Political Psychology – Maverick Philosopher

Charlie’s Murderers

This catalog should allay any doubts you may still have about the depth of human stupidity, depravity, and sheer viciousness. A friend, alluding to the world-wide celebration of Kirk’s life, tells me he has never been more hopeful. I believe he is fooling himself. We are spiraling downward. Hot civil war is now a clear and present danger.

You are living in a dream world if you think mutually respectful free speech and unrestrained dialog can save us. Wonderful things, no doubt, but they come too late, presupposing as they do common ground — which is precisely what we no longer have. The problem of common ground has several sides. I will mention just one now.

Suppose you agree with me that there is objective truth and that it is possible for us to know some of it. (That is something few will concede in these days of Claudine Gay and ‘my truth,’ but just suppose.) That concession’s a start, but if you and I are ‘siloed into our positions’ and we each believe we possess the truth about a particular question, then truth-seeking dialog is a sham. For if you already know the truth, or rather think you do, you will not be working with me to find the truth: one does not seek what one possesses. And vice versa: if I am convinced that I have the truth, then my conversation with you cannot be truth-seeking dialog. What we will each be engaged in is an attempt to change the other person’s mind. For genuine truth-seeking dialog to occur, there must be a Socratic confession of ignorance on both sides, or at least an admission that one might be mistaken in one’s beliefs. Kirk was no latter-day Socrates: he was not out to show people that they didn’t know what they thought they knew about things that he knew he knew little or nothing about so that they might reason together in search of the truth. Kirk lacked the doxastic modesty of Socrates. His doxastic stance was more like the firm conviction of Christ. Doxastic modesty is what is lacking today on so many issues that divide us. Neither side admits that it might be wrong. And this, I think, is a major source of all the rage, hatred, and violence, both verbal and physical.

So, while Charlie Kirk was morally superior to his enemies — and in particular greatly superior to those who rejoice in his assassination — he too was convinced that he was right as are his followers who are convinced that he is now with Jesus in heaven. Kirk was also intellectually superior to most of his enemies: he could give reasons for his positions and they were better than the ones they could give for theirs. He had unshakeable convictions and he could defend them rationally. Pressed on why he accepted the Resurrection of Christ, he replied that so many martyrs would not have gone to their deaths in that belief were it not true. The argument has some merit but it is hardly conclusive. That would not be a problem if his interlocutors were not adamantly opposed to Christianity and all of its presuppositions. But they are. Hence their hatred of him and his ideas and their fear that his powerful influence would lead to their suppression. This fear is one, though not the only, factor that fueled their desire to see him assassinated.

When there was still a large chunk of common ground, mutual respect came easy and conversation among political opponents was fruitful for the ironing out of details against the backdrop of commonly held values and presuppositions. Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill differed politically but not as enemies; after hours they were on friendly terms. Those days are over. There is no longer any common ground to stand on. Political opponents are now political enemies, enemies who see each other as existential threats. When we see each other as existential threats is when the guns and knives come out, and when assassination becomes politically if not morally ‘justifiable.’

Addendum (9/15)

Is political assassination ever morally justifiable? I think most of us will agree that the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, Operation Valkyrie, was morally justified, despite its being illegal by the laws of the Third Reich. Morality trumps legality. So if Trump really were another Hitler, as our political enemies madly assert, then his assassination would be morally justifiable, and by extension so would the assassination of others such as Kirk who strongly supported Trump and his MAGA agenda. Now surely seasoned politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris who assert with a straight face that Trump is Hitler or a fascist do not believe what they assert, in fact, they know that what they assert is false: they are smearing him in an attempt to gain power for themselves and their party. Unfortunately, many naive, ignorant young people believe what their elders say, and some of these are willing to act on their beliefs. So I say that such contemptible liars as Clinton and Harris have Kirk’s blood on their hands, figuratively speaking, due to their egregiously irresponsible rhetoric.

The ‘Paranoid’ Dems: Is Trump’s D. C. ‘Takeover’ a Prelude to Something Worse?

You decide. If you want my opinion, Dementocrat 'paranoia' is but a manifestation of TDS. Never forget: our political enemies are ever at work bringing Trump's 'inner Hitler' to light.

Related: No Entity without Identity

Trump = Hitler

Addendum (8/22): Trump's One-Week D. C. Clean-Up. Does it show that the Dems are destroying their cities by choice? It may be like this: in their race-delusionality, they think that any crackdown on crime would be racist, and their greatest fear is to be called racists.

Why Do the Dems Hate Us?

