Technically speaking, the 2010s started on January 1, 2011 and ended on December 31, 2020. We’re now in the early days of the ’20s.
Two years ago I was urging people to think with the power of the century or at the very least with the power of the decade – as opposed to merely here and now or, at best, till the next elections.
So in that spirit, let us now look at what the 2010s meant – specifically by comparing the early days of 2011 with the present-day. It is strongly advisable for everyone to engage in such exercise from time to time because being caught in the various controversies and quibbles of the day risks putting one in the situation of not seeing the forest for the trees.
Zooming out a little bit from time to time is healthy.
1. Obama
In early 2010s the doomers and blackpillers (just as useless then as they are now) were ‘predicting’ that Hussein the Antichrist would send the ATF door to door to seize all weapons.
That doomsday narrative was a bit harder to promote because it was so unbelievably haram to criticize Obama to begin with. The very notion of criticizing Obama was unthinkable unless you were a “loon” which, of course, only the “far-Right” was.
Oh, and the Affordable Care Act (”Obamacare”) was due to be forever and usher in perpetual socialism. Remember that?
Fast forward to present day and one of the few things all Americans agree with is that it’s a good thing to have a gun. Former anti-gun leftists suddenly queued for hours to get their own piece in the last part of the decade. The idea of ATF rounding up guns from civilians in door-to-door raids comes off as even more laughable today than it already was at the beginning of the decade.
Obamacare is, for all intends and purposes, gone. It was barely in force for 3 years overall. With multiple exceptions and basically anyone who didn’t want to partake in the experiment had a way to avoid it.
As for the Antichrist? Well…. the Antichrist did come – but for the Left, in the person of the now outgoing President Trump.
Oh, and criticizing Obama is pretty mainstream even on the center-Left. What was unimaginable in 2010 became mainstream by the end of the decade.
2. The European Union
Euroskepticism had been a thing since early 1990s but it only started being visible in mid 2000s.
In June 2008 the Irish people rejected the Lisbon Treaty at the ballot box and it seemed that euroskepticism might have a shot. But then, following backroom machinations by Jose Manuel Barroso and corrupt Irish politicians, the Irish people were asked to vote again in October 2009. The second time it passed.
Then came the January 2012 Croatian referendum which was due to decide whether Croatia joins the EU or not. The referendum passed with over 65% ”yes” – but in a campaign in which the “NO” side was effectively forbidden.
The Croatian people were basically not allowed to hear the case for “NO”. Euroskeptics were hunted on social media (yes, reporting one into oblivion was a thing in 2011 too), arrested when they organized for rallies in the streets, denied TV appearances and demonized intentionally until they lost parliamentary representation before the campaign for the referendum.
So the idea of stopping or reversing the expansion of the EU looked impossible in the early days of the 2010s.
Yet… in the second half of the decade… the tides turned. Brexit happened, enlargement was put on hold and even the most optimistic eurofanatics are now compelled to contemplate that more exits from the EU may happen – with the Netherlands, Sweden and Poland being quite decent candidates.
Ireland and Croatia showed how low is the EU willing to stoop in order to expand its power. But Great Britain also showed what is possible when non-leftists are willing to think with the power of the decade and be a bit more resilient to the disdainful bullshit put out by the agents of totalitarianism in order to scare the normies into voting for less freedom.
3. Islam
At the beginning of the decade, any discussion about Islam as a problem in Europe in particular and in the West in general was essentially non-existent. Only very dubious places on the Internet discussed.
In 2012 the Israeli journalist and filmmaker Zvi Yehezkeli makes the first serious documentary about the Islam problem in Europe. Still, outside Israel, the documentary only receives attention from the ‘far-Right’ and ‘loonies’ like me. While the documentary wasn’t outright censored, it also didn’t get much mainstream attention as the bien pensants characterized it as “hysterical”.
The topic remained on the fringes of the political debate even though more and more Europeans were suffering at the hands of Islamists in their own cities and countries. Nobody seemed to care. Then came the 2015 terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. Then Bataclan. Then numerous other Islamist attacks in Europe. More populist parties and politicians started having electoral success but even with the effects of the 2015 migrant crisis – the discussion was still frustrated.
Then in 2020 outright mockery of Islamism became the norm in the public square. Politicians and cultural figures who in 2012 or even 2016 were turning up their noses at any discussion about Islam as a problem were now attending marches with slogans and displays that were only the purview of the ‘extreme Right’ at the beginning of the decade.
There’s still a long way to go – but politics is downstream from culture. The topic of Islam as a problem has gone through almost all stages in the Overton window – from unimaginable, to marginal, to the purview of the undesirables (dare I say deplorables?) and all the way to mainstream and even policy in some areas.
In January 2011 it would’ve been unimaginable to introduce a system that would regulate mosques and put intelligence filters on imams – measures explicitly meant to privilege Western norms over the opinions of the looniest Islamists in the world. Such thing would’ve been ‘islamophobia’ in 2012-13 or even ‘racism’ in ’15-’16. By 2020 it became normal sensible, centrist position for the bien pensants du jour.
