And if that was not bad enough, Walmart and other corporatists acted like a huge vacuum cleaner, sucking up the free money the government was handing out by expressly targeting the EBT card–wielding welfare cheat demographic. You didn’t see many Walmarts in affluent areas—you saw them where there are plenty of folks getting government dollars that could be spent in their megastores. And Walmart had no desire to see that particular well run dry.
Sure, it would occasionally try some public relations stunt, like promising crappy jobs to veterans. Awesome. For the “price” of getting a bunch of accomplished, responsible, drug-free individuals, Walmart got to look like this great corporate citizen where, in reality, it was embodying every stereotype of a corporate scourge.
As a libertarian, I used to like Walmart in theory. I thought it was a great American capitalist success story. Being a largely urban woman, I had only been to Walmart a couple of times. But then I saw that Walmart was everything wrong with American politics and a wonderful example of “free enterprise” that made its profits by, through, and from tax money stolen from the people who actually produce something.
The night the government checks arrived became payday for losers. It was party time in dependency city, and Walmart was there, ready to skim off that sweet, sweet government cash.
It was my money and your money at work. Or, more accurately, not at work. More like our pocket being picked and Walmart eagerly taking a cut.
So what could we do? The first thing we needed to do was take the blinders off. I’ll modestly take credit on behalf of the libertarians who became constitutional conservatives, but we started making the people in the movement aware that big companies were not necessarily part of the solution. Conservatives had been defending business for so long that they didn’t notice that many of the companies they defended had defected to the other side and were now part of the problem.
What was wrong with Walmart—its shameless corporatism, its rent-seeking, its embrace of the welfare state as a way to ensure its clientele has the dough to spend on cut-rate crap imported from Asia while crushing our core constituencies here at home—was pretty much the same as what was wrong with most businesses that you can stick the word “big” in front of.
They may have been companies, but they weren’t capitalist and they sure as hell weren’t conservative. Conservatives protected them because they didn’t see what the corporatists had truly become: part of the problem. In fact, they weren’t just part of the problem but active participants in worsening the problem.
See, progressivism was not a problem to these companies. Big government, regulation, entitlements—they wanted these things. They liked them.
So when conservatives defended them, conservatives were defending people who were not only working against conservative interests but against conservatism’s core constituencies. And conservatives let the left pretend to hate them.
Step one was to stop defending them. Walmart and the big corporations could take care of themselves—hell, they’d been taking care of themselves at our expense for decades. We needed to untie and uncouple conservatism from these rent-seeking rackets. That meant we needed to call them out—hard and loud.
And we did. Suddenly, constitutional conservatives were offering a critique of corporatist business. The establishment GOP, of course, hated this. The corporations immediately allied with them to fund pliable, controllable candidates to fight constitutional conservatives in the GOP primaries. They poured money into the fight through the consultant class. There was one problem—the establishment had most of the money, but we constitutional conservatives had most of the actual Republican voters.
Step two was that we took advantage of the alliances and opportunities that treating these corporate hacks just as badly as they treat us could offer. There was a whole strata of society that had been screwed by them, people who held us in contempt because they thought we were to blame. In reality, the liberals loved the big companies that happily aided and abetted them in order to ensure their profits through government action. They just hid their secret love affair with propaganda talking about how liberals were somehow the champions of the little guys the liberals were shafting.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, but we conservatives love small things more than big things. Name one small thing liberals like, besides a small military? Sure, they hate “big” stuff. My ass.
And step three, as our power increased, we pushed for new laws that leveled the playing field for our constituencies. In the macro sense, as we shrank government we naturally shrank the incentive to focus their business models on rent-seeking since we eliminated the potential to win in Washington rather than in the marketplace. When government did less, there was less to be gained from lobbying. They had to refocus back on actually earning business rather than paying K Street hacks to win them special government favors.
We also focused on targeted reforms that addressed some structural inequities. Small businesses already got slammed with higher individual tax rates because most small business owners paid taxes as individuals, while companies got lower rates. We fixed that. There were dozens of other subsidies, scams, and scandals that these rackets took advantage of. We rooted them out too, and we let the liberals fight to preserve corporate welfare. Which they obliged us by doing.
In fact, we kicked the corporatists off the dole before we did it to individuals. That helped show America we were serious. The liberals freaked out even as we paid back the traitors to free enterprise.
* * *
Trevor Gore (Stand-Up Comic)
We are in the green room of Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Giggle Works, a comedy club that is currently in the midst of one of the periodic stand-up comedy crazes that have been occurring on and off for nearly half a century. We can see snow falling outside the dirty window. On a stained couch, veteran comic Trevor Gore gestures wildly with a cigarette in his right hand and a glass of Jack Daniels in his left—listening to his staccato delivery, even in one-on-one conversation with him, you worry that you will be splashed or burned, or possibly both. “I’m related to Al Gore—remember him?” he shouts, although I’m two feet away “The guy who was into global warming? Remember that scam? It’s freaking six degrees outside!”
Gore is a pro who can fill a room with fans even on a weeknight, but then he has been doing his shtick for nearly 30 years. He had gone to Columbia to be a doctor, but instead of studying he spent his nights at the smoke-free comedy clubs of Michael Bloomberg’s New York City before quitting school entirely for life before the faux brick wall.
