Part 1: What We Learned in 2023
10 lessons from the last year in global politics
DEC 27, 2023
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This is the first in a two-part series on what I think we’ve learned about politics in 2023 and —coming in the next few days— what I think we’ll learn in 2024. Here are ten things I’ve picked up from 2023. As always, do share your thoughts below …
1. Multiculturalism Isn’t Working. One by-product of the October 7th terrorist atrocities committed against Israel is that we were all forced to confront problems closer to home. And one of those problems is the policy of multiculturalism —a policy which consistently prioritises group differences over commonality, minority groups over the majority, and which shows little if any interest in developing a shared, national story about who we are. From public expressions of anti-Semitism on Western streets to open support for the Islamist terrorists Hamas, from continuing radical Islamist attacks on Western societies to a growing awareness among Jews they are no longer safe in Western cities, 2023 has pulled back the curtain for everybody to see what happens when you combine mass, uncontrolled, unassimilated immigration with a failure to integrate newcomers and a radicalised cultural left which is now, very clearly, paving the way for the rise of radical Islamism. Through its obsession with grievance, victim-based politics, and its simplistic, binary view of the world as being crudely divided between ‘oppressors’ and the ‘oppressed’, the cultural woke left is now directly enabling radical Islamism, weakening the West from within. Increasingly, all those commentators who recite the pseudo-religious mantra ‘diversity is our strength’ and who insist multiculturalism is only ever an unalloyed success story look out-of-touch with the world that is now rapidly emerging around us —a world where Western states are rapidly importing tribal grievances from abroad, are importing rising numbers of people who, to be blunt, hate Western values, culture, ways of life, and who we are, and where elites show remarkably little interest in pushing back against these threats. So, for all these reasons, 2023, for me at least, confirmed one key message: the elite policy of multiculturalism is very clearly failing. It’s about time we all admitted it so we can at least start thinking about how, if at all, we might fix it.
2. Something’s Rotten in the Universities. If one by-product of the October 7 attacks is that it’s no longer possible to deny multiculturalism is failing then another is that it’s no longer possible to deny we have a serious problem in the very institutions that will provide the leaders of tomorrow —the universities. From the heads of the most elite Ivy League universities in America struggling and visibly failing to condemn anti-Semitism on campus, to the glaring silence of countless universities in the aftermath of the October 7th atrocities —universities which previously had no problem at all aligning themselves with the revolutionary and, as we now know, pro-Hamas Black Lives Matter (BLM)— 2023 made it clear, as some of us warned, we have a serious problem in higher education. The reason major donors are rushing to withdraw money from Ivy League universities, the reason Ivy League bosses are being exposed for plagiarism, and the reason public confidence in universities has now collapsed to a record low, especially among conservatives, is because higher education has entered a major, full-blown crisis —a crisis it is failing to resolve and which, I suspect, will only accelerate in 2024.
3. The Politics of Immigration is Back. Contrary to all those academics and pundits who argued, in the aftermath of Brexit and Trump, that the politics of immigration would soon move into the rearview as a ‘liberal wave’ swept across the West, we can now see the very opposite is true. Across the West, from the escalating small boats crisis in Britain, to record levels of net migration, from the failure of the EU to solve its refugee crisis, to ongoing chaos at America’s southern border, public concern over both legal and illegal immigration is again surging as voters (both white and non-white) are tuning in to the failure of their leaders to control their national borders and protect their people. Contrary to liberals and elites, who routinely downplay this issue, another lesson from the last year is that millions of people around the world want to talk about immigration, feel anxious about how it’s transforming their nations, and want more radical action taken to lower and control it. This is chiefly why Europe is swinging to the right, why Donald Trump still has a very good chance of winning the White House again, and why the British Tories are imploding.
4. National Populism is Here to Stay. One consequence of this resurgence of public concern about immigration has been rising support for national populism —a movement that is frequently written off by liberal columnists who remain obsessed with short-term election cycles while ignoring longer-term trends. As we predicted in our book, National Populism, published in 2018, national populist parties have not just transformed themselves into a permanent fixture on the political landscape but have, this year, reached all new heights. From the Netherlands to Sweden, Italy to Germany, Argentina to Belgium, national populism is once again in the ascendancy, tapping into widespread public distrust of institutions and growing fears among voters that their distinctive identity, ways of life and culture are being destroyed by mass immigration, a broken model of multiculturalism, and a luxury belief class that appears indifferent, if not dismissive, of these widely-held concerns. From Donald Trump’s strong polling numbers, to similarly strong numbers for national populists ahead of crunch elections in Europe next year, from the Sweden Democrats effectively running Swedish politics, to Marine Le Pen claiming ‘ideological victory’ after the passing of restrictive immigration reforms in France, what is clear, what 2023 confirmed, is that this political force is now firmly back on the front foot and is simply not going anywhere anytime soon.
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5. Woke Ideology is a Serious Problem. Contrary to those who once argued the debate over ‘woke’ was a pointless distraction, or a meaningless culture war being whipped up by the right, 2023 saw an emerging consensus on both the left and right of politics that a radicalised cultural left does pose a serious threat to liberal democracy. Across the spectrum, whether argued by writers such as Yascha Mounk, Chris Rufo, Richard Hanania, Francis Fukuyama, Susan Neiman, or myself, there is now an emerging consensus on both the left and right that liberalism and conservatism are under serious and sustained assault from an illiberal ‘woke’ or ‘radically progressive’ ideology which must be confronted and defeated. As I’ve been writing for some time, this challenge is most visible in our schools and universities, where, increasingly, our children are being exposed to radical belief systems and theories which have no serious basis in science and are hard-wired to push us apart. This growing concern about woke ideology was also reflected, this year, in a number of notable pushbacks, from Britain’s Labour Party abandoning its policy of gender self-identification, to the defeat of the Scottish National Party’s very unpopular gender recognition reform bill, from falling public support for the trans agenda, to voters rejecting an elite attempt to hardwire woke politics into Australia’s constitution, from public revulsion over the debanking scandal in the UK and woke capitalism, to a growing number of wins for anti-Woke feminists. None of this would be happening if the threat from the Woke wasn’t considered real and pressing.
