The 2022 midterms should have been a bloodbath. It should have been a huge sweep for the Republicans, relegating the Democrats to the depths of minority rule. Instead, the Republicans managed to win the House only respectably, whilst the Dems kept the house. It’s widely believed that better candidates could have kept the house.
Good candidates do exist. Ron DeSantis managed to make gains in Florida. Glenn Youngkin flipped Virginia. Brian Kemp safely won re-election in Georgia. Unfortunately, there were also many poor candidates. A competent Republican could have beaten John Fetterman in Pennsylvania. Somebody else could have beaten Katie Hobbs.
The same is true for Presidential elections. The Republicans have only won one election in the 21st century outright, with both the Electoral College and popular vote – George W. Bush in 2004. 2000 and 2016 both saw Electoral College wins but popular vote losses. Whilst external events came into play, it’s not a great look.
That being said, it almost seems that the Republicans like losing. They’re not making any real attempt at winning. Whilst they might choose decent candidates, there’s a high chance they won’t.
This is an excerpt from “Provenance”. To continue reading, visit The Mallard’s Shopify.
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A Factory for Mediocre Leadership
“Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally, among mankind.” – Thomas Carlyle, ‘On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History’, 1841.
I often read history through the lens of ‘Great Men’*. The term ‘Great Men’ refers to ‘Great Man Theory’. Originating from Thomas Carlyle’s lectures on heroism in 1840, later being published as ‘On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History’ in 1841, the theory alleges that history is dictated by those men who possess a remarkable ability to inspire, lead, operate, and execute. These men often find themselves climbing the ladders of power with haste, winning decisive battles or reinvigorating policy and therefore dictating the future of their people for generations to come. Furthermore, these men are rare to come by.
Most notably, Great Men most often rise to power after periods of struggle and disdain. This is no coincidence, of course, as it is during these times when those seeking power find the cracks to reach it. Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, and Caesar Augustus all rose to power sometime after periods of national crisis, and afterwards pursued a relentless set of reforms. It makes one wonder, as the United Kingdom struggles and toddles along with little direction, how long it will be before another Great Man makes our nation his own. I am not going to write yet another list of everything that is wrong in the United Kingdom in 2023, as this has become rather cliché, but it is worth saying that in such bleak and despairing times, people will seek a Great Man to worship.
Yet, if history is so full of Great Men, then where are the Great Men of today? Some present the argument that history is written and read through the lens of nostalgia, and that perhaps these Great Men of the past were not vastly different to the leaders we have today. While nostalgia will always tilt perceptions of history to some degree, it would be unfair to discredit the Great Men of history due to it. Or perhaps, the leaders of today simply do not have as much opportunity to prove their ‘greatness’. While Bonaparte, Caesar, and Augustus could ride into battle on horseback, wielding swords and witnessing stunning victories before their own eyes, the leaders of today can only really prove their greatness via oratory and data. However, this isn’t to say that a leader cannot be ‘great’ post 19th century. Winston Churchill may not have rode into battle on horseback, but he can be considered a Great Man nonetheless.
However, the greater point here is that modern democracy simply isn’t built to elect Great Men. It is impossible for the electorate to understand the character of candidates to any considerable degree if information is only presented to them via snappy slogans, 60-minute debates on Channel 4, and vague five-point policy plans. Not only do we rarely understand what it is the candidate wants to do, but we know nearly nothing about the candidates themselves. A 30-minute interview with Andrew Neil, however great of an interviewer he may be, will not accurately inform us of the deeper character of the interviewee. If one wishes to elect Great Men, you must know them personally, or at least be aware of their faults and goods to some deeper level. The modern electorate simply cannot elect Great Men, and not for a fault of their own. You could call it a factory for mediocrity.
Compare this to older processes of election, and the story is different. Richard D Brown talks of the system of election soon after the United States was birthed in his article titled ‘Where Have All the Great Men Gone?’, and says:
“The key process of nominating candidates was dominated by layers of local, state, and national elites. Candidates were selected by their peers, people who had witnessed them in action for years and who knew first-hand their strengths and weaknesses. Whatever the office in question, relatively homogeneous groups of incumbents and their associates selected candidates from among their own number. While the system was open to new men, and choices required approval at the polls, it had a distinctly oligarchic flavor. High esteem among the peer group was a prerequisite for major elective offices.”
The likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were elected because the electorate knew them. The electorate trusted them. They assumed the presidency because those voting for them could trust that they had the guts, the character, and the bottle to lead this newly born nation. Furthermore, as Brown later says, these men were elected on the basis of “private, personal virtue as a prerequisite to public virtue”, and on the basis of possessing “superior wisdom, energy, initiative, and moral stature”. One could say that this system intended to elect Great Men. Moreover, this certainly is not an advocacy for the implementation of the electoral system of the early years of the United States. Instead, it tells us that our current electoral system is flawed, and that we should seek to implement electoral systems with the potential to fight off mediocrity. Electoral systems featuring some form of meritocracy and aristocracy appear to do this best.
Moreover, it was said earlier that a modern leader cannot ride into battle on horseback. Therefore, how do we identify Great Men in the modern world? Such a man should not be judged by the endless quest for progress, nor should they be wholly judged by however much of a percent our GDP rises by each quarter. If we are to identify Great Men, we need to search for the correct metrics to find them. This requires hefty research, and it wouldn’t be proper of me to claim to know how to identify Great Men in the modern world in this short article. Yet, having the capability to identify Great Men is central to moving past mediocrity.
However, as a final point, it is worth noting that the Great Men of history often have common personality traits. We have already talked of energy and charisma, but initiative, principle, and confidence are personality traits often found, and these traits should be a starting point when attempting to identify a Great Man in the modern world. Moreover, these personality traits remain massively important. While a Great Man of today may not have access to swords, bayonets, and rifles, reform and reinvigoration remains as important as it ever has. Only a master statesman is capable of successfully reforming and reinvigorating a nation. The likes of Bonaparte, Caesar and Augustus all had the vigour to do just that, and all three understood that politics is about winning.
*Today, ‘Great Men’ are sometimes referred to as ‘Big Beasts’, and the purpose behind this is to include great female leaders under the term. While I rarely like to modernise language (and haven’t done so in the article above), I do believe it is worth writing this note here, for there have been many great female leaders of whom possessed many of the same traits as Great Men.
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Technology Is Synonymous With Civilisation
I am declaring a fatwa on anti-tech and anti-civilisational attitudes. In truth, there is no real distinction between the two positions: technology is synonymous with civilisation.
What made the Romans an empire and the Gauls a disorganised mass of tribals, united only by their reactionary fear of the march of civilisation at their doorstep, was technology. Where the Romans had minted currency, aqueducts, and concrete so effective we marvel on how to recreate it, the Gauls fought amongst one another about land they never developed beyond basic tribal living. They stayed small, separated, and never innovated, even with a whole world of innovation at their doorstep to copy.
There is always a temptation to look towards smaller-scale living, see its virtues, and argue that we can recreate the smaller-scale living within the larger scale societies we inhabit. This is as naïve as believing that one could retain all the heartfelt personalisation of a hand-written letter, and have it delivered as fast as a text message. The scale is the advantage. The speed is the advantage. The efficiency of new modes of organisation is the advantage.
Smaller scale living in the era of technology necessarily must go the way of the hand-written letter in the era of text messaging: something reserved for special occasions, and made all the more meaningful for it.
However, no-one would take seriously someone who tries to argue that written correspondence is a valid alternative to digital communication. Equally, there is no reason to take seriously someone who considers smaller-scale settlements a viable alternative to big cities.
Inevitably, there will be those who mistake this as going along with the modern trend of GDP maximalism, but the situation in modern Britain could not be closer to the opposite. There is only one place generating wealth currently: the South-East. Everywhere else in the country is a net negative to Britain’s economic prosperity. Devolution, levelling up, and ‘empowering local communities’ has been akin to Rome handing power over to the tribals to decide how to run the Republic: it has empowered tribal thinking over civilisational thinking.
The consequence of this has not been to return to smaller-scale ways of life, but instead to rest on the laurels of Britain’s last civilisational thinkers: the Victorians.
