That’s because rather than confront their enemies, conservatives prefer to appease them or win favour with them.’
What applies to Glenn Beck in the US is true over here of Douglas Murray and ‘Mad’ Mel Phillips (‘Mad’ being the favourite dismissal for awkward truth-tellers, in much the same way that all those who predicted the EU and the euro were going to be a disaster were called ‘swivel-eyed’ and ‘barmy’) and Peter Hitchens and others I’m far too modest to name.
We’re hated by our own because we’re a daily reminder of what cowardly, loathsome ideological sell-outs the rest of our kind are.
Still, I asked Horowitz, who understands the Gramsci culture war better than anyone on the planet, whether there was any room for emollience of the kind ‘pragmatic’ conservatives advocate? ‘Sure there is. Politics is an art,’ he says, sounding for a second worryingly moderate. ‘If you’re adopting a mellow tone to deceive your enemies that’s good, if it’s a Trojan horse that’s fine.
‘But if you’re just doing it to make yourself liked, that’s Stockholm Syndrome.’
