The Future and the Western World

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• First published on this blog in October, 2015

Whatever one’s political orientations are, and no matter what the individual context is, the sight of human suffering is always traumatic. As human beings, we are naturally upset when presented with photographs of starving African children, shrapnel-wounded Syrian schoolgirls, Burka’d Afghan women and brainwashed North Korean families. It is the way we were designed to be. Few things are more innate.

Given this predisposition, the arguments of ‘humanitarianism’ will usually find a public audience, and typically (from there) a political majority. For example, the view that it isn’t ‘fair’ for Americans to have ipads and super-sized milkshakes, while Malians have only bottle tops and sewer puddles is not one most people would feel comfortable disputing. Who would ever wish to be regarded as an elitist or social Darwinist? No-one, I would venture.

However, in the interest of truth, we must consider that at some point the privileged will have to draw a line around their advantages and prevent their being usurped. For if they fail to do so, the advantages will be watered down, or stolen outright, to be shared among the swelling masses until all have as much as each other, and very little alike.

It is a good time to reflect on this difficult issue. For if we think that the West enjoys obscene advantages at the moment, the developments of the near future will leave us bewildered.

We are living on the brink of a scientific revolution unlike any in history. The confluence of emerging competences in AI, robotics, nanotechnology, life-extension and genetic manipulation will make the gap between America and Mali today seem insignificant. Part of the world is about to accelerate through time into a dazzling future, and all other parts will be left languishing in a primitive angry, resentful past.

Most ordinary folk have no idea of what is about to be unleashed on the Western market. Misinformed by experience, they naively presume that technology will progress at the same rate as it did in the past. They do not realise that with every advance, technological development is speeding up.

To a 20 year old in 1980, military drones were science-fiction, as were iPhones, ipads, anti-satellite weapons and hypersonic vehicles. And yet all are now with us. It takes a healthy and imaginative mind to realise how much has been achieved in such a short period of time, and to appreciate that this kind of 35 year leap will soon take 5 years, then 4, then 3…

We would be fools to believe this scientific revolution will not have geopolitical consequences as large as its spectacle.

Right now, you can buy a PlayStation in Karachi, and perhaps even in Mali. This won’t be the case with the operating systems of the future. New technologies will be so overwhelming and expensive (and dependent on other technologies and infrastructures) that first-world lifestyles will fall entirely into their orbit, adapted to fit and absorb their possibilities. The first-world will begin to speak a language that the rest of the world cannot relate to, using concepts, humour, references and symbolism only applicable to the age the West (and the West alone) has arrived at. In time, technology will create a new cultural divide far greater than any created by religion or politics.

And as that divide grows, the West will have to make a choice. Let the rest of the world in on the future, and risk having our hard-won wealth and military advantages destroyed or turned against us by destructive and primitive beliefs; or else simply declare ourselves the winners of human history; the winners of the global lottery, and be happy and secure in our good fortune, willing to defend it from our competitors. Triumphalism, that is, and not humanitarianism.

While this sounds morally outrageous, recall that many of us indulge in this attitude already, even if only semi-consciously. When you’re out using your laptop in Starbucks, for example, you are doing so fully in the knowledge that you are part of the exclusive 20% of the world population who can afford to live so extravagantly. Though we might feel privately guilty about this, none of us make any great effort to change it. If a popular figure (Russell Brand, perhaps) called upon us to donate 90% of our wages each month so that the third and second worlds can lead a Western standard of life, we would all refuse. In fact, we would likely be indignant about it. Our civilisation has figured out the best way to live, to produce and to thrive. Theirs has not done so. Sub-Saharan Africa is among the most fertile regions in the world. The Islamic world is flush with resources. The reason for our success is our creativity; the things we have done with our hands and minds. Therefore, only we have a right to the fruits of our achievements. Perhaps this is the correct attitude…

‘Humanitarianism’ and its much vaunted idea of ‘international development’ certainly has a future. But I don’t believe its arguments are as future-proof as some believe. I’m interested in your views.

D, LDN

D-Day

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Nervous? I am. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever been so on edge before an election in my life. On Wednesday morning, barring some unforeseen chaos, America will have a new president elect. As to whether that president will wear a tie or a pantsuit is still anyone’s guess.

I have stopped paying attention to the polls. The last couple I saw, published only a few hours apart, predicted a Clinton victory and a Trump victory respectively. This tells us nothing except that the contest really is down to the wire.

The New York Times is, as far as I know, the only notable publication daring to predict a landslide for one particular candidate. In today’s online edition, the paper’s resident statisticians give Hillary Clinton an 84% chance of winning the election. For context, the paper notes that (according to this calculation) “Mrs. Clinton’s chance of losing is about the same as the probability that an NFL kicker misses a 38-yard field goal.”

I don’t need to tell you that such brazen overconfidence is terribly unwise at this point.

We have, whatever the media may fill time by saying, no real way of knowing what the final imbalance will be on Wednesday morning. We know only that two radically different Americas will have fought with purpled-faced passion for the right to determine the national (and, in some ways, global) future – their preferred visions as different from each other as can possibly be imagined. Perhaps not since the Civil War has there been such stark and violent disagreement between the peoples of the (ostensibly) United States.

There remains nothing more to say now other than to hazard a final prediction. Before I do, I must first make clear the difference between what I think will happen and what I am personally hoping for. These are, as I will explain, sadly out of sync.

I believe (perhaps I should say – I fear) that Hillary Clinton will edge the contest on Tuesday. My reasoning for this is based not on the polls, but on the strange logic (if it can even be called logic) of the US electoral college. As you’ll be aware, it ultimately doesn’t matter who leads the national polls. America’s presidents are elected by a much more convoluted mechanism. Based on unbiased (non-US) media analysis, the road to a Hillary victory appears at present much clearer than the road to a Trump triumph. In order to pull off an upset, Mr Trump must ‘flip’ numerous states in which the Republican support base is traditionally weaker than the Democrats’ – and do so in spite of a massive blitz of hostile propaganda in those states (Clinton’s attack ad spending in this election has resembled more the budget for a military invasion than for a political campaign).