You can count on the inferior to hate the superior. It's human nature, and an eternal war.

Dio Cassius 38.39.2 (speech of Caesar; tr. Earnest Cary):

Against this prosperity many are plotting, since everything that lifts people above their fellows arouses both emulation and jealousy; and consequently an eternal warfare is waged by all inferiors against those who excel them in any way.

πολλοὶ γὰρ ἐπιβουλεύουσιν αὐτῇ· πᾶν γὰρ τὸ ὑπεραῖρόν τινας καὶ ζηλοῦται καὶ φθονεῖται, κἀκ τούτου πόλεμος ἀίδιός ἐστιν ἅπασι τοῖς καταδεεστέροις πρὸς τοὺς ἔν τινι αὐτῶν ὑπερέχοντας.

Addendum (8/2/2025)

Let's apply the thought I found at Michael Gilleland's erudite site to current events.

Against the prosperity, peace, and manifold accomplishments of the Trump administration that lift people up, both here and abroad, many are plotting, belittling, denigrating, and refusing to acknowledge. The successes of the current administration arouse both emulation and jealousy, or rather envy. The Democrat attempts at emulation are pathetic and childish consisting of such merely performative stunts as throwing F-bombs (Hunter Biden), working out with weights (Swalwell) and waving around a baseball bat while howling in rage (Cory Booker, a.k.a. 'Spartacus'). It is merely performative when a pussy postures as a tough guy.

And let's not forget the self-deportation of such powerhouse intellects as Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres. Rosie, expecting the grass to be greener on the Emerald Isle, discovered that it is illegal there whereas her supply was assured in LaLaLand (Los Angeles) whence she came. And driven mad by the big bad Orange Man's rent-free residence in her narrow and shallow pate, she can't sleep at night, Zanax, like marijuana, being hard to find in Ireland. Her spatial translation has not abated her ire which continues to be regularly displayed on TikTok as Jesse Watters is wont to report.

As for Democrat envy of Trump, it is perhaps the main source of their mindless hatred of the man, a hatred so intense and unhinged as to warrant a quasi-psychiatric appellation, 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' (TDS). The Dems are in such disarray that they are reduced to trotting out their discredited bromides and tired bullshit, and as for the various cards they play, race, white supremacy, Hitler, and the rest, they haven't noticed that they are played out. People who ought to know better such as Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) claim with a straight face that the Dems failed to get their message across. Kelly, a former astronaut, is an intelligent man, but such people sometimes say stupid things. The Dems have no message and they have no messenger. A message both salutary and sellable cannot consist of an embrace of 80-20 issues such as allowing biological males to compete in women's sporting events, and a 90-10 issue such as allowing the nation's border to remain wide open. And who might be their messenger in 2028? Kamala the clown? Did you hear the airhead's latest inanities? Are you paying attention?

What we have here is a war for the soul of America. That was one of the few intelligent things Traitor Joe said. The current Dems are a pack of inferiors who hate us because of our superiority morally and intellectually.

"An eternal warfare is waged by all inferiors against those who excel them in any way."

Addendum 2 (8/3/2025). "It is merely performative when a pussy postures as a tough guy." Replete with trademark MavPhil alliteration. Corroboration:

A highly theatrical Sen. Cory Booker screamed a series of false justifications for his obstructionism on the Senate floor. “For us to move forward as a body is to be complicit in what Donald Trump is doing. I say, ‘no.’”

The New Jersey Democrat asserted the administration was rounding up people “with a right to be in this country,” unaware the Kilmar Abrego-Garcia “Maryland Man” story has been exposed as a hoax. Far from being a sympathetic citizen, Abrego-Garcia is an illegal alien facing human trafficking charges.

Mr. Booker also pretends that CBS didn’t fire Stephen Colbert because of his rock-bottom television ratings. “I see businesses taking late night talk show hosts off the air because they dare to insult a president,” Mr. Booker said. “That is complicity with an authoritarian leader who is trashing our constitution. It’s time for Democrats to have a backbone, it’s time for us to fight, it’s time to draw a line.”

Retribution and Psycho-Political Projection

'Retribution' has two main senses in English, and they are importantly different. The word can refer to revenge or to a form of justice, retributive justice. Do I have to explain that justice is not revenge? Conflating the two, journalistic shills for deep-state malefactors try to dismiss as revenge what is a quest for justice to right the wrongs perpetrated against Donald Trump by said malefactors.

Tulsi Gabbard's exposure of the Russia Collusion Hoax has leftists in our government sweating. Jonathan Turley names names: John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe.

