The Dark Enlightenment

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• First published on this blog in November, 2015

If you’re one of those people not yet not au fait with the internet phenomenon/subculture referred to as the ‘Dark Enlightenment’, perhaps the best way to describe it is with reference to its adherents favourite movie scene. This is the moment in The Matrix, when Neo is offered two pills – one blue, one red. The man offering the medicaments, Morpheus, informs Neo that the pills have different metaphysical powers. One of them, the blue one, will send him back to the artificial world of the Matrix (a computer simulation) that he is already familiar with, completely ignorant of the existence of the alternate (real) world. The other pill, the red one, will make it impossible for him to go back to the sleep of unreality. Upon taking it, he will tumble down the rabbit-hole of the truth, however ugly or traumatic he may find that truth to be. As you’re probably aware, Neo boldly chooses the red pill, and so begins the main action of the film. Well, Dark Enlightenment adherents view themselves as embarking upon a comparably journey to Neo’s, and will often refer to themselves as being ‘red-pilled’. But what truths exactly are they discovering? What reality have they entered that is hidden from the majority? The answer is complicated.

It is certainly accurate to say that the Dark Enlightenment is on the political right. Its followers have little sympathy for feminism or political correctness, and on matters of race and racial difference, their views tend to align with those advanced by the likes of Madison Grant and T.H Huxley. Furthermore, one of the labels embraced by the movement since their beginnings is ‘Neo-reactionary’; a pretty baggy definition, but one that clearly denotes a rightward bent.

Some press commentators have even suggested a fascist sentiment motivates the Dark Enlightenment subculture. Jamie Bartlett (writing for the Daily Telegraph), for example, describes the bloggers associated with the movement as ‘sophisticated neo-fascists’.

“Since 2012” he writes “…a sophisticated but bizarre online neo-fascist movement has been growing fast. It’s called “The Dark Enlightenment”… Supporters are dotted all over the world, connected via a handful of blogs and chat rooms. Its adherents are clever, angry white men patiently awaiting the collapse of civilisation, and a return to some kind of futuristic, ethno-centric feudalism… The philosophy, difficult to pin down exactly, is a loose collection of neo-reactionary ideas, meaning a rejection of most modern thinking: democracy, liberty, and equality… The neo-fascist bit lies in the view that races aren’t equal (they obsess over IQ testing and pseudoscience that they claim proves racial differences, like the Ku Klux Klan) and that women are primarily suited for domestic servitude. They call this “Human biodiversity” – a neat little euphemism. This links directly to their desire to be rid of democracy: because if people aren’t equal, why live in a society in which everyone is treated equally? Some races are naturally better to rule than others, hence their support for various forms of aristocracy and monarchy (and not in the symbolic sense but the very real divine-right-of-kings-sense).”

Is this a fair evaluation? I don’t think that matters. What does matter is why men (and presumably some women) find it necessary to hive off into subcultures in the first place. The Dark Enlightenment is clearly a reaction to the culture of extreme (and unnecessary) self-censorship by the academic and intellectual mainstream. We simply don’t talk about the important facts of the world for fear of alienating a single part of it. No, the races are not equal in average intelligence. Nor are the sexes equal. The first-born child is generally more intelligent than his/her younger siblings. The tall are more successful than the short. Women are physically weaker than men. Egalitarianism is a lie. And yes, even Democracy is a stupid idea when reduced to its fundamentals. For if the majority are wrong about something, then society is every bit as doomed with democracy as it would be with a wrong-headed dictator. Etc… Etc…

But creating subcultures around forbidden truths is a dangerous game. Whenever hives of thought arise, the trust generated by basic truth-telling grants the hive-leader authority over his/her followers. Having earned their trust with real (but publically denied) facts, he/she can then sprinkle any kind of abject stupidity on top. And if any mainstream condemnation of this stupidity comes about, it can be ascribed to ‘Leftism’ or the ‘blue pill’. “They told you the races were equal, so why listen to them when they say authoritarian monarchy is bad?”… “They told you affirmative action made sense, so why believe them when they say Jews aren’t in control of the government” Etc…

Denying self-evident truths risks handing intellectual authority to some very shady people indeed. The Dark Enlightenment must be replaced with a straightforward enlightenment. No ‘darkness’ is necessary.

D, LDN

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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 amongst the swelling masses until all have as much as each other, and very little alike.

