A trio of book reviews on the topic:
http://home.earthlink.net/~peter.a.taylor/ruling.htm

Foseti’s essay on the three branches of government was very good. You have to think of the civil service, at minimum, as an *extremely* powerful lobby.

It may be a paradox inherent to any democracy, that the more democratic it becomes, the less democratic it must, of necessity be… but that doesn’t make it any less democratic. Some animals simply must be more equal than others… it just keeps getting more expensive to keep them that way.

how big do you imagine it [the Cathedral] is?

Big enough so that all that 99% of ordinary people know of “the opposition” may be gleaned from watching Fox News, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of the Cathedral. That’s big… although it’s bigness is potentially a great weakness.

As a citizen within Nazi Germany keen to ‘react’ what are your options? Get out as early as you can (Larkin), obviously. Then? Subversive (esoteric and/or allegorical) literature (Russia is probably a better example for that); blow up the Fuehrer? I’d say the former is part of building the Narrenschiff while the later is the work of a resistance martyr. Both could conceivably shorten the agony, but neither are going to bring down the regime. Nonetheless the Fuehrer will eventually poison his dog; Hess will fly to Scotland etc. and the whole thing will finally, chaotically and brutally collapse.

So the glaring question is where is the Cathedral’s external enemy? After all, the Reich didn’t completely self destruct. But is that question really our concern? How does it change your options? It seems to me it doesn’t. So let me go prophetic: the enemy is there and it will come. Your choice is do you want to be there for the reset or do you want to be warmly remembered as a well-meaning but essentially failed freedom fighter?

I’m not saying do nothing. There’s more to being a fool than meets the eye, and more to the Narrenschiff than polemical writing (Bitcoin-style thorns; self-improvement and planning post-Cathedral for a start). Besides, we don’t yet know how big to build the ship! Shipmates!

But if politics is the illusion and, by definition, the enemy’s domain how can you possibly win through engaging with it? That to me sounds like the worst, most progressive, option – it’s the film Heathers – cut off one head and another sprouts up in its place. ‘But I’ll be a better, nicer Heather…’

A final note on the Cathedral. As, initially, the symbol of the Catholic Church, a legitimate question to ask is: how big do you imagine it is? And if you go universal does its collapse result in the world’s destruction? Did the Third Reich’s destroy Germany? Or were most citizens (who were still alive) left to start over? The trichotomy gives the people at this stage a clear choice: who do you want to follow? And I’m pretty sure the techno-commercialists will attract the smallest, most ramshackle crew (but that’s enough imagining…)

there can only be one.
— highlander

one ring to rule them all.
— lord of the rings

sovereignty is conserved.
— mencius moldbug

it worked on mm, it can work on anybody.

You suggest “letting it fail”, but the state never fails completely. Zimbabwe has experienced the utter hell of the leftist singularity, yet at no point has the state been vulnerable to reaction. Letting the world fail also has the minor downside of the World’s destruction.

I think we need a set of examples of successful reactions and zeitgeist-shifts. (Separating the successful from the failures implies a clear metric for success and therefore clear aims).

So my question would be: Do you think elections serve any purpose beyond ceremonial ones? Do they actually imbue the U.S. government with a certain degenerate democratic component that, say, the Chinese government doesn’t suffer from? Both governments are bureaucratic oligarchies saddled with patron/client relationships, although one is a “democracy” and the other is not. I’m not asking to be rhetorical. I’m trying to figure out what you’re actually driving at when criticizing democracy, because as far as I can tell, your target is something that doesn’t actually exist.

I’ve been reading poetry and while I’ll spare you Emily Dickinson, I’ll share some Rimbaud:

I am well aware that I have always been of an inferior race. I cannot understand revolt. My race has never risen, except to plunder: to devour like wolves a beast they did not kill. – ‘A Season in Hell’

Before you think (lament?) ‘I’m talking about coups and this fool’s quoting poetry at me’, read admin’s closing sentence again:

Once the enemy’s advance has ground entirely to a halt…

Let it fail. Only once the illusion of politics has shattered itself absolutely do we move, picking up the pieces where possible and offering long-lost (but clearly understood) ideas. Until this time (i) reaction can only betray itself by trying to act – inevitably politically – and (ii) nobody (significant) will listen to you.

Only when Lear has given away all else – lost his reason – does he value and listen to the Fool. We need to build the Narrenschiff, which is work enough without worrying about being listened to:

Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy?

Fool. Why, after I have cut the egg i’ th’ middle and eat up the
meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i’
th’ middle and gav’st away both parts, thou bor’st thine ass on
thy back o’er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown
when thou gav’st thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in
this, let him be whipp’d that first finds it so.
[Sings] Fools had ne’er less grace in a year,
For wise men are grown foppish;
They know not how their wits to wear,
Their manners are so apish.

Apologies for the theatrical delivery (blame Dickinson).