history – Page 21

Are the Black Caps of 2019 Better Than The 2015 Cricket World Cup Team?

The last Cricket World Cup is considered by many Black Caps fans to be their team’s finest moment, having made it as far as the final for the first time ever. Numbers man Dan McGlashan, author of Understanding New Zealand, thinks that this 2019 team might be an even better side than that one. This article compares the Black Caps side that will contest the 2019 Cricket World Cup in England with the side that played in the 2015 edition of the tournament.

First opener: Martin Guptill vs. Martin Guptill

The 2019 Martin Guptill has averaged a cracking 50.01 since the last CWC, at a strike rate of 94.70. He’s scored nine centuries in those 61 games, more than in the previous 108 games of his career. This is good enough to see him ranked 8th in the world. What’s more, he appears to be getting better and better.

Before the 2015 CWC, Guptill had a career average of 37.11. He was known as a very good player, with five one-day hundreds, but was not considered excellent. Having played 99 matches, this was about one century per 20 innings, compared to one century per seven innings since then. His century in the last pool match of the 2015 CWC was the start of this hot streak.

It’s the same player, only the 2019 version is more professional, making much better decisions, and making them with more authority. Because the pitches are expected to be flat during this World Cup, there is a good chance that Guptill will play another innings of 180+. He remains the most likely Black Cap to win the match with the bat.

2019 Black Caps 1, 2015 Black Caps 0

Second opener: Henry Nicholls vs. Brendon McCullum

Henry Nicholls has been outstanding recently in Tests, but opening an ODI is different to batting No. 5 in the white clothing. It’s not easy to tell how well he will do as opener, other than to guess based on well he has gone so far, mostly batting in the middle order: 41 matches since the 2015 CWC, averaging 35.48.

Brendon McCullum was on an outstanding run of form leading up to the 2015 tournament. Across 20 matches in the 2014/15 season, he scored 636 runs at an average of 33.47 and an astonishing strike rate of 140.70. This strike rate was so high it meant he scored his runs in fewer than four overs on average, leaving plenty for the other teammates.

Nicholls might have a better average than McCullum, but his role in the team is different, and he will not get the Black Caps off to the same starts as McCullum. However, he is less likely to put Williamson in early either. Perhaps it could also be said that Nicholls was more likely to score a century, but a strike rate of 140 cannot be fully compensated for.

2019 Black Caps 0, 2015 Black Caps 1

No. 3: Kane Williamson vs. Kane Williamson

Williamson averages 47.01 since the last CWC, which is good enough to see him ranked equal 11th in the world. Although he hasn’t been as spectacular as Guptill and Taylor, he has still been extremely solid, scoring five centuries in that time. One feels that it has only been the bounce of the ball and good bowling that has prevented him from scoring bigger.

The 2015 Williamson did not perform well in the knockout stages of the 2015 tournament, his highest score in the three matches being 33 against the West Indies. Although he averaged 45 at the time of the tournament, and had definitely come of age, he was not able to play many truly dominant innings in 2015.

The 2019 edition of the Black Caps captain is even calmer and more professional than the 2015 one. Also, thanks to his IPL experience, he is much better at hitting, and no longer simply relies on being hard to get out. He is, therefore, a more complete player, despite his numbers not showing a significant difference.

2019 Black Caps 1, 2015 Black Caps 0

No. 4: Ross Taylor vs. Ross Taylor

The 2015 Ross Taylor already had a claim to being New Zealand’s finest one-day batsman. At the start of the CWC that year, Taylor had 12 ODI centuries at an average of 41.75. This was a better record than anyone except for Nathan Astle. He had carried the batting for some years before McCullum, Guptill and Williamson came along and was by now the senior pro in the side.

Post eye-surgery Taylor has been something else. Since the 2015 CWC, Taylor has averaged a phenomenal 68.85, with eight centuries. His position as the greatest Kiwi one-day batsman ever is now certain, with Williamson the only possible challenger. His career average is now over 48, and if he continues in anything like the same form it will soon be 50.

One gets the feeling that, with Latham injured for some matches and replaced by the inexperienced Tom Blundell, Taylor might play the last line of real defence before the hitters come in. If that is so, his cool and professional approach will make his efforts at 4 crucial to the success of this campaign.

