Tucker’s premise — that because Britain and America have experienced moral and political decay in the eight years since winning WWII, it would have been better to let the totalitarian fascist win — fails on every level.
It assumes, for one, that Hitler’s regime would have fared better in success than we have. But the totalitarian USSR also won the war, and has been gone forty years already.
Strongman regimes are even less durable than liberal ones.
It also assumes Hitler’s regime would have BEEN better than ours. Morally better.
Hitler didn’t want to fight Britain. He just accidentally built up a massive military and invaded all his neighbors. He didn’t want to invade Poland. He didn’t mean for all the Jews in those camps to die. He was a great leader. Obviously. Better than our own. But he was always stumbling into world wars and committing genocide on accident.
The truth is that victory in civilizational crises often precedes decay. This is the story of history. Humans are not built for victory. We are lessor sons of greater fathers, and the long defeat comes for us all.
And even still, we have agency and are not doomed to let it all fall in our generation just as they did not let it fall in theirs.
The wounded west ever been thus.
We are not the first generation that will have to redeem her anew.
Yes, Tucker, the UK is better off for winning WWII.
America is better off for winning WWII.
And the world would be much worse off if the Nazis had won WWII.
This is not complicated.