It was some years ago that my grandson eagerly showed me a video of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opining on the leadership of the European Union.
They're a weak lot, some of them in Europe, you know. Weak. Feeble.
And that was almost before Ursula von der Leyen was born.
Let us analyze the world with the notion that almost all the leaders are weak. And thus ruled by their subordinates, their bureaucrats, and the narrative.
Example One is the Carlson Putin interview -- that all the best people now agree was a Carlson clown show. Putin said he proposed to Bush Senior “that the United States, Russia and Europe jointly create a missile defense system.” Bush seemed interested until he talked to his people. Then Putin proposed to Bill Clinton that Russia join NATO. “Interesting,” said Clinton, but not after he talked to his “team.”
Example Two is the Stalin Peace Note of 1952. Stalin proposed in March 1952 that foreign troops, from both east and west, be removed from a rearmed Germany, but that Germany should be nonaligned. Well, the West wasn’t going to respond to that, not after the Berlin blockade of 1948, the Czech coup of 1948, the founding of NATO in 1949, and the Korean War that started in 1950. Too much, too soon. And then Stalin died in 1953 and the new Soviet leaders were too busy figuring out who was on first in the Kremlin to propose any change in the status quo in Europe.
Example Three is the Zman on the Senate foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Listening to these feeble old men sing their own praises, one cannot help but think of the Politburo in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Like Washington, Soviet politics had come to be controlled by a class of geezers. Their primary concern for a long time had been keeping their spot. The result was they surrounded themselves with sycophants good only for praising their bosses. The result was the political system was incapable of responding to the brewing crisis.
Is the Zman right, or is he right?
Example Four is Phillips Exeter Academy after the George Floyd Unpleasantness. Christopher Rufo writes that at the school,
English has become an “exploration of racial identity”; history focuses on “transgender identities”; economics examines “racialized and gendered” forms of “income inequality.”
Rufo suggests that this stands “in stark contrast with the founding mission of the school,” but I suspect that the school mission has always been to propel its privileged students on a trajectory that will land them into their rightful place in the ruling class. Today, if the Elite 1% believes in DEI and climate change then that is what Phillips Exeter Academy will teach its students. Weak. Feeble.
Now I am going to make a leap. I propose that the Deep State’s relentless lawfare against Trump and his supporters is not proceeding from strength in our ruling class, but from weakness.
By the way, isn’t it odd that our ruling-class friends have lined up Blacks to do the dirty work on Trump, from Fani Willis to Alvin Bragg to Letitia James to that nice young lady assisting Judge Engoron? What is that all about? Is it because our White liberal friends running the liberal Plantation don’t want to get their hands dirty?
The fundamental political fact of our times is that all the glorious promises of liberal politics have failed. But it can’t be that liberal ideas and liberal government programs have failed. Oh no. If there are any economic or social problems it is obviously the fault of the White oppressor enemy and/or climate and/or racism and/or “wealthiest corporations” and/or billionaires.
Here’s the mission statement of “The Labor Institute.”
The Labor Institute is unequivocally committed to a more equitable, more just society. We believe that racial inequality coupled with runaway economic inequality are the foundation and drivers of our current incarceration state… We stand arm and arm with all those protesting the murder of George Floyd, and all the others who have suffered from police violence.
Oh yeah! Inequality and police violence. That’s it! That’s what killed George Floyd, the drug addict and petty thief!
And notice that our liberal friends do not deny that “liberal programs did it.” They live in a liberal bubble where such an idea doesn’t even exist. Of course, the problem is inequality and police violence; what else could it be?
Earth to liberals: if you are not prepared to break out of your narrative and not even start to analyze all the lovely programs you passed over the years, you are Weak. Feeble.
The Economist has a piece out on “The Growing Peril of National Conservatism.” Back in the day Reagan and Thatcher were okay. But Meloni, Orban, Le Pen: OMG!
Maybe the real peril is a globalist ruling class that is weak, feeble, and just does not think outside the box of free migration, climate change, and anti-racism.