The beginning of the end for bourgeois society.

The start of the Trump presidency is the swan song of Anglo-American conservatism. There will be no new era like that of Reaganism and Thatcherism - the US and the UK were very different societies then. It does however represent a serious attempt to put into practice what some Anglo-conservatives have been promoting for decades: Anglosphere. The slogan was used by James Bennett in a 2004 work. Despite its appeal to English culture, it is really just an ideological model based on Anglo-conservatism, with little to do with tradition English speaking culture. Already the English Prime Minister is heading off to Washington in an attempt to get the UK into an exclusive relationship with the US. In Australia, ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbot has also demanded a special arrangement with the UK (and no doubt, if the US-China marriage blows up), with the US as well. Canada barely has a say in such transcendental matter; we are well on the way to the Anglosphere dream. But it will  remain a mirage. The world is not what it was when the UK turned its back on its colonial trading partners to join the European Common Market.










Above left. Manila 1945. A US Sherman tank entering Intramuros.  On the right, the university of Santo Tomas and Intramuros after its destruction by the US. Intramuros the old walled quarter of Manila, was full of convents, Churches and thousands of Spanish speaking filipinos who were the cultural elite of their nation. Most were killed by US bombs and artillery in a massacre that was totally unneccessary militarily as the miniscule Japanese garrison there was of no strategic significance and could not have held out. But already in the 1930s North Americans were complaining that there were more Spanish speakers and newspapers in the Philippines then than in 1900. The US has done everything possible to erradicate Hispanic culture in the Phillipines. They have not succeeded: Below, a photo of the Great Marian Procession in Intramuros (partially restored during the Marcos regime) today.

The project is a provocation to the whole traditional world of Baroque culture. The US in its proudest "America First" days was the implacable enemy of Hispanic America, the Philippines and Spain itself. Trump will of course do his deals with the political leadership of central and South America. Many will accept. Let them. Let the US attempt to treat Iberian America as its backyard. This lesson is necessary for Hispanic Americans to understand that Anglo-conservatism does not forgive or forget. Only their cultural annihilation will satisfy Washington.  Trump is truly a gift of providence because the insipid politically correct liberalism that was eating away at our culture and society has been replaced by an openly antagonistic regime bent on anti-Hispanic revanchism that will wake our people up.

But in Europe, that other branch of bourgeois society, the European-style national state is also trying to make a come-back. Led by Le Pen's National Front, several such parties are uniting forces, and no doubt this year will be at least as good for them as last year was. Indeed they represent a healthy reaction (just as Trump's election showed that US voters still has some good reflexes against political correctness), but better, or less bad is not the solution. These parties, while opposing many things that deserve to be opposed, really wish to go back a few decades in time and could not even conceive of opposing the ideological basis of bourgeois society.
But both these reactions within bourgeois society - Anglo-conservative, and statist European - are welcome because they represent a rupture with the post-war system and make it clear that this system, which really takes its origins in the early 18th century defeat of the Baroque order, is now in crisis (and not just because its two branches have started fighting again). Bourgeois Europe was based on the suppression of religion and natural social structures as the basis for society, replacing them with statist ideology and nationalism or "market forces". Now these "replacements" don't work properly any more. The situation of Europe in the 17th century is returning. Our culture, which alone is alive and can save Europe, needs to find form and visibility. We don't wish to persuade anyone of the need for new ideas, because the Baroque Order was never based on ideas or philosophies. People must lift the veil of myth and ideology from their minds and see reality as it is.