“So far, Joe Biden has set the right tone. Following through with right actions won’t be so easy.”
FYI no one cares about tone anymore in America. We have been lied to politely too many times by too many people. Yes, Trump was a bombastic blowhard, but that does not mean we want to hear “inspirational” crap obviously devoid of substance. If you want us to quickly hate a politician, have them speak as if they just came out of a corporate focus test. Look and Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. They were the choices of our political elites. Bush and Clinton said all the “right” things, in the “right” tone. Problem was those damn voters were not listening to them. They were actually listening to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
Just for fun, can anyone actually name a substantial economic or foreign policy difference between Hillary and Jeb? I’m having a hard time thinking of one.
Jeb Bush didn’t do the latter, his highest political office was that of governor of the state of Florida. That position only entitles you to affect the fortunes of that particular state, not set the terms of foreign policy.
Trump on lots of metrics did very well. You might see him as a uniquely bad president but objectively thats wrong and yes we get the media doesn’t like him because he dared to doubt your integrity, but tough if you want us to treat you like you are truth hunting heroes act like uyou are truth hunting heroes not part of a tedious establishment propaganda machine.
This guy really is telling us how woke-revisionist history will become the new truth. Trump was a uniquely excellent (albeit goofy) President.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Der Spiegel has been repulsive for some years, even worse than The Economist. My father no longer asks me to pick up a copy when I travel. To suggest, as they did on their cover, that Trump destroyed liberty is a travesty. He was the most libertarian president of recent times. For instance, he allowed BLM/Antifa to riot unhindered for weeks in Portland. Obama crushed Occupy after a few days, to comfort his friends on Wall St. Biden will be far more authoritarian than Trump.
The triumph of the Woke is proceeding at a rapid pace in Germany. For a taste of how this impacts popular culture try watching some German TV (plenty available on YouTube).
Just so the audience receive correct moral guidance the whole intersectional crowd, feminists, gays, immigrants, environmentalists etc, will usually be portrayed sympathetically. Men, if they do not display conspicuous anti-patriarchal credentials are shown in a negative light (ie. bone-headed, creepy, privileged, patronising, perverted).
Haven’t they just gaoled the other Ursula again? That Is 92 year old Ursula Haverbeck, for insisting that Auschwitz was only a Chocolate Factory or something? The Hun Woke, God help us!
Amazing how these bone-headed white men can fool so many intelligent white women and brainy minorities of either gender into giving them, the white men, most of the power, isn’t it? It’s a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes!
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
Joe Biden has never accomplished anything politically in 50 years. The idea that (at a less than sharp age 78) he would be able to restore anything is far fetched. He is a place holder, for whenever Nancy decides to pull the plug on him in favor of Harris or if, by some miracle, he squeaks out 4 years for whomever is the next president. (And this is assuming that nothing comes out for Joe on Hunter) I don’t dislike Joe Biden personally but he is sort of a time out for everyone. With a divided congress, he will have trouble doing much.
Yes Annette, how anyone can expect anything resembling a grand plan from Joe Biden is beyond me. He talks and thinks in sound bites, never anything interesting or original that isn’t irrational nonsense. Expect to see the Republican’s build on President Trump’s basic platform but with someone a little easier for people to like. Nikki Haley or Dan Crenshaw perhaps.
As placeholders go, Biden will be pretty benign. He does not have the energy to change much assuming he makes it four years. Interesting choices Haley and Crenshaw. Both would be as anti-war as Trump I would hope. Haley vs Harris would be interesting, assuming Harris gets the nomination for 2024. Not assured, of course, as the more democrats saw of her, the worse she did in the primaries.
I wouldn’t say that Biden has not achieve anything in 50 years. For instance, he has:
– Massively enriched himself and his family through political influence – Incarcerated hundreds of thousands of people for minor offences with his 1990s Crime Bill – Fixed things for the credit card industry on many occasions – Provided valuable support for the destruction of Iraq, Yemen, Libya and other places – Engineered the firing of a prosecutor – who happened to be investigating the company on whose board his son sat – in another country
And one could go on.