But of course one cannot expect our political enemies to play fair in what they take to be a war. So this comes as no surprise:

Former Attorney General Eric Holder told MSNBC on Sunday morning that the Justice Department is being politicized to attack enemies of the Trump administration and "put at risk the lives and well-being" of people who oppose the president.

Talk about projection! What Holder & Co. are accusing our side of doing is precisely what they have been doing all along.

There is also the underhanded ploy of accusing us of putting lives at risk when our side rightly responds to their illegal actions. We are supposed to accept the injury meekly, lest our legitimate objections to their outrages inspire some lunatic to go on a rampage. Yet another application of the Left's double-standard 'principle.'

We should never forget what sort of sorry specimen this Holder was and is. See Photo ID: Eric Holder's Assault on Common Sense.

Another Transparently Worthless Argument that Justifies the Questioning of Motives

From my Facebook page, three years ago, today.

Dick Durbin (D-IL): “I’m going to take you back in history for a moment. When that Second Amendment was written, we were talking about the likelihood a person could purchase a muzzle-loading musket.” The implied conclusion, of course, is that the Second Amendment does not protect the right of a citizen to own a semi-automatic rifle such as an AR-15.

If Durbin's argument were any good, then, by parity of reasoning, the free speech clause of the First Amendment would not protect speech transmitted by telegraphy, telephony, radio, any RF device, television, e-mail, text message, you get the picture. But of course no one in his right mind who upholds the right of free speech could conceivably restrict its exercise to such media as were available at the time of the Founders.

So Durbin's argument is worthless. You tell me what his motive is in giving such a specious argument. Let's be charitable and assume that he is not just plain stupid.

I go deeper into this topic over at Substack in Geraldo Rivera and the Musket Canard.

On Lame Appeals for Civility

Trey Gowdy issued one on his show last night. The man needs to stiffen his spine and realize that our political opponents are enemies with whom we share insufficient common ground for productive debate. They don't need debating but defeating. He did guest a Dem pol who talked some sense and seemed decent, but the guy was an outlier who apparently hasn't yet grasped that his party is and has been for some time a hard-Left outfit.

Here at MavPhil my tone is 'edgier' than on Substack and on Facebook it is edgier still. A good writer can write in different tones and voices depending on his audience.

See my Leftists and Civility over at the Stack for a measured partial statement of my views on this topic.

Ray Monk on Frege, Russell, Patriotism and Prejudice

Excerpt:

The single thing I can imagine Russell finding most shocking would be Frege’s endorsement of patriotism as an unreasoning prejudice. The absence of political insight characteristic of his times, Frege says, is due to “a complete lack of patriotism.” He acknowledges that patriotism involves prejudice rather than impartial thought, but he thinks that is a good thing: “Only Feeling participates, not Reason, and it speaks freely, without having spoken to Reason beforehand for counsel. And yet, at times, it appears that such a participation of Feeling is needed to be able to make sound, rational judgments in political matters.” These are surely surprising views for “an absolutely rational man” to express. The man who wanted to set mathematics on surer logical foundations, was content for politics to be based on emotional spasms.

This is a rich and fascinating topic, both intrinsically and especially for me, given my recent deep dive into the world of Carl Schmitt and his antecedents. I will be returning to him. But there is so bloody much else that clamors for my attention. I'm a scatter-shot man to my detriment. Quentin Smith detected that tendency in me way back when. How I miss that crazy guy.

Live long, old friends die, and new friends will never be old.

But Robert A. Heinlein is right: "Specialization is for insects." The trick is to be a jack of all trades but a master of one while running the risk of being a master of none.

The Upside of Zohran Mamdani

What I like about the winner of the New York City mayoral Democrat primary is that he is not a 'stealth ideologue' a phrase I have been using for years to characterize the likes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. Mamdani, unlike the mendacious foursome just mentioned, comes clean about what he and the Dems intend:

Mamdani is now the mainstream of the once great Democratic Party.

The only difference is that Mamdani isn’t afraid to say what other Democratic politicians try to hide.

Think about what Mamdani has proposed or supported:

A yearlong freeze on rent

A $30 minimum wage

Free bus service

City-owned grocery stores

Defunding the police

Calling Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide.

“Mainstream Democrats” support every one of these positions in one way or another.

