Nihil agis, nihil moliris, nihil cogitas quod non ego non modo audiam sed etiam videam planeque sentiam.

Operative B swings by the Castle bar last night but declines to drink anything, He does however throw this out:

Your Imperiousness, This lowly one comes before you to apologize for previously questioning the value of NATO in today’s world. With England having voted to leave the EU, and with other countries making “we’re also sick of Brussels’ crap” noises, it appears that your support for NATO was right on the mark. I’m not quite sure it was either your long view of history (several hundred years of direct experience) or your use of Gort’s time warp viewer (he got it fixed, right?), but this miserable one is in awe of your prescience. So, if I may, here’s a couple of lottery forms. Do you suppose you’d be willing to darken the spots for an upcoming drawing? I’d be more than happy to rebuild the drawbridge and buy y’all several rounds of your favorite beverages… Operative B

We haven’t spoken much about Brexit, but the Czar is in agreement with a piece that Volgi linked to the other day, but the Czar would like to tie all this together. Meantime, read that link; the Czar will wait.

Okay, so you’ve read it and concluded that most of the world—not just the United States—is in a bad way. In fact, you would reasonably conclude that things are worse elsewhere in the world: the chauvinism of France returns, the itch for German control over the region, and Russia’s never-ending quest for legitimacy and respect. Worse, the ridiculous return of anti-Semitism shows that Europe would rather hate Jews and the rumors of minor monetary control than address the widespread Islam that is, in fact, coming to supplant or kill them.

Basically, Europe is out of control and seeking to over-control itself. Brexit is part of that reflection: fed up with Brussels (as you rightly identify it) and the sudden realization that any post-Roman European superpower inevitably turns to poop, the English and the Welsh have decided to hit the road. Not surprisingly, the Scots and Northern Irish (long living off handouts), want to stay with the EU under the fantasy that wealthier nations will spot them another twenty quid until they, you know, get around to writing a résumé and applying for mid-management at that bank down the road.

And we can talk Trump, too, and his nationalist tone about taking things back, making things great again, and putting things first again. The piece you just read already covered how all these things are related: Author Sohrab Ahmari terms it a rise in “Illiberalism.”

The cause of that—and this is the Czar taking a long view here—is the struggling death of Leftism. Since the French Revolution, Leftism has failed to deliver on any of its claims. When it turned into Bohemianism, then Communism, then Progressivism, then Socialism, Fascism and Nazism, and all the way down to Bernie Sanders, the numbers were never in its favor.

Bernie Sanders is a great example. He and Hillary Clinton are the pinnacles of what passes for liberal leadership in this country: had any other candidate besides the illiberal Donald Trump survived the primaries, and it’s highly probable that we’d see a landslide vote against the Democrats in November. Know why the Democrats are running candidates so weak that even a mess like Donald Trump is holding his own? Because they’re tapped out. They have no one better than these two losers.

All across Europe, North and South America, we see socialism failing. Austerity, Austrian politics, and no-confidence votes are a visible Thatcherite sign than we are indeed running out of other people’s money. Leftism has failed, and the average person isn’t buying it.

As a whipsaw, though, the reaction has been the opposite: aggressive attempts at central control. Britain leaves the EU? Hysterical (and often hysterically funny) reactions about doom and gloom. “The markets will fail!” Prices fluctuate and return to normal. “Markets struggle to come back from Brexit!” Prices begin ticking upward as British stocks become more valuable. “Market valiantly battles against Brexit’s effects!” Please.

The destruction of political correctness is a good thing, but instead we’re getting political offensiveness in the other direction. Candidates are saying whatever the hell the want to say, and consequences don’t seem to matter. This is equally bad.

Don’t be too joyful about the death of liberal progressivism, though: the responding rise of nationalism isn’t good for freedom, as Ahmari explains. Liberal progressivism might be dying, but it plans to take most of us with it. In fact, it may become more dangerous as it senses it’s cornered. We’re seeing that with the daily deluge of illegal executive actions, double secret probationary regulations passed by unseen bureaucrats, and judicial legislation.

Liberal progressivism is on its way out, but what comes after could easily be worse.