Seb Dakin
3 years ago
As a comment on another thread notes, Trump won 72.4 million votes, a near record number, beaten only by Biden. With a very small swing, say 1% or 2% of the electorate, he would have won reelection, and this with almost the entire legacy media establishment against him, and arguably much of the new media too. It’s hard to say he’s not politically savvy, but maybe had he been just a bit less reckless, a bit smarter about COVID perhaps, the Democrats would have been buried. They have barely any mandate now – a narrow victory over a candidate that many had come to see as unelectable, in the middle of a pandemic and the dreadful economic consequences thereof. Biden is going to have to tread very carefully indeed. There wouldn’t appear to be any real enthusiasm for insider elites feathering their nests as usual, especially during a post-COVID recession, and using woke-y nostrums to try and make elections about culture and values would most likely backfire spectacularly.
Biden won by the people who do not add to the nation being mobilized through postal voting allowing them to just sit at home knowing nothing and caring less, but still vote. Trump voters are people who make America work.
bridge_spirit
3 years ago
It is a pity that such a well thought out article had to include the editorializing and assumption that all would agree “while Trump was a uniquely bad President”. When are people going to learn that insulting someone that half the country is grateful to is NOT a way to win friends and make common ground? This was a well written and fair article to that point. Trump was not a bad president at all. e was “uniquely loquacious” , yes, but not “bad” for our country. In fact, in many opinions, he was uniquely great for raising up all of us, of all colors and backgrounds and genders, we ALL had more jobs (minorities were employed at the highest level ever in our history), more money, more security, more optimism for our future, more joy at, finally, increasing peace in the Middle East, more comfort for our funded military and VA, and even under CV19, someone on the side of science( Fauci for months) combined with common sense combined with liberty. The list is long for what was good for our country under Trump. Stop insulting him and, by extension, those who voted for him, in fact start praising the good results in intellectual honesty, and you may actually start to get readers and listeners.
When are people going to learn that insulting someone that half the country is grateful to is NOT a way to win friends and make common ground? Never. It’s why instead of good faith debate, people like this engage in hectoring, brow beating, and a variety of insults, followed by vapid calls for unity and wondering why we can’t all get along.
stephen f.
3 years ago
“…heal America…” a laughable statement-Biden and his old boss, with a complicit and compliant media did more to sow discord than anyone in recent memory. Your history lesson is interesting, but clearly is a smoke screen for a partisan take on current political events.
Mark Gilmour
3 years ago
but while he was a uniquely bad president, he was not, in fact, Hitler
Article was OK but maybe dispense with needless signalling as per the above.
He was not ‘a uniquely bad president’. He was a remarkably good one by recent standards. Any writer who uses the word ‘Hitler’ in association with Trump (or any Western leader) merely reveals their ignorance and laziness.
You dont get it either..He mentions Germanys complete transformation after Hitler brought them utter devastation in every way…..so it’s not wrong to point out that Trump is NOT Hitler. Or should we all pretend the 3rd Reich never happened?
The author’s pointing out that Trump is not Hitler is a very left-handed compliment. Fraser and others have pointed out that Trump managed quite a bit of good in his (almost) four years. Saying that he was a uniquely bad president is simply unjustified. It is that point – not the red herring of denying the historical existence of the 3rd Reich – that is objectionable to many, including myself.
The writer already dealt with Germany and its rise from the ashes so his point regarding Trump not being Hitler was a perfectly valid one..
Drahcir Nevarc
3 years ago
“he was succeeded by his brother, James II ” a tactless oaf. The result was the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 ” in fact, a coup that deposed the wrongheaded, but rightful, king and installed an iffy Dutchman in his place.”
… who was his son-in-law reigning as joint monarch with his daughter, so it really wasn’t a revolution at all.
Yes, but Parliament chose the King this time, and relatively painlessly. That was different.
The hierarchy of power between Parliament and the King has barely changed since, though when Britain was an Empire, the King (actually Queen) began to gain power, but that didn’t last long.
Indeed, Thomas Packenham’s excellent Scramble for Africa relates Queen Victoria fairly peevish correspondence, as an advocate of “forward policy”, with Gladstone.
I wish I was as widely read as you, I only glean this stuff of the telly. Christian colonialism was the wokeness of its day, and Victoria was even more woke than Harry Sussex.
