Circling The Drain With Cthulhu
When Disney acquired the Star Wars franchise in 2012, it appeared to be a golden ticket. Here was a multi-billion-dollar franchise that was guaranteed to be profitable with minimal maintenance. Star Wars had survived the lackluster prequels and was able to maintain cultural relevance with little more than six films and a handful of video games for nearly 40 years.
Disney didn’t even need to create new stories; all they had to do was adapt the hundreds of stories that filled the Star Wars novelized canon. Despite being handed a money-printing IP, Disney managed to fumble the ball. They turned a guaranteed win into a loss in record time. At first glance, this would appear to be a colossal business failure. However, Disney repeated the same series of mistakes with the Marvel franchise. Another IP with an extensive back catalog that only needed to be maintained, another money printer.
Yet, both franchises have seen declining box office returns, dwindling merchandise sales, and waning cultural relevance under Disney’s stewardship. The reason for this failure is obvious. It doesn’t take an MBA to recognize that Disney’s focus on DEI and “wokeness” killed two golden calves. Anyone with a room temperature IQ should have noticed that the more DEI-driven each film or show became, the worse its return on investment. Yet, She persisted.
A closer examination of the funding mechanisms behind left-wing media and DEI initiatives is quiet telling. Information from DataRepubican.com shows that a significant portion of funding for these initiatives comes from the government, funneled through taxpayer dollars and USAID. This creates a closed-loop system where the left uses taxpayer money to fund woke media, which is then consumed primarily by the left. It’s a self-sustaining cycle, a dog eating its own vomit in perpetuity.
Noam Chomsky’s concept of “manufactured consent” describes how institutions shape public opinion to align with the interests of the powerful, and this closed loop reveals a critical flaw in the manufacturing of consent. As we all know the internet has shattered the monopoly on information that the regime once held, but it has also had a second, unintended effect: it has turned manufactured consent in on itself.
The regime’s patronage network prioritizes hiring loyalists, who then reinforce the regimes ideology. As these loyalists rise through the ranks, they become further entrenched in the system, creating companies staffed entirely by true believers. What the USAID data reveals is that these regime loyalists are also the primary consumers of regime propaganda. They are insulated from reality, living in a bubble where their beliefs are constantly reaffirmed.
When a woke Star Wars film flops, they don’t see it as a failure of their ideology; they see it as an anomaly, a sign that their ideas need to be enforced more aggressively. This feedback loop creates a disconnect between the creators of media and the broader audience, and solidifying the idea that more propaganda is needed.
Disney’s failure with Star Wars and Marvel is a prime example of this breakdown in consent manufacturing. The left has captured institutions to such an extent that they have created a closed-loop system, speed-running DEI initiatives while the rest of the world watches in bewilderment. They cannot understand how Trump won in 2016, and they cannot comprehend why Star Wars fans reject lesbian space witches.
At the same, the internet has also accelerated the speed at which propaganda is produced and consumed. The regime’s loyalists being trapped in a internal DEI arms race have been producing and consuming propaganda at an unprecedented pace. Trapped in this self referencing world they can’t help but push Overton Window at maximum velocity.
You can’t speedrun propaganda. The gay rights movement took nearly 40 years to normalize gay marriage, and even then the average American is tolerante at best. The left has been driving cultural change at Mach-10 for a decade leaving little room for the average person to adjust their beliefs.
Effective propaganda is like concrete; it needs time to settle. The internet works against this, as the slow and steady dissemination of ideas is antithetical to the digital age. Trapped in their self-created cultural prison, the left has failed to realize that they are the only consumers of their own delusions. Cthulhu swam left to fast and is now trapped in a whirlpool of his own creation and everyone else is just watching.
When we see Democrats doubling down on the same tired rhetoric and ideas it because that’s all they know. It’s Plato’s cave on full display. This is why
is correct that the woke can’t be put away, they are trapped and nothing short of an ideological lobotomy will fix that. Don’t expect the left to change tactics, they can’t, they’re trapped and we should do what we can to make that cave stays sealed.-TJS
"When a woke Star Wars film flops, they don’t see it as a failure of their ideology; they see it as an anomaly, a sign that their ideas need to be enforced more aggressively."
For the left, their ideology is more than sacred writ. It is survival. The bulk of them have cast off self-reflection and Truth. The live lies and to question the lie is to invite Truth and if Truth shows its head, they must confront their fragmented psychology and the unreality they built their life around. This, they cannot do. It's too much. They know at some base level they will not survive; they have not mental strength enough.
They must therefore double down on their ideological push. To do anything else risks death. They are terrified of death, not having grasped the Transcendent. Any questioning of their worldview is therefor Death and utter annihilation.
So double down because the alternative is The End of All.
Excellent article. When I watched episode 7,upon realizing the plot was the same as episode 4, I knew it was over. I’m glad this happened to some extent because it ensured I would not become a lore geek.