So American voters can be bought cheaply and fraudulently, with ObamaPhones and Obama's promises: free medical care forever, withdrawing from the world, regular scapegoating of the productive people, reverse-racism, the works.  America is now Chicago, run by a mob alliance of the radical left, the rich who can buy access to Obama, and zillions of mind-numbed robots.

I never thought I'd see it.

The rest of the world is catching on to what just happened, except for the Europeans, who live in utter denial (being liberals).  China caught on long ago.  The former Soviet colonies are shaking in their boots.  Japan is working with South Korea to develop nuclear weapons, and to buy peace from the Chinese, who can keep a rein on North Korea.  It looks like Europe, in the shape of Frau Merkel, will buy Russian protection by making themselves completely dependent on Russian oil and gas.  And the Middle East will be taken over by what Obama calls "organic revolutions" -- meaning sadistic throwback regimes that put women into mental and physical prisons, to be used and abused by men, on Allah's direct instructions.  As the Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick wrote the other day, Obama's policy is plain to see: it is pro-jihadist.  That's the real story of Benghazi: Ambassador Stevens was running Libyan arms to the jihadi rebels in Syria.

The United States' good cop on the beat is withdrawing from crucial parts of the world to pay for Obama's vote-buying schemes in the U.S.  This is the most selfish, greedy, corrupt,  and socially destructive administration on record.

And yet.  And yet.

Conservatives I know are living in mourning.  They forget about "And yet."

Look at the "And yets" in our history alone.

Valley Forge.

Gettysburg.

The Kaiser's near-victory in WWI.

The Soviet threat.

Hitler.

I know a Holocaust survivor who believed that he and his wife survived when all the chances were against them.  Ninety percent of Jews died in his part of Europe.  He and his family survived.  They had no reason to hope, but they did it anyway.  And then a miracle occurred.

I am not a religious believer, but every religious person has a capacity to hope in the face of things turning bad.  It's why religious faith has survived as long as it has.  If you want an in-the-news example, look at the Pravda pictures of Vladimir Putin, autocratic thug, kneeling down to the patriarch of Moscow, the pope of Russian Orthodoxy.  And having his picture taken as a photo op, to increase his popularity among Russians.  In China, Christianity is spreading.  Around the world it is spreading as fast as the Saudi poison of Wahhabi fundamentalism.

I normally try to think, "What is to be done?"  Today I'm thinking, "So what if we lose this election, or even the direction of the country?"

A famous cartoon shows two lab-coated scientists standing at a blackboard with equations scribbled on it.  The top ones are okay.  The bottom one is unbelievable.  Then there's a gap in the middle with a cloud saying, "And then a miracle occurs."  The scientists scratch their heads, and one guy says, "I think you need to be a little more explicit in Step 2."

Step 2 is the Unknown Unknowns, a phrase that deserves to enter the lexicon of politics and history.  What gets you in the end is the Unknown Unknowns.  Vladimir Ilyich Lenin plotted a Marxist revolution in Russia, and with the active help of the German General Staff in WWI, he was able to pull it off.  Millions of Russians and neighboring peoples died.

Today, Lenin's fervent admirer, Vladimir Putin, is kneeling in Moscow with the patriarch.

It's the Unknown Unknowns.

The best-laid schemes o' mice and men

gang aft agley

...as the Scottish poet Bobbie Burns sang.

What should conservatives do, while waiting for the U.U.s to show up, as they surely will?

Here are my suggestions. Please add your own.

1. Think long-term.  Even if we win next time, we have not done nearly enough to work and think long-term.  That is how the radical left gained control of the media, the universities, and now the biggest power position in the world.

2. Study civilization -- not just Anglo-American conservatism, but the instinctive conservatism we find in Confucius, India, Russia, the Middle East, Europe.  Conservatism has been discovered many times in history.  With this web we can bond with passionate, democratic conservatives around the world.  The left is now in open alliance with jihadists, and we are the target.  How many instinctive conservatives around the world see that danger and don't want any part of the left-jihadist paradise?  International conservatism must aim to spread around the web, to "reconquer the organs of propaganda," as old fascist Karl used to preach.

Why was Confucius a conservative?  His first rule was "First, the rectification of names."  What does that mean?  Since revolutionary forces are always trying to pull things down, Philosopher Kung thought that we must return to the real meaning of words.  So "hos and bitches" should be called "irresponsible young women."  The toxic drug crazes should be called what they are.  A wave of corruption that has now reached into the military should be called what it is.  First is the rectification of names.

3. Read Rules for Radicals, the war manual of the radical left.

4. Anchor our media in permanent power on the web.  Do not pay money to the corrupt forces in the world.  You can tell who they are if you just use your eyes and ears.

5. Protect children; protect women.  Shine out with our positive values.

6. Wherever possible, practice free speech and open debate.

7. Use humor and truth to reveal the corruptocrats of the other side.

You can add half a dozen more goals.

When Obama got elected with O-phones to welfare mothers, with the promise of free medical care to moronic liberals, and with a platform of "voting for revenge" he made his mark in history. Conservatives should never fall for his scam again.

We have been around for a long time, long before the rise of Marxism, when different kinds of demagogy ruled the mobs of the day.  It isn't just Philosopher Kung in China who emphasized family values, social order and hard work, loyalty, and truth-telling.  Those values are in the Bible; they governed Rome until it went into decline.  Conservatism comes and goes, just as corruption does.  It is a basic human urge to live a life that is stable, that brings up healthy children, that is honest in one's dealing with others, that supports free speech and thought.  The thought of Confucius was pretty much kidnapped by the imperial bureaucracy in China.  It became the doctrine of the imperial state.

That process of rise and decay happens over and over again in human history.  Each time, conservatives preserved the jewel of their basic beliefs and practices while mobs went running around the streets of Rome and Athens, Paris, Berlin and Moscow.

I'm not a believer in miracles, but I believe that the Obamanistas have no idea how to run a domestic or a foreign policy.  Conservative ideas must spread and spread through the web, and our first big battle will be to preserve the liberty of the web.

There is work to do.

Work is healing.

There is a future to win.