1850s Victorian colonialism was a woke, progressive, philosphy tacked onto centuries old globalism as the monopoly model started to founder. This barely fifty years before the whole system finally collapsed in a world war.
Don’t be modest. You seem very well informed and are probably better read than me. I don’t even have o-level history, but just happen to have read Packenham’s book.
“1850s Victorian colonialism was a woke, progressive, philosphy tacked onto centuries old globalism as the monopoly model started to founder.”
Known I believe as the three C’s: Commerce, Christianity, and Civilisation.
Thanks, I’m always grateful when someone tells me something I didn’t know.
Lindsay Gatward
3 years ago
Biden is in bed with the CCP – If you only get your information from the MSM you won’t know this – Meanwhile still much to play out on the election shenanigans although again MSM do not agree and Social Media Oligarchs are actively censoring – We may come to realise we are intended to be sleepwalking into a whole new world of control and subjugation.
In as far as Quisling waited for the actual German invasion before surrendering totally, Biden is not a Quisling, as He has surrendered to China before they even have a working plan for the invasion.
That sounds like the text book description of a Traitor. Does the US Constitution even contemplate such an eventuality?
Drahcir Nevarc
3 years ago
“He’s better known to history as Julian the Apostate” A shallow and meretricious pretext for me to shoe-horn my Julian Assange sonnet into the proceedings:-
11. Effete, left-liberal democracies in the 2020s, and that’s all of them apart from Israel, have led to the madness of laissz-faire towards Islamic fanatics, XR, BLM, grotesque trans ideologies, cancel-culture and much else, placing democracy under greater threat than anything since WW2.
Charles Rense
3 years ago
Trump himself was trying to restore Reaganism. He ran on basically all of Reagan’s platform planks, favored most of Reagan’s solutions, misunderstood everything Reagan misunderstood, and even stole his campaign slogan.
Of course he lacked any of the geneality and aww-shucks innocence. He was basically a bizarro Reagan.
David Uzzaman
3 years ago
It’s not just a problem the Democrats it’s a universal problem for any elected government that how ever small the majority you have won your supporters and you yourself believe that you don’t need to acknowledge the voters you didn’t win. Every incoming administration makes some half hearted speech about governing for all the people but no one expects them to do.
Chris Mochan
3 years ago
“Let us be the nation that we know we can. A nation united, a nation strengthened. A nation healed.”
Every 4 years the US public becomes enamoured with these bromides. I’m astonished that anyone could be conned by this rubbish, but the media get all misty eyed. In fact, it appears that for great swathes of the media classes, and I suppose the electorate, the ability to say lovely soothing soundbites about how the “dreams of our nation will heal our wounds” or similar, is the defining characteristic of a good president. If they can get all emotional at a press conference it doesn’t matter if the president is in hock to shady characters or has been dropping bombs all over the middle east. If Trump says something mean or petty or plain daft as he often does, then it doesn’t matter if his policies are achieving anything, he is by definition ‘bad’ at being president.
Derek M
3 years ago
Some useful points in this article but distorted by the author’s Trump-hatred. How exactly was Trump a ‘uniquely bad president’? This ignores his many successes both at home and abroad.
Vivek Rajkhowa
3 years ago
The bourbon restoration only failed because Charles X naively believed the revolt was all over. If he’d bothered to check he’d have seen it was in Paris only. Give them a whiff of grape shot and rhe revolt ends.
The Stuart restoration would’ve continued had james stood and fought instead of fleeing, alwo he wasn’t an oaf. But I wouldn’t expect the contrived sensibilities of men like Franklin to understand that.
I have a different understanding to you about James. He was a successful Admiral and was considered a good fighter. However, he was trying to turn the clock back to Catholicism. When his Protestant daughter and son in law invaded, the army of James faded away, he had nothing left to fight with.
The army only faded away because he refused to hold his ground and fight. A lot of historians believe that had he stood and fought he’d have succeeded.
Also, I don’t think he was trying to turn the clock back, he wasn’t forcing anything until quite late in his reign when he thought he was being betrayed. Initially he was actually quite moderate.
A few years later when James was a French pensioner, he witnessed the destruction of the French fleet at the action of Cape La Hogue by the Royal Navy. Turning to his coterie of French Officers, he amusingly remarked to them “Only my English tars could have done such a deed!”. Good man.
