Right-wing dissidents in the culture war are as susceptible to bursts of triumphalism as they are to laments at the state of the world. ‘White pills’ and ‘black pills’ are routinely consumed together, often several times on the same day. For proof of optimism, just consider the names of the many ‘pushback’ organisations to emerge in recent years: Turning Point, Popular Conservatism (PopCon), even Reform UK. Victory, we are encouraged to believe, is lurking sumptuously around the corner.
This is not another variation on that theme. However, ‘vibe shifts’ do matter in politics, and we just experienced one. A far-left plot to demonise Liz Truss, the former prime minister of the UK, for being interviewed by my friend Connor Tomlinson on The Lotus Eaters, a platform set up by Carl Benjamin in 2020, completely failed to achieve its desired result.
Far from Truss or The Lotus Eaters themselves issuing a grovelling apology or assuring their overlords of a solemn intention to repent, it was the mainstream media hacks who piggy-backed on the hit-job who found themselves under pressure to apologise for their misreporting of the affair.
The attack was initiated by the race-baiting communists at Hope Not Hate, one of the many self-described ‘anti-fascist’ groups tasked with enforcing a dying consensus. Naturally, rather than argue in good faith that their degenerate ideas warrant no such death, their modus operandi is to pursue anyone of a contrary opinion with attacks and smears. Truss is just the latest victim.
Only recently, I made the following observation about Truss in an essay devoted to exploring the return of Carl Schmitt:
Truss has taken to complaining about the ‘politicisation’ of the treasury, the Blob, and the establishment in general, but to protest the existence of politics in Westminster is about as dim-witted as crusading against the profit motive on Wall Street. If Truss had not deified the free market as a substitute for having to think about politics, perhaps hiring some astute Schmittians as advisors instead of IEA boffins, she might have lasted a little longer.
While I continue to view Truss as a complacent liberal, as unfit as she always was to lead any kind of national revival, there were promising signs in her interview with Tomlinson that the former prime minister now grasps the basic tenet of Schmitt’s philosophy: the political knows no bounds and its dynamics cannot be extinguished. As she says at one point in a clip that has been made available for public viewing, “we need to be much more aggressive in our approach to the Left and call them out for being evil.” This is why creatures of the regime, well-represented by Hope Not Hate, feel spooked. It is not a coincidence that they drew no attention whatsoever to the radicalising substance of the interview itself. That would have been self-defeating. Instead, they resorted to the sort of tricks wretched communists know best, seeking to destroy the reputations of everyone involved with an irrelevant, fantastically boring set of ‘revelations.’
They kicked off by typecasting The Lotus Eaters as a “far-right, conspiratorial platform” set up by “misogynistic influencer Carl Benjamin.” Apart from being plain wrong on all counts, this line of attack rather gave the impression that Benjamin himself—who has never spoken to Truss—conducted the interview when in fact Tomlinson was the man asking the questions.
By all appearances regarding every jot and tittle of Hope Not Hate’s ‘analysis’ as an oracle of divine truth, the Labour MP Jess Phillips wrote a sanctimonious letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak demanding that he expel Truss from the Conservative Party. Again focussing on Benjamin, she deployed the usual word salad: “extreme far-right commentator” with “despicable views about violence against women.” In defence of this claim, she cited an off-colour joke—note, not a “view”—that Benjamin made as long ago as 2016. The rest is no more than an attempt to weaponize social taboos in lieu of a sober argument. Benjamin has given a much calmer, more detailed rebuttal, available to read here.
For my own part, I will say that Tomlinson and Benjamin are two of the most gentlemanly characters you are likely to meet. I had the privilege of their joint company as recently as Friday, when I appeared on The Lotus Eaters live stream—among other things to discuss this very matter. But, of course, no one passes these purity tests. The key is to make sure that the tests are applied only in one direction—something the Left understands very well, yet which so many on the mainstream Right are still content to bemoan with impotent cries of ‘hypocrisy!’
As for the media enforcers, Lewis Goodall of LBC wheeled out a predictable selection of scare-words to describe a channel he has presumably never watched: “beyond the pale,” “unpleasant,” “politically eccentric.” Exhibiting nothing but high-minded attitude and hectoring sass, the hollowness of Goodall’s diatribe supplied yet further proof of the Left’s weakening stranglehold over language.
Likewise, Kay Burley of Sky News was forced to issue a public “clarification”—an apology would naturally have been well beneath her—after she woefully misrepresented what had happened. In case she deletes the post, allow me to quote it:
A previous tweet [now unavailable] suggested that Carl Benjamin hosted the interview with Liz Truss and his comments were made in the podcast. I wish to clarify that Connor Tomlinson presented the interview with Liz Truss and did not repeat such statements.
This time around, the squawks to have Truss deselected by the Conservative Party seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Truss herself has not even flirted with seeking contrition for her appearance on Tomlinson’s show. Even Sunak gave an unmoved response when pressed:
I literally have never heard of this platform or indeed what has happened today, because I have actually spent most of my day doing what you have seen me doing, which is talking to people across Cornwall and Devon about what they are focused on.
He does not deserve too much credit for this. An opponent of Truss within the party, Sunak is no doubt stiff enough to believe, from what little he has been told at least, that her appearance on The Lotus Eaters was a cringing embarrassment. His cool response, such as it was, only really indicates that he does not think of himself as implicated in the non-scandal.
Nevertheless, Sunak’s display of indifference in the face of the far-left’s dirty tactics—whatever his less honourable motive—does go to show that these activists are only as powerful as we, their sworn enemies, allow them to be.
