Disinformation War?

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2020 election, Donald Trump, jenna ellis, rudy giuliani, sidney powell

I messaged a friend on last night. For some time now, he has been sharing memes and diatribes about the theft of the election by Joe Biden, as well as the apocalyptic consequences for America should the scam be allowed to succeed.

Though this sentiment puts him in a large crowd, he seems to me particularly devoted; real passion, real anger.

I asked him whether he thought it possible that Biden had won without fraud, noting the Pennsylvanian was backed by the combined forces of media and capital, and that polls, near worthless as they are, had predicted a strong showing for him.

He answered that it was impossible (he used that word). Trump’s rallies were too full, Biden’s too empty. Where did the eighty million votes come from? From what well of conviction was the motivation to vote in such numbers pulled up?

I suggested the Biden rallies were emptier because of advised precautions over Covid; and that social distancing was displayed excessively to project the image of a medically conscientious and sensible alternative to Trump.

But he wouldn’t have this either. The very fact that thousands of people defied medical advice to show their support for the president was significant evidence of the crookedness of the outcome. Americans, he explained, do not ordinarily behave like this over a political candidate; even Obama, with his millenarian context, enjoyed hardly a tenth of the enthusiasm on display in every state Trump visited. Ordinary working people, shivering in plaid jackets, exhaling vapor in the middle of a respiratory pandemic, employed their time and energy to encourage someone they devoutly believed in, against (indeed, happily against) the instructions of their supposed betters.

Later on, my friend added some weird speculation about Biden’s love of children, moving from there to his son Hunter Biden’s very real (but questionably relevant) libertinism during the Obama years. I discarded this, as it deserves to be discarded. I do not believe Joe Biden is anything so devilish (or interesting) as what he implied, nor that Hunter Biden’s private degeneracy should necessarily incriminate his father. (My friend didn’t mention the dodgy deals Hunter allegedly made while in Ukraine, possibly on his father’s behalf, which is quite another, more serious matter.) Still, the better points he put across deserve to be considered; as does, perhaps more than anything else, his closing remark that “anyway, at the end of the day, Trump is the only thing standing between America and collapse.”

I pay special attention to that phrase – ‘at the end of the day’. It doesn’t always negate or replace what has already been said by a person – but it sometimes marks the beginning of a different, simpler, more lucid analysis.

It made me wonder whether some of Trump’s hardcore champions, in supporting the fraud narrative, are simply trying to force an ultimatum; whether they don’t really believe in the Dominion theory advanced by Sidney Powell, or in the dozens of possibilities floated by Rudy Giuliani; whether for such people the goal justifies the method.

America will probably not collapse when/if Biden is sworn in on January 20th. There will not be a civil conflict of unmanageable proportions. The country will merely pick up pace along the same trajectory of decay and Brazilianization Trump was elected to slow or reverse.

Nonetheless, tens of millions of people are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a return to this negative stability.

Whether any meaningful number are prepared to feign belief I cannot confidently say. But it isn’t impossible. There are many ‘at the end of the day’ clauses in Parler discourse.

The same, incidentally, is true the other way. I know personally of many liberals who knew full well that Trump did not conspire with the Russian government in the 2016 election. The theory was nonsense, supported by half-truths and downright lies. But Trump was the devil, and the devil was winning and had to be defeated. If democracy stood in the way, then democracy had to be overcome. In the name of emergency, normal rules were suspended. Lies could be noble.

***

What’s wrong with a disinformation war? Why not present a crafty narrative to subvert or prevent a process you believe to be evil? Is that ever appropriate?

In North Korea, would it not be justified to spread a rumour about the commanding party so offensive to the human spirit that it united the people, giving them sufficient courage to liberate themselves from kimilsungist tyranny?

You could certainly make the case. With the North Korean regime smashed and humiliated, and the people, in a state of nervous euphoria, walking on free land for the first time in more than half a century, who would criticise the tactic? Who would claim it wasn’t justified?

Disinformation can work for good – in exceptional cases.

But now imagine that North Korea, in the same nightmarish state as today, was split 50/50. Imagine that half the population supported the regime and half opposed it. The disinformation would strengthen the regime, not weaken it. If the incitement to revolt fell short, all advantage would be gifted to the enemy. Their lies would seem relatively truthful. The opposition would have wasted an opportunity by crying wolf. 

To use a less extreme – and non-hypothetical – example, Donald Trump benefited greatly from the Russia probe. For all his ‘gaffes’, the liberal crusade to implicate him in something so ridiculous coloured the president as an honest victim of persecution, even in the eyes of centrists initially frightened by him.

