In his prophetic 1995 book The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, historian Christopher Lasch argued that America’s professional and managerial elites had abandoned the middle classes, isolating themselves in enclaves of privilege. By last year, Fox News’ commentator Tucker Carlson had found the phenomenon so far advanced that, as he wrote in his book Ship of Fools, “Trump’s election wasn’t about Trump. It was a throbbing middle finger in the face of America’s ruling class.” In the Claremont Review of Books, Michael Anton examines the Tucker Carlson phenomenon, and why many now consider him the “de facto leader of the conservative movement.”
France is in the Crosshairs, but the Target is Western Civilization
Theodore Dalrymple in Law & Liberty crystallizes the recent riots in France to a simple equation: “Whole generations have been taught and come to accept that Western civilization consists of slavery, exploitation, and massacre.” Tearing it all down – not merely reforming it – is therefore not just understandable but desirable. Dalrymple disposes of the delusional trope that these are “student” protests, noting the preponderance of Muslim migrants committing the mayhem.
For a luminous glimpse into the singular civilizational achievements the rioters would tear down, read this C2C article by Patrick Keeney.
