Monistic Idealism and Political Catastrophe

First thoughts

I am still feeling the initial shock of the change initiated by last night’s election results, still seeking to process it, as I am sure many of you are. This will be a bit of an inchoate first attempt to grapple with it.

While I was using my newsletter to agitate for a Democratic victory over the last months when I fully realized the potential threat of an authoritarian takeover, I was also clear to note that I was no fan of the establishment Democrats. I felt the party made a tragic historical mistake in selling out the working class, decades ago. I never liked — even despised — the controlled, managerial style of the mainstream centrist Democrats. Like many, I felt betrayed when the Democratic machine sabotaged Bernie Sanders’ campaign in 2016. I believed he would have won easily against Trump and have moved the US in a different direction: A much better one. But the establishment Democrats — bought-and-sold by their Wall Street and corporate masters — would not allow this.

As I communicated with many people about the election over the last month, I discovered that many in my extended networks had undergone a deep political and psychological conversion over the last four years. Even among those who supported Harris, many did so reluctantly, with an aversion to her constrained self-presentation and rhetoric. Her inability to take any kind of principled moral stance —to express outrage—against the atrocities in Gaza alienated her from many progressive and younger voters.

Harris often seemed wooden, fake, scripted. It was as if every word she said was filtered through a scrim of advisors and focus groups, calculated to not alienate a particular part of the electorate, or not raise alarms in the media. She refused to sit down for long, unscripted interviews. Trump, on the other hand, was completely unhindered from any constraint whatsoever. I admit even I found this, by comparison, refreshing.

Many people in my extended “spiritual” or “transformative” communities also feel enthusiastic about the experiment in public health that RFK will represent for the country, if he actually lasts long enough in Trump’s cabinet to implement these policies. These will, I suspect, turn out to be destructive. We will see.

Before I go into any more political analysis, I want to address what has occurred on another level entirely: the esoteric level.

As readers know, I define myself as a monistic or analytic idealist, which means that I believe primordial awareness — not matter or anything physical — is the basis of reality: The ontological primitive. I am also deeply influenced by other traditions including Dzogchen (a set of teachings within Indo-Tibetan Buddhism), animism, and also I have a deep regard for Rudolf Steiner’s visionary work, which aligns with indigenous prophecies, as I explored in Quetzalcoatl Returns. I also maintain a side interest in the Traditionalist occult school of Rene Guenon, Fritjof Schuon, and Julius Evola, among others, who believed we are deep in the Kali Yuga, necessitating catastrophe before regeneration.