Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a July 6 WorldNetDaily article, Art Moore rhapsodized over President Trump's speech in Poland, making a very specific reference in doing so:
Ten years ago, Warsaw hosted an international conference warning of a “demographic winter” that posed an existential threat to Europe as the rejection of the “natural family” was leading to plunging birthrates and the consequent importation of millions of workers from countries with historic colonial ties who spurn Western values and refuse to assimilate.
A decade of social upheaval and terrorist attacks, accelerated by the recent influx of Muslim migrants, has turned many mockers and skeptics of that concept into believers.
And now, in his speech Thursday to a rapturous crowd in Warsaw’s Krasinski Square, President Trump has raised the issue of the West’s survival, arguing it rests ultimately not on armies and economies but on “strong families and strong values.”
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost?” Trump asked.
“Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”
[...]
In 2007, WND covered the fourth World Congress of Families in Warsaw, attended by 3,300 lawmakers and activists from 75 nations.
One of the speakers, Poland’s vice premier and minister of education, Roman Giertych, declared the family as “the hope for Poland, the hope for Europe, the hope for the entire world.”
“Without the family, there is no nation, there is no continent, there is no civilization, there is nothing,” he said.
[...]
The planners of the World Congress of Families in 2007 said they were looking “beyond demographic winter,” promoting the “natural family” as the “springtime of Europe and the world.”
“Poland saved Europe before” by lifting the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 and helping to demolish the Soviet empire three centuries later and it is likely “she will save Europe again,” they said.
As we documented at the time, the whole "demographic winter" stuff is basically a white-nationalist argument, with the entire goal being to increase the birth rate among white Christians in order to head off the swarthy Muslim hordes.
In other words, by bringing up "demographic winter," Moore is implictly admitting that Trump's speech had white nationalist overtones.
Which is why it was strange that, the next day, WND freaked out about people who aren't WND news editors pointing out those very same white-nationalilst overtones. A July 7 article by Liam Clancy actually claimed those critics were demonstrating that "demonstrating their opposition to Western civilization" by doing so:
President Trump’s speech Thursday in Poland elicited a frenzied reaction from many progressives, demonstrating their opposition to Western civilization.
The focus of outrage was a passage detailing how the West will survive in the 21st century.
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” Trump said. “Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”
Trump continued, “We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive.”
Peter Beinart of the Atlantic called the passage “a statement of racial and religious paranoia.”
He went on to call the idea that the West was in danger from outside forces fundamentally “absurd,” contending jihadists can kill people in the West but not topple their governments.
Beinart did not address the growing numbers of known Islamic terrorists living across the European continent.
[...]
Sarah Wildman at Vox declared that Trump’s speech in Poland “sounded like an alt-right manifesto,” citing a quote from the speech, “For family, for freedom, for country and for God.”
Wildman went on to state that Trump “cast the West, including the United States and Europe, on the side of ‘civilization,'” using scare quotes to imply he was wrong to do so.
But Trump never hinted the West was the only civilization, or even that it was superior to others, merely that the West is threatened by external enemies.
Josh Lowe at Newsweek took aim at the concept of Western civilization and values as well, believing the passage “painted the external struggle against threats like violent extremists as being tied to an internal struggle to defend supposed ‘Western values.'”
Lowe employed scare quotes around “Western values” to imply no such thing exists and that Islamic terrorism is not truly a threat to these “supposed” values.
Regarding Trump’s statement that every “foot of ground, and every last inch of civilization, is worth defending with your life,” Lowe wrote that he “really, really hope[s] this is a metaphor.”
Jeet Heer at the New Republic declared Trump’s speech was the beginning of “an international brotherhood of white grievance.”
He also called the speech “alt-right,” claiming Trump “won the presidency with a campaign of white nationalism.”
Heer said Trump “has used white grievance politics to redefine ‘the West.'”
Note Clancy's mind-reading about what he thinks critics of the speech "implied," and that any criticism of the speech was equal to "opposition to Western civilization." I guess we can similary assume that when WND puts "gay" in scare quotes, it is meant to imply no such thing exists.
But never mind all that, Clancy says, because the Poles loved it: "The speech, however, was well received by Trump’s audience in Poland: The crowd erupted into chants of 'Trump! Trump! Trump!' several times."
Clancy is certainly not going to concede that his WND colleague's "demographic winter" reminiscience is a white nationalist narrative either.