And here are another five lessons from 2023 …
6. Legacy Media is in Retreat. Two things became visible at the same time this year. First, established media institutions are in retreat. Whether reflected in the BBC’s abysmal coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, or the fact public trust in American media has fallen to a historic low, what’s clear is that established media is struggling across the board. One reason for this, I’ve suggested, is because the media class no longer represent wider society —it’s too socially homogeneous, too ideologically uniform, too preoccupied with the woke agenda, and gives too little voice to people and communities from outside the new ruling class. At the same time, we’ve seen the continuing proliferation of new and alternative media which have risen to fill this space —the various YouTube shows, the Substacks, the podcasts, the likes of GB News, Talk TV, UnHerd, and more, all of which symbolise the rise of a new ecosystem which is attracting tens of millions clicks each month. The key point is that, for the first time, as we’ve all seen in 2023, is that we have a media ecosystem that is fully independent of the legacy institutions, is disrupting the status-quo and creating genuine viewpoint diversity. This, in my view, should be welcomed.
7. Something’s Wrong With Gen-Z. 2023 was the year when we all realised just how distinctive the Zoomers from Generation-Z really are. Consistently, as we’ve tracked over the last year, they are, by far, the most likely to support the cultural revolution sweeping through Western societies, the most likely to endorse a stifling cancel culture, the most likely to express sympathy for the Palestinian over the Israeli side, the most likely to think Hamas are ‘freedom fighters’ rather than terrorists, and the most likely of all to say the October 7th terrorist attacks can be ‘justified’. Contrary to those who argue this is merely a ‘cohort’ or ‘life cycle’ effect, namely views that will soon change, I’ve instead argued this reflects the ongoing influence of the elite institutions and an identitarian politics which now surround the Zoomers. As I wrote back in October:
“What’s going on —as documented in several recent books— is that elite institutions in the West —the universities, the private schools, the creative industries, the cultural institutions—along with the prevailing culture they help shape and spread, have been hijacked by a radical identitarian politics. A creed that is not just setting up our kids to fail but is rapidly dividing and weakening Western societies from within, leaving them far more vulnerable to the escalating identity-based conflicts we’ve seen erupt in recent weeks, not only in Israel but now also on the streets of Western cities.
8. British Conservatism is Completely Lost. While Europe shifts right and Donald Trump and the Republicans continue to poll strongly in America, 2023 saw the continued implosion of the British Tories, a conservatism that is completely lost —electorally, ideologically, philosophically. 2023 showed, clearly, how the Tories do not really understand who voted for them at the last election or why. This year also showed voters how the Tories are simply not interested in challenging the elite status-quo on mass immigration, rapid demographic change and multiculturalism. Having lost touch with the post-Brexit realignment, the Tories are now heading for a heavy, perhaps historic defeat. In turn, they will be thrust into a prolonged and protracted ideological civil war over the very nature of conservatism, a battle that will mainly divide Establishment Tories from National Conservatives.
9. The New Elite is (Still) in a World of its Own. Much of this reflects another key lesson in 2023, which the reaction to my book underlined in the spring. The new elite, the new ruling class, is still failing to respond to the grievances and demands from voters that were put on the table, most visibly, nearly a decade ago, through the Brexit and Trump revolts of 2016. Sitting in ideologically homogeneous institutions, with little exposure to genuine viewpoint diversity, and higher levels of political intolerance, the new elite have continued to turn away from voters and double down on their own elite project. From mass immigration to the unpopularity of radical gender ideology and woke capitalism, from the ongoing imposition of critical race theory to the ramblings of Gary Lineker, this year we saw how the claims and beliefs of radical progressives are only ever supported by a small minority and are rapidly alienating a much larger number of voters who are, as we see through the rising popularity of national populism, continuing to rebel against this elite. The fact that national populism is reaching new heights, the fact that the polling suggests Donald Trump has a realistic chance of recapturing the White House, speak loudly to these elite failures. This year, in short, has underlined both how the cultural revolution is led by a small elite and how this elite is dangerously out-of-touch from millions of voters, especially on the identity issues that are only becoming more, not less, salient.
10. People Want An Alternative. This year, lastly, has underlined why I started this Substack: millions of ordinary people want an alternative to the dreary status-quo. They want alternative political movements. They want alternative media. They want an alternative national conversation where the values and the voice of the forgotten majority are much better represented and, also, respected. This is why established media is under assault. This is why rebellions are continuing to erupt in Europe. This is why Donald Trump has not gone anywhere. This is why radical outsiders from Italy to Argentina are breaking through. This is why the Brits are debating the launch of a new party after the next election. And this is why 22,000 of you have subscribed to a rapidly growing Substack like this, which consciously and deliberately pushes back against the elite consensus on a whole range of issues and seeks to ensure that these alternative perspectives are represented in the wider debate, cascading out from Substack to X, YouTube, TikTok, and, by you forwarding your e-mails, to a much larger audience. It is also why, as I will discuss in part two of this series, in the next post, 2024 will further underline this message, representing something of a return to the volatile and chaotic politics of 2016. Because of all the things I’ve outlined above, a series of eruptions now look set to take place across the West, redefining and upending politics once more. But more on that in the coming days …
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