It is a good time to reflect on this kind of 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

The Second American Revolution

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Well… there we are then. I’ve predicted the outcome of two major votes this year and been wrong about both of them. I’m not sure what to say. Perhaps there is nothing to say, other than to warn the reader never to take advice from me on lottery numbers or business investments.

America, as you’ll now be aware, has just elected Donald J Trump to the highest office in the land. And with the GOP also triumphant in both houses of Congress, for the next four years, the New York billionaire will have an almost unprecedented level of control over the mechanisms of Western government,

This is the beginning of what will inevitably be referred to by historians as the ‘Trump Era’ – a four-to-eight year period dominated by the decisions and personality of a single, remarkable man.

I am both pleased and nervous about the result. As someone who made the case for Trump (as best I could on a UK-based blog), my satisfaction with the unexpected success of the Republican is naturally tempered with unease and foreboding.

Trump is not a perfect man – far from it. Many of the criticisms made by his opponents over the past 12 months (or was it lifetimes) were perfectly valid and based in solid fact. He is often boorish, unpredictable, erratic and – in some key ways – he is inexperienced. No matter how passionate your support for his reign may be, you cannot sensibly deny that his election represents a gamble.

But it was a gamble the people of America were forced by circumstance to make. The elite, which includes the press, has lost all contact with, and respect for, the ordinary population of the United States. Unless a US citizen lives in New York or Los Angeles, he simply doesn’t matter to the decision-making class. His voice, projected at a polite volume, is muffled to a whisper by distance, farmland and poverty. On Nov. 8th, therefore, he was left with no choice but to shout, to shout so loud that windows were broken, and so they have been.

Hillary Clinton prepares to give her concession speech in New York

Those members of the global elite currently tearing their expensively shampooed hair out have no right to be surprised by what has happened. How could their disregard and arrogance have led to any other destination? Trump was and is a shock of history, but he was not an unforeseeable one.

Nevertheless, the shockwaves of the election result have been palpable. Jonathan Freedland, a normally level-headed liberal commentator, spoke for many in the London-New York-LA bubble when he wrote (in an article dramatically entitled ‘Will Donald Trump Destroy America?’) “What if (Trump) goes ahead and deports 11.3 million undocumented migrants? What if he really does ban all Muslims entering the country? What if he tries to use the powers of the state to go after media organisations that have criticised him – making life difficult for the businesses that own inquisitive newspapers such as the Washington Post, for example – as he has said he will? What if he overturns abortion rights, even imposing “some form of punishment” on a woman who terminates a pregnancy, as he once suggested? And what if he really does build that wall?… There are plenty who believe that if Trump went ahead and actually implemented his programme, he would create a different country: closed, xenophobic and at odds with some of the founding principles – religious equality or freedom of speech – that have defined the United States since its founding. The country would still exist – but it would no longer be America.”

Freedland’s words may be misguided, but his tone is surely appropriate. This really is a major turning point in American history – a second American revolution, if you will. By the time Trump has finished his work, however that goes, America will be a drastically changed place. There are so many differences between his approach and that of his predecessors that such an outcome is irresistible.

Donald Trump, unlike Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and practically every president stretching back to the Eisenhower administration, is an Americanist. He believes that America, despite its size and power, is a real, flesh and blood country – with real, flesh and blood people living in it. America is not, to him, an idea, a hope, or a ‘dream’. It is a pulsating, living, breathing reality. If one thing divides him from the presidents of the recent past, it is that his focus is largely limited by loyalty and affection to and toward the United States (and those countries like it – *I was greatly encouraged to hear Mr Trump describe the UK as a special friend this week).

Donald Trump is not a neo-con, preoccupied with the security prospects of the Saudis, Turks and Qataris. He looks at the world with the purity of the patriot; an honest, crystalline simplicity. To him, something is either good for America, or not. That seems to be his only consideration.

I do understand and appreciate that many parts of the world (and parts of America) will be unnerved by Trump’s election. This is only inevitable. Change always brings anxiety. Nevertheless, such places and people must be calm and reasonable enough to give the president-elect a chance to show his governing style before jumping to rash conclusions.

In Israel, there is some stress over President Trump’s words regarding the conflict with the Palestinians. Back in the primary debates, Mr Trump shocked the gathered by stating that it wasn’t helpful to pick a side in foreign conflicts and that he would, as president, strive to be more fair-minded. Since then, Trump has reconfirmed his intention to make a ‘deal’ on the Israel-Palestine face-off. What does he mean by this? What kind of ‘deal’ does he have in mind? We have no way of knowing, so worrying about it is a waste of time.

