re: There are a lot of "conservatives" who want to end the MAGA/America First Populism.

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Newt Gingrich

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Last week, Italy’s southernmost island, Lampedusa (pop. 6,000), saw 10,000 migrants wash ashore, with 7,000 of those arriving in a single 48 hour span thanks to a flotilla that numbered well over 100 ships and boats in total. The island is overwhelmed and the locals are revolting against Premier Giorgia Meloni’s impotence. Meloni, whose party was catapulted into power due to popular resentment against both the continuation of mass migration to Italy and the strict COVID-19 regime, has effectively abdicated her role to protect Italy’s borders, resulting in her being criticized by France’s Marine Le Pen, describing her behaviour as “cowardice”. Making matters worse, thousands of migrants on the island broke out the asylum centre and raised roadblocks to “demand immediate transfer to the European mainland”. Italy has lot control over its own borders, with Meloni pleading to Brussels to step in and help control the flow of migrants:

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A state that has lost control over its own borders is not a state with absolute sovereignty over its own territory, whether it is Italy or Ukraine. The Italian case cannot be equated to the ongoing flood of migrants across the Rio Grande between Mexico and the United States of America, as the latter’s national government is purposely permitting these arrivals.

I do not blame these migrants for seeking a better life in Europe. People have always gone where they feel it is better for them to live and work (even if many of these migrants already in Europe have no desire for employment, and are content living on the dole). The generous social schemes in many European countries attracts migrants like a magnet, and their journey is facilitated by human smugglers, whether the traditional ‘criminal’ type, or the whitewashed ones who label themselves “NGOs operating rescue missions”. The problem in Europe lies solely with its cowardly political leadership, with bad actors for whom the concept of 'nation’ is an anathema, with craven business owners and lobbyists seeking to maximize profits through wage competition, with their respective judiciaries, and with the international treaties that these countries have signed that force open their doors to this deluge.

Despite the growing flood of arrivals from Asia and Africa, and despite their hands being tied by legally-binding covenants to protect the “human rights” of these invaders, Europe has the ability to stem this tide and shut the spigot off. It has been done before. All that is lacking is THE WILL.

Silvio Berlusconi had the will to do so, and managed to strike a deal with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi to shut down the Libya-to-Italy route for human trafficking. Please note the outrage from this 2009 article by Human Rights Watch, a Soros-funded organization:

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A straight line can be drawn from Angela Merkel’s invitation to Syrian migrants to settle in Germany through to the victory of the pro-#Brexit side in the UK’s referendum on whether to leave the European Union. The images of long columns of young men snaking their way through Europe toward Germany managed to tip the balance in the UK, leading many to conclude that the #Brexit Referendum was really a referendum about migration, something that has been denied to all Europeans (with the notable exception of Poland, where Poles this month will have their say on the matter) for fear of inevitable public rejection of more migration.

#Brexit has since been categorized as a “populist moment”, and with good reason. Alongside this shock result came the surge of populism on the European continent, with populist parties now a permanent feature of national and European politics. The 2008 Financial Crisis certainly did play a role in the rise of the non-mainstream parties that are grouped together under the “populist” umbrella, but it was the significant spike in migration a few years later that gave them the wind in their sails, allowing them to reach a critical mass of support that ensured their continuing existence.

Elites being elites did not seem to learn the lesson that the people can and will revolt, and instead insisted that it the people were “tricked”, primarily by “disinformation” courtesy of bad actors using the internet to destabilize their countries and play upon the misguided fears of voters. The UK Tory co-opting of and watering-down of #Brexit gave these elites hope that the populist backlash could be squelched. The removal of Donald Trump from power restored their confidence in the system that made them the ruling elites. The COVID-19 interregnum allowed them to use state power to regroup and attack all non-mainstream parties as “conspiracy theorists” and “extremists” to one extent or another, as they passed bills to clamp down on the internet, while working with Big Tech to censor what they could not legally censor. The elites could now get back to work, with re-opening the migrant spigot a central feature of their collective project.

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Mass immigration into both Europe and the USA is an elite project that does nothing for the ordinary citizen. This is why the ordinary citizen is never asked to vote on it in a direct referendum. I fear that this coming deluge will dwarf that of 2015.

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Populism is trash

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The definition of "real conservatism" by "real conservatives" is why the nation is on the brink of imploding both societally and financially.

100% wrong. We haven't followed conservative principles. This country has been always been in a "tug of war" between conservatism and full blown socialism since I been alive.

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It is not. You may like it better than actual conservatism, but that does not morph Trump Populism into actual conservatism. Trumpism infected actual conservatism, corrupted many of its adherents and tried to steal its name.

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Has no first order principles other than complete and utter fealty to Donald Trump. Some of us would like to see that fever break.

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neoconservatism.

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