Category: Politics

The Mueller Assault on a Duly-Elected President

Roger Kimball:

Stepping back and looking at Mueller’s campaign against the President as a whole, it is clear that Mueller’s activities are meant primarily to intimidate, pressure, and co-opt associates of Donald Trump in order to convince them to bear witness against him.

As I have observed many times, I believe this is part of the biggest political scandal in US history. It involves the mobilisation of deep state actors in the Obama administration and the weaponisation of the FBI and other parts of the Department of Justice.

As Lee Smith noted in a superb summary of the case so far in RealClear Investigations, this sprawling campaign had two phases, an offensive phase to discredit Trump and help elect Hillary Clinton during the campaign of 2016 and then the ongoing defensive phase, which is intended to discredit the Congressional investigation into criminal misconduct by people in the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, and the FBI.

And you are still a Democrat?

Of Trump and The Tempest

Roger Kimball:

I suspect that, come 2024, when President Trump completes his second successful term, Americans will indeed look back, but to the election of Barack Obama and the prospect of a second President Clinton in 2016. They will then wonder how they could have been so misguided as to have elected a naive, anti-American race-hustler like Barack Obama not once but twice, and they will thank their lucky stars that they dodged the bullet of a Hillary Clinton administration, which would have completed the anti-freedom agenda of the deep state and assured generations of economic lassitude and dependency. 

Cohen is correct that Shakespeare is relevant to the Trump administration. But the pertinent play is The Tempest, not Macbeth. In Act II, a few of the shipwrecked men are taking stock of their situation on Prospero’s enchanted island. It soon becomes clear that the island appears very different to different characters:

ADRIAN: The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. 
SEBASTIAN: As if it had lungs and rotten ones. 
ANTONIO: Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen. 
GONZALO: Here is everything advantageous to life. 
ANTONIO: True; save means to live. 
SEBASTIAN: Of that there's none, or little. 
GONZALO: How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green! 
ANTONIO: The ground indeed is tawny. 
SEBASTIAN: With an eye of green in't. 
ANTONIO: He misses not much. 
SEBASTIAN: No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. 

As the play unfolds, it becomes clear that Gonzalo sees the world aright while Antonio and Sebastian are caught in the grip of a fevered delusion.  Their animus and hatred blinded them to reality. The increasingly fanatic and hysterical anti-Trump chorus would do well to reflect on that phenomenon. Their hyperbole has begotten an alarming disconnection from the real world of solid political accomplishment.  The situation is pitiable as well as contemptible. But the malignancy of their vituperation disarms pity before it can even engage. All that is left is contempt, leavened by anger.

A Funeral for a World that Never Was

Solid insight from David Goldman a.k.a "Spengler":

The bright line in American policy divides the utopians who believe that America’s mission is to bring free markets and liberal democracies to the benighted, backward nations of the world, and realists like Trump.

Senator McCain threw his support to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the expectation that it would become a vehicle for Muslim democracy; Donald Trump proposed to insulate America from the problems of the Muslim world.

McCain and Bush are Mainline Protestants, which is to say Wilsonian missionaries. Mitt Romney is the Mormon variety of the same thing.  The Never-Trump neoconservatives, like Bill Kristol, John Podhoretz and the late Charles Krauthammer, played Sancho Panza to Bush’s Don Quixote.

Trump rose to the top in the Republican primaries when he proposed to freeze immigration from some Muslim-majority countries, a stark declaration that America’s safety is what matters, not the fate of nations on the other side of the world.

More than anything else that Trump did, the travel ban horrified the Establishment, but it won the support of 60% of American voters. Trump declared in effect that the United States would rather insulate itself from problems in Muslim-majority nations than fix them. American interests would come first.

Trump inherited a host of problems from the failed Establishment consensus. The greatest of these was the rise of China, which invested in advanced weaponry while the United States spent nearly $6 trillion on its end-of-history illusion. 

[. . .]