As on Israel, so on many other issues. Trump is simply a mystery to us at this point. Will he tame his fiery populism upon entering the White House? Will he go back on his promises made at his roaring rallies? Will the wall be built? What will happen to the 11 million illegal migrants currently embedded in American society? We don’t know. We can’t know. Only time will tell us.

It is my belief that Donald Trump will either be the greatest president of the past 50 years, or he will be the worst. There is no in-between with him. His personality is too spectacular, his confidence too muscled. As things stand, the former seems more likely to me than the latter.

D, LDN

 

Alt-liberalism: A Mini-Manifesto

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In my post regarding the ‘alt-right’ political movement/subculture, I mentioned that I do not consider myself a ‘rightist’ of any kind, but rather an ‘alt-liberal’. This is a concept I thought was worth taking further. What is an ‘Alt-liberal’ of my personal style? To define the concept as I intended it, I offer the following mini-manifesto of what I believe to be positive alt-liberal principles. –

We are liberals, but…

… we do not believe that Islam and other reactionary third-world cultures are compatible with – or preferable to – the way of life historically prevalent in Western nations.

… we do not believe that immigration is necessarily a good thing –  but that its value depends entirely on the type of immigrants being admitted. Muslim immigration is a self-inflicted wound and one we must stop inflicting on ourselves.

… we do not accept that egalitarianism is an achievable political aspiration. Humans vary naturally in intelligence and ability and any attempt by the state to enforce an artificial equality will lead inevitably to the Gulag.

… we view political correctness as an over-prescribed and unhealthy solution to the failures of social cohesion. Social cohesion is best achieved when reactionary and barbaric ways of thinking (including racism) are voluntarily rejected and replaced with honesty, cosmopolitanism and understanding.

… we believe in speaking plainly about the superiority of the West and do not worry about offending primitive cultures.

… we support the defence of secularism from all its enemies, including the cultures of immigrants.

… we believe that sensible limits should be put on the size and power of the state.

… we are grateful for, and enthusiastic about, capitalism – an economic system that has improved the lives of millions and has proved to be the only workable kind of social organisation.

… we do not condemn, but celebrate consumerism and materialism as means of satisfying innate human drives and desires.

… we support democracies over tyrannies. We do not support – nor sympathise with – autocratic regimes.

… we are not pacifists and recognise that many wars (WWII, the US Civil War, etc..) have been for the common good.

… we reject anti-Semitic incitement disguised as ‘anti-Zionism’.

… we actively support the continued dominance of the United States of America over the military affairs of the world. This has been an undeniable blessing for humanity and has served to maintain stability and peace.

D, LDN

Perfectionland: Notes on Nihon

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I wasn’t in Japan for long – only five days – but it was enough to appreciate the essence of the place. The country, as I had expected to discover, is a marvel; remarkable, thrilling, inspiring and blessed with so many natural advantages that it leaves one feeling furiously envious. The people I met were beautiful and ultra-civilised – if also slightly robotic. The climate was milder than I expected (having previously visited unbearably humid South Korea). The natural environment (and especially the trees) I found dazzlingly attractive. And though I am not a ‘weeaboo’ by any stretch of the imagination, I did come away with a newfound appreciation for manga and J-Pop (especially the bizarre girl-group AKB48 – seriously look them up).

I have, of course, always understood the Western fetish for East Asia and for Japan in particular. The appeal of homogenous, orderly and affluent societies to those stranded in multiculturalised urban jungles is perfectly obvious. Japan is a dream of faultlessness; a magical perfectionland, where the girls are thin and pretty, the IQs are through the roof and crime and disorder are almost entirely absent. Who could fail to be attracted to that?

It is revealing that many of the leading luminaries of the Western far-right have had personal experience of Japan. The current leader of the white nationalist British National Party (BNP) Adam Walker, for example, spent many years  there teaching English to children. Jared Taylor, leader of the neo-segregationist website American Renaissance, also spent many years living in the country and speaks the language fluently. This makes a lot of sense to me.

A Western citizen exposed to Japan for a considerable period of time will inevitably come to resent the fact that his or her own country has gone down such a different, self-destructive path. Why can’t England be like Japan? Why can’t London be like Tokyo? Exposure to Japan can by itself turn a liberal into a reactionary.

