There is an unintentionally insightful article on Unherd by Will Lloyd called Meet Britain’s radical New Right, written from a predictably wet Tory perspective. We are told conservatives with what are fairly conventional conservative views are radical, and moreover new. And that tells us much about orthodox high status opinion in the UK.
I should have stopped reading at “Brexit has failed”.
For most voters, Brexit was about sovereignty according to Ashcroft exit poll, meaning Westminster has nowhere to hide. So, pace Will Lloyd & Nigel Farage alike, we at least got that, mission accomplished. Brexit wasn’t what you thought it was and it still isn’t. What comes next is not ‘Brexit’, it’s just politics; there is no undoing Brexit this side of perpetual civil war.
Much as the author sneers at the Right (whatever that means when not talking about France circa 1790), Jeremy Hunt’s “Conservative” Party is not small-c conservative in any shape, way, or form. The Tories have driven a stake through their own heart, ending any pretence of being a ‘broad church’, because if they were, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng would still be in Downing Street in spite of straying from the Blue Blairite orthodoxy. Hell, they were defenestrated in no small part for trying to put the top rate of tax back to where it was for 12 years under the last Labour government. That’s radical apparently.
If you want less tax; even slightly less state control of anything at all; no taking the knee; no eco-pandering to the Net Zero cult; an energy policy that allows fracking and expanding North Sea production rather than one that could have been written by Vladimir Putin; no talk of ‘reparations’ (climate or otherwise), why would anyone who wants those things vote Tory? No reason, and they won’t.
The party membership voted for Truss but they got Sunak anyway. Okay, message received, everyone now knows what the party nomenklatura & apparatchiks think of the rank-and-file party membership. The members might as well have voted for Larry the Cat as party leader for all the difference it made, at least he’s still in Downing Street.
Voting Tory in last general election was essential when the alternative was Corbyn, the most odious mainstream politician since Oswald Mosley (for some of the same reasons). But Keir Starmer is just another dreary Blairite, he’s Jeremy Hunt without the unfortunate China connections. Then the choice is vote for Blue Blairites who likes high taxes and ruinous green policies, or Red Blairites who likes high taxes, ruinous green policies, and don’t know what a woman is. On the plus side, Labour have Diane Abbott, who can take over Boris’ role providing comic relief.
So, I will be voting Reform UK, because at this point, I couldn’t care less which flavour of technocratic Blairite is in Downing Street. Jeremy Hunt and his ilk can get stuffed. Sure, Labour will get in and it won’t be pretty unless ginger growlers are your thing. But perhaps, just perhaps, utterly burning the Tories to the ground might let something better emerge from the ashes.
Will Lloyd no doubt thinks that’s crazy talk, given that without any detectable irony he wrote of this ‘radical new right’:
“Do not expect them to sculpt a future of fair dealing, pragmatism, patience, moderation or high intelligence”
Imagine thinking the soaking wet dunderheads running the Tory Party as of late 2022 represent even a single one of those presumed virtues. It’s not called the Stupid Party for nothing.
We do not have a political system where a person is clearly “in charge” and cannot be easily removed BEFORE the next election.
For example, the Governor of Florida set himself the task of breaking Democrat election fraud – he made their tactics (such as mail-in ballots without clear proof that they come from actual voters) illegal and set up an election police force to make the laws (against “ballot harvesting” and so on) have teeth – to actually enforce the laws. (By the way – all this would have been nice in Arizona, where the “voting machines” did not even work “you should have voted early” – there were HOURS of this, many people went home in despair).
This would be impossible in the United Kingdom – a local council leaser, or a Prime Minister, who set themselves a clear task that went AGAINST what the establishment hold to be policy, that person would be removed.
I am not saying that the Conservative Party government (which is neither fiscally Conservative nor socially Conservative – full disclosure, I am both) could not do better – since Margaret Thatcher was betrayed in 1990 it has all been horrible, very horrible indeed (the last 32 years have been a sort of Hell-on-Earth of decline – where some of us go to bed each night hoping to not be alive the next morning), but the institutional framework makes it all very difficult.
At local level – and at national level.
After all the first Prime Minister to sign one of these “legally nonbinding” agreements (which end up determining policy) was John Major – back in either 1991 or 1992 (Agenda 21).
As an outsider, I’ve never observed the least little thing “conservative” about the Conservative Party. Or, for that matter, anything at all “liberal” about the Liberals.
Given that the UK isn’t as locked-in with the two-party system, I’d strongly suggest to anyone residing in the UK to start their own party and drive the others into the ground. They haven’t been acting in the interests of Britain for a long, long time, probably back to around the end of WWII.
Not quite sure whose interests they have been acting in, other than their own personal ones, now that I think about it.
As for the independence of the United Kingdom – when the word “Brexit” was used rather than “independence” my heart sank, but I campaigned for it anyway (as so many people did).
Now it turns out that “Brexit” never meant independence – we will follow international regulation and tax policy, because it is Policy (capital P.).
We do not even control the borders of the nation – and that is not an accident (not just a matter of innocent incompetence), it is deliberate following the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Refugee Conventions.
I always used to give money to RNLI (voluntary rescue of those in peril on the sea) – but now they are glorified taxi service for illegals, vicious gang members.
Have people seen the latest Royal National Lifeboat Institution television advertisement?
The brave woman goes off to save people – whilst the man stands in the street, filled with emotional concern for his brave partner.
Yes, the RNLI are that “Woke” now.
Take off and nuke them from orbit – it is the only way to be sure.
Every institution is corrupted – government and private.
I was encouraged in the article that the young attendees appeared to have given Hannan and Baker hell, and don’t have much time for their boilerplate liberalism from 3-4 decades ago.
Kirk – a Conservative, someone who upholds the tradition of natural law (natural justice), and a liberal (someone concerned with individual liberty – individual) are really the same thing.
Was Edmund Burke a conservative or a liberal? He was BOTH – that is what an Old Whig (such as Chief Justice Sir John Holt) is.
“Paul, are you saying that John Major, Mrs May, Mr Johson and Rishi Sunak are Conservatives – Old Whigs, Classical Liberals?”.
No, I am not saying that. I agree with Kirk that these people are not Conservatives – no more than the leaders of the Liberal party are Classical Liberals.
The failure goes back a long way – Disraeli had nothing but hatred and contempt for real Conservatives such as Lord Liverpool.
As for Gladstone – the last great Liberal Prime Minister, even his close friend and biographer John Morley had to admit that Gladstone was a failure in the tasks he set himself.
For example, the central aim of Gladstone was the end of Income Tax (Lord Liverpool had got rid of it – but it came back under Peel in the 1840s – a temporary measure that never went away), but Gladstone was betrayed.
This is the study of history – real history, not the rubbish the education system pushes.
In the study of history one starts off with rage at the failures, but then (when one understands how people were betrayed) the anger sometimes turns to understanding, and to grief.
