Does It Have to Get Worse to Get Better?

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• First published on this blog in June, 2015

An argument beloved by the extremes of the right-left spectrum proposes that the short-term success of the opposing side is ultimately good for their own; in other words, that the dystopia they intend (ultimately) to make impossible has first to occur before it can be permanently forbidden.

In our case, this would be to say that the Islamisation of Europe has to quicken, the terror attacks multiply and the general abuse of our population intensify if we are to prevent a future in which such events cannot be opposed at all.

I suppose as arguments go, this one has a whispering, seductive quality to it. To a youthful and excitable temperament especially, easily thrilled by the idea of civil unrest and bad news, it will seem an obviously fine idea, since it guarantees (in fact requires) action and blood, broken glass and the rumble of boots.

But does it really hold water?

Well, today, following a Ramadan sermon by the shaggy beatnik “Caliph” Al-Baghdadi, terrorists have attacked civilians in three different countries. In Tunisia, Gunmen massacred at least 37 tourists relaxing at a beach resort. In France, some poor soul has been murdered, his head left – covered in Arabic script – on a spike. And in Kuwait, the perennially despised Shia have been blown up while praying in a Mosque.

All of the attacks are thought to be the actions of the Islamic State.

This triptych of evil certainly says something about the expansion of IS’s reach. And I think we can all agree that it qualifies as things ‘getting worse’. But have we been empowered by this day of carnage? Are we in a stronger position now than yesterday? I’m not so sure.

Most of the people intelligent enough to understand the reality of Islam already understand it. Faced with the daily progress of Jihad, you would have to be blind, deaf, mute and stupid to resist the conclusion that Islam is violent. And once that main point is understood, further outrages become progressively less shocking.

For this reason I doubt today’s events will have changed anybody’s mind. At least in the West…

In the nation of Tunisia, I think some progress will be made in the coming weeks. Although the point is often exaggerated by eager multi-culturalists, the Tunisians really are a more liberal, relaxed, ‘European’ people than their neighbours. Images of the city afflicted by today’s massacre (Sousse) remind me of destinations in Sicily and Greece. Only the captions below reveal their African location.

As one would expect, this reputation is jealously guarded by Tunisian liberals for whom an event like today’s must be infuriating. While they are in this mood, and should they stumble across this site, I would like say the following – The elimination of Islam from your country is the only failsafe cure for the misery that oppresses you. You have a beautiful Mediterranean homeland, one that many Westerners could be made jealous of. Be bold and change your allegiance while you still have a culture worthy of the name.

As for us in the West, the ‘things have to get worse before they get better’ argument is contradicted (repeatedly) by reality. Van Gogh’s stabbing didn’t bring us any closer to a solution. Lee Rigby didn’t. Rotherham didn’t. Charlie Hebdo didn’t. Today’s events won’t either. The attention span of the average Westerner is diminishing with every fresh atrocity, just as one would logically expect it to.

To rouse people into direct and decisive action will take initiative. It is no use waiting around for things to reach rock-bottom, and then like a phoenix, bounce back to a previous vitality. That is simply not realistic.

If you have the gift of organisation, organise a protest. If you have the gift of eloquence, write letters, start a blog or compose a petition. And when it is asked of you to state your grievance and preferred solution, be open and unafraid about it. Tell them you wish to preserve the Britain of comedy, poetry and freedom, and resist a Britain of Salat, Sawm and Jihad.

Keep the faith in victory too. When the future exerts its terrible pressures, our house shall stand. Theirs shall fall.  

D, LDN.

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Normalising Muslim Britain

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• First published on this blog in January, 2016

The presence of Islam in 21st century Britain is no more natural or inevitable than the presence of Sikhism in Chile. It’s worth repeating this fact whenever possible or appropriate. This is because many fake liberals continue to push the argument that Islamophobes such as you or I are somehow unworldly, retrograde, or unrealistic for opposing Muslim settlement in the contemporary West.

