“Elites vs. Populists”

The crumbling of the French establishment

When Emmanuel Macron first ascended to the French presidency in 2017, he was hailed as the man who could see off the hard right. His re-election in 2022 was taken as further proof that the ‘liberal’ centre could hold – that the ‘leprosy’ of populism, as Macron himself described it, could be contained by his technocratic centrism. Even just three weeks ago, when he dissolved the National Assembly and called snap legislative elections, following the right-wing National Rally (RN)’s thumping victory in the EU elections, Macron and his allies assumed that the populist wave would quickly peter out. Voters would ‘see sense’, they believed, and rally back around the supposedly sensible centre.

It’s France, elections are never “over”

France election results: More than 150 candidates pull out of race to block hard-Right win

More than 150 candidates have withdrawn ahead of France’s second round of elections on Sunday in a bid to block a hard-Right win.

Candidates from Emmanuel Macron’s party and the hard-Left announced they had pulled out on Monday afternoon, avoiding the potential for them to eat into each other’s vote share.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", France

The Center Cannot Hold

The center of Western politics is dead, and the ones who killed it are the managerial liberals who lived by lies—and believed their own lies.

Until Joe Biden took the stage in last week’s debate with Donald Trump, the most catastrophically stupid presidential political decision of the year was Emmanuel Macron’s calling a snap election after the National Rally’s impressive showing in European parliamentary elections. After events over the past few days, it is still uncertain as to which blunder will have been the most consequential. Whatever the outcome, we are all watching corrupt systems collapse in real time. Amid this apocalypse—literally, an unveiling—we are seeing a kind of Reformation, the messy birth of a new order.

This is more the case in France than in the United States. The strong National Rally results in Sunday’s first round of voting occasioned an outpouring on France’s streets that could have been scripted by Camp of the Saints author Jean Raspail.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists"

New faces, old fears

The front-page headline demanded action: “Time to Close the Gates.” It was March 26, 1908. Centred on the page, a list of three recently murdered men and their four “supposed slayers” – their non-Anglo-Saxon, ethnic names unmissable in all-caps. “The Goth is at our own gates,” The Globe editorial warned.

“One has only to glance at this list to see that the Slav and the Italian are swelling the statistics of crime in this country.” The only effective cure for the “invasion” would be “the closing of the gates on the offscourings of the Slav and Latin races.”

This Globe piece is one of a small flurry of articles that have recently appeared expressing concern about Canadian attitudes toward immigration and or identity politics.

It’s not surprising that the paper of record for Canada’s Corporate cronies will have published 3 such pieces in that last week.

The elite have have sold Canadians a “patriotic myth” that immigration is always beneficial and that to oppose it is racist.

Someone is getting worried about their supply of cheap foreign labour hence the push to remind Canadians to know their place in the run-up to Canada Day.

Globe – Canadians don’t need to worry about identity politics

Globe – In a country where immigrants are the majority, anti-immigration politics are obsolete

Ottawa Citizen – As Canada ages, it risks losing the post-war consensus on immigration

Epoch Times – Identity Politics Destroy a Country’s Unity  (Despite the title just a big ‘Hurrah’ for immigration)

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", "Mass Immigration - Follow the money", "Societally Destructive Immigration Policy", Canada's Corporate Welfare Class, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government, Canada's Corrupt Political Class

The Media Is Clueless About Shift Toward ‘Populism’

The world is moving away from centralized bureaucracies and towards communities and individuals.

David Brooks is the regular alternative voice discussing politics and public affairs for the government-supported Public Broadcasting Service’s News Hour. He is a regular columnist for the New York Times, a former editor for the Weekly Standard (from its inception), and a contributing editor to progressive Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly.

Wikipedia noted that Brooks has been described ideologically as a moderate, a centrist, a conservative, and a moderate conservative. He has been a professor at Duke University, taught at Yale University, and was elected to the University of Chicago Board of Trustees.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists"

The Big Air Con – Elite climate hypocrisy is not sustainable

Airport world is a parallel dimension. No matter where they are geographically, all airports are essentially the same place, with a simplified “international English” and a time zone only loosely tethered to its location. Airport world even has its own climate: uniformly air-conditioned, typically somewhere in the 21-24°C zone that studies also suggest represents the zone of maximum human productivity and cognitive performance.

Last week, airport world deposited me in Boston for a few days, during a heatwave that reached humid highs of 36°C. But the heat barely registered as such, thanks to America’s ubiquitous climate control, which helpfully kept my seminar strictly in the productivity zone.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", "Environmentalists"

Germans Say They’re Fed Up, Nazi Accusations Be Damned

There’s a populist revolution in Germany.

In her political ads in the leadup to last week’s EU parliamentary elections, European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen bizarrely walks and jogs through a forest in her native Germany as she explains why she’s running. That she would retreat to the woods to make her electoral pitch is fitting for the ruling class she represents.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", Germany, Germany - AfD party

The trouble with calling everyone ‘far right’

There is a favourite Fleet Street story about the legendary Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie. While editing the paper, he discovered that his horoscope writer was recycling copy. He decided to dispense with her services in a letter that opened: ‘As you will no doubt have foreseen…’

You do not have to hold claims to being a mystic to predict certain things. The results of last week’s EU elections were easily predictable, as was the response from much of the British media. As I uncannily prophesied in last week’s column, the BBC’s Europe editor, Katya Adler, went with: ‘The far right is on the march.’ Elsewhere, she offered the claim that people across the continent often say: ‘This feels like the Europe of the 1930s.’

