The Based Ritual

Note: I’ve known these people. And Yes, it actually is this bad.

Most nights, you can find the elite among the MAGA faithful at one of a handful of Capitol Hill bars. Walk in at the right time, and you will see their journalists, or what passes for such in Trumpworld, influencers, the smaller accounts whose role in the ecosystem is to influence the influencers, and secretaries and aspiring secretaries of various sorts – under, acting, deputy, assistant, personal deputy assistant. Tonight, in one of these bars, a group of four gathers for drinks.

Max has been losing his hair since he was 16, which has always made him look much older than he is. Only 31 now, he’s had horseshoe pattern baldness for close to half his life. When Max was younger he had what were thought to be old man views, even though he developed them on gaming and anime message boards. Now the exact same opinions are young-coded, though a similar incongruence remains since he now looks really old. Having bounced around MAGA think tanks and various holding pens for the last five years, he is currently undergoing vetting to be Assistant Secretary of Education for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development.

After a bit of small talk and an order of drinks, the conversation becomes stilted and all parties have started to glance at their phones. It’s Max who takes the initiative.

“Did you guys see what’s going on with the Bukele thing? The district court judge told the administration that they had to try to get that illegal back from El Salvador. The lawyers basically submitted a required update saying that he’s with Bukele now, under his sovereignty. What else can they do?”

Max’s friend Alex chimes in. “That is so fucking based. Hope they tell Barrett off too when they get back to SCOTUS. You can never trust her. Haitian kids.” He lets out a laugh that is probably too loud, but that’s sort of the point.

Alex’s job, if it was being described by a member of the hated mainstream media, would be called “influencer.” He makes some money from Twitter ad sharing, but the bulk of his income these days comes from a PR agency he doesn’t ask too many questions about that acts as a passthrough.

He looks at the girl and guy who he and Max are meeting for the first time. They’re both spokespeople for something having to do with health. Or perhaps defense, or land management? The qualifications these days are all the same. These used to be jobs that went to people who had some knowledge or experience in a particular policy area, but today the cucks are all gone.

As he glances at their new companions, Max still doesn’t know exactly what they’re dealing with, and suspects Alex might have jumped the gun. But it had to happen sooner or later, and sometimes it is best to just dive right in. You see, this is because when young MAGAs meet today, they engage in something called the Based Ritual. Max started by discussing a story that was in the news. The commentary had been limited to praising something Trump had done, which is always a safe way to begin. But Alex had escalated, showing the kind of boldness that took him from being a general studies major at a university nobody had heard of in Pennsylvania to having enough Twitter followers that the site now rounds to the nearest hundred thousand on his profile.

Yet there was nothing to worry about. Prudence is becoming less and less necessary when undertaking the Based Ritual.

This is confirmed when the blonde in the miniskirt that is too short for any non-MAGA political circle starts giggling. “That’s awesome. Trump is now saying they might start sending our own criminals there too!” It starts to dawn on the group that everyone is on the same page.

When elite MAGAs meet in the wild, they need to communicate a few things. Understanding their folkways is important for knowing how the country is currently governed, because in the Trump era they in effect are the conservative movement. And barring some unforeseen circumstances, they will still be there when Trump is gone, though Israel enthusiasts are still around trying to squeeze out the last policy victories they can get before the lights go out for them too. In a previous generation, staff and orbiters of a Republican administration might try to show each other that they are not libs. Yet right-wing and left-wing social circles in Washington diverged decades ago. Now, the Trump movement has created new norms. It’s not enough to not be a lib, one has to avoid being a cuck.