Some commentators go even further, saying that far from being a new and foreign element in our society, Islam is a traditional part of Europe, citing irrelevant factors like the antique conurbations of Muslim Sicily, Malta or Andalucía. Islamic influence, they claim, can be found in Europe’s system of law, code of social ethics, philosophy, medicine, architecture and geography. Given that this is so, why shouldn’t Muslim Pakistanis, Turks or Arabs live in present-day Leeds or Stockholm? They are as responsible for the greatness of these places as the natives…right?

No. Not right at all. It is certainly true that Islam’s Andalusian Golden age imparted a great number of ideas to European elites, many of which are now claimed as entirely and originally European. However, such contributions were mostly limited to disciplines of what we would now call ‘academia’ and in-any-case are dwarfed many times over by the influence of European ideas on Muslim civilisation. Do Europeans have the moral right to settle in Muslim countries on that basis? No, of course they don’t. And vice versa.

Leftists like to push the myth of European-Islamic co-development for one reason above all; they think it will normalise the presence of Islam in Europe and erase the memory of a Europe without Islam. For if the Muslim presence in Europe can be made to seem normal, traditional or ancient, objections to it will naturally seem irrational, unreasonable and unrealistic.

Another way the same effect can be achieved is via the media, and especially the screen media. Over Christmas, like most Britons, I found myself slouched in front of the television for extended periods of time. During that time I witnessed an astonishing barrage of British Islamic subject matter. There was the Citizen Khan Christmas special on BBC One (Note: CK is a woefully unfunny Muslim sitcom). There were the quiz shows with a disproportionate number of Muslim contestants, many of whom wore Hijabs or prayer caps. There was Eastenders – perhaps the most popular show in Britain today – with gripping plotlines involving characters called Shabnam, Kush, Tamwar, Masood, Fatima, Kamil and Ali. National (and even more so) local newsreaders and weathermen/girls were disproportionately Muslim. And so on. Over time, this normalises something abnormal; the slow bleed of east into west; the merging of two contraries into a single untenable consensus.

This is new. This is unnatural. And this is not something we should be tolerating.

D, LDN

Qur’an-Denial: The Foundational Error of the Appeasers

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*Originally published on this blog in May, 2016

The terror attacks in Brussels, Ivory Coast and Nigeria this past week were (if you’ll tolerate a well-worn paradox) notable for being completely unremarkable. The murders were generic, run-of-the-mill, classical and exactly in step with the history and character of the Islamic religion. As I have said previously, such violence is best understood simply as the Qur’an in action, or Applied Islam, if you prefer. This is what all those elegant Arabic characters materialize into. This is their effect.

There is no ingenious metaphor behind Quranic verses imploring Muslims to kill “unbelievers.” and “strike of their heads”. It isn’t an allegorical way of saying “Try your best in life and be proud of your heritage”. It means exactly what you think it means. Mutilate and murder people if they derive from a different religious tradition.

The Qur’an murdered those people in Belgium, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. Without it’s message, they would still be alive.

But despite that terrible reality, this notorious book of death will remain readily available at your local Waterstones or Walmart for the foreseeable future. Your children, if you have any, will be able to purchase it, read it, learn from it, perhaps even act on it. This is because, for all the chaos and bloodshed at the hands of Muslims the world over, our cultural elite still refuse to recognise that it is the text itself which inspires the carnage. Rejecting this idea as essentially ‘racist’, they offer instead tortuous sociological, economic, psychological explanations more palatable to the liberal mindset and harmonious with liberal, multi-cultural doctrine. The Muslims are killing people because they are ‘disenfranchised’, ‘outcast from the cultural mainstream’, ‘oppressed’, ‘economically deprived’ and so on. They will stick stubbornly to these explanations right up to the point a Salafist knife rests upon their throats.