And all of you out there who have worked for this in the last decade – especially those in the early part of the decade – you have a merit in this too. By making criticism of Islam acceptable, you have paved the way to curbing this lunacy.
Now, in the early days of the 2020s, even in the Middle East there’s wind of curbing Islamism in ways simply unimaginable in the region merely 10 years ago.
4. Feminism/Sexual politics
The 2010s started just like the previous 6 or 7 decades had started – with the topic of ‘sexual politics’ locked into the same paradigm that’s been harming both men and women to the benefit of an increasingly lunatic academic class as well as politicians and, yes, businesses.
Although some seeds of dissent were already visible since the 2000s, such as this academic paper on how Feminism is kinda terrible, even those were very far away from the paradigm that was due to become the absolute norm in the next decade.
While in 2010, 2011 or 2012 the discussion was to the tone of “well, there are some bad aspects of feminism but…” – by the end of the decade even otherwise leftish, feminist-friendly and bien pensant spaces had to at least semi-seriously discuss whether feminism might indeed be cancer.
By 2020, feminists were on the defensive. Now articles like this one where you’re told that feminism is akchually not as bad as “you are made to believe” are quite common. The phrase “you are made to believe” is an acknowledgment of the consistent win on narrative by non-feminists.
In 2011 I was saying in podcasts that it may take over a decade until we get to see some mainstream defense of proper liberalism and meritocracy over universal concern of women. Yet by 2018 even The Guardian was thoroughly defending Jordan Peterson for saying that the feminist claims about “equal pay” may indeed be bullshit (and they are).
Articles like this one where feminist ideologues are scared shitless over the fact that more and more women explicitly and resoundingly reject feminism have become increasingly common towards the latter part of the 2010s. In 2011-12 it was an oddity to read (let alone meet!) an anti-feminist woman. Today it’s the New Normal 😀
Of course, there is still a long way to go. But in just one decade non-feminists advanced more than they had advanced in the previous 7 for sure. I already explained in this video what’s in the bag for this decade.
At best, only the youngest readers of this article will be alive to witness the end of this narrative curve on sexual politics. Nevertheless, this last decade was great for this particular subtopic.
5. Environmentalism
Environmentalism had been turning into eco-Marxism for quite some time and the 2010s didn’t seem to be any different.
While in 1992 the world had witnessed Severn Cullis-Suzuki in a well-executed photo-op of the prophet-child of doomsday in the Environmentalist cult, the 2010s gave us Greta Thunberg.
And it seemed like it was all the same. Yet another decade full of eco-Marxist propaganda that plebs swallow via paid shills as well as extremist loons impervious to reason.
But then director Jeff Gibbs using Michael Moore’s infrastructure produced the best piece of anti-eco-Marxist agitprop to date – Planet of the Humans.
Of course, given that it’s Michael Moore, it wasn’t exactly easy to dismiss it as ‘far-Right propaganda’ so Environmentalism Inc. used an extremist interpretation of copyright law to slow down the propagation of the movie. Too little, too late.
The Wuhan Flu also helped (since leftists were more scared of it anyway thus had more time to look into the situation) and, as a result, Michael Moore’s documentary looking into the corruption of the environmentalist movement has wrecked havoc among the radicals of the movement since the piece offered both a rational critique of the “green” practices and an ideological one (coming from the Left).
With many of its radicals dissatisfied, the green movement’s future into the 2020s looks a lot less bright than it was looking prior to the Planet of the Humans. No amount of shekels from the World Economic Forum and no Great Reset can really reset all the green radicals who’ve been demoralized and/or deradicalized by one of the best executed propaganda pieces that I’ve seen in the last decade.
6. China (People’s Republic)
At the beginning of the decade, the topic of China as an issue was basically non-existent. A report here and there once a decade – usually by a conservative think tank – were the only blips on the radar of any serious discussion on the topic.
In 2012 the BBC was somewhat nervously but overall joyfully reporting on the rise of Chinese influence but… that’s about it. No matter what date filters or what search engine one uses, there’s almost nothing in the mainstream about China as an issue between 2009 and 2014. Once a year we would read about how Chinese youth finds the West attractive or some derision of some blogger in China (in 2014). While the New York Times was laughing, that blogger became one of the top-tier propaganda operatives of the CCP – personally invited by Xi Jinping to shape the internal narrative about the West. Almost nobody saw that except a few scholars and political operatives who just a year later started working on what was to be known as…. President Trump.
I don’t care what your opinion about President Trump is. The fact is that candidate Trump and then President Trump forced everyone to get woke on the China question.
While in 2012 it was “curious” or even “cute” to see Chinese script on London’s double deckers, by late 2015 and early 2016, candidate Trump made everyone take a look at the big, red and aggressive elephant in the room.
In August 2015 the Cathedral was still laughing and publishing montages like this one inferring that then-candidate Trump has some unhealthy obsession with China. After China’s global lockdown propaganda in 2020, however, nobody is laughing.