Eh, Louis XIV, Carlos iii, Ferdinand VII, Ferdinand VI, Louis XIII, Louis XVIII, Alfonso XII were all pretty good monarchs as were most of the rulers of Parma
Well, that is a subjective judgment, but for your seven I could offer seven who were let’s say, below standard. The Kingdom of Naples and Sicily springs to mind.
I was somewhat surprised you omitted the greatest of them all, Henry IV! Now there was a great King of France don’t you think?
“Don’t die two years into your reign” is a ridiculous remark Mr Franklin. As to starting an ill-considered war in the Middle East that is highly contentious to, given the aggressive nature of Sassanian Persia.
In short there is no moral to this particular part of your thesis, it was just plain bad luck. Fortuna had not smiled on Julian. Had she done so, and he had lived to his seventies like Augustus nearly four centuries before, Christianity may have been confined to the dustbin of History.
Very true. Or if Constantine had died at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 AD). This is purely hindsight. There was absolutely no guarantees that Christianity would have succeeded anymore than the Eastern religions like Mithraism, Orphism, or the cult of Serapis.
What I find very worrying is that it was “normal” administrations like Obama’s or Bush’s that lead to the election of Trump. Anyone who has qualms about the latter as president and wonders what could possibly induce so many to vote for him should take note of this and be wary.
This may be the real reason for the continues depiction of his voters as simply evil or completely idiotic – if that is true, there was no real reason they felt Trump was the best option, nothing more serious that needs to be addressed. The US can just get back to business as usual.
In fact, going back to business as usual without addressing the underlying problems in American society and politics will soon enough lead to the election of another populist. Possibly one who has a real agenda and ill intent, and the intelligence and will to carry it out.
We certainly didn’t think Bush’s administration (assuming you mean that of Bush Jr) was “normal” when he came to power in 2000. I remember journalist Hugo Young eviscerating him as “a man without qualities, save deep pockets and an empty smile – and a set of prejudices that will seriously upset the world.” It’s not hard to imagine more or less the same phrases being used of Trump sixteen years later.
Peter Scott
3 years ago
The fundamental error in this author’s thinking is his supposition that the principal political parties in the USA at the topmost level (Congress, the presidency) actually care about issues and have policy-principles which matter to them.
In the case of the Democrats this is becoming true, for that party is travelling Far Left at speed.
In the case of the Republicans – and the remaining ‘moderate’ Democrats – their ranks are vehicles for grifters to join who, elected to high office, will spend their time enriching themselves in point of money and privilege, while NOT caring about what happens to their country.
Most persons in the U.S. bureaucracy are also pursuing a self-serving non-patriotic commitment.
Hence it is that Big Money owns government and the political discourse in that land; crony corporatism goes unchecked; the Military Industrial Complex is back in force to once again rifle through their atlases and find countries to invade; the programme is once more mass immigration, political correctness gone crazy, sending jobs abroad, cosying up to China, being soft with Iran and N. Korea &c.
Populism in our day is a movement, democracy-wide, which jibs at these sort of representatives and looks for common sense government which truly cares about what happens to the nation’s ordinary people, already so long ignored.
“So far, Joe Biden has set the right tone. Following through with right actions won’t be so easy.”
FYI no one cares about tone anymore in America. We have been lied to politely too many times by too many people. Yes, Trump was a bombastic blowhard, but that does not mean we want to hear “inspirational” crap obviously devoid of substance. If you want us to quickly hate a politician, have them speak as if they just came out of a corporate focus test. Look and Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. They were the choices of our political elites. Bush and Clinton said all the “right” things, in the “right” tone. Problem was those damn voters were not listening to them. They were actually listening to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
Just for fun, can anyone actually name a substantial economic or foreign policy difference between Hillary and Jeb? I’m having a hard time thinking of one.
‘Bush and Clinton said all the “right” things, in the “right” tone’
While crucifying the American working classes and blowing up countless innocent people in distant countries.
Jeb Bush didn’t do the latter, his highest political office was that of governor of the state of Florida. That position only entitles you to affect the fortunes of that particular state, not set the terms of foreign policy.
Note: Hindman said “said”, not “did”.