I am unconvinced that electoral fraud is to blame for Trump losing the election; and while I have no right to a say in American affairs, I would strongly advise against maintaining otherwise. In Georgia and elsewhere, the left is beginning to reap the benefits.

David

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Where Do You Want to Go?

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Donald Trump, Election 2020, joe biden, kamala harris, Pennsylvania, politics

Donald Trump, you’ll be aware, lost the election on Tuesday, or rather Saturday – kind of, we think – thereby making Joseph Biden, his uninspiring, moribund opponent, president-elect of the United States.

There is a lot to say about this, naturally, but I will try not to bore.

Firstly, Trump’s hastily presented allegations of fraud and posthumous voting will be investigated in due course; but I am not at all convinced these investigations will alter the final result. There is a very obvious note of bad faith about some of the charges, which should be available to conservative perception as well as liberal. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Secondly, and whatever the media claim, Biden’s victory does not represent a repudiation of what the president stood for; his ideology and platform. Seventy million votes were cast for Trump on Tuesday, in defiance of all kinds of weather, all kinds of pressure, all kinds of ridicule, in the middle of a serious pandemic. A significant number of rational Americans still believe in the movement he advertised.

Pat Buchanan agrees – “Trump may lose the presidency,” he writes, “but Trumpism was not rejected… if, by Trumpism, one means “America First” nationalism, securing our borders, using tariffs to bring back our manufacturing base, bidding goodbye to globalism, staying out of unnecessary wars and swearing off ideological crusades.”

Yes. Trumpism remains. I do not believe the Republican party will soon return to the socially liberal, fiscally conservative non-ideology of Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney, nor, as would be worse, to the sleazy, faux-Christian theatre of Ted Cruz. Trump has set a precedent of greater sincerity; a connection with the most base and natural and important instincts of the white electorate. Can these voters really be lured back to simple ‘red team good, blue team bad’ politics? I doubt it.

What appears to have lost the election for Trump is rather his character. Though they were given disproportionate emphasis by a hostile, coordinated press, the president’s personal flaws inevitably disposed many to overlook his novelty and merits. Threatening to run for a third term, casting pre-emptive doubt on the democratic system, appointing members of his own family to positions of global influence, sleazy rumours of extramarital sex with porn actresses, inane tweets and absurd tantrums, etc. The American ‘middle’ do have a limit, and the president overstepped it frequently and unnecessarily. 

Thirdly, we should talk about those who, as far as we know, are going to replace Trump and Pence at the Western summit.

Joe Biden, going by his statements and history, is a pedestrian centrist of the Obama-Clinton mould; nothing more glamourous or frightening than that – in theory. His danger derives from how this dopey conformity threatens to interact with the period in which we live; a time requiring of iron-like, brilliant men, not weak, corruptible puppets. Biden is a dusty slate on which donors will scratch their own priorities. Beer and tobacco Americans of the kind Donald Trump sought to remember will struggle to be heard.

And then there is Kamala Harris – young, Indo-Caribbean, haughty, greatly attractive to the corrupters of American politics in Washington, as well as to the severely myopic outside of it. I have written about this questionable woman elsewhere. Here, I will only repeat that she is firmly of the ‘kiss up, kick down’ school’ of Asian careerism; ruthless, energetic, corrupt and corrupting.

Both Biden and Harris are excited advocates of America’s downward trajectory; the decline of European America, and the rise of conceptual replacements for old American facts. As it did to the neo-conservatives before them, America appeals to corporate democrats as an international hub; the engine, university and military headquarters of post-historical liberalism.

In essential ways, their instincts are right on the money. America is all those things. And Donald Trump, to the living grief of his electorate, could not do anything about it.

Fourthly, and lastly, what does this mean for the United States and Europe going forward?

In the country itself, the result declared will considerably worsen existing divisions, especially along racial lines. European-Americans have become quite accustomed to having a voice at the highest level. They like it. They do not wish to let it go. Indeed, should they be forced to do so, America may suddenly feel like someone else’s country – hijacked, irretrievably lost, undeserving of their allegiance, service, taxes. That would be noteworthy.

I used to believe, in the worst years of the 9/11 era, that Europeans were considerably worse off than our cousins across the ocean. While in Europe, barbarian hordes were setting fire to the wages of a triumphant history, Americans could afford to relax in an atmosphere of relative calm. That was short-sighted.

