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Losing to Win

by Dr James Allan
13 February 2025 2:00 PM

The writer is in Australia.

Longer term readers of the Speccie will recall that back in 2015 and 2016 I thought, and argued, that all conservative voters would do better to preference Labour rather than Malcolm Turnbull and the Libs in the 2016 election. In other words, I thought we had to lose short-term to win long-term. The win would come because a Turnbull loss (rather than the incredibly narrow win he squeaked out) would embarrass the partyroom ‘moderates’/Lefties who knifed Abbott; it would take power away from them in future; it would force Labour rather than the Libs to implement Lefty policies (because try to name a single Right-leaning thing that Team Turnbull did); and as it turned out we would not have had the ‘free speech never created a single job’ Morrison Prime Ministership that lied about intending to sign up to Net Zero and that oversaw the biggest inroads into Australians’ civil liberties ever during the shameful, thuggish Covid lockdowns brought to us in part by Team Coalition. I said it beforehand and I think it still. Long term a 2016 Turnbull loss was preferable. (And yes, our preferential voting system, a protection racket for the two main parties, means that we voters cannot do what dissidents do in Britain or Canada and vote for some small third party; we ultimately simply have to preference higher either Labour or the Libs and in 2016 I preferenced Labour just above the Libs at the bottom of the ballot – not that it got me all those university grants and awards and accolades other Lefty voting academics scoop up. On that point, why can’t the Libs end all social science and arts grants skewed incredibly to Left-wing thinking and totalling tens of millions of dollars as they have in New Zealand?)

But why do I bring up the decades-old past? Because it is now pretty clear that a variant of that ‘lose now to win later’ argument is playing out in the US. Let me be blunt. The first fortnight-plus of this second-term Donald Trump presidency is the best first two weeks or so of any US President in my life. And it’s not even close. The list of what he has done in just 300 odd hours is staggering. Trump has pulled out of the WHO. He’s pulled out of the Net Zero idiocies of the Paris Accord. He has pulled out of the awful United Nations Human Rights Council and ended all UNRWA funding. He has banished all men (who have taken drugs or had surgery and want to be seen as women) from playing women’s sports, while ending juvenile sex changes. He has offered re-instatement to all US military personnel who were dismissed for not taking the mRNA vaccines, and done so with the promise of full back pay. He has ordered the removal of all virtue-signalling ‘these are my pronouns’ guff in government emails. He has used the threat of massive tariffs and the appointment of serious top people who actually want to close the border to do just that – in a fortnight the border crossings have never been lower while the deportations have started and are at record levels. He has ended the EV taxpayer scam and the wasting of myriad money on charging stations. DEI is gone from the US bureaucracy and he has threatened any universities who keep it. He has unleashed Elon Musk on the bloated administrative bureaucracy and we have already learned of corrupt USAID spending on things so Left-wing and crazy and basically corrupt – I’m looking at you legacy media around the world – that even partisan Democrats are embarrassed to see this come to light. And Musk is finding so much waste Trump may manage to balance the budget on eliminating this revealed spending alone. He has reset the Middle East world. He has nominated real conservatives to all appointments – people he knows won’t go to water because they’ve been hated by the Left for years and have stood up to it (the sole basis for all conservative appointments Mr Dutton). He has threatened the International Criminal Court over its disgraceful persecution of the Israeli PM, with strong hints as regards what would happen to any country that acted on the ICC warrants. Already US military recruitment has bounced back to record levels (who knew recruits want to fight, not be part of a woke social justice outfit?)

Trust me. Space stops me from listing everything I like about these first couple dozen Trump days. Be honest. What in the above list do you not like? Be honest. Do you think any other conservative leader in the democratic world would have done half of this? Be honest. Do a few mean and boorish tweets outweigh these sort of accomplishments in just the first 300 hours of his second term? Right now I am liking, no loving, nine out of 10 things this Trump 2 administration is doing. This is a whole new political feeling for me.

However, here is my core claim in this column. If Mr Trump had not lost the Presidency in 2020 (no doubt due in large part to the loosest of voting rules in many states, often imposed by unelected state judges under cover of Covid, including world-unique third party ballot harvesting) then he would now be finished on his second term. And he would most certainly not have taken on the administrative state in the way he is now doing. He would not have plunged himself into a full-blooded fight to win the culture wars. He would not have unleashed Mr Musk. Etcetera. Etcetera. It would have been a good second term. But nothing like what we’re seeing. Why? Because just three months ago the US political establishment was still trying to bankrupt and imprison Donald Trump. The Biden administration was still trying to saddle US voters with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. It was still weaponising the administrative state. It opened the borders deliberately. Donald Trump saw all this. He withstood it all, including two assassination attempts.

Look, unlike in 2016 with Turnbull, I wanted Trump to win in 2020. But with the benefit of hindsight it is now plain to me that his loss then allowed him to pull off the greatest comeback in US political history (we can argue about Andrew Jackson) and then to decide to implement policies many of us conservatives have been dreaming about for eons. He had to lose to create these sort of wins – wins that dwarf anything that the Stephen Harpers or John Howards accomplished (with all due respect). The Spectator Australia‘s Editor and I were two of the earliest pro-Trump supporters in print in this country. Not to blow our own horns too much but we were right. The establishment conservative commentators were wrong time and time again. But it boils down to Trump having to lose to now win.