“I hated Bloomberg, that little fascist prick,” he says, “but then the city elects that socialist ass wipe de Blasio and it’s like Lord of the Flies. I mean, the whole place goes to hell. I thought I was a lefty, like all my friends, but I wasn’t blind. I didn’t buy that I had to get mugged so socialism could triumph. Count me out.”
Gore began turning his wit on the icons and shibboleths of the left largely out of sheer contrariness. “Everyone was afraid to make jokes about these tools. I wasn’t, and I caught all sorts of shit for it.”
He lost gigs in 2016 because he refused to hide the fact that he wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton. By 2018 his act was overtly political, and his explicitly conservative-oriented comedy album, Right Up Yours, broke him through to young people dispirited by a decade of progressive malaise. While he was merciless to politicians, he had a special enmity toward large businesses that collaborated with the progressives to milk the system.
“I did a long bit on that album about a visit to a Walmart I made when I was on tour in Atlanta in 2017. And I saw that the store was designed entirely to take money from the people the government had just given it to. No wonder these companies were funding progressives—the welfare money went right into their pockets after a few hours in the pockets of the welfare bums.” Performances like Gore’s, and other like-minded comedians, gave mass audiences permission to be angry at the takers in society—and at companies t
hat enabled them.
Though his “My Visit to Walmart” bit became the climax of his live shows for several years, it got his album banned from Walmart’s shelves. “Of course,” he says, “Amazon was very happy to promote it!”
Now, I take 81 milligrams of baby aspirin every night because my doctor says it might keep my heart from exploding. So, I’m on a trip to Atlanta and I had forgotten my baby aspirin, right? So, I look around and the only place nearby is this enormous Walmart super-ultra-mega store. It’s literally a choice between dying of a heart attack and going into this Walmart on welfare check night, and I’m not sure I chose right.
I pull up into the parking lot and it’s clear everyone there is on some kind of welfare. How do I know? I’m from New York. I know what a loser looks like. These were not career-focused individuals, okay?
So, the parking lot is packed with cars. This disturbed me, because people who get government money should not have cars. Okay, they should sell their cars to buy the things that my tax money is buying them. Otherwise, that really means that I’m subsidizing their cars and as far as I am concerned, cars are for closers. No work-work, no vroom-vroom.
Of course, I would solve that problem of people using their government money on things I don’t approve of, like cars for losers, by ending all government programs. See, if it isn’t any of my money, then it isn’t any of my concern. But I digress.
Now, I want to be clear that I’m not somehow “better than Walmart” or the normal people who patronize it. There were a few normals that night. You could tell them because they were as scared as I was. But I am, however, significantly better than the loafing losers who descended on the welfare money magnet of a store that night.
You are also better than them. I don’t even know you and I’m very comfortable saying that.
So, I decide I’ve gotta get my aspirin. How bad can it be, right? I work my way through the throng to the main entrance. And it’s full of sketchy people. There should have been a sign reading “Welcome to Walmart. Please, no sudden moves.”
My clean clothes, my combed hair, my general air of self-sufficiency . . . these pegged me as a figure due awe and respect. The other shoppers gave me a wide berth, which was good since many of them were pretty damn wide themselves.
Do not get me going on how America is full of fat people on food stamps.
So, I’d never been in a Walmart before. I’m from New York. If a store’s bigger than my living room I start getting agoraphobia. Anyway, the interior was like an aircraft hangar filled with five supermarkets, and it’s illuminated with the glow of a hundred fluorescent lights way up on the ceiling. The sheer size and variety inside was amazing, and that was just the people.
The aisles were about twice as wide as those in any other store I’d ever been in. Like I said, in America obesity is a disease that correlates with being “poor.”
Of course “poor” is a relative term. When you talk about people overseas, “poor” would mean, roughly, “no money.” But these folks, that night, had money all right—my money and your money. So, in America, the term “poor” apparently refers not to the amount of money one has but, rather, whether or not one gets it from Uncle Sam in return for voting for liberal Democrats.
I noticed a bunch of “poor” people hustling their new big screens up to the front counter. They were happy to get the money that afternoon, and Walmart was happy to relieve them of it that evening.
Yeah, look for Walmart to be all in for entitlement cuts.
The customers that night were a United Nations of all races and ethnicities united by the promise of consumer spending subsidized by others who actually work for a living.
They seemed calmed by the crackling fluorescent lights and soothing colors of the displays. This was not just a place to shop for material goods but a kind of temple to Deadbeato, the wrathful god of entitlements.
It creeped me out.
I start walking toward where they sell the medicine, and then I realize that I have no idea where they sell the medicine. Could be in the next state, the place is so big.
I look for an employee. Nearby, there’s one Walmart guy surrounded by eight blaze-orange cones using a sheet of cardboard to fan a purple spill on the linoleum like it’s the pharaoh. He looks scared.
“Hey, where’s the medicine aisle?” I ask. He looks at me dead-eyed, but keeps on fanning. It’s fun to confuse people by speaking to them clearly in proper English, but I try it another way.