2019 Black Caps 1, 2015 Black Caps 0

Keeper-batsman: Tom Latham vs. Luke Ronchi

At time of writing, it still isn’t clear how many matches Latham will miss on account of his finger fracture, however it’s assumed that he will be back for the later pool games and any eventual knockouts. Although Latham is still a junior player in the side, he has averaged 37.86 since the last CWC and has cemented his spot at 5. He has shown that he can both rebuild and hit from the middle order.

Since hitting 170 against Sri Lanka just before the 2015 CWC, Ronchi was poor, averaging only 15.13 for the remainder of his career. Although this came at a strike rate of just over 100, it wasn’t enough runs to make an impact. His duck in the 2015 CWC final underlined this.

Latham might lack the big hitting ability of Ronchi, but is much more likely to score runs. Latham’s strike rate of 86 since the last World Cup is perfectly fine anyway. This is another clear win for the 2019 side, whose batting is significantly stronger overall.

2019 Black Caps 1, 2015 Black Caps 0

All-rounder: Jimmy Neesham vs. Corey Anderson

Jimmy Neesham has been in and out of the team in recent years, but his latest performances suggest that he has found a good vein of form. In the eight matches he has played since his comeback to the side, he has averaged 68 with the bat and 22.90 with the ball. Incredibly clean hitting has been a feature of his presence in the middle order.

Corey Anderson has had rotten luck with injuries, but at the time of the 2015 CWC he was putting up some good numbers with both bat and ball. He played a number of good hands in the 2015 tournament, most notably scoring a half-century and taking three wickets in the semifinal. Although a dynamic player, he was a loose one.

On balance, Anderson wins this because Neesham has not played many games recently. But chances are high that we see at least one spectacular innings from Neesham this World Cup, on account of that his hitting ability will find good use on the flat English decks. Whether Neesham can achieve Anderson’s consistency remains to be seen.

2019 Black Caps 0, 2015 Black Caps 1

Batting all-rounder: Colin de Grandhomme vs. Grant Elliott

Colin de Grandhomme is still a bit of an enigma in this Black Caps side. Although capable of massive hitting and incisive bowling, he remains a distinctly hit and miss player, especially with the ball. He has only spent three seasons in the team, but has scored over 400 runs at an average of 29 and strike rate of 110.

Elliott is known for playing the starring role in the greatest game in Black Caps history, the semifinal of the 2015 CWC. His inclusion in the Black Caps side was patchy up until the season of the tournament, but after the start of 2015 he averaged over 40 with the bat at a strike rate of almost 100. He made a reputation for himself as a batsman who could play any role.

It’s not certain that de Grandhomme has the skills to cope with a truly top-level attack, whereas Elliott scored 80s in both a World Cup semifinal and final. Moreover, de Grandhomme averages 46.33 with the ball and is unlikely to play much of role in that discipline in England. De Grandhomme could play some good innings in England, but he won’t be expected to star.

2019 Black Caps 0, 2015 Black Caps 1

First seamer: Trent Boult vs. Trent Boult

Boult was an unknown in the Black Caps one-day setup until shortly before the 2015 CWC. He had only played 16 ODIs for New Zealand before the tournament began, and was regarded by most as a Test specialist a year beforehand. Many pundits thought that his nagging medium-fast bowling would prove easily hittable.

By 2019, he is solidly established as New Zealand’s premiere new ball bowler. He is rightly ranked 2nd in the world, behind only Jasprit Bumrah. Since the end of the last CWC he has taken 107 wickets at an average of 24.59, which, if one considers the high-scoring nature of this era, is almost as good as the best years of Hadlee and Bond.

The 2019 Boult is getting some of his deliveries up to 145km/h, without losing any of the accuracy that he is known for. This makes him even more dangerous than before. As with Guptill, Williamson and Taylor, Boult is simply a more skilled and more professional version of the player he was at the time of the 2015 CWC.

2019 Black Caps 1, 2015 Black Caps 0

Second seamer: Matt Henry vs. Tim Southee

Since the 2015 Cricket World Cup, the conditions of the game environment have changed. Pitches are much flatter, especially in England. Naturally, bowling averages have gone up. This means that it has been much harder than before to take wickets cheaply.

Nevertheless, Henry has taken 55 wickets since the last CWC, at an average of 29.72. Southee has taken 54 wickets, despite playing 12 more matches than Henry, at an average of 41.46. Many will be surprised to hear that Henry has taken more wickets since the final against Australia, on account of that he has played so many fewer games, but that only underlines how effective he has been.

