We are not the only ones

Barack Obama’s election was the result of a democratic process (give or take a few problems with the MSM and fund-raising by the winning candidate’s campaign, which are unlikely to be investigated, according to a link on Instapundit). It is not true that conservative ideas were rejected wholesale or, even, that the Republican Party was. The results are a little more complicated than that and are being chewed over, even as I write and you read.

The winning side, on the other hand, is beginning to face up to some unpalatable problems. The Washington Post, for instance, having admitted that they were dishonest and unethical during the campaign (though they did not admit the full extent of that dishonesty), is now prattling about continuity trumping change.

(The Jewish World Review has a wonderful Open Letter, written by Barry Rubin, which starts with the words:

Right now you don't understand why Bill Clinton and George Bush couldn't solve a little thing like the Arab-Israeli conflict, defuse the massive hatred of America in the Middle East, end terrorism or turn radical Islamism into an ideology of peace.

Don't worry. You will.

Reminds me of all the various Prime Ministers in this country who come to office not understanding why their predecessors could not solve the “European problem”. They exit sadder and a little wiser but no nearer to a solution.)

However, it was a defeat for the Republicans and for the right, in general and it is necessary to take stock and think about the future. I am glad to say that taking stock for the right in the US does not seem to follow the path of our own Conservative Party a. k. a. Tory Socialists since 1997.

First of all, let me remind our readers that, in the wake, of Obama’s victory I put together some ideas about the position of the right, particularly in this country and very unhappy those thoughts were, too. Nothing I have heard from Tory Socialists or their allies in that party has given me any hope.

Let me give one example. I have been told more often than I can count it by the Tory Obama-supporters that he has promised to cut tax for 95 per cent of the population. There are certain problems with it. For instance, there is a tax cut being promised to people who do not actually pay income tax (what everybody is talking about, I assume) because their income is too low. So, if they get a tax cut, that will be a tax credit, though as they do not pay tax, it will be a benefit. Somebody has to pay for it and the threshold for those tax cuts is going lower and lower. Last heard of, it was $150,000 and I do not believe that 95 per cent of the country’s population earns less than that.

I may be wrong because nobody can predict anything, especially in politics, but it does not strike me as likely that 95 per cent of the population will benefit, especially when one looks at the ever-growing bail-out and all the many things Obama has promised to set up and pay for from government funds.

Ah well, I am told, even if it is not true, this shows that right-wing ideas have triumphed. Oh good. Well, yes, socialist ideas, openly spoken, do not win elections. I think we can say that without fear of contradiction. Just look at the trouble Obama got into when he, not having a teleprompter to hand, admitted to Joe the plumber that yes, indeed, he was planning to tax small businesses more to redistribute the money. The subsequent vicious campaign against Joe was a lesson in … well, vicious campaigning.

On the other hand, sitting back and saying that we are doing fine because our ideas have triumphed is precisely the course of action that has made us what we are on the right in Britain: fat, complacent and defeated.

Some of the Republican stock-taking seems to consist of highly unpleasant back-biting, taking the form of unnamed McCain staffers, who are really to blame for the man’s lacklustre campaign, spreading vitriolic and stupid gossip about Governor Palin, who has reacted with remarkable sang-froid. The whole sorry saga can be followed in various stories on Hot Air.

More on the hoaxer that was the source of the Palin stories here and a very good article in the Wall Street Journal on the need for Senator McCain to speak out. But all that is by the by. Mud-slinging and it-was-not-our-fault-honest whining will disappear after a while if for no other reason that even the clueless staffers and journalists who fall for hoaxers like Martin Eisenstadt [read his self-justification and scroll down] will realize that the public finds it all very distasteful.

Of greater interest is a piece by P. J. O’Rourke on why the Republicans lost and deserved to lose. (Then again, Mr O’Rourke has never, in his life, written a piece that was not of interest.) The article has received much attention on the American blogosphere and is well worth reading in full even if he, naturally, concentrates on matters to do with that country.

