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The essential Trump According to Neo-neocon — 39 Comments

1. neo, thanks as always for all you do here.

   This is as good a time as any for me to check in. I have become something of a lurker recently, but it is not at all for lack of interest. I’ve been following the Trump-Clinton situation very closely, but I’ve arrived at a point where I am learning a great deal by reading neo’s and (almost) everyone else’s thoughts. If and when I have more original thoughts of my own I will contribute them, but at this juncture, I’m in absorbing rather than in broadcasting mode.

   I live in California, so in a certain sense it doesn’t matter how I vote: California will vote blue. But I am nonetheless very interested, because the future of my country is very much on the line. I cannot abide Hillary Clinton: aside from her being a sleazy corruptocrat, I am frightened by the prospect of her naming many Supreme Court Justices — I have zero confidence that the establishment Republicans will put up any real resistance — and I am frightened by any continuation and/or expansion of Lois Lerner -style repression of un-progressive viewpoints. At the same time, I very much credit all of neo’s and others’ criticisms of Donald Trump.

   I keep coming back to the point of view that Hillary will be unstoppable if elected, with no checks/balances on her exercise of power (good luck with establishment Republicans resisting); whereas Trump will have his feet held to the fire by the terrible triad of establishment Republicans, Democrats, and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself there).

   And so I watch with fear and trembling.

   Carry on, good folks . . .

2. M J R:

   I, likewise, am undecided, and probably will not know till I’m in the voting booth (if then!). So I am in tremendous sympathy/empathy with your dilemma and mine, and that of so many people. And I’m glad you’re still here.

   But I disagree that Republicans or the press will hold Trump’s feet to the fire in any effective manner.

   The press will do it to the extent that they do it with any and all Republicans, but I don’t see them as being able to do more than that. They also like Trump in a way, because (a) he brings them readers; and (b) they think he is destroying the GOP. So they tolerate him and in some cases even promote him.

   As for Republicans, they have not successfully held his feet to the fire so far (even in ways they might have, such as uniting to support one main opponent of his, or changing the rules at the convention). And the more power he gains and wields as president (and the more he threatens them if they don’t toe the line) the less likely they are to do that. I’m always surprised at how many people (in some cases the same people who think the GOP has been so wimpy over the years) think that the GOP will stand up to a Trump drunk with his own power and not at all averse to flaunting it and using it to destroy his enemies.

   The Democrats will, of course, be against him. However, that assumes he doesn’t turn into one of them, once elected. That is actually a possibility.

3. Neo rarely does trivial asides, that’s for sure.

4. neo,

   I really appreciate your response.

   In it, you are giving me a few points to seriously ponder, and I will be doing that. Those points do not easily lend themselves to instant “yes-but” retorts, at least not for me.

   See ya ‘roun’ . . .

5. MJR: Vote Libertarian. Since California will probably go for Clinton, your vote for Trump won’t make a bit of difference. The Libertarians almost certainly won’t win, but a strong showing in this election will help them to do better in the future.

6. “….but a strong showing in this election will help them to do better in the future.”

   Oh stop with the straight lines already.

7. Choosing not to vote Trump, choosing not to vote, or voting for political pipsqueaks in this election is neither rebellion or voting your conscience.

   It is, first, last and always, surrender. Nothing less. Don’t kid yourselves.

8. Vanderleun: You’re the one kidding yourself if you vote for Trump in a state that’s safe for Clinton. Don’t be childish.

9. Vanderleun:

   Don’t kid yourself that you have a clue, any more than anyone here, what the right course of action is, or what voting one’s conscience is.

   A difficult decision doesn’t become a simple one because you proclaim it to be.

10. Wooly Bully, 5:53 pm — “MJR: Vote Libertarian. [etc.]”

    Thanks for the suggestion. It *has* occurred to me. BUT:

    I once pegged myself as being somewhere between libertarian and conservative, and I do respect the lower case “l” libertarian principles. But while libertarianism and socialism are ideological opposites, they do share [at least] one common trait.