Prime Minister Cameron has repeatedly claimed that Islam is peaceful

Through this prism of misinterpretation, individual terror attacks are not understood as a call to banish Islam forever from the shores of the free world, but as an opportunity to understand better the mistakes WE have made in our diplomacy with the Muslim world. Simon Jenkins, the eccentric libertarian sore thumb over at the Guardian, argued just a few days ago that the reaction of the West (to Brussels and other comparable acts of terrorism) should be to “alleviate” the “rage that gives rise to acts of terror…”, including by instigating a “wiser foreign policy than most western nations have shown towards the Muslim world over the past decade.”

The cretinous Socialist Worker newspaper struck a similar tone: “Wars launched by the leaders of the US, Britain and France” read this week’s opinion column “have created huge resentment and created the space in which groups such as Isis can grow. These same leaders back the brutal governments that have turned back the tide of the Arab Spring—which offered hope…There is nothing remotely anti-imperialist about the bombings. But the reality is that more repression will mean more attacks.”

This bewildering ignorance is the natural result of Quran-Denial. Without reference to the text demanding violence, Islamic violence inevitably seems free-floating, reactive and mysterious. It is only with reference to the text itself that such violence becomes understandable. Denial of the link between violence and the Qur’an is thus the foundational error of the Western appeasers of Islam.

It is worth noting that we rarely fail to trace the origins of other religious practices. One of the key pillars of Christian practice, for example, is the injunction to loves one’s neighbour, the poor and even one’s enemies. Christian charities are acting upon this sentiment when they do charitable work, launch missions in the third world, or stage interfaith dialogues. Only a very eccentric man indeed would try to claim that such people were not directly motivated by the text of their Holy Book. It stands to reason that they are.

Christians are directly inspired by the New Testament

When critics of Christianity and Judaism, such as Bill Maher, reference the textual origins of what they perceive as Abrahamic ‘homophobia’, Christians and Jews are never allowed to claim the verses in question are metaphors or that they discriminate only against ancient homosexuals.

Only Islam is allowed to stand apart from its own Holy Book. And yet Islam is also the faith most fanatical about the literal inerrancy of its Holy Book.

Let’s look at some of the passages which may have influenced the murders this past week. A Hat-tip is due here to the staff at the invaluable websites ‘Gates of Vienna’ and ‘Religion of Peace’ which compiled some of the following excerpts (as well as many others):

Quran (5:33) “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement”

Quran (8:59-60) “And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah’s Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy.”

Qur’an

Quran (9:5) “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.”

Quran (9:14) “Fight against them so that Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the breasts of a believing people.”

That should be enough to prove my point. We need only use Occam’s Razor (AKA Ockham’s Razor: the formula that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one) to discover the root cause of the carnage afflicting the civilised and developing world. Muslims are killing because their Holy Text implores them to kill. No further discussion is needed.

Dear political elite – Islam is violent because the Qur’an is violent. The Qur’an itself is Europe’s mortal enemy. Drop the mystification and start working on a fightback.

What else is there to say about the Brussels attack? Well, for one thing, it happened in a very beautiful city. I went on holiday to Brussels as a teenager with my family and remember enjoying every minute of the two weeks I spent there. If you haven’t been yourself, please consider it (especially now). The famous cobbled streets, superior booze, laid back mood and architectural grandeur repay the price of travel with generous interest.

Watching the news come in after the explosions this week, I recognised with real sadness parts of the city I had strolled through during that halcyon fortnight. One of the massed news correspondents even stood in front of a complex of buildings I once happily photographed, her sad, elongated face starkly out of sync with the pleasant memories I will try – in spite of everything – to nurture and keep pure and intact.

Brussels

Of course, as well as being a charming city in itself, Brussels is also – for now – the Capital of the European Union. Sadly, even if also inevitably, this fact has discoloured some reactions to the bombings. One couldn’t help but detect a mood of political schadenfreude on the part of the British right-wing press last Tuesday evening. From a propaganda point of view, it must have seemed too good to be true. The EU capital, machine-heart of a despised and oppressive bureaucracy, shattered by the fruit of its own myopic agenda. The heat of the explosions had yet to fade from the air when EU-haters excitedly set about refitting the tragedy to add weight to their case for Brexit. This tasteless enthusiasm, understandable but deeply regrettable, says a lot about how badly the European experiment has poisoned continental relations.

