The Atlantic: Despise Bolton, but Read His Book Anyway

And Bolton doesn’t have many friends outside the White House, either. He seems to be doing his best to present himself as a principled whistleblower going head-to-head with a White House trampling his rights. But his welcome within anti-Trump circles has been decidedly frosty. Democratic Representative Mike Quigley, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, suggested to Politico that anyone who wants to see what Bolton has to say should borrow his book from the library, rather than give the former national security adviser any money. Clicking on any of #JohnBolton’s recent tweets, meanwhile, reveals a cascade of replies calling him a coward and accusing him of selling out his country for book profits. [...]

The best answer is to treat the book—and its author—bloodlessly, as a source of information that needs to be evaluated with due consideration for the source but without an instinct to either valorize or condemn. Bolton has a story to tell. It is very likely a story worth hearing. To absorb it implies no heroism or redemption for the man. It is not an embrace. It is possible to hear his story while maintaining one’s disdain for his behavior. The relationship is transactional. [...]

And what does Bolton get in this transaction? We actually don’t know. Maybe he’s motivated by the money. Maybe he just wants to tell his story. Maybe he craves the attention. (This is a guy, after all, who tried to create a hashtag out of his own name.) That’s really his business. He’s getting something, or he presumably wouldn’t have written the book. The point is that hearing his story need not mean validating or vindicating him.

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UnHerd: The defector taking on Kim Jong-un

Park is a remarkable and resolute man. Once he was a rising young bureaucrat from a well-connected family, a fervent believer in the Kim family dynasty that has ruled North Korea for more than seven decades. Today he is public enemy number one in the North, having fled to the South and dedicated his life to defeating the brutal regime that brainwashed him along with 25 million other citizens. He has survived assassination attempts, death threats and even missile responses to these nocturnal launches of clandestine materials. In recent days, he has been denounced again as ‘human scum’.

Yet he is also detested by South Korean authorities who see this diminutive dissident as a danger to their stability. They have launched legal actions and legislative efforts to thwart his activism. And now he is at the centre of rising tensions in the region. [...]

Yet the North’s fury also indicates the success of the activities pursued by Park and other dissident groups as they send in contraband to corrode the hermit kingdom from within by undermining belief in the bloodstained Kim dictatorship. I have heard from several dissidents about how they would watch foreign soap operas and films secretly to see the clothes, the cars and the food that strongly challenged their own government’s claims about life being so much better under their thumb. I also met a woman jailed for eight years for watching foreign films, and a party cadre — a member of the state censorship team — who defected after being caught sharing seized books and films with his friends. [...]

President Moon has promised a crackdown on such efforts and tried to sue Park and his brother, to the anger of the conservative opposition party. Yet many of his countrymen look down at dissidents and show little interest in the suffering of North Koreans trapped in the bubble of the world’s most barbaric state. The balloon launches also infuriate people living near the border when they fall short and spew rubbish over homes in the area — although satellite trackers found some flew almost 500 miles to Vladivostok in Russia.

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UnHerd: The Tories are facing a new revolt on the Right

Boris Johnson is a prime minister under pressure. Public disapproval of his government is drifting upwards. Confidence in the economy has collapsed. His approval ratings have shed more than 20 points in two months. The ‘rally effect’ that saw his support surge to nearly 70% has long gone. Former advisors are criticising the inner workings of his government. MPs openly complain about U-turns and indecision. The Conservative Party’s lead in the polls has crashed from more than 20 points to just five. And Keir Starmer now has the highest rating for any leader of the opposition since Tony Blair led Labour in 1995 and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory was topping the charts. Life comes at you fast, as my students say. [...]

This is what encouraged the sceptics to walk away. Ever since the referendum the Conservative Party has been haemorrhaging middle-class professionals and graduates. Already alienated by Brexit, the fumbled response to the Covid crisis and what they see as populist amateurism has pushed these former Tory voters further away. In the past six months alone Labour’s share of the Remain vote has jumped by nearly 10 points, with Remainers slowly but steadily starting to align in the way that Leavers did six months ago. [...]

Delivering Brexit, controlling migration and rebalancing an unequal nation struck a loud chord across Britain’s heartlands. And this rebalancing act was never just about bridges and trains. It was about reasserting all of the things that conservatives feel have been eroded over recent years — the family, our civic culture, virtue, morality, community, tradition, heritage and our national identity. The Conservative Party would, in short, be all that its name implied. [...]

It is this growing sense of disillusionment with Johnson’s premiership which now lies behind plans to launch a new movement. Embryonic talks started in the early days of the Great Lockdown and there is talk of significant financial resources. Given that the country no longer holds European elections under a more favourable system of proportional representation these activists contend that the main purpose would be to once again apply indirect rather than direct pressure. It would not be hard, they argue, to attract 8-10% of the vote simply by demanding that the Conservative Party be… conservative. “Boris has gone very, very wet”, complained one.

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