The Apocalyptic End Of History - When Nationalism Triumphs, The New Political Reality

There are only two ways of looking at a unified world.  One is that all nations sign on to one, universal moral and political pact, and that wars, conflict, and civil disorder become things of the distant past.  The other is that each country becomes a strong, nationalistic, proud, and defiant defender of its history, culture, religion, and civilization and stands up to the predation and false premises of The Other. 

Francis Fukuyama, historian and sociologist wrote the infamous book, The End of History shortly after the end of the Soviet Union.  The world, he said taking the universalist point of view, was now united under one geopolitical mantle - liberal democracy - and all nations would prosper now that deeply partisan divisions had been removed. 

Of course this vision was proven wrong within a decade, as oppressed religious and ethnic minorities, frustrated with years of harsh, dictatorial suppression demanded their rights.  The Balkan Wars of the Nineties were the perfect example.  Bosnians, Serbs Croats, Kosovars, and Muslims kept under the thumb of the Yugoslavian dictator Tito for so long, rejoiced in his downfall and set about to rectify the errors of the past.  

 

The indiscriminate bombing of Srebrenica could have been predicted, so hateful was the vengeful retribution exacted on the population of the city.  The war went on for years before the West - led by the late-coming, apologetic United States and its President, Bill Clinton, and NATO decided to act. 

The civil wars fought by Russia against its Muslim minority Caucasian states was no less brutal, and a renascent Russia was determined to re-establish political and social hegemony. 

Religion-inspired terrorism increased as ISIS in pursuit of a radical Islamic caliphate carried out a barbaric, savage assault on non-believers, and until its military adventurism was recognized and deterred by the West they were as murderous as Genghis Khan.  Iran until the recent US-Israeli campaign was one of the foremost sponsors of political mayhem in the Middle Easts, and its clients - Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis among others - have not yet been completely neutralized. 

Over the same period the American progressive ethos of Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI) spread throughout Europe, and in the name of a compassionate, welcoming, and tolerant society, European nations opened their borders and tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants crossed the Mediterranean from Africa and the Middle East and flooded their cities. 

While the white, European populations initially welcomed them, they soon found out that these new arrivals wanted nothing of their religion, culture or political system. Playing on their hosts' sensitivity to cries of racism, these Muslims insisted on separatism. The new ethos of plurality, diversity, and heterogeneity meant letting individual groups act out their own destiny, but Western Europe soon saw the price to be paid for such idealism. 

Slowly, surely, and inevitably, these countries said, 'Basta!' and from east to west have begun to turn to the right.  Conservative Giorgia Meloni in Italy has made no apologies for Italy's white, Christian, European culture; and leaders like Alice Weidel of Germany, Marine Le Pen of France, Nigel Farage of the UK, and Gert Wilders of the Netherlands have followed suit.  Poland and Hungary have been just as adamant and determined. 

The rest of the world has also come to its nationalistic senses. El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador, and Argentina have elected strong conservative governments which have put national integrity first and foremost.  El Salvador has suspended the rights of Mara Salvatrucha MS-13 gang members, imprisoning them without trial.  President Bukele has repeatedly stated that the civil rights of ordinary citizens to leave in peace and without fear trump the rights of criminals  The new Colombian President has vowed to do the same and to rid the country once and for all of FARC terrorists. 

Japan has elected a conservative Prime Minister who has vowed to stop all Muslim immigration, to take down mosques and to deport anyone defying Japanese culture. 

China needs no tutorial in nationalism. It has grown from poverty to a world class political, economic, military, and financial power because of its absolute certainty and political will.  It has dismissed criticisms from the West about its desire to eliminate minorities, and has never backed off from its principle of incorporating the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, Tibet, and Taiwan within its Han culture.  China cannot grow to complete international supremacy with dissent. 

The United States under President Trump has adopted the same virile nationalism - a refusal to buckle under to the discredited notions of inclusivity, open borders, and cultural relativity.  He, like his Italian counterpart Meloni has made no apologies for his pride in America and its European, Christian heritage.  

He has dismantled DEI programs and policies in all federal institutions, filed briefs with the courts to challenge private universities, like Harvard, to stop their race-based admissions; and he has insisted upon reestablishing the national ethos put forth by the Founding Fathers - a respectful, Christian nation inspired by independence and individuality but mindful of the needs of community.  The cult of identity has done nothing but degrade this historical notion and turned the nation into a place of vile jealousies, hatred, and disorder. 

The radical Left, encouraged by the Biden presidency and years of successful cultural inroads is alive and well, and the fate of Republicans in this year's midterm election is uncertain. 

Yet, voters have seen how destructive, corrosive, and damaging the policies of the Left have been.  The absurdity of the gender spectrum, the lionization of the transgender, the conviction that heterosexuality is merely a choice has done more to deflate the presumptuous rhetoric of the liberal cause than anything; and voters have finally begun to look at all progressive policies.  

Open borders was not a policy of love and asylum, but one of bald political interest.  These illegal immigrants, able to vote because the absence of voter ID laws, will vote for the hand that fed them; and their numbers will reconfigure electoral districts. 

The canonization of the black man, despite a low demographic representation, is responsible for the majority of rapes, murders, and assaults in America.  Prisons are filled with recidivist black men.  The inner cities are sinkholes of dysfunction, crime, violence, and internecine warfare.  Truancy rates are over 60 percent, single motherhood is the rule not the exception. 

The American Right, like its European counterparts, is no longer willing to accede to the blandishments of the Left, and has taken an unequivocal stance against liberal idealism and insisted on a return to the country's moral, ethical, and religious roots. 

If Trump and the conservatives have their way, America will join France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and Poland in bold nationalistic reform.  The failed, discredited, socialist-inspired policies of the Left will be discarded and dismissed.  America will once more be the international giant it once was. 

The world, therefore, will no longer be made up of communities.  The European Union will be a thing of the past, and individual countries will once again take control of their destinies.  Nationalism not communitarianism will be the rule. Countries, free from the inhibiting doctrines of political community and from the hectoring of the Left for being insular and petty, will exert their nationalism with pride and defiance.

 

The United States, Russia, and China will stand alone and independent against each other in a conflict of will - a pure Machiavellian triad - and less powerful countries will follow suit.  Competition, honest conflict, a match of defiant will, will be the ordre du jour, and the world will return to the way it has always been since the first human settlements. 

Nationalism is merely the large-scale application of human nature - looking after one's one and acting always in their interest. 

Francis Fukuyama was dead wrong when the wrote about the end of history because he misjudged the power of tribal rivalries; but a new end of history, or at least a radical reconfiguration of it, is upon us.