My old boss Boris Johnson has been fortunate, as Donald Trump was in 2016, in his enemies. Labour and the Liberal Democrats and the various Celtic nationalists are all wasting their time going on about the "racist" and "homophobic" things he's said or written. By "racist", they mean he views the burqa as do the vast majority of those who aren't banged up in one. As for "homophobia", my memory is that during his Spectator days he used to get lunch at a gay sandwich bar called The Butty Boys, which I recall he spoke very highly of. If they're still in business, perhaps an endorsement might help.
Be that as it may, watching some BBC show over the weekend, I caught a glimpse of (I think) The Observer's front page: the lead was a midnight altercation between Boris and his "partner" that resulted in a neighbor calling the police; below that was a story about Trump being accused of raping a woman in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the Nineties. In 2016 the Brexit and Trump wins had a certain geopolitical synchronicity; three years on the Johnson pitch is that for real success the psychodrama has also to be transatlantically aligned.
The rather tired bon mot on Britain's soi-disant next prime minister is that the only thing that can stop Boris Johnson is Boris Johnson. He was super-disciplined during the last month and managed to stick to his Trappist vows all the way through to the final round of the first stage of voting on Thursday. Then he celebrated his triumph by spilling red wine on his "partner"'s sofa which led to her allegedly yelling "Get off me!" and then "Get out of my flat!" and him refusing to. "Partner" is New Britspeak for what old-school Tories would have called a "mistress". Boris was recently kicked out by his second wife, and so moved in with the new bird, who happens to live in Camberwell, which is full of fashionable Labour Party types surrounding him on all sides with glasses held to the walls. And the cellphone has made the citizenry not only able but eager to play volunteer Stasi.
The standard gag on raffish Tories - you wouldn't trust him with your wife or your wallet - doesn't begin to do justice to Boris. He genuinely cannot answer the question how many children he has - or how many he's sired whose mothers were persuaded to ensure junior never made it out of the maternity ward. Like Trump with the pussy-grabbing tape, his supporters are said to have priced all this in - that, if a flawed vessel is the only way to reach the policy destination, so be it. But Boris in a certain sense is taking Trump to the next level - that, as the bounds of acceptable politics have become ever narrower and more constrained, only a certain size of personality can bust through them, and thus in such a world a low moral character is not faute de mieux but vital and necessary - at least if you're serious about screwing over the EU commissars. If, per America's founders, a republic presupposes virtue; whatever it is we are now presupposes a lack of it.
Boris was not an early jumper on the Trump train. On political trends, he is something of a latecomer and an opportunist: Nigel Farage truly wants out of the EU; Boris - who knows? In British terms, Trumpesque policy populism lies with Nigel and the Brexit Party. Boris is offering personality populism, and banking that enough voters will figure the policy comes with it.
~We shall see how that plays out. But I'm reminded of something the great actress Uta Hagen once told me: Dismissing a review of some actor's performance, she said, "I hate that phrase 'larger than life'. What's wrong with life?" Indeed. If "larger than life" leaders are now the answer, what's wrong with life? Trump is president and Boris is within grasp of Downing Street because regular life-sized conventional politics has failed. The "Trump Derangement Syndrome" types are missing the point: he's their creation. Enough of the electorate has concluded that a choice between Woke-fevered Democrats and Koch-funded Republicans is insufficient.
Some of us can claim to have seen this coming.To reprise what I wrote in Canada's National Post seventeen years ago - after the first round of the French presidential election, when the unthinkable happened and Jean-Marie Le Pen made it into the final run-off:
Terms like 'left' and 'right' are irrelevant in French politics. In an advanced technocratic state, where almost any issue worth talking about has been ruled beyond the scope of partisan politics, you might as well throw away the compass. The presidential election was meant to be a contest between the supposedly conservative Chirac and his supposedly socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin. In practice, this boils down to a candidate who's left of right of left of centre, and a candidate who's right of left of right of left of centre. Chirac and Jospin ran on identical platforms -- they're both in favour of high taxes, high unemployment and high crime. So, with no significant policy differences between them, the two candidates were relying on their personal appeal, which, given that one's a fraud and the other's a dullard, was asking rather too much of French voters. Faced with a choice between Eurodee and Eurodum, you can't blame electors for choosing to make it a real race by voting for the one guy running on an openly stated, clearly defined manifesto.