This can mean any number of things when it comes to economics or your views on federalism or foreign policy. But the Based Ritual is not about showing that you subscribe to a policy program, unless it’s whatever Trump happens to be doing today, but to a worldview with aesthetic, ethical, and moral components. There are friends and enemies. One must remain loyal to the God-emperor, even though you always express loyalty with an ironic grin showing that you are in on the joke. At the lowest level of Basedness, you are simply anti-anti-racist. This means standing up for anyone who is accused of racism by fellow conservatives or the mainstream media. But that is just the minimum requirement at this point. The Based Ritual involves flaunting your connoisseurship of racism, sexism, and reactionary ideas in various forms. Racism can be biological, or it can be rooted in ordo amoris, a Latin phrase that translates into misunderstanding the concept of trade deficits and always agreeing with the biological racists about the need for a stricter immigration policy.

Sexism also comes in Darwinian and Christian flavors. There is always the threat of performative misogyny exploding in ways that make people uncomfortable, so everyone has settled on “Repeal the Nineteenth” as the mantra to repeat. This shows knowledge about the Constitution, and that one is Based in a way that connects to American history and traditions. Of course, when someone reveals that they’re Based enough to not want women to vote, that only opens up the opportunity for someone else to say that men shouldn’t vote either. How serious is anyone about any of this? Well, some convert to Catholicism, or post racisms all day on Twitter and risk their careers for the cause. But to inquire too deeply into how sincere any particular individual is about their Based opinions is totally not Based. The only things that are unironically non-negotiable are hatred of the enemy and never acknowledging that there might be a downside to the Culture of Based.

Part of the Based Ritual is always having Based reasons for disagreeing with a fellow Based. For example, if a conversation is going too hard on misogyny, you can point out that it’s a characteristic of white people that they treat their women better than third world savages. Introducing a new racist consideration protects against the accusation that someone might be a cuck on the women question. Harsher language and more extreme ideas are both methods for achieving balance. Conversely, if someone starts getting too genocidal when talking about Latin Americans, you can calm them down by pointing out that college educated white women vote more Democrat than Hispanic men. All arguments must stay true to the principle of conservation of Basedness.

A massive brain drain from the right throughout the Trump era means that this is the intellectual wing of MAGA. They staff the offices of JD Vance, Josh Hawley, and, increasingly, random congressmen you’ve never heard of. None of them are vaccinated – because are you really going to trust them after all the lies they told? – but they don’t stress the issue, nor do they sit around fantasizing about Kash Patel locking up Adam Schiff. They have real ideas. Like immigrants need to go back. And the rest of society needs to go back too. How far back? Well, Basedness is an always evolving doctrine. Before civil rights at the very minimum. What they all agree on is that liberalism has failed, white Americans living today are at a spiritual level the most oppressed people in human history, and after what their enemies have done to them there can be no limits in fighting back.

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James: Oh, Barrett’s kids? You noticed that, didn’t you?

Max: <laughs> Yeah, there’s going to be a lot more noticing in this administration.

And now, with the appropriate reference to the totally dangerous non-mainstream thinker that everyone in MAGA world likes to say that everyone reads and nobody admits to reading, the Based Ritual can truly begin. Every expression of Basedness creates pressure for even more Basedness and to introduce new dimensions of Basedness – to say bring the topic of women into a conversation that has been too focused on race. Anyone of any background can partake in the Based Ritual, yet there are complications that must be taken into account when around women or Jews.

James: You’ll have your hands full getting those test scores up!

Max: Oh we’re done trying. Higher ups in the administration totally get it. We’re sending education back to the states.

Alex: Are we sure that’s a good idea? No doubt, that’s better than having a bunch of leftists in charge. But they’ve been working on kids for a generation with a true understanding that politics is about the Friend-Enemy distinction. There’s a reason that white kids hate themselves now. You’ve got JD Vance in the White House for a reason. We can undo a lot of that damage.

Max: I agree with you. We’re taking advantage of civil rights law and hammering them on the trans issue. Of course, a lot of the focus in higher education is on antisemitism. I’m not a huge fan of that approach.

Alex: Not a huge fan?