P. J. O’Rourke’s list of the many things the conservatives managed to get wrong is very long and probably incomprehensible to many British readers. After all, who gets worked up about abortion in this country, anyway? My own view on the subject as subject is that we should get a little worked up as there are aspects to it that would be hard to stomach if people paid attention.

It may be wrong to interfere with people’s privacy if they want to have abortions and the majority of the United States may be in favour of some form of it being legal (though the figures are quite complicated) but, in my experience, what bugs a lot of people is the way abortion was introduced: through a constitutionally dubious legal decision, rather than votes in states. (There is an echo of that in the present row about gay marriages, particularly in California.) One important part of conservatism in the United States is a strong belief in the Constitution and the separation of powers. I think Mr O’Rourke ought to have devoted some time to that.

His idea of explaining to people exactly what the various possibilities open to governments are sounds rather whacky when one thinks of the average electoral campaign, never mind the exhausting one America and the rest of us have just gone through.

Conservatives should never say to voters, "We can lower your taxes." Conservatives should say to voters, "You can raise spending. You, the electorate, can, if you choose, have an infinite number of elaborate and expensive government programs. But we, the government, will have to pay for those programs. We have three ways to pay.

"We can inflate the currency, destroying your ability to plan for the future, wrecking the nation's culture of thrift and common sense, and giving free rein to scallywags to borrow money for worthless scams and pay it back 10 cents on the dollar.

"We can raise taxes. If the taxes are levied across the board, money will be taken from everyone's pocket, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and least advantaged will be harmed the most. If the taxes are levied only on the wealthy, money will be taken from wealthy people's pockets, hampering their capacity to make loans and investments, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and the least advantaged will be harmed the most.

"And we can borrow, building up a massive national debt. This will cause all of the above things to happen plus it will fund Red Chinese nuclear submarines that will be popping up in San Francisco Bay to get some decent Szechwan take-out."

Yes, this would make for longer and less pithy stump speeches. But we'd be showing ourselves to be men and women of principle. It might cost us, short-term. We might get knocked down for not whoring after bioenergy votes in the Iowa caucuses. But at least we wouldn't land on our scruples. And we could get up again with dignity intact, dust ourselves off, and take another punch at the liberal bully-boys who want to snatch the citizenry's freedom and tuck that freedom, like a trophy feather, into the hatbands of their greasy political bowlers.

There, I suspect, speaks a man who has never had to run a political campaign. Long before one got to item 2 the listeners would have lost interest and gone off to vote for the other guy who had promised some instant solution in a sound bite. As a character says in that superb musical “Bandwagon”, you can’t spread principles on a cracker.

On the other hand, as Marxists defined it a long time ago, there is propaganda and there is agitation. There are political principles and there are sound bites; both have their place in political discussion but the sound bites should be based on political principles and, above all, information.

Here, on the other hand, is another article that advocates more precise ideas by way of a Night of the Long Knives, by Deroy Murdock in the National Review. What is rather interesting about this piece as well as P. J. O’Rourke’s is that neither suggests that the way for Republicans to get back is to move further to the left and espouse their opponents’ ideas, the panacea that was advocated here in 1997 with the disastrous result that the Conservatives have been out of government for ten years and the right is all over the place.

Mr Murdock’s idea is that only a return to Reaganism (and, perhaps, an improvement on it, if that is not too sacrilegious an idea) can save the Republican Party. They also need to get rid of those who have compromised it in the years since that great presidency. Well, that’s being hopeful. Politicians never know how much trouble they created and cling to their position with a ferocity that is off the Richter scale.

John Hinderaker on Powerline also raises the subject of what the conservatives should do now but does not answer the question – it is a little hard to do so immediately – merely suggesting that new ideas and a new understanding is needed. Obama managed to win support by simply sounding different.

By merely raising the idea of a new kind of politics that would get past the current battle lines and come at issues from new directions, he became one of the most popular figures of our time, even though he had absolutely no clue how to do what he talked about. We should be able to do at least as well as that.

It seems slightly pointless to emulate somebody who hasn’t a clue what he is talking about simply because that empty rhetoric won him the election handily but not by a landslide as it had been predicted in a year when the Democrats were predicted to sweep all before them. This sounds a little too much like the sort of stuff our own Conservatives have been producing in the last ten years to no effect whatsoever. I am, on the other hand, looking forward to any future discussion on Powerline. They are always interesting.

