My last post talked about how uber-Viking and walking corpse factory Harald Sigurdsson, King of Norway tried to become the King of England. Cliffs notes version: Harald had been absolute hard core killing machine for decades but he’d gotten old. He died in battle and probably gave everyone in Valhalla a wedgie that night.
England got less than a month’s peace before the next guy gave it a shot. William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, arrived on the scene. William had some very solid arguments why he was the legitimate successor. In the battle of Hastings, William explained his arguments by killing lots of Englishmen. He kept killing English soldiers until the English King, Harold Godwinson, was dead. That’s how William got to be the new English King. You’d think killing Englishmen would be bad for your prospects as an English leader but that’s incorrect. Nobody gives a shit about the peons or the soldiers. Ever.
William the Bastard was now William the Conqueror and he wanted to shore up his claim. To do this he did everything the modern woke movement does. The only difference is people in the old days lived in real life and not Twitter; so violence back then wasn’t words, it was violence. Every question about William’s claim to the throne was officially declared misinformation. Misinformation was banned. For several years various Nobles raised small armies and attempted to “petition for redress of grievances”. William’s army killed them.
William spent a solid decade deplatforming people who questioned the narrative. It worked. Soon he controlled the Overton Window. You could agree with William or you could die. If you agreed but came from the opposing political party, you’d probably die anyway. William handled questions of governance and open discussion just like mainstream journalists manage Republicans in 2021.
William did his time’s version of “draining the swamp”. He wanted his Nobility to support his Regime. Trump couldn’t get the military to retreat from Afganistan or IHS to build a wall. William didn’t want to deal with that Never Trump shit. He fixed the swamp by ejecting the entire ruling class.
Just like now, he’d take a good look at a Nobleman who’d been born and raised and lived his entire life in England and assess whether the guy needed canceling. He did this by asking “does this nobleman who is born of English nobility seem to be English? Does he speak English? Does he look pale? Does he like fish and chips?” If that was the case, he was toast. His lands would be seized and he’d replaced by a recent immigrant from Normandy. Diversity is our strength!
Call it a “canceling” if you will. William canceled everyone who didn’t look like, share opinions with, have family ties to, and act in accordance with, William. William wasn’t a total asshole. Some English nobles weren’t killed, just the vast majority of them. Actually I’m not sure about that. I don’t know how many Dukes and Earls survived. Maybe none did?
Anyway, once the land and royal titles were redistributed away from the filthy Deplorables in flyover country to the new sophisticated Europeans who were on the right side of history, William was happy. Everyone in English politics spoke French and they agreed that William was universally loved. You know discussions in social media where everyone has the same opinion because if you don’t share that view you’re already banned? William the Conqueror would love it.
What does it mean related to 2021? Maybe it means I ought to recognize corrupt successions as such. At the very least they’ve happened before and will happen again. I can be pissed but neither Godwinson nor Harald nor William gave a shit about peons like me. Same could be said of virtually every living human in DC right now. They do not give a flying fuck about my careful reading of Constitutional law or worried analysis of Electoral statistics.
