Silly newspapers. They summarise the year before it is finished. What was 2025 all about? I’ll tell you. As far as the West was concerned, it was about Donald Trump. And, in particular, it was about the head of state of a major – indeed, the hegemonic – Western state affirming, among other things, a traditional set of attitudes to nations, states, education, sex, etc.
Here is a summary. Trump became President. Trump gave an inaugural speech that was entertaining. The White House declared an end to DEI. Trump himself signed a whole series of executive orders. J.D. Vance extended the argument by coming to Europe to tell Europeans to sort themselves out. The UK Supreme Court said that sex is binary: yes, indeed, the virus (= vaccine) spread here.
For Alastair Campbell, author of But What Can I Do? (nothing, Alastair, keep doing the podcast), Trump is a ‘populist’ – indeed, I see from his book, a "sado-populist". For everyone else, Trump is a danger to democracy. How to protect democracy from populists? This is the ultimate riddle of our time. One answer – in fact, the major answer – is ‘judicial review’.
Everyone knows that judicial review is a weasel’s – pardon me, a lawyer’s – way of defending democracy. It is the rule of law ostentatiously speaking on behalf of the people, thus perpetuating the rule of lawyers.
But what Trump is doing is checking the checkers and balancing the balancers. The US, and indeed the entire West, has been checked and balanced
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What sort of conservative is bored by Jane Austen … and proud of it?
I have tried to read Elif Shafak, and sometimes succeeded. Generally her work feels overwritten and is rather exhausting to follow.
The Prof is clearly brilliant, but his mind wanders. What the devil is he talking about in this paragraph, and how is it relevant to his theme, whatever that is?
“Shafak is Turkish, but condescends to English the way David Home did, spelling himself Hume. She does not want to be called Safak, since her name is spelt Şafak, so makes sure of the pronunciation with a little interposed ‘h’. I observe: I do not complain. I once bought a bus ticket in Ankara bus station. The man asked me for my name. I said, “James Alexander.” Later, I examined my ticket. It said, “Cengiz Eski,” which means, more or less, ‘Old Genghis’ (the Turkish ‘C’ is sounded like a ‘J’, so in Turkey we still pronounce Jif in the old way, though it is spelt Cif). I used that name for a long time afterwards when buying tickets.”
When on form – ie, comprehensible – your articles are of the best the DS gives us; when in ‘imaginative’ mode, I tend to give up half way through. Sorry.
Elif Shafak? Nope, never heard of her until now and looks like I haven’t missed much.
‘When political opponents are treated as ‘enemies’, or even worse ‘enemies of the people’, the whole system suffers.’
What like when the Democrats opened a host of lawfare cases trying to get Trump gaoled before he could win the election? Incarcerating Tina Peters for following the law and preserving voter records that show how the Democrats steal elections after a corrupt trial.
Academics!!
This is a brain splurge I wanted to follow but could not.
I find Professor Alexander’s articles entertaining and educational: yes, they can be a little stream-of-consciousness, but they often turn up little nuggets of information which I find interesting (e.g, Turkish pronunciation, Ahmed Umit), although the philosophical/political science references are sometimes beyond me.
Presumably this article was written prior to the news about the incursion into Venezuela, which makes the illustration at the top a little incongruous.
He adds something
Historical Forces Are Converging to End the Post-War Liberal Order,Lets correct that
Historical Forces Are Converging to End the Post-War Illiberal Order,
And, populism is democracy – that is how MPs are elected, by getting the most votes.
Exactly- and then following the policies they stood on rather than weaselling out
A populist is someone accused of being in favour of policies the electorate wants instead of the policies it’s supposed to get. It’s one of the myriad of content-free ad hominems the Western ruling class employs whenever it really wants to avoid discussing politics because such a discussion would not be favourable to it.
A populist is someone who claims that knifing kindergarten-age girls is wrong. A politician is someone who demands that everybody cries a lot about this and nobody talks about it being wrong. A judge is someone who awards the murderer a compensation because he was unjustly put behind bars which violated his human rights provided he has the right skin colour. This is called oppression.
I have no idea who the Turk Muslima in the article is and could care less. Just another elitist Muslima supremacist retard with an ignorance about history and reality.
The CIA run deep state(s) across the broken, bankrupt, illiberal West need to be taken down. This is the ‘post war Liberal order’. It is simply the NWO (CIA run).
The US control of Ven is part of that (Ven is famous for money laundering to socialist, globalist groups and the US Demon party and was a hub of the 2020 US vote fraud and coup). Ven has more to do with the internal politics of the US and the deep state than about oil.
Ven only produces 1 mn barrels of oil a day. You could scratch around in Texas and pump the same after a few weeks.
“Liberal”. Lol.
This article lost me round about paragraph 6, and I never really found my way back.
Ditto 😵💫
Me too
Brevity is the soul of wit…
Ditto
“Too many notes” (words) – Amadeus