Let’s be clear: Those unlucky souls vanquished in Brussels a few days ago did not die entirely in vain. They are (and should always be remembered as) martyrs in a just war of good vs. evil, modernity vs. darkness. My heart goes out to them, their families and their friends. In their memory, I will conclude by restating my motive in writing this blog: I detest Islam. I detest it with all my soul.

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?

Trump in Gettysburg

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Donald Trump has frequently been accused (sometimes justly) of being short on detailed policies. This speech, delivered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is very valuable for its detail and clarity. In it, he outlines the agenda for the first 100 days of his administration.

D, LDN

Ann Coulter: “In Trump We Trust”

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The beautiful and tack-sharp Ann Coulter continues to rise in my estimation. Here, the long-legged conservative goddess discusses her latest book “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome”.

D, LDN

Trump and the Tape

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As regular visitors to this blog will be aware, I have written in support of the candidacy of Donald J Trump ever since he announced his run back in 2015. In the intervening period, the myriad accusations and denigrations offered by the mainstream media have done little or nothing to diminish this support. I have found that the Republican has been treated grotesquely unfairly by the press and most – if not all – of the arguments against his election have been based in soft, muddy ground.

However, I am not a fanatic, nor a devotee. Trump is not my God and my enthusiasm is conditional. I have always been prepared to criticise him in the face of troubling evidence. And troubling new evidence – about his character and judgement – has now arrived.

To go over the basics, Trump’s campaign was dealt a terrible blow on Friday with the release by the (pro-Clinton) Washington Post of video/audio tape depicting the Republican nominee making crass and idiotic remarks about the fairer sex. Here is a transcript of the most controversial parts:

Trump: I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.

Billy Bush: Whoa.

Bush: I did try and fuck her. She was married.

Bush: That’s huge news.

Trump: I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping… She wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took her out furniture — I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.

…Trump: I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Billy Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

To be clear from the start, these comments shouldn’t mean anything politically. They were not made openly (that is, publically) and nor were they made by a man contemporaneously engaged in a political campaign (the comments are from 2005). However, there is no respect paid to ‘shoulds’ in politics and certainly not in this Alice-in-Wonderland election. The comments do matter, therefore, and will make a political impression. They are already being seen as a window into Trump’s character, into who he really is behind the spray-on tan and oratorical polish. It hasn’t been quite enough to say that Trump was joking, or that the comments merely represent the kind of ‘locker room talk’ all men engage in away from the earshot of women. Trump is not running to be the president of a student fraternity. He is running to be leader of the free world.

Still from the tape depicting Trump with TV personality Billy Bush in 2005

Trump’s remarks are also offensive to his own base in a way his previous remarks have not been. As Avik Roy put it in Forbes magazine – “Few Republican lawmakers have Muslim relatives. Few Republican lawmakers are of Mexican heritage. Few Republican lawmakers have faced discrimination based on the colour of their skin. But all of them have white female relatives. And therefore, when Trump talks about grabbing white women by the genitals, they can directly relate.”

But does the tape spell the end for Trump’s chances of election? That is the million dollar question being relentlessly repeated by every media outlet this (Sunday) afternoon. The answer surely depends on what happens tonight in St Louis, Missouri. How will Trump deal with the tape at the debate? Will he deal with it at all, or ignore it (and hope that his opponent ignores it, too)?

Personally, I think it is vital that he does deal with it – and quickly and decisively enough that the rest of the debate is left clear for a debate on policy. Whatever the first question put to Trump is, he should politely request an opportunity to first make a brief and heartfelt apology (in addition to the inadequate one already issued) to the nation and women in particular for his reported indiscretions.

