Is a Golden Age Near?

 

It was not long ago I was lamenting the absence of leaders. We had them back in the 1980s: Thatcher, Reagan, JPII, Pierre Trudeau, Gorbachev, Mitterand, Steve Jobs. These were people of stature. But since the 80s, we seemed to have been led by midgets with no sense of direction. Worse, they seemed untrustworthy and often illegitimate. Sunak? Biden? Pope Francis? Justin Trudeau? Macron? Tim Cook? Never mind ideology; these were empty suits off the rack. It was as though our civilization had lost all energy.

Then came Trump 2.0. It is worth being grateful for the fact that we are again in a time of giants. Trump is revolutionizing American politics. Never mind ideology, again—this is true leadership. He does not follow polls or received wisdom or the system: he leads. His administration is composed of other original thinkers, charismatic and principled leaders: JD Vance, Marco Rubio, RFK Jr. Tom Holman, Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, Doug Burgum, Pete Hegseth. It is all quite exciting.

At the same time, in the private sector, we have seen the rise of Elon Musk. He too is an original thinker, like Steve Jobs but more so, accomplishing one impossible thing after another. His latest prediction is that the US will enter a period of double digit economic growth within the next year and a half. Holy cow.

I long lamented the loss of the old media—or rather, the credibility of the old media. Back in the eighties, The Economist was trustworthy—you could count on a reasoned take on the world. I used to trust CBC Radio. Both collapsed into kneejerk leftism decades ago. Yet now, we seem to have trustworthy voices emerging in new media. There is turmoil, but The Daily Wire seems to set a responsible standard for commentary. Joe Rogan seems intelligent and honest.

Are leaders emerging in other countries as well as the US? Farage looks promising in the UK—he is certainly a leader. Italy has Meloni, and Japan now has Takaichi. Those are three important countries. Local “Trumps” are winning elections in Latin America.

We may be on the verge of good times—times as good as or better than the eighties, when the East Bloc collapsed, the Berlin Wall came down, the world was suddenly unipolar, the economy was expanding, and personal computers were suddenly appearing on desks everywhere.

Living in Interesting Times

 

Fascist headquarters in Rome: Hope and Change

How you would have reacted had you been a German in the 1930s? As Hitler rose to power? Would you have been one of the good guys? Even at personal risk?

No need to wonder. We are in a comparable time. Have you even noticed? Will you be proud of your role when, one day, your grandchildren ask?

We have a much larger Holocaust, of the unborn. Seventy million a year and counting.

We have the moral relativism that backstopped the Nazis. As with the Nazis, we have decided that morality is purely cultural and subject to choice. All we think about now is power and the triumph of the will. If I say I’m a woman, I am a woman. You must submit.

We have learned to see one another as ethnicities, rather than fellow humans. As “whites,” or “indigenous,” or “people of colour,” or even as the “gay community.” We have embraced the concept of corporate ethnic guilt, of blood libel. Moreover, if morality is purely a matter of cultural convention, all other ethnicities are immoral. 

We have established the same close collusion between government and large corporations that defined Nazism as an economic system. Big businesses are increasingly protected from competition by regulation, their profits guaranteed. In return, they enforce government policies. They have become, in effect, an arm of government.

We have seen totalitarian measures and the suspension of liberties: in the Covid and vaccine crisis; in the draconian response to the trucker protest in Canada; in the crackdown on “hate speech” and “misinformation” online. Governments keep pushing this envelope.

We have seen the police and courts subverted to political ends, as enabled the rise of Hitler in the Weimar Republic. We see eager prosecution and severe penalties for those on one side of the political aisle, while overlooking or barely punishing offenses on the other side.

And we have seen the Reichstag fire, in the reaction to the January 6 riot. Trudeau tried it in Canada as well, claiming the Freedom Convoy was subversive and the product of “foreign influence.” 

We have also seen the antisemitism, expanding rapidly, increasing in intensity, since October 7th. Now it is even okay again to kill Jews. Hamas did, and everyone on the left supports Hamas. The Jews are always the canaries in the mine. They are the first targets when morality breaks down.

