Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnNationalism,rnTrue and FalsernRuling classes exercise power throughrncombinations of coercion and manipulationrn—what Machiavelli called force andrnfraud, or the habits of the lion and the foxrnthat he recommended to princes whornwish to stay in power. Like most princes,rnmost ruling classes tend to be better atrnone than the other, and depending onrntheir talents, interests, and psychologies,rnthey will habitually rely on one style ofrndomination more than on its complement,rnhi the 20th century, totalitarianrnregimes have rested their power on thernuse of force —to the point of what thernGermans came to call SchreckUchkeit, orrnterror, pure and simple —but they didrnnot fail to attend to the arts of manipulationrnas well. Communist brainwashingrnand the high science of propaganda thatrnJoseph Goebbels perfected were perhapsrnas useful to their respective regimes andrnthe ruling classes they served as the Chekarnand the Gestapo.rnUnlike European totalitarians, theirrnAmerican counterpart in this century hasrntended to rely on manipulation, whichrninvolves not only indoctrination throughrnthe mass media but also the whole batteryrnof techniques by which the populationrnis manipulated to think and act inrnthe wa that the managerial ruling classrnwants it to think and act. Those techniquesrninclude the bread and circuses ofrnmass consumerism and the entertainmentrnindustry as well as the blunter ideologicalrndisciplining delivered everyrnnight on television and in most Hollywoodrnfilms. Of the two styles of power,rnreliance on manipulation is probablyrnmore effective and certainly more economicalrnthan reliance on force. Everyrnshepherd knows it’s more expedient torntrain a sheep dog to keep the sheep inrnline than to run after every beast thatrnstravs from the fold himself, and everyrnruler or ruling class understands that thernmeans offeree are always finite while thernmeans of manipulation are virtually inexhaustible.rnThe reliance of the American managerialrnclass on manipulation rather thanrnforce explains why dissidents are not simplyrnrounded up and imprisoned or shotrnas they were in the sister regimes in Europe,rnas well as why the victory of thernnew elite in the middle of the centuryrnwas so peaceful and virtually invisible tornall but keen observers like James Burnham,rnG. Wright Mills, Garet Garrett,rnand a few others. Instead of being repressed,rnopponents of the revolutionrnwere either ignored and marginalized or,rnin some cases, rewarded and thereby digestedrnwithin the belly of the beast. Evenrnthe harebrained bomb throwers of thernNew Left were not for the most part seriouslyrnsubjected to coercive repression,rnexcept perhaps by local and state policernagencies that had not yet been “sensitized”rnby the regime’s federal law enforcementrnapparatus, but rather wererncoddled, rebuked, and generally ignoredrnuntil they grew up. Within a decade ofrntheir prediction of the storm of revolutionrnthat was about to descend on the rulingrnclass, most of the more grotesquernspokesmen of the Weather Undergroundrnhad become dentists, insurancernsalesmen, and big-city lawyers, and thernintelligence, security, and law enforcementrnbranches of the regime never paidrnas much attention to the Weathermen,rnthe Black Panthers, or the variousrnMaoists, Guevarists, and Trotskyites asrnthey are paying today to perfectly lawabidingrnand patriotic militias and grassrootsrnactivists of the right.rnToday, the regime is paying attentionrnto the right for one simple reason—thernmeans of manipulation is beginning torncrumble as the official ideology of thernregime is discredited and rejected and asrnalternative means of communication becomernavailable that the ruling class is unablernto control. Computers, faxes, thernInternet, and other technologies allowrndissident groups to flourish and to communicaternwith each other in ways thatrnwere not available to dissidents of an earlierrnday, and all of these technologies arern(so far) virtually independent of both policernpower and the manipulative reach ofrnthe regime. Hence, incidents like Waco,rnRuby Ridge, and similar acts of coercivernrepression become necessary to disciplinernthe opposition (our very own formrnof SchreckUchkeit), and the emergingrnfederal police state, with the help ofrnsemiprivate intelligence-gathering armsrnlike the Anti-Defamation League andrnthe Southern Poverty Law Center, canrnbe expected to use coercion at least asrnthoroughly as the secret police of the Europeanrndictators.rnNevertheless, the ruling class is notrnstupid, and it knows very well that it cannotrnsit on bayonets forever. Therefore, itrnis rather clumsily trying to patch togetherrnnew means of manipulation before thernwhole society spins out of its control.rnPresident Clinton and the “New Democrats”rnare the left side of this effort, whilernwhat is generally known (at least amongrnpaleoeonservatives) as “neoconservatism”rnis its right side. Both are essentialrnto preserve the illusion of political andrnideological alternatives and the shadowrnof freedom, but any close examinationrnwill show that there is about as much realrndifference between them as there wasrnbetween the Dole-Kemp ticket last yearrnand its rival.rnThe Clintonian effort at keeping thernsheep of the left within the herd seems tornhave been successful, at least for now,rnbut on the right there are problems. Unlikernthe left, the right has actually producedrna real and politically significantrnalternative to neoconservatism in thernBuchanan movement and in paleoconservatismrnand the “hard right” in generalrn—ranging from this magazine and relatedrngroups like the John RandolphrnClub and a variety of grassroots activistsrnto the militias and their constituencies.rnThe problem for neoconservatism is thatrnmost Americans on the right don’t buyrnwhat it’s selling and do not look to it forrnpolitical or ideological leadership.rnWliat is to be done? If at first you don’trnsucceed, try again. In the last fewrnmonths, the neoeonservatives have beenrntrying to set a new ideological line, onernthat might reasonably be expected torncapture the populist right and prepare itrnfor digestion by the regime, and therebyrnensure that it does not eventually producerna movement or a leader that can seriouslyrnchallenge its power.rnThe new mold in v^’hich neoconservatismrnis trying to east itself is “nationalism,”rnand its guiding spirit is WilliamrnKristol of the Weekly Standard. Nationalism,rnof course, also happens to be therntheme of most of the populist right,rnwhether it is directed against immigration,rnwhich threatens to extinguish thernDECEMBER 1997/35rnrnrn