Now even the BBC has Trump’s “obsession” with China, publishing weekly very astute inquiries about China’s propaganda apparatus. This is all good.
The first step towards dealing with a problem is acknowledging there is one. Ronald Reagan acknowledged the Evil Empire. Donald Trump acknowledged the China problem. Hopefully our civilization will win this Cold War as well.
7. National-conservatism
The 2010s also gave rise to a new way of politics (of course, with old ideas because there is no such thing as new ideas).
In 2010 it was still very haram to be nationalistic and especially to be nationalistic while at the same time supporting economic freedom. LOLbertarians would reject that and the Establishment didn’t like the nationalism part.
However, slowly, but surely, as the decade progressed (sic!) national-conservatism grew in prominence no matter what the Establishment threw at it. And, boy did they throw everything at it.
Billions of dollars (literally) were spent just to stop or at least slow down the rise of national-conservatism in Poland, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Sweden (to a certain extent), the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain or India.
As I’m writing this, many are still upset, angry or even demoralized by the situation in the United States – and those are of course the people who have come to politics with the Trump Train.
However, this particular variant of conservatism did not start with Donald Trump nor will it end with the outgoing President of the United States. Just today, Politico Magazine is noting (absolutely correctly) that European Trumpism won’t end with Trump. Well, they call it ‘trumpism’ because they want clicks for their website – but in the article they do acknowledge that this way of doing politics predates Trump and will for sure continue after Trump’s term.
And this way of doing conservatism (whether you call it populism, national-conservatism or whatever) is a product of the 2010s that has already passed the test of time in several places and it is to be expected to endure in many others throughout the 2020s.
The biggest advantage of this way is that it finally brought in younger people. In 2010-11, the average age of a participant at a conservative event was around deceased. In my country there was even a running joke that the youth wing of conservatives has a median age of 60 and a 50 year old is a young talent or a young prospect. The 2010s changed all of that and turned things around!
Now you have deeply conservative parties which are majority young. Leftist establishmentarians are routinely stunned by how young these new conservative startups skew. Vox in Spain for instance wastes no time in successfully targeting teenagers (just like the far-Left used to do, btw).
In fact, allover Europe populists/national-conservatives skew very young both in terms of leading candidates and voters. This, of course, makes sense. The “boomers” are the 1968-ers now and subsequent establishmentarians (almost all leaning heavily Left – be it classical Marxist Left or modernist/globohomo Left).
Still, none of that would’ve been possible if not for the tireless work of so many networks allover the world bringing conservative/non-Leftist wisdom to the young – eschewing the State indoctrination facilities public schools and the subversion thereof.
Looking into the roaring 20s
The previous decade started in a low note. Almost all of the topics covered in this article were either outright unimaginable or almost in the complete opposite end of development in 2010-11.
For some, this decade starts in a low note as well (though for Freedom Alternative Network it sure does start in a high and optimistic note).
There will be challenges, for sure: the propaganda and economic dispute(s) with China don’t look good now, a weak/distasteful administration is coming at the White House and Big Tech is acting up. But none of that is new either. The previous decade started with a similar crisis too (health + economic), with a distasteful admin in the WH and with Big Tech sucking giant balls as well.
People seem to forget the big censorship scandals of Big Tech from 2010 or 2011. Such as this one. Or this one. Same with banning apps. Everyone seems to forget that Google has been doing this for almost a decade.
What I’m saying is that the ’20s don’t start with challenges unheard of in the recent past. In 2013 it was believed that adblocks will cease to exist because Google censored them. Not only that didn’t happen but the market compelled Google not just to tolerate adblocks, but develop its own too and join the market.
I suspect the same will be the case with the concerns du jour. Yes, Big Tech sucks (as usual) but the pressure is bigger today (in a single day) than in the whole previous decade combined. By the end of this decade things will look radically different and better. You’ll see.
How do I know? Because you can’t stop an idea whose time has come. You can slow it down, surely, but can’t stop it. Just like euroskepticism couldn’t be stopped no matter how many billions of euros were spent on disinformation, bullshit legal cases and outright censorship.
There’s important elections to come this year: in the Netherlands, Bulgaria (both in March), Norway, Germany (both in September) and Czechia in October. Then in 2022 there are important electoral events in France (April), Hungary, Slovenia, Sweden (September), Brazil (October) and, of course, the Midterms in the USA (highly important in November).
It is up to every one of us how the ’20s will look like. But one thing is certain: if we work at least as hard and determined as we’ve been working in the 2010s, there is no reason not to expect to be living through another set of roaring ’20s.
However, if you succumb to the darkest instincts or to demoralization, then you will be doing a great service to the agents of totalitarianism. Should you decide to do so, at the very least stay out of the way of those who want to build upon the successes of the 2010s. While everyone is welcomed to the party, party poopers should be socially distanced 😀
As I’m writing this, I’m wrapping up the preparations for the first interview tour of this decade. Because campaigning never stops. Not if you want to win.
A’ight. That’s it for now. Let’s roll! We got work to do!
