I have been going through a blackpilled phase lately. I have been observing the trends in political debate, political censure, media, and demographics through a rather dark lens. It hasn’t done a whole hell of a lot for my sunny disposition.

Over the past few years, my single ray of hope was waking up on the 24^th of June in 2016 to discover that I was not a part of a dwindling minority of curmudgeons who were losing faith in the democratic process. I was finally in the majority for something that I cared about and which really mattered, and that majority had exercised its political will, successfully.

My wife, who had stayed up late on the 23^rd, went to bed at the point that Nigel Farage had declared Leave as the losing side. Work up in London means that I can’t stay up as late during the week, but instead I get to wake up a couple of hours before everyone else. I had the pleasure of shaking her awake to tell her the good news as I was heading out the door.

I was ecstatic and so was she. We were filled with hope.

It was not the same for my London-based colleagues, who were hung over from the Project Fear Kool-Aid and were extremely glum.

I found I had to suppress my joy. I was doing internal fist pumps in the air. I did not want to come across as a poor winner. And I was not exalting in schadenfreude; I was just happy that my side had finally won something.

But as the days, weeks, and months wore on, I was finding that I had to suppress the fact that I had voted Leave, as Project Fear turned into Project Hate. When I engaged with others, I had to hide my true colours until some offhanded minor sardonic comment was given away by my interlocutors. Once signals were exchanged, we would furtively discuss our allegiances and our thoughts on the situation in hushed tones, to ensure that we would not invoke the ire of Remain supporters within earshot.

This behaviour was not borne of paranoia but rather out of experience. I suspect many people who voted Leave can attest to similar experiences as mine: Many people with whom I had almost daily friendly interactions with would treat me coldly after discovering the way I had voted and my autistic defence of it.

The general assumptions that the vocal arm of the Remainer party seems to make of Leavers is that at best we are ignorant, stupid or ill-educated. At worst, we are full of hate-filled bile toward anyone with a complexion darker than our own. In today’s heated environment, being labelled a racist means that one can become subject to whatever calumnies, ill-treatment, and violence that misguided souls are wont to visit upon people so labelled, up to and including losing one’s job, getting a beating, or going to prison.

As a result of the aftermath of the Referendum, the ire, the falling out with people I thought of as friends, and the general propaganda war being waged on those of us of a small-c conservative/libertarian bent, I have reacquired an old habit that I dropped a long time ago, back when I wanted to mix with polite company (but polite company won’t have me any more anyway): Wherever the mainstream tells me I shouldn’t look, I am looking.

I’ve followed the doings and sayings of various people who have been labelled as ‘problematic’ by the mainstream and the ctrl-Left. And I have found that they are either harmless cranks (or controlled opposition) or they are speaking real truth to power. The powers that be end up banning or deplatforming those in the second category.

These individuals are not hate-filled, just pointing out the collusion between the political, media, and Silicon Valley elites for brooking no dissent.

Their detractors in the ctrl-Left and the mainstream media suffer from the real hatred, only it is oikophobic and globalist, seeking to eliminate all opposition, no matter how mild-mannered or reasonable it may be. These detractors have the bully pulpit of the mainstream media from which to spout their hatred, dressed up as what all right-thinking people should be thinking.

Much of what has been described as alt-Right or far-Right would have been labelled right-of-centre conservatism a scant 20 years ago. And much of it is not, in fact, right-wing, but more centrist or liberal (in the old sense of the word), some of it even almost Marxist**.

Many of these people are seeing the same changes I’m seeing and not liking them. Many of them are the same age as I am or older, many are 20 to 30 years younger.

The powers that be are working with Silicon Valley to deplatform real political opposition from internet platforms (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook) and financial platforms (Patreon, PayPal). In the case of Tommy Robinson, they even resorted to imprisonment.

I can only surmise that the activities of 2018 are just a preview of things to come.

If the actions of Theresa May’s government and the behaviour of the various arms of government of the past year or so are indications of a trend, then the suppression will continue, and it will increase.

I don’t think a proper Brexit will happen. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they passed a law calling it a hate crime to protest such an outcome peacefully.

And when the veneer of democratic legitimacy slips off the faces of the powers that be, as it is at this moment, I suspect a lot more people will wake up. The powers that be will overplay their hand, and the prestige will break: Government will be an illusion of the governors.

I think a lot of those people who would have once voted for Remain will make the choice to become British instead of European. What was once 52-48 will become 85-15.

But there is going to be a lot of nastiness until then. And I’m not looking forward to it. (I have children, FFS.)

So I begin this year full of pessimism about immediate prospects (I think people will die on all sides, maybe not this year but soon – and I hope I am wrong), but with hope that when we get through this coming shitstorm, we will be galvanised and strengthened as a nation***.

The alternative is just too grim to contemplate – so I will look for hope and faith this year.

*I have a feeling that everyone knows deep down inside, Remainer and Leaver, that had the vote gone the other way, Remainers would not have received the same ire as Leavers now do. And I suspect they would be just as poor winners as they are losers.

**I must admit, the Brexit debate and the rape gang situation has turned me into a bit more of a class warrior than I ever have been. I am finding myself becoming resentful of privileged upper middle class twats who deign to know better than the rest of us how we must think and act.

***For an interesting alternative vision for our country, see this post at Albion Awakening.