Trump on lots of metrics did very well. You might see him as a uniquely bad president but objectively thats wrong and yes we get the media doesn’t like him because he dared to doubt your integrity, but tough if you want us to treat you like you are truth hunting heroes act like uyou are truth hunting heroes not part of a tedious establishment propaganda machine.
This guy really is telling us how woke-revisionist history will become the new truth. Trump was a uniquely excellent (albeit goofy) President.
Der Spiegel has been repulsive for some years, even worse than The Economist. My father no longer asks me to pick up a copy when I travel. To suggest, as they did on their cover, that Trump destroyed liberty is a travesty. He was the most libertarian president of recent times. For instance, he allowed BLM/Antifa to riot unhindered for weeks in Portland. Obama crushed Occupy after a few days, to comfort his friends on Wall St. Biden will be far more authoritarian than Trump.
The triumph of the Woke is proceeding at a rapid pace in Germany. For a taste of how this impacts popular culture try watching some German TV (plenty available on YouTube).
Just so the audience receive correct moral guidance the whole intersectional crowd, feminists, gays, immigrants, environmentalists etc, will usually be portrayed sympathetically. Men, if they do not display conspicuous anti-patriarchal credentials are shown in a negative light (ie. bone-headed, creepy, privileged, patronising, perverted).
Just like the BBC.
Haven’t they just gaoled the other Ursula again?
That Is 92 year old Ursula Haverbeck, for insisting that Auschwitz was only a Chocolate Factory or something?
The Hun Woke, God help us!
Amazing how these bone-headed white men can fool so many intelligent white women and brainy minorities of either gender into giving them, the white men, most of the power, isn’t it? It’s a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes!
Joe Biden has never accomplished anything politically in 50 years. The idea that (at a less than sharp age 78) he would be able to restore anything is far fetched. He is a place holder, for whenever Nancy decides to pull the plug on him in favor of Harris or if, by some miracle, he squeaks out 4 years for whomever is the next president. (And this is assuming that nothing comes out for Joe on Hunter) I don’t dislike Joe Biden personally but he is sort of a time out for everyone. With a divided congress, he will have trouble doing much.
Yes Annette, how anyone can expect anything resembling a grand plan from Joe Biden is beyond me. He talks and thinks in sound bites, never anything interesting or original that isn’t irrational nonsense.
Expect to see the Republican’s build on President Trump’s basic platform but with someone a little easier for people to like. Nikki Haley or Dan Crenshaw perhaps.
As placeholders go, Biden will be pretty benign. He does not have the energy to change much assuming he makes it four years. Interesting choices Haley and Crenshaw. Both would be as anti-war as Trump I would hope. Haley vs Harris would be interesting, assuming Harris gets the nomination for 2024. Not assured, of course, as the more democrats saw of her, the worse she did in the primaries.
-not a “place holder” a sock puppet…and the benignity is difficult of determination when one cannot see who’s hand is up the sock…
..
A place holder for either Harris or whomever gets the nomination for 2024.
I wouldn’t say that Biden has not achieve anything in 50 years. For instance, he has:
– Massively enriched himself and his family through political influence
– Incarcerated hundreds of thousands of people for minor offences with his 1990s Crime Bill
– Fixed things for the credit card industry on many occasions
– Provided valuable support for the destruction of Iraq, Yemen, Libya and other places
– Engineered the firing of a prosecutor – who happened to be investigating the company on whose board his son sat – in another country
And one could go on.
As a comment on another thread notes, Trump won 72.4 million votes, a near record number, beaten only by Biden. With a very small swing, say 1% or 2% of the electorate, he would have won reelection, and this with almost the entire legacy media establishment against him, and arguably much of the new media too. It’s hard to say he’s not politically savvy, but maybe had he been just a bit less reckless, a bit smarter about COVID perhaps, the Democrats would have been buried. They have barely any mandate now – a narrow victory over a candidate that many had come to see as unelectable, in the middle of a pandemic and the dreadful economic consequences thereof.
Biden is going to have to tread very carefully indeed. There wouldn’t appear to be any real enthusiasm for insider elites feathering their nests as usual, especially during a post-COVID recession, and using woke-y nostrums to try and make elections about culture and values would most likely backfire spectacularly.