He should most definitely not attempt to get even by going after Clinton’s past family issues, since this will only invite retaliation against his own rather dubious marital record. The priority must be to return the centre-point of gravity to policy and ideology.

America is still a majority-Christian country, one that emphasises the value and importance of forgiveness and being ‘born again’. If Trump is to get out of this quagmire alive, he will need to convince the believing section of society in particular that his sense of shame is real and sincere. This cannot be achieved with surface gestures, but only with spontaneous and heartfelt emotion. Put simply, Trump will need to apologise and mean it.

It’s not just you. I also sense a real injustice as to how all this is playing out. I still believe that Trump has been the victim of massively disproportionate media opprobrium this past nine months. He has invited much of this, but certainly not all of it. The shabbiness and murky dishonesty of Hillary Clinton has been hardly mentioned in any of the major newspapers or television networks (with the exception of Fox News), while even the tiniest of blemishes upon Trump’s record has been magnified to the highest possible definition. This simply isn’t fair. The odds are stacked in one corner’s favour.

It is worth reminding ourselves what exactly is at stake in this election, lest all this irrelevant nonsense lead us to forget it. We (the West) are a glittering civilisation at war with barbaric filth. We are being challenged violently by people who would force us to regress centuries in science, women’s rights and economic and philosophical clarity. Yes, Trump is goonish, unrefined and often stupid. But he is also strong, unrelenting and brave. Even if he is about to implode, we need not be ashamed at having put our faith in him.

D, LDN

Justifying the Extraordinary: Trump and the Debates

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In seven days time the first of four presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will take place in Hempstead, New York State. It is probably fair to say that no such debate has been as hotly anticipated in recent memory as this one now is. The debate marks the biggest test Donald Trump has faced since the launch of his candidacy for the Republican nomination back in 2015. It represents a vital trial of the New Yorker’s presidential character, professionalism and natural wit.

Hillary Clinton, now lagging behind Trump in many national polls, will be placing a lot of her hopes on the debates. Unlike Trump, the Democrat is a natural when it comes to conventional political combat. She – and her team – will be hoping (and expecting) Trump to be suffocated by the polite constraints of traditional procedure and to show his unease by lashing out wildly at Clinton’s character, appearance, dress sense, femininity, etc. Put simply, they hope and expect Trump to suffer a meltdown.

Whilst I would love to say that Clinton’s strategy is unrealistic, I cannot, as it is perfectly feasible. Trump’s Achilles heel, as he has proven time and time again, is his volcanic and unpredictable personality, his tendency to hit back after every real or perceived slight with much greater force and immaturity than is required or appropriate. All Clinton has to do in these contests is provoke that kind of reaction. All she has to do is poke the tiger until it growls.

This is the most obvious and likely strategy for Hillary to pursue, but there are other possibilities open to her. The rabidly pro-Clinton Washington Post made the following suggestions for their preferred candidate: “Take (Trump) up on his word. He said he “regrets” certain things. Invite him to apologize to Judge Gonzalo Curiel or the Gold Star parents of Capt. Humayun Khan… Another tactic is to press him on empty and unintelligible answers. Trump rarely completes a sentence or can articulate any level of detail about his proposals. When Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and CNN’s Dana Bash tag-teamed, forcing Trump to explain what was in his health-care plan, it became patently obvious that he had a whole lot of nothing to offer. She can certainly take a page from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s book (used against Rubio) in pointing out that Trump repeats the same platitudes. Tell us, Donald, what’s your plan to reduce crime in Chicago? Have you ever sat down with law enforcement?… There are oodles of issues (such as the nuclear triad) about which Trump knows nothing. Challenge him to spell out his stance on net neutrality, the South China Sea and student loans. In other cases — the minimum wage, repayment of U.S. debt and immigration, of course — he has been all over the lot. Force him to pick a position and explain why he has said the opposite.”

