GOOD people who achieve squat in echo chambers with canapes – this was my initial reaction to the advent of two conferences focused on the crap state of the world.
The first is the current conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, otherwise known as ARC, founded in June 2023. They meet in Londonistan.
The second is the forthcoming Church and State conference coming soon to Brisbane.
When funky acronyms, slick websites and bells and whistles arrive, you think: Hmm. Not to mention the comfortable on-stage couches and the being-among-friends vibe. And no room for ‘deplorables’ at £1,500 a throw, I’m told was the price of a ticket – with a £400 discount offered to people ARC wanted there, the rumour mill has it. The comfort of being right (in both senses of the term) without actually moving the needle.
The contrast can be found in JD Vance, speaking truth to power in the den of his (and our) enemies in Munich. His harsh words about his audience of European globalist establishment grifters have gone around the world several times. They suggest bravura, intent, action, steely composure, truth and . . . Donald Trump, the figure that still makes many staid comfort-conservatives clench the buttocks.
There is no greater exemplar of the performative conservative class than Greg Sheridan of The Australian. Peter Smith at The New Catallaxy notes: ‘. . . he who no longer refers to Donald Trump as a despicable human being but who, so far as I can tell, has never apologised for so doing’.
Indeed. Non-apologies count. Not in a good way. And are noted. These people are pathetic, really. They are content to be cerebral chin-strokers, while hoisting the white flag. Over and over again.
Rod Dreher, a speaker at the ARC conference, summed up one of the key purposes of these events:
‘Good morning from London, and the first day of the ARC conference. Big opening dinner for speakers and donors last night; as a speaker, I got to go. Was so, so great to see many old friends there . . . Just now, after breakfast, I walked out of the hotel restaurant, and there sat two of my favorite people in all the world . . . Oh happy day! Oh happy next three days!’
Source: Rod Dreher emailed newsletter, February 19, 2025.
Fellowship. I get it. All fine and dandy. We all need our mutual support mechanisms. But the line between ‘fellowship’ (Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, really?) and a dry gulch, an echo chamber, a right-of-centre ghetto, is a fine line indeed.
Wonderful speakers at these endless conferences – some of whom I know and like – use beautiful words to make absolutely no impact on their enemies and ours.
Douglas Murray left the audience of 4,000 ‘speechless’. I am sure he did. He is very, very good at this.
You might agree with just about everything he said. That isn’t the point.
To repeat, our enemies are domestic Marxist revolutionaries, post-modernists, woke automatons, Chinese communist imperialists, Muslim colonialists, globalists seated in Europe, corporate fascists, American neocons and British liberal progressives parading in conservative clothes. I am yet to hear a single international conferencer pull all of this together. To address the real meta-problems.
I say wonderful speakers. Not all are wonderful, though. Any conference that gives Michael Gove a slot and an invitation cannot be taken seriously. He was a two-timing sneak of a politician and, far worse, a covid criminal. The multi-millionaire who appointed Gove as editor of the Spectator happens to be the co-founder and co-owner of ARC, Paul Marshall, who also owns GB News. The mob who sacked Mark Steyn and Dan Wootton. Neither of these heroes has a place, nor has Kathy Gyngell, my TCW editor. Bilderberger Niall Ferguson, inevitably. Anyone who is a friend (and biographer) of Henry Kissinger isn’t a friend of mine. Beautiful speaker, though. The inevitable Jordan Peterson is there. Both are on ARC’s exclusive Advisory Board.
RFK Jr recently said: ‘NOTHING is gonna be off-limits.’
Source: Ed Dowd’s Telegram channel, February 19, 2025.
He was referring specifically to chronic disease investigation, but his words refer to much, much more than this. They are a call to action. They resonate. RFK Jr is feared by all the bad guys. Utterly feared. As is Kash Patel. As is Tulsi Gabbard. These people are impactful. Consequential. Far more importantly, they are revolutionary.
If our circumstances are as dire as the ARC team suggest, why aren’t THESE people there? Oh, of course, they are too busy across the Atlantic, actually doing things.
A report in the Telegraph saw the group as a corrective to the ‘chaos’ and ‘excesses’ in American conservatism during the rise of Donald Trump. Could that still be their real purpose?
The ARC has been billed as a right-wing competitor of Davos, no doubt because of its ‘global leaders space’ recruitment strategy. But those who see here some sort of conference equivalence entirely miss the point. Davos ain’t a talkfest. The people who attend the Swiss Alps shindig are bad actors with power who do actually run the world. They are Satan’s foot soldiers. Pitting an opposing talkfest against them takes us nowhere. This is a category error.
I worked for a quarter of a century in economic development, generally at the local and regional level. I attended many conferences. Endless conferences. You felt good being there. Among friends. Being part of the smart set. But the one great insult across the years was that these endless meet-ups of the great and good, with their well remunerated keynotes, was ‘talkfest’. That was always the greatest fear of delegates at these things and of observers. What was it all for? It was, in essence, performative. Process. Part of the deal.
It hasn’t changed.
The sins of the performative conservative conference class are sins of omission, not of commission. I have mentioned the speakers not at the London conference. What about the topics not addressed? Covid: Will any of the speakers there expose the truths daily reported in the alt-media? Will Michael Gove apologise for his covid sins? Will Paul Marshall explain or seek to justify his sacking of Mark Steyn and friends? Nope. Will Niall Ferguson admit that the elites of whom he is a paid-up member admit that his ilk is the problem? The whole problem.
The key word is ‘smug’. No one suffering under the yoke of tyranny likes smug. They like anger-driven action that will free the oppressed.
The grieved outsiders currently feel far more comforted by the ‘nothing is gonna be off limits’ view of the world articulated so well by RFK Jr and by the sheer determination of those who say it than by champagne swilling, globetrotting conservatives feeling good about life in London. Or in Brisbane.
It is time to put a bit of stick about, not just to glory in being right (in both senses of the term).
It is an irony that one of the most discussed topics at the London conference has been JD Vance’s speech in Munich. Will any of them get the deep point here?