But he didn’t win. However had he displayed something more refined than his boorish burbling he might have.
Biden won by the people who do not add to the nation being mobilized through postal voting allowing them to just sit at home knowing nothing and caring less, but still vote. Trump voters are people who make America work.
It is a pity that such a well thought out article had to include the editorializing and assumption that all would agree “while Trump was a uniquely bad President”. When are people going to learn that insulting someone that half the country is grateful to is NOT a way to win friends and make common ground? This was a well written and fair article to that point. Trump was not a bad president at all. e was “uniquely loquacious” , yes, but not “bad” for our country. In fact, in many opinions, he was uniquely great for raising up all of us, of all colors and backgrounds and genders, we ALL had more jobs (minorities were employed at the highest level ever in our history), more money, more security, more optimism for our future, more joy at, finally, increasing peace in the Middle East, more comfort for our funded military and VA, and even under CV19, someone on the side of science( Fauci for months) combined with common sense combined with liberty. The list is long for what was good for our country under Trump. Stop insulting him and, by extension, those who voted for him, in fact start praising the good results in intellectual honesty, and you may actually start to get readers and listeners.
When are people going to learn that insulting someone that half the country is grateful to is NOT a way to win friends and make common ground?
Never. It’s why instead of good faith debate, people like this engage in hectoring, brow beating, and a variety of insults, followed by vapid calls for unity and wondering why we can’t all get along.
“…heal America…” a laughable statement-Biden and his old boss, with a complicit and compliant media did more to sow discord than anyone in recent memory. Your history lesson is interesting, but clearly is a smoke screen for a partisan take on current political events.
Article was OK but maybe dispense with needless signalling as per the above.
Agree.
He was not ‘a uniquely bad president’. He was a remarkably good one by recent standards. Any writer who uses the word ‘Hitler’ in association with Trump (or any Western leader) merely reveals their ignorance and laziness.
You dont get it either..He mentions Germanys complete transformation after Hitler brought them utter devastation in every way…..so it’s not wrong to point out that Trump is NOT Hitler.
Or should we all pretend the 3rd Reich never happened?
The author’s pointing out that Trump is not Hitler is a very left-handed compliment. Fraser and others have pointed out that Trump managed quite a bit of good in his (almost) four years. Saying that he was a uniquely bad president is simply unjustified. It is that point – not the red herring of denying the historical existence of the 3rd Reich – that is objectionable to many, including myself.
The writer already dealt with Germany and its rise from the ashes so his point regarding Trump not being Hitler was a perfectly valid one..
“he was succeeded by his brother, James II ” a tactless oaf. The result was the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 ” in fact, a coup that deposed the wrongheaded, but rightful, king and installed an iffy Dutchman in his place.”
… who was his son-in-law reigning as joint monarch with his daughter, so it really wasn’t a revolution at all.
Yes, but Parliament chose the King this time, and relatively painlessly. That was different.
The hierarchy of power between Parliament and the King has barely changed since, though when Britain was an Empire, the King (actually Queen) began to gain power, but that didn’t last long.
And the world has been worse of because of that. Those who betrayed James should have felt shame for the rest of their lives.
Indeed, Thomas Packenham’s excellent Scramble for Africa relates Queen Victoria fairly peevish correspondence, as an advocate of “forward policy”, with Gladstone.
I wish I was as widely read as you, I only glean this stuff of the telly. Christian colonialism was the wokeness of its day, and Victoria was even more woke than Harry Sussex.
1850s Victorian colonialism was a woke, progressive, philosphy tacked onto centuries old globalism as the monopoly model started to founder. This barely fifty years before the whole system finally collapsed in a world war.
I hope history isn’t repeating itself.
Don’t be modest. You seem very well informed and are probably better read than me. I don’t even have o-level history, but just happen to have read Packenham’s book.
“1850s Victorian colonialism was a woke, progressive, philosphy tacked onto centuries old globalism as the monopoly model started to founder.”
Known I believe as the three C’s: Commerce, Christianity, and Civilisation.
A good re-read of Kipling’s ‘White Man’s Burden’ will point you in that direction.
And a damned disgusting thing it was they did.
Why so?
Because they removed their rightful King/ their father, for no crime other than religious tolerance etc.
They betrayed their king, they betrayed England and invited in thr rot.