Detroit, Michigan, is a warning few possess sufficient courage to heed. A European-American city, laurelled for its industrial dynamism and machine technology, armoury of the winning militaries of World War II, was burnt out by sudden demographic confusion. Now, in terrible clarity, it decays beyond remedy.

What if, you have every right to ask, Detroitification occurs to the nation as a whole? 

People have an unconquerable desire to live in suburbs, away from people they dislike, or from those they have good reason to believe they will not get on with. Suburbs are often the size of countries.

This is not – or is not merely – an issue of race, class or religion; but quality, consent, compatibility. 

And also identity – historical and individual. The United States is quite obviously no longer a single entity, having been divided in two by warring interpretations of what the national ends are supposed to be; homogeneity of appearance and culture? Homogeneity of values? Bright-blazing rainbow of every human type imaginable? Capitalist playground? Final, perfect realisation of social justice and human equality?

Parties gathered around different visions of long-term identity are the future of US politics, and will replace quaint concerns about four year reforms. After Trump has departed the White House to take up permanent residence on Twitter, the GOP would be sensible to conceptualise a grander vision of America; something they can agree on, and work for.

Pick your destination. Where do you want to go?

David

Trump 2020

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biden trump, Donald Trump, us election 2020

Donald Trump is a once in a lifetime phenomenon. If he loses today, there won’t be another man of such sincerity in American politics for quite some time.

I do not believe Joe Biden has a drop of belief in him. He is a suit wearing a man.

The president deserves a second chance at being what he promised to be four years ago. His flaws are fixable. His love for Truth (however loosely he treats little truths) is invigorating. He energises something that will endure far beyond his administration.

My foreign opinion counts for little. But I would vote Trump today.

David

Prelude to Something

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america election, Donald Trump, joe biden, politics, trump polls, us election 2020

Like the reader, I have spent a large part of this week studying the US presidential election polls, the contest being now just a few tantalising days away. Most of those I have seen predict a Biden win. A few expect a landslide or ‘blue wave’. Others see the Democrats just scraping through. But disagreement on the probable winner is rare.

Liberals have in some ways learnt from 2016 – that memorable, dramatic, gorgeous collapse of ill-deserved mainstream credibility. They are stressing this time that polls are not to be trusted, that elections are won solely by voting, not by media preference or stated intentions. And they are right on that score at least.

For all the poll advantages Biden enjoys, it is not impossible that another black swan will slide into view on November the 3rd; a sequel apocalypse, perhaps even more consequential than the last. Nonetheless, Trump goes into this contest as the underdog.

In other ways, Liberals have yet to take on board the deeper meaning of their defeat.

I have just visited the Biden campaign’s official Instagram account, and rather wish I hadn’t. It is chock-full of all you would expect – victim worship, empty slogans, feminist snark, retractably vague economic promises, and above all a disturbing fetishization of African people (especially women and children).

Of course, this soup of brainstormed concepts appeals to practically no-one. Biden and the unintelligent Left trust this will not matter on the night. They believe, perhaps with good reason, that people are so sick of the name ‘Trump’ appearing in every headline that they will vote it out of their lives for no better reason.

They are also banking on the dilution of the Trump brand. What was once fresh, exciting and radical is now repetitive and exhausting. The unending turbulence of the last four years has middle-of-the-road Americans longing for quieter days, which the white-haired, slow-talking Democrat seems to realistically offer. Joe Biden, even his friends concede, is tediously non-ideological, hardly even opinionated.

But this is not a zero-risk strategy. 2020 is not 2000. The internet has changed people more fundamentally than even tech entrepreneurs seem to appreciate. Modern politics is increasingly understood as a kind of showbusiness mixed with corporate and military cronyism. Faith in its humanity, its link with people and ideals, has been all but lost. Very few now believe (sincerely) that Joe Biden has a cause, or that Obama had one, or Bush, or Clinton, etc. The same cynics may have once invested in the messianism of these very presidents; but no longer. The internet has placed cameras behind the curtain dividing people from power. We overhear the actors rehearsing their lines, applying their makeup, practising their emotions.

Yes, even Obama, the great black hope, sent by providence to destroy racism on Earth, turned out to be a typically unscrupulous bureaucrat – a warmongering drone-assassin, happy to deal with ancient nations as if with chess pieces, as per an unfortunate American tradition dating back to the end of the Eisenhower administration. Democrats, blockheads were shocked to discover, are every bit as violent and compromised as Republicans. The differences are cosmetic; a few slogans here and there; a rainbow flag emoticon, a celebrity endorsement, late night propaganda. But no substantial disagreement. 

