STARTING FRIDAY (tomorrow), columns to the end of November (possibly even January) will be dedicated to the study and commentary on 2024’s elections. As you are no doubt all too aware by now, just shy of half the world’s citizens will have voted come Dec 31st.
I’m not going spend long studying what has already happened. Either Vladimir Putin did Vladimir Putin-ey things to Russia’s elections in February - or people actually like him. Of the 200m odd registrations for Indonesia’s elections, turnout exceeded 82%. Who knows why Pakistan suffered a miserable 45% turnout for its election? Maybe because much of that country actually lives in northern England these days? Couldn’t say. Senegal’s President Macky Sall tried to postpone his elections having thrown a contender in jail, but that fellow, a little known former tax collector called Bassirou Diomaye Faye, was released to vote, and ended up winning. Don’t expect the Biden administration to have been taking notes here - more about that during the series.
El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele won with over 84% of the February vote, infuriating the liberal media who love George Soros’ Open Society and who believe normal El Salvadorians should not possess the right not to be murdered. Much of the coming commentary will address these forces within the media.
The most telling vote to date wasn’t an election but a referendum of two parts that sought to adjust the language of the Irish constitution. Some of you will be aware that I’m not former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s greatest erm, “ally”, and not because he’s the shirtless one reeking off like a wet towel whilst trying to rub tiger balm in your face on the dance floor at 3am, but because he was groomed by the Clinton administration, and spent the duration of his term (despite having come third in Ireland’s election of 2020) thrusting his view of progressiveness into people’s faces - then jeering them when they wisely declined to bob up and down. After the astonishing (not really) referendum defeat, Leo went on holiday with his husband, possibly blending into one of those touring groups of 60 + European women on their annual “heading south” jollies to the Caribbean or Gabon in search of a bit of rough trade, and when he returned, he resigned immediately - with the same, sneering self-righteousness. Save your solidarity: there’s plenty an Open Society for him to work for - or an outraged UN body to mount.
I’m writing this from LAX awaiting a flight back to London Heathrow having spent my first week of coverage talking to SoCal’s residents about their November. Because this is subject-specific commentary, for which I’ll be visiting 4 continents, I am going to open the pledge section for subscribers. This will help me access the kind of information that costs, bring someone on board to produce graphics (nothing overly complicated) and allow me the freedom to produce two reviews on Mondays and Fridays as well as podcast interviews (plus live coverage of elections in the SA, UK, US and EU). I’m conscious I promised you’d never pay a cent when you subscribed, so no paywall will be imposed for existing subscribers. If you are unable to access content, please alert me. The aim is to provide you with a different angle of coverage, particularly as it relates to elections in SA, the UK, the US and the EU - what they actually mean, whether there’s any point to them, and most importantly, whether results will either accelerate western civilisation’s desire to drive off the cliff, or just permit it to circle the drain a bit longer. If you can’t pledge, then I’d appreciate if you could just forward content you enjoy.
Tomorrow I’ll publish what is been discussed around the dinner tables and on the pickleball courts of Southern California. The sentiments of people I’ve spoken to in the last week reminded me of something that happened in Johannesburg in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
An American was parachuted in to head up a US bank’s newest partially-glass outpost in Sandton. Coming from a moneyed, New England background, this dude was Big Khumbaya, Big ANC and bullish on affirmative action. He rented a sprawling mansion in Sandhurst, but wasn’t two weeks into the job when his son, reversing out the driveway, felt the cold steel of a stolen 9mm against his temple. The car was stolen, the son was traumatised - but the CEO wouldn’t hear a bad word spoken against the hijackers, and instead responded with that typically 90’s “it-was-a-by-product-of apartheid-we-must-all-play-our-part” lament. Two months later, he suffered a home invasion - this time all the remaining vehicles (3) were stolen, and the bandits even ripped paintings out of their frames. Again he was furious with history, telling acquaintances that unless whitey started giving more of his or her stuff away, everyone would continue to suffer. A year later, his wife was hijacked, then 8 months after that, his daughter - resulting in the rest of the family gapping the country, leaving the CEO to be hijacked and house-invaded alone. Then in early 2002, he was he was on safari with his colleagues when his tracking company called and explained that their helicopter was following his now 3rd new car, which had just been stolen from the house. “SHOOT THE FUCKERS!” he roared into his mobile, “JUST SHOOT THEM FROM THE FUCKING HELICOPTER!”
With one or two minor patches, the same thing is happening in California.
Coming Friday: