D-Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

D, LDN

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

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Turkey: The Islamic Superpower.

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Should they desire it, the modern Turkish army could storm Europe up to the borders of Paris. None of the countries separating France from Erdogan’s Islamic republic are capable of opposing the Turkish military even if they acted in concert. In both quality of arms and manpower, the Turks are superior. Hard to believe? Let’s look at some statistics:

The Turkish armed forces have at their command over 800,000 troops. The army is equipped with over 10,000 tanks and APCs. The air force flies over 400 warplanes (mainly upgraded F-15/16s) and 450 modern combat helicopters. The Turkish navy has over 168 war vessels. As part of NATO, the Turkish air force also administers 200 ‘shared’ US nuclear missiles.

Compared to the militaries of the UK or Germany, Turkey is a superpower.

Turkish strength matters for two reasons; first, its neighbourly position to Europe. Second, because any deportation or change in the status of Muslims in Europe will inevitably tread upon Turkish toes.

A clear majority of Germany’s Muslims are of Turkish descent. Unlike the Algerians of France, these migrants are therefore backed and supported by a near-by state with a modern military. Germany’s own military is nowhere near as large. For an equivalent situation, imagine if Pakistan was in the same geographical position as the Czech republic and had a military larger and more powerful than the UK. Could Britain afford to address the Pakistani situation in its own territory without taking into account the strength and nearness of the Pakistani state? Of course not.

Turks are loudly offended by even the slightest gesture of support for the Kurds and Armenians and have successfully bullied Germany on both of these issues. Imagine how much more virulent and threatening its anger would be in the case of explicitly anti-Turkish measures by the German state…

Alongside its military prowess, the Islamic superpower has a very dynamic economy. Unlike the struggling nations of Europe, the Turkish economy has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Unemployment, once a massive domestic problem, is now dwindling to a manageable intensity.

On the back of this growth, the movie industry in Turkey is also beginning to flourish and has led to some calling the country the ‘Hollywood of the Islamic world’. Sophisticated blockbusters are being produced which depict America, Israel and the Jews as evil and the Palestinians and Muslims as saintly victims.

Ever since the flotilla raid in which Turkish Islamists were killed by IDF commandos, Israel and Turkey, once in (awkward) alliance with one and other, have been in a state of cold hostility. While it seems next to impossible that the two countries will ever exchange direct blows, Israel has reason to feel nervous over the Turkey’s switch to pro-Palestinian advocacy in international diplomacy.

What should the West do about Turkey? Well, for one, I suggest the country is removed from NATO at the first opportunity. The cold war is dead now and the logic of the alliance died with it. While the West is kind and generous to Ankara, we rarely see kindness flowing the other way. When ISIS besieged the Kurdish town of Kobane, the inaction of the Turkish military (stationed only a few miles to the North) was chilling to the blood. Turkey also continues to occupy Northern Cyprus in contravention of international law and against Western demands for negotiations.

If we need to have an alliance in Asia Minor, I suggest we switch our focus to Turkey’s greatest historic victim – Armenia; the first Christian majority country in history and a genuine oasis of Western civilisation in a swelling sea of Islamic hatred.

D, LDN.