{"id":594,"date":"2024-08-24T12:46:20","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T12:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/08\/24\/slouching-toward-totalitarianism\/"},"modified":"2024-08-24T12:46:20","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T12:46:20","slug":"slouching-toward-totalitarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/08\/24\/slouching-toward-totalitarianism\/","title":{"rendered":"Slouching Toward Totalitarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can Trump save us?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Klingenstein<\/a>: <\/strong>Is our regime totalitarian, emerging or otherwise? What makes it so? How far along are we? Can we fight back?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ellmers: <\/strong>I think the essay<\/a> that Ted Richards and I wrote for your website, and the several excellent responses that you published, cover this pretty well. <\/span><\/p>\n

Klingenstein: <\/strong>How much can Trump fix it?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ellmers: <\/strong>Very hard to say. Showing up, as they say, is half the battle. Or, as you have noted, the first step in winning a war is to know that you are in one. Trump knows this. He has to keep making the case to the American people that they are true sovereigns, and the arrogant ruling class is illegitimate. The outrageous incompetence of the Secret Service, which failed to prevent the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, is a good way to remind people that our so-called experts have no expertise. These bureaucrats are mostly blowhards, grifters, and phonies. <\/span><\/p>\n

I agree with Trump\u2019s decision not to talk any more about how he was almost murdered, but incoming Vice President Vance should<\/em>\u2026 a lot. In fact, I hope that Trump will continue to do what he does best as president \u2014 using his wit and populist rhetoric and negotiating skills to good effect \u2014 while the vice president\u2019s office acts as the day-to-day juggernaut that ruthlessly dismantles the administrative state. <\/span><\/p>\n

Klingenstein: <\/strong>Will Trump win? What does it depend on? If you were his political consultant, what would you advise him to do?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ellmers: <\/strong>I think he will win by a significant margin \u2014 too big, as people are saying, for the Democrats to steal. My friend Jim Piereson, writing<\/a> in The New Criterion<\/em>, has predicted that Trump will win the popular vote by six points, take all the swing states, and get 339 electoral votes. That sounds right to me. <\/span><\/p>\n

He seems to have been changed somewhat since he nearly took a bullet to the head. I would encourage him to remain upbeat and positive. <\/span><\/p>\n

Klingenstein: <\/strong>What will happen after Trump if he is elected in 2024?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ellmers: <\/strong>Again, hard to say. Of course the Left will launch its resistance campaign, but I don\u2019t think anyone knows how much support it will have outside the radical fringe. Some of my friends think I\u2019m too optimistic, but I suspect that some energy and panache has gone out of protesting and rioting since the 2020 Summer of Left-wing Love. There will still be violence by Antifa and others, but I don\u2019t think it will have the same mainstream support. And we should not discount the anger the hard Left will direct at the Democrat<\/em> party. The media and the Beltway establishment really screwed up this election by lying about Biden, and I think the radicals will not take kindly to having their agenda thwarted by the complacency and arrogance of the Democrat\u2019s leadership. <\/span><\/p>\n

Klingenstein: <\/strong>Is Vance MAGA? Is he the right choice for VP? He abhorred Trump before he lauded him. Does this make you hesitate?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ellmers: <\/strong>It\u2019s extremely important that Trump 1) went outside the decrepit establishment and picked someone who will help him fight the Beltway blob head-on; and 2) picked someone young and energetic who can carry on the MAGA agenda. That means Trump is thinking long-term. It was a good choice. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Having just finished Hillbilly Elegy<\/em>, I would say that Trump's VP pick was an outstanding choice, the best he could have made from the outstanding candidates on his short list.  A second brilliant move was his welcoming of RFK Jr. into his coalition. Here<\/a> is the Kennedy clan's black (red?) sheep's Arizona Trump endorsement. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can Trump save us? Klingenstein: Is our regime totalitarian, emerging or otherwise? What makes it so? How far along are we? Can we fight back? Ellmers: I think the essay that Ted Richards and I wrote for your website, and the several excellent responses that you published, cover this pretty well.  Klingenstein: How much can Trump fix it? Ellmers: Very hard … Continue reading “Slouching Toward Totalitarianism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,188,29,323,121,48,157],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-political-conversions","category-political-ponerology","category-political-predictions","category-populism","category-social-and-political-philosophy","category-totalitarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}