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

 

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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

Trump’s Best Speech (So Far)

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ICYMI, this was Trump’s best speech of the campaign so far. He placed his candidacy in the broader historical moment, justifying the extraordinary nature of his platform.

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

A Better Proposal

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I can’t recall any statement in modern history making waves higher than those generated by Donald Trump’s Muslim comments this week. From the moment the proposal left his snarled lips, the entire world has been ideologically drunk, stumbling about with no sense of proportion, history, law or context. The New York Times described the outrage directed at Trump as ‘withering fire’. The UK papers called it a ‘perfect storm’ and ‘political sensation’. In the Guardian, the normally level-headed Gary Younge reacted by saying that ‘bigotry’ (presumably he meant anti-Islam sentiment) is now ‘out, loud and proud’ in both politics and society. And so on..

As far as I have noticed, the only major political commentator to approve of Trump’s proposal is (the ever-dependable) Ann Coulter, who tweeted ‘Go, Trump, Go!” and went even further by suggesting the policy should cover all foreigners.

What actually was the idea? Well, there have been many myths advanced about what Trump actually said and meant, either to make it seem better, or – more commonly – to make it seem worse, but put most basically, Trump suggested that all Muslims be barred from entering the United States until ‘(America’s leaders) figure out what is going on (with ISIS, terrorism etc…’. At first the billionaire seemed to maintain that this would apply even to Muslim-Americans serving in wars abroad after their term had been completed, but this aspect has since been removed.

This isn’t a crazy idea, at least from a European perspective. The reason hell broke loose is because America is not Europe, and America’s Muslims are not like Europe’s Muslims. While the latter are the result of recent immigration (and a smattering of conversions), the former have a complex and native root that would be difficult or impossible to cleanly excise. Many American Muslims are Black Africans, and Black Africans are generally considered to be as American as apple pie. Given this reality, it came as little surprise to see the prodigious employment of a certain boxing legend on social media following Trump’s announcement. Indeed, were there still people not yet primed to what was going on, they might have honestly surmised that Muhammad Ali had perished, such was his ubiquity on the internet last Tuesday evening.

My own reaction to this announcement has been ambivalent. I salute and congratulate Mr Trump on his boldness, his daring and his commitment to the Western World and the preservation of its culture. But the prospect of a wholesale ban on Muslim travel is utopian. However happy the proposal’s consequences might be, it flies against the complexity of the world as it is, as well as against the realities of the United States itself. In the globalised world, it remains necessary that certain people from non-Western nations travel to the West (and vice versa). Muslim businessmen, diplomats and government officials require access for official functions – functions which are essential for the United States’ economy and for the furtherance of its global agenda. If the Muslim travel ban was implemented, the United Nations would have to be moved outside of the US – drastically diminishing the country’s soft power and shifting the political emphasis to Europe. For these (and many other) reasons I do not believe Donald Trump’s proposal is workable at the present moment. Nonetheless, the proposal is far from ‘mad’, and Mr Trump did not deserve the orgiastic right-wing back-stabbing of the past 7 days.

In my humble opinion, a more workable proposal is that advanced by many ‘radical’ parties; namely, that while (some) Muslims should be allowed to travel to the West, these must never become Western. Western citizenship should not be bestowed on any non-native person of Islamic faith. Ever. Period. The risks are too high, and the benefits are too inconsiderable for the admission of Muslims into the Western organism to make sense.

I am aware that the announcement of this policy would cause as much or more controversy as the one Trump announced, but reactions are inevitable and we have to do something.

We cannot de-Islamise Muhammad Ali, but we can make damn sure the current inhabitants of the Islamic world do not become permanent inhabitants of Boston, New York, Washington, Paris, London and Madrid.

D, LDN

Looking Ahead: Republican Candidates for the 2016 Election.

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The long, dysfunctional reign of Barack Hussein Obama is drawing at last to its close. Almost 8 years have elapsed since the whooping coronation of America’s first mixed-race President, and in those years, little has been achieved that could possibly justify the initial hype.

Immigration rates are much as they were in 2008. Guantanamo Bay remains open, despite the promises of 2008. The Iraq debacle has plainly not been resolved (despite bewildering Obamanoid claims to the contrary). New, frightening zeros have been added to the National Debt. ‘Obamacare’ has been so unpopular that it looks certain to be revoked on the next regime’s first day of term. Bin Laden, as we are never allowed to forget, was put out to sea on Obama’s watch, but really this only represents a shameful theft of credit from the United States military.

All in all, Obama has not lived up to his initial promise. The spreading realisation of this fact means that the contest to succeed him is destined to be a bombastic and emotional ride. Republicans, from the globally famous (and notorious) to the nearly unknown, are elbowing furiously for media coverage and endorsement.

Given the critical and violent days we live in, the choice of Republican runner will have great international consequences, including for Britain. For that reason I offer here my opinions on the current pack….

Mike Huckabee.

Mike Huckabee isn’t particularly well known outside America, but within the country, he is widely regarded as the most religious Presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter. A folksy southerner, Huckabee’s election book is (I think/hope humorously) entitled “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy” and the Senator is vocal in his commitment to traditional conceptions of the family, gun rights, and brash, uncomplicated patriotism.

Huckabee is a naturally divisive figure, as are all overtly religious politicians. Given this reality, I doubt he has the popular support to win a nomination, much less a national election.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Jeb Bush.

A member of the politically lucrative Bush dynasty, Jeb Bush should be familiar to most foreign observers. Like his brother and father, he is a middle-ground, compassionate conservative, open to reform of immigration and willing to spend money on public services. On foreign policy, he is tediously conformist – pro-democracy, pro-two state solution, tactful with Russia etc…

There is really nothing to recommend Bush beyond his ability to appeal to a broad selection of Americans. He is not a favourite of the right-wing establishment, and if he is selected as runner, grassroots support may be thin on the ground.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio is a telegenic, Hispanic neoconservative with opinions and standpoints torn right out of an issue of the Weekly Standard. He is loudly pro-Israel, hostile to the nuclearisation of Iran, committed to halting Russia’s consumption of Eastern Europe, and full-square in opposition to communism and socialism.

For these reasons I rather like him. He might have a shallow, car salesman-like, professional sheen, but he also has an ‘American Dream’ backstory and the right sense of priority to keep that dream alive.

DTMW Rating: 8/10.

Rand Paul.

While most conservatives want to scale back the power of the state, Rand Paul wishes to make it all but disappear. Son of ancient populist Ron Paul, Rand is the young, handsome, smooth-talking and hugely radical driver of the libertarian tea-party movement. He is by a very great distance the most popular candidate with the grassroots of the Republican party.

The only reservations I have with Paul relate to his isolationism. Unlike Rand, I resolutely do not want America to ‘mind its own business’ (as his father would put it). On the contrary, I want the American military to remain the spearhead and shield of modern, democratic civilisation. For that reason alone I would advise voters to look for another candidate.

DTMW Rating: 6/10.

Ted Cruz.

And that candidate might look a bit like Ted Cruz.

Texan Senator Cruz offers a bracing synthesis of neo-conservatism, domestic libertarianism and compassionate social conservatism. Right about most things, willing to use the great American military to protect our friends and punish our foes, anti-government in spirit, compassionate on questions of race and with a long and proven record in practice, I believe that Cruz would make a very competent successor to Obama’s failed regime.

DTMW Rating: 9/10.

Others.

Other candidates running or likely to run include Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Rick Santorum. I don’t believe any of these outliers has the charisma or substance to beat the runners mentioned above.

D, LDN.