Go and visit Hammersmith, and see the bridge built by Joseph Bazalgette. It has been boarded up for four years, and the local council spends its time bickering with the central government over whose responsibility it is to fix the bridge for cars to cross it. This is, of course, not a pressing issue in London’s affairs, as the Vercingetorix of the tribals, Sadiq Khan, is hard at work making sure cars can’t go anywhere in London, let alone across a bridge.
Bazalgette, in contrast to Khan, is one of the few people keeping London running today. Alongside Hammersmith Bridge, Bazalgette designed the sewage system of London. Much of the brickward is marked with his initials, and he produced thousands of papers going over each junction, and pipe.
Bazalgette reportedly doubled the pipes diameters remarking “we are only going to do this once, and there is always the possibility of the unforeseen”. This decision prevented the sewers from overflowing in 1960.
Bazalgette’s genius saved countless lives from cholera, disease, and the general third-world condition of living among open excrement. There is no hope today of a Bazalgette. His plans to change the very structure of the Thames would be Illegal and Unworkable to those with power, and the headlines proposing such a feat (that ancient civilisations achieved) would be met with one million image macros declaring it a “manmade horror beyond their comprehension.”
This fundamentally is the issue: growth, positive development, and a future worth living in is simply outside the scope of their narrow comprehension.
This train of thought, having gone unopposed for too long, has even found its way into the minds of people who typically have thorough, coherent, and well-thought-out views. In speaking to one friend, they referred to the current ruling classes of this country as “tech-obsessed”.
Where is the tech-obsession in this country? Is it found in the current government buying 3000 GPUs for AI, which is less than some hedge funds have to calculate their potential stocks? Or is it found in the opposition, who believe we don’t need people learning to code because “AI will do it”?
The whole political establishment is anti-tech, whether crushing independent forums and communities via the Online Harms Bill, to our supposed commitment to be a ‘world leader in AI regulation’ – effectively declaring ourselves to be the worlds schoolmarm, nagging away as the US, China, and the rest of the world get to play with the good toys.
Cummings relays multiple horror stories about the tech in No. 10. Listening to COVID figures down the phone, getting more figures on scraps of paper, using the calculator on his iPhone and writing them on a Whiteboard. Fretting over provincial procurement rules over a paltry 500k to get real-time data on a developing pandemic. He may well have been the only person in recent years serious about technology.
The Brexit campaign was won by bringing in scientists, physicists, and mathematicians, and leveraging their numeracy (listen to this to get an idea of what went on) with the latest technology to campaign to people in a way that had not been done before. Technology, science, and innovation gave us Brexit because it allowed people to be organised on a scale and in ways they never were before. It was only through a novel use of statistics, mathematical models, and Facebook advertising that the campaign reached so many people. The establishment lost on Brexit because they did not embrace new modes of thinking and new technologies. They settled for basic polling of 1-10 thousand people and rudimentary mathematics.
Meanwhile the Brexit campaign reached thousands upon thousands, and applied complex Bayesian statistics to get accurate insights into the electorate. It is those who innovate, evolve, and grow that shape the future. There is no going back to small-scale living. Scale is the advantage. Speed is the advantage. And once it exists, it devours the smaller modes of organisation around it, even smaller modes of organisation have the whole political establishment behind it.
When Cummings got what he wanted injected into the political establishment – a data science team in No. 10 – they were excised like a virus from the body the moment a new PM was installed. Tech has no friends in the political establishment, the speed, scale, and efficiency of the thing is anathema to a system which relies on slow-moving processes to keep a narrow group of incompetents in power for as long as possible. The fierce competition inherent to technology is the complete opposite of the ‘Rolls-Royce civil service’ which simply recycles bad staff around so they don’t bother too many people for too long.
By contrast, in tech, second best is close to last. When you run the most popular service, you get the data from running that service. This allows you to make a better service, outcompete others, which gets you more users, which gets you more data, and it all snowballs from there. Google holds 93.12% of the search engine market share. Amazon owns 48% of eCommerce sales. The iPhone is the most popular email client, at 47.13%. Twitch makes up 66% of all hours of video content watched. Google Chrome makes up 70% of web traffic. There next nearest competitor, Firefox (a measly 8.42%,) is only alive because Google gave them 0.5b to stick around. Each one of these companies is 2-40 times bigger than its next nearest competitor. Just as with civilisation, there is no half-arseing technology. It is build or die.