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", "extremists", "far right"

Weakened Leaders of the West Gather in Italy to Discuss an Unruly World

Blackies last Dance

When Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy convenes the leaders of the Group of 7 countries on Thursday at a luxury resort hotel overlooking the Adriatic Sea, she might be forgiven for thinking her guests are seeking a refuge.

Except for Ms. Meloni herself, every one of the leaders is arriving at the meeting beleaguered, embattled or endangered — an ill-starred convergence that speaks to the political tremors rattling across the West. It also doesn’t bode well for the results of a gathering that already faced vexing challenges, ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine to China’s global economic competition.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists"

Time to retire the ‘far right’ slur

Millions of Europeans have not suddenly turned into fascists. We need a new political language.

As the EU establishment struggles to make sense of last week’s revolt in the European elections, one thing is clear: our outdated vocabulary is not up to the task of describing today’s political landscape.

Gains for France’s National Rally, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have been described as a ‘far-right surge’ in newspapers and TV reports, not just across Europe but around the world. Even before the election results came in, labels like far right and extreme right were bouncing off commentators’ keyboards. All agree that the far right is on the rise and ordinary people need to worry. This is Europe’s ‘Trump moment’, explained Politico. Some go further. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is described as ‘neo-fascist’, while academics calmly ask if the AfD is the new Nazi Party. ‘Fascism has arrived’, declared French author Emilia Roig when the election results became clear. Yet with almost a quarter of Europe’s voters having backed a party branded ‘far right’, it is worth asking how accurate this label is and what purpose it now serves.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", "extremists", "far right", Europe, European Union

How Europe’s young voters flocked to the hard-Right

Unbuttoning his carefully ironed white shirt, Jordan Bardella took a sip of water at a sweltering political rally during his European election campaign and apologised for the pause by saying: “I’m already getting hot.”

“You’re the one making us hot,” screamed a girl from the young crowd.

The French call it “Bardella-mania”.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", "extremists", "far right"

What Clacton tells you about how the white working-class have been left behind

At nine o’clock in the morning, everybody in Clacton-on-Sea seems to be leaning on something. A walking stick. A frame. A shopping trolley.

Passersby in the bracing sea air are few. But the one busy place is the local Wetherspoons, the Moon and Starfish, where Nigel Farage had a customary pint on Tuesday. This marked his first day campaigning as Reform leader as well as the party’s parliamentary candidate for Clacton. Residents and holidaymakers are following his lead, tucking into fried breakfasts and early drinks.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", UK

The ghost who haunts the MAGA revolt

Christopher Lasch’s forgotten book foresaw America’s malaise

Over the past half-decade, few intellectuals have undergone a renaissance like Christopher Lasch — and few renaissances have been quite as startlingly heterodox. After the 2016 election, Lasch’s posthumous 1994 book Revolt of the Elites was cited as a key influence on the Right-populist strategist Steve Bannon. Shortly after that, a new edition of the author’s 1979 bestseller The Culture of Narcissism appeared with an introduction by liberal pundit E.J. Dionne that applied Lasch’s ideas to the pathologies of Bannon’s erstwhile boss, then-president Donald Trump.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", USA

Harassment of MPs spiked almost 800% in 5 years, says House sergeant-at-arms

The harassment members of Parliament experience from the public has jumped almost 800 per cent in the last five years, according to the person in charge of security in the House of Commons.

Patrick McDonell, sergeant-at-arms and corporate security officer, told a committee of MPs studying the House harassment policy Tuesday that the spike was driven by incidents that are “mostly online but also in person and at events.”

The number of files McDonell’s office has opened on threats to MPs has also increased significantly, he said.

What’s worse the butt hurt experienced by coddled MP’s or the real world harm the Liberal government has inflicted upon Canadians?

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", Canada, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

It’s not just boomers, young people are voting far right too

Far-right parties are surging across Europe — and young voters are buying in.

Many parties with anti-immigrant agendas are even seeing support from first-time young voters in the upcoming June 6-9 European Parliament election.

In Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany and Finland, younger voters are backing anti-immigration and anti-establishment parties in numbers equal to and even exceeding older voters, analyses of recent elections and research of young people’s political preferences suggest.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", "extremists", "far right"

Civilisational Decline Is A Choice

The aphorism attributed to Mark Twain about travel being anathema to “prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness” could not be less true. Having visited various cities in the past year, I find I hunger for home the furthest from it I go—no matter how mismanaged my rainy little archipelago is at the moment. Despite politicians pronouncing themselves democrats, our bureaucratic systems obfuscate accountability. But looking to places like the United States or Japan provides a sobering reminder that everything in politics is a choice. Staying aware of this fact allows us to resist resignation to civilisational decline and allocate blame accordingly.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Elites vs. Populists", Decline & Fall