True, a Trump victory is still possible, and we mustn’t lose hope. I was, you may remember, wrong about the outcome of the Brexit vote (along with pretty much everyone else in Britain). However, there is nothing to gain from wishful thinking, and I prefer to state my opinion truthfully.

Whoever wins on Tuesday, America has been undeniably altered by the long, gruelling contest up to this point. A forgotten and despised community – the White working class – has organised into a coherent and readily deployable political force. This force will outlive Trump’s candidacy and go on to influence many elections to come. This is bad news for both parties, but in particular for the Republican mainstream – a tired-out, uninspiring and treacherous collective more concerned with dollars and cents than with people and destiny. If Trump does indeed lose, therefore, there are still a lot of reasons to be thankful for his having stood at all.

The Democrats, even if they win, will be greatly wounded by Clinton’s effect. Almost singlehandedly, the nominee has peeled off a previously loyal base of youthful idealists, casting them adrift into the political wilderness in search of a third party able to satisfy their lust for European socialism and big government. It would be no surprise to me were these idealists to coalesce with the stray Republicans mentioned previously. Both groups do, after all, have the same complaint in kind. They both understand all too well that the elite no longer gives a damn about their welfare or identity. Never has a genuine third alternative looked more realistic than now.

I will post a celebration or condemnation of the result as soon as possible after it has been announced.

See you on the other side of this madness. Breathe slowly. It’s almost over!

D, LDN

PS: I am very interested to hear if the readers of this blog concur with my prediction. Perhaps I’m being unduly pessimistic?

Is Trump Imploding – and What Would It Mean If He Is?

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According to the pundits of the mainstream media, it looks increasingly likely that the US election in November will be a landslide victory for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her only genuine rival, Donald Trump, is all but out,  they say, having wrecked his chances of winning over the ‘moderate majority’ with a series of astonishing lapses of judgement and discipline.

I wish I could say with certainty that these pundits are wrong, but I can’t. To do so would be to place hope over observable reality.

The truth is the past fortnight has been by far the worst of Donald Trump’s short (if dazzling) political career. In rally after rally, the New York mogul has allowed his tongue to get the better of his political intelligence, making statements that can at the very best be described as ‘ill-advised’ and at worst as ‘politically suicidal’. 

And of these clangers, surely none seems destined for greater infamy than the following comment the Republican nominee made in Wilmington, North Carolina on Tuesday, August 9th: “If she (Hillary) gets to pick her (supreme court) judges, (there’s) nothing you can do, folks,” Trump said,  before adding, “although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Now, there are two ways in which this remark can be interpreted. One interpretation – one that gives Mr Trump the benefit of the doubt – is that he was simply suggesting ‘2nd amendment people’ might be able to organise into a legal, peaceful political force and persuade the Clinton regime to pick pro-gun judges. Another interpretation – that which the media has uniformly preferred – is that Mr Trump was suggesting – jokingly or not – that pro-gun activists assassinate Ms Clinton before she gets the chance to pick any judges.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is gaining in momentum following a series of Trump controversies.

It doesn’t really matter which interpretation is correct – at least politically speaking. The remark, whatever its meaning, was stupidly vague, needlessly provocative and incredibly unwise.

Donald Trump is not the idiot many liberals make him out to be. He is a clever, competent businessman, a graduate of the prestigious Wharton School of Finance and the son of successful professionals. He must have known as soon as the remark left his lips that it was the vocalisation of a grave error of judgement.

Personally, I do not believe Donald Trump would ever sincerely advocate political violence. It just isn’t the kind of man he is. Those people who know him personally  are unanimous in their testimony that the billionaire is. at heart, a kindly, charitable and honest person; much softer and gentler in private than in public. He is not a Putin, in other words, let alone a Hitler.

But even his supporters must be honest enough to admit that remarks of this kind are a gift to the opposition. Even we should acknowledge (in the spirit of tough love) that if such provocations continue to issue from Trump’s mouth, the November election is almost certainly destined to result in a Clinton rout.

As I said at the top, the media (both in America and Europe) have been quick to interpret the recent controversies as signalling the death knell for Trump’s entire campaign. In the words of the (liberal and pro-Hillary) New York Times: “The effort to save Mr. Trump from himself has plainly failed. He has repeatedly signaled to his advisers and allies his willingness to change and adapt, but has grown only more volatile and prone to provocation since then, making comments that have been seen as inciting violence and linking his political opponents to terrorism… Advisers who once hoped a Pygmalion-like transformation would refashion a crudely effective political showman into a plausible American president now increasingly concede that Mr. Trump may be beyond coaching. He has ignored their pleas and counsel as his poll numbers have dropped… And (even) Mr. Trump has begun to acknowledge to associates and even in public that he might lose. In an interview on CNBC on Thursday, he said he was prepared to face defeat.”

Trump rally in Orlando, Florida.

Of course, no-one can really say for sure whether it is ‘all over’ for Trump at this stage. It is still far too early to jump to any conclusions. Nevertheless, at the time of writing, Hillary Clinton enjoys a terrifying 8 point lead over the Republican in most national polls. That lead represents a massive turnaround from just a few weeks ago, when Trump led in most polls by an average of 2 points. To be honest – and there is no point in being dishonest – this looks very grim indeed.

We – the Western World as a whole – simply cannot afford for Trump to lose in November. If the New Yorker fails to resuscitate his campaign in the next three months, America will find itself led by one of the most corrupt, opinion-less and manipulative executives in living memory.

Let there be not a doubt in your mind, reader; Hillary Rodham Clinton is considerably more dangerous to America’s well-being than Barack Obama ever was.

Unlike the current CIC, Mrs Clinton is not an ideologue. She is something far worse than that. She is an opportunist, a beneficiary of funds and a puppet of the special interests that have so corrupted American politics for decades. She will not, as president, do as she wants. She will do as she’s told. And that (in my opinion) is a million times more unpredictable, dangerous and sinister than the stable, pedestrian liberalism of Barack Hussein Obama.

Barack Obama has been far less damaging to America than Hillary promises to be.

In Trump’s own words: “Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft… She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund, doing favors for oppressive regimes, and many others… in exchange for cash, pure and simple. Pure and simple.”

At several of his rallies Mr Trump has listed many of the foreign countries known to have lent material support to the Clinton campaign – states which include such beacons of liberty as Algeria, Morocco, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. What, I ask, do they have in common?