James Allan is the Garrick Professor of Law at Queensland University. This article first appeared in Spectator Australia.

Tags: AustraliaDemocracyKamala HarrisLeft-wingLosing to winPresident TrumpThe Democratic PartyTrump Assassination AttemptUnited StatesWoke Left

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15 Comments
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TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago

I think there’s a lot of Texans hoping new arrivals fleeing failed states don’t bring with them and spread the ideas that say ruined California.

Perhaps they need two weeks quarantine and testing to see if the are immune to the OPM (other people’s money) virus?

54
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

Sadly, refugees tend to spread the very thing that they claim to be fleeing.

You import it, you get it.

16
0
crisisgarden
crisisgarden
3 years ago

Will non-Corona (Red) states end up seceding I wonder? There seems to be an intractable rift forming and has been for years. I’m inclined to think we may see the break up of the Union….

20
-1
milesahead
milesahead
3 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

If it could be done with minimal confrontation, that would be wonderful. It would be a relief to have somewhere to escape to!

16
0
crisisgarden
crisisgarden
3 years ago
Reply to  milesahead

Knowing them it definitely couldn’t! But it would be so great to have a sanity haven somewhere in the world..

10
0
rayc
rayc
3 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

It would certainly be a reason to celebrate in Russia and China. This is something all Americans must come to understand in their internal bickering.

7
-4
crisisgarden
crisisgarden
3 years ago
Reply to  rayc

Oh purleeeez! China has already colonised most of the world without dropping a single bomb. Russia is quite happy with its huge oil reserves, endless natural resources and ever expanding cooperation with China thank you very much and doesn’t need to compete with anyone. I imagine both countries already see the US as a failed state, drowning in its own debt, and behind the scenes I imagine are probably helping to prop it up in order to stave off a global meltdown. They’re certainly not adversaries in the two dimensional way you suggest; that’s a very 20th century perspective.

Last edited 3 years ago by crisisgarden
21
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Particularly comical that the old fashioned confrontationists are still fantasising about Ronald Reagan confronting an Evil Empire, while all around them their world slumps into Oceania confronting Eastasia.

12
-1
Silke David
Silke David
3 years ago

I guess it is quite good news that California will have less pressure on resources, but is Texas any better? Where do they get water from?

2
-4
Annie
Annie
3 years ago
Reply to  Silke David

Good question.,Hope EM knows the answer.California has been sucking out its own life blood for a generation or more.

10
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  Annie

The Californian bucket will fly you just need to pull that handle harder.

2
0
Mark
Mark
3 years ago

There are always business or other incentives as well, but I suspect there might be an element of making sure they don’t finish up on the wrong side of any new borders that might arise over the next decade or two.

Wouldn’t want to end up in some leftist dominated totalitarian woke dystopia. Be like living in Islington….

Last edited 3 years ago by Mark
17
0
Annie
Annie
3 years ago

It would be Texas for me. Pity I’m not a billionaire.

15
0
crisisgarden
crisisgarden
3 years ago
Reply to  Annie

Me too let’s crowd fund some sort of exodus!

11
0
Bill Grates
Bill Grates
3 years ago

Musk says lockdowns are facist .

give me a break.

How about an article on the Musk fronted Skynet / one web / Starlink ?

While everyone is consumed be the covid scam these people are busy constructing the total control grid .

As for a blue state exodus/brain drain , this is another complete distraction.

Please research Planatir, Thiel, Ellison , Oracle.

These are NOT conservative people/ organisations. The overarching global power players have no political allegiance except to the control plan .

ditto the politicians.

We are heading to a total control State and World . You will conform or succumb.

This story is a complete distraction, please will someone of influence produce some proper journalism before it’s too late.

18
-3
jennyw
jennyw
3 years ago
Reply to  Bill Grates

Yeah, Musk complaining about fascist policies is a bit rich when he himself has fascist tendencies. Musk is part of the problem. He was recently quoted saying “privacy doesn’t matter”.

Moving to Texas is just a business decision for him, and nothing more. It’s disgusting that he tries to sugar coat it as some kind of stand against fascism. If he was really doing that he’d lobby the California state instead of moving.

Planet Lockdown’s interview with Catherine Fits explains well how Musk and his work builds the globalists surveillance state.

10
0
TheBigman
TheBigman
3 years ago

All planned.
They will take the same nonsense that ruined their own home instead of learning from the places they want to go to.
Typical migrant mindset

5
0
BungleIsABogan
BungleIsABogan
3 years ago

Think he might have a bit of a problem persuading Texans to welcome his company and then also to buy his grossly overpriced, world resource destroying and third world slave labour employing (mining the quite rare metals required in the batteries), leccy vehicles.

Hopefully.

After all Texas does have quite long distances to travel – bit of a problem for electric vehicles – and an historic attachment to cars with internal combustion engines.

Is he taking the workforce with him, or just pissing on them and telling them to bugger off I wonder?

2
0

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