Christopher Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author, polemicist, debater and journalist who in his youth took part in demonstrations against the Vietnam War, joined organisations such as the International Socialists while at university and began to identify as a socialist. However, after 9/11 he no longer regarded himself as a socialist and his political thinking became largely dominated by the issue of defending civilization from terrorists and against the totalitarian regimes that protect them. Hitchens nonetheless continued to identify as a Marxist, endorsing the materialist conception of history, but believed that Karl Marx had underestimated the revolutionary nature of capitalism. He sympathized with libertarian ideals of limited state interference, but considered libertarianism not to be a viable system. In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, he supported the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. After 9/11, Hitchens advocated for the invasion of Iraq. In the 2004 election, he very slightly favored the incumbent Republican President George W. Bush or was neutral and in 2008 he favored the Democratic candidate Barack Obama over John McCain despite being critical of both of them.

Political orientation First principles Alexander Linklater has summarized Hitchens' basic intellectual outlook as follows:

British republicanism Hitchens was a vocal supporter of republicanism in the United Kingdom, advocating the abolition of the monarchy, and in 1990 published the book-long polemic The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish. His 1998 documentary Princess Diana: The Mourning After accused the British media of playing an essential role in creating a national, unchallengeable, and at times hysterical cult of personality surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, whereas previously they had been extremely critical of her and the monarchy after she had separated and divorced from Charles, Prince of Wales, and was having an affair with Egyptian billionaire Dodi Fayed. Hitchens claimed the public were behaving irrationally, and that many appeared to not even know why they were mourning. He also scrutinised the level of censorship against criticism of Diana and the monarchy but was accused, in a review by The Independent, of exaggerating on this point.

Labour Party In 1965, Hitchens joined the Labour Party on the very first day he was eligible to vote, but along with the majority of the Labour students' organization was expelled in 1967, because of what Hitchens called "Prime Minister Harold Wilson's contemptible support for the war in Vietnam". Since then he stated he had "re-enlisted a few times" back into the Labour Party. In a 2001 interview with Reason, he said that, in 1979, despite being a member of the Labour Party, he wasn't going to vote for them, nor could he bring himself to "vote Conservative." He abstained from voting. Hitchens stated that by not voting for the Labour Party he was effectively voting for Margaret Thatcher to win, which he said he had "secretly hoped would happen." In a 2005 Vanity Fair article, he endorsed Tony Blair in the 2005 general election, mainly due to his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In a 2009 Slate article, he described that in the late 1970s the Labour Party moved to the right and stated that the downfall of the Labour Party came about upon Gordon Brown's becoming Prime Minister.

European Union Hitchens was a supporter of the European Union. In an appearance on C-SPAN in 1993, Hitchens said, "As of 1992, there is a now a Euro passport that makes you free to travel within the boundaries of... member countries, and I've always liked the idea of European unity, and so I held out for a Euro passport. So I travel as a European."Hitchens – For the Sake of Argument (1993)

Speaking at the launch of his brother Peter Hitchens' book, The Abolition of Britain at Conway Hall in London, Hitchens denounced the so-called Eurosceptic movement, describing it as "the British version of fascism". He went on to say, "Scepticism is a title of honour. These people are not sceptical. They're fanatical. They're dogmatic".Christopher Hitchens 1999 Discussing 'The Abolition of Britain' with Peter Hitchens

Northern Ireland During a debate with George Galloway in 2005, Hitchens revealed that he was "a lifelong supporter of the reunification of Ireland". Many times, when discussing "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, Hitchens would refer to their location as simply "Ireland", rather than "Northern Ireland", as for example in an article written for Slate in 2007, discussing the power-sharing and devolved government in Northern Ireland and describing it as "an agreement to divide the spoils of Ireland's six northeastern counties". During the IRA bombing campaigns on Great Britain, which began in the 1970s, Hitchens claimed that he had "kept two sets of books: I didn't like bombs, I didn't like the partition of Ireland."

Libertarianism and capitalism In a 2001 interview with Reason, Hitchens said he had been interested in libertarian ideas when he was younger, but set aside those interests in the 1960s. He stated that capitalism had become the more revolutionary economic system, and he welcomed globalisation as "innovative and internationalist", but added, "I don't think that the contradictions, as we used to say, of the system, are by any means all resolved." He also stated that he had a renewed interest in the freedom of the individual from the state, but that he still considered libertarianism "ahistorical" both on the world stage and in the work of creating a stable and functional society, adding that libertarians are "more worried about the over-mighty state than the unaccountable corporation" whereas "the present state of affairs ... combines the worst of bureaucracy with the worst of the insurance companies." He also said that libertarians did not have a clear foreign policy stance.

