Neoconservatism

The Alt Right Is Right, FEDERALIST’s Tracinski Wrong, About American History (And Donald Trump)

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Previously posted at VDARE.

The Alt Right is busting out all over (two more Main Stream Media attacks today, here and here)! Some of of this is because Richard Spencer, head of the National Policy Institute, made the wise move of having high-profile public meetings in Washington, DC. But I think it’s more than that.

Donald Trump’s candidacy has resonated deeply with voters, to the point that his supporters are famously immune to the hostile MSM barrage. Mainly these are the (white) people who have been left behind by both parties—the Democrats and their Rainbow Coalition of the racially and sexually aggrieved advocating ever more immigration, multiculturalism, Political Correctness, and LGBT privileges; the Republicans with their unholy alliance between neoconservatives  traitorously promoting the interests of Israel, and the Chamber of Commerce/K Street/wealthy donors promoting free trade, outsourcing, cheap labor, Open Borders, etc.

That leaves the Alt Right as the only identifiable segment of the political spectrum with any kind of theoretical or ideological grounding that supports Trump.

To combat this new menace to Conservatism Inc., we have hit jobs like Robert Tracinski’s Yes, The Alt Right Are Just a Bunch of Racists in The Federalist [April 4, 2016] specifically professing to refute two articles that “run interference for the Alt Right”. [The Intellectual Case For Trump I: Why The White Nationalist Support? By Mytheos Holt, Federalist, March 30, 2016 and An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right, by Allum Bokhari & Milo Yiannopoulos, Breitbart, March 29, 2016]

For all his intellectual pretensions, Tracinski [Email him] really depends on the knowledge that his audience can be stampeded by the “racists” smear. No need to do any heavy lifting. Nevertheless, I think his arguments, however disingenuous, are worth deconstructing as a case study in cuckservatism. Read more

Bill Kristol prefers Hillary to Trump: What happened to all those conservative principles?

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It’s always been obvious that Hillary as president is just fine with the neocons. After all, she voted for the Iraq war and was instrumental in the disaster in Libya. She supported sending arms to Syrian rebels and likened Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to Hitler. She wholeheartedly backs Israel, and has her own set of rabidly pro-Israel foreign policy advisers, especially Robert Kagan who advocates military intervention and democracy creation throughout the Middle East as a moral imperative—exactly the ideology that led the US into the disastrous Iraq war. Clinton’s main donor is Haim Saban, a rabid Zionist who has said that his only issue is Israel.

Obviously, Bill Kristol and the neocons would not lose any sleep if Hillary Clinton became president.

In fact, I suspect they would prefer Hillary to any Republican candidate except Marco Rubio who has the ideal blend of subservience to neocon foreign policy and support  for liberal social policy on issues like immigration. Rubio is bought and paid for by the Israel Lobby (especially Paul Singer and Norman Braman) and is now the establishment favorite.

On the other hand, Donald Trump opposed the Iraq war, calling it a “complete disaster” and, even more amazingly, stating, “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”  Trump has also supported Vladimir Putin’s policy of propping up the Assad government in Syria. As is well known, Assad and Putin are very high on the neocon hate list. He has told the Republican Jewish Coalition that he didn’t want their money because with their money comes control and he has pledged to be neutral on the Israel-Palestine issue.

Because of this blatant conflict with neocon foreign policy, neocons like Bill Kristol have been in the lead of floating third-party candidates to run against him should he get the GOP nomination. Read more

National Review’s Failed Conservatism of Values, Ideas, and Principles

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The National Review assault on Donald Trump brings up the issue of basing one’s political views on values, ideas, and principles. The problem is simply that these abstractions may or may not reflect fundamental interests, and the Trump candidacy is bringing this to the fore. The NR commentary is essentially a brief for the priority of principles, ideas, and values over interests. NR editor Rich Lowry sums up the theme:

If you truly are conservative, you believe in ideas and in principles, … It’s not just attitudes. It’s not just who you dislike. It’s limited government. It’s the Constitution. It’s liberty. Those are the things that truly make this country special. And they are basically afterthoughts to Donald Trump. He almost never talks about them.

For Lowry, the contrast is between ideas and principles versus not liking someone (?!). Concerns about “limited government” and respect for the Constitution are the main themes running through the comments. Trump just hasn’t been mouthing adherence to either of them, and his critics point to instances, mainly in the past, where he has strayed from these abstractions. (Yes, the Constitution is an abstraction, because as Joe Sobran said (and quoted by Gregory Hood), “the Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.” It follows from this, and it is certainly true, that the Constitution does not pose any serious threat to the eclipse of White America.)

In all of this, there is no mention of fundamental interests that might  be compromised by adhering to the principles they espouse. As I noted in a recent article on the response to Trump, “Conservatism Inc. may argue that Trump is not a ‘conservative.’ But the reality is that Trump voters are focusing on his big issues—immigration first and foremost. Unless we win the immigration battle, none of the other battles can possibly be won.” Read more

Review of PBS Frontline’s The War Behind Closed Doors

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While I was in the midst of trying to publicize the Jewish instigation and the folly of invading Iraq in early 2003 as an occasional writer of scripts for American Dissident Voices,  PBS Frontline presented a rather helpful documentary called The War Behind Closed Doors, written by Michael Kirk, and coproduced by Michael Kirk and Jim Gilmore.

The introduction to The War Behind Closed Doors is quite promising, with Frontline’s narrator stating: “Over two decades, they had served three presidents, and argued for one big idea, that the United States must project its power and influence throughout the world. This is the story of how they set out to change American foreign policy in the days immediately after the tragedy of September 11th.” Then, to be more specific about what that means, the intro includes a clip of former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack saying: “And it does seem very clear that this group seized upon the events of September 11th to resurrect their policy of trying to go after Saddam Hussein and a regime-change in Iraq.” This was a documentary that would clarify who was responsible for the drive for war against Iraq: Neoconservatives — which meant that the war was not fundamentally about oil.

The documentary describes the path to invasion of Iraq (which seemed imminent but had not yet occurred when the program aired on 20 February 2003) as a struggle between Neoconservatives (also calling themselves “Neo-Reaganites” or “hawks”) led by Paul Wolfowitz, and “pragmatists” or “realists” ostensibly led by Colin Powell. The Neoconservative position was that Saddam Hussein’s government must be destroyed, while the pragmatists, without disputing the Neoconservatives’ provocative claims about Saddam Hussein, advocated containment as the appropriate response. Read more

Donald Trump’s Rise Sparks Widespread Angst Among Jewish Republicans

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An article in The Forward again shows the true colors of the Republican Jewish Coalition: Liberal politics, abhorrence of White identity, and a powerful loyalty to Israel (Josh Nathan-Kazis, Donald Trump’s Rise Sparks Widespread Angst Among Jewish Republicans).

At a recent board meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, the big donors and high-powered operatives in the room went around the table to make sure they had someone supporting each potential Republican nominee.

Jeb Bush backers were easy to find. Supporters of Marco Rubio, too, were plentiful. Ted Cruz had friends there, as did Scott Walker, and even George Pataki and Lindsey Graham. The Republican Jewish elite have spread themselves wide across the GOP firmament.

Obviously it’s a good strategy to cultivate all the possibilities, just as the Israel Lobby has traditionally cultivated both sides of the aisle.

Yet Donald Trump, who has topped 20% to lead all other Republicans in recent presidential primary polls, and who also leads the pack in both Iowa and New Hampshire, is a different story. An RJC member who was present at the board meeting said he could not recall if Trump had backers there. What is clear is that, despite his surge in the polls, the anti-immigration hard-liner has strikingly little support among prominent Republican Jewish donors, activists and consultants.

Many Republican Jewish leaders remain unwilling to speak about Trump. …

Jewish Republicans’ critiques of Trump, when they can be convinced to air them, fall into two categories. Most echo the concerns of the Republican establishment, deriding the real estate developer and former reality show star who is advocating selective tax increases on the wealthy as unserious. They worry that he will drive away nontraditional Republican voters. Others, however, have deeper concerns.

Right. A tax on hedge fund profits, as Trump proposes, would be a serious blow to the RJC.

“There are a lot of folks who are, to be charitable, into white identity politics, and to be uncharitable are outright racists, who are supporting Trump,” said Nathan Wurtzel, a Republican political consultant and principal at The Catalyst Group, who is Jewish. “It’s very off-putting and disturbing.”

 

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“Jew baiter” Obama: The same people who brought you Iraq are opposing the Iran deal

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Sometimes Jewish comments related to anti-Semitism seem so unhinged that they surprise even me.  A Tablet article describes the meeting between Obama and a raft of Jewish leaders on the Iran deal (“Obama to Jewish Leaders: Lay Off the Iran Deal, and I Will Lay Off You“).

Words have consequences, and when they come from official sources, they can be even more dangerous, the president was told. The community worked hard to keep it from getting personal and didn’t make it specific to him. The president complained about the lobbying, and said some of the same people who brought you Iraq are opposing the Iran deal. He was told those characterizations are not accurate. Jewish lobbyists didn’t support the Iraq war.

Another participant who also asked to remain anonymous told me that some people expressed discomfort with  “how the debate is being framed—framed as, ‘if you are a critic of the deal, you’re for war.’ The implication is that if it looks like the Jewish community is responsible for Congress voting down the deal, it will look like the Jewish community is leading us off to another war in the Middle East.”

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Churchill — When Britain Said No

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When it comes to stirring oratory, few speeches have the power to quicken the pulse like Winston Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches…”  from  June, 1940. Generations of British schoolchildren have learned how that voice, crackling over the airwaves, helped galvanise the nation to new heights of endurance in the struggle against an all-powerful foe.

Churchill’s grand aristocratic tones summoned up the spirit of British defiance from across the centuries. So British schoolchildren are taught anyway — and you still come across grey-haired veterans of those days who vividly remember where they were when they heard it on the wireless.

Shame then, that it was all a bit of a fraud.  For the recorded version of the speech we are all familiar with, was not made until nine years later at his Chartwell country residence with the old boy rumbling into a microphone while sitting up in his bed. (The original speech in the House of Commons was not recorded — extracts were read out by newsreaders).

That is one of the milder revelations in a bunker-buster of a BBC television program called Churchill: When Britain Said No  which told the story of how the victorious war time premier was overwhelmingly rejected at the 1945 general election.

Predictably, the keepers of the flame are outraged. The Winston Churchill Industry in both the USA and Britain have expressed their disgust that such a program could have been broadcast. A “hatchet job” opined Lee Pollock, director of the Winston Churchill Center in Chicago. In an article in The Spectator  Mr Pollock wrote that “When Britain Said No  is so one-sided and hysterical that it actually does a disservice to the revisionist cause.” Churchill’s family, too, were enraged and condemned the program as “designed to belittle Churchill’s record.”

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