Max: Yeah, you’re right. I absolutely hate it. Doing a foreign country’s bidding. Sometimes it feels like Heritage Americans are still in the backseat. We’re still not at the point where you can say white interests matter. But we’re at least at the table now. I’m telling you, the guys in JD’s office, they get it. They’ve read their Schmitt. You can tell that they know what time it is.

Alex: But are they noticers or just like trad cons?

Max: There’s definitely a noticing contingent.

James: We may not like the idea that this is done for the sake of Israel – which of course I don’t give a fuck about – but deporting these people is obviously a good thing. First, they’re obviously not Heritage Americans, them being here is questionable. But they’re always left-wing activists. Look at anyone who is protesting for the sake of Gaza. They’ve always got terrible opinions on race, crime. They’re the enemy. Any reason to kick them out is fine. He who decides the exception is sovereign.

This last point leaves a bit of tension in the air. From a literal reading, there was nothing that goes against the principle of Basedness in what James said. But being Based isn’t just about having the right opinions; one’s motivations must be pure. Max and Alex are left to wonder, was he making a straightforward argument about the demographic and political impacts of ongoing deportations or is there something else going on? Sure, he said that he didn’t give a fuck about Israel, but this is what any passionate Zionist would say at this point. Is James Jewish? Alex decides to probe a little bit further.

Alex: Nothing about that is wrong, per se. We have enemies, and foreign students definitely qualify. There’s got to be a point though where we can unapologetically defend white interests. We’re a nation, not a shopping mall. And if we allow alien interests to dictate our foreign policy and who we let into the country – and of course, I don’t want Palestinians studying here any more than you do – we’re taking a step back from that.

Max: I wouldn’t worry too much. The administration has donors, and they really care about Israel. The Ackman types. It’s basic coalition management. But you should see my friends at DHS. They’re definitely taking the national issue seriously. Biden let in these hordes of young men, the Bukele camps are only the first step. And maybe it will take God-Emperor Vance to finish the job.

Natasha: Oh, you’ll have to repeal the Nineteenth for that to happen! And I’m here for it.

She had faded into the background. The Based Ritual is primarily a male affair and women as a general matter are distrusted. But a reference to the Nineteenth is usually enough to show that a particular woman is not like other girls.

Max: We might not need it. With all the deportations and voter ID laws and what Republicans are doing at the state level, they probably won’t be able to steal another election. But yeah, women voting, eventually we’ll have to deal with that.

James: And voting in general! Democracy is clearly a failed experiment. The medieval peasant had more freedom than we do, and it was rooted in an understanding of his place in the cosmos.

Max: I certainly didn’t want to imply that I believed in voting! It’s unfortunately the system we’ve got. For now, anyway…

James: It really did all begin with the Enlightenment. What is it that Yarvin says, these assumptions we have about democracy and the will of the people are things that practically no one believed in until the seventeenth century? And it’s been downhill ever since! Before that you grew up in a certain place, you worked, you had a family, and you died.

Work was not this abstract manipulation of symbols. The food that nourished your body was not the product of logistics chains under the control of bureaucratic managers. It came from the ground underneath your feet. A blacksmith would make a shoe and see it on the feet of others in his village. Foot fetishes wasn’t a thing, think about how confused we are today. The link between labor with one’s hands and the common good was obvious, and felt at a very visceral level.

Max: Healthier sex relations too.

James: Yes. And of course they had to get by with fewer material possessions. No cheap crap from China, God forbid! But there was the connection with God, a family, and a community. Women accepted their role as being submissive to their husbands, which even evolutionary psychology will tell us is them at their most natural content state. The other things that liberals say they want, like diversity, simply existed as a byproduct of this world.

What changed was global capital. At some point there rose an elite that benefited from having a deracinated and homogenized mass of individuals. This meant abolishing localized traditions and ways of life. The abolition of differences between the sexes is no more than a natural consequence. I like how people think that the transgender problem started with Title IX. It was baked into the entire Enlightenment project! Once the French Revolution started this was inevitable. Caldwell is of course right that we should repeal the Civil Rights Act. But we need to repeal the Enlightenment itself!