All the candidates Trump defeated in the Republican primaries suffer from the same crucial lack of humanity and belief. Ted Cruz, the educated Republican voter realises, represents nothing. He is a political nothing, as well as a rotten coward, which is even worse. We will not even talk of Rubio, Bush, Paul, Fiorina or Kasich; only remark that these were – and are – more like bank managers than statesmen.

Populism is the rejection of managerialism – the idea that countries are little more than flag-bearing economies, and that concepts of race, language and culture have no place in modern political discourse. In 2016, Trump obliterated this notion in fine style. (I still fondly recall the night of his victory; the surprise and embarrassment.)

Since his inauguration, Trump has done and said a lot of silly things. But he has also done a lot of good – considerably more than I am ordinarily willing to admit. He has kept America out of wars where no Western interest exists. He has consistently opposed the kind of lockdowns inflicted on Europe, and for exactly the right reasons – citing economic despair, alcoholism, depression, suicide and domestic violence. He has projected an image of unapologetic masculinity in a world where men are under constant attack. He has exposed the corruption and DPRK-like uniformity of the Western media. He has asked, though often in unnecessarily crude language, extremely important questions (“Why are we letting in people from shithole countries?”, etc.). He has set radical precedents on immigration, identity, abortion, political language and foreign policy. He has accelerated the demise of the legacy media, stimulating a massive alternative media subculture. He has demonstrated that the anything-is-possible narrative in American politics is not merely a nice thing to say to children, but a bright, inspiring reality; that anyone, provided they are straightforward enough, consistent enough and brave enough, can break the corporate-media alliance. 

Whether Trump loses or not, his legacy is destined to be a great one. The energies he has released will not soon be re-imprisoned in taboo. 

***

What will happen if the polls are correct this time? Various journalists foresee a violent showdown between far-right and far-left elements, similar to what has been witnessed on-and-off since the death of George Floyd earlier this year, only more intense and widespread.

This isn’t impossible. After so much divisive poison from the media, nothing, even a full-blown civil war, can be entirely ruled out. 

The QAnon believers, together with allied Facebook radicals, are disturbingly confident of their eschatology. Confident enough to perceive an electoral disappointment as sufficient cause for an apocalypse? Maybe. 

And even those not intoxicated by schizoid theories are vulnerable to being seduced by the drama of it all. Trump, they know, is a once in a lifetime phenomenon. When he goes, whatever should happen to his ideas, he goes for good. There will not soon be another president so friendly toward the working classes, so unpretentiously in love with his country, or as bold and entertaining in his style. A Trump loss will bring forth angry tears. The president enjoys not just political support in white working class America, but great personal affection.

Of course, if the result goes against the predictions of the polls, there is an equal danger of violence from the Left; militant ‘anti-racists’, BLM and simple nihilistic window-breakers have acquired much useful experience in recent months; hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of young people may be willing to fight – in a true sense – the prospect of four more years under the orange demon.

In closing, though I would love to play prophet, this swirling, haunting prelude to something offers only cryptic clues and contradictory messages. America requires revolutionary change. It will soon get it, from the state or from the people.

David

Some Thoughts on Donald Trump

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America, Ann Coulter, Defend the modern world, Donald Trump, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Twitter, United States, us election

Donald Trump lies. A lot. Media commentators complain about this, not because they’re corrupt, though they are that, but because he lies. A lot. I didn’t think hard enough about this when I wrote in support of his candidacy in 2016, or at least not hard enough about how much it might annoy me.

Truth is the most important concept in human thought, in life itself. Without it fixed securely in view, we are ever heading in the wrong direction. I hate dishonesty more than any political figure or doctrine; and so to advise the reader to vote for Trump again would need to be justified differently.

Most of Trump’s lies are entirely unnecessary. He has a fanatically devoted base, as well as a functioning cult of personality. He has no need to lie. He knows what his base want, and he wants it too. The feelings of the opposition should be of secondary importance.

But that isn’t the way Trump works. Those who warned previously of his narcissism and insecurity were not exaggerating. He wants praise from everyone. He would like as much to be regarded as a great feminist as a great conservative. The ‘great’ part is all that matters. As the exasperated Trump advocate Ann Coulter pointed out recently, “It’s all about him.”