He was if I recall correctly a rather notorious “botty bandit”, but this didn’t prevent him taking the fight to Louis XIV.
I am also told that one of the actors on “The Archers” is the direct descendant of one of William’s catamites.
Brom 4689!
Blenheim,
Ramilles,
Oudenarde,
Malplaquet!
Those were the days!
Indeed so. A mnemonic we were taught at prep school in the 1970’s.
So was I, but many years earlier.
We were both obviously taught to take great pride in our History.
Sadly it is the complete antithesis today, where cretins reel away in horror at the tales of Empire, from Crecy & Agincourt to Omdurman & the Somme.
They have lost their birthright! Fools!
He was also the son of James II’s eldest sister, Mary, the Princess Royal, and thus fourth in the line of succession in his own right.
Thanks, I’m always grateful when someone tells me something I didn’t know.
Biden is in bed with the CCP – If you only get your information from the MSM you won’t know this – Meanwhile still much to play out on the election shenanigans although again MSM do not agree and Social Media Oligarchs are actively censoring – We may come to realise we are intended to be sleepwalking into a whole new world of control and subjugation.
Biden is a Quisling? I would never have guessed.
In as far as Quisling waited for the actual German invasion before surrendering totally, Biden is not a Quisling, as He has surrendered to China before they even have a working plan for the invasion.
That sounds like the text book description of a Traitor.
Does the US Constitution even contemplate such an eventuality?
“He’s better known to history as Julian the Apostate”
A shallow and meretricious pretext for me to shoe-horn my Julian Assange sonnet into the proceedings:-
Sonnet 151
by Richard Craven
He’s to be scoped, the rapey narcissist,
athwart on camp-bed with a cigarette,
recalling ruefully his Swedish tryst.
It’s pretty gamey in that oubliette,
and latterly his visitors are few
and low status: just junior attachés
and interns. No more television crews
now camp beneath his balcony; that craze
of troubadour paying court to caytiff king
has passed. Now Julian’s the apostate,
there’ll be an end of virtue-signalling.
Let Cumberbatch and Gaga find new mates;
the creep will linger like a nasty smell
inside his Ecuadorian hotel.
Bravo!
Thanks very much!
11.
Effete, left-liberal democracies in the 2020s, and that’s all of them apart from Israel, have led to the madness of laissz-faire towards Islamic fanatics, XR, BLM, grotesque trans ideologies, cancel-culture and much else, placing democracy under greater threat than anything since WW2.
Trump himself was trying to restore Reaganism. He ran on basically all of Reagan’s platform planks, favored most of Reagan’s solutions, misunderstood everything Reagan misunderstood, and even stole his campaign slogan.
Of course he lacked any of the geneality and aww-shucks innocence. He was basically a bizarro Reagan.
It’s not just a problem the Democrats it’s a universal problem for any elected government that how ever small the majority you have won your supporters and you yourself believe that you don’t need to acknowledge the voters you didn’t win. Every incoming administration makes some half hearted speech about governing for all the people but no one expects them to do.
“Let us be the nation that we know we can. A nation united, a nation strengthened. A nation healed.”
Every 4 years the US public becomes enamoured with these bromides. I’m astonished that anyone could be conned by this rubbish, but the media get all misty eyed. In fact, it appears that for great swathes of the media classes, and I suppose the electorate, the ability to say lovely soothing soundbites about how the “dreams of our nation will heal our wounds” or similar, is the defining characteristic of a good president. If they can get all emotional at a press conference it doesn’t matter if the president is in hock to shady characters or has been dropping bombs all over the middle east. If Trump says something mean or petty or plain daft as he often does, then it doesn’t matter if his policies are achieving anything, he is by definition ‘bad’ at being president.
Some useful points in this article but distorted by the author’s Trump-hatred. How exactly was Trump a ‘uniquely bad president’? This ignores his many successes both at home and abroad.
The bourbon restoration only failed because Charles X naively believed the revolt was all over. If he’d bothered to check he’d have seen it was in Paris only. Give them a whiff of grape shot and rhe revolt ends.
The Stuart restoration would’ve continued had james stood and fought instead of fleeing, alwo he wasn’t an oaf. But I wouldn’t expect the contrived sensibilities of men like Franklin to understand that.
I have a different understanding to you about James.
He was a successful Admiral and was considered a good fighter. However, he was trying to turn the clock back to Catholicism.
When his Protestant daughter and son in law invaded, the army of James faded away, he had nothing left to fight with.
The army only faded away because he refused to hold his ground and fight. A lot of historians believe that had he stood and fought he’d have succeeded.
Also, I don’t think he was trying to turn the clock back, he wasn’t forcing anything until quite late in his reign when he thought he was being betrayed. Initially he was actually quite moderate.
A few years later when James was a French pensioner, he witnessed the destruction of the French fleet at the action of Cape La Hogue by the Royal Navy.
Turning to his coterie of French Officers, he amusingly remarked to them “Only my English tars could have done such a deed!”. Good man.
Oh indeed,
Aye
The Bourbons we always pretty hopeless. Just look at that ludicrous old fornicator, ex King Juan Carlos of Spain.
Eh, Louis XIV, Carlos iii, Ferdinand VII, Ferdinand VI, Louis XIII, Louis XVIII, Alfonso XII were all pretty good monarchs as were most of the rulers of Parma
Well, that is a subjective judgment, but for your seven I could offer seven who were let’s say, below standard. The Kingdom of Naples and Sicily springs to mind.
I was somewhat surprised you omitted the greatest of them all, Henry IV! Now there was a great King of France don’t you think?
Oh he most definitely was, him living longer butterflies most of European history
Sadly murdered by yet another Christian fanatic!
At least the execution was spectacular.
Aye
“Don’t die two years into your reign” is a ridiculous remark Mr Franklin. As to starting an ill-considered war in the Middle East that is highly contentious to, given the aggressive nature of Sassanian Persia.
In short there is no moral to this particular part of your thesis, it was just plain bad luck. Fortuna had not smiled on Julian. Had she done so, and he had lived to his seventies like Augustus nearly four centuries before, Christianity may have been confined to the dustbin of History.
Very true. Or if Constantine had died at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 AD). This is purely hindsight. There was absolutely no guarantees that Christianity would have succeeded anymore than the Eastern religions like Mithraism, Orphism, or the cult of Serapis.
The fickle finger of fate!
What I find very worrying is that it was “normal” administrations like Obama’s or Bush’s that lead to the election of Trump. Anyone who has qualms about the latter as president and wonders what could possibly induce so many to vote for him should take note of this and be wary.
This may be the real reason for the continues depiction of his voters as simply evil or completely idiotic – if that is true, there was no real reason they felt Trump was the best option, nothing more serious that needs to be addressed. The US can just get back to business as usual.
In fact, going back to business as usual without addressing the underlying problems in American society and politics will soon enough lead to the election of another populist. Possibly one who has a real agenda and ill intent, and the intelligence and will to carry it out.
We certainly didn’t think Bush’s administration (assuming you mean that of Bush Jr) was “normal” when he came to power in 2000. I remember journalist Hugo Young eviscerating him as “a man without qualities, save deep pockets and an empty smile – and a set of prejudices that will seriously upset the world.” It’s not hard to imagine more or less the same phrases being used of Trump sixteen years later.
The fundamental error in this author’s thinking is his supposition that the principal political parties in the USA at the topmost level (Congress, the presidency) actually care about issues and have policy-principles which matter to them.
In the case of the Democrats this is becoming true, for that party is travelling Far Left at speed.
In the case of the Republicans – and the remaining ‘moderate’ Democrats – their ranks are vehicles for grifters to join who, elected to high office, will spend their time enriching themselves in point of money and privilege, while NOT caring about what happens to their country.
Most persons in the U.S. bureaucracy are also pursuing a self-serving non-patriotic commitment.
Hence it is that Big Money owns government and the political discourse in that land; crony corporatism goes unchecked; the Military Industrial Complex is back in force to once again rifle through their atlases and find countries to invade; the programme is once more mass immigration, political correctness gone crazy, sending jobs abroad, cosying up to China, being soft with Iran and N. Korea &c.
Populism in our day is a movement, democracy-wide, which jibs at these sort of representatives and looks for common sense government which truly cares about what happens to the nation’s ordinary people, already so long ignored.