M Le Pen wants to restrict immigration; Chirac and Jospin think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen thinks the euro is a 'currency of occupation'; Chospin and Jirac think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen wants to pull out of the EU; Chipin and Josrac think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen wants to get tough on crime; Chispac and Jorin think this, too, is beneath discussion...
In 2002 Le Pen was "unthinkable" and an "aberration". Then it happened and became thinkable, and now his daughter is a routine presence. What was striking about her victory in the Euro-elections a couple of weeks back was not the narrow margin of her win over Macron in vote totals, but the fact that she prevailed in twice as many départements as he did. Geographically speaking, Marine Le Pen won the country while Macron held a few cities.
Another old line of mine: If respectable politicians are forbidden to raise certain subjects, the voters will turn to unrespectable ones. The people are telling their rulers something important here. The longer the ruling class - in Washington, London, Paris and elsewhere - refuse to listen, the worse it is going to be.
~Whether or not demography is destiny, it certainly means something. Republicans won California in every presidential election of the Seventies and Eighties. That's only three decades ago, but another country. Under no conceivable scenario is the Golden State in play in 2020. So California and New York give the Dems an instant 84 electoral votes, and all they have to do is find the remaining 186 from the other 48 states.
Fortunately for the GOP, they have Texas, without whose 36 votes there is no Republican path to presidential victory. So I was interested to see this story in The Texas Tribune:
The gap between Texas' Hispanic and white populations continued to narrow last year when the state gained almost nine Hispanic residents for every additional white resident.
For as long as I can remember, savvy Republicans like the late Charles Krauthammer have been assuring me that Hispanics are "natural conservatives". On that bromide the party's future now depends.
Demography, too, is part of the "populist" dynamic. France again:
Les prénoms arabo-musulmans concernent désormais quatre garçons sur dix en Seine-Saint-Denis.
In Seine-Saint-Denis four out of ten boys now have Arab-Muslim first names. Last month Mme Le Pen carried Seine-Saint-Denis. These are last-chance votes.
~We had a busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with a brand new Mark Steyn Show in which I talk to my old boss Conrad Black: lots of history, plus some speculative alternative history, and some interesting and occasionally eccentric ideas. (Conrad has a new book out, The Canadian Manifesto.) Post-Conrad, we marked the fiftieth anniversary of Judy Garland's death with an elegy for her third husband and the iconic song of Judy's adult years. Kathy Shaidle's movie column celebrated a pre-Bollywood Indian classic, and we continued with our twenty-eighth Tale for Our Time - the Erskine Childers classic The Riddle of the Sands: You can find Part Eight here, Part Nine here and Part Ten here. (Join us for Part Eleven later today, Monday.) If you were busy getting the red-wine stain out of your sofa this weekend, I hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.
Tales for Our Time is made possible through the support of The Mark Steyn Club. Thank you so much for all the Steyn Club subscription renewals this last month. As our third year cranks into gear, I am very grateful to all our members around the world, from London, Ontario to London, England to London, Kiribati. We hope to welcome many more of you in the years ahead. For more information on The Mark Steyn Club, see here - and don't forget our limited-time Gift Membership.
Oh, and do give a thought to our Third Annual Steyn Cruise sailing the Med next year and with Conrad Black himself among our shipmates. We'll be attempting some seaboard versions of The Mark Steyn Show, Tales for Our Time, our Sunday Poem and other favorite features. If you're minded to give it a go, don't leave it too late, as the price is more favorable the earlier you book.
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I swear, by the time Steyn's done telling me how to stop the Muslim takeover, I am itching to see that Muslim takeover. So now Brits are to vote for a guy who "cannot answer" [...] how many he's sired whose mothers were persuaded to ensure junior never made it out of the maternity ward", in short how many of his own children he's had brutally vivisected.
And we need to vote for him to stop Muslims from taking over and ending condom boutiques.
What is an actual Christian to make of this? Not somebody whose Christianity is a thin veneer over pure ethnic loyalty (if it even exists), but somebody who actually cares about the teachings of Jesus Christ?
I have no doubt that Trumpists who call Trump's relentless, braggart adultery a matter of his "personal" "style" will be able to make the same rationalization of mass abortion. Ultimately, I suppose we could call Stalin's little tics about the kulaks a matter of his "personal" "style".
What we have been enduring since 1980 is not normal.
Every election cycle we get not what we voted for but what we did not know was even in the manifesto.
We the People have been ratcheted so far away from normal but the pols - they have a completely "normal" existence.
Let's get back to rude, brash, honest arguing. Everything needs to be open for discussion.
Since when are politicians paragons of moral virtue?? How about.....never.
Amen!
If, per America's founders, a republic presupposes virtue; whatever it is we are now presupposes a lack of it.
You have a way of getting to the heart of the matter, Mark, but it sounds like the death knell for our civilization. I suppose you could argue (I'm not) that if mountains of cheap merchandise at WalMart and abortion on demand are the opus of the postmodern West, then it is understandable why Muslims are so anxious to bring back the seventh century. Unfortunately, it also speaks to the reason hordes of Southern Baptists voted for the current president.
Boris Johnson is a Tory and the Tories were in the single digits in the last election. Please explain to me why he's any kind of runner for PM.
Rhetorical question, I'm sure, but the Tories (and their Ulster partners) hold the majority in Parliament as a result of the last election in 2017. The next general election is scheduled for May 2022. If the Conservatives should lose their coalition majority, or lose a vote of (no) confidence in the Commons, the election date would be brought forward. Otherwise, they have three years to get their act together, or cede government to Labour—or Brexit (or some coalition) in 2022.
Actually, it wasn't rhetorical. I just forgot that the last election where theTories got smoked wasn't for Parliament. Derp. Thanks for the clarification.
France needs an Electoral College.
Agreed, but they won't get one I'm afraid. Most of the French academics I've met think of the Parisian centralization as a feature, not a bug. Time for Paris Commune II, Electric Bugaloo?
For as much as California is considered a Democrat stronghold, Democrats are a minority registration. Most voters have declined to register Democrat. California is functionally Democrat, but is also functionally illiterate, politically. It may seem like slim pickings, but wisely spent resources selectively deployed can do surprising things. Californians are substantively apolitical while living the good life. But it's important to be talking about issues when, for example Ebola comes across the southern border. California elected and re-elected a Republican governor recently. In sports, often the best team on a winning streak will lose to the worst team, because they didn't prepare. You can't win if you don't show up.
I wonder if the Democrats, who never met a Constitutional right they didn't want to revoke, have thought through (as if!) their initiative to eliminate the Electoral College. Trump didn't bother much with CA, NY, and other overwhelmingly Blue states, and many of his supporters in those states doubtlessly stayed home on Election Day. But w/o the EC, the Dem candidate no longer wins 84-0 in CA and NY combined (about 30% of the total needed to win), but by a much more modest 55-45, say. Every disincentivized Trump voter in every deep Blue state would then have a reason to vote, knowing that his vote, for once, would count. The same would probably hold true in deep Red states, but w/o that 84 vote head start, the Dems would have a lot more ground to make up.
That's a good point. Technically the strategy isn't to eliminate the electoral college, just make it irrelevant. Certain blue states are changing their laws so that all of their electoral college votes will go only to the candidate who wins the popular vote. The chessboard's a-changin'.
You can be a Republican in CA, but In Name Only.
Apparently, only RINOS are allowed to participate (and lose).
Elections are usually not about anything in California. The typical thought that goes into a vote equals that of sleepwalking to the kitchen and selecting your favorite, chocolate cake.
We showed up, Sol. We put money and sweat and even risked blood to remove, in a conservative district, a Blue Dog who was on his way out, under investigation, brother going to jail, mistress murdered. The best the national GOP could come up with was Bob Dole and though we had an honest veteran running we were slaughtered. Incumbency, immigration and free stuff are powerful forces in any political arena. In CA those forces are ccx and were on steroids. Add to this the exodus effect of 50 percent tax rates on the people who pay the bills and you have the perfect storm of stupidity that is California. You can argue all day long that many immigrants are hard working and conservative, but add the ones that aren't to the large pool of citizens that love free stuff, and guys like Dole, McCain and Romney have nothing to say to they want to hear and are most likely huge wet blankets on the down ticket races. And this has been happening for decades. Worse yet, California has become a 40 million strong pool that is turning the west purple and promises uncontrolled borders and Venezuela for the rest of us. You can talk about elbow grease and conservative ideas until the cows come home, but demography IS destiny. I want conservatism to be the force the National Review crowd wished it would be, but the human heart is fickle and easily corrupted.
We know what doesn't work. It's time to do things differently, with different people.
Josh: (Forgive me, I fell a little behind in my reading.) There are several beneficial aspects of the electoral college but the one that is usually overlooked pertains to the integrity of the election itself. The Chicago machine, just to use an imaginary example, can't steal more than Illinois. Now consider alternative scenarios without that check.
The trouble is there are a sorry shower of candidates for the leadership of the Tory party. Action man Boris Johnson is far from perfect. My doubts would be how good he is on the morality, being able to deal with the details, and keeping his pecker out of it fronts. Boris Johnson is the guy who gets things done. But what does he get done. Does he actually understand what he's doing. What are his values, his moral commitments.
The alternatives are not particularly attractive. The only one I would trust on the moral front is Moggy. However he is lacking in the social skills & knowledge of life arena. Johnson is completely the opposite in all respects.
There is some attractiveness to the politically incorrect frisky politician, and we have discovered a new divide: they seem to upset many established pundits, even the Conservative Inc. writers. I can't recall how many articles I have read about Trump's "character" or "values" as the prime concern from many normally tolerant Conservatives, to the point of a #Never campaign. What they all seem to miss is the attraction of someone NOT speaking from the politician's script, able to blurt out a few truths that are beneath the professionals. There is, indeed, a deep suspicion of the Political Class, which has proven to be prescient. So quite a few of us don't worry about some hyperbole or some personal bad habits if we think they might govern a bit more realistically. But quite a few published writers (Will, Goldberg, Charen, Noonan, to name a few) just can't accept ..... something about these rather verbose, untrained newcomers, and they can't tell us clearly what, so they lapse into psych analysis and references to bad taste. As if bad leadership ever fit into good taste. I don't know much about Johnson yet (Farage is suspicious), but I welcome him and wish him well.
Not just credit cards.
I just got rid of live TV. To get rid of BBC.
I watch everything on Prime and YouTube.
US technology.
Do you what they do on YouTube. For the price of an advert. They give you a playlist of the music you listen to. They get better and better. Prime does seem to get more expensive.
The Chinese get wechat. That is it.
In our world, if we don't like it we can move.
Now when you go around the world and see a visa sign.
Yes, I can buy there.
The rest of the world know that. Even their leaders.
To lose that is far bigger than a bomb.
The USA is far bigger than a bomb.
I wish we had a leader like Trump.
He will drain the swamp.
Our swamp is solidified. Nigel Farage will wash it down.
The president lived in and used the swamp for most of his lifetime. It may well be that the only reason he is not already taking a dirt nap because he is a threat to their power is because the political class has grown even more inept, corrupt and cowardly the past few decades. Trusting flawed men to solve your problems seems like a risky business to me. Then again, flawed people are all we have to work with, outside the Constitution.
Question for Mark.
Reading between the lines.
The person who launched the missile against the drone was not authorised.
Do you think he was the one who was called an American spy?
One thing Trump said. Nobody says death to America nowadays. Yes he is strong, but the USA always had that stength.
My thoughts are, some are just pure weaklings.
They want to be liked. Bullies love people who just want to be liked.
Sorry America, but you are not allowed to have pussy leader's.
Trump knows and you should know you don't need bombs.
Yes they obviously help. You can't use a trustworthy credit card without you.
Why, the rest of the financial world trust you and I must say the 5i countries. Including mine.
Very interesting article about interesting times: greatly enjoyed it.
Mark to your point "If respectable politicians are forbidden to raise certain subjects, the voters will turn to unrespectable ones. The people are telling their rulers something important here. The longer the ruling class - in Washington, London, Paris and elsewhere - refuse to listen, the worse it is going to be."
By 'worse' in this context, are you referring to the inevitability of more 'abnormal' candidates getting elected, or 'worse' in the sense that there will be more deep state coup attempts, and more efforts made by the left to force people to vote again till they get it 'right'-until there's no point in voting. Or both?
I took the term "worse" to mean that the tired, recycled memes of the ruling elite were going to be increasingly unconvincing to the electorate. That's a good thing. I think the points you raise, though, are definitely going to be typical of what's coming. The Left appears committed to the elimination of anything that resembles a fair and legitimate electoral system. People better take this very seriously or we are going to be stuck with "elections" where the leftist "president for life" will always somehow manages to win with 98% of the vote. Anyone who begs to differ will be forced to get their mind right by whatever means necessary. This is the DNA of leftism. Opposition will be deemed not to be rational or legal. Hopefully the "abnormal" candidates will prevail before the leftist darkness falls.
Todd - "leftist darkness" is a terrific term describing just what America will face in '20 and in every subsequent presidential election. Hillary's deplorable and irredeemable remark has been adopted by the national media and by social media to demean anyone straying from the party line. On a Sunday evening talk show on Fox a supposedly conservative constitutional scholar saw no real issue with the dems doing away with the electoral college by forcing by statute that their electors vote for the national vote victor regardless of the state vote. One way or another I'm convinced they will prevail in the end.
Boris's difficulties with his mistress' neighbors reminds me of the Newt's problems with Democrats in Florida who just happened to be scanning the cell phone conversations of vehicles passing through their domain as he drove by. Miraculously, they were able to tape Newt's remarks in the few moments he spent discussing how to deal with his House Ethics agreement. Curiously coincidental isn't it? I wonder how many progressives multitask, trolling for bucks on conservative websites while simultaneously listening to the police scanner in their left earphone, as they monitor the bugs distributed in their conservative neighbors' houses in their right earphone.
Taping Boris's conversation implies a level of preparation and expertise far beyond holding a glass to the wall. I wonder what a sweep of his mistress's flat would reveal in the way of electronic listening devices? Probably best done by a private security service and not MI5, based on recent events in London.
And mistresses and Prime Ministers seem to go together, based on the thrice daily letters Asquith sent to Venetia Stanley discussing highly secret cabinet meetings in the opening days of WWI. Politician's egos are massively disproportionate to their abilities. We are fortunate that most have such weak imaginations that a frolic with an intern behind closed doors keeps them happy.
Last chance votes indeed. I'm afraid it will require a massive ideological change either with our youth or with our quickly growing Hispanic population for the Trump wave to last longer than through 2032 at the absolute longest.
And I'm afraid a radical change like that can only come from experience, which is to say the shift to effective one party rule must come before there can be any true shift back to limited government.
Last chance votes indeed. I'm afraid it will require a massive ideological change either with our youth or with our quickly growing Hispanic population for the Trump wave to last longer than through 2032 at the absolute longest.