As Winston Churchill said (to the bafflement of his recent biographer Andrew Roberts – who appears not to have noticed the decline of the United Kingdom, not just in external power but also in internal liberty) “I have achieved many things in my life, only, in the end, to achieve nothing at all”.
If one looks at the decline of this nation, indeed of the world, between the 1874 and 1965 one can understand exactly what Churchill meant – yes (a thousand times yes) it could have been far worse, but it was still a bitter decline.
A decline of liberty that has continued in this land.
Perhaps, and this is a controversial point, it would have been better if Winston Churchill had listened to his friend John Morley long before he did – it was, in truth, only after John Morley was long dead that Churchill fully understood the wisdom of his teafching.
“Social Reform”, the increase in the size and scope of government, does not make things better than they otherwise would be – it makes things worse than they otherwise would be.
John Morley had come to that understanding even before 1914 – but as F.A. Hayek once asked “who now remembers John Morley?”
A certain Alfred Roberts (a Classical Liberal and a Conservative – for they are the same thing) of Grantham Lincolnshire remembered John Morley.
Alfred Roberts had a daughter – her name was Margaret.
“Trembling in his tweed blazer”.
Only a patronising swine would write like that – and it is not a line taken out of context, the whole article is one long sneer.
The writer never even considers the possibility that, for example, digital currency is social control – it is just (to him) silly “right wing” paranoia. In reality Steve Baker has the same concerns – at least he used to.
As for black sections – why not white sections? Either racism is wrong, or it is not wrong – and if it is not wrong, then whites will do the same thing.
I remember when Steve Baker (a good man) started to say nice things about Marxist BLM (the “take the knee” enemies of the West) and “the Squad” – I hoped, and I still hope, that he just lacked the information about what these groups were really about. I tried to get that information to his attention – but I failed.
Martin – do not fall into the trap.
The basic principles of liberty are as true now as they were “three or four decades” ago – or, indeed, thousands of years ago.
For example, debasement and price controls were wrong (morally wrong – as well as economically wrong) when the Romans did these things – as they are now.
Do not let people such as the “Unheard” writer divide us.
Why would he lack such information? Was his head in the sand for the past 2 and a half years?
Yes, I read that article earlier today and thought similar things.
Voting Reform is likely to elect the Labour party. Difference this time is; I don’t care. You only need to vote for your convictions over two electoral cycles to completely reshape the political landscape and hopefully that is what will happen.
The kind of party that could really have an impact is an economically left of centre party, but ‘right wing’ on Brexit, immigration and social issues. That’s the kind of party that has been successful in Europe, and would be successful here too. Reform (and Tice) is too genteel.
Baker’s a nice guy. That’s his problem. Yes, you could kneel at a football match to demonstrate that you reject police violence against black men, but the problem is that it is not interpreted that way by our enemies. At best you’ll give them some endorphin hits; at worst they’ll sense subservience. I doubt very much his views on central bank digital currencies has changed. What I am most disappointed in is his pro-vaccine stance, even though he’s been very strong on lockdowns and vaccine mandates. In our circles, having a photo on your twitter feed of yourself in a mask getting your flu vaccine isn’t a good look.
Farage was a bit of a boomer on lockdown and vaccines earlier on, but he has sensed quickly how the wind has blown and changed his tune. Unlike Trump, I might add.
Martin – politicians (even politicians with libertarian beliefs – once they are elected) tend to get their information from the mainstream media and official documents and conferences – and thus are fed a wildly false picture of the world.
I am not happy about that – but it is very hard to break through the “bubble”.
It really is the case that you, Martin, know lots of things about the world that nearly all Members of Parliament do not know – because they live in “the bubble” and you do not.
Even at the local level (my level) there are endless official documents, conferences and “training events” on such subjects as Diversity and Inclusion and the Climate Crises, and many other matters. It sucks up time and fills the head with misleading “information”, and by “sucks up time” I mean nearly all the time (other than sleeping) of a really hard-working politician – such as Steve Baker. And he is very hard working, that is one of the problems – no I am NOT being sarcastic.
It is a bit like being Michael Caine’s character in the film “The “Ipcress File”.
If you are familiar with the film – you will know what section of the film I mean.
If not – perhaps Perry, if he can, will give a link to the “brainwashing” section of the film.
*Editor* Sure thing Paul.
If i had time i would write a book called: The Extremism of Political Center.
Will Lloyd and the “Conservative” Party of the “centre” :
– Defends Net Zero
— radical change of industry: Radical means extreme. An example of Extremism of Political “Center”
— radical change in energy production. An example of Extremism of Political “Center”
— radical change in food production that will probably mean famines. An example of Extremism of Political “Center”
– Defends no borders. So basically destroying UK. Another Example of Extremism of Political “Center”.
– End of physical money. Another example of Extremism of Political “Center”
– Record level of debts in Peace in XX and XXI century. Another Example of Extremism of Political “Center”. Record as in maximum means extreme by its definition.
The above may all be true. But it was pretty obvious BLM were a sinister movement. This was hardly some niche issue barely covered in the media. Even the MSM couldn’t conceal the cities burning and the anarchy being unleashed, and they can’t conceal the crime wave unleashed as a consequence. To not notice and object to these these things, is evidence of either stupidity, cowardice (terror of being called nasty names by left-liberals) or ideological conformity with BLM. I don’t think Steve Baker is stupid so….
Perhaps, but the requirements to achieve anything resembling liberty are so much more different to 30-40 years ago. I have tried but failed to find what Hannan and Baker said to these students in full, but if the article is essentially correct and they were saying they need to be nice and concentrate on tax cuts and globalisation, these guys just don’t get it.
It’s true Baker seems like a nice guy. The thing is right now I’d prefer some ‘nasty’ right-wingers who know how to be merciless to the left over nice guys who are too concerned about being liberal and respectable. Give me someone like Viktor Orban or Ron DeSantis over them please….
To not notice and object to these these things, is evidence of either stupidity, cowardice (terror of being called nasty names by left-liberals) or ideological conformity
Three successive days of chaos on the M25 does not feature on the bbc news front page, being less important than a 3rd rate politico making a fool of himself in the jungle or a student throwing an egg in the general direction of a monarch.
It doesn’t feature on the next level UK page either unlike the story about a couple delaying having a second child due to concerns about the mortgage rate (rather sensible if you ask me although the article comes to a different conclusion).
It finally features, albeit indirectly, on the 3rd level England page but only in the form of an outraged reporterette who was arrested for being on an M25 road bridge and unwilling to divulge how she knew that was exactly the time and place to be.
These are two very different people, indeed I can’t actually see any similarity at all other than a woke-aversion. I like DeSantis but Orban can go fuck himself.
Thank you, Perry.
To Martin and the others – you are asking can politicians really be so out of touch?
Yes, they can – and the politicians who are the hardest working, who read all the official documents, who go to all the official conferences, who take part in all the training sessions, are often the worst informed – the most out of touch.