Like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton is notorious for refusing to use the words ‘radical Islam’ when talking of the crimes of ISIS, preferring to use more culturally vague terms like ‘terrorism’, ‘murder’, ‘criminality’ and ‘violence’. Perhaps the list of nations backing the Clinton effort goes some way in explaining this, but not all the way.

The UAE is friendly with the Clinton campaign.

While Clinton is not – as Trump needlessly alleged – the ‘co-founder’ of ISIS, she is nevertheless on the same page as ISIS in regard to certain vital regional issues. Clinton is, for example, quite fanatical in her insistence that Bashar al-Assad (a man who has done more to combat ISIS than anyone) is the greatest evil currently active in Syria and has spoken more often in criticism of his regime than of the band of maniacs currently at war with it.

This stance would appear to be in sync with a school of thought devised in the murkier corridors of the neo-conservative movement; one which argues that ISIS, far from being a grave threat to America, may ultimately be good for it; that if ISIS can overthrow the Assad regime, even by instituting a medieval theocracy in its place, then that will benefit the US by knocking out a long-standing threat to its regional interests  – (by which they presumably mean the Assad government’s stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, some – but not all – of which have been dismantled).

This is all hypothetical, of course; but given the intransigence of the Clinton campaign, we can only be hypothetical. And that, in many essential ways, is just the point, isn’t it? 

Nothing is for certain with Clinton. She has no clear agenda. Everything about her is blurred behind a film of dust, money and Middle-Eastern smog.

So please, Mr Trump – play a smarter game. Stop giving the press exactly what they want. Stop feeding them headlines. Stop lighting unnecessary fires. There is no honour in losing on principle in this election. The stakes are considerably too high for that.

D, LDN

On the Events in Dallas

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Anyone who lives in America, loves America, or places hope in its example and leadership will have lost a considerable amount of sleep these past few days. The  ghastly news from Dallas, Texas that five police officers have been shot and killed, apparently in revenge for the deaths of two African-American police suspects in Minnesota and Louisiana, has shocked the nation to its core.

“Suddenly,” NYT correspondents Timothy Williams and Michael Wines observe, “the panoply of fears and resentments that have made this a foreboding summer (have) been brought into sharp relief… Police officers and sociologists alike say that racial tension is approaching a point last seen during the street riots that swept urban America in the late 1960s when disturbances erupted in places like the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts and Detroit and Newark, during summers of deep discontent.”

I won’t detail the specific incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota here. They have already been exhaustively covered by the press. Instead, I will ask the general question: Why is this still happening in America? Why is an ethnic rivalry that should have disappeared decades ago persisting in defiance of the current of political progress? 

The answer, I believe, is incitement.

For as long as I care to remember, the insinuations of American news personalities, cynical politicians and radical ‘community leaders’ have issued without qualification or fact-checking from every form of US media. As a direct result of this, a whole generation of Black Americans has been exposed to an unremitting deep-tissue massage of poisonous miseducation and political conditioning, the fruits of which are now ripening into a terrible, violent greenness on the streets of American cities.

The narrative pushed by these crooks, it would seem successfully, is that American law enforcement (and by logical extension – the US Government itself) is institutionally racist, if not nakedly White supremacist, and dedicated to the perpetual oppression of all US minority groups. If you think I’m exaggerating these exaggerations, I would refer you to any of the hundreds of blogs written in support of the criminal network ‘Black Lives Matter’, all of which have advanced this nonsense consistently ever since the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

The ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement has been active across America this past week

It would appear to matter nothing to the preachers of this false gospel that the available evidence suggests no such campaign has existed in America for several decades; that the police, far from being dedicated to offending or harming the African-American community, are increasingly required to be particularly cautious in their dealings with them, perhaps even more cautious and light-handed than with any other racial group. Truth, however, has never been a concern of propagandists. It only gets in the way.

As I wrote in an earlier article on this blog regarding racial tensions in America, there is actually a very simple explanation for the frequency (which can sometimes seem remarkable) of police abuses against Black citizens:

“Black people (on average) commit more crime in America than any other racial group. This is why there is more police action against Black people than against members of other races. This is also why there is more police brutality against Black people than against other races. Since there will always be bad apples in a national police force, and given the greater priority that force is compelled to give to one race, it is statistically more likely the bad apples will fall on them.”

Alton Sterling was killed by police officers after resisting arrest in Louisiana, prompting national outrage

Now, and of course, no-one with a heart and mind would dispute that the shooting of unarmed Americans is morally unacceptable. It is. Nor would any right-minded person dispute that the American police – in some cases, not in all – have taken to behaving more like an occupying military than a protective social service. Just type in ‘militarisation of the police in America’ into Google images and you will be treated to universally unappealing photographs of SWAT teams riding down democratic streets in infantry-fighting vehicles and modified tanks.

American police

This isn’t natural, nor necessary, nor proportionate. America is the greatest country on Earth, with a spirit and philosophy of freedom envied the whole world over. It would be a world-historic tragedy were such a beacon of hope to be snuffed out under the leather boot of authoritarian statism.

But again we must strive to make clear that there is no institutional crusade against Black people ongoing in the US. The excesses of the police affect all races in proportion. Indeed, just a few weeks before the death of Mr Sterling, a 17 year-old White youth in Missouri was left with permanent brain damage after being repeatedly tasered for failing to exit his vehicle after a traffic stop. There are many other examples one could furnish, but the point is already made. America has a problem with police overreach, not Black America.

I truly hope that the prophecies being made of a coming ‘race war’ in the United States are as daffy as they sound, but I cannot be sure at this point. The tensions revealed over the past few days in online forums and on social media have been shockingly, burningly hot. Many young Blacks, though they should rightly be ashamed of what has been done in their name, have instead taken to actively glorifying Micah Xavier Johnson online, referring to the killer variously as a ’hero’ and a ‘resistance fighter’, as well as setting up facebook tribute pages in his honour.

