(With apologies to H.P. Lovecraft)
On Sunday, a certain Texas congresswoman, who has been given far more press than she deserves, was the commencement speaker at Tougaloo College, an HBCU in Jackson, Mississippi. Theoretically, commencement addresses are meant to inspire new grads to go out into the world and be the best they can be, maximize their potential, and make an impact. The congresswoman took the opportunity to use her time at the podium to impart this advice:
There are going to be people that tell you that you don’t belong, and I am here to tell you over and over and over that you absolutely belong. There are people that are gonna tell you that there is not a table in which there is a seat for you, but I am here to remind you of Montgomery and those folding chairs. Let me tell you that we know how to use a chair, whether we’re pulling it up or we’re doing something else with it. Let me be the first one to tell you that I know that y’all are ready to put your boots on the ground. (sic)
You can see the full speech here if you are so inclined:
So, the grads who will be helming America in the future were exhorted… to hit people with folding chairs?
According to The Daily Caller, the congresswoman was likely referring to a 2023 incident in Montgomery, Alabama, specifically a fight between white boaters and a group of black people. One man in the second group employed a folding chair as a weapon. One of the white men in the fracas reportedly used the “N word,” a report that, according to the Western Journal, was not confirmed.
Of course, this is not this congresswoman’s first time using inflammatory rhetoric, racial or otherwise. She obviously relishes the attention and controversy she generates, and she is by no means alone.
I spent the weekend doing yard work and, for some reason, found myself listening to various episodes of The Charlie Kirk Show. Two things stood out. One was Kirk’s conversation with Jordan Peterson, in which Kirk opined that those “leaders” who continue to stir the national pot are really interested in one thing: power. I could have told him that eighteen years ago. The second was a personal appearance by Kirk, complete with the requisite angry college students who contorted themselves into all sorts of bizarre positions to angrily defend abortion. Their tactics included talking over Kirk and vehemently regurgitating “facts” of which they barely had a grasp. They did not arrive at this chaotic state of mind on their own. Yes, they had help from scholastic and media systems that have routinely hammered home the notions of colonialism, patriarchy, and the other occupants of the pantheon on Western Dysfunction. And one must also take into account the proliferation of ADHD meds and the madness brought on by the COVID-19 lockdowns. But the insanity has been carefully encouraged and nursed by those in power to create a class of perpetual victims and disordered people who can then do whatever they wish in order to satisfy their impulses, not just in the name of a greater good, but because they feel marginalized, genocided, or unsafe.
In his 2023 piece in the City Journal, “The Cluster B Society,” Christopher Rufo discusses the rise of Cluster B disorder, which can be characterized by narcissism and histrionic and antisocial behavior. Rufo postulates that people in power have been able to harness the power of such people (and, one would assume, create more) to advance agendas.
Rufo writes:
In a Cluster B society, psychological disorders are job qualifications rather than problems to be solved; ideology replaces competence as a marker of distinction.
Politics, too, has been compromised. Earlier this year, Nebraska state senator Machaela Cavanaugh exemplified this cultural shift when, instead of offering reasoned debate, she screamed for nearly two minutes on the floor of the state legislature, bringing herself to the point of tears: “We need trans people! We love trans people! Trans people belong here! We need trans people! We love trans people! Trans people belong here!” Senator Cavanaugh’s deranged moral theatrics are a vivid representation of the attention-seeking, black-and-white thinking, and excessive emotionality associated with Cluster B.
Further down, he adds:
The mugshots of Antifa foot soldiers that drifted through social media feeds during the George Floyd riots drive home this point. Face tattoos, deranged expressions, unkempt hair: these are not mentally well people. They are, in fact, the hideous face of antisocial violence—the enforcement arm of the modern Left, the political vanguard of our Cluster B society. And they will not stop until they’ve transformed the world in their image.
A victim who feels cornered can become a very effective weapon in the wrong hands.
The congresswoman-who-must-not-be-named is likely all too well aware of that potential. Dystopian behavior need not be confined to the surrealistic trans videos on TikTok or the raging of the Keffiyeh Studies majors at your local college. It can be planted, cultivated, and brought to flower anywhere, by people for whom power is the ultimate end.
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