Lying as a public figure makes it difficult for friend and foe alike. To speak in defence of a Trump pronouncement too often proves a wasted effort. As soon as you have finished agreeing with him, he retracts the point, or even denies saying it at all. There is comedy in this. And it’s not always funny.

Trump ultra-loyalists, who find nothing degrading in tidying up his babble into coherence it doesn’t merit, embarrass themselves rather too much. When there is no Trump regime to speak of, or to defend, their reputations will be in tatters – and quite rightly.

So what to do with the ‘mad king’ who nonetheless faces the right way on most of the vital issues facing a great country? I am not American, so this is not my responsibility, but I feel compelled to say what I think I would do.

A few points:

I do not believe any resident of Honduras has a God-given right to American hospitality. Immigration law should be enforced. A wall would help, but doesn’t seem likely to come.

America has too many problems within its borders to go on military adventures without good reason.

Europe, which is my responsibility, can ultimately benefit from Trump’s isolationism. It is high time European powers set about building a military force capable of defending our beautiful continent. We cannot rely – and should never have relied – on American military charity. While we should be as friendly as possible with our natural ally, we must be our own guarantor.

Kamala Harris, who is obviously more dynamic than her senior running mate, is the personification of money politics. She offers a return to a corrupt norm, never desirable in the first place.

Finally, though Trump’s lies are infuriating and demonstrate a real lack of respect for his supporters, old media forces are ultimately more damaging to truth than he is.

Only Trump’s most intoxicated supporters believe he tells the truth all the time. But the slippery and clever deceptions of the mainstream press are held as credible by the majority of educated people. They do not lie outright, as Trump does, but they do evade certain topics, keep attention off uncomfortable but important realities, de-platform dissident men, and drive at untruth, even if not all the way.

In conclusion, Trump may well be the best option on the ballot this time around, but that should depress, not enliven. I look forward to a time when someone more professional and straightforward promises the same renewal.

David

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

 

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

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

Beck Vs. Trump – The Death of Abstract Patriotism

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As you may have heard, conservative commentators Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity aren’t getting along with each other at the moment. Over the past few days, the two men have used their respective soapboxes to trade well-mannered – but cutting – pot-shots, all the more surprising for the fact the two were once close personal and ideological friends.

At the root of this newfound animosity lies the 2016 election and specifically the nomination and candidacy of Donald J. Trump,

Hannity, an employee of the Fox News Network, has thrown his lot behind Donald Trump’s presidential bid with great enthusiasm, becoming over time the most reliably pro-Trump voice on the mainstream media.

Glenn Beck, a former employee of the Fox News Network, has, by stark contrast, reacted to Trump’s nomination with damp-eyed despair and tremulous unease. On his popular ‘Blaze’ media network, Beck has repeatedly refused to endorse the businessman (despite considerable pressure from his subscribers) and argued passionately and consistently that Trump represents a grave threat to American stability and democracy, perhaps even greater than that posed by Hillary Clinton herself.

Glenn Beck’s Blaze network has been one of the few conservative broadcasters to oppose Trump following his nomination

This disagreement between Beck and Hannity (and by extension between Beck and Trump) represents in microcosm a much larger philosophical cleavage in the American conservative movement.

As must be clear to even the most casual political observer, Donald Trump is not a ‘conservative’ of the traditional American style – or at least not of the modern American style. True, he supports a strong military and emphasises patriotism and law and order, but he also opposes (or treats with suspicion) the growth of economic globalism and the concept and ideology of American foreign policy. True, he celebrates the record of past Republican greats like Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln, but he also trashes the record of recent Republican leaders like George W. Bush.

Trump is not a tribal Republican, or a tribal conservative. With his notion of ‘America First’, he is a self-conscious throwback to the old, pre-World War 2 American right-wing; the school of thought which argued that America is, for all its greatness, a country like any other country; that America is exceptional, but not so exceptional that it is duty-bound to make itself representative of the variety of the world.

Trump is also a much less religiously-minded candidate than recent conservative leaders. Though professedly a Christian, he does not make frequent references to his faith and nor does he frame his policies with religious language or support them with religious explanation.

Most importantly of all, Trump would appear to agree with the Old Right idea that America has an original and organic culture, distinct from and superior to those of other Western countries, which must be protected from the transformative effects of mass immigration.

Pro-Trump posters often feature Old-Right or ‘nativist’ language.