    Both systems of political thought are very theoretical — by which I mean . . . here, let me let Yogi Berra express it for me: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

    Both systems are very impractical when it comes to dealing with all-too-human *actual* *humans*. Libertarianism may work in theory, but frankly, even socialism may work in theory because in theory, the humans involved will voluntarily behave unselfishly, and so there will be no need for state coercion.

    (In libertarianism, it seems to me, there is too little penalty for humans acting very selfishly *in* *certain* *instances*, to the detriment of other humans, when much of that detriment can be avoided by judicious use of a societal penalty expressed as civil law — *in* *certain* *instances*. To expand on this would be to write a masters’ thesis, so I won’t!)

    Also, libertarianism, to my apprehension, tends to overlook the culture factor. Cultures other than ours tend to have a much less lower case “l” libertarian tradition than ours. This is a major reason that unrestricted immigration doesn’t work here, but libertarians tend to favor borderless, unrestricted immigration. Again, no time (or bandwidth) to expand.

    So I find myself balking at voting upper case “L” Libertarian as well.

    But yes, it remains an option in this bizarre election year. So again, thanks for the suggestion. It’s more palatable than voting for either Hillary! or Trump, but I find it’s a cop-out. Besides, as I wrote above, “aside from [Hillary Clinton] being a sleazy corruptocrat, I am frightened by the prospect of her naming many Supreme Court Justices – I have zero confidence that the establishment Republicans will put up any real resistance – and I am frightened by any continuation and/or expansion of Lois Lerner -style repression of un-progressive viewpoints.”

    Even in blue-state California, it’s a fear I may find I need to express electorally, and for that reason, voting Libertarian would be very, very unsatisfying.

    As always, your mileage may vary. See ya . . .

11. Wooly Bully makes a point. For those who cannot abide either candidate; and who live in states where their Presidential vote will be overwhelmed, it may make sense to vote Libertarian. It is a protest vote, and those usually have little value; except that in the aggregate they might, emphasize might, send a message to the established parties (yep, they both have establishments and that is how they became established.) This assumes that the protest voter pays close attention to the down ballot.

    Like MJR, I now live in California. Like many states it is more diverse than one might think. My Congressman and Assemblyman are Republicans. I want to keep it that way. (Just read the for the first time ever that Orange County could turn Blue.) The down ballot is always important; never more so than now.

12. I’m with Gerard VdL (sorry to taint you by association, Old Chap). Anyone who sees moral equivalence between Trump and Clinton at this stage of the game is a Bloody Fool. Note that I didn’t say such a person is stupid. It’s entirely possible to be too ‘intelligent’ and sophisticated for one’s own good.

    Cucks, awaken! The problem with most of you hand-wringing Hamlets (too kind actually… looking more like Polonius Territory with every post and echo-chamber affirmation) is that you can’t seem to grasp that the very water your thoughts swim in has been pissed and shat in. It’s (literally) the Culture, stupids! If you’re allergic to Trump and his Dirt People hordes, it’s because YOU are the hot house flower syphilitics who cannot abide the light.

    Yes, the man will break stuff early and often. Good. Read Antifragile by Nassim Taleb.

13. vanderleun Says:
    August 22nd, 2016 at 6:06 pm
    Choosing not to vote Trump, choosing not to vote, or voting for political pipsqueaks in this election is neither rebellion or voting your conscience.

    It is, first, last and always, surrender. Nothing less. Don’t kid yourselves.

    When you want people to violate their conscience, that’s between them and God, not between you and them. Although if you use coercion, the power of your politicians, and your firepower (guns), you may get between a person’s conscience and their actual behavior under God.

    Of course, none of that has anything to do with Trum or HRC winning, since whether they win or not, Vander still plans on conducting insurgency operations or survivalist operations in the US. Vander isn’t planning on surrender, irregardless of what happens in DC. Although if he does surrender, that would be kind of funny given his comments.

    Trum is a convenient bullet sponge for the Left, but not necessary for 4th generational warfare.

    From my point of view, people who continue to prop up this evil and corrupt Regime with voting, hasn’t paid enough attention to the option successfully used by the Founding Fathers, war. I suppose counting on Americans to be as faithful and as virtuous as the Founding Fathers, who were still flawed, is too much to hope for in this decadent fallen world.