Max: And don’t forget the moral myth of World War II!

James: Well, yes and no. The Nazis are often portrayed as conservative. They’re used as a stick to beat Heritage Americans over the head with. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Hitler sought a European empire and ultimately world domination. Now of course America in the 1940s had already gone far down the path of liberalism. But we certainly had a national interest in stopping him from destroying what was left of the inheritance of Western Civilization.

Max: That reminds me. Did you guys hear about how the Navy is like removing Maya Angelou and keeping Mein Kampf around?

Alex: No way! JD is way more based than I thought!

James grimaces. Instead of pushing back, having been Out-Based on World War II and the Hitler question, he realizes he needs to change the subject. They’ve talked about racism, women…no one has touched on gayness yet. When it was just him and Natasha in the car ride over, she was impressed with his level of Basedness. Yet he could sense that she tensed up when the Hitler talk started. Gay bashing is of course a neutral ground to retreat to. He continues as if the World War II digression never happened.

James: And you didn’t need an expert or a scientific study to believe that certain things were right and others were wrong, maladaptive if you care about the continuance of the community in a healthy state. If a guy in a wig wanted to spend time alone with your kids, locals would take care of it. More realistically, it would never even occur to anyone to try anything like that, because if they could conceive of something so perverse they’d be scared to act on their desires. But most people couldn’t even imagine something so depraved. That’s why in a lot of third world countries male friends will walk down the street holding hands and no one will think there’s anything unusual about that. They force drag queens upon kids as Reddit libs wield the hermeneutics of gay suspicion to stigmatize male spaces and make everything gynocratic.

The sexual deviant was the enemy of the community, and sexual deviancy was broadly defined. Again, people wouldn’t even think in these terms, it was just instinctual. Homosexual behavior always existed, but people have at least always had a disgust towards it being publicly displayed. Corrupting these instincts or overriding them is what the entire gay rights movement has been about. You ever wonder why they feel the need to take over downtown areas and have the largest possible audience, including families and children, in order to display their degeneracy? It’s about social domination. Just like how some illegal bum will be playing loud music in the subway and daring you to say something about it. It’s their country now. The Rachel Maddow and Tim Miller types love seeing this. We all know that this is what motivates them.

One thing I love about Trump, and JD especially, is their unwillingness to be guilted into giving in to these people. They’re not playing this game anymore.

Natasha: Some say it’s Protestantism too. Martin Luther had a universalist religion that broke the bonds within communities and between the present and ancient past. They, you know…

She trails off, suddenly unsure of herself. She had spent some time around Catholic converts who talk like this, but it doesn’t always go over well in a broader gathering of MAGAs. Of course, wanting a Catholic theocracy is usually not considered a strike against Basedness like expressing principled support for individual rights or admiration for a mainstream journalist would be, but in MAGA circles an ecumenical approach is generally preferred. James is in fact Jewish, so smarter than the rest of them, and therefore able to cut her off before she starts going on about the wonders of the Latin Mass, which he’s peeved that she talks about anyway because she’s already slept with two of his friends.

James: Oh yeah, no doubt we should go back further. BAP talks about this all the time.

Knowing glances

James: Civilization is not built on these stupid things liberals believe in like norms or institutions. It’s bands of pirates. Men united by a shared brotherhood who do great things.

Max: Yes, which we can’t do anymore because of the Longhouse. I can’t tell you how awesome it is working for Trump every day, the man is a walking refutation of all that. I’ve been talking to some people who’ve taken over the whole old misinformation apparatus. I’ve been encouraging them to do things to give lost young men a chance, something to believe in. Memes of Crusaders, Roman sentinels. I’ve got this video of people taking the Red Pill and transforming into something new. The cover of Bronze Age Mindset pops up and it’s like a new dawn. We’ve got some voiceover taken from a Yarvin interview speaking on some incomprehensible gibberish but people will think it’s cool. And then a graph with murder rates by race appears and like a giant Sailer bobblehead with its eyebrows going up and then his mouth opens and it goes “Notice something?”

