Twilight of the Neocons

My recent article for Fleming.Foundation:

https://fleming.foundation/2021/07/twilight-of-the-neocons/

Out of power, though trying to claw their way back in, the Neocons have become an unintentionally humorous sect. Their howlings could form the dialogue of a woke sitcom.

Consider David Frum, one of those Yalies Bill Buckley liked to hire, even though they never really were conservatives. Other specimens include David Brooks and Garry Wills. If Stalin had gone to Yale, Buckley would have given him an NR column.

Writing in the Widow Jobs’ blog, The Atlantic, where he now is some kind of editor, Frum asks you to guess based on his title, “There’s a Word for What Trumpism is Becoming.” Hmmmm. I think it begins with an F, and not that word Country Joe used at Woodstock. Freedom? Faith? Fun? Frumism? 

I give up. Ohhh! It’s Fascism.

Thus the learned Frum, “Two traits have historically marked off European-style fascism from more homegrown American traditions of illiberalism: contempt for legality and the cult of violence.”

Well, Hitler and Mussolini certainly favored violence as a way to advance the warlike virtues of the Volk. They invaded numerous countries until brought down by much of the rest of the world.

Who among the American commentariat is the most warlike? How about the man who stuffed in Bush’s mouth for the 2002 State of the Union address the phrase, “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.  By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.” He was referring to North Korea, Iran and Iraq. 

The phrase was idiotic, perfect for the simpleton Bush as he prepared to get into the big muddy of the Iraq War a year later. But Pyongyang was on the other side of the world from the other two. Iran and Iraq a decade earlier were badly bloodied from the long Iran-Iraq  War. And at the time, in 2002, many people pointed out that, because Iraq was 2/3 Shia Muslim, getting rid of Saddam’s Sunni regime only would ally Iraq to Shiite Iran — which is what happened.

From Frum’s Atlantic scribblings, this is really funny: “Presidential-era Trumpism operated through at least the forms of law. Presidential-era Trumpism glorified military power, not mob attacks on government institutions. Post-presidentially, those past inhibitions are fast dissolving.”

Actually, although Trump glorified the military, because he was patriotic, he tried to get us out of the Bush-Frum wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but was thwarted by the actual military. Instead of fascism, where the military was subordinate to the civilian dictators, what we have is what the Soviets called Bonapartism — rule by the military. And as the recent testimony by Gen. Milley showed, the military is “woke.”

Frum, like so many on the Left, is obsessed with the January 6 protest that turned into nothing more than a minor riot. It was not “mob attacks on government institutions.” The actual such attacks have been perpetrated by his fellow leftists in such groups as Antifa and BLM, in Portland and other left-wing cities. 

Then he smears the name of the good, unarmed woman and veteran murdered by the Capitol Police. “The conversion of Ashli Babbitt into a martyr, a sort of American Horst Wessel, expresses the transformation.” Frum is disgusting. 

In fact, there isn’t any Trumpism. As usual with Trump, everything is ad hoc. There’s no overarching philosophy or ideology. There’s just Trump tapping into concern among most Republicans and, increasingly, working-class Democrats with the deterioration of the country. In just half a year, Biden has allowed illegal aliens crossing into the country to rise from near zero to more than 2 million a year. Then there’s inflation, the police state being imposed by AG Merrick “Vyshinsky” Garland and the vast new powers being given to the military-industrial complex. If anybody is looking for an American tyranny, there it is.

Fortunately, it seems the Widow Jobs, although worth many billions, is souring on the money-losing status of Frum’s Folly. NBC News reported, “The Atlantic thrived through Trump and the pandemic. The future is harder.” Like so many left-wing publications and TV programs that thrived stirring up the giddy minds of liberals with tales of Trump turning America “fascist,” the Atlantic has seen its readership drop sharply under Biden.

NBC: “The Atlantic is in the privileged position of having a wealthy benefactor: Laurene Powell Jobs, the philanthropist, investor and widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who bought a majority stake in the magazine four years ago. But Powell Jobs, who has a net worth of around $22 billion, did not buy The Atlantic as a philanthropic endeavor, three sources familiar with her thinking said. She bought it in part to demonstrate that there can be a sustainable model for journalism if you invest in it….

“For The Atlantic, profitability means about $110 million in overall revenue …. The Atlantic brought in just under $75 million in revenue in both 2019 and 2020.” That was when they still had Trump to kick around.

That means it lost $35 million a year even before Trump left. Or $105 million every three years. Quite an expensive hobby even for a billionairess. 

Looks like the Little Frummer Boy, as Taki used to call him, will have to find a new billionaire to leech off by screaming about ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and fascists that go bump in the night.

John Seiler writes at: http://johnseiler.substack.com