(Published on November 13, 2020)
by Andrej Sekulović
One of the leading French intellectuals of what is known today as the New Right, Alain de Benoist, has recently shed some thoughts on the aftermath of the U.S. elections in an interview which was translated and posted by Greg Johnson on his Counter Currents website.
On the subject of the supposed victory of Biden, and of the accusations of him stealing the elections coming from Trump, Alain de Benoist said, that that is not what is essential. What is essential, on the other hand, is the fact that the polls heralding the Democratic surge were wrong once again. Even if Biden won, which for now remains to be seen taking into the account all the fraud allegations, he did so only by a narrow margin. On the other hand, not only did those who voted for Trump in 2016 confirm their votes, but millions of former Democrat voters joined them. The indisputable fact is that half of Americans today are “Trumpians,” supporting populist positions. Even if Trump lost a battle, Trumpism did not lose the war. Benoist also warned the readers that the United States are currently divided as it had never been since the Civil War.
Alain de Benoist was also asked to characterize the two opposing camps, the Democrats and the Republicans. He said that although racial tensions are obvious in the U.S.A., the divide is not fundamentally ethnic. The living conditions of “minorities” (who are on the way to becoming a majority) improved much more under Trump than under Obama. This also explain the fact that Trump has won 17% of the black vote and 35% Latino vote in 2016. Alain de Benoist also reminded the readers that the BLM movement was in fact born under Obama, during his second term.
He went on to say that “what separates the two camps today are totally opposed class affiliations and conceptions of society”. On the one side we have “, the representatives of the Establishment, supported by almost all the media” and on the other are “Americans attached to their roots, to their own ways of life, and to shared values”. The latter are the settled people with a home and the former the nomads from nowhere. One are ordinary people of declining middle classes, and the other lobbies who think the rise of populism is scandalous. Benoist also drew a parallel with the European countries; “a frontal clash between the inhabitants of globalized cities and what we call peripheral France.” Another thing that Alain de Benoist thought worth mentioning is a geopolitical detail that “the states most favorable to Trump are concentrated in the center of the country; they belong to continental America; while the strongholds of Joe Biden belong to maritime America.” Which brings us back to the old “conflicts” between the land and sea.
In the end Alain de Benoist also touched on the topic of Joe Biden wanting to be the “president who unites”. He believes that Biden, whom he characterized as a senile politician that is thoroughly corrupt, will not succeed in this endeavor. Even the fact that the Democrats have chosen such a person as their candidate, in Benoist’s opinion, says a lot about the crisis which the Democratic Party is facing. He goes on to say that “Biden’s camp is deeply disunited” and that the hatred for Trump was the only thing that brought them all together. If Trump is no longer there, all of their differences will come to light. And if Kamala Harris, who is the representative of the left wing within the party, will succeed Biden during their term – which will likely happen – the gulf between Americans will widen even more. Alain de Benoist warns us that such growing divisions in a country where more than 350 million firearms circulate freely can have grim consequences.
Read the full translation of the interview here: https://counter-currents.com/2020/11/there-was-no-biden-surge/