Leading up to the election, Radix Journal will publish a symposium, “The Meaning of Trump,” drawing writers from across the Alt Right. This is VDare Editor Peter Brimelow’s Entry
Like a lot of British emigrants—I came to the U.S.in 1970, considerably before Radix Editor Richard Spencer(1)—I am mildly Anglophobic. And, although I guess I prefer slick Oxbridge Righties—let’s make that “Righties”— like Professor Andrew Roberts (pro-Thatcher, pro-Brexit) to slick Oxbridge Lefties like Andrew Sullivan and the late Christopher Hitchens, I still found Roberts’ recent Wriston Lecture, sneering snobbishly at Donald J. Trump and indeed at the whole 2016 presidential election process, hard to take. (The Manhattan Institute has posted a video here; there’s a synopsis, and a link to an adaptation that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, here.)
(Interestingly, I’d say at least a few of the glittering crowd of New York fat cats seemed to agree).
The Wriston Lecture is black tie, which meant that my young wife began kicking me under the table with a particularly sharp pointed shoe when the Manhattan Institute’s genial President, Larry Mone, asked for questions. I don’t usually ask questions at these events—I lack Richard’s evangelical zeal—but I did obediently get up and try to catch Larry’s eye.
I’ve known Larry for many years, but despite this (or perhaps because of it) he didn’t call on me.
But this is what I would have asked:
Professor Roberts, as one Limey to another—I have to say I don’t think you get these Yanks.
This is not the Cambridge Union. It’s the Wild West.
You may think Donald Trump is uncouth. But he’s nowhere near as uncouth as Lyndon B. Johnson—I presume you’ve read Caro’s biography—and he was one of the seminal Presidents in American history, for better or worse.
It wasn’t pretty, but there was a real debate on principles in the Republican primaries.
Trump is against these managed trade deals. The GOP Establishment—and the entire political class—is for them.
Trump is against promiscuous interventions overseas—in fact, he’s against what George Washington warned against: entangling alliances. The GOP Establishment—and the entire political class—is for them.
Above all, Trump is against current immigration policy, which on current course will reduce whites into a minority by 2040—a demographic transformation without precedent in the history of the world. The GOP Establishment—and the entire political class—is for it.
So there was a debate about principles—and Donald Trump won.
I can’t recall any such principled debate in Britain—with the exception of Brexit. The Establishment has got things sewn up pretty tight there.
How can you not see this?
(You were right about Brexit, though).
1. This is a joke. Richard was born in the U.S. and is eligible to run for President