Trump's art of war | The Spectator

The culture war is lost

Even though American culture warriors of the right are fighting what Tolkien called ‘the long defeat’, surrender in the Battle of Chick-fil-A was a monumental symbolic loss. That’s because the fast-food chain had become what psychology calls a ‘condensation symbol’: a phrase or entity that powerfully evokes a worldview, and usually calls forth strong emotions around it. Chick-fil-A sells fried chicken. When are chicken nuggets not mere morsels of battered and fried chicken? When LGBT activists transform them into sacraments of Bible-thumping wickedness, as they have done with enormous effectiveness since 2012. That was the year that Dan Cathy, CEO of the privately held company and son of its founder, criticized the campaign for same-sex marriage as offensive to God.

Samuel Gregg

Burning Christianity

Conspiracy theories aren’t something I take seriously. But when flames engulfed Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris on the evening of April 15, 2019, my mind momentarily wandered down that path. After all, attempts to incinerate, vandalize and rob Christian churches and shrines have become so commonplace in France over the past three years that one could be forgiven for concluding that something even more sinister was afoot. In 2017 alone, according to France’s Interior Ministry, 878 acts of vandalism were committed against Christian places of worship, cemeteries and shrines. That’s an average of nearly two and a half sites being targeted every day. Government officials play down the problem.

Revd Steve Morris

In the cart of the city

This article is in The Spectator’s January 2020 US edition. Subscribe here.New York City It’s the Sunday before Memorial Day outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the street is filling up with families. Navy servicemen and women stop for a friendly word and a photo. But a tragedy is happening here and there’s nothing anyone seems able to do about it. Elizabeth Rossi, a retired disabled Marine veteran in her early forties, runs a hot-dog stall outside the museum. She served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. ‘On my first day we were bombed; you never forget that,’ she says. Her father, Dan, also a disabled vet, runs the van next door. But they feel that they have been rejected by the city of New York and the world around them.

Justin Higginbottom

After the Americans

This article is in The Spectator’s January 2020 US edition. Subscribe here.Malkef, northern Syria I’m sitting under an olive tree about a mile from the front with ‘Agir’, a Kurdish soldier from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The sharp cracks and dull rumbles of fighting make their way to us over dusty farmland; the shade protects us from the scorching mid-morning sun and omnipresent Turkish drones. Agir tells me how the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) can’t fight — at least, compared with the Islamic State (Isis). Agir fought Isis with American backing for years in Syria. Sometimes, he says, Isis soldiers would tie foam cushioning to their feet, sneak up to your position in the moonlight and slit your throat.

Godfrey Elfwick

A Godfrey New Year

Portland, Oregon A new year, whether you follow the Greek calendar or the Latinx, is like the first page in a new diary, its date set by patriarchal theocracy, its entries written in guilt. I’ve always questioned the tradition of making and then forgetting resolutions. I view them as an empty promise of redemption, like the fad diets with which late-capitalist dysmorphia tyrannizes the fat-positive. This year, however, I decided to indulge my curiosity. Yes, dear reader, I have made a resolution. ‘B-b-but how on Earth can Godfrey Elfwick’s holistically beneficial way of living xir’s best life be improved upon?’ I hear you stutter in bewilderment.

Harry Mount

Show off and tell: the sad death of inconspicuous consumption

O America, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. As an Englishman, I loved the two years I lived in New York as a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph over a decade ago. But I’m afraid I never fell for the American cult of conspicuous consumption — even if at times I thoroughly indulged in its worst excesses. At a party at one of the New York Armories, a huge military building now given over to parties and exhibitions (I forget which one, due to overindulgence), I watched, goggle-eyed, as two brave young blondes frolicked in an ice-cold pool around a larger-than-lifesized ice sculpture of a pair of swans. At another party in SoHo, I made my way to the dance floor to find dozens of twentysomethings dancing around a Range Rover — the car company was sponsoring the event.

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