“Dude, medicine aisle? Hello?”
He stops fanning for a second, points a dirty finger vaguely off into the distance, and then goes back to fanning the puddle.
I go in that direction. To my right was a big DVD promotion for an upcoming Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson movie. Yeah, he used to really throw a wrench into my Oscar handicapping. I was thinking that they must be bracing themselves for the rush when the Shakespeare box set comes out.
So, I’m walking through the store and these clumps of people are moving to and fro among the aisles. Apparently, the clientele’s fashion watchword is “tight.” Yeah, when in doubt, cut off the blood supply to your lower half.
I think that there must be a special clothing size above XXXL called “Walmart.”
I learned that spandex is the devil’s fabric. I still wonder how muumuus could be form fitting.
If you’re ever in a Walmart on welfare check night, and you shouldn’t be, watch out! Rascal scooters have the right of way! I had no idea so many people were mobility-challenged, and no idea why so many of these riders were about my age. Most of them are immobile because they are just too massive.
I guess whatever government program was giving them free go-carts on my dime decided that the cure for getting too little exercise was to get none at all.
Well, honking their little horns at us losers who actually walked, like suckers, was a kind of exercise, I guess. Feel the burn in that thumb!
I passed the greeting cards aisle. It had sections of cards designed for “Fathers” and “Grandfathers,” but they really needed one for “That Random Dude Who Shacked Up With Mom.” I didn’t stop to inspect the bizarre familial arrangements acknowledged by the greeting card cartel. The best measure of the spread of social pathologies is your local Hallmark display.
There was an astonishing variety of foot-related products. Apparently feet are very important to people who rarely get up off the couch and onto them.
I swear I saw a tumbleweed bouncing down the lonely, deserted dental hygiene products aisle.
A lot of people were doing a lot of scratching. I’ve rarely been so happy that a place requires pants.
The forklift rumbled through to deliver a crate to the pharmacy. It read “Valtrex.” I didn’t use the water fountain.
The skin care aisle was packed. If government has to get involved, it should mandate that Walmart sell a cream that fights both chronic acne and chronic sloth.
There was a wide variety of birth control products, but judging from the number of little urchins running around, no one used them. Walmart could have made a fortune selling at-home paternity tests.
Here’s a helpful observation: moms, dads, maybe your precocious 13-year-old daughter ought not to be wearing shorts with the word “Juicy” emblazoned across her ass.
Now, if you have to ask me why that’s a bad idea, okay, she’s probably pregnant already.
Congrats—you’re on your way to being a 39-year-old great grandma.
So, eventually, I get to the medicine aisle. I will say this—300 low-dose aspirins for $3.99 is a killer buy. Love those Malaysian pharmaceutical companies and their rock bottom prices!
Time to make a break for it. But I made a few more observations on the way out.
I’d never seen so many unironic mullets. You know, Unironic Mullets would be a great band name. Not that these folks would be fans of the Unironic Mullets’ alternative proto-fuzz guitar skronk. Their T-shirts let me know many were fans of rappers I’d never heard of l
ike Killa Z, or terrible nü metal bands with names like Blaaklyst. It would have been a great venue for a Limp Bizkit reunion concert.
There’s nothing like a label assuring you that your cheese product is “Made with Real Cheese.” I found myself pondering the question, “Who buys a gallon jug of Utz Cheese Balls?” Anyway, I soon found out. Okay, let me put it this way: some questions you just don’t want answered.
I also found out from watching one elderly gentleman that if you’re lonely, you can have a chat with the ATM. A long chat. With questions. And, apparently, it will answer you back.
Yeah, the goth trailer park look many of the folks were rockin’ was awesome. Here’s another idea that popped into my head: when thinking about tatting up your whole arm, understand that someday you’ll be 80. Unless, of course, you want that barbed wire ring around your bicep to fade over time into a Dada-esque blur.
At the counter, I watched a clerk say, “No, EBT don’t work for Night Train.” The disappointed customer should have known that, since he had clearly never actually had any real money.
Another highlight was the guy with “666” tattooed on his neck trying to cash a personal check without ID. He seemed legit. I mean, in comparison.
I paid with a credit card, which seemed to freak the checker out. He asked for my ID, and when I had some it freaked him out even more.
The whole time, everyone seemed to be on the verge of asking me, “You a cop?”
When I walked out of there, I felt like I just left an off-Broadway production of Megan’s List.
You’ve been a great audience! Good night!
Chapter Seven: The Safe Haven of the States
“They Were Our Liberated Territory”
Conservatism was rising, and it faced enemies not only on the left but from “moderate” Republicans more concerned with losing their personal influence than in pushing conservative policies. Though the conservatives took the GOP by 2020, the third party campaign (aided and abetted by rich liberals and disenfranchised Republican establishment veterans) of a “moderate” GOP defector was sufficient to allow Hillary Clinton a second term with a pathetic 39% of the vote while the Democrats held the Senate. But the states were another matter, and it was from this base that they moved toward a 2024 presidential victory.
Conservative Insurgency: The Struggle to Take America Back 2009 - 2041 Page 14