And it is also a matter of not being able to make policy anyway.
“Policy” appears as something from outside – not always, but very often on important matters.
And someone who kicks up a real stink about that “No, ELECTED people must make policy – I do not care what the various agreements say” is likely to find themselves out of office.
Remember in our system a council leader or a Prime Minister can be removed (ask Liz Truss about that) – we do not have fixed terms, and politicians are not clearly “in charge” able to hire and fire Civil Servants and judges.
Remember what the European Union is trying to do to Prime minister Orban in Hungary (and tried to do to the Polish government – and will try again).
To the international establishment (and their media – such as the Economist magazine) the “rule of law” is the rule of a certain point of view (their point of view) – and if an elected politician tries to change that (tries to make the law what the people voted for) then that politician needs to change their ways or be removed.
Is someone like Steve Baker a coward, do they secretly fear being removed from Parliament if they do not follow the line?
In the end the only honest answer is “I do not know” – I cannot see into his soul.
I myself am no hero – when certain topics are discussed in the council of which I am a member I stay silent. I do this because I would be punished for voicing dissent – on “Diversity and Inclusion” or “Climate Emergency” or many other matters. After all many of these things are now legal obligations – a council cannot just vote not to do them (what starts off as “legally nonbinding” does not stay that way) and to publicly voice dissent could easily be construed as “bringing the authority into disrepute”. To mitigate a policy in any way (to try and make it less extreme) depends on being a member of the council – and someone who openly voiced dissent on such important matters would not remain a member of the council, there are ways to remove people, or just to make their lives so unbearable that they will resign – again ask Liz Truss.
I am (privately) complemented by some politicians for my bravery in staying silent – in not voicing support for “Policy”, but from the point of view of an ordinary person (not “in the trade”) my silence is not courage – it is cowardice.
I might pat myself on the back for making this or that policy less extreme – but for people who do not want all this “Policy” at all, I am just a horrible nonentity.
“Good news Mr Smith! You are not going to be tortured to death, over several days, for opposing the Equity agenda – you are just going to be beheaded”.
“Thanks a bunch Mr Marks – I knew I could count on you”.
[…] Mr De Havilland said: […]
Paul:
The man is an utter swine. You cannot have a tweed blazer. You can have a tweed jacket, or a blazer, they are different garments, one cannot be both.
Clearly, his thinking is on a par with the new senator from Pennsylvania.
Viktor Orban became Prime Minister of Hungary just less than 3 weeks after David Cameron became UK PM. Admittedly Hungary and the UK are very different societies but it is curious to compare what Fidesz have achieved with their 12 years in power compared to what the UK conservatives have in the same period. Many UK right-wingers complain about civil servants, the judiciary, the press etc subverted Tory politicians such as Liz Truss. In Hungary, Orban subverted the civil service, judiciary, press, NGOs, etc. He fired civil servants en masse and replaced them with Fidesz supporters. He retired old judges and put in Fidesz friendly ones. While Tory governments don’t cease giving advertising money to the Guardian and other hostile outlets, Orban cut off government advertising money to hostile media. I think he realised that unless you have ‘your’ people running things you’ll get dragged down by the ‘deep state’ or ‘blob’ or whatever you prefer to call them. He seems to get that politics is fundamentally about friend/enemy distinctions. You reward your friends, crush your enemies. So Fidesz have been able to combat cultural radicalism a lot better than many supposedly ‘nicer’ ‘conservative’ parties have done. I was well impressed that Fidesz have become so dominant that the EU/USA backed opposition liberals and socialists were forced to ally with neo-Nazis and Communists to try to uproot Orban at the recent elections and they failed even worse than they had at previous elections. Meanwhile, the UK Tories are polling at levels that make John Major look good.
As I said, the UK and Hungary are very different societies. But it is food for thought. There can be a successful counter-revolution.
I think I commented here a few weeks ago about the revolution that took place in the British Conservative movement during the ’90s. The Wets are “the radical new right”. They took over the party, shoving aside the largely bottom-upwards arrangements which had served it well since the 1860s, and moulded it into the technocratic centralized operation it is today. It really doesn’t get any more “radical” (from, as any fule kno, the Latin for “root”) than that: they severed the Tory party from its roots, the Associations, substituting themselves.
I believe there may still be a point in voting for this new party (est. 2001) here in Scotland, as opposition to the SNP, but it’s now abundantly clear that it serves no conservative purpose in Westminster. Quite the opposite.
Sam Duncan – it is complicated, if we ever meet physically (very unlikely that we will meet in this world – but we may meet in the next) we will have a long talk about it.
Martin – do I support the Prime Minister of Hungary? Not on everything, for example he had a Covid lockdown (a terrible error) – but on most things YES. “Paul you will be punished for saying that” – most likely I will be punished, but even I get tired of being a snivelling coward sometimes.
JohnK.
You are quite correct – the writer is clearly no Gentleman.
You have also managed to cheer me up – which I thought was impossible at this point.
Thank you JohnK.
Martin writes: I was encouraged in the article that the young attendees appeared to have given Hannan and Baker hell, and don’t have much time for their boilerplate liberalism from 3-4 decades ago.
I know Baker a bit and have met Daniel Hannan a few times. They are small-government conservatives – what you would call “boilerplate” I suppose in supporting things such as free enterprise, limited government, hostility to the Nanny State (eg, endless lockdowns, the cult of the NHS, Net Zero etc). They both supported UK independence from the EU for reasons of sovereignty, democratic accountability, and this stems from their old-fashioned liberalism. It was, after all, a “boilerplate” old-fashioned liberal like Mrs Thatcher who fell out of love with the EEC (as it then was) because of her anger at the socialistic, statist direction the EEC was taking.
The more aggressive “blood and soil” approach of an Orban that approach isn’t working out in many places. In the US, all the various Republican candidates who went along with Donald Trump’s unhinged obsessions about stolen elections and the like did badly, while those who know how to run a state (DeSantis, Kemp, etc) won handily. Given the background of inflation, a Leftwing Democrat Party and a demented POTUS, the Republicans should have won easily overall.
Maybe those politicians on the centre-right who spout “boilerplate” liberalism should be listened to a bit more than they have been.
Well, a bunch of supposed ‘blood and soil’ nationalists just won elections in Italy.And Orban’s party back in April won 52% of the vote, after 12 years in power. Meanwhile, Hannan and Baker backed the liberal Liz Truss for PM, and well….how’s that working for them?
As for DeSantis and Kemp, the way they have battled DC over illegal immigration seems to me pretty similar to Orban battles the EU over mass immigration. And Desantis’ hostility to LGBTQ+ ideology and his willingness to smack multinationals like Disney about seems a lot more in line with an Orban like populism than liberalism. Perhaps if Desantis wins a presidential race on a ticket promising a free trade deal with China, open borders, and abolishing capital gains tax I’ll concede that maybe liberalism has more of a future for the right than nationalism.
