My family have been born, lived, and died in this country for 1400 years - shaping and cultivating the land, building its monuments, fighting in its defence, sustaining and passing on its culture. It's my duty to defend that inheritance, to which you are a guest.
@gruntsandpoetry One of these days, a certain Riot Club actor is going to get jumped in a West London back alley. He'll know why, though he won't know why Assad Zaman is driving the getaway car.
Forgive me for writing about my own country. But what I have to say is more than a Danish story. It reflects a broader pattern that can be observed across Europe - and probably far beyond.
Today, Denmark is getting a middle-class government. That is to say, a government based on the entire left wing, plus a single party that presents itself as centrist.
“But surely it is a working-class government?” many will object.
No, it is not.
A left-wing government in our time is largely a guarantee that policies will be pursued that benefit the well-educated middle class.
It will pour more resources into the public sector - where many of its own voters work.
Politically speaking, that is perfectly legitimate. Any government is entitled to favour its core voters to a reasonable extent.
But it will also promote as many luxury beliefs - to use Rob Henderson’s term - as it possibly can.
Criticism of Israel. Lax immigration policies. The promotion of identity politics. Passivity in the face of left-wing indoctrination in the education system. Climate activism everywhere - for example, by forcing everyone dependent on the public sector to eat vegetarian or near-vegetarian food. And, let’s be honest, ambitions to phase out a large part of agriculture.
The real working class is going to hate this red government.
Because the working class benefits from a strict immigration policy. It wants a steak on the grill. It wants to drive a car. And it wants to own a home that is not unreasonably expensive to live in.
The working class does not care much about Israel. And it remains firmly convinced that there are only two sexes and that only women can become pregnant.
The middle class’s takeover of the old working-class parties is a phenomenon found throughout the Western world.
It is this takeover that explains why the working class has been shifting to the right in recent years.
Not because the working class has become right-wing, but because left-wing parties have abandoned the working class.
@RussOnPolitics If you're convinced he's an inveterate anti-Semite, why are you complaining he's not going to an Israel Day parade? Are you unhappy David Duke didn't make the trip? Were you expecting Louis Farrakhan to RSVP?
The US has a constitutionally protected right to jury trial - and the most salient problem historically has been white people using jury nullification. Indeed, this is a plot point in one of our most iconic novels.
In part because the Danes aren't talking about shelling out for a brand-new vessel. They've kept the Dannebrog in service for something like 90 years. Also, the Danes have never needed to haul the damn thing out to Hong Kong.
Why is Denmark perfectly happy to have a royal yacht (HDMY Dannebrog) to unite a maritime nation and its islands but the UK sees it as a nonsensical luxury post-Britannia?