The enemy of the West is not Russia or China, nor is it an enemy state, but indeed primarily an enemy within, abandoning one’s own identity; and an outside enemy, radical Islamism – which, meanwhile, plays second fiddle to the first, because Islamism only poses a threat because it finds the West spiritually weak and disconnected from itself. There is no ‘us-versus-them logic’ here, contrary to what Trump’s detractors are fond of saying. There is instead an ‘us seeking to reclaim ourselves’ logic.https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy....pian-populism/
[...]
Just like Ronald Reagan – educated at some insignificant university in the middle of cornfields in Illinois, a mediocre sports commentator, an actor with very little talent – achieved what generations of sophisticated politicians and Ivy League aristocrats failed to do, that is, defeat communism, so too, Donald Trump – that billionaire clad in suits that are a bit too big, a corporate member of casinos and golf clubs – seems to have a worldview the depth and spread of which far surpass the perspectives of the hyper-intellectualized, cosmopolitan elites who despise him.
In Warsaw, on July 6, 2017, Trump delivered a remarkable speech defending the West – a speech no other current leader could muster the courage or ability to deliver. Its central theme was the vision of a West – viewed as a community of nations (and not as an indistinct, borderless amalgam) – that faces an existential threat from within and will survive only if it can regain its spirit.
[...]
Nationalism – the idea of nation – is closely linked to the birth of the West. According to Aeschylus, in the heat of the battle of Salamis, the Greeks sang:
Ô paídes hellênon íte,
eleutheroúte patrída, eleutheroúte de
paídas, gynaíkas,
theôn te patrôon édê,
thêkas te progónôn,
nun hypér pántôn agôn!
(Forward, you sons of Hellas!
Set your country free! Set
free your sons, your wives,
the tombs of your ancestors,
and the temples of your gods.
All is at stake: now fight!)
Of course, the portrait of the battle that Aeschylus sketches here is a romanticized one – but perhaps not so much so. The Naval Battle of Salamis, in which an alliance of Greek cities defeated the Persian invaders (and saved the nascent West) occurred in 480 BC, and Aeschylus – who himself fought in the battle – as early as 472 BC wrote the play entitled “The Persians,” from which the quote is taken. Salamis must have happened more or less the way he describes it. The Greek cities formed the first alliance of the West against the Persian invaders, a West at the time confined to Greece, more or less along the lines described by Trump – a community of independent nations that were at one and the same time fiercely independent but viewed as a group completely different from the invader or the rest of the world; and united not by some type of geo-strategic convenience not to preserve trading routes or anything of the sort but to defend freedom, family, their cultural heritage, and their gods.
[...]
Only a God can still save the West, a God working through the nation, including – and perhaps, especially – the American nation. Heidegger never believed in an America as a standard-bearer for the West; he considered the United States to be a country as materialistic as the Soviet Union, incapable of the metaphysical self-perception that is vital to creating a “new beginning,” as he called it – a rebuilding of the West that would replicate in other terms the first beginning brought about by the ancient Greeks. Heidegger might perhaps have changed his mind after hearing Trump’s speech in Warsaw, and might have proclaimed: Nur noch Trump kann das Abendland retten – Only Trump can still save the West.
För Katerina Janouch står hela världen i brandhttps://www.expressen.se/kultur/ide/...rlden-i-brand/
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På denna sida frågade Jens Liljestrand för en tid sedan ”Hur är det att vara Katerina Janouch?”. Jag skulle vilja fortsätta där han slutade och funderar på hur det är. Och jag tror att det handlar om att man ser en värld i brand.
När huset brinner är man inte så nogräknad att man bryr sig om ifall brandsoldaten är nazist. Tror man på ett nära förestående harmageddon, den totala kollapsen, ragnarök och apokalyps kan man tänka sig extrema lösningar. …
Idag vägrade @strandhall komma och svara på frågor i Aktuellt med hänvisning till övergångsregeringen. Däremot har hon den senaste tiden skrivit flera debattartiklar. Att hon kommer undan med det är ganska intressant.https://twitter.com/NiklasGillstrom/...46101739016192 ...
Ni vet hur historien brukar skrivas: Efter Brexitomröstningen i Storbritannien och Trumps valseger i USA stod även Frankrike vid avgrunden. Hotet var överhängande, men tack vare en socialliberal och EU-vänlig pånyttfödelse kunde mörkrets krafter betvingas i sista stund. Typ.https://www.dn.se/nyheter/politik/vi...IfVdYvkqEEA69k
En fin historia. Dessvärre inte särskilt sann.
Det främsta skälet till att Emmanuel Macron blev president var att den traditionella högerkandidaten var korrupt. Om inte den katolskt konservative François Fillon hade avslöjats med att slussa skattemedel till sin fru så hade det förmodligen blivit han som fått möta (och besegra) Nationella Frontens Marine Le Pen i presidentvalets utslagsrunda.
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De mer visionärt orienterade verkar dock måttligt intresserade av sådant. Allt fler tycks i stället redan ha lagt det ouppklarade valet 2018 bakom sig, och ser nu fram mot nästa stora strid: Valet till Europaparlamentet i sommar. Då ska det minsann bli åka av! En kontinental folkomröstning om anständigheten! Antingen är du med Cecilia Wikström (L), eller så är du med Steve Bannon!
Utanför fönstret skiftar verkligheten fortfarande i grått.
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