April 26, 2018 

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

JONAH GOLDBERG’S “CONSERVATISM” MAKES THE OLD SOVIETS LOOK GOOD

But Does It Signal An Emerging Counter-Revolution?

Friends,

I begin today with several quotations from perhaps my most unfavorite writer among so-called (Neo) conservatives, Jonah Goldberg. 

Goldberg is a Senior Editor of National Review, a widely-syndicated columnist, and a regular pundit on Fox News.  And he is archetypically representative of what is fatally wrong with the conservative movement and its establishment, and why it is destined in its present form not only to continued loss to its supposed liberal and leftwing opponents, but in reality facilitates and enables those Leftist victories. 

How is it possible to truly offer opposition to your supposed enemies, much less defeat them, if you begin by agreeing with them on essential principles? 

Two recent Goldberg columns illustrate this. 

First, there is his column of April 6, 2018, in which he glorifies Martin Luther King Jr. as someone whose life and message resembles nothing less than the Second Coming. [https://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2018/04/06/like-lincoln-king-now-belongs-to-the-ages-n2468208?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=] According to Goldberg, “there is no modern figure who more richly deserves to be placed at the heart of the American story… [T]he generation of conservatives (though not necessarily Republicans, who disproportionately voted for the Civil Rights Act) who wrongly opposed the civil rights movement either out of misguided constitutionalism [sic!] or simply out of archaic racism needed to die off before King's contribution could be better appreciated across party lines.” [For a contrary view which starkly illustrates Goldberg’s immense errancy and the implicit differences between his Neoconservatism and a more traditional, constitutional conservatism, see my detailed column on King, January 15, http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/01/january-15-2018-my-corner-martin-luther.html, which was also published by The Unz Review, January 16, “Martin Luther King and the Perversion of American History,” https://www.unz.com/article/martin-luther-king-day-and-the-perversion-of-american-history/]

Like the farther, even more radical Left, for Goldberg the very idea of America is all wrapped up in the quest for Equality, and it took a necessary and bloody “civil war” to expunge the sin of slavery and advance the quest to eradicate “racism” from the American experience.

He writes: 

“It was not until Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address that the ideal embedded in the Declaration fully became both the plot and theme of the American story. ‘Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’ That idea, always present in America's self-conception, became the heart of the American creed. But it was not truly so until 100 years later, when King called upon Americans to live up to the best versions of themselves.” 

That narrative is historically erroneous and not based on the history, formulation or writing of the Declaration of Independence, nor the explicit meaning of that document or the Constitution, as historians Barry Alan Shain (Colgate University) and the late Mel Bradford (University of Dallas) have carefully and convincingly shown. Yet, as ideological template its implications have had serious effects and disastrous results for the American nation.  

Or, consider Goldberg’s column of April 20, “America Is Not As Intolerant As We Make It Out to Be,” (https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/america-not-most-racist-sexist-nation-progress-made/#slide-1). Once again Goldberg’s narrative is straight out of the Progressivist playbook. In that column Jonah admits that he had watched the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation [GLAAD] Vanguard Awards and had seen a video of Britney Spears’s acceptance of an award and her praise of the group’s activities, adding:

“There was a time when I might have had a bit of fun with Spears about some of the inconsistencies. But I’ve mellowed. It’s all good. It was a nice speech, and she seemed sincerely honored to receive her award and grateful for the support of her fans. Fine, fine.” 

Of course, that is nothing new for Goldberg. In the past he has endorsed same sex marriage and has been supportive of transgenderism and, at least implicitly, gender fluidity: “Personally, I have always felt that gay marriage was an inevitability…the rise of the HoBos — the homosexual bourgeoisie — strikes me as good news.” [https://www.nationalreview.com/2010/12/gay-becomes-bourgeois-jonah-goldberg/] 

And Goldberg is, like other Neocons, a globalist and a believer in America’s “mission” to go round the world and impose those virtues of equality and liberal democracy on all the millions of unenlightened and backward peoples who cling to their guns and their traditions, to paraphrase Barack Obama. And like many Neocons he was a NeverTrumper…and, in many regards, still is: a zealous partisan of the Deep State, despite his protestations to the contrary. 