Alex: <cracking up> Yes! But use skull sizes instead!

Natasha: Skull sizes! Ha-ha-ha

She hopes that her enthusiasm for scientific racism might let everyone forget the brief foray into religious sectarianism. They know she’s influenced by Catholic ideas now, but they’ll understand that she’s one of those Based Catholics who likes using Latin words to justify racism and whatever trade or immigration policy Trump comes up with next, not one of those “neither Jew nor Gentile” types.

Alex: Yeah, but you’ll have to fire that Pajeet you guys have heading that program.

Max: Definitely. This one we’ve got isn’t too bad as far as Indians go, but yeah, we need a Heritage American there. No doubt. He gets this too, I’m telling you, he’s not that bad, understands that he’s a guest in our country.

Alex: Be that as it may. He’s got to go back! He can admire us from the other side of the world.

James: <grabbing his phone> Check out what just popped up. New York Times. “Trump calls deported Salvadoran a ‘filthy criminal’ who will ‘rot’ in prison.” Guys, I know we say Based a lot these days. But wow, Based!

Alex: Maybe he’ll say something about rape next time! This whole thing is of course just the beginning. I’ve heard that there are people in Justice, even political appointees, who still don’t know what time it is. They say stuff like “what stopping them from doing it to Trump’s political opponents?” Like that would be a bad thing.

Max: I agree. There are too many cucks left. Of course, the administration isn’t explicitly saying that they’re not going to follow the law. They just can do this thing where Bukele and Trump sit there and mock the Supreme Court, to the point where law becomes meaningless. Judges know that if they rule against the administration’s priorities, they are just revealing their own impotence. Of course we all realize now that the Haitian mamma was a big mistake. We’ll have to be vetting judges by different standards going forward.

Alex: Things are going to get so good. Hold on, let me tweet about it. “BREAKING: Trump says the FILTHY CRIMINAL will ROT in El Salvador, no matter what the courts say!”

He pauses for a bit as he looks for the right phrasing. For the next half hour, they are on their phones again, scrolling Twitter and answering texts. Each has their own network of group chats, where the Based Ritual continues as they all share news stories about the latest public figure getting away with racism, black homeless bums they see walking the streets of Washington, and the latest Based video from the White House showing illegals led onto planes in chains. Groups split up, die, and re-form based on questions surrounding religion and whether women should be allowed to open their own credit cards. Sometimes one goes too far. A joke about the age of consent or the need for mass killings is fine, it would be very un-Based to get offended, but those who seem too serious about these things gravitate towards more marginal circles. At the other extreme, once in a while, although it is very rare, someone sees through the brokenness of the never ending Based Ritual and reduces their level of participation, until one day there is an unceremonious notification that they’ve left the chat. These heretics are never heard from again, although once in a while you hear an inkling of them popping up in a Nikki Haley chat somewhere, or one formed by the ex-Based.

Our friends eventually look up and return to the meatspace version of the Based Ritual. They discuss topics as stimulating as Zero HP Lovecraft, German idealism, Spartan reproductive rules, and how much protein to consume a day. That night, James impregnates Natasha. He does it because unprotected sex is Lindy. She goes along because she lacks self-control, and has gotten the idea that there’s something unfeminine about resisting. Or was it the other way around? It doesn’t matter. Soon she’ll have to decide whether abortion is Based or part of the Longhouse, and no one will care what she does anyway as long as she continues to say the right words about disgusting Hondurans.

Logical consistency is for cucks. What practitioners of the Based Ritual have is a constant grasping for avatars, symbols, and incantations of Basedness through which they find meaning. The less intelligent and more sincere ones take the philosophy of be Based and worry about the consequences tomorrow seriously in their personal lives. The rest of them are simply enjoying their newfound political power, and get their thrills from applying it to governing the country.