Well, that’s America. What about us? How are we doing on the right? Still not very well and still clinging to the idea that we have anything in common with that sorry lot of incompetents, the Conservative Party or Tory Socialists.

As it happens, the things people are interested in have not changed all that much anywhere, despite the article on Powerline. High on the agenda is the economy and taxation. The Conservatives seem to have blown it again. The proposals are described as timid, unimaginative and generally unhelpful in its complexity. The Taxpayers’ Alliance gives a harsh verdict, which would be a little more credible if they did not come up with that old canard about cutting VAT by 2 percentage points. An interesting thought – where do they get this idea that it can be done by national government fiat? In order to achieve a temporary derogation a government has to apply to the Commission. Now, it is possible that, in the circumstances, the Commission will be happy to give that permission but, in order to remain credible, it might be a good idea to get these facts right.

The reason for the timidity is quite clear. The Conservatives have no idea of what they think governments should be doing and how much income they should be getting. They cannot actually present the arguments Mr O’Rourke suggests because they have not got that far in their thinking.

Then we get to the big issue of the day, the one Tories and their various think-tank acolytes will not touch: the European Union, which has now invaded every nook and cranny of our national life. No political campaign can be conducted without running up against that noisome organization but the Tory Socialists pretend that it is a separate issue and can be discussed as such. The separate issue, they say pompously and stupidly, is of little interest to the electorate. Oh right. How about the fact that VAT is an EU tax? Or that immigration is an EU competence? Or that we have outsourced international trade to the EU? Are these of interest to people in this country? You betcha.

I realize that once again I am raising questions without providing answers. That will come in good time through this blog and, I hope, the Bruges Group. (Still working to set something up in that organization that would provide serious research.)

For the moment let me return to the Marxist idea of propaganda and agitation. As outlined by the first Russian Marxist, Georgy Plekhanov, the two had to address two different groups. Plekhanov was one of the world’s worst political writers so it takes a little time to work out what he is saying but, on the whole, this is accurate.

Propagands is a more extensive, more profound collection of ideas, aimed at people who are already aware of political ideology. In Marxist terms that was the conscious working class, though in reality it was the intelligentsia and the middle classes that mostly fell for it. Agitation, on the other hand, is what we would probably call political campaigning – a collection of easy ideas and slogans poured out at people who have not yet started thinking about politics. Many of them will be taken by those slogans sufficiently to move on to the next stage and listen to propaganda.

Let’s translate it into our own terms. Shooting from the hip gets us nowhere because we cannot substantiate our own arguments. What we need is a body of research and analysis that deals with the various topics (by which I mean serious research rather than vague figures that are presented with the hope that nobody will challenge them) and can be mined for those arguments. The notion that “ordinary people” cannot understand serious arguments is rubbish. Konstantin Stanislavsky said that there are no small parts in plays only small actors. There are no stupid electorates only badly presented political arguments.

Well, what now?

This is November 5, there are fireworks outside and the day is appropriate for thinking about blowing up politicians. Our politicians, nobody else's. When I saw and heard this morning the joyful whoops of our own Tories because an extreme left-wing socialist (so far as we know but more anon) has been elected in the United States I announced that I was on a mission to destroy that party. A friend asked me whether they needed my help. Possibly not, but I am happy to supply it.

Since then I have calmed down a bit, noted that the final results in America are not quite as bad as we had feared (I am talking about Congress now) and I can now start thinking more or less rationally. (OK, stop sniggering at the back.)

First of all, let's get some of the hype out of the way. Yes, the new president is mixed race, something that could not have happened even forty years ago and can happen in only one country of the western world – the United States. On the other hand, he is not a descendant of slaves. In fact, given that there is East African Arab blood there, he is quite likely to be a descendant of slave traders. None of that matters.

Let us not forget that another barrier has still not been crossed – far too many people find the idea of a woman President (remember that 51 per cent of the population?) still unthinkable. I have high hopes for 2012, though.

