They told me to get over it, and I did
They told me to get over it. Trump is the nominee, suck it up, get with the program, shut up about it.
And so I finally did, sort of (all except those last two bits).
Not only that, but I’ve accepted that Trump will lose and Hillary will win. Actually, when I realized that Trump was the nearly-inevitable nominee—something I felt to be the case some time back in April—I also felt very strongly that Hillary would be our next president because of the weakness of his candidacy.
What does it mean to “accept” something? Not to like it, that’s for sure. It means to realize it’s going to happen, and that you can’t stop it. It means to not make excuses or rationalizations about it, or imagine that by some miracle they both will leave the race and some relatively sane and relatively decent human being (I’m not asking for much, am I?) will take their places. It means to try to understand the steps that got us here and hope there is some way to get out of this jam eventually. It means to not underestimate the forces you’re up against. It means being practical and realistic, and it means being resourceful and even (this may be hardest of all) wise.
I don’t see a whole lot of any of that on the right these days, and haven’t seen it for a long time. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist—it does—but not in enough numbers. There’s that Yeats poem again:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Yeats was describing things he saw about a hundred years ago. But he could just as well have been writing now.
[NOTE: And yes, if I’m wrong in my predictions I certainly will admit it. Wrong is possible. I just don’t think I am, and that’s why I’ve gone out on such a limb with my predictions this time, something I don’t usually do except in private.]
Now is as good a time as any to start thinking about our plan B.
Here is a good start…
http://neoneocon.com/2016/10/21/on-polling-for-election-2016/#comment-1805271
Mark Steyn:
Many of those openly supporting Hillary among the right-of-center pundit class are people I have known and worked with over the years – from Dorothy Rabinowitz to Max Boot to (he’s considering it) Glenn Beck. I don’t quite get this. As Victor Hanson puts it:
“In this low-bar presidential race, why do conservative establishmentarians and past foreign-policy officials feel a need to publish their support for the Democratic candidate, when their liberal counterparts feel no such urge to distance themselves from their own nominee? Is what Clinton actually did, in leaving Iraq abruptly, or lying about Benghazi, or violating federal security laws, so much less alarming than what Trump might do in shaking up NATO or “bombing the hell out of ISIS”?”
Just so. Trump is an unknown. But, to channel Donald Rumsfeld, Hillary is the most known known in the history of knowns.
And what we know of her is that she’s stinkingly corrupt, above the law, and able to suborn entire government agencies in the cause of her corruption. Where do you think we’re gonna be after eight years of that?
Oh, and it will be eight years. The NeverTrumpers are saying, “Don’t worry. We’ll get it right in 2020”, just like after 2012 they said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get it right in 2016”, and after 2008 they said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get it right in 2012.”
Next time never comes. There are no tomorrows for the Republican Party, because, unlike the GOP, the Democrats use their victories very effectively.
Victor Davis Hanson lives on a small family farm in rural California, at the sharp end of the artificial and lawless demographic transformation of a once Golden State. With respect to my former colleagues in the New York and Washington commentariat, I don’t think they have any idea of how bleak life is in many parts of this country.
And I don’t mean Jimmy Carter-like “malaise” – a brief blip after three decades of post-war prosperity – but bleakness as a permanent feature of life. Perhaps I’m touchy about the corruption because I’m a foreigner and I’ve lived in countries with clean government.
Perhaps I’m sensitive to the contempt in which a put-upon middle-class is held because I’ve spent much of the last year in wealthy first-world countries (France, Sweden, Germany) that are on the verge of implosion over their delusional immigration policies.
But the indifference from influential conservatives to both the despair and the naked corruption is deeply disturbing.
Think of what the last eight years have wrought – Obamacare, a weaponized IRS, six-figure fines for “homophobic” bakeries – and then pitch America forward to 2024. Picture the most absurd scenario you can concoct – say, a federal transgender-bathroom regime. Oh, no, wait, we’ve already got that.
The left is serious about power, and they don’t waste time. The idea that the most personally corrupt candidate in modern American history will govern as some sort of benign moderate centrist placeholder until the wankers who thought Jeb Bush was a superstar shoo-in come up with their next inspiration is utterly preposterous. –M.S.
In thinking about the almost certain disaster coming November 8th, I am struck by this oddity: By any reasonable definition of the term, Donald Trump is a Republican In Name Only — yet he has received considerable support from those who have been castigating that almost non-existent creature, the RINO.
Similarly, he is, in many ways, an anti-Reagan — but people who worship Reagan have been backing Trump.
That kind of blindness has led me to dub one prominent talk show host “Rush Magoo”, which is satisfying but doesn’t explain the blindness.
(The only other prominent politician that I would call a RINO is, of course, Ron Paul. Both he and Trump have long records of opposing actual Republicans.)
In an earlier thread I brought up the Norpoth poll which shows Trump with an 87% chance of winning vs. Sean Trend (@ RCP) showing Hillary with an 83% chance of winning.
Thinking about this a little bit more, I’m amazed at how I and most others look at those larger numbers (87% and 83%) and think of them as absolutely predictive. They’re not; they’re simply possibilities masquerading as probability.
Lets rephrase that. Norpoth gives Trump a 13% chance of losing and Trend gives Hillary a 17% chance of losing. If Trump wins he falls into Norpoth’s 83% and Trend’s 17%, if Hillary wins she falls into Norpoth’s 13% and Trend’s 83%.
So between the two polls, whatever happens they have all of the possibilities covered (except apparently a 269-269 tie). I’m asking myself: “Why do we bother paying any attention at all to these?” Unlike insurance numbers which have proven predictive, these polls and probabilities are more like economic formulae; they allow dissection of what happened with greater certainty than they predict what will occur.
This election is about stopping Hillary. Primarily because of her SCOTUS nominations and her penchant for getting into wars (we are damn near a shooting war with Russia at this point). Followed by her relentless lefty policies.
Since either Hillary or Trump will be president, stopping Hillary means voting for Trump.
If he goes off the rails, which I doubt, he will be blocked or impeached. If he manages to deliver a quarter of what he promises, that would be great. If not, we get gridlock, which is far better than Hillary.
” The NeverTrumpers are saying, “Don’t worry. We’ll get it right in 2020”, just like after 2012 they said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get it right in 2016”, and after 2008 they said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get it right in 2012.”” – Mark Steyn
http://www.steynonline.com/7564/laws-are-for-the-little-people
Ugh! Another “conservative” commentator / domino falls (perhaps coveting the occasional backup spot for Rush?).
.
The trouble with Steyn’s comment is that he is conflating “NeverTrumpers” together with (what looks like an attack on) the “establishment” (who promise to get it right but lose) and with those who declare they are “supporting Hillary”.
That may explain some, but not the majority of those that I have come across.
.
The other problem with Steyn’s argument is that he gives us a good run down about just how bad clinton is, with the Rumsfeld observation that she’s “the most known, known in the history of knowns”.
This part is quite agreeable.
But then….
What?
No explanation on how trump is the cure for all this?
He never says what trump will do, how it will be different, nor how trump will fix our ills.
It is an argument from the binary paradigm that if you can trash the other, then we are left to assume the former must be the right choice.
Wrong!
.
Steyn KNOWS much better than that!
Rather thought he was avoiding the election all this time because of the conflict it represents with some of his audience.
“If not, we get gridlock, which is far better than Hillary.” [KBK @ 4:59]
Actually, IMO, gridlock is precisely what the founders intended; a series of checks and balances between three self-interested divisions so that only the most important and most necessary legislation sees passage. The more citizens agitate for cooperation among those three entities and the more cooperation that occurs, the less free we become. Hence the 173,000 pages (346 reams, 34.6 cartons) of laws and regulations in the U.S. Code.
“. . . we are left to assume the former must be the right choice.” [Big Maq @ 5:11]
To me, this equates with the kind of straw-man argument that the left employs all the time: E.G., “If you are against murder you must support gun control; if you don’t support gun control you must be okay with murder.” Obama does this with many of his pronouncements. It’s a false choice
Trump isn’t necessarily “the right choice.” He might be “a least worse” choice. In the same way that you, as a Never Trump person, dismiss these arguments, you have to realize that there is an anti-Hillary camp (I know you do not support Hillary either) that sees Trump as a potentially viable alternative. You don’t see him that way, they do. You definitively and with finality term their point of view “wrong” simply because you don’t agree with it, but what is wrong is your failure to recognize that there is an alternative point of view (not necessarily agreeing to it).
T@5:16,
I agree, the more DC runs rough shod over the 9th and 10th, the less freedom we enjoy. Unfortunately, too few choose to embrace the personal responsibility that liberty requires as they look to DC to be super mommy and sugar daddy.
Parker,
Don’t forget, as I’m sure you well know, it is especially the media that drives this perception. Every year when we close in on the budget deadlines, you’d think deadlock was a disease akin to leprosy or cancer; “Deadlock??!!! Oh NO!! We can’t have thaaaaat!!!” Every year, I think of a govt shutdown as a good thing. To me it’s like a legislative snow day, or snow week.
We complain about too many laws, but judge legislators’ effectiveness by how much legislation they originate during their term. We actually think a “do nothing” congress is a bad thing, and none of these points even include the super mommy and sugar-daddy rent seekers that you mention.
