The NZ Herald used to be the paper of record. It was somewhat traditional: in my childhood everyone read it, if not for the news for the classified section. The paper is thinner: the economics of the classified section have imploded, and it is now a tabloid in shape and in quality. But the editors still think they can set the agenda. Today they confess that their track record is poor.

The only thing they got correct is that Brexit and Trump are a revolt. Against the metropolitan elite.

Even so, both events confirm an old historical truism; that revolutions tend to happen not in the depths of the economic contraction, but afterwards, when things are starting to get better again. This is the point at which resignation turns to frustration and anger, and citizens demand change.

The pundits also failed to forecast the economic reaction. There was no collapse in the growth rate, as widely forecast for the UK in the event of a vote to leave the EU. After a brief flurry of panic, the stock market fast returned to pre-Brexit levels, the only lasting damage being a sharp devaluation in sterling. Despite IMF warnings of a major shock to international confidence, there was no immediate impact on the wider global economy.

Trump’s victory was similarly misread. The panic lasted a matter of hours before investors woke up to the fact that his economic agenda implied a huge fiscal stimulus of tax cuts and spending increases. It ought to be good for growth, and good for share prices, at least for a while.

Mainstream punditry fell prey to wrong-headed group think. There was no conspiracy in these forecasts, yet by making them, the establishment finds itself accused of having cynically misled the public for its own end. Even if eventually vindicated, credibility has suffered another near-fatal blow.

With the crisis in European Monetary Union still essentially unaddressed, it’s hard to be optimistic about prospects for continental Europe over the coming 12 months. Elections in the Netherlands, France, Germany and possibly Italy make this a year likely again to be dominated by populist insurrection.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

(John 7:37-39 ESV)

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

(Revelation 1:1-8 ESV)

The elite are foolish. The people they are importing have no loyalty to the nation: the muslim preacher stands on the flag of the nation who welcomed him in charity because he sees charity as his right, and welfare as the consequence of the new people conquering the old. Moreover, the elite share with the lumpenproleteriat not their religion, but their contempt of the productive: Faust is the president of Harvard, and Evolutionist X rightly fisks her.

Faust shows no awareness of or sensitivities to the problems of people who aren’t privileged members of one of the world’s most elite universities. No awareness of rising death rates for white Americans, declining wages, or the ravages of the heroin epidemic. She knows nothing about communities ravaged by crime or American workers laid off en mass in favor of foreign replacements.

Progressive secularism — also known as democratic socialism, te green movement, and the politics of identity is religious. It says it is not a religion, but it is the social gospel without Christ. It has the form of religion and not the power of it. It is a false God, and those who follow false Gods despair. Scott almost gets it when he discusses the suicidality of the progressives as the Nationalists (Alt Right) win election after election.

Religious people will suicide and call it martyrdom. Jim Jones could kill his false church.

They are engaged in what the literature is now calling “parasaucidal gestures and behaviors” which is what we used to call “cries for help.” This proved to be too close to home and easy for normal people to understand, therefore it needed to be replaced with a more sensitive sounding euphemism, so here we are.

But I digress. To get back on track, how did people get to the point where the outcome of an election has them so distraught? Consider Michael Lerner’s words in this Op-Ed piece in the New York Times:

The right has been very successful at persuading working people that they are vulnerable not because they themselves have failed, but because of the selfishness of some other villain (African-Americans, feminists, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, liberals, progressives; the list keeps growing).

Makes sense, right? The problem is, he is projecting. He is trying to sound magnanimous here, but slips in the one sin those on the left are (supposedly) not allowed to commit–painting with a broad brush or generalizing. (Namely about “the right”). As a person on the right for my entire adult life, I have never encountered a mainstream source of conservative commentary that portrays “African Americans” as “villains” yet this is his estimation of all of conservatism. (And I read a lot of conservative sources).

As usual, the lack of insight is breathtaking.

Recall, what makes this entire article ironic is Lerner is the author of the 1994 book “the Politics of Meaning,” which is really how we are going to get down the road of understanding the hopelessness of leftists who lost this election. Here is a writer who has spent his whole life telling us that your politics decides your moral worth. Now he wants to hold on to that position while pretending it has no consequences.

This is why, serial philanderer Bill Clinton is a hero of the left. He holds the “correct” positions. Similarly, squeaky clean Mitt Romney with his beautiful family and long-term loving, monogamous marriage was evil. His mind wasn’t right. He believed wrong things.

Leftism, which has now utterly replaced “liberalism” in the culture and all its expressions is a religion. It has all the features of a religion, as has been discussed all over the place in different venues. It has saints, sacraments, clergy, theology, dogma, and sacred texts. And like most religions, it demands total allegiance to the exclusion of all other religions. This is normal for religions, and not a condemnation. But its most brilliant accomplishment has been to convince the world that it is not a religion. Because religious people are rednecks, or something.

1300 words in and yes, the text is to be discussed. In three points.

1. Christ is the cure of your religious delusions.
   It does no matter if you are a progressive atheist, fanatic Muslim, or practice mindfulness and discuss spirituality without having the honesty to mention Buddha.
   There is only one way to salvation and that is Christ, and there is only one way to live a life acceptable to God and that is Christ. You cannot do it by yourself. Your virtue signalling will not save you.
2. We were given revelations for a reason
   I am quite aware of the theological rabbit holes that those who twist scripture can fall into here. But we are given this book so we know that, despite what we see now, the true ending of this world is Christ. He created this universe, he will end it, and there will be an accounting. This should give us confidence when the nations conspire against the people of faith, which is those of Christ. Is Revelations easy to understand? No. But we are told it is a blessing to read it.
3. We should hold all ideologies lightly. An ideology is a model: a simplification that we can grasp. It is not reality. We can only see in part what reality is. A good model is tested by an ability to predict: this is the core of the scientific method. Some ideologies reflect reality and allow for better predictions than others. No ideology is perfect, so do not make them your religion.

The Cathedral, the failing liberal elite, disagree on all of these points. Do not be them, and do not be like them.