In a 2001 C-SPAN appearance, he told a caller:

In a 1986 video debate on Socialism vs Capitalism with John Judis VS Harry Binswanger and John Ridpath, Hitchens said:

Objectivism Hitchens said of Objectivism, "I have always found it quaint, and rather touching, that there is a movement in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough".

Marxism and socialism In a 2001 interview with Reason, Hitchens said he became a Marxist and a Trotskyist in his teens, beliefs that further developed during his time at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1966, he was demonstrating in Trafalgar Square against the Vietnam War. In 1967, he joined the International Socialists while at Balliol College, Oxford. Under the influence of Peter Sedgwick, who translated the writings of Russian revolutionary and Soviet dissident Victor Serge, Hitchens forged an ideological interest in Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist socialism. Shortly after he joined "a small but growing post-Trotskyist Luxemburgist sect". This organisation is now known as the Alliance for Workers' Liberty. He became a socialist "largely [as] the outcome of a study of history, taking sides ... in the battles over industrialism and war and empire." He was also drawn into the political left by his anger over the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, racism and "oligarchy", including that of "the unaccountable corporation." He also said in the same interview with Reason that he could no longer say "I am a socialist". Socialists, he claimed, had ceased to offer a positive alternative to the capitalist system.

In a June 2010 interview with The New York Times, he stated that "I still think like a Marxist in many ways. I think the materialist conception of history is valid. I consider myself a very conservative Marxist". In 2009, in an article for The Atlantic entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx", Hitchens frames the late-2000s recession in terms of Marx's economic analysis and notes how much Marx admired the capitalist system that he called for the end of, but says that Marx ultimately failed to grasp how revolutionary capitalist innovation was. Hitchens was an admirer of Che Guevara, yet in an essay written in 1997, he distanced himself from Che, and referred to the mythos surrounding him as a "cult". In 2004 he re-emphasized his positive view of Che, commenting that "[Che's] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time. He was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do – fought and died for his beliefs."

He continued to regard Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin as great men, and the October Revolution as a necessary event in the modernisation of Russia. In 2005, Hitchens praised Lenin's creation of "secular Russia" and his attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church, describing the church's power as "absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition".

In God is not Great, Hitchens called Marxism his "own secular faith" that "has been shaken and discarded, not without pain." He referred to his period of Marxist faith as "when I was a Marxist."

According to Andrew Sullivan, his last words were "Capitalism, downfall."

Views on American presidents Bill Clinton Hitchens became increasingly disenchanted by the presidency of Bill Clinton, accusing him of being a rapist, a liar, and war criminal. Hitchens said the missile attacks by Clinton on Sudan constituted a war crime.Christopher Hitchens, No One Left To Lie To (Verso, 2000) Hitchens criticized Clinton for his pardon of Marc Rich and others who had donated to Clinton, overseeing the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, his relationships with Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers.

In 1999, Hitchens became involved in the Impeachment trial of Bill Clinton when Hitchens friend and Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal said under oath during a deposition that he had never described Monica Lewinsky as a stalker. In response to Blumenthal's testimony Hitchens submitted a sworn affidavit saying that he had in fact described Lewinsky as a stalker at a lunch with Hitchens and his wife.

George W. Bush

Hitchens supported Ralph Nader in the 2000 US presidential election. He elaborated on his support for Nader in a discussion with Eric Alterman on Bloggingheads.tv, indicating that he was disenchanted with the candidacy of both George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Prior to the September 11 attacks in 2001, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Hitchens was critical of President George W. Bush's "non-interventionist" foreign policy. He also criticised Bush's support for intelligent design and capital punishment. Hitchens defended Bush's post-11 September foreign policy, but he also criticised the actions of US troops in Abu Ghraib and Haditha, and the US government's use of waterboarding, which, after voluntarily undergoing it, he argued was definitely torture. After Dick Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby was found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury, Hitchens defended Libby and called on Bush to pardon him.

Hitchens supported George W. Bush in the 2004 US presidential election. He made a brief return to The Nation just before the election and wrote that he was "slightly" for Bush; shortly afterwards, Slate polled its staff on their positions on the candidates and mistakenly printed Hitchens' vote as pro-John Kerry. Hitchens shifted his opinion to "neutral", saying: "It's absurd for liberals to talk as if Kristallnacht is impending with Bush, and it's unwise and indecent for Republicans to equate Kerry with capitulation. There's no one to whom he can surrender, is there? I think that the nature of the jihadist enemy will decide things in the end".

In January 2006, Hitchens joined with four other individuals and four organisations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, as plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ACLU v. NSA, challenging Bush's warrantless domestic spying program; the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU.