By John A. Burtka IV

John A. Burtka IV is the executive director of the American Conservative magazine. 

Political movements need a villain if they are going to hold together diverse, often contradictory coalitions. For Democrats, their latest villain rode down an escalator in Midtown Manhattan on a mid-June day four years ago. Republicans, by contrast, have been searching for a new villain ever since the end of the Cold War.

The impeachable Bill Clinton, Islamist terrorism and Obamacare all served as targets for the conservative movement, but none of these villains was able to galvanize the coalition the way that communism did during the 1980s. Even with Donald Trump in the White House, Reagan nostalgia has not yet subsided as conservatives struggle to integrate their new working-class constituency into a party previously committed to free trade and marginal tax cuts. That is all about to change. 

According to many critics, conservatism has been in danger of falling into the state that literary critic Lionel Trilling ascribed to it in 1950, espousing “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” There is no glue holding the coalition together, let alone any discernible policy agenda. 

Enter Big Tech and the rise of China. There is consensus growing among conservatives in Washington and around the country that the biggest threats to American liberty come not from extremists in the Middle East or Democratic power grabs but from the behemoths in Silicon Valley and Beijing.

Conservatives have complained about liberal media bias for decades, but the threats posed by Big Tech and the accompanying phenomenon of “woke” capitalism and “surveillance” capitalism have combined to create a bias against conservatives that would have been hard to imagine even five years ago. Not only have Big Tech companies escalated their attempts to ban or censorconservative pundits, functioning as de facto editors of the digital public square, but they have also used their sizable economic clout, as Netflix has, to threaten states that pass socially conservative legislation. 

Fox News host Tucker Carlson cut to the heart of the matter last fall, ahead of the midterms, when he asked, “What could Google be doing this election cycle to support its preferred candidates? What could they do in 2020 is a question almost nobody in Washington seems interested in even asking. They ought to be interested.”

Read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/conservatives-havent-had-a-good-villain-since-the-cold-war-until-now/

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Turkey, foreign gas... electric cars, windmills, you name it... plenty of nemesis... and toadies to eradicate...

When Donald Trump descended the golden escalator to announce his run for president, none in the sceptical media pack below could have imagined he would win.

It was on this day four years ago - at the exact same stage of the last US presidential cycle - that Mr Trump made his announcement: he would, for real this time, run for the highest office in the land.

The property mogul and TV host was the 12th candidate to come forward to try to claim the Republican Party's nomination.

If the Washington establishment was sceptical, it was because this was not the first time he had floated a run for the White House, only not to follow up on his own speculation.

Many of the reports that day reflected those doubts. Many of them, employing a degree of mockery rarely used in news, denigrated his performance at the podium inside the gilded Trump Tower. Some of them, though only some, focused on his claim Mexico was sending "rapists" over the border.

What did commentators that day fail to understand about the man who would be president? And what did they get right?

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48595411

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The "sceptical media pack" did NOT include the Murdoch press. Here is your clue, blabberators of the "liberal" press and the Beeb. Murdoch pumped the Trump. End of story. Stop looking at your navel. Now... if you wanted to attack Trump, or denigrated him properly, YOU WOULD HAVE HAD TO ATTACK THE MURDOCH MEDIA. No-one scribing for money is ready to do this in ernest.

Trumpocracy was coming. What is Trumpocracy? It's the art of confusing everyone about one's intent, while not really having an intent but to stay on top despite all and sundries trying to push you off your perch. To achieve this feat, black becomes white and white becomes black, with confusing lightning speed of tweets and comments that are at the 14 year-old-school-leaver level, because "he" is a truant, has learning difficulties and is as cunning as a dirty rat. Consistency and direction are focus-absent — as the main goal is to make everyone miserable. While these sensitive souls try to find their self-composure, you steal their wallet. This is brilliant. The unwashables, the deplorables and the godguntottingables love it, because robbing poor and rich sods alike who are down on the ground, is at the core of self-defence of the ruthless idiot. Compassion? Fuck that.

In order to maintain the tempo, one needs a partner in crime: Murdoch. The same shit happened to Australia many times.

Ah. And I nearly forgot: not a single Russian in sight...

Wikipedia tells us:

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, journalist and popular historian who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015, having been the MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008. He was Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016, and from 2016 to 2018 he served as Foreign Secretary. A member of the Conservative Party, Johnson identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically and socially liberal policies.

Born in New York to wealthy upper-middle class English parents, Johnson was educated at the European School of Brussels, Ashdown House, and Eton College. He read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1986. He began his career in journalism at The Times but was sacked for falsifying a quotation. He later became The Daily Telegraph's Brussels correspondent, with his articles exerting a strong influence on growing Eurosceptic sentiment among the British right wing. He was assistant editor of the Telegraph from 1994 to 1999 and edited The Spectator from 1999 to 2005.

etc...

So what is a popular historian? It's a stand-up comic with non academic sub-arsolic view of history through the underpants of funny stories and fart jokes:

Here is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel view of US President Donald Trump, in 2016:

"I would invite him to come and see the whole of London … except that I wouldn't want to expose Londoners to any risk of meeting Donald Trump”.

"The only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump."

Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph, The Telegraph and The Spectator are not reference materials. Imagine the employment record: "Boris was our best bullshitter. We were sorry to see him go"...

He will fit nicely as Prime Minister of : " ... these English. A nation that "prostitute" to whoever can pay. From country to country, [England] goes out to the whole world, offering its fake horrible joy and its gross extravagance"

Should I be a Chinese astrologer, I could certify that the date of birth of Boris (oh, so close to that of Donald Trump in June) but being a Dragon instead of a Dog, is that of a perfectly born bullshitter for the next bullshitocracy... You're welcome.

Boris Johnson is under pressure over his role in Sir Kim Darroch’s resignation as British ambassador to Washington, with critics accusing the likely next prime minister of throwing the envoy “under the bus”.

In a shock move which prompted the senior civil servant at the Foreign Office to call an all-staff meeting to reassure “shaken” diplomats, Darroch announced on Wednesday he could no longer continue in his role following a leak of official cables in which he criticised Donald Trump.

The Guardian understands that he concluded he could not go on after he watched Tuesday’s Conservative leadership TV debate, where Johnson repeatedly dodged questions about whether he would sack the ambassador if he became PM.

Downing Street is so uncomfortable with the outcome that Theresa May is understood to be considering appointing a new ambassador in her last week as prime minister. That would upend protocol amid concerns Johnson could seek to make a controversial political appointment in the hope of pleasing Trump.

A broad political consensus has emerged that Johnson’s refusal to back Darroch had made the diplomat’s position untenable. Senior Conservative MPs joined the direct criticism of the leadership contender, describing his conduct as “unedifying” and “contemptible”. Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, asked: “If you do not support those you put into very difficult positions, what do you think is going to happen?”

In language that will be viewed as an implicit rebuke of Johnson, Theresa May told MPs: “I hope the house will reflect on the importance of defending our values and principles, particularly when they are under pressure.”

Boris Johnson is under pressure over his role in Sir Kim Darroch’s resignation as British ambassador to Washington, with critics accusing the likely next prime minister of throwing the envoy “under the bus”.

In a shock move which prompted the senior civil servant at the Foreign Office to call an all-staff meeting to reassure “shaken” diplomats, Darroch announced on Wednesday he could no longer continue in his role following a leak of official cables in which he criticised Donald Trump.

The Guardian understands that he concluded he could not go on after he watched Tuesday’s Conservative leadership TV debate, where Johnson repeatedly dodged questions about whether he would sack the ambassador if he became PM.

Downing Street is so uncomfortable with the outcome that Theresa May is understood to be considering appointing a new ambassador in her last week as prime minister. That would upend protocol amid concerns Johnson could seek to make a controversial political appointment in the hope of pleasing Trump.

A broad political consensus has emerged that Johnson’s refusal to back Darroch had made the diplomat’s position untenable. Senior Conservative MPs joined the direct criticism of the leadership contender, describing his conduct as “unedifying” and “contemptible”. Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, asked: “If you do not support those you put into very difficult positions, what do you think is going to happen?”

In language that will be viewed as an implicit rebuke of Johnson, Theresa May told MPs: “I hope the house will reflect on the importance of defending our values and principles, particularly when they are under pressure.”

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/10/kim-darroch-resigns-as-u...

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