With the advent of Mamdani it will be more difficult now to remain a Useful Idiot as so many of the supporters of the Dems are. You know these people. We have them in our families and in our neighborhoods and workplaces. A lot of them are the "college-educated white women" of a certain age. They rescue cats and dogs and support what they sincerely believe are good causes. But they are lazy and inattentive and too wrapped up in their private lives to pay proper attention to current events. Their loving and nurturing feminine nature impairs their political judgment and makes them easy marks for the fraudulent come-ons of professional pols like Phony Joe Biden who has 40 years of experience of looking into the camera, smiling, and making an emotional appeal. The women think, "He's a nice man!" They cannot see past the polished style to the lack of substance. Conversely they cannot see past Trump's off-putting style to his genuine and salutary substance. In the case of pretty boy Gavin Newsom, they are so taken by his style that the question of substance doesn't even arise. I had to agree with Sean Hannity one night when he remarked that Joy Behar of The View has a "crush" on him. Joy Behar, that well-fed paragon of wisdom and insight!

But old men, too, are part of the Useful Idiot contingent. Lazy, inattentive, superannuated and superficial, pissing their lives away hitting little white balls into holes and — worst of all — living in the past. Mamdani, as a sort of Fidel redivivus, may help these Rip van Winkles wake up.

One more thing. It is good that the battle lines are clearly laid out. Let the battle begin, the battle for the soul of America. Mamdani is a Great Clarifier as is our boy Trump. John Catsimatidis, billionaire, said on Stuart Varney's show this morning that Trump has God on his side. How would he know? Does the billionaire have a hot line to the divine? What is within the range of our knowledge, however, is that Trump's the man to save the Republic, and make the whole world a safer place, as he already has.

Related: Should Mamdani be Deported?

Ronald Radosh on David Horowitz: A Critical Appreciation

On very rare occasions, something surfaces at The Bulwark worth reading.

Radosh, who is well worth reading, gives his take on Horowitz's flipping of his ideological script, and takes him to task for his late extremism. But how is this judgment by Radosh not itself extreme:

What David is being celebrated for is the opposite of the introspective and empathetic writer, a thoughtful and moderate conservative, evident in his personal books. And his supporters give him credit for helping to create the most repulsive and nasty of the Trump entourage, Stephen Miller, who of course, added his own tribute to David. Another right-wing extremist protégé, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, wrote to single out David’s responsibility for Miller’s career in these words . . . .

What hatreds politics sires! I am reminded of something I wrote in From Democrat to Dissident:

We were friends for a time, but friendship is fragile among those for whom ideas matter. Unlike the ordinary nonintellectual person, the intellectual lives for and sometimes from ideas. They are his oxygen and sometimes his bread and butter. He takes them very seriously indeed and with them differences in ideas. So the tendency is for one intellectual to view another whose ideas differ as not merely holding incorrect views but as being morally defective in so doing. Why? Because ideas matter to the intellectual. They matter in the way doctrines and dogmas mattered to old-time religionists. If one’s eternal happiness is at stake, it matters infinitely whether one “gets it right” doctrinally. If there is no salvation outside the church, you had better belong to the right church. It matters so much that one may feel entirely justified in forcing the heterodox to recant “for their own good.”

Addendum (5/9)

Here is Stephen Miller in action. Trenchant, but wholly on target, and the reprobates who are the recipients of the trenchancy richly deserve it. Miller is neither repulsive nor nasty by any sane measure. Perhaps someone should ask Radosh which side he is on these days.

Would that the extremity of the political polarization of the present could be avoided, including the polarization over polarization itself, its nature, causes, effects, and who is responsible for it. I say they are responsible for it. Our positions are moderate; theirs are extreme.

For example, James Carville, the "ragin' Cajun," is poles apart from the sane and reasonable Victor Davis Hanson. Bang on the links and see for yourself. But 'see' is not the right word inasmuch as leftists are blind and can't see 'jack.' How explain such blindness, such intransigence, such praeter-natural feculence of brain, perversity of will, foulness of heart?

I find it endlessly fascinating. Polarization, I mean. Why this depth of disagreement? But it's all grist for the mill, blog-fodder for the Bill.

For another example, compare Newt Gingrich's sanity to its lack in one who is "terrified" at Trump's judicial picks.

Addendum (5/10): polarization update

TDS at TNR:

Living under a far-right authoritarian regime that is gutting every American institution that keeps people safe, alive, and connected to a thriving civilization, we have to keep asking ourselves how we got here—and how we can get out. And the most important factor in Donald Trump’s win was that Kamala Harris lost.

Trump has run for president three times and Harris is the only person to have lost the popular vote to him. In 2024, he had no special magic; if anything, he was marred as a felon and a failed coup leader. A major part of the problem was Harris, who embodies the change-nothing politics of Hillary Clinton without the latter’s political savvy; and the cautiousness of Joe Biden without his populist instincts.