Glenn Beck represents a very different breed of reactionary, as opposed to Trump’s way of thinking as can be imagined. A self-described constitutionalist and religious fundamentalist, Beck elevates only the most abstract and intangible aspects of America, prioritising concepts like faith, freedom and flag over real-world issues like demographics, economics and jobs. Beck adheres to and celebrates a philosophical-spiritual conception of America, while Trump bases his patriotism more-or-less in reality.

The United States has always been in some ways an experiment. Numerous eminent figures, from Thomas Paine and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Ronald Reagan and Christopher Hitchens, have discussed America as a concept and ideology as well as a flesh and blood nation. This is quite unique, globally considered. Nobody discusses (seriously at least) the idea of Austria, the concept of Algeria, or the meaning of Burkina Faso. America is different. It can be (and often is) thrown into the abstract.

America is ‘freedom’. America is an ‘experiment in self-government by the people’. America is the ‘material form of the constitution – and thus of the enlightenment which produced it’. And so on. These lofty philosophical conceptions of America have dominated its politics for centuries.

As an article on the right-wing website RedState put it: “The United States is a unique animal. Not only is it a country, but it’s also an idea. People around the world don’t just dream of coming to America, they dream of becoming Americans. Many have and continue to risk their lives to do so. It’s one thing to risk your life escaping the Soviet Union, Communist China or even Communist Cuba. Those people were or are running from something, trying to go anywhere else. It’s another thing altogether to risk one’s life to come to a place… And that place is more often than not, America…America is somewhat unique in the history of mankind – or at least in the last 2,000 years. People may dream of moving to Paris for the romance and the food, but they don’t dream of becoming a Frenchman… One almost has to go back to the Roman Empire to find something similar to the idea of America. There, outsiders not only dreamed of living in Rome, they also dreamed of becoming Roman… and could do so. The idea of becoming a Roman citizen actually meant something beyond just living in the Empire or being subject to its laws.”

The United States Constitution

Trump represents, perhaps more than anything else, a dramatic deviation from this way of thinking.

Trump sharpens America, with everything he says, into something tangible and worldly. He considers America with reference to how it has been and can be, as opposed to how it might be on some ethereal, philosophical plane of thought. He is a realist – and like all realists he is inevitably accused by his opponents of being ‘crude’ and ‘simplistic’. America, for Trump, is not an academic thesis. It is a community of living, breathing human beings. Those who (like this blogger) possess a degree in politics and economics dislike this idea precisely because it isn’t something you need a degree in politics and economics to understand.

As the reader will recall, during the primary contest for the Republican nomination, Trump’s only real rival was Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a man who had been, prior to Trump’s lightning ascendency, the favoured choice of the party’s grassroots. Cruz represents, even more than Beck, a patriot of America at its most intangible. His political rallies during the primary season were hardly political rallies at all. They were more like Baptist conventions or prayer meetings. Cruz talked about salvation and virtue more than he talked about tax and immigration. He referenced the aspirations of the constitution more than he referenced the aspirations of the voters themselves. He spoke almost exclusively about America as idea. And the voters were fine with that, but only until Trump offered something more down-to-earth.

Texas senator Ted Cruz speaking at a political rally in 2015

The US constitution that Cruz and Beck so adore is a fine set of principles. Let there be no confusion about that. It is not, however, a piece of holy script which should, in every case, over-rule the lessons of empirical reality. It is also unhealthy (and rather sinister) to experience or suggest an emotional response to it. Glenn Beck has been known to cry when talking of the constitution. He has spoken favourably of writers like W. Cleo Skousen, a Mormon fundamentalist who implied in his bestselling work ‘The 5000 Year Leap’ that the constitution was a perfect, divinely authored document, almost as infallible as the Bible itself. This is fanatical thinking. It is madness. And it is no wonder in this sense that Beck backed Cruz, with all his lip-trembling devotion to America as sentiment, as philosophy, as spiritual idea.

Trump, like Samuel Huntingdon before him, understands that America is not an abstraction, unresponsive to changes in worldly reality, but a material something, as vulnerable to worldly forces as any other material something. Unlike the idea of America, the reality of America will not necessarily be the same thing if the people are replaced over time by mass immigration. As Herder proposed, a nation’s culture is the product of its people, not the other way around. The changing situation on the ground in America matters immensely as to what is to become of America.

Slowly but surely, and despite a long tradition of supposing otherwise, Americans are coming to regard their country as something real, substantial, mortal and delicate. Even if Trump goes on to lose in November, that genie will not easily be forced back into the bottle.

D, LDN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump rally in Orlando, Florida.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The UAE is friendly with the Clinton campaign.

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

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

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

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

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

D, LDN