Micah Xavier Johnson – one of the confirmed perpetrators of the massacre in Dallas, Texas

And many Whites have been busily striving to equal this bigotry, with some calling for a violent civil conflict to re-establish a segregated America; others proposing the wholesale murder of all non-Whites, and still others blaming the entire problem on the Hebrews,

This is the Middle Eastern style of politics. It is, or should be, beneath the West, especially America; but the poison is now in the bloodstream. The Leftist crooks and inciters have achieved their desired outcome. The United States population is fragmenting as we speak into warring tribes, each of them armed to the teeth and readied for a fresh era of endless, pointless combat. There is no way of putting the toothpaste back into the tube now. I hope the media are happy. The Muslims certainly are.

That’s right – ever since the killings in Dallas were first reported, Muslims (or people with Muslim names) have been openly gloating on social media and in the YouTube comment section.

“America is like third world! Hahahahaha!” One illiterate message read. – “You say you are civilised and we are backward. You are worse!” Another jeered. – “America is doomed!” – “Time for you to suffer like the Syrians.” – And so on, and so on.

It is of course obvious why Muslims are so enraptured by America’s latest troubles. In an age when the Islamic world is collapsing into fiery embers, the stability and affluence of Allah’s arch enemy (the US) has long seemed a taunting and persuasive reminder of Islam’s fundamental cultural inferiority. As Syria and Iraq, once gold-plated centres of Islamic power and cultural dynamism, burn unceremoniously down to the ground, Americans watch football, drink cold beer and laugh at sitcoms. This hurts the Muslims. It gnaws away at them, making them think critically (and you know how much they hate doing that). American popular culture is a constant (and free) propaganda loop, effective because it advertises a peaceful, functioning society its enemies can never hope to replicate or compete with.

It was with this bitterness in mind that Osama Bin Laden once suggested weakening America by forming a destructive alliance with its radical minority populations, especially with disenfranchised Blacks. Being a man of some intellect (though not culture), the terrorist leader saw all too keenly how fragile America’s infuriating success could be made with the right amount of cynicism and professional manipulation.

I hope devoutly that his vulgar ambitions are not about to be realised.

D, LDN

Civil War on the American Right

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The rise of Donald J. Trump over the past 12 months has impacted almost every area of American political life. But nowhere is his impact more apparent than on the culture of American Conservatism – the political right; a culture that was – prior to the billionaire’s rise – ostensibly united in thought and action, but which has since split into combatant political blocs.

On one side of this divide is the Paleo Right (PR), Trump’s own favoured niche, which stresses what is good for the American Republic itself over what is good for the world. On the other is the Neo Right (or neoconservative right), which stresses more the cause of liberty and democracy abroad than the condition of America at home. These two camps have sat awkwardly together for over two decades now. It was always inevitable that they would split. It just so happens that the chisel is Trump-shaped.

Both schools of thought have much to recommend them. The Neo Right has played a vital role in preserving the Pax Americana against the threats of Islamism, Communism and Dictatorship. Israel, Japan, Ukraine and Georgia, as well as many other democratic states in undemocratic neighbourhoods rely on the American Neo Right for their prosperity and security. Democrats in non-democratic countries look to the NR for moral and financial support. The net effect of the Neo Right is positive. Few conservative movements have been so charitably international.

Prominent Neo-Cons: Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld

The Paleo Right, meanwhile, has safe-guarded (or where they have failed, attempted to safeguard) the uniqueness of America, battling against moral and social subversion from within, and maintaining America’s spirit of patriotism and peculiarity. They are motivated by core social issues like abortion, gay marriage, keeping prayer and the pledge of allegiance in public schools, the need to defend the sacredness of the Star-Spangled Banner, and so on. Foreign affairs is to them a secondary concern, if a concern at all. They tend to favour a non-interventionist policy in regard to the Middle East, even while being generally supportive of Israel and other pro-Western regimes. Paleo rightists objected (and were right to object) to the war in Iraq, and have no desire to repeat the experiment with Iraq’s elephantine neighbour. They favour a strong, advanced military, but believe the army should be retained for life and death confrontations, as opposed to constabulary duties. Many Paleos also nurture an obsession with civil liberties, viewing the US government as semi-tyrannical and bloated out of constitutional design. On this matter, too, they are providing a vital voice of caution which all should heed.

Paleo-Con icon Pat Buchanan

As I said, it is a wonder how these two inclinations managed to sit politely together for so long. Now that they have parted, it seems unlikely they will re-unite any time soon. If Donald Trump clinches the White House, the Paleos will have control over the GOP for the next 4 to 8 years.

Neo Rightists are not taking this development well. Fox News – which despite its tangential forays into abortion and homosexuality – is a solidly Neo Right entity, has been thrown into a frenzied identity crisis. The over-publicised ‘spat’ between Donald Trump and Fox Anchor Megan Kelly is just a symptom of the underlying divide. Fox, just like every other part of the conservative establishment, is uncomfortable with Trump’s candidacy and secretly wishes to stall or destroy it.

Fox coverage of candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz has been tainted with bias from the very beginning. With the partial exception of Sean Hannity, most anchors have treated Trump with rubber gloves, as if handling radioactive waste. Trump was never being paranoid or irrational in protesting this treatment.

Megyn Kelly

The Neo Right is substantially more powerful than the Paleo Right in material terms. Most conservative TV networks are Neo Right, as are most Think Tanks, magazines and newspapers. This is the legacy of the long period of uncontested domination of the conservative universe by academic, economic and intellectual elites that is now being ripped to pieces by the Trumpsters. This is why (to the untrained eye) Trump supporters appear to be ‘anti-intellectual’. If the conservative era is to switch from Neo to Paleo, there is a lot of hierarchy to tear down in the process. This is intellectual and ideological regime change. It was always going to be messy.

How valid are Neo Right objections to Donald Trump? Let’s go through a few of them.

Charge 1: Donald Trump is insufficiently supportive of the State of Israel.

On the subject of the Middle East, Donald Trump has said he thinks it unhelpful to frame the conflict as being between ‘a good guy and a bad guy’. Whilst I disagree with the spirit of this quotation (Hamas certainly qualifies as a ‘bad guy’ in my opinion), it seems more rooted in a sense of fairness and pragmatism, than in any bad will towards the Israelis or Zionism. Trump’s beloved daughter Ivanka is Jewish (by conversion) and Trump has spoken of her adopted ethnicity with pride and understanding. There is no direct evidence that Mr Trump has an anti-Semitic bone in his body. Rumours about his keeping Hitler’s collected speeches by his bedside have never been corroborated outside of delirious chat-rooms. Until they are, we should treat them much like we treat rumours that the Earth is a pancake.

