A highly emotional man who wants white cops executed , enjoys watching whites get run over, and thinks we should shut up about immigration recently made headlines with his opinions about Churchill. Roll the standard outrage reel from the centrist Right. Roll also the arguments from the Dissident Right about whether this is a valuable exercise. That argument isn’t new and in fact a great many members of the New Right in part attempted to distinguish themselves from the Old Right but not having a myopic focus on the Second World War. Churchill may have been one of the villains but following the war he faded away into irrelevance pretty quickly. The country he ruled spiraled into a decline as an ideological alliance between the true victors rolled out across the world.
Both the Soviet Union and the United States were wholly committed to changing the existing world order following the end of the war. No matter what your opinion is about Churchill and the British people the facts speak for themselves. The UK was in massive debt to the Americans whilst the Soviets got a free ride. The Marshall plan funneled money into rebuilding Europe whilst rationing lingered in the United Kingdom until 1954. This is not to say that war torn Europe did not suffer it is merely to point out that the reality of where the US devoted money and resources. This money of course did not just help it effectively bought out half of Europe for the Americans.
Roosevelt was dyed in the same wool as Wilson. That meant that the very notion of the British Empire was now an offensive prospect, his ideological successors would have thought similar. The isolationist days were over. A new Empire must rise and it would be an ideological one. The merits of colonial rule are often debated and discussed - to me it seems clear that colonialism would always end but how it ended could be managed. The ideology driving the USA and the Soviets however would not allow for a gradual wind down. Instead both Britain and France would come under rapid and swift pressure to relinquish their Empires as quickly as possible. The change in the order and the pressure is perhaps best exemplified in the Suez Crisis. It was at that moment that both Britain and France seemed to realize they were out in the cold.
Africa is perhaps the best example of how this unholy alliance. Many in our spaces are familiar with Rhodesia. The country that chose to resist. White rule in Africa was always on the clock thanks to demographics but what happened with Rhodesia really demonstrated how determined the new global super powers were. Both the Soviet Union and the United States contributed to the collapse of Rhodesia. The Soviets and their ideological allies like DPRK funded the terrorists fighting. The United States pressure on South Africa cut off the fuel. Despite the Rhodies fighting they couldn’t beat this twin pressure. Winning the Bush War was one thing but the economic isolation was simply too much. This story is perhaps the simplest example of how the two frenemies worked.
Empires do rise and fall. That is fact. In my mind there was at least some honesty in the direct control model of Empires of the past. Rule the people and exploit their resources for the gain of your nation and your people. Today we are cursed by the GAE. The Global American Empire, and it is as gay as the acronym sounds. Ideology as a weapon was exported rapidly. America as an Empire in fact has sold itself out to the rest of the world for their gain whilst our own infrastructure and people rot. For peace we have sold everything and we purchase the worlds goods. Horseshoe theory is the domain of midwits I know but grant me a horseshoe example. Both ideologies that triumphed in a post World War Two world meet in the middle on many fronts. One simply won out with their story of equality over the other paired with being able to buy as many soap varieties as you want.
It was following the Nuremberg trials that it effectively became illegal to be right wing. Was this architected by Churchill, Stalin, or Roosevelt? That seems improbable to me but the trials themselves were. Defenders of Churchill point to the fact he certainly held views more in line with many of ours regarding the nature of hierarchy. Those views were a necessary sacrifice and by that point he had been outwitted. The real villainy of Churchill rests not in his actions during the war, which for many come across as heroic and patriotic, especially to average Brit, but because he was the participant as architect of the surrendering of global British power to the Americans and the Soviets. Hating on the Anglo is a well worn past time for much of the Dissident Right (of which I’m also sure most have more Anglo blood than they’d care to admit) in the same way that hating on them is a past time for the average leftist. The rhetorical and emotional drive behind each are similar and both more related to an ideological interpretation of history than a nationalist one. It might be unpopular but the nationalist view of the world is literally this:
Any post hoc rationalizations of events as a third party ultimately descends into farce. If people are to be honest then what is good for me and my people is good. The same is true for them and thus conflict is inevitable (and good). This simple understanding crystallizes much of the pointless moralizing about conflicts that goes on. Not to be reductionist but to some extent these are just tribal skirmishes scaled up with automatic weapons. Along the way the direct interests of the group become somewhat muddled in certain arenas - British power at the time of the First World War simply couldn’t stomach the notion of German dominance of Europe. Ironically of course German dominance of Europe is what we have today when Greece’s economy was sacrificed and Mama Merkel said ‘Wir schaffen das’. At least the willful destruction of Greece during that particular economic crisis for the export centric Germany did benefit the German people in some regard. A Britain outside of Europe has also managed to slash its proverbial wrists even faster than before - the betrayal of Brexit and the message behind it will go down in infamy forever more. In both cases the obvious difference between decisions made then and now is that the nation was still actually valued by those in charge and decisions (misguided or not) were taken with them and that in mind.
The rise of globalism to me coincides with this effort to speak in concrete terms of heroes and villains as an outside third party. More than anything the empire that replaced the British and French ones is the Empire of ideology. It is why the leftist will sell out his own people for a moral ‘good’. Loyalty is not compatible with ideology. There is a famous incident of Thatcher being completely confused by Enoch Powell on this matter.
Powell: “No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government.” Thatcher (it was just before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands): “Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.” “No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.” Mrs Thatcher looked utterly baffled.
He’s entirely right of course - the English don’t stop being English if a communist dictator takes over. Identity and a people are something far deeper than that. If people want to move beyond playing these games they ultimately need to return to national level interest. This frame makes sense for any would be nationalist.
The Right love to talk about ‘skin in the game’ but then many of these same people forget that principle and throw it out the door to argue about the moral rights and wrongs of the past that they weren’t even party to. The American nationalist view was once much more simple because it was stripped away from ideological lens - the idea of DEFENDING FREEDOM only came to be invented as the nationalism of the past was buried on the European battlefields. If people are serious about moving past current ideological talking points this has to be taken to heart. Many already have because you see a syncretism of protectionist economic policies being embraced by the MAGA Republicans. Likewise many people have seen through the obnoxious ideological front that is Libertarianism. They realize that these people have a mind virus not dissimilar to the leftist. It might be argued that the age of nationalism is over, that in this Empire of Ideology that we now live it has no place. That is why we get endless attempts to look back at history through an ideological lens and re-explain it. Ultimately though you have to take sides and those sides are meant to be the ones your ancestors would understand you taking.