And I'm afraid a radical change like that can only come from experience, which is to say the shift to effective one party rule must come before there can be any true shift back to limited government.
There are a lot of decent youngsters. Important that we get behind them and support and help them.
Mark,
Interesting column. In spite of the media's current narrative that Boris Johnson looks likely to be the next PM, I do wonder Nigel Farage mysterious just surprise them once again at the polls.
Suggestions as to how you let the the Comrades of the Civil Service go and replace them with Civil Servants who do not have higher loyalties, would be welcome. Incidentally the boys in da back-room could have disposed of Mr. Hunt on a number of occasions over the past years, as they have done to others, but lo and behold here he is serving their purpose.
Just to clarify my last thought. I wonder if Farage may just surprise the media once again at the polls.
This quip is especially insightful "If, per America's founders, a republic presupposes virtue; whatever it is we are now presupposes a lack of it." That's about it. If America was intended as an Aristocratic Republic (governed by a natural aristocracy rather than one of birth) with restraints designed to limit the influence of the coarse and fickle mob - it has instead ended up as a Woke Republic with the diversity commissars holding the role of the lord of the manor. I think someone has to come up with a third "oke" word to complete the "oke cycle", that this style of governance will bring about: Woke, Broke and then ?... I was going to cheat and go Toke, Woke, Broke as an homage to Canada's contribution to the particular cultural trend but it doesn't quite get the arrow of causation right.
Great idea, Adam. I think you've picked the three key words of the zeitgeist; I'd rearrange them to Toke, Broke, Woke thusly:
Step 1: Get high in order to avoid confronting reality.
Step 2: Because you're high, you "forget" to go to work, and because step 1 costs money, you are soon cash-free.
Step 3: It's society's fault. Gimme.
Conservatives make fine pets, but they must be neutered. And swatted with a newspaper when they grow too frisky. Why Boris and Nigel and Donald can't behave like that nice David Brooks I just don't understand. He's ever so pleasant, and you can show him to your friends. He would never make a Brexit on the carpet, or howl inappropriately about "the wall" or "fake news". Honestly, I'd rather have a cat.
The Butty Boys of 17 Elm St, Holborn, London is permanently closed. Small portions at high prices, but good food.
The key to much of the UK's spontaneous happenings is to be found on Alastair Campbell's news management grid. The local MSM do not march to a different drummer, they wait for Alastair to show them the way. It is some years since AC did for Howard Flight by fluffing up a recording and here we are again, presumably voice activated tech. AC did find time to visit Malaysia recently to speak and possibly find out what makes for homogeneity.
There shouldn't really still be a discussion in the Tories should there? They just need a charismatic figure to compete with Nigel Farage. Job done.
Awesome!
After reading this about Boris, I like him even more.
Me too!
I will make my mind up after the 31/10/2019. If we are still in the corrupt EU with a BRINO.
Nigel Farage said on LBC he doesn't have faith in him. He was right about Treason May.
Maybe Boris will shock us.
Nobody understands politics in the United States better than your garden variety Democrat operative. If Hispanics are "natural conservatives", then the wall would have been built decades ago and Donald Trump would not be President today because illegal immigration would have ceased to be an issue a long time ago.
My compliments on the pithy brevity, Robert - this is the sort of astute observation that makes membership in MSC an absolute must.
Thank you Larry. You're very kind.
Where did you find that photo of Trump and Boris??? What are they doing there? You should run a contest for coming up with the wittiest caption.
Malcolm! My husband wanted to name our first born son, Malcolm. What about "What's that wonderful man's cologne President Trump is using? I'll try to get a little closer."
I dub thee Sir Boris of Mar-a-Lago.
I think he's cutting Boris's hair. Perhaps a light trim.
Or perhaps he's showing little grasshopper the proper angle for the head to be in a bow of respect before the master politician.
It looks as if Boris may be demonstrating a rugby tackle. Donald's hand-off is much too late.