“Elites vs. Populists”

A new poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe it’s not worth hosting FIFA World Cup matches if revenue doesn’t exceed costs.

Vancouver and Toronto are set to welcome teams and fans from around the globe for a number of games next summer.

You know who covers World Cup losses in Toronto? The taxpayer.

This is just one more way elites prey on the great unwashed in Canada.

Success breeds failure. Policies and practices well suited to society at one juncture in history are often poorly suited to the world they have beneficially transformed. If you carry a good thing too far, it can turn out not to be a good thing anymore.

Case in point, one of the most successful public policies in U.S. history, the World War II G.I. Bill, which financed college educations for military veterans. Signed by former President Franklin Roosevelt, it embodied New Deal generosity even as its chief backers included the racist Democratic Mississippi representative, John Rankin, and the supposedly reactionary American Legion. One secret of its success, like that of Social Security, was apparent reciprocity: It provided benefits for those who made some contribution.

A GQ feature on ‘What’s so great about Britain?’ unwittingly exposed the hulking class divide in the flags debate.

It seems members of the British establishment are getting it – albeit slowly. They haven’t quite learned their lesson yet about how the common people react, how they raise the flags and rally in defiance when they finally can’t take another decade of the liberal elite doing down the country they love. But they are getting there.

LONDON—For the first time, populist or far-right parties are leading the polls in Europe’s three biggest countries of the U.K., France, and Germany, the latest sign of growing voter discontent in much of the continent following years of high immigration and inflation.

Far-right and anti-immigration parties have already entered government in countries such as Italy, Finland and the Netherlands. But this year marks the first time that they have been ahead in Europe’s biggest economies at the same time. That could provoke a period of political turbulence in all three countries, even if national elections are likely still a few years away.

The state is losing control over the dominant narratives in the competition of prevailing stories. Its apparatus of power responds predictably invasively and reveals its hostility toward dissenting opinions.

The German Bundestag’s Vice President Bodo Ramelow calls for stricter control of social media. “The platforms must be regulated,” Ramelow warns, demanding that operators “be held liable for what happens on their platforms.” In view of the “coarsening of language and writing” in the digital space, he advocates clear identity verification of users.

This is the second of two articles on the dawning of an uncomfortable new strategic reality for the West, which is that the primary threat to its security and well-being today is not external but internal—specifically, civil war.[i] In the first essay, I explained the reasons that this situation has arisen: a combination of culturally fractured societies, economic stagnation, elite overreach and a collapse of public confidence in the ability of normal politics to solve problems, and ultimately the realisation by anti-status quo groups of plausible strategies of attack based on systems disruption of vulnerable critical infrastructure. In this article I expound on the likely shape that civil war will take and the strategies that might be employed to minimise and mitigate the damage that will entail.

The French authorities insist that the conviction of Marine Le Pen, which disqualifies the leader of the National Rally (RN) from standing for election as president of France, is not political. No, they say, it simply reflects the neutral ‘rule of law’ and the ‘independence of the judicial system.’

Really? Strange then, that supposedly ‘independent’ judges and officials across Europe and America have all reached remarkably similar verdicts against right-wing politicians.

It looks less like judicial independence and the old-fashioned rule of law than a globalist establishment plot to use the courts as a political weapon against the rising national populist revolt.

It is time to see through the lies and resist an elite that, under the guise of ‘liberal values,’ is steadily consolidating authoritarian power.

History does not repeat itself exactly, but those who pay close attention recognize recurring patterns. The Great Depression of the 1930s—preceded by excessive debt and culminating in a stock market crash—not only led to economic collapse but also triggered political instability, radicalization, and the rise of totalitarian ideologies. Chaos and uncertainty made citizens susceptible to simplistic solutions offered by both fascists and communists. As we know, this ultimately resulted in an unprecedented global catastrophe. Now, nearly a century later, we find ourselves in another crisis—not due to excessive private debt, but due to unprecedented national debts, the threat of war, and a political elite trading freedom for control.