Paris, along with London, Rome, and New York City, is one of the most iconic locations in the Western World. Washington, D.C. gets an honorable mention, of course, simply because it's the United States' capital, but I guarantee that if you polled people about cities to visit before you die, Paris would be at the top of the list. 

And Paris is burning, along with other French cities, and rioters are waving Palestinian flags as they light fires, loot stores, and call for blood. 

The news coverage goes to great lengths to mischaracterize what is happening as schoolchildren protesting for better schools, and indeed there are students scattered among the rioters, but that is as accurate as the "fiery but mostly peaceful" riots of 2020 being civil rights marches comparable to Martin Luther King's speech on the National Mall. 

It's all about Narrative™ control; for whatever reason, and we have discussed those reasons many times, so I won't do so here, the transnationalists are determined to wipe away national identities and Western Civilization by creating "global citizens" who are happy to live under the rule of technocrats, and mass migration is one of the key techniques they are using to accelerate the trend toward the elimination of national borders and the dissolution of national identities. 

The goal is to create "Davos Man" (the World Economic Forum famously meets every year in Davos, Switzerland) — people who are compliant, who "own nothing and are happy," and who are willing to trade freedom for security and predictability. In other words, they want a form of soft totalitarianism akin to Tocqueville's vision of "soft despotism" that makes each of us small under the watchful gaze of a benevolent, all-powerful state. 

Recommended
One of the Most Brutal Political Campaign Ads Ever Is Unleashed - 'My Daughter Is a Liar' Beege Welborn WSJ: Guess Who’s Coming Next in France Ed Morrissey

What Tocqueville saw as a dystopia, the transnationalists see as a utopia. And, understanding little of human nature, they somehow believe that importing Third-Worlders into western societies will create a solvent that dissolves our cultural identities, allowing them to resculpt our cultures into ones where we are sheep ready to be led. 

It's an ugly vision, but what makes it worse is that it misunderstands human beings, the importance of culture in forming our identities, and the fact that Third Worlders are even less inclined to give up their cultural identities than Westerners are. Instead, when you import the Third World, you get the third world. 

Over the past 25 years, we have seen the results of pursuing this vision. The relentless push to dissolve western culture and replace it with Davos Man's has meant mass migration at a scale not seen in millennia. And every time something similar has happened in the past, the old gets swept away and replaced by the new. Rome fell. Christian Constantinople became Istanbul as the Orthodox were pushed out. Muslims colonized Israel, and Arabs swept North Africa and the Middle East, replacing the former Christian population through replacement or forced conversion. 

One identity group replaced another; even if many of the people remained, the culture changed. 

It's no surprise that European populations are pushing back at the results of mass migration and refusing to go quietly, and the reaction of the transnationalists, who still don't understand what they are doing or at least don't want to take responsibility, is worried not about the destruction but rather about the backlash to it. 

Thus, the New York Times' headline worries that the "Far Right" is taking advantage of the chaos caused by the transnational elite's own policies to make the case against transnationalism. 

Why, yes, yes, they are. And you know why? In this case, the "far right" is...right. 

As communists and Islamists burn down cities, the public will flock to those who are proven right and promise to deal with the disaster that the elites have created. It's a pretty natural response, don't you think? 

Now I don't want to endorse the French "far right," although many who are stuck with that label are anything but. They are just opponents of the current elite consensus. 

But let's assume, as is sometimes the case, that unsavory figures exist within the so-called "far right" coalition; what has empowered them and raised their profile? It's the fact that the transnationalists promised that their policies would create a prosperous, safe utopia, and instead have led to France's precious cultural artifacts and the public peace burning down. 

Nothing was more easily predictable than the backlash, and the obsession with suppressing it is a last gasp (I hope) of the transnationalists trying to hold onto power. We are well past the point where immigration policies can be recalibrated, or tolerance for left-wing "activism" can be allowed to continue. For better or worse, a decisive response is necessary, and if the people in power don't get things under control, others will. 

Of course, that won't replace chaos with utopia. One set of problems will replace another, because pendulums swing. And since the pendulum of transnationalism was pushed too far, the backlash will likely push it too far in the other direction. 

Not long ago, if the transnationalists had listened, a recalibration might have been possible, but that time has passed, and there is no indication that those in power WANT to recalibrate. They are as extreme as their ideological opponents in their anti-nationalist ideology. 

All of this could have been avoided, if not entirely, then at least in its extremity. There is no nirvana on Earth, and no perfect, final state that can be called the "End of History." But wise men can create systems with checks and balances that moderate pendulum swings, and too few wise men hold power these days. 

Unless the current elite is pushed out of power, and soon, what follows the "Far Right" the Times and other Establishment outlets fear will be something far worse. There are few Javier Mileis out there, and far more populist rabble-rousers who will seize the anger of the majorities and whip up populist frenzies. 

None of those potential extremists can seize power in the foreseeable future, but if the current elites hold on too tightly to power, they will be pushed out. The chaos we see now will give way to a battle between the genuine far right and the Far Left.