Summary: Politics in the West are changing. We see this in the rising polarization of US politics, the weirdness of campaign 2020 and the rise of right-wing parties in Europe. Here is a status report on the revolution. Its outlines are as yet only barely visible.
Come gather ’round people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.
For the times they are a-changin’.
– “Times They Are A-Changin'” by Bob Dylan (1964).
The 2020 presidential election is a milestone in American history. Both parties appear likely to nominate people who in a normal nation would never get close to the levers of power.
- Trump is an elderly clown.
- Sanders is a radical leftist running in disguise as everybody’s grandfather.
- Warren is a serial liar, running as the delusional elderly woman who thinks she has in her briefcase a simple solution to every problem.
- Biden is a creepy elderly guy with a mind-boggling history of corruption with Ukraine.
- Bloomberg is an elderly rich guy who was mayor of NYC.
- Pete Buttigieg is a small-city mayor.
We have had old presidents (but none so old as Trump). We have had many incompetent presidents, but few in Trump’s league. We have had unqualified presidents, but few in Trump’s league (i.e., Chester Arthur, and three generals). I doubt any president has been as temperamentally unsuited for the job as Trump.
None of these people should become president of a superpower. With 130 million eligible adults (age 35-64), we can do better. But instead we are not just putting America at risk, but also the world. We have a leadership position in the world which we no longer deserve. Slowly the people of the world are realizing that. That insight will change the balance of power in the world. America has descended into Clownworld. I doubt that the rest of the world wants to follow us.
Causes?
So what is causing this descent into weirdness? Perhaps this caused by the strain of US politics twisting as it evolves into a new form. The Liberals are moving radically Left. The Conservatives are moving radically Right. The existing political cast cannot adjust to this earthquake. So we are auditioning replacements from the fringes.
Liberals and Conservatives each see only half the scene. William Lind reports on a similar revolution occurring in Europe, from the conservative’s perspective. Liberals could write a similar story. Only time will tell which tale will prove correct.
“The British Election”
By William Lind.
The most interesting contrast to emerge from the recent British election is not the gap between the winning Conservatives and Labour, who lost badly. It is the difference between the elections of 2017 and 2019.
In 2017, the hapless Mrs. May, then the Conservative Prime Minister, tried the same thing Boris Johnson did this year. She called an election in order to get a solid majority in Parliament so she could make Brexit happen. Instead, the Conservatives lost seats, forcing them into a coalition government and making Brexit impossible. Why did it turn out so differently just two years later?
Mrs. May was an Establishment Conservative, similar to Establishment Republicans here. Her policies were geared toward Globalism and the big businesses such as finance that benefit from Globalism. She played nice at meetings of European leaders, duly parroted the shibboleths of cultural Marxism and had nothing to say to the traditional Labour voters in the north of England.
Boris Johnson, in contrast, is a populist, similar in many ways to President Trump. He was able to appeal to traditional Tory and Labour voters alike. He promised to make decisions and act where Mrs. May had dithered. He played the bull in the European Union’s china shop, taking pleasure in tossing and goring Eurocrats and Establishment European leaders alike. He seemed to care little for Political Correctness, standing instead for “Britain First,” or even “England First,” a point not lost on the Scots (who are massively subsidized by the English). Many English voters who had been Labourites on economic issues were swayed by the cultural message of “let’s keep England English.” As President Trump understands, at least in times of relative prosperity, culture trumps economics.
These factors were, I think, more important in shaping the election’s outcome than were Brexit or Jeremy Corbyn’s neo-Marxism. They represent a broad political movement that is growing throughout the West. More and more Europeans and Americans are rejecting cultural Marxism and all its works, including mass immigration, loser worship and the pretense that race, ethnicity, and culture do not matter. They are proud of their nation’s history, including in England’s case running most of the world for several centuries and doing a rather good job of it, better, certainly, than those who came after them (King George would never have dreamed of taxing Americans as heavily as “their own” government taxes them now).
Establishment parties and politicians are going to have to adjust to the rise of a real Right or be sidelined. In Europe, we see a combination of both. In Germany, the faux-conservative CDU is losing ground, as are the Social Democrats, and the real Right AFD is now the opposition in the Reichstag (as it will be called again when the AFD wins a majority. In France, Monsieur Macron can only envy President Trump’s popularity ratings. Italians are again finding much to admire in the Duce.
What does it all add up to? To the defeat of cultural Marxism, a.k.a. political correctness or “multiculturalism”. Soon, throughout the West, majorities will be handing their governments to parties that reject the self-loathing cultural Marxism demands, the dismissal of proud nations’ history as just tales of “oppression”, the use of government power to put non-Whites and immigrants over native Whites, the flooding of orderly countries with agents of disorder. The cultural Marxists have overreached and are on a ballistic course toward history’s wastebasket. As they perceive that course, they respond by becoming more demanding, more shrill and more absurd. People have seen the man behind the Left’s curtain, Karl Marx, now dressed in failed cultural policies instead of failed economic policies. Their reaction is, “Ptui.”
As the line from Cabaret goes, the future belongs to me.
From TraditionalRight, 20 January. Reposted with his generous permission.
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For More Information
Ideas! For some shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon. Also, see a story about our future: “Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.”
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about ways to reform America, and especially these…
- Populism arises amidst American workers abandoned by both Left & Right.
- The Left goes full open borders, changing America forever.
- Visions of America if the Left wins.
- The key insight: the Left hates America and will destroy it.
- The Left can win in 2020 and dominate US politics.
- The middle in American politics has died. Now extremists rule.
- The Left crushes the Right. The counter-revolution will be ugly – There will be a second act.
- The Left crushes the alt-Right, but Darwin might bring them to power.
- Trump promised to rebuild America but did nothing – To the GOP, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.
- Campaign 2020 shows who will mold America’s future.
- Two levers to bring the Democrats victory in 2020.
- A candidate can win in 2020 with popular proposals.
- Brexit and Trump began a new era for the West.
Useful books explaining what happened
I have not found a good book explaining what happened to the Left, causing its hatred of America. These are the best I have found, looking at our politics.
Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted
