There’s something strange in the neighborhood.
The ‘right-wing’ BJP has taken control of India. The ‘far-right’ UKIP has won a large share of Britain’s local councils. And now France’s ‘far-right’ National Front has won “24.95% of the vote in France, according to official estimates, well ahead of mainstream parties UMP and the Socialist Party. Le Pen said the win showed that people want to see change in Europe. France’s Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the result was more than a warning. It is a shock, an earthquake.'” It’s being called an earthquake.
Ms Le Pen called for the dissolution of the French national assembly on Sunday after exit polls showed her anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic party winning European Parliament elections in France.
“What else can the president do after such a rejection?” Le Pen told reporters at National Front headquarters when asked if President Francois Hollande – whose ruling Socialists were well behind in third place – should dissolve the national parliament.
An earthquake it may be, but the papers will say the voters still like socialism, just as they still want Obamacare, which the Washington Post recently reported hit a new low in the polls. Just like Hillary’s still going to be president in 2016. The New York Times’ Brendan Nyham writes “Forget Benghazi. Clinton’s Real Problem Is Obama Fatigue”. A fresh face and makeover is all they need to come out on top again.
The current woes of the left are being put down to style because naturally, by definition there can be nothing wrong with the ideology itself. If the left has any failings it must put it down to the pious observation that it hasn’t tried hard enough. A few more taxes, a tad more political correctness, a soupcon of additional fascism and surveillance and they would have made it. That’s the lesson for Next Time.
The Huffington Post even has a gallery of monsters to frighten its readers. “European Elections: 9 Scariest Far-Right Parties Now In The European Parliament “.
One has a leader with a swastika tattoo, one wants to rid his entire country of Muslims, another has a founder who suggested releasing the Ebola virus on migrants. This is the class of 2014, the parties set to enter the European Parliament as part of the Union’s most eurosceptic, far right, anti-immigrant intake of all time.
If the left think it’s scary looking at its foes, they should try looking in the mirror. The media must have thought the recent rampage in Isla Vista would scare people of guns. And while it may have scared some, not half so many as were utterly terrified by a glimpse into the nihilist wasteland of My Twisted World. The left believes it has the moral high ground as fervently as Elliot Rodgers thought he was the Supreme Gentleman. The grand prize for unintentional irony in news coverage should be given to the Daily Mail which briefly captured how complicated things have become.
The filmmaker father of virgin killer Elliot Rodger sells erotic black and white photography of naked women’s behinds.
While his son produced numerous videos and a 140-page manifesto plainly spelling out his raging hatred of women, Peter Rodger has composed a rather more tasteful, albeit risqué portfolio.
Second prize goes to Otto von Bismarck who remarked that “preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death,” a motto those intent on establishing Obamacare should study carefully. Humanity muddles through. There are no gods upon the earth.
It would be wrong to think that voters love the man with the Swastika Tattoo. They may hate him in fact. It may just be that they hate the left wing, which is well stocked with grotesques of its own, even more. At the moment the biggest selling point of the surging “far-right” is that simply they are not “far-left” or as they like to put it “mainstream”. It’s hard for someone inside the bubble to fathom how much resentment has piled up against incessant lies and smarmy preaching of the PC brigade.
Readers may be astonished to learn that Nigel Farage only finished high school. Ironically that may be his selling point; perhaps because the voters have long been looking for someone who attended neither Oxford nor Cambridge, just so they can cast a ballot in his favor.
Which isn’t to say that the “right-wing” movements now ascendant won’t make a mess of things in their turn. Many of their leaders have risen through the same twisted political system that made their rivals. In any case they are men, who like other men can be vain, stupid and venal.
This notwithstanding, they are a change from those leftists who were also vain, stupid and venal. The left has undeniably taken a hit. Like the Black Knight in the Monty Python skit, they are too chopped up to plausibly shrug off setbacks with a “’tis only a flesh wound” remark. Nice arm you had there. Where is it? If the American Democratic party still thinks they can sell Obama as a secret success the voters are too stupid to appreciate they should think again.
Of course they will conclude that “something” is wrong — though never Obama. And the answer will still be that ‘we failed to try hard enough’. Whom the gods wish to destroy they stick on stupid. Only a few years ago the Left was acting as if History had spoken; mumbled on about permanent majorities, described their beliefs as ‘scientific consensus’. They acted as if they had some holy writ, even when that writ consisted entirely of talking points written by their own hacks. And come what may they still believe that He Shall Overcome. For if they stop believing it, they’ll mill around like frightened children who realize they’ve been following the Pied Piper into a cavern all along. Ideologies, like the religions they profess to hate, are really churches themselves, shelters against an encroaching dark which ironically, is of their own making.
What shall the left do now that their ant-heap has been stepped on? Mill around in disorder for a season, one hopes.
The greatest benefit of political earthquakes lies in the simple destruction of the incumbents. Kicking the incumbents out of power, whatever party they may hail from — and not installing a specific set of permanent replacement bums — is what usually improves matters most. It’s beneficial in itself. William F.Buckley was being completely nonpartisan and rational when he said that he would rather be governed by the first 50 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of a famous university.
Politicians are like underwear. Change them early and often. Eric Schmidt once wrote: “Washington is an incumbent protection machine. Technology is fundamentally disruptive.” And so too perhaps is democracy. Discontent is the blinker bulb of the political Christmas tree.
Bum.
Throw the bums out.
Bum.
Throw the bums out.
It’s nature’s way.
Recent items of interest by Belmont readers based on Amazon click-throughs.
Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
Hill 488
How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them: 11 Rules for Winning the Argument
The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History
The New Physics
Samsung Galaxy S III SGH-i747 16GB GSM Unlocked Blue
Ten Years That Shook the World: The Gorbachev Era As Witnessed by His Chief of Staff
No Way In
Did you know that you can purchase some of these books and pamphlets by Richard Fernandez and share them with you friends? They will receive a link in their email and it will automatically give them access to a Kindle reader on their smartphone, computer or even as a web-readable document.
The War of the Words for $3.99, Understanding the crisis of the early 21st century in terms of information corruption in the financial, security and political spheres
Rebranding Christianity for $3.99, or why the truth shall make you free
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Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99, why government should get small
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99. Fiction. A flight into peril, flashbacks to underground action.
Storm Over the South China Sea $0.99, how China is restarting history in the Pacific
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