It's Political Extremism All the Way Down - Konstantin Kisin
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
175.42372
Summary
As we move towards chaos, our craving for order is guaranteed to rise once again to the top of the agenda. In continental Europe, anti-immigration parties are progressing at a rapid rate. At the time of recording, Nigel Farage is leading the polls in a surge in the polls on a platform of reducing net immigration to zero, and he was recently immediately attacked for it. Why is this happening? Throughout the last decade, the legacy media answer has been the same. We don t know, and we don t care.
Transcript
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As we trend towards chaos, our craving for order is guaranteed to rise once again to the top of
00:00:09.880
the agenda. In continental Europe, anti-immigration, anti-Muslim parties are progressing at a rapid
00:00:15.760
rate. At the time of recording, Nigel Farage is leading the Reform Party in a surge in the polls
00:00:21.300
on a platform of reducing net immigration to zero, and he was recently immediately physically
00:00:26.780
attacked for it. Why is this happening? Throughout the last decade, the legacy media answer has been
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the same. We don't know, and we don't care. The rise of anti-immigration sentiment and growing
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concerns about the Islamification of Europe has seemed not as a predictable reaction to
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unprecedented immigration levels, but as some sort of inexplicable evil emerging once again
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from the racist underbelly of a deeply suspect body politic. Despite being obviously true and
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confirmed by both ancient and recent history, the idea that right-wing extremism, the forces of order,
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is rising as a response to left-wing extremism, the forces of chaos, is outside the bounds of
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acceptability among the chattering classes. This is largely a product of the fact that left-wing
00:01:10.060
extremism is never actually described as extremism. It is not considered extreme to throw open the
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borders resulting in more people coming to Britain in 11 years of the Blair government than came into
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Britain between the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and 1950. It is not considered extreme to double
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Sweden's foreign-born population since the turn of the century. It is not considered extreme that
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this has resulted in Sweden having the highest rate of gang killings in Europe. It is not considered
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extreme that the governor of the Bank of Sweden was forced to acknowledge in an interview with the
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Financial Times that the growing crime problem is so serious it risks damaging the country's long-term
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economic growth. It is not considered extreme that the United States has had over 8 million illegal
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immigrant encounters under the Biden administration, with over 1.7 million known gotaways, that is illegal
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immigrants who evaded border patrols, currently residing in the U.S. without proper documentation
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or being vetted by immigration. It is not considered extreme to introduce overtly sexual content into schools
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up and down the United States. It is not considered extreme to promote the idea that children are
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capable of consenting to life-changing surgeries and hormonal interference in their bodies to treat
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mental disorders. It is not considered extreme to replace pedestrian crossing lights in central London
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with LGBTQ plus signs. It is not considered extreme to teach several generations of children to hate
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their country. It is not considered extreme to prosecute and imprison people for making offensive jokes and
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private WhatsApp messages. It is not considered extreme to put male rapists in female prison. It is not
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considered extreme to pass speech restrictive legislation that could result in the police arresting
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comedians for jokes. What is considered extreme is pointing out that there's a problem with any of
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this. As my readers and viewers will know, objecting publicly to any of this will immediately earn you the
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dismissive label of culture warrior. Because destroying your country's history and culture is not considered
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extreme, but defending it is. So where is all this taking us? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt reminded us in a
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soon-to-be-released trigonometry interview that human societies have historically been united by three
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things. Common blood, common gods, and common enemies. Mass immigration and the endless celebration of what
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we euphemistically call diversity is increasingly eroding two of these. We do not have common blood in the way that
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our society is used to within living memory. As for common gods, our own growing atheism might have been
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sustainable had we not been busily importing people who have a very strong sense of faith in gods that are quite
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different from ours. Absent common blood and common gods, we increasingly look for enemies within rather
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than uniting around the challenges we face from outside. But the extremism has not only been cultural.
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Peter Thiel has argued, as he does in another of our upcoming interviews, that much of our current
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political and cultural strife is the result of deep economic stagnation in anything other than computing
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and AI. While the world of bits has driven our economies, the world of atoms has stood still. As a result, the
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United States, Britain and most other Western countries are running eye-watering levels of debt, which we
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keep adding to every day. The US, for example, increases its national debt by a trillion dollars
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every hundred days, while Britain's debt is bigger than its economy and rising too. While Peter Thiel sees
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this as a product of economics first and foremost, I believe it is unwise to ignore the societal dimension.
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Fundamentally, overspending is a collective action problem, and our failure to deal with it is a reflection of
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our inability to act in our common interest. Absent common blood and common gods, why would we give
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of ourselves for our fellow citizens? This is what we mean when we lament the decline of social
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solidarity. The inevitable product of economic stagnation and social atomization is the allure
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of Marxism in all its forms. The screams about the rich getting richer, white privilege and so on
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are not only attempts to divide society, they are also a consequence of it being divided. This will
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inevitably lead to the emergence of more extreme political movements of both stripes. May you live
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in interesting times indeed. If you enjoy these videos, you should know that they are available
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on my substack weeks, sometimes even months ahead of time. So make sure you head on over there now,
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Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto. The true
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hit is here, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise. April 28th through June 7th, 2026, the Princess of Wales