Pro-Israel donors obviously prefer Marco Rubio because he is so malleable. Rubio will do whatever his backers tell him to do. This is not meant as an anti-Semitic dog-whistle. It is a fact of politics that donors influence policy, and not only foreign policy. The Koch Brothers, as the left never stops bleating on about, have enormous influence over social and economic issues. Donors – of all varieties – hate Trump because they can’t buy him. Donors also invest in media networks. Media networks hate Trump because they are told to. I adore America. But let’s call a spade a spade here. Trump is battling against a corrupt political establishment.

Ivanka Trump

Charge 2: Donald Trump is not pro-free market.

Donald Trump has stated his determination to bring back manufacturing jobs from Asia and Mexico. When asked how he intends to accomplish this, the GOP front-runner explains that he will impose taxes on US companies that outsource jobs. This is not a violation of the free-market, nor of the regular rules of capitalism. It is a common sense measure to maintain prosperity for the American working class. It is also no different to what China and Mexico have done for several decades without American complaint.

Charge 3: Donald Trump is anti-mass immigration.

Guilty as charged. Donald Trump has been admirably clear on the subject of open borders. He opposes the idea, top to bottom. He wants to build a wall, and make Mexico pay for that wall. He wants to put a freeze on Muslims entering the United States. He also wants to deport the illegal immigrants already resident in the country, only allowing to return those who have clean criminal records and a professional command of English. This should be the default conservative position. No objections to this policy make for any sense.

The Neo Right’s love of open borders isn’t quite treachery, but it is moral and ideological confusion. Yes, Muslim immigration should be avoided as a special case, but this doesn’t mean the entire non-Muslim world is suitable for Western settlement. We have a good thing going here in the Western, Modern world. Allowing in people from regressive or intolerant cultures (of which Islam is only one example) is counter-productive. It jeopardizes what is precious to us.

Other objections to Trump by the Neo Right are similar to those made by the Political Left. The idea that Trump is akin to Mussolini is wildly popular on both sides of the ideological aisle. What evidence is there to support this idiotic claim? Some point to the enthusiasm whipped up at Trump rallies, but then if this is a crime, we’d better convict the Dallas Cowboys, Manchester United and Oprah Winfrey while we’re at it.

Viral photo from Trump rally

People are so refreshed by Trump’s style that they are overjoyed by his message. Joy is not an offence. Emotion might be rare at formulaic rallies with tedious politicians, but Trump is anything but formulaic or tedious. There is real contagious enthusiasm being generated by this man. Politics is being rejuvenated.

The patronising distaste with which the media and economic elite view the pleasures and aspirations of ordinary people is scandalous. People are people. Americans are Americans. All deserve to be heard, appreciated and spoken to, whatever their race, faith or economic category.

If Donald Trump wins the nomination, the Republican Party will never be the same again. The Neo-Con racket – the art of calling oneself a conservative whilst being left-wing on everything except foreign policy – will have been exposed and replaced with a straight-shooting honesty more in line with the fine history of the Grand Old Party.

D, LDN

The Case for Trump

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The star of English comedian John Oliver (sorry for him, America) has been rising fast this past week, largely (or entirely) due to the viral success of his ‘Make Donald Drumpf Again’ routine, a 20 minute rant that has since been shared over 50 million times on facebook and viewed over 4 million times on YouTube.

The piece has been praised as “timely”, “politically explosive”, and “devastating”. Observers (mainly on the centre left) claim Oliver has ‘destroyed’ Trump’s credibility, if not his entire candidacy in one fell swoop. Is this true? No.

The majority of Oliver’s points in this clip are embellishments of points already made elsewhere, often with greater force and skill. Not one of them is valid. Few of them even have a cogency able to survive the deduction of humour. Let’s go through a few of them.

Oliver repeatedly notes that Donald Trump is unpredictable and has changed his political positions over time. This was likely intended to make Trump supporters question their favoured candidate’s authenticity. Like previous attempts to wound Trump’s reputation, this failed miserably. As Mr Trump himself has noted, Ronald Reagan – the untouchable giant of recent Republican history – shifted position on many important topics prior to settling on his widely adored Presidential agenda. So have many other great political figures. Though this defence is simple, it is also devastating. Why the hell can’t a man change his mind? Do figures on the left hold everyone to this rigorous account? If a right-winger goes to the left later in life, would they be so suspicious of his or her integrity? Of course not. The matter should thus be closed.

Another charge Oliver advanced in the Drumpf routine involves Trump’s claim that we should kill (or threaten to kill) the families of terrorists in order to make them play ball. Trump’s rationale on this matter (almost always excluded from the quote in reports) is that terrorists care about little outside of their own private universe. They are obviously, demonstrably willing to sacrifice the lives of random Muslims for their eschatological cause. They are also obviously, demonstrably willing to sacrifice their own lives, which they view as intolerable spiritual encumbrances obstructing entry into a garden of olives and virgins. It is rational – whatever else it is – for Trump to float the idea that these brutes may care about their families, if about anything at all.

I don’t believe for a moment that Mr Trump would order US airmen to bomb the houses of innocent people. It is more likely that his comments were meant as an argument for intensive bombing – which might result in the deaths of innocents.  This is a crucial distinction; one the media should be more careful to add when they raise the issue.

Oliver’s argument that Trump is a bad businessman is both untrue and completely irrelevant. Trump is obviously a very successful man, worth  – even according to the estimates of his enemies – over 8 billion dollars. Though the son of a wealthy businessman, Trump was supplied with a comparatively tiny loan by his father which he has since multiplied consistently with no outside help. Turning a small amount of money into a huge amount is no small art. If you don’t believe me, try turning $1000 into $80,000. If it was easy, everyone would have a tower.