Trump’s style has been obstreperous and sometimes rowdy, and he eschews the air of regal noblesse oblige that some of his predecessors brought to the Oval Office. But the hatred he elicits from the Establishment has nothing to do with style, or indeed, with any of his shortcomings: Trump is hated because the American people elected him to bury the Establishment. Last weekend the Establishment obliged by conducting burial services for itself.

That's right, especially the concluding paragraph.  But we ought to distinguish between the Establishment Left's and the Establishment Right's response to Trump, the true political maverick. As I said the other day:

The Left's blind rage against Trump is not primarily because of the man and his personal style, but because of his threat to their agenda. If Trump had Hillary's ideas and policies, and Hillary Trump's, the Left would have overlooked Trump's personal behavior and supported him in the same way that they overlooked the bad behavior of Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton.  They would have dismissed the Access Hollywood tape as locker-room talk in the same way they dismissed Bill Clinton's much worse sexually predatory actions as peccadilloes belonging to his personal life.

The Never-Trumpers, on the other hand, hate Trump primarily because of the man he is, and not primarily because of his ideas and policies.  They hate him because he is a crude and obnoxious outsider, an interloper, who crashed their party and threatened to upset their cozy world.

Proof of this is that Trump's solid conservative accomplishments mollify the bow-tie brigade not one bit.  Their hatred and mindless opposition is in no way reduced by the Gorsuch confirmation, the Kavanaugh nomination, the movement of the U. S. embassy to Israel, the surging stock market, the low unemployment numbers, the defense of religious liberty, and so on down the list.

 

What the Fight is About

Robert W. Merry understands that the fight is not primarily over Trump but over the soul of America and her future.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump opened up a series of fresh fault lines in American politics by advocating new directions for the country that no other politician would discuss. They included a clamp-down on illegal immigration and a serious reduction in overall immigration after a decades-long influx of unprecedented proportions; an effort to address the hollowing out of America’s industrial capacity through trade policies; an end to our nation-building zeal and the wars of choice spawned by it; and a promise to curtail the power of elites who gave us unfettered immigration, an industrial decline, endless wars, years of lukewarm economic growth, and an era of globalism that slighted old-fashioned American nationalism.

[. . .]

Before Trump’s 2016 emergence onto the political scene, many liberals believed the American future belonged to what political analyst Ron Brownstein called the “coalition of the ascendant”—including racial minorities, immigrants, Millennials, and highly educated whites residing primarily along the nation’s two coasts. They were convinced this ascendant force would eventually overwhelm the declining white majority and usher in a new era of globalism, open borders, identity politics, free trade, cultural individualism, foreign policy interventionism, and gun control.

Trump interrupted the coalition of the ascendant on its way to U.S. political hegemony. In the process, he touched off an epic struggle over the definition of America.

For those committed to the new world envisioned by the coalition of the ascendant, it is easy to see Trump, with all of his crudeness and vulgarity, as evil. After all, he’s personally distasteful and he wants to destroy the America of their dreams. But for Trump supporters, he represents their last hope for preserving the old America. These people view the stakes as so high that the president’s personal indecency and civic brutishness simply don’t register as problems. They may wish for a more wholesome leader, but no such person has emerged to take up their cause.

The Left's blind rage against Trump is not primarily because of the man and his personal style, but because of his threat to their agenda. If Trump had Hillary's ideas and policies, and Hillary Trump's, the Left would have overlooked Trump's personal behavior and supported him in the same way that they overlooked the bad behavior of Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton.  The would have dismissed the Access Hollywood tape as locker-room talk in the same way they dismissed Bill Clinton's much worse sexually predatory actions as pecadilloes belonging to his personal life.

The Never-Trumpers, on the other hand, hate Trump primarily because of the man he is, and not primarily because of his ideas and policies.  They hate him because he is a crude and obnoxious outsider, an interloper, who crashed their party and threatened to upset their cozy world.

Proof of this is that Trump's solid conservative accomplishments mollify the bow-tie brigade not one bit.  Their hatred and mindless opposition is in no way reduced by the Gorsuch confirmation, the Kavanaugh nomination, the movement of the U. S. embassy to Israel, the surging stock market, the low unemployment numbers, the defense of religious liberty, and so on down the list.