All that is yet missing is the Fuhrer principle, the impulse to hand dictatorial power to a supposed “genius,” bypassing conventions and established systems.

Those on the left are actually accusing Trump and Musk of this. They are calling them Fascists or Nazis. 

Musk’s concentration of powers of all kinds has to be worrying, on Lord Acton’s principle that all power corrupts. And Trump is not good on keeping to social conventions.

But there is a critical element of Nazi leadership that they lack. The Fascist dictator is a narcissist, not a real genius. He only plays one in his own mind, and seeks to impose that illusion on others. This is why he seeks power. You expect him therefore to emerge from nowhere, without significant prior accomplishments. Like AOC, Bernie Sanders, Jacinta Ardern, or Justin Trudeau. Like Muammar Ghaddafi, or Stalin, or Saddam, or Putin.

Trump and Musk are, instead, actual known geniuses. They had achieved distinction before entering politics. 

It takes strong leaders, after all, to combat Nazism: a Churchill, a DeGaulle, a Tito.

And so the course for good men is clear.

What will you tell your grandchildren? Assuming they have not been aborted?

Musk's Nazi Salute

 

Heil General Public? Heil Republican voters?

About Elon Musk’s “Roman salute.”

Obviously, given the fact that in the popular mind “Nazi” is currently a synonym for pure evil, and Nazism is solely about obtaining power, the last thing a real Nazi would do is anything that would formally associate them with the Nazis of history. The last thing an actual Nazi would do is to give a Nazi salute in public.

Instead, Nazis would insist publicly that they are the anti-Nazis, and our protection against the Nazis. Just as the historical Nazis of Weimar Germany snuck into power by presenting themselves as the strongest protection against those horrible Bolsheviks.

The real Nazis would call themselves something like “Antifascists”—“Antifa,’ perhaps, for short.

The fact that Musk made a gesture that looked alarmingly like a Nazi salute obviously without thinking what it might look like to some is a testament that the man does not have a Nazi thought in his head. 

If it was a dog whistle to Nazis, pay attention to which dogs are barking.

World Historic Figures

 

Alexander the Great. Not to be confused with his purple cousin Alexander the Grape, nor his nephew Alexander the Merely Adequate.

We live in interesting times. Victor David Hanson was saying online that Elon Musk’s accomplishments make him a world-historic figure comparable to Alexander the Great. And he probably has many more years of major accomplishments to go.

And then there is Trump. Trump just seems to have gotten the war in Gaza ended before even taking office. It looks as though he is going to get Greenland to join the US, an acquisition that ought to put him on Mount Rushmore alongside Jefferson—the amount of land is equivalent to the Louisiana Purchase. And I think he has a good shot at getting Canada as well.

I think he will indeed go ahead and impose those heavy tariffs; because his main concern is not the terrorists or the drugs coming across the Northern border. What he really wants is to fund the US government with tariffs so he can lower taxes; although he would be delighted to annex Canada as an alternative. The Canadian economy will collapse. Even more so if the Canadian authorities impose tariffs on American goods in retaliation, as they seem intent on doing. They are alarmingly talking much more about that than about improving the situation on the border. Perhaps, to be fair, because they realize that they cannot satisfy Trump’s demands. But escalating a trade war with the US is walking into a trap. Canada cannot win.

I think the general population of Canada will soon be desperate to join the US to escape the hardships. Trump probably realizes this.

For generations, we have been governed by lawyers and bureaucrats, the clerisy; and to some extent by academics. The problem is that one does not rise in the bureaucracy, or the law, or in academics, through merit. So we are not getting the best minds leading us.

We are now discovering the talents of the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs rise from sheer merit, their ability to plan complex systems and see opportunities. Trump demonstrably has those talents; Musk demonstrably has those talents. Putting them in service to government is liable to bear rewards.

Trump's Egomania Revealed

 

There is as lot of grumbling about Elon Musk being so active in the incoming Trump administration. The common sneer is that he must soon fall from grace, because “Trump doesn’t like being upstaged.” 

This is not really a new idea. I heard this comment before, when there was discussion of possible VP picks. 

Where is it coming from? Does anyone have any actual evidence of Trump turning on someone for upstaging him?

Maybe from Mike Pence being his original VP. Pence was always low key to a fault.

But the story I hear is that Pence was not Trump’s choice. He was forced on him by the party brass, who feared Trump’s flamboyance and wanted a steady hand and steadier image. Trump wanted Newt Gingrich—another firebrand.

The thesis remains unproven. Nobody has ever upstaged Trump. It is just a way to avoid giving Trump credit for his own great showmanship. He has never needed to suppress anyone else for being a better showman, so there is no way to know whether he would.

But look at his cabinet picks. They are what evidence we have. He has not selected faceless bureaucrats or shrinking violets or yes-men. Each choice is someone outspoken, charismatic, and with their own constituency. RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, Tom Homan, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kristi Noem... They were the very ones you would pick if you were trying to find someone to upstage Trump.

Compare the cabinet of Justin Trudeau in Canada. None have established an independent constituency or identity with the public—unless by resigning. Those who already had a public profile, having served prior to Trudeau, Stephane Dion or Marc Garneau, were pushed out early. In the recent cabinet shuffle, with perhaps one third of his caucus in open revolt, Trudeau appointed David McGuinty and Nathaniel Erskine-Smith as new ministers. You would think at this point he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Instead, he was finally forced at last to appoint members who, based on their skills, accomplishments, and constituencies, should have been in the cabinet all along. But they might have taken some of the spotlight from Trudeau.

As is usually the case, the common wisdom among the punditry is the opposite of the truth.

MSNBC or Not to Be?

 

Much buzz now about Elon Musk buying MSNBC. I hope he doesn’t.

I think Fox is highly vulnerable to a competitor on the right side of the spectrum. I think they have too much power, and the US and US right would be well served to have someone else in that space—so that Fox could not suddenly dump extremely popular presenters, or inordinately influence Republican candidate selection. 

However, or Musk’s sake, I think it would be a bad investment. Cable news is on its way out; it cannot compete with vloggers, who have no restrictions on their speech and much lower overheads. There are big names dumped by Fox whom Musk could scoop up and put on his revamped MSNBC: Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Bill O’Reilly, and on and on . But if they have an audience, they are now well-established on podcast. Would they want to go back to the restrictions of being an employee?

And I think it is time to be concerned about concentration of ownership by Musk. It is troubling for one man to be in control of so much of the media landscape, and indeed the economy.

If, however, someone were to buy MSNBC and turn it into a competitor to Fox… they could so some nice things with it. There is a general tiresome sameness about both Fox and MSNBC now: all just talking heads making the same political points on every issue. What is the point of watching Hannity, then Ingraham, then Pirro all say the same thing?

I’d like to see a show like the old Hannity and Combs, or Point-Counterpoint. Have competent spokespeople for left and right sound off on the issues of the day. This is the way to know both sides of the issue, and we are losing that. We do get panels with a single embattled spokesperson for the other side, but that is still not balanced. 

I’d also like to see a formal debate program, on the lines of Oxford Union, addressing wider and deeper questions. 

I’d like to see something on the upstream culture, beyond mere politics, featuring those right-wing artists and creators who have been blacklisted for so many years. This could be a late-night talk show like the old Carson Tonight Show; but featuring the counter-culture. Huckabee has been doing something like this. 

Do a soft interview show, like Rogan, Larry King. One guest, one hour. We could have two shows like this, one for more political figures, one for cultural figures.

Do a regular town hall show, with different guests answering questions from a live audience—to hear the real concerns of the people. The intention would be to break through the screen of a professional journalism class setting the agenda.

I’d like to see a “Libs of TikTok,” showcasing the most absurd expressions of the woke. This or a separate show could also do Matt Walsh, Steven Crowder, or Candid Camera-style intrusions into woke spaces.

And how about a program on the DOGE theme, just investigating examples of supposed government waste, and arguments for and against the expenditure?

These are among the TV shows I would still be interested in watching.