Goldberg’s views pass for standard conservative template these days, whether on Fox News or in the pages of National Review or The Weekly Standard, or emitted by any number of the various “conservative think tanks” that spew out such ideological drivel. 

Yet, there is growing discomfort among the grass roots, among those “deplorables” who have listened to Goldberg and others like him for years…and who have witnessed the deleterious results of years of “conservative activism” and compliant Republican presidents and GOP majorities in Congress: things have continued to worsen, to decay, our essential beliefs and moral laws have continued to erode and disappear, and the conservative establishment and its minions in Congress seem to be complicit in that process. 

Whether the surprising election of outsider Donald Trump indicated a lasting reaction against this seemingly irreversible movement historically, or whether the Deep State, which now seeks to either displace the president or surround him and derail the America First agenda, will continue to succeed, is yet to be decided. 

But already in Europe—which is arguably much further advanced in the throes, the “slough of despond” of New World Order globalism—a growing reaction, a European version of “deplorables” and “bitter clingers” is making its voice heard: in Hungary, in Italy, in Poland, in Russia, and even in an intellectually and historically castrated, multiculturalist Germany. 

Mostly recently in Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his nationalist conservative and populist party, Fidesz, won two-thirds of the seats in the Hungarian parliament. Orban has pledged to stop Muslim immigration into his country (Hungary has built a border wall), to restore Hungary’s historic Christian moral foundations, to halt the subversion of globalist George Soros and his many subversive “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs), and to resist the arbitrary diktats of the European Union. 

In this he is closely allied with Vladimir Putin in Russia, who was recently re-elected President of Russia overwhelmingly (by 76%) in Russian national elections [http://russiafeed.com/vladimir-putin-re-elected-russias-president-landslide-win/]—elections which despite the usual complaints by globalists in the United States (including the fatuous Karl Rove)—were adjudged to be fair by  well over 1,000 independent election observers. [I would eagerly compare the “fairness” of Russia’s elections with what habitually occurs in Philadelphia or Chicago or any number of other locales in the United States, not to mention the voting of thousands of illegals and others in states like California.] 

(Incidentally, a recent national poll by the respected Levada Center revealed that 83% of Russians reject homosexuality, and an even larger margin oppose same sex marriage.[March 28, 2018:  https://russian-faith.com/family-values/poll-christian-values-sodomy-abortion-surge-russia-83-reject-homosex-n1345] Compare this to the expansive egalitarianism of Goldberg.) 

The common theme that runs through these elections and what also happened recently in Italy, where the opponents of Muslim immigration, nationalist and populist conservative groups (Northern League and Five Star Movement) won overwhelmingly, is a rejection of the globalism and liberal democracy of the international elites, and a reaffirmation of the historic traditions and beliefs of those peoples, a realization that their culture and their very existence as definable peoples were being corrupted and destroyed. 

The egalitarian and liberal democratic myth still reigns in the United States, loudly defended not only by the “farther Left,” but also by the jejune conservative movement. The battle to overthrow it often appears hopeless—Hollywood and our entertainment industry seem lost; academia, almost totally corrupted; our churches subverted, spewing forth endless heresy; and our politics poisoned and political system converted into a ruthless kleptocracy. 

Yet, what is happening in Europe, even in microcosm, offers signs of hope for us. Recovery and counter-revolution is always possible, after all history is a fickle mistress, filled with unforeseen events—and miracles. 

Pat Buchanan observes what is occurring and offers a good summary of what is happening in Europe—hopefully a vigorous reaction to the near complete failure of the allures of liberal democracy and equality.