This hit-job that failed reeks of impotence. If anything, we should feel emboldened by the Left’s long-running prostitution of the English language. Their favourite terms of abuse—‘far-right,’ ‘racist,’ ‘antisemitic conspiracy theorist’—are best thought of as linguistic weapons that have grown blunt with overuse. The fact that they have engaged, for decades at this point, in the most unscrupulous language inflation puts us in a strong position to take advantage. We have not only the right but a solemn duty to defend our homelands against subversives who, as compensation for their own inadequacies, would destroy every trace of our civilisation with the most resentful whimper imaginable.
The Hit Job That Failed: A Political Vibe Shift?
Right-wing dissidents in the culture war are as susceptible to bursts of triumphalism as they are to laments at the state of the world. ‘White pills’ and ‘black pills’ are routinely consumed together, often several times on the same day. For proof of optimism, just consider the names of the many ‘pushback’ organisations to emerge in recent years: Turning Point, Popular Conservatism (PopCon), even Reform UK. Victory, we are encouraged to believe, is lurking sumptuously around the corner.
This is not another variation on that theme. However, ‘vibe shifts’ do matter in politics, and we just experienced one. A far-left plot to demonise Liz Truss, the former prime minister of the UK, for being interviewed by my friend Connor Tomlinson on The Lotus Eaters, a platform set up by Carl Benjamin in 2020, completely failed to achieve its desired result.
Far from Truss or The Lotus Eaters themselves issuing a grovelling apology or assuring their overlords of a solemn intention to repent, it was the mainstream media hacks who piggy-backed on the hit-job who found themselves under pressure to apologise for their misreporting of the affair.
The attack was initiated by the race-baiting communists at Hope Not Hate, one of the many self-described ‘anti-fascist’ groups tasked with enforcing a dying consensus. Naturally, rather than argue in good faith that their degenerate ideas warrant no such death, their modus operandi is to pursue anyone of a contrary opinion with attacks and smears. Truss is just the latest victim.
Only recently, I made the following observation about Truss in an essay devoted to exploring the return of Carl Schmitt:
While I continue to view Truss as a complacent liberal, as unfit as she always was to lead any kind of national revival, there were promising signs in her interview with Tomlinson that the former prime minister now grasps the basic tenet of Schmitt’s philosophy: the political knows no bounds and its dynamics cannot be extinguished. As she says at one point in a clip that has been made available for public viewing, “we need to be much more aggressive in our approach to the Left and call them out for being evil.” This is why creatures of the regime, well-represented by Hope Not Hate, feel spooked. It is not a coincidence that they drew no attention whatsoever to the radicalising substance of the interview itself. That would have been self-defeating. Instead, they resorted to the sort of tricks wretched communists know best, seeking to destroy the reputations of everyone involved with an irrelevant, fantastically boring set of ‘revelations.’
They kicked off by typecasting The Lotus Eaters as a “far-right, conspiratorial platform” set up by “misogynistic influencer Carl Benjamin.” Apart from being plain wrong on all counts, this line of attack rather gave the impression that Benjamin himself—who has never spoken to Truss—conducted the interview when in fact Tomlinson was the man asking the questions.
By all appearances regarding every jot and tittle of Hope Not Hate’s ‘analysis’ as an oracle of divine truth, the Labour MP Jess Phillips wrote a sanctimonious letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak demanding that he expel Truss from the Conservative Party. Again focussing on Benjamin, she deployed the usual word salad: “extreme far-right commentator” with “despicable views about violence against women.” In defence of this claim, she cited an off-colour joke—note, not a “view”—that Benjamin made as long ago as 2016. The rest is no more than an attempt to weaponize social taboos in lieu of a sober argument. Benjamin has given a much calmer, more detailed rebuttal, available to read here.
For my own part, I will say that Tomlinson and Benjamin are two of the most gentlemanly characters you are likely to meet. I had the privilege of their joint company as recently as Friday, when I appeared on The Lotus Eaters live stream—among other things to discuss this very matter. But, of course, no one passes these purity tests. The key is to make sure that the tests are applied only in one direction—something the Left understands very well, yet which so many on the mainstream Right are still content to bemoan with impotent cries of ‘hypocrisy!’
As for the media enforcers, Lewis Goodall of LBC wheeled out a predictable selection of scare-words to describe a channel he has presumably never watched: “beyond the pale,” “unpleasant,” “politically eccentric.” Exhibiting nothing but high-minded attitude and hectoring sass, the hollowness of Goodall’s diatribe supplied yet further proof of the Left’s weakening stranglehold over language.
Likewise, Kay Burley of Sky News was forced to issue a public “clarification”—an apology would naturally have been well beneath her—after she woefully misrepresented what had happened. In case she deletes the post, allow me to quote it:
This time around, the squawks to have Truss deselected by the Conservative Party seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Truss herself has not even flirted with seeking contrition for her appearance on Tomlinson’s show. Even Sunak gave an unmoved response when pressed:
He does not deserve too much credit for this. An opponent of Truss within the party, Sunak is no doubt stiff enough to believe, from what little he has been told at least, that her appearance on The Lotus Eaters was a cringing embarrassment. His cool response, such as it was, only really indicates that he does not think of himself as implicated in the non-scandal.
Nevertheless, Sunak’s display of indifference in the face of the far-left’s dirty tactics—whatever his less honourable motive—does go to show that these activists are only as powerful as we, their sworn enemies, allow them to be.
This hit-job that failed reeks of impotence. If anything, we should feel emboldened by the Left’s long-running prostitution of the English language. Their favourite terms of abuse—‘far-right,’ ‘racist,’ ‘antisemitic conspiracy theorist’—are best thought of as linguistic weapons that have grown blunt with overuse. The fact that they have engaged, for decades at this point, in the most unscrupulous language inflation puts us in a strong position to take advantage. We have not only the right but a solemn duty to defend our homelands against subversives who, as compensation for their own inadequacies, would destroy every trace of our civilisation with the most resentful whimper imaginable.
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