Truss won the rank-and-file membership vote, unfortunately she didn’t actually control the party apparatchiks so it hardly mattered, so you are comparing Orban & Meloni with an internal party putsch.
What people here don’t undertsand is the importance of Media and its journalists supporting small level political violence from left as a way to shift Democracy.
That is based on the assumption that American food does not cause brain damage.
I question that assumption.
But yeah, right now i believe that Trump should not run again. I am ready to reconsider if faced with cogent arguments, but right now i believe that he shouldn’t.
That does not mean that i have changed my mind about intolerable levels of fraud in the 2020 election — or in fact in every American election.
Nor have i changed my mind about Jan.6 2021 being most likely a false-flag operation.
Trump would be my first choice for President of the US.
He would NOT be my first choice as a candidate for that office. Too much baggage. I think much of the Trump-hate is irrational, but it’s there and will make him unelectable.
Snorri Godhi (November 10, 2022 at 11:36 pm) and bobby b (bobby b, November 11, 2022 at 12:03 am), there were the pre-vote polls, indicating what issues were most important to the electorate and which were much less important, and there was the vote, suggesting those polls were wrong or misleading.
My usual experience of actual votes is they reveal what were called ‘shy tories’ over here – a very natural result of a culture demanding they be quiet. So, as regards the latest US vote, either I was non-trivially misreading/misunderstanding those polls of what did/didn’t matter to voters (very possible of course), or – to draw fully the conclusions you two do – I’d have to assume this latest vote revealed ‘shy never-trumpers’.
I don’t want wholly to dismiss that out-of-hand, but my problem with it is that ‘never-trumpers’ seem anything but shy to me, and most pollsters anything by reluctant to find them – though not quite all: a month ago, one pollster put up their preemptive explanation for any discrepancies:
Fraser Orr was too honest to avail himself of his unsolicited ability to vote four times, but as well as not being shy, another thing there is evidence of about the woke is that some do avail – and enough to matter do solicit.
These speculations alone are not precisely arguments against Snorri and bobby b’s conclusion (and of course, at the risk of taking bobby b over-literally or out-of-context, I could find other grounds for debating whether “Trump would be my first choice for President of the US.” 🙂 ). But I’m for drawing conclusions more cautiously over a slightly longer timescale after I (and I very much hope others) have done a bit more research. To end by quoting myself:
(Getting more back on-topic 🙂 ),
Arguably, the Media’s support of and participation in the (anything but low-level) lying and cheating from the left is more important. Indeed, one of the points of the low-level violence is to discourage people from seeking to speak out about, or even just know more about, the lying and cheating, for fear it might prove inconvenient.
However I think people who choose to come here are well aware of that. People who visit this blog choose to access other sources of information as well as the unevadable narrative – sources they know are not that hard to find. What we may find harder is understanding the mindset of two groups of people: those who choose not to know outside the narrative, and those the narrative successfully keeps less aware that they could.
Well, a bunch of supposed ‘blood and soil’ nationalists just won elections in Italy
The Italian PM does not seem to fit that bill. Some of her Italian coalition allies, such as that old crook, Berlusconi, hold some horrible views, but that is not a new feature. Italy has been going down bad routes for a long time. The Italian coalitions could and usually do fracture fairly quickly. So we shall see.
As for DeSantis and Kemp, the way they have battled DC over illegal immigration seems to me pretty similar to Orban battles the EU over mass immigration.
That’s not quite right. DeSantis and others are battling illegal immigration, not movement per se (how could DeSantis, given his heritage, do that?). Legality and respect for the rule of law, is a bedrock of this “boilerplate” liberalism of the likes of Hannan and Baker, and for that matter, Liz Truss (who was inept in her strategy, but her broad ideas were fine.)
Victor Orban has a horrible stance on things like media censorship, and as far as I know, DeSantis doesn’t.
I don’t particularly like DeSantis’ strong-arm tactics against corporations such as Disney, however. The problem with “Big State conservatism, or whatever else we might call it, is that it can bite its proponents in the arse when used by opponents to go after very different targets. However, DeSantis seems overall fairly sane and understanding of issues around liberty, such as over lockdowns. His defiance of the hysteria two years ago was brave and right.
By the way, Trump appears to be losing his mind, enraged that his claims of 2020 fraud would somehow be enough to put his toadies into power, when this failed. He is now attacking DeSantis. With Trump (a former registered Democrat, remember) it is all about him. The late P J O’Rourke had his number from the start, and I remember Martin getting rather cross when I pointed that out. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/10/trump-desantis-2022-election-00066416
Re election fraud anyone pinning their hopes on the drawn-out count in Maricopa county is about as deluded as Charlie Brown believing this time he’s finally going to kick the football.
People have been writing about the destruction of the Conservative party for years. Wishful thinking.
Meloni and Orban are close allies. They probably have differences based on the fact that Italian and Hungarian national interests differ and both countries have separate histories and cultures but I think they come from the same part of the political spectrum.
Meloni began her political career in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), which was the post-war successor party of Mussolini’s Fascists. When that was wound down in the mid 90s she went into the successor party to the MSI, the National Alliance, which then merged with Berlusconi’s Party. She and others then broke away from Berlusconi’s party to found Brothers of Italy.
From what I’ve read DeSantis’ ancestors migrated from Italy to the US over 100 years ago. I don’t see why this really needs to determine his current views on immigration. The USA when DeSantis’ ancestors moved to the USA was totally different to what it is now.
According to their own website, Reporters without Borders is funded by the US government (National Endowment for Democracy), the EU, the French government, and numerous multinational corporations. Call me cynical but if Orban was an arselicker for Washington, Brussels, and Wall Street, I’m pretty sure Reporters without Borders would be saying Orban is a hero. These NGOs are not neutral, fair or objective institutions. I have a lot of respect that Orban cares more about his electorate than he does about global elites.
I used to believe that until it become obvious that the left will do whatever it wants anyway. They don’t give a shit about precedent and they don’t give a shit if their opponents show restraint. I also didn’t think corporations would so brazenly support leftism. They do, so I changed my mind. The liberal right, by saying corporations can do what they want as it is their property, provided the rope to hang themselves with. So when banks and payment providers cut off the accounts of right-wingers for political reasons, these people get trolled that they should set up their own bank, their own PayPal etc. Which of course isn’t a realistic option. If corporations are going to behave in this way, they have to be fought back, even if it means violating liberal/libertarian ideology. Otherwise you’re going to be always taking a knife to a gun fight, and always losing.
So what? I never claimed Trump was God, and have always know he has flaws. Were I American though I’d have voted for him in 2016 and 2020. I wouldn’t have voted for Clinton or Biden, like O’Rourke did. Even if Trump isn’t the suitable candidate for 2024, I have no regrets over wishing him well in the past.
People have been writing about the destruction of the Conservative party for years.