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Why the Authoritarian Right Is Rising

http://buchanan.org/blog/why-the-authoritarian-right-is-rising-129153

By Patrick J. Buchanan    Friday - April 20, 2018

A fortnight ago, Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party won enough seats in the Hungarian parliament to rewrite his country's constitution.   To progressives across the West, this was disturbing news.

For the bete noire of Orban's campaign was uber-globalist George Soros. And Orban's commitments were to halt any further surrenders of Hungarian sovereignty and independence to the European Union, and to fight any immigrant invasion of Hungary from Africa or the Islamic world.

Why are autocrats like Orban rising and liberal democrats failing in Europe? The autocrats are addressing the primary and existential fear of peoples across the West — the death of the separate and unique tribes into which they were born and to which they belong.

Modern liberals and progressives see nations as transitory — here today, gone tomorrow. The autocrats, however, have plugged into the most powerful currents running in this new century: tribalism and nationalism.

The democracy worshippers of the West cannot compete with the authoritarians in meeting the crisis of our time because they do not see what is happening to the West as a crisis. They see us as on a steady march into a brave new world, where democracy, diversity and equality will be everywhere celebrated.

To understand the rise of Orban, we need to start seeing Europe and ourselves as so many of these people see us.

Hungary is a thousand years old. Its people have a DNA all their own. They belong to a unique and storied nation of 10 million with its own language, religion, history, heroes, culture and identity.  Though a small nation, two-thirds of whose lands were torn away after World War I, Hungarians wish to remain and endure as who they are.  They don't want open borders. They don't want mass migrations to change Hungary into something new. They don't want to become a minority in their own country. And they have used democratic means to elect autocratic men who will put the Hungarian nation first.

U.S. elites may babble on about "diversity," about how much better a country we will be in 2042 when white European Christians are just another minority and we have become a "gorgeous mosaic" of every race, tribe, creed and culture on earth.

To Hungarians, such a future entails the death of the nation. To Hungarians, millions of African, Arab and Islamic peoples settling in their lands means the annihilation of the historic nation they love, the nation that came into being to preserve the Hungarian people.

President Emmanuel Macron of France says the Hungarian and other European elections where autocrats are advancing are manifestations of "national selfishness."

Well, yes, national survival can be considered national selfishness.  But let Monsieur Macron bring in another 5 million former subject peoples of the French Empire and he will discover that the magnanimity and altruism of the French has its limits, and a Le Pen will soon replace him in the Elysee Palace.

Consider what else the "world's oldest democracy" has lately had on offer to the indigenous peoples of Europe resisting an invasion of Third World settlers coming to occupy and repopulate their lands.

Our American democracy boasts of a First Amendment freedom of speech and press that protects blasphemy, pornography, filthy language and the burning of the American flag. We stand for a guaranteed right of women to abort their children and of homosexuals to marry.  We offer the world a freedom of religion that prohibits the teaching of our cradle faith and its moral code in our public schools. Our elites view this as social progress upward from a dark past.

To much of the world, however, America has become the most secularized and decadent society on earth, and the title the ayatollah bestowed upon us, "The Great Satan," is not altogether undeserved. And if what "our democracy" has delivered here has caused tens of millions of Americans to be repulsed and to secede into social isolation, why would other nations embrace a system that produced so poisoned a politics and so polluted a culture?

"Nationalism and authoritarianism are on the march," writes The Washington Post: "Democracy as an ideal and in practice seems under siege." Yes, and there are reasons for this.

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people," said John Adams. And as we have ceased to be a moral and religious people, the poet T. S. Eliot warned us what would happen:

"The term 'democracy' ... does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces you dislike — it can be easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God (and he is a jealous God), you should pay your respects to Hitler and Stalin." [Recall: Hitler rose to power through a democratic election.]

Democracy lacks content. As a political system, it does not engage the heart. And if Europe's peoples see their leaders as accommodating a transnational EU, while failing to secure national borders, they will use democracy to replace them with men of action.