Of course, there is no new shift in policy available to us that can make England into Japan or London into Tokyo, and any effort to bring such changes about will be a failure (and a bloody one at that). This is because Japan has dodged the bullet of decline for reasons that are inherently Japanese.

First, Japan has always been insular. Indeed, prior to the Meiji restoration, Japan maintained the strictest policy of cultural isolation in human history, even at times forbidding its citizenry the right to leave the archipelago on pain of death. Second, Japanese people are, on average, smarter than Europeans by two to three IQ points. This is not an insignificant difference and it has real-world consequences. Finally, Japanese men have lower levels of testosterone than Europeans, meaning that libertinism, crimes of aggression (and increasingly even reproduction) are much rarer there than in other parts of the world.

Given that Europeans cannot become Japanese simply by changing national policy, those who (like Jared Taylor and Adam Walker) dream of importing Japanese advantages into the West are sadly deluded. The best we can do is envy them quietly and try not to get too depressed.

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

Lily Allen’s Shocking Naivety

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I quite like the pop singer Lily Allen. Not her music, you understand, just her. She is roughly the same age as me and I have always found her pleasantly, if also unconventionally, attractive.

Now, with such irrelevant information out of the way, I must say I was stunned, though not surprised, by the news that Allen had been reduced to apologising for her country during a visit to the notorious Calais ‘Jungle’ migrant camp last week.

In case you’ve yet to hear of this incident, Allen, faced with a war-weary Afghan teenager, declared that she was ashamed of Britain for not letting in the teeming hordes currently massed (illegally) on France’s Northern coast, making these remarks through a veil of tears and tear-dampened blonde hair. Later, in conversation with the British press, Allen remarked (presumably seriously) that she would even be prepared to have a refugee stay with her at her personal residence in England.

The UK backlash against Allen’s remarks has been predictably harsh. In the right-leaning papers, critics have lined up to pour cold water on Allen’s dippy sentiments, as well as to explain that the singer knows little to nothing about the realities of the Calais crisis and its multiple backgrounds.

“(Allen) was merely repeating the canards of her arty liberal chums” Zoe Strimpel wrote in the Telegraph “who – despite never venturing outside their own intellectual and social cosmos – are sure that everyone who doesn’t see the world as they do, and especially anyone who voted for Brexit, is a bigoted fool. To reduce the web of direness behind the ongoing migration surge to a simple matter of Western culpability is plainly idiotic. It shows painfully limited understanding of the catalogue of political and human horrors that predated, and indeed motivated, Western intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq…And to weepily lay the situation in Calais purely at Britain’s door was a severe misfiring of sentimentality. Crying in the face of human suffering is one thing. But crying on national TV while telling the audience that their country – merely by trying to control its borders – is cruelly causing the misery of innocents is quite another.”

Personally, I was less struck by Ms Allen’s weak grasp of the political-economic background of the migrant crisis than with her shocking naivety in relation to the religion of Islam and the nature of those currently attempting to force their way into the British Isles. For a young, beautiful Englishwoman such as Allen to offer to take in young (almost always male) Muslim refugees displays a terrifying disregard for her own safety. Can you imagine (do you even need to imagine) what would happen if Allen allowed a 16-20 year old Afghan male to move into her personal residence? True, we cannot say for sure, but I don’t believe it is bigoted of me to speculate that sexual advances would almost be made by the new arrival – and that, should they be rebuffed, sexual violence might well follow.

What will it take for our best and brightest to understand that they are being conned by the lowest elements in the human species? What will it take for Western women to understand that the weeping masses huddled in tents along the French coast are not like the Jews who fled Nazi Germany; that they are rather wolves imitating sheep; devils imitating angels? What will it take?

Several commenters under the articles reporting Allen’s comments in Calais have delighted in speculating the fate that would await her should she follow through on her deranged offer of sanctuary. I don’t believe we should be so cold-hearted. Allen is a good person. She has simply fallen victim to a dangerous lie peddled by a negligent, dishonest media. The blame, should Allen’s words inspire some young girl to expose herself to danger, lies ultimately with them.

D, LDN

In Praise of South Park

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I was thirteen years old when the adult animation South Park premiered on UK television. I remember the kids at school being immensely excited by it, a feeling to which I quickly succumbed myself. It seemed altogether new, even revolutionary. To our childish minds, the obscenity and scatological humour of the first season was ingenious, interesting, bold. It was like the Simpsons, but for bad people, those who find humour in darkness and the depraved.