The first presidential debate will be held at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

Trump’s strategy for the debates is less clear at this point in time. When asked about his intended approach, the Republican has wisely dodged the question, explaining that he would prefer to not give anything away to the opposition prior to the event. We can thus only speculate.

I have a inkling that Trump’s strategy will hinge on portraying Clinton, as he has done all through his campaign so far, as ‘crooked’, dishonest, corrupt and in the pocket of the financial elite; an image he will then contrast with his own man-of-the-people persona.

The email scandal will undoubtedly be raised repeatedly, with Trump going off track and questioning Clinton directly about the thousands of inexplicably deleted messages. He will also link these questions to the issue of the Clinton Foundation and its highly suspicious ties to foreign leaders (including foreign and Islamic dictators).

The Clinton Foundation is coming under intense scrutiny for its ties to foreign regimes

This approach will carry Trump some of the way, but not all of it. He will need to have more strings to his bow prepared if he is to the win the debate outright.

To arrive at the best strategy for winning the debates, Trump would do best to look at what has carried him through the process thus far. I would say that, more than anything else, it is his credentials relating to the Islamist threat that have won over the hearts of patriotic American voters (including true liberals and Democrats). His positions on ISIS, Muslim immigration, Syrian refugee policy and other connected issues have been wildly popular with a broad cross-section of American society. Pushing hard on Clinton’s weakness on Islamism will pave the way for a very important ideological touchdown.

It is possible that in the days that remain before the November election there will be another Islamist atrocity somewhere in the world, perhaps even in the Western World*. This will serve as a timely reminder of how extraordinary the problems we (as a civilisation) face really are, and thus how inappropriate it would be to elect an ordinary candidate to solve them.

ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State

The Islamist challenge is so total and grave that all other issues melt under its heat. Trump and his team must realise this fact and base their approach on it. Sure, there are problems with the American economy which require ironing out; sure, illegal immigration from Mexico is undermining American sovereignty and nationhood; sure, the trade deficit with China is growing at an alarming rate.  But none of these issues are new or so extraordinary as to justify the American electorate taking a risk on a provocative and unconventional candidate (and that, undoubtedly, is what Trump is). Trump’s presidency is so unique and strange a prospect that he must build an equally strange and unique context in which it will seem appropriate and necessary. The only way he can achieve this, in my opinion, is with reference to the Islamist threat.

At the debates, Trump must be specific about how he will deal with this extraordinary issue. Soundbites, however popular they may be, should be avoided. It simply isn’t enough to say things like “We need to get tough and we need to get smart.” This is so vague as to be meaningless. Trump must map out a strategy for pulverising Islamism, demolishing it so severely that it will not dare raise its evil head for decades to come.

*Today, as I write, debris is once again being cleaned up from the streets of a Western city. In Manhattan, NYC, two bombs have exploded, injuring almost thirty innocent civilians. Meanwhile, in the peaceful, Scandinavian-American State of Minnesota, eight people have been stabbed at a shopping mall, the attacker allegedly interrogating potential victims as to their religious beliefs prior to attacking them.

These are indeed extraordinary times. They require an extraordinary leader. Next week in New York, Donald Trump would do best not to try and make himself seem ordinary, but rather embrace his uniqueness, tying it to the uniqueness of the times in which we find ourselves.

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

Note About Changes

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American Liberty, BBC, Blog, blogs, Christianity, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Davdldn, defend, defend defend blog, Defend the modern world, defend the modern world blog, defend the modern world blog uk, Facebook, Multiculturalism, Twitter, UK, uk blogs, USA

Hi,

I’ve been planning to change the way I post for a while now. I no longer believe that posting a batch of small posts each week is the most effective or professional way of presenting my writing. Instead, I am going to post longer, more ‘journalistic’ articles (usually one, sometimes two) each Monday, in order to go into topics in greater depth.

Always grateful for your visits and support.

Thank you. 

D, LDN