Evil Triumphs When Conservatives Are Silenced: Peter Smith
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2023/04/evil-triumphs-when-conservatives-are-silenced/
Tucker Carlson being sacked by News Corp is a blow. I’d trimmed my regular intake of conservative television news and commentary to Tucker and to Andrew Bolt. Tucker was brave, effective, charismatic and popular. That’s presumably why he had to go. There’s speculation about the trigger for his demise. Exposing the January 6 ‘insurrection’ hoax? That or anything else would be a pretext. The dark side hit back. Cancelling is its forte. Getting rid of the presenter who attracted the largest audience is a message to lesser lights.
Bolt is often very trying. On promoting the COVID jabs, for example. On his one-eyed support for Zelensky, on cancelling Mark Latham, on a predilection for being wishy-washy on other things I can’t remember, but remember switching him off. Still, he is absolutely excellent on the racist Voice, on the climate scam, and on the Stolen Generations myth. All striking at the very heart of national life. On the latter, he seems to me to be alone in having the enormous courage to state the truth, so far as it can be discovered, and quite often too. I might have missed it, but I haven’t heard any of his conservative colleagues on Sky take the same stand. Evil triumphs when conservatives stay silent. Mind you, speaking up can get you thrown to the wolves — a cause for anxiety if you have a large mortgages.
Tucker was anything but silent. The demonic Dems hated him. He threw light on their nefarious doings. And, like cockroaches, they don’t like the light. Am I being too harsh? I don’t believe so. How else do you describe those who support flooding and crippling the country with uncontrolled masses of economic asylum seekers, untrammelled abortion to the point of delivery, gender reassignment surgery for teenagers, the sexualisation of children in classrooms, transgender activism, critical race theory, debilitating and discriminatory affirmative action, nobbling free speech, setting the law on political opponents, turning a blind eye to rioting and looting, turning violent criminals back onto the streets, and whatever other evil takes their fancy?
Robert Kennedy standing as a Dem in the presidential primaries? That’s as ill-fitting as you can get. A decent man in a den of iniquity. I dare say that most people who vote Democratic in the US are decent people. Many are low-information voters easily corralled by the Democrats better ground game in the inner-city. Some of course simply vote for what they believe to be their own base financial interest. That includes the very rich at one end and the disadvantaged at the other. Most, I suspect, are just tribally affiliated. It’s hard to know what’s to be done about that. It’s a testimony to the flaw in democracy. A party changes its spots entirely, becomes totally removed from the party of Jack Kennedy, yet few voters leave the familiar fold.
To be fair, I fancy that few voters on either side of mainstream parties actually examine the policies they are voting for. Even committed Greens voters would know little of the party’s socialistic policies. These days, they would simply believe gullibly that the planet is destined for a fiery end and that the Greens have the policies to save it and us.
Those who despise Trump – whether leftists or curate’s-egg conservatives – are never able to identify one of his policies that they disagree with. Greg Sheridan, for example, says that Trump is a dreadful man, though he did some good things. I could be wrong but I can’t remember Sheridan, or any other Trump-despiser on the centre right, offering up one specific bad thing of materiality that Trump did. The lowest black unemployment rate on record? The lowest female unemployment rate since the 1950s? Energy independence? Getting NATO countries to spend more on their own defence? Moving the US embassy in Israel to West Jerusalem? The Abraham Accords? Better control of the southern border? Standing up to China on trade? Reversing the downward trend in manufacturing jobs? Not starting any wars? I could go on.
Personally, I think Trump did at least one bad thing. That was motivating Big Pharma to produce a COVID vaccine at “warp speed.” A bad idea. Money talked. Thorough testing walked. But I doubt, as a COVID bed-wetter, that Sheridan would nominate that particular policy.
The referendum on the Voice later this year is shaping up as a poster child for the flaws in democracy. You might have been following the debate in Quadrant; might have read the excellent articles in The Australian by Janet Albrechtsen; might have read arguments from the pro side too. Overwhelmingly, voters will have not. They will vote either on party lines or on the vibe of the thing. The issue is too complicated for democracy. Young know-nothings will vote on something of which they will have no understanding.
John Howard had a touching faith in the good sense of the Australian people. Let’s hope he’s right and that out of a sea of ignorance; nevertheless, good sense will find its way through. We live in dangerous times. The issues – climate policies, the Voice – are simply too complex for ordinary people, occupied with their daily affairs, to comprehend. Yet they have the potential to permanently change the fabric of the nation. They are not like economic policies which can be changed as political power changes hands.
Conservative media personalities are invaluable to go some way to balancing debates. That’s why the Tuckers and Bolts (the rare few) are so important. Much more important now than they were when the other side was not so intent on irreversibly undermining the nation state and Western values.
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