Henry is currently ranked 14th in the world in ODIs, notably ahead of Dale Steyn (16th) and Mitchell Starc (22nd), and was in the top 10 last time he had an extended run in the side. Southee is languishing at 40th. At the start of the 2015 CWC, Southee was ranked 21st, but it’s doubtful that he was as good as Henry is now.

2019 Black Caps 1, 2015 Black Caps 0

Third seamer: Lockie Ferguson vs. Adam Milne

Ferguson is the latest addition to the Black Caps seam battery. Over the past two years, he has been impressive, taking 38 wickets at an average of 23.76. Those are good enough numbers to have seen him climb to 21st in the world rankings, higher than even Mitchell Starc. Although he is still raw, some of the deliveries he puts down would have made Shane Bond proud.

Milne has been bedevilled by injuries, since even before the 2015 CWC. Because of this, he has never been able to get a good run of form going, and as such has only taken 41 wickets in 40 matches, at a career average of 38.56. Despite being economical, Milne has struggled to do real damage with the ball, and at the time of the 2015 tournament was not considered a major strike threat.

Although Milne was just as fast, Ferguson is a much more incisive bowler. Without much precision in either line or length, Milne’s raw pace was hittable. Ferguson has both of those qualities as well as a greater ability to swing the ball. He makes an excellent change of pace for the times when Boult and Henry cannot break through.

2019 Black Caps 1, 2015 Black Caps 0

Spinner: Mitchell Santner vs. Dan Vettori

Santner has cemented a place in the Black Caps ODI side thanks to frugal spin bowling and big hitting from the lower order. Early last year he had an ODI bowling ranking of 7th, thanks to a truly miserly economy rate of 4.68 over his last 50 games. He also averages a handy 27.53 with the bat, and a more than handy 32.30 over the past two seasons. At his favoured position of 8 he averages 37.73.

Vettori, however, was rated as one of the world’s best ODI bowlers before his 2015 swansong. Although he was only 14th in the rankings at the time, he had been ranked as high as 1st, on account of his fiendishly tight fingerspin bowling. By 2015, it was accepted worldwide that the way to deal with Vettori was to just play him out. Hitting him out of the attack was all but impossible.

Santner might well be as good as Vettori at the 2023 CWC, but this is probably one tournament too early for the peak of his career. He certainly has potential to play some decisive roles with both bat and ball this season, but Vettori was a proven performer who was once ranked No. 1 at his chosen discipline.

2019 Black Caps 0, 2015 Black Caps 1

Total – 2019 Black Caps 7, 2015 Black Caps 4

For all the hype around the 2015 Black Caps, and for all the hype around England and India in 2019, few appear to realise quite how strong the 2019 Black Caps side is. Not only will it field three batsmen with higher career averages than Ricky Ponting, but it will also have three seamers with averages below 29, which are fine numbers in this era.

This means that the 2019 side has three of the Black Caps’ best ever batsmen, all in career-best form, as well as a guaranteed 40 overs of world-class bowling, compared to 25-30 at the last tournament. In all, they should be at least as strong a contender as at the 2015 CWC, and must be considered one of the favourites for the title.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 is also available.

Did The World End on December 21st, 2012?

Many people thought that the end of the calendar year 2012 would mark the end of the world. Not only had it apparently been predicted by ancient Mayan astronomers that the world would end then, but Terence McKenna’s Timewave Zero program supported those predictions. This essay examines a terrifying possibility: that the world actually did end on December 21st, 2012 – we just haven’t realised it yet.

People have been conditioned to believe that if an end of world scenario arose, it would look a particular way. Nuclear war, comet strike, zombie virus or mass tsunami are the most popular examples, but we have been made to think that it would be spectacular and cinematic. Chest-rattling explosions and flashes of light and fire come to mind.

Therefore, when December 21st 2012 came and went, and no-one got engulfed in a firestorm, most people assumed that the world did not end, and that it was business as usual. However, there are other, much subtler ways for the world to end.

Leading up to the end of 2011, televangelist Harold Camping ran an extensive fear campaign about an upcoming apocalyptic event called the Rapture. This event would involve all of God’s chosen being “raptured” up into heaven, leaving us sinners behind.

Could something like this really have happened?

Since the end of 2012, many people have been struck with a sense that something is going wrong. It seems like something took a dark turn at some point in the recent past. Since then, there has been less kindness in the world – less light, love and laughter. Things seem to have become unusually grim and serious.

This is reflected in the rising suicide rates. The suicide rate in America has increased by 33% since 1999, and the rate in New Zealand is the highest since records began. Not only suicide, but phenomena correlated to suicide have also increased. There is more depression, more opiate addiction, more loneliness throughout all levels of society.

Some commentators have chalked it up to the lingering financial effects of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, something which bankrupted many businesses and created mass unemployment. The problem is, of course, that the unemployment rate has since recovered: in America it’s an almost nonexistent 3.6%, and in New Zealand it is 4.2%. The malaise has not.

Many feel like we have been forsaken by God. It’s possible that the world really did end in this manner: God’s presence may well have withdrawn from the material world.

It’s possible that the world ended in the sense that the forces that constrained the evil and chaos of the world are no longer present.

Something like Camping’s Rapture may really have happened at the end of 2012. It may be, however, that instead of being pulled into the sky in rapture, those of us who had pleased God enough simply disappeared, their consciousness returning to God’s embrace while the rest of us continued our lives.

After all, we don’t know which of our fellows are conscious and which are not. So it’s entirely possible the consciousness of many people, perhaps a large percentage of people, withdrew from the material world and reunited with God, leaving the rest of us here.

The effect that this would have on the remainder of the world would be subtle, but over time it would become clear.

Absent a divine spark, people will come to make decisions based on the raw programming of their bodies. This means instincts and conditioning, with no higher functions. Apart from sheer intelligence, such people have no tools with which to moderate their behaviour. Not being conscious, they are incapable of using empathy. Metaphysical gold is absent.

Consciousness is essential for empathy because, without it, it’s impossible to truly imagine that another person is conscious, and therefore it’s impossible to realise that causing harm to that person causes suffering to their consciousness.

This means that raw animal lusts, particularly for wealth, status and women, start to reign. When they take over, concern for suffering caused to other people is thrown by the wayside, and the world becomes a much nastier place.

It could be that, on December 21st 2012, a significant amount of consciousness was withdrawn from the world, leaving the rest of us here in a place that had essentially ended.

Civilization VI: Gathering Storm Explains How Humanity Is Doomed

God simulator fans have been busy for the past three months, thanks to the release of the second expansion to Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. Titled Gathering Storm, the expansion offers a number of new mechanics relating to climate. Unfortunately for us is the fact that, insofar as the Civilization games are history simulators, this one suggests that humanity is all but guaranteed to destroy the planet.

The fact that humanity is all but guaranteed to destroy the planet becomes clear if one considers the game theory logic of Gathering Storm.

A game of Civilization normally starts in 4000 B.C. At this point your empire will consist of one small village, a rudimentary knowledge of agriculture, and a gigantic, unknown map full of rivals to be explored. From here, you will be presented with a near-infinitude of different decisions. If you make the correct ones, your civilisation will survive against the military and economic threats posed by the others.

As the scientific knowledge of your civilisation progresses, it will advance through the Classical Era to the Medieval Era, and then to the Renaissance Era. Through each era, your empire’s military power increases, but nothing you do affects the global environment until you discover industrialisation. Once you get to the Industrial Era, your scientists are beginning to grapple with the uses of coal.

This means three major things. The first is that it makes naval vessels like ironclads and battleships possible. The second is that it makes coal power plants possible. The third is that the world atmosphere starts to become polluted as these units and buildings consume fossil fuels.

Let’s say you’re at war with someone (and, let’s face it, you probably are). The inexorable logic of war in the industrial age is that victory mostly comes down to getting the most and the biggest guns onto the field. This means that war is mostly a matter of production. Whoever has the most factories can produce the most guns, whoever has the most shipyards can produce the biggest navy, whoever has the best railway network can get the most nitre to the ammunition factories etc.

In Gathering Storm, it’s possible to harness the power of coal to not only create a more powerful range of naval vessels, but also to fuel power plants that greatly increase the productivity of the empire’s workshops, factories and arsenals. This also has the effect of spewing pollution into the atmosphere, measured in-game by CO2 levels.

In the Civilization series, technological advancement tends to proceed at roughly the same speed for everyone. This means that any technological and military advantages are usually slim and sometimes short-lived. So it’s very possible that, when the player discovers industrialisation, they are in a war that they are losing or which has stalemated. The increased power that comes from harnessing coal, then, is often enough to break the deadlock.

So the imperatives to burn coal and oil at the expense of the global environment are inescapable. If you don’t do it, your enemy will, and then they will destroy you. He who rapes the planet the fastest gets the edge on his enemies – and stays alive. As above so below: the kill-or-be-killed logic of the animal world applies at all levels of human organisation.

This is not just a matter of game-world logic either.

By 1903, British Admiral John Fisher had realised the strategic imperative to switch the British Navy from coal to oil. A navy that was fueled by oil was many times more efficient than one fueled by coal. Its ships, compared to coal-powered ships, had greater range, greater speed, lighter weight, required a smaller crew – and could carry more guns.

Fisher encountered some difficulty in persuading his higher-ups to agree to the change. Eventually, however, the iron logic prevailed, and the Royal Navy switched to oil just in time for World War One. The British strategic victory at the Battle of Jutland underlined the degree to which the switch to oil had created a distinct naval advantage. A failure to have done so would have meant defeat.

Of course, this profound naval advantage had to be maintained – which meant that military control over Middle Eastern oil fields had to be maintained, which meant that a massive navy had to be maintained. In other words, the Empire became irrevocably committed to the logic of maintaining a perpetual advantage on their enemy by controlling more energy.

At this point, the extreme difficulty of taking measures to preserve the Earth’s environment by way of not burning too many fossil fuels becomes apparent. If the Royal Navy had remained on coal, it’s possible that the Germans would have switched to oil and then won a military advantage. This could have led to the destruction of Britain itself, for that is the nature of military advantages.

Why would one side sit back and allow their enemies to obtain a strategic advantage over them? They wouldn’t. In the same way that no Civilization player will refuse to build battleships and power plants and allow the other players to destroy him, no real-life leader would refuse a military advantage that kept their people safe.

What emerges, from a game theory perspective, is a global tragedy of the commons-style scenario. The payoff to the people burning the fossil fuel is that they keep all the benefits of harnessing the energy. The drawback is the environmental damage done by burning the fossil fuels, which are mostly spread out across the entire world.

We do have one great factor in our favour. On our planet, technological advancement occurred in an extremely unequal manner, unlike in a game of Civilization. The Industrial Revolution began in Britain, and by the time the rest of the world had caught up, the British had built a global empire.

This made it possible for a minority of nations to develop so far economically that they were able to produce scientists who could foresee the danger of burning too many fossil fuels, and before we had burned so many that the planet was on an unavoidable path to disaster. And here we are today, but at a crossroads.

It’s not clear what the path away from this situation is. However, as this newspaper has mentioned before, the average person will eventually have to cut their consumption to a level roughly equal to that of a New Zealand beneficiary. This is not optional, as the planet simply cannot support more than this. The only thing certain is that a turn away from materialist consumption is necessary.

Understanding the Globalist/Nationalist Dichotomy

In psychologist and political scientist Lee De-Wit’s recent book ‘What’s Your Bias?‘ he spoke of a new order of political alliances. The political order of today, he contends, is no longer a matter of change vs. stability, as it was during the French Revolution, or a matter of labour vs. capital as in the Industrial Revolution. Today it’s nationalist vs. globalist.

The natural basis of solidarity is biological. The strongest bond in the world is between the mother and offspring of animal species, in particular K-selected species such as humans and elephants. Mothers of any mammal species become dangerous if their offspring are threatened; many men have been killed by wandering between a mother bear and her cubs. This fierce willingness to protect is the basis for all solidarity.

It is in order to work in accordance with this natural bond that men choose to form monogamous families. The formation of a nuclear family allows for the maximum possible division of labour, so that the mother is able to fully utilise her natural love for her offspring, while the father is able to fully utilise his muscular advantage in gathering resources. Therefore, the father works with the natural solidarity of mother and child.

Families naturally bond together and form tribes, with a chieftain who settles disputes. These tribes naturally form together and form clans, and these clans naturally bond together and form nations. This process of natural bonds of solidarity leading to higher levels of social order was described by Aristotle in Politics. A nationalist, therefore, is someone who identifies with their wider kin group.