Was the Pre-Trump World Normal or Abnormal?

Another fine article from a man who is working too hard for his own, and our, good.

An open memo to Professor Hanson:

When I see you on TV, you look all fagged-out and beat-to-hell. We love you, we need you, and we want you to take care of yourself. And please realize that this world, while undeniably real and worthy of some concern, is, sub specie aeternitatis, a vanishing quantity not worthy of the full measure of anyone's concern. Fight the good fight, but look beyond the passing scene and the present fray. Only in that way will you keep things in perspective.

Excerpt:

Open borders and the salad bowl, in cultural terms, had replaced the ideas of sovereignty and the melting pot. Everything from late-night television and Hollywood movies to the NFL and sitcoms had become politicized, or perhaps even weaponized as useful in the cultural struggle to create a progressive U.S. liberated from its past traditions and norms. Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other groups were branded as mainstream progressive voices and their critics as haters, racists, and fascists.

Remember iconic moments such as Mitt Romney’s soft-gloves response to debate moderator Candy Crowley’s hijacking of a presidential debate, Jeb Bush’s avowal that illegal immigration was “an act of love,” or John McCain’s decision to all but rule out any mention of the Reverend Wright during the 2008 campaign. Such was the respectable acquiescence to the new progressive realities.

 

Nice Ladies Leaving the Democrat Party

Here:

Democrats are leaving their party more in sorrow than in anger, but leaving it they are, sickened by the Democratic Party’s hard left turn. Tens of thousands are telling their stories on the #walkaway movement’s public Facebook page. Their YouTube videos are a fascinating window into the innermost thoughts of kind, thoughtful people across America—all former Democrats.

If the nice ladies leave, that will leave only the pussy-hatted nasty women of the ilk of Mad Maxine and Bitter Hillary. Sad!

David Horowitz versus Jonah Goldberg

Here:

The posture of these NeverTrumpers is transparently self-serving. It preserves their intellectual credentials as “conservatives,” and simultaneously takes them out of the line of fire from an increasingly vicious Left whose goal is to destroy Trump and his presidency, and—incidentally—conservative America. Sitting on the fence affords them new career opportunities—appearances on CNN and MSNBC and columns in the New York Times. All that’s required is that they avoid taking sides in the political war that is engulfing the country. All this reminds me of a memorable Trotsky sneer about liberals, whom he accused of being reluctant to step into the stream of political conflict because they were afraid to get their moral principles wet.

Right. The principles of the Never-Trumpers are for discussion but not for implementation.  The members of the bow-tie brigade love to yap and scribble, and they do it at a very high level, as witness Goldberg's Suicide of the West, which I recommend to you for its insights; but they wilt at the prospect of bringing their principles to bear upon political reality and "getting them wet."

Up until now I had considered Goldberg to be the least offensive of the Never-Trumpers, but having read Horowitz's piece, Goldberg has dropped a notch in my estimation.

Make Orwell Fiction Again

Orwell Fiction Again

This from Nancy Pelosi's website (emphasis added):

The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2010, ensures that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care and significantly reduces long-term health care costs. This historic legislation, in the league of Social Security and Medicare, will lead to healthier lives, while providing the American people with more liberty to pursue their hopes and dreams.

This is another good example of an Orwellian use of language.  Americans love liberty and so Pelosi, in an attempt to deceive, works 'liberty' into her statement,  advancing a claim of Orwellian absurdity, namely, that limitations on the liberty of individuals and private entities are in reality enhancements of liberty.

War is peace.   Slavery is freedom.  Less liberty is more liberty.  Dependence on government is self-reliance. Fascist thugs are anti-fascist. The Orwellian template: X, which is not Y, is Y.  

Democrats Only Pretend to Care About the Integrity of Our Elections

 Election integrity

Here are three very important points. Please pay attention.

