Post-Right: Trump, “Parlerism”, QAnon

You’re heard of the post-left. Who are the post-right?

The history of the world is marked by epistemological eras. Modernism was a construction of a meta-narrative. A meta-narrative is the consensus of the world, its objective truth in the world-level, whether or not it truly is objective in reality or God-level. Postmodernism is a rejection of the meta-narrative, a deconstruction. Metamodernism is a reconstruction, the era after postmodernism.

From postmodernism and metamodernism we see the rise of the post-left. Post-left are those that criticize the traditional left for their compromises with the system. It seeks to deconstruct the left. The post-left want an insurrection. So what would the post-right be?

The ruling meta-narrative is usually what is upheld by the large institutions like corporations, religion, media, culture, and other things. Meta-narratives are not always objective, in fact, they are often coalitions of subjectivity gaining consensus.

It used to be that in the modern era, the conservative will rely on the meta-narrative institutions to conserve its power. Media seemed balanced and neutral. Corporations were, to communists, capitalist; and, to identity politicians, patriarchal. Government is ruled by white men. Academia is full of logical, objective activity, not subjective, emotional swaying, and science in tow. Churches and religion kept the morality and held culture in check.

Unfortunately, meta-narratives can be hijacked. If one hijacks the media, then the meta-narrative can be swayed. Academia is now a petri dish of non-objective social change and sciences are bearing the brunt of that pressure. Churches are no longer the bedrocks of morality but compromise.

And one doesn’t need to hijack the meta-narrative, one just must perceive it is hijacked. Corporations still are capitalist and patriarchal, yet still don a pink clothing, a pink capitalism. Governments are still ruled by old, white men, now just they use tokenism to pander. The would-be rulers just need to change the perception.

An opposing force would need to either go with the meta-narrative and find minor disagreements instead, or find or build their own meta-narrative from scratch.

Thus, the post-right then criticize the traditional right for its compromises with the system. The system has turned left. They too want to subvert the institutions now. Whereas it used to be the conservatives conserved the system, the system has been hijacked and has left the conservative.

Progressivism and other leftist ideologies have played the long game with the institutions. They have succeeded, even while still trying to purge the institutions of defiance and the institutions seek to appease them.

The liberal left has identified that conservatism is the Republican old white rich man, and anything he does is racist, and all his sins will be put on display and emphasized. All non-whites and women who offer conservative views or any type of opposing views are also racist and hate themselves. If you’re a Democrat old rich white man who has done blackface a long time ago, you’re mostly cool and forgiven if you identify as supporter of the meta-narrative, except to true leftists. If you are a mostly liberal or leftist that even simply questions anything, they are immediately canceled. And they don’t see the hypocrisy. The only standard is if you are on their side.

I realize I am mostly conflating liberal and left. Leftists will deny liberals. For this article, I am operating on the political left-and-right wing only, not the multi-dimensional political compasses. In this article, there is only right and non-right, and that includes both centrist, liberals, and leftists.

So where does the conservative go when the institutions are no longer conservative? What does he conserve?

Trump was seen as an outsider. And he was an outsider. Critics tag him as rich and thus part of the system, as a fake Republican who was a Democrat and Reform party, and so on and so forth. But he was a threat to the hijacked meta-narrative. Thus the meta-narrative has painted on Trump everything it doesn’t like and Trump became a personification of the antichrist to the meta-narrative.

Trumpism is the movement supporting Trump all the way. Not all Trump supporters are Trumpists. But Trumpists are not necessarily post-right. Though they definitely are on the verge if they aren’t already.

Now that Trump has been voted out of the office, legitimately or not, it doesn’t matter. The meta-narrative emphasizes all the victories of the hijackers, and downplays and ignores their defeats. It spins everything to its own end.

What makes someone post-right is someone that understands the meta-narrative, rejects it, and builds his own, rather than engaging against it in its terms. They understand Biden was voted, and constructs a way for Biden to be removed in the future, and prays that Trump take that option, that last resort. The post-right still believes Trump has a trump card. They believe that the military is still an option to take back the country.

I think all that is bunk.

Any large enough moves will have some indication or effect on the institutions. The media will at least comment on it and acknowledge it at least once, even to say it is wrong. But if there is no indication of anyone else saying it, be very skeptical.

Now I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Let reality speak for itself.

I call the post-right of the soon coming post-Trump era “Parlerism”. “Parler” is a social network built by proponents of free speech. Unfortunately, it was built on the foundation of a meta-narrative controller, the corporation. Apple, Google, Amazon, and seemingly many others in a concerted effort removed Parler for perceived violence fermenting on the platform. As of the writing of this article, it has not yet been restored.

Parler introduces someone signing up to a whole new world, so to speak, if you have not been living in an echo chamber. Ironically or fittingly, Parler’s equivalent to retweets are called echoes. While the accusations of white supremacy and racism are way overblown (I say that as an immigrant who has experienced much racism in his life), someone not ingrained in the conservative culture will definitely feel uncomfortable and lost.

Parlerism is a creation of a competing meta-narrative, a more localized meta-narrative, that makes things true if they are not true. Maybe QAnonism would be more accurate, but QAnon wasn’t mainstream until Parler.

Like the mainstream liberal status quo meta-narrative, Parlerism spins its own. It is not objective, like it claims to be. Like their opponents, they speak “truth into power”, but it is Parlerism’s own truth. The social justice truth is bereft, and so is Parlerism’s truth bereft. Both are defective.

Now I do use Parler and have an account there. I am a conservative. I have many friends that flee Facebook and I want to catch up with them. My objective truth is not found in the conservative media and echo chamber, but the Bible. I can engage the world without relying on conspiracy theory. There may be true conspiracy theories, but just because some conspiracy theories are true, does not mean all are. I can disprove the narrative by just comparing mainstream news to each other, on their terms, highlighting the hypocrisy, and simply pointing out what that fact check article actually says.

Not being post-right means you can still see that the hijacked institutions still has some level of truth in them you can engage against. You use their own words against them and hold them to their standard. Their standard is self-contradictory and will collapse.

Why Parlerism or QAnon or whatever are post right is because they deconstruct the world’s meta-narrative and construct a comprehensive replacement. That’s not to say the left hasn’t done that, they have, arguably, but they have institutions on their side, hijacked or not. The right has failed to hijack anything, the conservative has failed to truly conserve, and so the outsider has to create their own. Who was once the insider is now the outsider.

Competing meta-narratives do have a tendency to be self-fulfilling prophecies in more ways than one.