The Psychology of the Pollyanna . . .

. . . and the political ponerology of Leftism.

A Substack article from exactly one year ago.

Musk Derangement Syndrome

Political pathologies are not to be multiplied praeter necessitatem, but given the praeter-natural lunacy of the Left, a certain amount of quasi-psychiatry is tolerable, and perhaps even helpful unto political salvation and national sanitation. Move over, TDS.

I now hand off to Roger Kimball.

Morning in America!

Hats off to all the patriots who did their civic duty. But this is no time to gloat over the defeat of our enemies. They will not give up or give in. For these totalitarian dogs, the political is everything. They do not suffer, as we do, from The Conservative Disadvantage.

The war is just starting and the national sanitation project will take at least a generation to accomplish. To give you a taste of what we are up against, here is David Frum writing in The Atlantic this morning:

Donald Trump has won, and will become president for the second time. Those who voted for him will now celebrate their victory. The rest of us need to prepare to live in a different America: a country where millions of our fellow citizens voted for a president who knowingly promotes hatred and division; who lies—blatantly, shamelessly—every time he appears in public; who plotted to overturn an election in 2020 and, had he not won, was planning to try again in 2024.

Above all, we must learn to live in an America where an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens have chosen a president who holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, even our military in contempt. Over the past decade, opinion polls showed Americans’ faith in their institutions waning. But no opinion poll could make this shift in values any clearer than this vote. As a result of this election, the United States will become a different kind of country.

In a post from January of this year, Dueling Articles, I arrange a confrontation between Frum and Steve Cortes. The comment thread is a very good one, featuring contributions by the most distinguished among the MavPhil commentariat.

World leaders congratulate Trump.

UPDATE 3:42 PM

Leftist incomprehension:

Jonathan Chait, Americans Didn’t Embrace Trump, They Rejected the Biden-Harris Administration

But Lanny Davis, remember him? displays some self-awareness:

The Morning After: Lessons to Learn — and not to Learn

Auschwitz Survivor: Trump’s not Hitler, but a Mensch

Here:

Jerry Wartski, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, says that Kamala Harris comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is "the worst thing I have ever heard in 75 years living in the United States."

"I know President Trump and he would never say this, and Kamala Harris knows this," he told the New York Post.

“Adolf Hitler invaded Poland when I was 9 years old. He murdered my parents and most of my family," he said. "I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes."

"She owes my parents and everybody else who was murdered by Hitler an apology for repeating this lie."

"He's a mensch," he said about Trump.

Kamala Harris is a contemptible, truth-hating know-nothing, and anyone who would vote for her is a contemptible, truth-hating know-nothing. I hope we can all agree on that.

For more on this delightful, heart-warming topic, see J. D. Vance's response to CNN's Jake Tapper.

UPDATE 10/28

Sasha Stone, Meet the Real Fascists

No Complacency! All Hands on Deck!

The Republic hangs by a thread. We must defeat the Kamalists* and do so decisively. They need not just defeat but demoralization. Unfortunately, too many 'influencers' are predicting a Trump victory. Not wise. We must not wax complacent. Our political enemies will do anything to win. No moral or legal considerations constrain them. We know a priori (in Kant's relative sense of the term) that they will cheat their posteriors off — get the pun? –and then lie their heads off about their cheating. Why shouldn't they lie and cheat? We let them get away with it. Like Bret Baier, we conservatives are hobbled by our virtues, our civility for example.

Roger Kimball the other day, and now Piers Morgan may be doing more harm than good.

Morgan:

“Even if you flippin’ fries at McDonald’s,” Oprah Winfrey once said, “if you are excellent, everybody wants to be in your line.”

I thought of this quote when Donald Trump turned up yesterday at a McDonald’s restaurant in suburban Philadelphia to work a shift making French fries, then handing bags of food to drive-through customers.

As political stunts go, this might have been the best I’ve ever seen, because it served two very powerful purposes in the presidential race.

First, it reminded voters that his rival, Kamala Harris, has repeatedly boasted about having a summer job at McDonald’s to make her sound more relatable to her fellow Americans, but to date, not a single person has been able to verify this.

This is quite extraordinary given how specific she has been, with her campaign team stating that she worked at McDonald’s on Central Avenue in Alameda, Calif., in 1983 after her freshman year at Howard University, working on the cash register, french fries station and ice cream machine.

Read it all.

_____________

*My astute readers of course know not to confuse Kamalism (a coinage I borrow from Thomas Klingenstein) and Kemalism.