1) Barack Obama, you will recall, made light of the suggestion that U. S. elections could be rigged or stolen back in October of 2016.  You can hear his own words here. He and almost everyone else was sure Hillary would win a couple of weeks later. That is what all the pundits were saying, and anyway how could such an obnoxious cretin as Trump who had insulted so many people  possibly become president? When Hillary  lost in the electoral college, lefties couldn't believe it. It shocked them deeply.  You can see the depth of their reaction if you watch the many videos from election night depicting the tears of anguish and the tears of rage.  And so it is very easy to understand how lefties, who never stray from their enclaves, and never sully their precious minds with conservative commentary, and have no contact with the unwashed deplorables who stink of Wal-Mart and the barnyard, could believe that Trump just had to have colluded with the Russians to secure his victory. To their minds, there is no other possible explanation.

I heard Rosie O'Donnell say the other night that she "firmly believed" that Trump's win was due to Russian help.  I don't doubt that Rosie and her fellow travellers firmly believe it in a way that admits of no possible disconfirmation. It has become an idée fixe in their benighted brains.  They can't help it. They see themselves as good people, as progressive, bien-pensant, caring people, on the right side of history. It is simply incomprehensible to them that Trump won fair and square.

The reversal of position from 'no possible rigging' to 'Russian rigging' is very easy to understand: it's all about getting Trump out of office by any means.  The only reason the Dems care about election integrity now when they didn't before is that it aids and abets their drive toward impeachment.

2) Democrats support open borders, sanctuary cities, the sanctuary state of California, and the awarding of the franchise to illegal aliens. All of this is a giant middle finger in the face of the rule of law. Their grand strategy is perfectly obvious: to advance leftism and destroy America as she was founded to be, and to do so  by demographic means. If you don't see that you need the services of that proctologist I mentioned in an earlier post, the one who specializes in head injuries and especially difficult extractions.

3) And then there is the business about photo ID that Dems insanely oppose.  The reason they oppose it is obvious: they intend to make the polling places safe for voter fraud. It is part of their demographic grand strategy.  You will enjoy this YouTube video in which white liberals claim that blacks lack ID and blacks on the street react to the absurd claim.

The Wet Dream of a Blue Wave . . .

. . . is probably not in the offing, the wave not the dream, but we of the Coalition of the Sane must not become complacent.

Here is good advice from Hugh Hewitt.

You might think that the fate of the Dems will be sealed by the appeal to morons of chuckleheads like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  But take no chances. Charles Cooke comments on the Ocasionalist  here.

If the blue wave should materialize, then Trump has only been buying us time, and the U.S. will continue its death spiral.

The Trouble with Tucker

The trouble with the Tucker Carlson show is that the host is insufficiently judicious as to the number and type of leftists he invites onto his program.  No doubt he is striving to be "fair and balanced," but what typically happens is that Carlson asks some reasonable question of the leftist guest, which the latter evades in order let loose with his reliably incoherent canned spiel, about,  say, all those thousands of people roaming around without photo ID who are 'disenfranchised' — sneer quotes! — by reasonable ID requirements at polling places. Tucker tries without success to bring the knucklehead back to the topic, voices are raised, they talk over each other, and I surf away to a Seinfeld re-run. 

These shouting matches are totally unproductive. Besides, they elevate my blood pressure. But when I return from Seinfeld to hear the brilliant and consummately witty analysis of Mark Steyn, or the less brilliant, but solid, contribution of my favorite gun-totin' lesbian, the charming Tammy Bruce, then it is all worthwhile and the old B.P. returns to 'within range.'

Of course, there are people who like to watch unproductive shouting matches. They like to see people fight. So it may well be that ratings would decline if my suggestion were followed. 

Tucker needs to realize that the age of productive dialog with political opponents is over in American politics.  Ours is the age of post-consensus politics. Destructive leftists don't need talk, they need defeat. Let's hope it can be achieved politically without resort to, God forbid, the 2A solution. But as every patriot knows, the 2A ain't about hunting. 

I now hand off to Bruce Thornton, Ridicule, not Reasoned Debate, is the Best Medicine for Political Cults.