Nevertheless, there have been many attempts to half-ass technology and civilisation. When cities began to develop, and it became clear they were going to be the future powerhouses of modern economies, theorists attempted to create a ‘city of towns’ model.
Attempting to retain the virtues of small town and community living in a mass-scale settlement, they argued for a model of cities that could be made up of a collection of small towns. Inevitably, this failed.
The simple reason is that the utility of cities is scale. It is the access to the large labour pools that attracts businesses. If cities were to become collections of towns, there would be no functional difference in setting up a business in a city or a town, except perhaps the increased ground rent. The scale is the advantage.
This has been borne out mathematically. When things reach a certain scale, when they become networks of networks (the very thing you’re using, the internet, is one such example) they tend towards a winner-takes-all distribution.
Bowing out of the technological race to engage in some Luddite conquest of modernity, or to exact some grudge against the Enlightenment, is signalling to the world we have no interest in carving out our stake in the future. Any nation serious about competing in the modern world needs to understand the unique problems and advantages of scale, and address them.
Nowhere is this more strongly seen than in Amazon, arguably a company that deals with scale like no other. The sheer scale of co-ordination at a company like Amazon requires novel solutions which make Amazon competitive in a way other companies are not.
For example, Amazon currently owns the market on cloud services (one of the few places where a competitor is near the top, Amazon: 32%, Azure: 23%). Amazon provides data storage services in the cloud with its S3 service. Typically, data storage services have to handle peak times, when the majority of the users are online, or when a particularly onerous service dumps its data. However, Amazon services so many people – its peak demand is broadly flat. This allows Amazon to design its service around balancing a reasonably consistent load, and not handling peaks/troughs. The scale is the advantage.
Amazon warehouses do not have designated storage space, nor do they even have designated boxes for items. Everything is delivered and everything is distributed into boxes broadly at random, and tagged by machines so the machines know where to find it.
One would think this is a terrible way to organise a warehouse. You only know where things are when you go to look for them, how could this possibly be advantageous? The advantage is in the scale, size, and randomness of the whole affair. If things are stored on designated shelves, when those shelves are empty the space is wasted. If someone wants something from one designated shelf on one side of the warehouse, and something from another side of the factory, you waste time going from one side to the other. With randomness, you are more likely to have a desired item close by, as long as you know where that is, and with technology you do. Again, the scale is the advantage.
The chaos and incoherence of modern life, is not a bug but a feature. Just as the death of feudalism called humans to think beyond their glebe, Lord, and locality, the death of legacy media and old forms of communication call humans to think beyond the 9-5, elected representative, and favourite Marvel movie.
In 1999, one year after Amazon began selling music and videos, and two years after going public – Barron’s, a reputable financial magazine created by Dow Jones & Company posted the following cover:
Remember, Barron’s is published by Dow Jones, the same people who run stock indices. If anyone is open to new markets, it’s them. Even they were outmanoeuvred by new technologies because they failed to understand what technophobes always do: scale is the advantage. People will not want to buy from 5 different retailers because they want to buy everything all at once.
Whereas Barron’s could be forgiven for not understanding a new, emerging market such as eCommerce, there should be no sympathy for those who spend most of their lives online decrying growth. Especially as they occupy a place on the largest public square to ever occur in human existence.
Despite claiming they want a small-scale existence, their revealed preference is the same as ours: scale, growth, and the convenience it provides. When faced with a choice between civilisation in the form of technology, and leaving Twitter a lifestyle closer to that of the past, even technology’s biggest enemies choose civilisation.
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Johnson’s Intermarium – A new Geopolitical Bloc?
In the closing days of May, Boris Johnson came public with a proposition that could be characterised, at the very least, as surprising, especially to us here in Eastern Europe. This proposal was the creation of a new “European Commonwealth”, which would encompass the UK, Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States and possibly, later on, Turkey. The Italian daily Corriere della Sera quoted that this commonwealth would provide an alternative to the EU, aimed at countries that are united by their distrust of Brussels and the German response to Russian aggression. While this proposal didn’t create much public discussion in the mainstream, many in the nationalist and dissident right sphere, including yours truly, were definitely intrigued. Partly due to this idea coming completely out of the blue, but mainly because it echoed the idea of Intermarium.