The truth is that having an African father does not make one a magician who can change the world by waving a wand. In this case, it merely makes one a rather vacuous and somewhat corrupt politician. So, the world, despite the hysteria in our own and the American media, has remained stubbornly unchanged, though the New York Times is suddenly discovering nuances in Gitmo. Not long before David Cameron will follow suit, then.

Clearly, somebody has not given President Medvedev (Putin's mishka) the memo about it being a new dawn as he has used his first address to the nation to hit out at the “selfish” American foreign policy and announce that Russia was planning to install short-range missiles in the Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) enclave. He said this just hours after Obama’s victory was confirmed and appeared not to be overawed by the historic significance. This sort of thing can make the German media seriously upset with the Russian president.

Our Islamist friends are completely unimpressed though the Muslim Brotherhood express their hope that Obama will do as they tell him.

Meanwhile, the markets tumble and Reuters, who also campaigned for Obama, fear that he will not have the money to introduce whatever it is he wanted to introduce for health care. I strongly suspect that, despite certain people getting carried away by the hope and change message, mortgages will still have to be repaid or the banks will foreclose and gasoline, though cheaper and no thanks to Obama, will not be free.

And, um, the first job offer seems to be going to a very familiar face, old Clinton hand and an associate of Mayor Richard Daley's. My, my, hope and change before our eyes.

Here is a good summary why things are not quite as bad as one might imagine, though they are not good. I don’t agree with everything in that analysis. I do not, for instance, think there will be a nuclear war between Iran and Israel for various reasons, though I do not think that the mad mullahs should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. I also think that with General Petraeus in place, there is a reasonable chance that things might be turned round in Afghanistan but that is in the realm of discussion.

However, the point about the American President having considerably less power than people think is a very good one. No American President could do to Congress what a succession of Prime Ministers have done to Parliament. Those who see Obama as a miracle worker do not seem to understand this. The Founding Fathers in their wisdom foresaw the possibility of a demagogue getting to the top and created various barriers. These are very hard to remove.

The scenario with the media, I suspect, will go differently. They are crazed with their triumph now and have forgotten that readerships, viewing figures, share prices are slipping. But those facts will catch up with them and there will be the problem of boredom. So one or two journalists might start doing what they refused to do in the last couple of years and dig up a few facts about Obama, which have been hidden away but are discussed on the blogosphere.

Will we finally find out more about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and the millions wasted and mis-spent? Are we to be told what Obama’s achievements at Columbia and Harvard really were? Where is that birth certificate? There are many more questions. But what will happen to any journalist who might try to write about it now that it is too late and the election cannot be affected? My guess is that they will fall foul of the Obamatroops and will start whining. That will be fun to watch.

Will those who jumped on the bandwagon like Peggy Noonan and Colin Powell get their reward or will they be discarded as not being useful any more? What fun if it is the second. That’s what I would do if I were Obama. Not being nasty or anything but I do despise people who are that cheap.

It will be fun to watch all those who are screaming about hope and change slowly realize that there is no change and little hope; that nobody, least of all a complete novice, can make good all those promises.

It will be fun to see the European leaders reel in shock as President Obama asks for more troops in Afghanistan and imposes all kinds of protectionist measures to keep the unions who brought out the vote happy. What will the Tories say when President Obama instructs the Democratic Congress to pass legislation that abolishes secret ballot in union votes and elections? Still applaud the hope and change bringer? What if Prime Minister Gordon Brown decides to follow suit?

It will be fun to watch as the libertarians realize that yes, indeed, there is a difference between the likes of Obama and the likes of McCain and, especially, Palin.

It will be fun to watch Joe Biden make an even bigger fool of himself than he has done so far. Absolutely nobody can accuse him of being the evil genius behind the presidency and we can always remind people how much smarter and more attractive Sarah Palin is.

It will be fun to watch all those who are hoping for a mega-hand-out walking away with little to show for their loyalty.

Of course, the trouble is that President-elect Obama has achieved nothing in his life and has put an omertá on every action in his past. So even those of us who have followed the campaign on the more outspoken blogs know nothing about him really. Perhaps he is a secret Reaganite. It is unlikely, given his various friends and mentors as well as the few pronouncements he has made, such as the one about redistributionist tax, but, of course, we don’t exactly know whether he really believes what he and his friends and mentors have been saying or whether he was just ready to be raised by the Chicago political machine.

It will not be fun to watch the Democrats make a complete hash of the American economy and reduce it to Carter-like levels. It has been calculated that FDR’s New Deal set back economic recovery by seven years and, eventually, he was rescued by the war. Obama can set it back even more and he will not be rescued by the Japanese who are not anxious to bomb anyone, least of all the Americans.

It will not be fun to watch the callow and ignorant Obama being bamboozled and challenged by our enemies just as the callow and ignorant Kennedy was by Khrushchev. Out of Kennedy’s lack of ability we got the Berlin Wall and the Cuban crisis. Then the man decided to get tough and tied America down in Vietnam.

What will come out of Obama’s lack of knowledge and experience? Another attack by Al-Qaeda, who did not dare to do so while Bush was president? What will Obama do if he decides to show himself to be tough? Will he bomb Pakistan as he said in one of the Primary debates? Or Iran? Contrary to what BDS sufferers might think, it is the weak, uncertain, fearful politicians who are dangerous not the ones who know what they want even if they are not always right about the path they take. Obama, the man who does not dare to reveal anything about himself, is a danger to us all, precisely because he is unknown and unpredictable.

It will be no fun to watch the poisonous, illiberal, anti-democratic tranzis and their supporters try to inveigle America into organizations such as the International Criminal Court, against express constitutional instructions and against the country’s interests. That is, of course, the promised land that the lefties and the tranzis have glimpsed: the surrender of the largest democracy in the world. Then again, it will not be as easy as they think.

So, what is to be done? I am delighted to see that the American right is regrouping already. This is what Michelle Malking is saying and she speaks for many:

There is no time to lick wounds, point fingers, and wallow in post-election mud. I'm getting a lot of moan-y, sad-face "What do we do now, Michelle?" e-mails.

What do we do now? We do what we've always done.

We stand up for our principles, as we always have — through Democrat administrations and Republican administrations, in bear markets or bull markets, in peacetime and wartime.

We stay positive and focused.

We keep the faith.

We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them.

We defend them.

We pay respect to the office of the presidency. We count our blessings and recommit ourselves to our constitutional republic.

We gird our loins, to borrow a phrase from our Vice President-elect.

We lock and load our ideological ammunition.

We fight.

Above all, we do not behave like the British Conservative Party has done for the last ten years. She did not say it but I am happy to supply the extra words.

The right in America often does well under a left-wing government, though there is some worry about Obama’s distaste for the Constitution and his obvious dislike of the First Amendment. There is no getting away from the fact that they will be very busy in the next few years.

We must stop relying on the Yanks for unbounded political and financial support. Of course, they will remain our allies and the fight for the Anglosphere goes on but we, on this side of the Pond, must also gird our loins and start fighting.

I have pointed out before that the right in Britain is in a parlous state. We have become fat and complacent and allowed the Conservative Party to take over as the lead organization. If nothing else, their unholy glee over Obama’s election should put to rest any doubt we might have about what they are: Tory Socialists and we do not want them. In fact, if this ship is to reach its destination or even leave the harbour, the Tory Socialists will have to walk the plank.

No longer do I want to hear confidential whispers about how some Tory boy or girl really does not disagree with me at all, is not too far from my point of view, really would not like to see any further European integration. Let's say it loudly and clearly: if you are not with us you are against us.

The rest of us, those who want to build up the right, who believe in Britain being an independent democracy with small government and a great deal of individual freedom, who believe that the future belongs to the Anglosphere and we want to be part of it, need to start formulating a battle plan. And there can be no rest, no whining and no self-satisfied patting of each other's shoulders until we do so and act on it.

UPDATE: I have just been informed by a very sound American contact that one of the achievements of the blogosphere has been to change opinions on the American right from being vaguely pro-EU to being more than vaguely anti that pernicious organization. So here is a trek to follow, one that is very easy for us.

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