The Tory Party is largely about the holding of power, and only occasionally intersects with principles of liberty, good government and so on. From time to time, it is good for that party to be confronted with losing power, and its very existence. Now may be such a time.
And? So was Ronald Reagan.
That is based on the assumption that American food does not cause brain damage.
If you think a large percentage of the US electorate is deficient in its IQ, then worrying about vote fraud seems a bit pointless, if even sentient voters pull the lever for the Donkey Party.
I’d draw your attention to Public Choice theory, Jonathan.
Johnathan:
As i said a long time ago on this forum (and at PJMedia), i take the view that ALL parties are about the holding of power: they are bureaucratic machines designed to win elections.
That is not the real problem in Britain, nor in the US, nor on “the Continent”. The real problem is that, one way or the other, elections have become, not irrelevant, but less relevant. The main problem in the UK, i am inclined to think, is the lack of primary elections.
I definitely do not think that “a large percentage of the US electorate is deficient in its IQ”. That is the advantage of IQ: it might or might not mean something, but at least it is measurable: whether or not it is low in a given country, is not a matter of opinion.
What i do think, is that a large proportion of the American people are increasingly detached from reality. While most people in every country are somewhat detached from reality, this problem is worse in some American sub-cultures because of the excessive consumption of seed oils, sugars (especially HFCS), phyto-estrogens, and marijuana. All things that “progressives” tend to consume more than conservatives.
It’s interesting you bring up marijuana because while it maybe a coincidence the increasing normalisation and legalisation of weed in a large number of US states has happened roughly around the same time that American liberalism went from being bad but relatively sane into outright psychotic lunacy.
In reply to bobby:
Maybe bobby is biased from talking mostly to people in Minneapolis.
I myself do not think that TDS is a reason to seek an alternative to Trump, because that would be simply to replace one derangement syndrome with another. Every Republican candidate/President is literally Hitler until the next candidate comes along.
The advantage of Trump is that he fights back, verbally — unlike Bush, McCain, and Romney, who saw fighting back as beneath their Olympian dignity.
DeSantis also fights back (and Kari Lake?). DeSantis has the advantage, from my point of view, of using more solid arguments and less insults — but that is not necessarily the best way to get votes. I wished that it was, but i don’t know that it is.
OTOH Trump has the advantage of ridiculing his opponents, as they often (but not always) deserve: If your opponents make insane arguments, it is your duty to ridicule them. (If DeSantis does the same, i don’t know about it.)
There is a lot more dissenting media in Hungary than there is in the United States – almost all American newspapers support the Democrats (even one of the exceptions, the Wall Street Journal, is no good once one leaves the editorial pages – the news pages are slanted with the same “School of Journalism” Progressive ideology) and all but one of the American television stations is leftist.
People who complain about media bias, or education system bias, in Hungary may have a point – but only if they accept that the bias, in both the media and the education system, in the United States is vastly worse.
This is also the endless political violence in the United States – known conservatives cannot go out in public without risk of attack. Not just in the cities – sometimes in ordinary towns.
No such atmosphere of political violence exists in Hungary, there may be some acts of violence but not a general atmosphere of violence – a leftist can go out and have a cup of coffee without fear that screaming lunatics will attack them for their beliefs.
And it is the education system of the United States, its domination by people who are Marxists in all but name, that leads to this climate of violent political intimidation.
The American media complain about “January 6th” – but for the American left (who dominate society) every day is January 6th.
Niall hints that the under-performance of the Republicans was due to voting fraud — without committing to this view, which is prudent 🙂
Now, i am pretty sure that there was massive voting fraud: that is my default assumption about US elections. But that does not explain the under-performance in my view, for the simple reason that, usually, there is no under-performance of the Republicans wrt the polls. (Correct me if i am wrong.)
I am particularly intrigued by the case of Pennsylvania. Trump lost it in 2020, but down-ballot candidates did better than expected (which is part of the reason to suspect voting fraud in 2020 at the top of the ballot).
But in 2022, Republicans did worse than expected in Pennsylvania. Is this due to local factors, or is there a larger lesson to be learned about Trump no longer being a king-maker?
And if the latter, what is the lesson?
Martin:
I am not sure about the timeline of normalization+legalization of marijuana in the US. I note that
* Already in the early 1980s, i was shocked by Ivy League students getting stoned together unashamedly.
* Tolerance does not necessarily mean higher consumption: the Netherlands has, or used to have, lower per capita consumption of marijuana than the US, in spite of more tolerance. (And more consumption by German, French, and Belgian tourists.) One should look at stats about actual consumption.
* Consumption of seed oils, HFCS, and phyto-estrogens seems also likely to have increased in the last decades.
Some of the conversation is based on false assumptions – for example the Prime Minister of Italy has a lot in common with Daniel Hannan and Steve Baker, the idea there is some great ideological gulf between them is false.
The problem with Italy is not the elected government – but the fact they have taken over a near bankrupt country dependent on funny money from the European Union. Banker rule (the rule of the last few years in Italy) has been a disaster.
Political parties – well Snorri says I misunderstand his writings, but what he seems to be saying is that they are made up of people who care only about being elected.
That would be a “party” in the sense of a “faction” that the American Founders denounced.
But it is not how Edmund Burke defined a political party – to him, it was a group of people with common principles who wished to put those principles into practice.
Clearly if Snorri and Johnathan Pearce are correct about the Conservative Party then it would be an abomination, a “party” in the sense the American Founders condemned.
That is not why most people join it – most people who join it have principles and wish to see them put into practice.
However, since at least 1990 of putting pro liberty principles into practice has not been good – it has not been good at all.
Whether that is an institutional matter (the structure of British government) or Conservative Prime Ministers since 1990 being no good, is a difficult question.
However, I must (yet again) point out to Perry and others – Elizabeth “Liz” Truss as not removed by something internal to the Conservative Party.
Prime Minister Truss was removed by “the markets” and the media they control – “the markets” being a handful of vast financial entities created and sustained by the Cantillon Effect economy. An economy of Credit Money – which concentrates economic power in a few hands.
To treat modern Britain, or the modern United States, as in any way free market societies is a terrible error.
“The markets” are not free markets, nor are they “distorted” free markets, they are not free markets at all.
It was “The Markets” who destroyed Prime Minister Truss – not because they were worried about a budget deficit (these swine, and they are swine, could not care less about wild-government-spending causing a budget deficit), but because they have an international political agenda – and Prime Minister Truss did not fit that agenda.
It might be more comforting to blame what happened on the Conservative Party – in order to hide from the truth about what “The Markets” really are, but the bitter truth must be faced.
“The Markets”, even the gold market, are a fraud – controlled by corporate players backed by the funny money of the Central Banks.
And they are a fraud with an international cultural and political agenda – a terrible one.
Not sure how much is in it but I did read that for mid-terms working class voters turn out less than they do in presidential years compared to middle and upper class voters. Especially in states like Pennsylvania, the Republican vote appears increasingly reliant on working class voters, while the democrat vote is becoming increasingly bourgeois. This may give dems an advantage in midterms. Oz wasn’t ideal to appeal to working class voters to get them out to vote. Although Trump backed him, outside being a TV celebrity he doesn’t seem a particularly Trumpian style candidate. JD Vance, in another state where the GOP has to get a lot of working class support, was Trump backed and his pitch was sympathetic to working class Ohioans, and it probably doesn’t hurt that while he’s done well for himself he grew up in relative poverty. Vance won easily.
As for the past – in the 19th century, J.S. Mill said that Lord Derby (the leader of the Conservative Party along with Disraeli) was a man of high principle – but that, sadly, the principles of Lord Derby could be summed up in one word “liberticide”. John Stuart Mill was (contrary to what many think) no libertarian himself – but he was not as bad as that.
Disraeli was a cynical type – but he also had principles, sadly they were much the same as those of Lord Derby.
To both Derby and Disraeli, the very existence of an evil “proved” that the state should intervene to deal with the evil – they were what is called “Social Reformers”.
That an expansion of government spending and regulations might make a situation worse (rather than better) than it otherwise would have been, never occurred to either of them.
Sadly, with the fall of Gladstone, the Liberal Party became a party dominated by “Social Reformers” in the sense of people who, like Chancellor Sir William Harcourt (“we are all socialists now”) viewed the correct response to every problem as more government spending and more regulations.
It is principle (not vote getting – as these people sincerely believed that they were doing good) but the principles were unsound – in fact, wildly wrong.
Almost certainly true. Even my fellow conservatives here tend to shake their heads at Trump’s perceived persona, but that might be because we’re all surrounded by so much wokeness, by so much intense hatred of the man. But, because of that – right or wrong – Trump will not do all that well with Minnesota conservatives. DeSantis gets a much milder reaction from most people here.
In a few weeks, I leave MN for the winter – going back to Arizona. That move might resurrect my spirits. Go, Kari Lake!
People have been writing about the destruction of the Conservative party for years. Wishful thinking.
It makes little difference if the Conservative Party is good or bad, if this land (and many others) is controlled by “The Markets” – i.e. a Cantillon Effect elite of entities backed by the Credit Money of the Central Banks.
As for even the gold market being a fraud – I do not mean physical gold, but about 95% of the “gold” in “The Markets” (derivatives and so on) does-not-exist.
Banking, the stock markets and so on – a massive scam.
For example, “BlackRock” alone (that creature of the Federal Reserve – with its Board of Directors made up of Collectivist “Woke” freaks) controls ten Trillion (Trillion) Dollars worth of investments.
If that is what Adam Smith had in mind – then I am Alexander the Great.
These are not “distorted” free markets – they are not free markets at all.
It matters not if “Reform” or “Reclaim” become big political parties (and that is a lot harder to do than people think) if “The Markets”, i.e. a small group of vast financial entities backed by the Credit Money of the Central Banks, remain in control.
Credit Money and Credit Bubble finance must be ended.
When “the Invisible Hand” becomes visible, when it becomes a small group of financial entities backed by the funny money of the Central Banks, then is no longer the Invisible Hand.
It is no longer a market as the Classical Economists understood the term.
Of course, it is “shades of grey” – a gradual transition from a free market to something very different, but at some point, one has to accept that this is not a real market economy anymore, and that point has been reached.
It warms my heart that Paul Marks considers the possibility that he misunderstands me — and i say that without irony.
I might say more about that after a good night’s sleep.
For now, just a few remarks about Italy.
WRT Giorgia Meloni: I am impressed by the intellectual sources that she claims; and by her ability to give speeches in English and Spanish as well as Italian.
Still, let us give her some time to show her worth in an executive role, before committing one way or the other.
There is a parallel here to my attitudes about Trump.
I used to be suspicious of Trump because of the similarity of his style to Berlusconi’s.
But Berlusconi, unlike Trump, cannot claim any major achievement.
(Still, i’d like to know from Johnathan what “horrible views” he ascribes to Berlusconi.
My view is that B. is an opportunist crook with no definite views, horrible or otherwise.
But at least, he is not demented like Biden.)
Years ago I remember being impressed reading that Berlusconi gave out copies at rallies of the Black Book of Communism, which for early-mid 2000s seemed quite based.
I don’t think Berlusconi achieved a great deal as a Prime Minister. I thought he was too enthusiastic for Bush II’s wars, although he wasn’t as credulous as Tony Blair was on these. And to his credit, he was not happy with the Obama/Sarkozy/Cameron war against Libya in 2011. He was an early example of a western democratically elected leader pushed out largely on the diktats of financial institutions. The ECB and the big banks, the so-called ‘markets’ as Paul mentions, wanted him gone. And so that was arranged.
My understanding was that Berlusconi was fiddling while Italy was heading for a debt default. So, you could say that ‘the markets’ pushed him out; but the markets did not do so on a whim: they did so because they did not want to lose money by holding on to Italian treasuries.
But to be honest, i did not look at the numbers, so i could be wrong.
If i may, i’d like to respectfully point out a misunderstanding by Paul Marks:
I am not sure what the American Founders meant by “faction”, but i suspect that they did not mean a bureaucratic machine designed to win elections.
As for Burke’s definition: that was valid in his time, and maybe it would be better if parties today were like that. But we have to face the reality that most parties today are not like that — not parties that win elections, anyway.
Maybe the situation is closer to Burke’s ideal in countries with proportional representation… for a while. For instance, the Italian Socialist Party was undoubtedly started by people committed to socialism, but by the 1980s its members were only committed to political corruption (and Berlusconi was one of them).
Matin – the contest for the election of the Governor of Pennsylvania showed it was not Dr Oz who was the problem, he was not the candidate, it shows that mail-in ballots are the problem.
We should not talk as if American elections are honest – they are not honest.
DeSantis does so well in Florida NOT because he is a wonderful man (he has his good points and his bad points – as we all do), but because he ended election fraud in Florida – he took decisive action to strip the Democrats of their power to give rig elections. The Democrats in the past, in several counties, had managed to turn landslide Republican victories into close elections in Florida. DeSantis stamped out election fraud.
Until that is done in certain other States, we are wasting our time talking about them.
For example, in Arizona many Republican voters went home in despair, unable to vote, turning what should have been a landslide win for the Republicans into a close race, at least for the U.S. Senate seat, – where the count is still continuing.
“Get a young female candidate” some people say – ignoring what happened to Lauren Boebart in Colorado.
“Trump or DeSantis” – IT DOES NOT MATTER AS LONG AS ELECTIONS CONTINUE TO BE RIGGED IN SEVERAL STATES.