The promotion of the Intermarium, Międzymorze or “between seas” idea has been a long-term geopolitical project of many nationalist organisations and activists in Eastern Europe, especially in the Baltics and Ukraine. While the details occasionally vary, Intermarium can, in general, be understood as a (con)federation of Central and Eastern European states, such as Finland, the Baltics, Ukraine, Belarus, the Visegrad Four, the states of the Caucasus and some Balkan states. These are countries, which by and large, share three important aspects: geopolitical interests, historical experience as part of the communist world and similar socio-cultural values. The aim of this project is to unite the aforementioned countries into an united bloc, which would be economically, militarily and culturally strong enough to resist both the globalist West and the imperialist East. The final goal would be this bloc becoming both a new pole of power and a new centre for Europe, eventually supplanting the declining Western European states.
This project is not really new, but rather a revival of an old idea, tailored to fit the realities of the modern world. The original idea of the Intermarium federation was the brainchild of Polish marshal and statesman Jozef Pilsudski, whose dream was a recreation of the historical Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It would have served as a basis for a “Third Europe”, countering both Soviet Russia and a revanchist Germany. Pilsudski’s project failed to materialise in the 1920s due to several reasons. Firstly, Soviet Russia proved to be too strong to overcome by the nascent Polish Republic on its own and the creation of a united anti-soviet front was hampered by a disunited Ukraine and several disputes Poland had with its neighbours. Secondly, many of the envisioned constituent states saw, somewhat justifiedly, the project as solely advancing Polish interests and domination in the region. Lastly, Poland itself experienced strong domestic opposition to the idea, mainly from the nationalist camp. There are today, however, several promising indicators that we’ve learned from the mistakes of the past. While there still is bickering stemming from historical grievances, the success of regional cooperation forums, such as the Visegrad Group and the Three Seas Initiative, indicates a positive reception towards increased regional cooperation and integration.
Coming back to the role of the UK, the involvement of HM Government in this region has an interesting and long history, especially in Estonia. After Finland, the UK can be considered to be Estonia’s largest supporter during our War of Independence. In addition to providing significant amounts of material aid (arms, ammunition etc.), the Royal Navy played a crucial role in the fight against the invading Red Army. The 6th Squadron under Rear Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair not only secured the Estonian coast from any seaborne assault into the rear, but also kickstarted the Estonian Navy by donating two captured Russian vessels. Even today, Estonia honours this contribution, with our naval jack bearing a close resemblance to the Union Jack. Later, during the opening years of the Cold War, MI6 provided extensive support to Baltic anti-communist guerrillas through Operation Jungle. This operation was unfortunately brought down by the betrayal of the infamous communist spy, Kim Philby. Nonetheless, the presence of the UK has been a strong influence over here up to this day, with units of The Welsh and the Queen’s Royal Hussars forming the strongest allied contingent of NATO troops.
Now, I’m not so naive as to claim the UK provided this support out of the kindness of its heart. Like any nation, they were advancing their own geopolitical interests. Indeed the British command was quite perturbed when instead of joining in the assault on Petrograd, the Estonian government decided to consolidate the country’s independence by making peace with Soviet Russia. As in 1918-1920, even today the UK has its own interest in making diplomatic headways into Eastern Europe. But just as before, by virtue of a common foe, our interests seem to align. The reason for our animosity towards Russia has different roots, Estonia’s being nationalism and the UK doing it, most likely, out of a desire to spread “freedom and democracy”. Nonetheless, I would still consider the enemy of my enemy to be my friend, at least to some extent. Historically and out of pure necessity, Estonians have fought alongside powers which may not have had our national survival as a priority.