    As for me, I don’t care what people vote for. This nation is going to fall into hell, irregardless of what happens. People can disbelieve that all they want. After all, who agreed with me that Civil War 2 was inevitable in 2007? That’s not something humans can learn from their public education ahead of time.

14. Cato:

    Let’s see—how shall I put this?

    Anyone who slings around the word “cuck” at this point is not a fool (bloody or otherwise), he or she is a nasty and manipulative, abuse-slinging piece of work.

    As for your use of the word “Dirt People”—that’s not the way the commenters here talk or think about Trump’s supporters—but it’s indicative of your own classist way of thinking. Which, by the way, is a leftist way of thinking.

    You are the one “pissing and shitting” (your way of expressing yourself, not mine) in your own water.

    Cato, this is your second comment here. Your first was in early July, and I reproduce it here in its entirety:

    Fortunately some (only some) of us Dirt People still grok Natural Law.

    We’re going to have to go all the way back to the very basics in order have any chance of rebuilding what has been lost these past 250 years.

    250 years because I sense that something went badly wrong at or about the so-called Enlightenment. Others would have it the Reformation, and David Stove thought we took a wrong turn at Socrates. It’s debatable. But there’s something slightly off in Western intellectual DNA and it needs rooting out.

    Unfortunately this is going to hurt.

    There’s that “Dirt People” reference again. Hmmm. It seems to be rather an obsession of yours, although not of anyone else’s here. Could it be that that’s the way you think of your fellow Trump-supporters? That you are the smart one, who will show them the way to root out all those intellectual Enlightenment-type folks with your back-to-basics remedy that “unfortunately, is going to hurt”?

    Somehow, I’m not convinced that you’re a defender of liberty in the US. Or anywhere.

15. Neo, I love it when you talk dirty. I am in awe. I restrain my “USN ready room language” on your site out of respect for you, and your readers; but, sometimes you just have to let it fly. Good for you–let’s just hope you didn’t give license

16. Cucks, awaken! The problem with most of you hand-wringing Hamlets (too kind actually… looking more like Polonius Territory with every post and echo-chamber affirmation) is that you can’t seem to grasp that the very water your thoughts swim in has been pissed and shat in. It’s (literally) the Culture, stupids! If you’re allergic to Trump and his Dirt People hordes, it’s because YOU are the hot house flower syphilitics who cannot abide the light.

    This is a deformed version of Alt Right rhetoric and propaganda. The original one was Cuckservative, as in the book written by VoxDay, and promoted online via the grey market. Consider them analogous to Thomas Paine.
    http://www.bl.uk/the-american-revolution/articles/the-pamphlet-war-and-the-boston-massacre

    Also notice that they, like me, tend to write in Capitals, because normal English words cannot be used to describe concepts and organizations which have no proper name. (The names they do have are deceptive)

    Of course, humans being humans, most of what they know, they learned by monkey copy catting from their leaders. I wouldn’t expect even half the consumers of the Alt Right to be capable of coming up with original propaganda on their own. Trum included. Trumbart may be capable of it and the various content creators on the ALt Right, such as the PUA gurus.

    Whenever a community arrives online, it’s usually a few content creators, surrounded by and supported by a bunch of hanger ons who lack the motivation or talent, but provide the demand and the marketing.

    Thus consider Cato’s views similar to the Pope calling for a crusade (Deus Vult), or a militia member spreading the word to go up in arms, or some other equivalent such as Marxist death squads going around checking on regulations.

    My criticism of such things are two fold.
    1. They are following a strategy off a cliff because
    2. The Alt Right has not spent a sufficient amount of time preparing the strategy and logistics to counter the Leftist alliance. Their intel preparations are still weak and rushed, due to the 2016 elections.

    Thus by going all in, I predict it is not going to be enough to nullify even a quarter of the Left’s strategic assets. The ALt Right is the Anti Left coalition to me, to clarify.

17. Neo, I love it when you talk rough. I am in awe. I restrain my “USN ready room language” on your site out of respect for you, and your readers; but, sometimes you just have to let it fly for effect. Good for you–let’s just hope you didn’t give license to the CATOs and other such. who would be happy to turn your site into a gutter.

18. Oh, for an edit feature.
    Off topic: I really have a problem with my Chromebook. It runs away with me.

    Anyway, well said Neo.

19. Oldflyer:

    Thanks!

    But believe me, they’ve been here many times, from both left and right. I deal with them quite often, although sometimes it’s done on a way that isn’t all that noticeable. If I didn’t deal with them, they would have overrun this place long long ago, within the first couple of years of the blog.

20. Because of Sad/Rabid puppies, and because of the Hugo awards, and because of GamerGate, and because of any number of other push back incidents, such as Milo, the Alt Right currently believes that they can ride with Trum to DC and thus defeat the Leftist alliance.

    They are making a huge misconception by mistaking SJWs for being the vanguard of the Leftist alliance’s most powerful assets.

    It’s the kind of mistake that can get your king in trouble in chess. The anti Left coalition needs to remember that they are an insurgency. That if they become like the Tea Party and go “legit” or go out in the open, the Left will crush them using strategic weapons, just as they used the IRS/ATF to crush conservative movements. As for “Presidents”… consider Reagan and Abraham Lincoln.

21. As for Trum, he’s a stalking horse of the Democrats, or specifically of Clinton. Their original target was the Tea Party or any other conservative that would be popular in a general election.

    While the Left, in collusion with Republicans in DC, were capable of crushing the Tea Party’s reform movement and logistics, they could not entirely eradicate the bitter feelings that originally motivated people to March on DC. That is why, if the Left’s leadership were smart, they would fill in the need, temporarily, using an agent they could control or predict. Trum, just like William Clinton’s rape history, is well known by now, to DC’s elites. Trum is the kind of person that can be bought or corrupted by DC’s glory and power, which is to say, by the power of evil. The funny thing about evil is that the more power a person gains, the more susceptible they become to the lure of conversion. King David is a good example. King Solomon too. There’s a bunch of other examples too, but they are apocryphal.

    Also check out the French politicians and aristocrats that betrayed their savior, Jean De Arc. How petty and backstabbing, humans are. They could not defeat England in a 100 years, but they could get rid of one teenage girl that was threatening their power base. The English couldn’t even defeat that girl on the battlefield, figuratively and literally.

    What’ll decide the fate of the nation isn’t Trum or HRC. It’s going to be the soul and balance of good vs evil, in the hearts of the people on this continent or nation.

    Just as bringing the Tea Party out into the open, allows the Left to destroy them wholesale, so I would do the same to the anti Left coalition using a stalking horse if I was in charge of the Left’s strategic operations. If the Left is too dumb to do so, then I overestimate them. But because they are lead by evil and are blessed by Lucifer’s military gifts, much as Mohammed was, I don’t think I am overestimating them. Certainly there are many people who pull the Left’s strings, who aren’t even well known in public eye. Such as Soros, although he’s pretty much “revealed” by now. Consider all the other billionaires and millionaires, such as behind the Federal Reserve, that people don’t know about… what else does the Left have in store for us that they are hiding?

    P.S. The purpose of a stalking horse is to probe for a reaction amongst the enemy, and then gather up the sum total of power needed to destroy the target. Right now the Leftist alliance is barely aware of the Anti Left insurgency. When Trum attaches them to the band wagon, however… they won’t be able to hide on the internet so easily from Yahoo/Google/NSA/etc.

22. The mechanism by which the Left will figure out who among you will need to be eliminated, has to do with Prop 8 and Eich’s incident. http://www.ibtimes.com/mozilla-firefox-fallout-brendan-eichs-prop-8-support-sparks-backlash-employees-okcupid-1565934

    He was the former CEO of MOzilla, remember. His donation to Prop 8 was supposed to be sealed and anonymous. But those privileges are revoked when the IRS and Leftist organizations take the list, and then distribute the identities of the donors.

    This allows the Leftist alliance to activate all their kill squads, like BLM’s Dallas teams, and target you, with SWAT or no SWAT.

    Consider what SWAT teams did in Wisconsin, against that Republican governor’s supporters. The governor didn’t even try to protect his supporters, because he could not at that time.

    In this context, it’s the money bags that are the sinews of war, not the votes. Because with money, the Left can buy another 3+ million fake votes.