The late F.A. Hayek defined markets as “spontaneous order” “cosmos rather than taxis” (“cosmos” being Greek for spontaneous order, and “taxis” being Greek for planned order) – technically this is not quite correct as “market forces” are really the free will decisions of millions of human beings (unlike the Aristotelian Carl Menger and the Kantian Ludwig Von Mises – F.A. Hayek followed David Hume holding that human beings do not exist, Hayek’s book “The Sensory Order” sadly makes clear his denial of the very existence of human persons) HOWEVER it practice it does not matter in relation to this question – because the individual rational decisions of millions of individual human beings (who, contra to Hume and Hayek, do exist) give-the-impression-of impersonal “market forces” without a political or cultural agenda.
The difficulty we face in the modern West, including the United Kingdom, is that this is no longer a correct description of the economy.
We might have talked about it being an imperfect description of the economy of Britain or the United States in say, 1960 (when Hayek’s “Constitution of Liberty” was published) or 1962 (when Milton Friendman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” was published) – but to talk about Britain or the United States being a “market economy” (in the way that Hayek or Milton Friedman understood that term) in 2022 is utterly absurd – it is nonsense.
Most shares are not owned by individuals, and most financial dealing (on the currency markets or whatever) is not done by individuals with their own money.
Most of economic and financial life is controlled by the banks, pension funds and other financial entities such as (in the United States) BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard.
And these vast corporate entities, backed by the Credit Money of the Central Banks, have a cultural and political agenda.
One very small example…
Go to the cinema (the movie theatre in American English) and see what film is on almost every screen = “Wakanda Forever” is there.
This is a pathetic film that people would not choose to see if they could watch something else – it was NOT put on almost every cinema screen by the “Invisible Hand of the Market”, it was put on almost every screen by the Divesity and Inclusion agenda of the handful of financial entities that control the economy, as part of their Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) agenda – with Disney-Marvel (and Odeon cinemas) acting as the servant of BlackRock and so on.
Even if one goes to a meeting with a road mending company, a meeting about mending the roads, the company will not be interested in mending the roads (potholes – so vulgar my dear, why are you talking about potholes?), it will be interested in the Diversity and Inclusion agenda as part of the Environment and Social Governance agenda – because that is what the banks and the institutional shareholders are interested in, and it is international.
This is not a market economy – that is the bitter truth that Perry and Johnathan Pearce come so close to grasping and then (to my intense frustration) do not seem to quite grasp.
At the root of this destruction of the market economy, and its replacement by this cultural and political agenda (Diversity and Inclusion as part of the international Environmental and Social Governance agenda) is fiat money and Credit Bubble finance – this has the “Cantillon Effect” (named after Richard Cantillon some three centuries ago – but carried to an extreme he could not have dreamed of) of concentrating the economy into a few “educated” hands, to push their agenda of tyranny, reducing ordinary people in the Western world to serfs in all but name – and that is the agenda., that is what “Davos” and all the rest of it, is about.
Fiat money and the Credit Bubble financial system must be destroyed, and NOT replaced by yet more of the same (such as “Digital Currency” which actually carries the existing system to its logical, and incredibly evil, end point) – the-beast-must-die.
Till then – it does not matter much whether the Conservative Party is good or bad.
By the way on Hungary…
The Biden regime (or, rather, whoever controls the Biden regime – and that is certainly not “President” Biden), George Soros (or rather his son – who runs things these days) and the Rockefeller Foundation have teamed up to fund yet more opposition media in Hungary.
If anyone does not think that media funded by the Biden regime, George Soros and the Rockefeller Foundation will not push evil (intense evil) then I have a nice bridge to sell you. I would remind people that the Biden regime supports the sexual mutilation of children, and Mr Soros has funded the election of District Attorneys who have reduced many American cities to nightmare Hellscapes – filled with looting, destruction and murder.
If anyone wants information on Hungary I would advice they go to John O’Sullivan (a former senior adviser to Margaret Thatcher) and his Danube Insitute.
For a decent society to survive it must prevent the takeover of the education system and the media by the left – by the followers of Rosseau and those other leftists who came after him. Without a conservative education system and a conservative media, society is doomed. The great thread of the tradition of Western Civilisation is cut.
“What is not consciously anti leftist inevitably gets taken over by the left – no institution, public or private, can stay neutral” O’Sullivan’s law – and it is true. As President Ronald Reagan said – liberty is never more than one generation away from being destroyed, the Rosseau or Frankfurt School Marxist left must not be allowed to gain control of education or the media – and Hungary had bitter experience of that as early as 1919 (the Bela Kun regime – with its efforts to sexually pervert school children and-so-on, Bela Kun even shocked the mass murderer “Lenin” with his, Bela Kun’s, sadism).
And, as I have already pointed out above, international Corporate Big Business is in alliance with these evil forces – as the various “agendas” make horribly clear. They may have different long-term objectives, with international Corporate Big Business wanting more of a Saint-Simon style Collectivism rather than a Marxist style collectivism – but they are in alliance and must both be opposed.
To end on an historical note – the alliance between Credit Bubble bankers and Marxists did not first occur in the Marxist Coup in Russia in late 1917 (as some people mistakenly believe) – in reality the late 1917 coup was pushed by internal activists and Imperial German intelligence (NOT bankers).
The first time such an alliance, an alliance between Credit Bubble bankers and Marxists, occurred seems to have been in, of all places, Paraguay in the Civil War of 1947. In several Latin American countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (for example Chile and Ecuador) Credit Bubble bankers had created lots of money (from nothing) and used it to buy up real assets (such as land) before the value of the money dropped – thus creating a “Cantillon Effect” economy with wealth concentrated into a few “connected” hands.
An unholy alliance of bankers (Credit Bubble bankers – not honest money lenders of Real Savings) and the Communist Party, lost the Civil War in Paraguay in 1947. A military coup in 1954 replaced the dictator (who had unfortunate Peronist, i.e. Fascist Corporate State, tendencies) with a Catholic Conservative dictator (rather like Salazar in Portugal) – who lasted till another military coup in 1989. Since then, there have been some unfortunate developments, such as the introduction of Income Tax, but things could be a lot worse (for example the income tax is a flat rate one of 10%).
I believe that, to this day, Paraguay is the only country, other than the United States, where the colour RED is used to indicate the political party OPPOSED to socialist forces – and also (at least one hopes) opposed to the international Corporate agenda.
In Uruguay it is the colour white that is used to indicate the anti-socialist political party.
And also the anti lockdown (i.e. anti international corporate state agenda) political party.
Uruguay (not Paraguay) was the only country on the South American continent to reject the Covid lockdown demanded by the international Corporate State (“public-private partnership” “stakeholder capitalism”).
This is true. Soros is a big pusher of the normalisation and legalisation of prostitution as well. Even left-wing feminists who criticise him for this receive the boring old retort that they must be anti-semites for criticising him.
