Boris Johnson, before he turned to a goofy Mayor of London and subsequently the architect of Brexit, was a journalist and scholar known for his book on Sir Winston Churchill. Johnson wrote that one of the reasons behind Churchill's popularity was his instinctive grasp of Greek rhetorical tropes and his use of sudden short punchlines to conclude an otherwise orotund argument with Latinate words. Put another way, Churchill was a remarkably talented speaker, but his oratorical mastery was in simplifying complex circumlocutions to powerful short sentences that reach common people.
Speaking of short, powerful sentences, Tucker Carlson's new book, “Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution” is a one-two punch in the snoot of our craven heedless intelligentsia. At the time of writing, Carlson's show is rising in popularity, despite attempts by liberal activists to instigate boycotts on trumped up (pardon me) charges. For those who watch the show, the reminder of short, sharp sentences will seem familiar. For example, talking of Trump's election, Carlson writes, “it was a gesture of contempt, a howl of rage, the end result of decades of selfish and unwise decisions made by selfish and unwise leaders. Happy countries don't elect Donald Trump president. Desperate ones do.” The tone is set. You instantly recognize what you're here for: a splash of cold water to your face after a misplaced mid-afternoon siesta and subsequent headache. Liberal utopia of the last quarter century is over with failed foreign humanitarian interventions and domestic social disintegration; now back to reality.
Carlson's book is distinctly bipartisan in the sense that it mercilessly skewers conventional wisdom, takes no prisoners, and shows no reverence for any tribal party loyalty. The enemy is the imperial intelligentsia, deciding on the course of the country from their upmarket properties, practically indistinguishable between a Bill Clinton and a Bill Kristol. “Our new ruling class doesn't care, not simply about American citizens, but about the future of the country itself. They view America the way a private equity firm sizes up an aging industrial conglomerate: as something outdated they can profit from. When it fails, they're gone,” Carlson writes. From immigration to foreign intervention, democracy has no meaning anymore because the ruling class, regardless of political party, chose to consistently ignore what the demos want. If the demos raise their voices? Well … import new demos. Carlson thunders against ersatz democracy, dubbing it a recipe for revolution. “If you tell people they're in charge, but then act as if they're not, you'll infuriate them. It's too dishonest. They'll go crazy. Oligarchies posing as democracies will always be overthrown in the end.”
The strongest section of the book is the one dealing with foreign interventions, especially the characters who led the West to recent foreign entanglements. Carlson points to a culture of mediocrity, an insulated blob, so to speak, who never go to war themselves, nor face any direct consequences for their boneheaded policies of destabilizing faraway semi-feudal lands where the United States or the West have no direct geostrategic interest. Imagine the pith helmet and khaki-wearing stoic British imperial civil servant in London arguing for organizing the logistics for a British Australian and Indian army expedition in North West Frontier Province to quell Afghan rebels. Fast forward two hundred years, and change Australia to Arizona or Alabama. What are the odds that Max Boot, sitting in DC, is also a fan of imperialism?
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