expect the tensions to get hotter as the midterms approach and the #Russiagate sham unravels. But those who wish to preserve what remains of Western thought are going to have to make some bleak choices over which hill they will make their stand.