The Jouvenelian presidency – a thought experiment for an alternative reality.
We'll have to think about what the counter-protests would be protesting, exactly. The grounds would be other than "equality," because the left can't be one-upped on that. It would have to be something like "safety" or "order," which would also provide grounds for the President to intervene, since it corresponds to his job description. There's some incongruity in counter-protesting in the name of order and safety, though, because protests themselves, and even more so confrontational counter-protests, signal disorder and insecurity. The way to square this might be to adopt another tactic of the left, one that is more transferable: sacralizing the exemplary victim. Instead of "counter-protests," "vigils" in commemoration of long lists of those killed and raped by illegal aliens and criminals let out on parole, those harmed by damage caused by affirmative action hires, etc. Obviously, we already see this kind of thing (Kate's Law, etc.), and Republicans have realized this is the way to go since the late 60s, but they always let themselves get trumped by leftist victims. A sustained, well-funded, uncompromising campaign along these lines, that matches the left victim for victim (and then some) and doesn't flinch from exposing the precise subcultures and groups creating the bulk of victims, i.e., which represents disorder as both rampant and easily targeted (and the left as special pleading on behalf of those victimizers), would be very hard to resist and could provide a smooth path to a "Jouvenelian presidency." Much of the public already has at least a vague sense of the left as pro-criminal and pro-disturbing the peace in general.
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But the investment wouldn't pay off until power is actually seized, right? Since that can't seem very likely right now, you'd have to promise very high levels of return to those who get in on the ground floor. You take power deep in debt.
But of course I agree with building a machine.
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Obviously something like this would be great. But I don't think it could be run entirely on business grounds, because it would be too easy to disrupt its profit flows before it could get big enough to really fight back. It would need powerful patrons who donate and commit beyond any likely return, simply because they are farsighted and see where things are going otherwise.