    Trum needs more donations, because his funding is lower than HRC’s. Either Trum has billions that he’s not using, or he never planned on getting this far. Alternatively, the plan is to have Republicans donate to him, and then divide the insurgency, to destroy them, much as the US Marines divided insurgents in Fallujah and surrounded the place, before destroying the insurgent cells.

    California and Chicago are often test beds for the Left’s newest weapons and SOP. I would expect them to bring that Chicago machine voter intimidation and California “target the money bags” weapon to the national stage pretty soon.

    This is why I don’t advocate people “vote” or donate, to political campaigns. This is the Leftist Regime in power…. people still underestimate the enemy’s power, even as they trump up bold “She’s evil” propaganda concerning HRC or Palin or whatever they’re targeting now with Alinsky freeze tactics. A lot of that is just a smoke screen. The real attack people should be looking at is the one for the end game. Whether HRC wins or not, has nothing to do with SWAT finding ways to creatively “end you” in Wisconsin and other states.

23. Neo, thank you. I really appreciate the effort this took. I’ll start working my way through.

24. Thomas Doubting:

    You’re welcome!

25. Pass it on, Cato and vanderleun are punks. Oh, and crass idiots. Neither of you cast a shadow. Too much time spent staring at where the sun does not shine.

26. M J R Says:
    August 22nd, 2016 at 6:51 pm
    Wooly Bully, 5:53 pm – “MJR: Vote Libertarian. [etc.]”

    Thanks for the suggestion. It *has* occurred to me. BUT:

    I once pegged myself as being somewhere between libertarian and conservative, and I do respect the lower case “l” libertarian principles. But while libertarianism and socialism are ideological opposites, they do share [at least] one common trait.

    Both systems of political thought are very theoretical – by which I mean . . . here, let me let Yogi Berra express it for me: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
    * * *
    I had some dear friends, usually quite intelligent and level-headed, who were devoted to libertarianism — and who could never quite understand that some real people would NOT abide by the “rules of the road” just because they were “good rules” — and although governments could (and should) be constrained, limited, and small, there were always some people who had to be “suppressed” because they preyed on the rest.

    The balancing point of enough-but-not-too-much government power and reach is very small and sharp, and there are 360 degrees of freedom for falling off of it.

27. Neo: Thanks Much for the linkage time and patience spent.

    Thomas Doubting: Read’um all, Sir. Well and abundantly worth it. Promise.

28. I measure my despondence and pessimism this cycle by how much I agree with Ymarsakar.

    …and I’ve been agreeing a lot, lately. Dammit.

29. Ha.

    Something’s been curled at the back of my brain for a while now over The Topic, and it finally …finally …sprang forth a few minutes ago.

    Here yez go. The song that fully encapsulates the reason why I’m not as concerned about DT from the perspective of the #NT’er POV (i.e., as I am about HRC from the Trumpies POV) ….

    Billy Joel. You May Be Right

    (I.e., the horse sings: still beatin’ the poor dead thing @TD.)

30. Ymarsakar,

    What you say is why I:
    1) Don’t answer pollsters and I’ve weirdly gotten pollster calls this election season

    2) Know the country is finished

    3) Know that Trump is not the answer

    4) Don’t know what the answer is to an electorate so dumbed down to the synergistic corruption which seeks to tear apart families and businesses because they are “morally right (or left)”.

    The ends justifies the means is in extreme blob mode. I’m referring to the 1964 movie the blob.

31. In a token defense of “Cato”, I’d just like to point out most of you found and comment on this site because you were programmed during your formative years to be obedient liberals, yet at some point the realities of your political religion dawned on you and you got out.

    By your thoughtful comments, I suspect that the vast majority of you are well-educated. However, though you possess undergraduate and graduate degrees from several highly esteemed schools, you still have a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to your peers or family members that have degrees from the truly elite schools that you couldn’t quite gain acceptance to. And those people whom you desperately seek approval and validation from are, to a person, no doubt dyed-in-the-wool liberals.