Why would have Johnson proposed something like this new commonwealth? Britain’s geopolitical position in the post-WWII era can be easily summed up with the adage calling the British Isles a permanent floating aircraft carrier of the United States, destined to play second fiddle to the new preeminent global power. We must keep in mind that the early warning systems at RAF Fylingdales are solely for the benefit of the US, not the residents of Yorkshire. While the Falklands campaign was an unprecedentedly sovereign move from the UK, common wisdom would still consider it as an exception that reinforces the rule. Whether it was Iraq, Yugoslavia or Afghanistan, Britain has answered the call of the US, not vice versa. 40 years on, the rusted wreck of the General Belgrano at the bottom of the South Atlantic might occasionally invoke some pride and nostalgia in an ageing boomer, but after that, the British canon seems to lack such definitive moments. Johnson, I believe, had also noticed this lack of assertiveness.
A post-Brexit Britain, not burdened by the collective bargaining requirements of the EU, has the position and opportunity to regain some of its international clout and the new alliance proposal is definitely an attempt at that. An important aspect to remember is that this whole project is strongly tied to the war in Ukraine and while much of the EU dithers, the UK has taken a particularly strong stance in support of Ukraine, becoming one of its main supporters. This began already before the Russian invasion, with the “friend of the US”, president Poroshenko being replaced by Zelenskyy, a friend of the UK. Strategically, this move is intelligent and definitely in line with the current goals of a UK wishing to regain its international importance. Increased material and diplomatic support shows not only Ukraine, but also much of Eastern Europe, that Britain is indeed prepared to help while the big players of the EU are hesitant. Conversely, Eastern European states will start seeing the UK as a much more valuable ally. It seems that the Johnson administration, by sidestepping both the US and EU, was actively trying to improve its international standing and expand its sphere of influence into countries that may already have been somewhat sceptical of the EU. Whether this was being done to further British strategic and economic interests, spread liberal-democratic ideology, to invoke past glories, or all three simultaneously, remains to be seen.
What has the reaction been like over here in the East then? As mentioned before, the new commonwealth proposal was barely noted in the media over here, but at least in Estonia, it did create discussion in the right-wing nationalist camp. Sharing a common enemy in imperialist Russia and euroscepticism, it can’t be denied that we have aligned interests. Furthermore, we see this proposed framework as a possible stepping stone towards the dream of a modern Intermarium alliance. There are some reservations though. Firstly, just as we in Eastern Europe do not wish to be dominated by the EU or Russia, any such attempt from the UK would be received with equal disdain. Additionally, any form of deepened political, economic and military ties would inevitably lead to an increased socio-cultural influence as well. This might not be a problem automatically, but given the reticence of our national cultural establishment, I am wary. Instead of Morris dances, the UK is exporting liberal progressivism, and aggressively so.
The anglosphere and its establishment have become the vanguard of liberalism in the world. There is much talk of Russian influence in both the West and the Baltics, but the influence of large-scale propaganda campaigns of the liberal West is constantly omitted in the mainstream. The UK government, along with the US, Canada and Germany (to name a few), is funding and supporting NGOs, magazines and events that actively support a left-leaning progressive and anti-national ideology among the Estonian and broader Eastern European population. A very tangible example of this is the UK ambassador, Ross Allen, taking the stage at the US-sponsored Pride event in my home city of Tartu. While Russian imperial ideology is detestable and I wish never to live under it no matter how anti-liberal it is, the prospects for Estonian nationhood as part of the rapidly declining liberal-democratic West are equally low. If the UK would, in this new alliance, focus on strategic geopolitical and military interests instead of ideological exports, we would be more receptive.
To conclude, while Johnson’s proposal of a new European Commonwealth is definitely an interesting prospect for both Eastern Europe and the UK itself, it raises several issues. On one hand, it could prove to be a geopolitical boon to both parties, with the UK re-establishing its influence and Eastern European states moving from a peripheral position towards the core of a new international bloc. The support of an emerging powerful player such as the UK could very well be beneficial in establishing the new Intermarium alliance as a truly viable alternative to the ever-centralising and anti-national EU. However, as of yet there are no signs that this alliance would give a central role to nationalist principles which many Eastern European nations value, especially if led by the current UK political establishment. The Intermarium concept has always stressed nationalism as one of its core tenets and we certainly would not wish to replace EU liberalism with the Anglo variant. Time will tell if this proposition gains any traction and how it will evolve. Johnson’s resignation adds a whole new dimension, and perhaps this whole concept will quickly be forgotten and UK foreign policy will pivot significantly. In any case, these are developments which we should follow closely.
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