"Darkest Hour" World Ills Diagnosed, Remedy Prescribed
CPAC Inaugural International Summit calls for strong leadership
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) billed it as the “Inaugural International Summit” but it felt like a meeting of a “brain trust” demystifying the morass into which our world is falling.
“The world is in crisis,” said Steve Bannon, former Chief White House Strategist. “The biggest crisis (is) this massive amount of debt, $300 Trillion globally… with no path to get out.” In a few years, without strong leadership, the fallout will dwarf the 2008 financial meltdown and even the 1929 Stock Market Crash, he said. “In addition you have the beginning of a kinetic third world war on the Eurasian landmass…” undermined by “a mass invasion of Europe and a mass invasion of the United States.” In the next three years, said Bannon, these “crises” will converge and governments will fall.
“The populist, the nationalist movement is going to be solution.” The people basically rising up and saying ‘No more.’ That is why the mantra of this conference— “where globalism comes to die”—is “deadly serious,” he said. The Communist Chinese Party is a big driver of globalism. Nationalist counties must come together to check the globalist countries’ drive to deny citizens of their respective countries’ unique identity.
Ambassador Richard Grenell presciently pointed out how Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump were both regulars at CPAC and were committed to “Peace Through Strength.” “Look no further than the four years of the Trump Administration, he said, where Trump prevented Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine and igniting a war; kept Arabs and Israelis from warring; ensured Europe remained at peace insisting they pay their fair share to achieve this; and warned Europeans against the Russian pipeline Trump sanctioned, which sanctions Biden dropped. “When you combine the attack on energy and the fact you don’t have individuals who are willing to do tough diplomacy (backed up by a) credible military threat…” it spells trouble. Whereas the Trump agenda, he said, “is the recipe for peace.”
“We get to go into November of 2024 and say, ‘The economy was better. We had more peace… and let’s remember to start every conversation and finish every conversation by saying, ‘Vladimir Putin wants Joe Biden to be re-elected.’”
But right now we have war through weakness.
Apropos of which, one major theme the summit sounded is the antisemitism that has flared up all over the world. The likes of which we have not seen since Hitler and his “Circle of Evil,” which, as then, Britain and other Western counties are playing footsie with.
“Antisemitism has been mainstream in London with open chanting in Parliament Square, ‘From the River to the Sea,’” said Nigel Farage, former leader of the BREXIT party. And while they do not flatly state they support Hamas, he said, it is an “unspoken” reality.
Mind you, this new wave of blatant antisemitism in London, KT McFarland said, arrived well before the October 7 Islamic-terrorist incursion in the northern Israel “Gaza envelope” by paramilitary wings of Hamas and five other affiliated terrorist groups in which 1,139 innocents were mercilessly slaughtered by these high-on-drugs thugs. Felled were 36 Israeli children, 659 other Israeli citizens, 71 foreign nationals, and 373 members of Israeli security forces, along with 250 hostages seized, launching a new Isarael-Hamas War.
The attack occurred almost exactly 50 years after another aggression, Operation Badr, that launched the greater Yom Kippur War of October 6, 1973. It also occurred on the 452nd anniversary of the Feast of Our Lady of Victory, marking the Christan West’s historic win in the Battle of Lepanto over the Muslim world through the intercession of Mary the Mother of Jesus, third person of the Blessed Trinity.
Yes, they are playing a long game and this is a spiritual battle.
To wit, Miklos Szantho, CPAC Hungary, said, antisemitism had its roots in socialism. That would be “Godless” socialism.
The battle is also political and very strategic.
“The British Labor Party needs Muslim votes,” said Farage. And there are 800,000 Jews in England and 4 million Muslims. Which explains why many Western leaders have turned a deaf ear to the slaughter, as well as the ever-growing drumbeat that seeks to drive the Jews out of their historic homeland, where Jesus was born to a Jewish mother.
Meanwhile the soul of the West dies.
“The future is very bleak, indeed,” said Farage.
But with God, all things are possible.
Then, too, God helps those who help themselves.
“There are connections between antisemitism and mass migration,” said Szantho. Once it reaches “a critical mass,” they will just establish their own parties and seize power, he said.
Meanwhile as Patricia Bullrich, Minister of Security in Argentina, in newly elected Javier Milei’s cabinet, noted, China has made great inroads in most all the counties of Central and Latin America, headed by committed Marxists like Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. And, as Mercedes Schlapp, CPAC Foundation, noted, Hamas has a global reach, with its tentacles throughout the southern hemisphere courtesy Iran, now flush with cash thanks to the Biden administration. Argentina stands essentially alone against the onslaught of communist atheism and the criminal cartels. Yes, Argentina ‘needs help.’
Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss who fought and lost against the “administrative state” and Quangos, is a winner when it comes to knowing first principals. “We must unequivocally support Israel,” she said. While it was “fringe left, now it has become socially acceptable”—with MP’s being bullied in public and at “surgery,” i.e., constituent meetings.” In spite of the fact that the “vast majority of British people support Israel.”
America’s Winston Churchill, Donald J. Trump, to the rescue! As Truss noted, he would not allow antisemites to have a place in American academia.
Such strong pushback is needed. “It is always darkest before the dawn, said former Trump official Matthew Whitaker in closing. But as in England during World War II, the “Darkest Hour” is bringing forth some amazing leaders—whom, just like Churchill, not everyone appreciates, but will in time, I have no doubt.
Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends, the new edition published on February 24, 2024. She recently finished writing a book about the life of Ernest Hemingway, viewed through the prism of faith, due to be published Christmas 2024.