It took me only a couple of years to become bored of South Park’s provocative style. Upon leaving school, I suddenly seemed to find that jokes about excrement and boobies were no longer novel or amusing. Without any taboos left to break South Park lost much of its power and appeal.

When I recently returned to watching the series (upon the recommendation of friends), I was pleased to discover that the show has changed considerably since my high school days. The humour, characterisation and mission of the series has matured and evolved into something intelligent and even vital. It seems South Park is these days less concerned with flatulence and breasts (although both of these remain features) than with political and cultural criticism, particularly of the faux-liberal and regressive Leftist worldview so exhaustively advertised and endorsed by other sitcoms and satires.

Uniquely among shows of its kind, South Park has pursued of late an admirably consistent libertarian rationalism; one that could be hardly any more different from the hypocritical conformity of rival programs like Family Guy and The Simpsons. Against convention, the show has ridiculed the mob-mentality of political correctness, the lethal denial of Islamic aggression, and the damaging excesses of environmentalist and egalitarian dogmatism.

So impressive has this radicalism become, in fact, that a real-world political tendency has been attributed to the show’s influence. The phrase ‘South Park Republican’ is now well understood and defined in circles of political commentary. The phrase denotes those who, while they are opposed to the more absurd and outdated aspects of social conservatism (such as blind opposition to gay rights, marijuana use and open sexuality), nevertheless believe that the right isn’t wrong about the economic and ideological fundamentals – for example, the fact that Western World is superior and infinitely preferable to the Third World, that capitalism is superior and infinitely preferable to communism, and that ‘racism’ – as a word and concept – is largely empty of meaning and routinely abused for cynical political gain.

Unsurprisingly, South Park’s approach has not passed without controversy. On numerous occasions the cartoon has been roundly condemned by journalists and network executives alike for overstepping the boundaries of the acceptable. Perhaps most famous of these occasions concerned the episode ‘Cartoon Wars’, which featured (or intended to feature) an animated caricature of the Prophet Muhammad alongside renderings of other religious figures such as Jesus and Buddha. Despite the plot of the episode being relatively benign toward the Islamic Prophet (or at least no more mocking or malicious than toward the other featured characters), Comedy Central (the company behind the show) declined to air the episode without the condition that Muhammad be completely obscured behind a black rectangle.

It doesn’t really matter that South Park ‘lost’ in that instance. Their attempt at religious satire exposed a very real hypocrisy in the liberal media. We are better off for them having tried.

I believe South Park’s willingness to fill in the gaps left by more politically correct shows like Family Guy is almost certainly the reason for its continued success. In a world where sacred cows are too often left unbutchered, bravery of this kind will always be worthy of praise and attention.

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

Why the Alt-Right is Too Alt for Me

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Internet subcultures are so often exaggerated in scale and importance by the mainstream – offline – media that most reasonable folk tend instinctively to dismiss reports of their influence as hyperbole. Such was the case when Hillary Clinton devoted almost an entire speech to warning America of the insidious agenda of the ‘alt-right’, an internet coalition of racists, misogynists and Islamophobes allegedly in cahoots with the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.

Strangely, and unlike so many cyber phenomena reported in the media, the tribe to which Ms Clinton referred is notable for being very real, or at least very widespread. Though there is no single agenda or set of principles agreed upon by the alt-right, there is certainly a general Weltanschauung strong and clear enough to gravitate like-minded people towards it. This worldview is well-described in the following YouTube comment taken from under a video of the Clinton speech: “We (the alt-right) are anti neo-libs. That is the only reason we are alternative. Neo-libs/cons have been the conservative mainstream since 9/11. We are a backlash against that. Neo-cons are not real right.”

By ‘neo-libs’ and ‘neo-cons’ (Neoliberals and Neoconservatives) the commenter is likely referring to a consensus known elsewhere as the ‘New World Order’, the 1%, or (vaguely) as ‘Zionism’.

Rumours of a ‘New World Order’ have gained currency on the right-wing fringe in recent years

These labels, although having little to do with each other in fact, are used as synonyms for the force that is actively shrinking the world into a liberal, multi-racial, multi-cultural free-trade zone, in yet another word – the force and ideology of globalisation.

The idea that conservatives should be pro-globalisation is actually a very recent one. Traditionally, as the alt-right notes, right-wing political thinkers have been strongly nativist and culturally protectionist. The shift in conservative thought, beginning during the Reagan-Thatcher era, to laissez faire globalism is attributed retrospectively to the influence of non-native forces, often (predictably) to that of the Jews (sometimes referred to in euphemism as ‘capitalists’/’big business’/’bankers’/’the banks’).

The alt-right wishes to return the conservative movement to where it was before that transition; before economics became more important as a right-wing principle than blood, soil and culture; that is, before paleo became neo.

The alt-right has no single birthplace, but there are nevertheless a few websites and forums indelibly associated with it. Prime among these sites is the Japanese-cultural forum 4chan and in particular the /pol/ (politically incorrect) messageboard. Here, a right-wing political consensus has become entrenched, often (but not always) expressed with dark humour, that has subsequently bled out into the wider internet universe, evidenced by the broad use of memes like Pepe the Frog as well as words and phrases like ‘degenerate’ and ‘dindu-nuffin’ (the latter invention being used to refer sarcastically to African-American criminality).

The English-language messageboard 4chan is commonly associated with the alt-right

The alt-right is connected to, but distinct from, the ‘Dark Enlightenment’ phenomenon I have written about previously. Unlike the latter, the alt-right is more realistic and less philosophical. While the Dark Enlightenment recommends absurd initiatives like the abolition of democracy and the return of divinely-appointed’ Kings, the alt-right prefers to concern itself with more achievable and substantial ideas, such as the abolition of third-world (non-white) immigration, building an opposition to political Islam and degrading the influence of certain varieties of feminism. This down-to-earth-ness is a large part of the reason the alt-right, unlike the Dark Enlightenment, has become a force to be reckoned with.

I have no idea whether this site would or should be considered part of the alt-right blogosphere. I only know that it has never been so described – and certainly not by me. I am, in my estimation, far too moderate, too much of a bleeding heart, to integrate smoothly into that crowd.

Though I recognise that races exist, I have never been a racist or a racial nationalist. Though I accept that certain varieties of feminism have inflicted great damage upon Western civilisation, I am not opposed to the idea of sexual equality, nor dismissive of the disadvantages women still face around the world on account of their being female. Though I recognise that he has joined the right side of the Syrian civil war and made constructive and wise comments about the bombing of Libya, I do not support or make excuses for the authoritarian, anti-democratic administration of Vladimir Putin. And so on…  The alt-right is simply too alt for me.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is beloved by many on the alt-right

Is the movement as dangerous as Hillary Clinton is making out? The answer depends almost entirely on who is asking the question. If you’re a white, Christian, heterosexual male resident in the Western World, then the risk this movement presents to you is minimal. If, however, you are Jewish, homosexual, black, south Asian or atheist, I would be very cautious about taking the movement to heart.

There are decidedly ugly currents within the alt-right that are not adequately represented by its spokespeople. Milo Yiannopoulos, a Jewish-Greek homosexual, may well be regarded as the crown prince of the movement at present, but it does not follow that the general masses huddled under its banner agree with his lifestyle or look kindly upon his ethnicity. On the contrary, more often than not, the alt-right foot-soldier is loudly hostile to both Jews and homosexuality. If you require evidence of that, just spend an hour or two browsing the /pol/ board on 4chan yourself.

Anti-Semitism in particular runs through the alt-right like colours run through a stick of seaside rock. It is both below and behind it, providing a vital support to the worldview espoused by its adherents. The West is being taken over by foreign elements, they agree, because a hostile elite is conspiring against the natives. One need not refer to the hostile elite explicitly. Innuendo will do. Innuendo did the job in the thirties, too (sorry, Godwin).

A variant of the anti-Semitic ‘happy merchant’ meme

I do admit that the alt-right is correct on some very important issues. On Islam, for example, the movement is reliably clear-headed and refreshingly consistent. On the virtues of a Trump administration, too, the movement is providing a much-needed counter-force to the almost universally anti-Trump mainstream media. The problem is the movement doesn’t seem to possess any kind of intellectual brake. It swerves habitually all over the place, sometimes finding itself on a main road and sometimes blindly ploughing through a field. This youthful unpredictability might make hopping on-board an attractive prospect for political thrill-seekers, but not for anyone else.

I suppose, if we must manufacture labels for ourselves, I am more of an alt-liberal than an alt-rightist. And I am not alone in that. There must be millions of people like me, scattered around the political spectrum, living unhappily in temporary ideological accommodation. It is high time we had a real home to go to.

D, LDN