I did try to reply yesterday (but somehow it didn’t post) that regarding accusations from organisations like Reporters without Borders that Hungary is unfree or tyrannical that its important to look at who supports these NGOs. You can even see on RWB’s website that its backers include the US government (‘National Endowment for Democracy’), the EU, the French government, UNESCO, and loads of multinational corporations. Basically almost the whole lot of groups that support Orban’s opponents in Hungary. That they would pump out reports damning Orban is hardly surprising, but should be viewed as mere propaganda.
Paul – I think your diagnosis of contemporary ‘capitalism’ (or whatever we want to call it) seems on the money. It isn’t classic socialism, it isn’t ‘laissez-faire’, and it isn’t even a mid-20th century style ‘mixed economy’. It’s some other beast altogether, and very malignant and insidious.
Yes Martin – this dark international Corporatism, this “Cantillon Effect” nightmare, is not a market economy.
It has an evil world governance agenda – an agenda that has nothing with “market forces” as F.A. Hayek or Milton Friedman understood the term.
Prime Minister Orban has many faults – but he is against this evil agenda. And that is the vital question of our time.
“Are you for or against the international agenda?” and both of us Martin, are AGAINST it.
Is a well-known leftist safe to go and have a cup of coffee in a Hungarian city? Yes, they are.
Is a well-known conservative safe to go and have a cup of coffee in an American city? No, they are not – they are likely to be targeted for vicious abuse and often physical attack. Due to how much of the population has been conditioned and indoctrinated by the leftist controlled American education system and “mainstream media” (including the entertainment media).
And other Western countries are also going down the “Critical Theory” (“Woke” Marxist) road – including the United Kingdom. In spite of the Conservative Party supposedly being “in power” for the last 12 years.
“In office, but not in power” are the terrible words that spring to mind.
Without committing solely to this view! What follows clarifies that I am simultaneously reminding people of this view’s continuing and potentially-overriding importance, while noting there are other factors to consider as well – once we remember they are ‘as well’.
1) (CLARIFYING ASIDE): A free-speech-supporting friend who emigrated to the US noticed some media bias two decades go, so took to reading the Christian Science Monitor as well as conventional US media in hope of getting a sufficiently narrative-counterbalancing alerting take when the facts warranted it. It was not an absurd choice then: indeed, during the first of those decades, you could find instapundit (for example) sometimes linking to stories in the CSM for a reasonable description of some event the narrative hid or spun. Early in the second decade, instapundit became more apt to reference examples of how the CSM was succumbing to the narrative. My own impression (from occasional examination of it in particular areas, FYI) was that, as the NYT, WaPo and etc. became even more untrustworthy, the CSM moved in the same direction to become seriously untrustworthy. But that meant its tone still looked different to her from the NYT and WaPo even as its ability to reveal what their narrative would conceal degraded massively.
2) WHAT WAS (1) CLARIFYING? The need to beat the margin of Dem-favouring-fraud in certain US election areas has been priced into pre-election candidate selection and post-election analysis for a long time, just as the need to beat US media bias has also been priced into both for a long time. Media bias went up noticeably in 2016, both in its scale and in the range of places affected. So did vote fraud in 2020.
3) And with (2) and this, we finally reach my comment’s overall clarifying point.
– There is plenty of potential value in analysing the why of places where even the new price was beaten, where it was not but the old price would have been and/or where the Dem would still have won on honestly counted votes, since, for better and for worse, you have to win the fight imposed on you, not the ‘fair fight’ you’d prefer.
– There is also plenty of value in analysing how, and how much, the prices changed, in part just so they can be correctly priced-in to allow genuine other factors to be assessed, not used merely as an excuse for them to be ignored.
– I see little value in some early analyses that were not even offering an argument claiming the priced-in costs were not that large, but just ignoring the issue – as if the pandemic razing of many an election integrity law never happened, or had been everywhere reversed.
6) However, with that priced-in, the effects – of Trump-endorsed primary choices and much else – can be considered.
6A) As one example, let us look at the failure of the US (in Pennsylvania) to elect its first-ever muslim (IIUC) senator, the Trump-endorsed Dr Mehmet Oz.
– People I respect warned he was not a ‘safe’ choice of candidate for that seat from the start: he was a muslim and wealthy (like Rishi) and had some involvement in ‘celebrity culture’ that was doubtless far more obvious to people in PA then to me, and etc.. They did so to therefore question the wisdom of Trump’s (decisive, I’d guess) endorsement of him in the primary that chose him, not to (circularly) reason that Trump’s endorsement was his drawback (that reasoning was offered at the time by people I didn’t respect 🙂 ).
– (His rival’s stroke – obviously unforeseen at the time of either primary – contributed to the trend that had late polls predicting him winning.)
– Despite one squeaker-maintained victory in the PA supreme court, it was obvious before the election that
– Dr Oz lost so big in the counted votes of Philadelphia (82% to 17%) that his winning the counted votes in the rest of Pennsylvania (51% to 48%) was counter-balanced. (I am reminded of the long-running relationship between Chicago and Illinois).
– Under the current (lawless) regime, vote fraud in PA as a whole, and serious vote fraud in Philadelphia in particular, would be absurd to doubt, but as my day job is especially demanding just now, I have yet to research the enough/not-enough aspect of this to any degree worth mentioning, let alone in 2020-ish detail. So, after pausing merely to note that the vote difference is not at all beyond the 2020 ballpark, I pass instead to the question of whether a better-performing candidate could have won despite it? An R candidate who had won rural Pennsylvania by 53% instead of Dr Oz’s 51% would be PA senator-elect today despite an unchanged Philadelphia result (unless, of course, some counters in the rotten boroughs could steal enough more votes post-hoc. So analysis of the effect of Trump’s choice, like analysis of the effect of fraud, seems in order to me.
6B) That the notorious Maricopa county, of 2020 (in)fame, continues to mess around the counting the votes is obvious. It can be argued we know more about Maricopa precisely because, as in 2020, the fraudsters are not quite so well embedded as in PA, so they have to be more obvious, and especially more post-hoc, to get the result they want. It can also be argued the ability of the Arizona R candidates to get them to that point is praiseworthy.
Au contraire, Snorri. The allies that continental parties must accept to form a government give them an endless alibi for betraying whatever principle they proclaim. They also have all the alibis that we know from our English-speaking political history, but none beat that one.
In the English-speaking world, the historical norm, and so the style-setting expectation, is for Burke-style parties to find themselves controlling a majority of the legislature from time to time and this (in relation to the continent) checks both the extremism of their ideology and their treachery to their principle.
Of course, when not explaining the ideal, Burke was wont to point out that
and this understanding influenced his whole approach to politics.
Yes, i have been lamenting this for a long time.
What is changed is that i have seen new parties emerge where old parties had become corrupted by decades in coalition governments (occasionally or permanently).
Pim Fortuyn’s party in the Netherlands is the first that comes to mind. To realize how much of an impact he had, you have to know that, for most Dutch people, party affiliation used to be a family tradition, originally related to religious affiliation.