    So here’s the dilemma and psychological dissonance most of you are suffering from that “Cato” outlined. The “neo-neocon” part of your brain realizes that any candidate other than Clinton would be preferable. However, the rational part of your brain believes there is no chance for any Republican to win a national election, especially Trump. Therefore, the pre-programmed liberal part of your brain resumes control, as you try to curry favor with your elite liberal betters by openly disparaging Trump and “considering” Hillary.

    It’s not that the posters here look down upon the the “dirt people” that have been painted by the media as the average Trump supporters. This is where “Cato” erred. It’s that you know that if your elite liberal betters knew that you supported Trump, they would look at you and think of you the same way they think of the “dirt people”. It’s not that you think poorly of the “dirt people”, it’s that you don’t want be characterized as one.

    To go further on this point, even if you have the elite educational pedigree and thus don’t have any elite liberal betters (just elite liberal peers), if you openly supported Trump, your elite liberal peers wouldn’t take that support seriously. They couldn’t fathom how someone with your pedigree could associate with such scum, and would likely write off your Trump support as some sort of ironic joke coming from a former Bernie supporter.

32. Sinbad:

    Lots of fluff and speculation. Are “we” the effete elites who don’t jump for Trump, or just chumps? Almost as “good” as DNW second guessing Neo regarding motivations of her still liberal aquaintances. I love psycho analysis over the interwebs.

33. Sinbad:

    Re Cato, a bit of turd polishing IMO.

    After all the work it’s still a turd.

34. sinbad:

    What a bizarre theory that doesn’t even fit the bios of most people here.

    Certainly doesn’t fit mine. I never cared in the slightest about whether someone went to the best schools or no school at all, nor do I care what the “best school” people think of me. Never did. My academic credentials also happen to be second to none, and that’s probably one of the reasons that elite schools don’t impress me in the least. I learned early on that there were stupid people at such schools and smart people with little education (and vice versa, of course).

    If I had cared about such things, I wouldn’t have gone through my political change experience at all. I am already a political pariah with most of the people I know, and have been since around 2004. And if I had cared about such things, I also wouldn’t have written so many pro-Sarah Palin posts during the 2008 election season.

    Plenty of other reasons to not support Donald Trump. Plenty. You don’t have to make up pop psychology theories to explain it.

35. It’s not that the posters here look down upon the the “dirt people” that have been painted by the media as the average Trump supporters. This is where “Cato” erred. It’s that you know that if your elite liberal betters knew that you supported Trump, they would look at you and think of you the same way they think of the “dirt people”. It’s not that you think poorly of the “dirt people”, it’s that you don’t want be characterized as one.

    What a lot of people, who supported the Democrats against Iraq and Afghanistan, forget is that neo neocons and pro Iraq liberation people were already treated to the Left’s initial backlash and hate movement. There’s nothing they can gain from approval there, because the Left already burned their bridges.

    They did so in Vietnam as well, spitting on and hating US soldiers and patriots.

    For people that only became politically active or anti Leftist in the last 2-4 years, none of that matters. Because Iraq, to them, is a Hussein affair, not a Bush II affair. They weren’t part of the 2003-2007 fight in the nation (irregardless of which side they took in Iraq itself).

    Right now people have no choice but to take up verbal arms against the Left, due to the instigation and invasion of the SJWs. But pro Iraq liberation people have been fighting SJWs online since 2003. Young Turks included.

    There’s little benefit from someone who supported Bush II’s policies in the ME, to curry favor with Leftists. For the talking heads and NRO and other upper echelon people, it’s different, since their careers and social circles are stuck into DC. That’s not even mentioning the “Republicans” and “conservatives” who voted Hussein Obola…

36. Cato’s analysis of motivations would apply quite well to Peggy Noonan and various other REpublicans who propped up Hussein Obola.

    They were indeed intimidated by their “friend’s” credentials and so forth.

37. Cato and Sinbad’s, I mean.

38. No, no everyone. Let’s hear Cato out.

    I mean here I was, about to vote third party so that my elite liberal friends would still invite me to Georgetown cocktail parties.

    Then Cato called me a “Cuck”.

    Now I’m voting for DJT!

39. (I.e., the horse sings: still beatin’ the poor dead thing @TD.)

    It’s aged and tenderized by now. You seem to be transitioning from savage to chef — it is a fine line between hot blooded and haute cuisine, you know.

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