As I say, Trump’s financial history is not only fake but irrelevant. Trump is not running as a businessman. He is running as a patriot. Even if Trump Steaks or Trump University did fall flat, why would this have anything to say about the billionaire’s competence as a leader? It could even be said to recommend him further. The world economy is like a violent sea. Its current tosses big and small ships alike. Every vessel, however expertly designed, is at risk. What matters most is not the occasional random, unforeseeable shock of fortune, but the staying afloat. Trump has absorbed great turbulence over his life and still managed to survive and flourish beyond it. Experience like that cannot be bought.

The only original conceit of the Drumpf routine is Oliver’s genuinely penetrating insight that ‘Trump’ rhymes in the unconscious mind with ‘luxury’, ‘quality’, ‘exclusive’ and other aspirational nouns and adjectives. Ordinary folk, Oliver explained, instinctively associated names with the qualities their bearers are famous for. Tiger Woods, for a different example, brings to mind victory, health, Black achievement and sporting excellence. You are substantially more likely to buy a product with the name Tiger Woods emblazoned on it than one emblazoned with the name of Vanilla Ice or George Zimmerman. Similarly, in politics – a choice of product like any other – we are naturally drawn to individuals based on positive associations. Trump is wealth. Trump is success, luxury and New York. Trump is a five star hotel on the top floor of the capitalist universe. People find this very difficult to refuse.

But does this observation make choosing Trump for President any less rational? No, it doesn’t. Trump is not only admired for subliminal reasons, but for fully rational, real-world advantages. He is (as he is absolutely right to remind us) the only self-funded candidate. This matters a great deal, much more than Trump’s detractors are willing to admit. Marco Rubio, his articulate speaking aside, is a bought and paid-for puppet of the Republican establishment. His manifesto is ghost-written by wealthy donors who are completely unaccountable to – and disinterested in – the general public. The American people are no longer willing to accept this callous type of flyover politics; the politics of ‘we know what is good for you because we have degrees and you don’t’. 

If Oliver’s routine was a serious attempt to cripple Trump and take him out of the game then it has surely failed. Trump’s polling figures are as high as ever. Not one of the tycoon’s rivals appears able to mount a consequential challenge. Super Tuesday was a splendorous triumph for The Donald. He won states in the north and in the south, perplexing analysts who had long called these for Rubio and Cruz respectively.

Although (surprisingly) Oliver didn’t dwell on it too heavily, we must also address here the idea that Trump is somehow a ‘racist’ or a ‘White Nationalist’. Of all the slurs directed at him, this is by far the most frequent and potentially effective. Where is the evidence?

Some might immediately point to the comments the candidate made about Muslims – namely, his lightening-rod suggestion that the US bar foreign Muslims for a temporary period on security grounds. This proposal has been wildly criticised by all and sundry, but is it racist? No, obviously not. As the world should be tired of hearing by now, Islam is not a race. Muslims are not a biological family. To propose their exclusion is no more racist than proposing the exclusion of Mormons. There are White Muslims, Arab Muslims, Persian Muslims, Turkic Muslims, Chinese Muslims, Indonesian and Malaysian and African Muslims. Under Trump’s policy, all will be subject to the same measure, whereas Christian Arabs, Atheist Turks or Buddhist Malaysians will not be. Bottom line – race is irrelevant.

Trump’s attitudes to Mexicans and Blacks are also far from troubling. As regards the former, the billionaire has famously called for the deportation of 11 million illegal migrants. While sensational to an unreliable and skittish media, this isn’t even a policy shift. It is the enforcement of an existing law. It should be no more controversial than to propose the enforcement of parking legislation. Trump is not opposed to Mexican Americans legally resident in the United States. To the contrary, he has repeatedly praised the ‘spirit’ of the Mexican people and highlighted his determination to improve living standards and job opportunities for the Latin and Hispanic community.

Trump’s anti-immigration posture is for the benefit of all working Americans, with no distinction made of race, religion or class. It is a policy that should be welcomed by the Right and Left alike. Illegal immigration devalues the native labour force and undercuts the wages and expectations of American workers. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. It cannot be tolerated.

Donald Trump is an opportunity that will not come again. He is a one-off: unscripted, un-bought, willing to fight for real-world advantages and speak up against real-world injustice, strong enough to resist the fury of a whipped up media class, patriotic enough to risk a personal fortune to enter politics – this is far from the ordinary. Should he be rejected, something amazing will have been squandered; something historic will have been rejected, and for no greater reason than a queasy fear of the novel and the real.

Trump’s manifesto is the red pill, the uncomfortable jerk that awakens the comfortably numb out of their demon-haunted repose. Trump will redefine American politics, smash the cross-party liberal consensus and reintroduce essential ideas into a pacified and muddled American consciousness. The ‘conservatives’ who are bulking at the prospect of his presidency never were conservatives to begin with. The liars are being separated from the truth. The cards are being laid on the table.

Will you stand with him?

D, LDN

The Neo-Conservative Tragedy

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I used to consider myself something of a neo-conservative (pejoratively abbreviated ‘neo-con’ by the left, often with an anti-Semitic edge to it). I was genuinely enlivened by the prospect of the West enforcing its moral and political standards on the rest of the world, believing for some time that the project was a simple yet complete fix for the problems of our time; most importantly, the problems of terrorism and Islamic anti-development.

Like many, I now know better. Neo-conservatism has failed, and failed badly, in practice. The use of the doctrine to liberate and improve the condition of Iraq has barely succeeded. While the country is now technically democratic, it remains crippled by religious tradition, unable and unwilling to develop beyond the limitations of that tradition. This should really have been predicted from the get-go. The fact that it wasn’t exposes the fundamental naivety at the heart of the neo-conservative experiment.

Put at its most basic, neo-conservatism pushes the idea that democracy has a positive value. Neo-cons (if there still are neo-cons) believe that democracies are less likely to go to war, less likely to collapse into chaos, tolerate corruption and extremism or shelter terrorists than are dictatorships and autocracies. On the surface this sounds reasonable enough. The Western democracies of today are certainly more averse to these evils than the third world; as are the remodelled nations of the far-east. Why wouldn’t the same be true for the rest of the world?

The answer in the case of the middle east is Islam. As political equations go, Islam plus democracy equals regression is one of the most reliable. The evidence for this can be found in modern ‘liberated’ Afghanistan – a country which has gone from a tribal theocracy controlled by the Taliban, to a democratic theocracy policed by the Taliban. One can also point to ‘liberated’ Iraq, which itself has gone from a secular Baathist dictatorship to a democratic Shia theocracy. Looked at from this vantage point, was either project worth thousands of free Western lives lost in the course their completion?

I was a fool to have ever thought so.

As well as Iraq and Afghanistan, neo-conservatism has also destroyed the nation of Libya, a country that previously had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. Post-liberation, the country is a sharia-ridden desert, robbed of its infrastructure, foreign investment and political coherence. As to whether Syria falls to the neo-con wave remains to be decided. One can justifiably presume that if democracy does strike the country, it will swiftly go the same way as Iraq and Afghanistan have.

If neo-conservatism was – as its detractors have always maintained – merely an ideological cover for destroying the Muslim world, then it has been remarkably successful. But I don’t believe in that conspiracy. Neo-conservatism – I think – was simply an embarrassing misfire of the Western intellect. We will be living with the consequences for a very long time.

D, LDN

Islam and Petroleum: An Old Alliance and its Future

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The collapse of the price of oil over the past few months has sent shockwaves through an already vulnerable global economy, slowing the ascent of China, threatening the recovery of America, and causing stock markets from London to Shenzhen to wobble precariously on their foundations. But surely no part of the world is more affected by fluctuations in the oil market than the Muslim Middle East, specifically the nations of Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates of the Persian Gulf.

If the downward trajectory in oil prices continues for just a few more years, the economies of these countries will be plunged into crisis, their social order, military upkeep and political power undermined and potentially destroyed. And there is something else to consider in all this. Seeing as oil and Islam have been locked in a very profitable alliance for the past 50 years, what will this decline mean for the civilizational balance of power? Can Islam’s political and military ascendance survive the shock of a post-oil era?

Optimists imagine that without oil, states like Saudi and the UAE would be without influence in the world. Since their economies are based entirely on energy revenues, they reason, such countries would – in the case of an oil collapse – be reduced to the diplomatic grade of Burkina Faso or Zimbabwe. This is not entirely accurate. While it is certainly true that without oil the nations of the gulf will see a massive decline in standards of living, this will not necessarily mean the end of their mischief-making in world affairs. Saudi Arabia, to take a prominent case, has invested much of its gargantuan wealth in blue-chip Western companies – companies which will continue to reap the Saudi state considerable profit for as long as they are trading. The Saudis have also purchased an astonishing array and quantity of modern weaponry, including – according to some – nuclear missiles from Pakistan. This military power will in the short term (or with nuclear weapons, in the very long term) guarantee the country a louder voice than it deserves.

As for Iran, Saudi’s arch-enemy, the outlook is rosier in some respects, and murkier in others. Since the revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has faced the boycott of its energy industry by much of the developed world. This has meant that Iran’s state finances have remained in poor shape, and also that they haven’t managed to buy up stocks in Western companies to the extent that Saudi has. On the other hand, this long period of boycott has forced Iranians to build an economy unreliant on the energy sector – a post-oil economy, if you will – and this will give the country a very important head start in the rush to regional economic diversification. The same is also true of Iraq, which has until very recently functioned without a petroleum economy.

Taken overall, the Islamic world will only face a sub-regional decline in diplomatic power from the collapse of oil. Outside of the oil-producing area itself, many Islamic countries have high economic growth rates even without energy reserves – these include the nations of Turkey, Egypt and Indonesia, all of which also possess considerable military strength to increase their bargaining power. Thus, the collapse of oil will sink Islamic power in the short-term, only for the power lost to be replenished later in different places. Given that these places will be less extreme than Saudi and Iran, the prospect for a general moderation of Islam is very real, if hardly as curative as liberal commentators would have us believe.

Here in the modern world, the end of oil politics is surely something to celebrate. A nasty and corrupt stench is about to be cleared from the air. The Islam-Oil alliance, even in so brief a period as it has existed, wrought real damage on the world at large. It is directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks in America, as well as for the crippling of Western economies in the 1970s. It has perverted American and British politics, enriched soulless monarchs and dictators, and radicalised much of the Islamic world against its will.

Good riddance.

D, LDN

Murica: The Strange Persistence of Anti-Americanism

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If you’re a user of any social-networking site, you will be as familiar as I am with the ‘Murica’ meme. The prevalence of this trope is such that lately even celebrities, intellectuals and political figures are making use of its lazy appeal. In case you don’t use social networking, or haven’t otherwise had the pleasure of coming across the slur, the KnowYourMeme database explains it thus: “Murica or occasionally ‘Murika’ is a slang term for America which is used to denote extreme patriotism, coupled with aspects of a redneck or southern American stereotype.”

The cartoon above is a famous expression of this vulgar sentiment. It crudely depicts the mythical America of robotic flag-wavers, mountain dew-soaked knowledge haters, and obese gun-nuts. By the presence of the flag, the image also makes comedy of the country itself, together with everything it stands for, such as the notion of liberty and being grateful for the blessings of capitalism.

I’m getting rather sick of the meme myself. It isn’t fair, valid or reflective of anything beyond the ignorance of those who make use of it. Anti-Americanism of any kind can be refuted very easily by recounting basic realities. .

• Americans are stupid? The United States has been the homeland of 357 Nobel Prize winners. This can be compared to the UK (118 winners) and France (67 winners). If the issue of population size is raised, one can compare the figure against that of India (13 winners) and China (12 winners).
• Americans are lazy? In terms of economic productivity, the US dwarfs the rest of the industrialised world. The GDP per capita in the United States is USD$55, 904, while the GDP per capita in the European Union (its closest economic and political rival) is USD$36,392.
• Americans are unsophisticated? In the related fields of science and technology, America has led the world for more than half a century. The achievements of NASA form the standard to which all other space projects are compared. And just a few blocks away from there, the Texas Medical Centre leads the world in healthcare innovation, providing the most advanced cancer treatment and surgical expertise in the developed world.

One could go on. One could mention the awe-inspiring extent of the modern American Military, with its 15,000+ aircraft, 272+ ships, 40,000+ armoured vehicles and 1,000,000+ fighting personnel. One could recount the heroic acts achieved by said military, such as the routing of Hitlerite racialism, Soviet Communism, and Baathist Arabism, etc… The list of American virtues puts the rest of the world firmly in its shadow, making them seem pathetic, retrograde, undeveloped.

Given that this is so, why then does such low and unrefined anti-Americanism persist? Jealousy? Perhaps, but surely not that alone. My inclination is that a very old sentiment still flourishes in the hearts of all who dwell outside the Western Hemisphere: namely, the idea that the US is fundamentally synthetic, an artifice, an incoherent dustbin of old-world apostates; that it isn’t a real country at all, but a jumble of stolen elites from other lands – lands which can more rightly lay claim to the achievement of their despoiled expatriates. That’s what I think.

This misfiring of the imagination is persuasive enough that many great minds, from Nietzsche to Freud, have found truth in it. Even for these it wasn’t enough to note that America is as old and distinguished an experiment as modern France, Bismarckian Germany and post-Imperial Russia. Rather, such minds have insisted on believing that America arrived out of a clear blue sky sometime in the midst of the first world war, before which it was only a dreamy concept of green prairies and hopping Indians.

In modern times this prejudice is implied by the sarcastic emphasis (in anti-US humour) on specific products like spray-on cheese and the Big Mac Hamburger. These products are brought up because they are themselves chemically enhanced and artificial, much like the world conceives America itself to be. To anti-Americans, the USA is not merely the home of the Big Mac, the USA is a Big Mac. Just as the beef patties once belonged to real, natural cows, but are now so processed and altered as to be illegitimate and fake, so did America’s Germans, Frenchmen and Anglo-Saxons once belong to real, natural countries, but are now so processed as to be illegitimate and fake.

The reality, of course, is very different. German-Americans are not synthetic Germans. They are real Americans. German-American achievements are not German achievements. They are American achievements. America is a real country, as old and legitimate and unique as any other, and with a population that is as native and peculiar to its soil as the Chinese are to China.

D, LDN.

2016: Fear Vs. Conviction

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Every year around this time, I like to offer my take on the most essential issues of the coming year. In keeping with this tradition, I offer five such points of interest below (in no particular order). These in my view will be the most important flashpoints of 2016.

1. Trump Vs. the Establishment

The ‘Trump phenomenon’ (as Donald Trump’s quest for the Republican nomination has become known) is far from the crude ‘cult of personality’ portrayed by the Western media and its believers. While Trump’s admirers (myself included) do admire his quirks of character, – his braggadocio, scalpel-pointed insults and personal success – this is nowhere near sufficient to explain his political momentum.

No, the secret of Trump’s wildfire success is rather his opposition to the status quo, the establishment; the flaking, zombiefied bureaucracy, unaccountable to those in whose name it pretends to operate. This is the disease to which Trump’s medicine appears effective. And unless that is understood, his nomination (at least) will be assured.

2. The EU Vs. British Independence

David Cameron, as part of his manifesto for the 2015 general election, promised an in-out referendum on British membership of the EU ‘before the end of 2017’. Most commentators in the national press confidently and convincingly predict that this vote will be held in 2016, possibly as soon as April, in order to get it out of Mr Cameron’s way. If this is true, the coming year could scarcely be more important. It will decide whether Britain is born again as an independent nation, or whether the EU juggernaut rolls mercilessly onward, gaining in centralised power like a snowball.

3. ISIS Vs. Europe

I predicted some time ago that ISIS would launch a campaign of violence across the European Union. In Paris and elsewhere, I was proven right. As ISIS suffers a long and humiliating decline in its base of operations, expect the violence to become a frequent event, with all the disruptive political consequences that will entail.

4. Russia-China Vs. American Policy in the Middle East

Russia and China have been kept out of the Middle East for over 30 years. Despite numerous attempts to break into what is still the most important strategic region in the world, America’s network of alliances has proven remarkably watertight. In Riyadh, Amman, Jerusalem, Beirut, Doha and Cairo, Middle Eastern regimes have remained loyal to Washington for as long as can be remembered. 2016 may be the year that this changes. As I write, Russia is establishing an active military presence in Syria, and China is sending troops to the same war-torn nation. As the failures of the Arab spring, as well as the escalating war of doctrine between Sunnis and Shias intensify, opportunities for Russian, Chinese and Indian penetration will increase and be seized upon.

5. Censorship Vs. Reality

Political correctness is a phenomenon already on its last legs. Once a roaring lion, the established norm of ideological censorship now resembles a wounded sheep. When Donald Trump boldly suggested that all Muslims be barred from entering America – a notion that only ten years ago would have been considered National Socialist – the outcry was weak, short-lived and completely ineffective. Despite a rapidly assembled battalion of media luvvies issueing around-the-clock condemnation, the public at large held perfectly true to their first instincts. Many mainstream polls showed approval, and few if any showed the kind of phantom outrage the press brazenly claimed was sweeping the world.

After the end of political correctness comes the end of moderation. We are entering an age of political frankness. The Left will be Left. The Right will be Right. This doesn’t guarantee the victory of either. But it is something all honest people should welcome with open arms.

Conclusions: Fear Vs. Conviction

All of these coming dramas will trigger a confrontation in the minds of men; fear vs. conviction. At the moment fear has the upper hand. Despite what I would prefer, something in me doubts that America will choose Trump at the 2016 general election. He is too revolutionary, too unpredictable. People are afraid of him; of the harshness of his medicine. Likewise on the UK/EU question, the official predictions favour the victory of fear. People are just too intimidated by the risks of detaching ourselves from a powerful political bloc. Some even fear revenge measures by EU powers (including Germany). Anxieties like these might ultimately prove decisive.

As for ISIS, with all their fiery, battle-hardened certainty, what do we have that is capable of stopping them? Conviction, yes. But still again, this conviction is crippled with fear. Shouldn’t we just leaven them alone? Shouldn’t we just plead neutrality and keep ourselves safe in the short term…? And should America bother to prise off Russia and China from the near east and retain the stability on which the American (and Western) way of life economically depends? Since the fear in this case is of apocalypse, who can be sure of Obama’s choice? Finally – should we even speak our minds on these matters, or button up and hold our tongues like cowards? It’s certainly the safer option to stay quiet.

Conviction, it would seem, is the underdog of 2016. We must hope for an upset.

D, LDN