Globalism comes from the other direction. The first truly global system was the British Empire, because the British were the first to control the ocean navigation routes of the entire planet. This they achieved after their victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. Being in control of a global system, the British used it to meet their desires for increased material prosperity.

They did this in a manner similar to the previous empires, such as the Spanish and Portuguese – they imposed it on whoever had the materials. Because controlling the sea lanes made them militarily unstoppable, it was not necessary to obtain the consent of the people who lived on top of those resources. If the British respected the locals enough, they worked with them; if not, they butchered them.

Globalist logic, therefore, is not to see the nation as a family to which one belongs, but as a collection of resources that one exploits. The horrific thing about globalist logic is that it reduces human beings to dollar values and spreadsheet entries. This is why the idea of globalism imposing itself on the nation engenders so much anger among those who are loyal to a kin group.

Whether or not a person is a nationalist is primarily a matter of whether they are loyal to the people of the nation, or loyal to foreign ideologies and interests that might seek to exploit it. A person cannot be neither, unless they are also indifferent to all of the political issues influenced by this dichotomy, and those are many.

For instance, whether or not a person was born in New Zealand has a moderately strong correlation with their likelihood to vote for a nationalist party. Dan McGlashan showed in Understanding New Zealand that the correlation between being born in New Zealand and voting for the New Zealand First party was 0.54.

This is entirely logical, because there’s no point in having in-group loyalty towards a group that you don’t really belong to. If a person is born overseas, then it’s much easier for them to up sticks and move to yet another country. A person born in New Zealand, however, probably has cousins (and aunts and uncles etc.) also born here. Therefore, the New Zealand nation is their kin group.

Globalists are the children of the Empire. They don’t necessarily have loyalty to the people who they live around, because their immediate ancestors are often from somewhere else. Because the people around them are not part of their wider kin group, they feel no need to make decisions with that kin group in mind. They are comfortable exploiting them for the sake of their own personal gain, or for the gain of their kin group.

A nationalist, then, represents their people, whereas a globalist represents either another kin group somewhere else, themselves or an ideology. This ideology can be anything, but it’s usually the ideology of the Empire itself. A thousand years ago, the globalist ideology was Christianity. Today, the globalist ideology is neoliberalism, otherwise known as globohomo.

An important point is that this globalist-nationalist dichotomy cuts right across the left-right dichotomy, and could be argued to have replaced it.

The world’s globalists are split across the left and the right wings.

The left-wing globalists are ecocommunists who want a one world government that manages and allocates all of the world’s resources. These ecocommunists see ecological crises – and the perceived threat of such crises – as a great opportunity to get people to accept a global government. Mass immigration is great because it destroys national loyalties, making people more willing to accept being loyal to a global system.

The right-wing globalists are hypercapitalists who don’t want any government at any level. These free marketeers are in favour of globalism for purely economic reasons. They don’t care about the effect that importing cheap labour has on working class neighbourhoods, because they don’t live in them. All they want is the freedom to come, plunder, and then leave with the loot, and therefore laws protecting the nations are opposed.

Neither of these groups care much for natural bonds, such as to family or village. They are simply those with loyalties elsewhere, or to themselves only. ‘Globalist’ is, therefore, not at all a euphemism for Jew. An Englishman living in Auckland who has no loyalty to New Zealand is just as much the globalist as any New York Jew working in high finance.

The nationalists, likewise, are split across the left and the right wings.

Left-wing nationalists opposes mass immigration on account of the effect it has on the nation’s workers. They are concerned about the effect that a reserve pool of cheap labour will have on their people’s wages. They are also concerned that mass immigration will destroy the solidarity necessary for the nation to agree to welfare measures like a UBI.

Right-wing nationalists, by contrast, oppose mass immigration for the reason that they dislike people not of their nation, and believe they should stay away. Right-wing nationalists have problems with things like racemixing, which left-wing nationalists don’t really care about. Both sides also sharply disagree when it comes to measures such as work for the dole or drug law reform. Right-wing nationalists don’t care about working-class wages and don’t want a UBI anyway.

Because of their shared opposition to globalism, left-wing nationalists often get lumped in with right-wing nationalists by globalist propagandists. This has led to the absurd spectacle of politicians who are supposedly working-class representatives championing things like raising the refugee quota, despite that it instantly weakens the bargaining position of the native working class.