Two of the areas Steyn mentioned — the “contempt in which a put-upon middle-class is held” and “a federal transgender-bathroom regime” — made me wonder if he’s been following Trump at all over the last year. Did he not notice the contempt he had for that Scottish farmer or the woman whose house was in the way of one of his parking garages? Or that his knee-jerk response when questioned about the transgender bathroom thing was to say, oh, let them use whatever bathroom they want and that anything else was bad for business?
I find it amazing that anyone can put even an iota of trust in anything the man says about his positions.
Those who have failed to stop the Leftist alliance their entire lives, Trum isn’t going to save you, nor is Clinton losing, going to save you either.
The Leftist alliance is a lot more problematic than people want to believe. So are their allies, the Islamic Jihad.
People are so desperate and afraid, they look for the US President to save them and protect them. That’s what a slave thinks like, not a free independent human.
Make sure to get water filters like Life Straw, some sleeping bags, and emergency food this winter. Who knows what is going to happen, I wasn’t told but that doesn’t mean much.
If he goes off the rails, which I doubt, he will be blocked or impeached. If he manages to deliver a quarter of what he promises, that would be great. If not, we get gridlock, which is far better than Hillary.
Impeached by whom, the Leftists you think you’ll be fighting or Paul Ryan?
And how will he manage to deliver any of that, absent executive orders, from the same GOP E Congress and bunch of Leftist traitors you think you can do something against?
Neo’s earlier discussion about the situation Germany in the 20’s is excellent and applies to the current thread I think. I posted the following there but it was so late in the thread that I think it is worth repeating here. The parallels as far as government and its relationship to the people could not be more apt.
There’s a saying from someone to the effect that things that can’t keep going the way they are, won’t. In both cases (1920’s Germany and twenty-teens U.S.) the government lost the confidence of the people and therefore its legitimacy. It’s a time when the government becomes ineffective and can no longer cope with the world. Therefore the establishment spends all its energies simply staying in power and preventing change.
The people, from their perspective, see the status quo as unsustainable. They see the collapse of their dreams and a future that offers only increasing strife. They see the country getting worse every day and them having absolutely no control over anything, especially their lives and livelihoods. They see a government that exists solely to enrich and enhance the lives of the establishment at the expense of everyone else.
So the people start clamoring for change and the louder they demand change the harder the establishment fights against. Every agent of change that comes forward is immediately and ruthlessly crushed by the establishment and its agents (read as democrats, the mainstream media, the education system, the unions, even the republican establishment) who are deathly afraid that any change they don’t manage will reduce their power, influence, status and incomes.
So the people finally give up trying to elect their desired agents of change and become willing to accept any agent as long as he/she doesn’t represent the establishment. Thus the acceptance of Hitler in the thirties and Trump today. I’m not equating Trump and Hitler, I’m equating the reasons the people backed people they would not normally have backed.
In the words of Victor Davis Hanson quoted at length above by Beverly: “Something has gone terribly wrong with the Republican party, and it has nothing to do with the flaws of Donald Trump. Something like his tone and message would have to be invented if he did not exist. None of the other 16 primary candidates – the great majority of whom had far greater political expertise, more even temperaments, and more knowledge of issues than did Trump – shared Trump’s sense of outrage – or his ability to convey it – over what was wrong: The lives and concerns of the Republican establishment in the media and government no longer resembled those of half their supporters. “
Here, in my opinion is how it came to be Trump. The establishment put forth their candidate (Bush and later Kasich) who represented a slight shift to the right but essentially the status quo power structure. They were managers when the people wanted reformers and revolutionaries.
he people felt that the situation was so dire that a manager would be ineffective and the downward spiral would continue. The managers had none of the outrage the people felt.
A number of other candidates (read as Rubio, Fiorina, Cruz and the others not Trump) represented varying degrees of real change, almost any of whom could have been acceptable to the people. But because they were all acceptable agents of change the establishment fought them the hardest. The establishment managed to wound each of them enough to keep them from getting real traction.
The establishment and the democrats thought of Trump as a buffoon, a distraction, and no real threat. That’s why they all held their fire on him and even actively promoted him when he faced the ones they considered the real threats. This holding fire and active promotion enabled the entertainer Trump to get enough votes against the wounded and split field that he ended up being the last non-establishment type standing.
The establishment were sure that once it came down to their candidate (Bush or Kasich) and Trump, they would have an easy victory. As Victor Davis Hanson implied, the establishment misjudged how they no longer represented the people.
The democrats also misjudged the people’s desire for change. Hillary’s shoe-in status went by the wayside and she’s had the fight of her life, first with Sanders and now with Trump.
Now we find ourselves here. We have two candidates with such flaws that under normal circumstances neither of them could survive a school board election.
We have the democrat, a power and money mad criminal, and we have the republican, an ego driven, blowhard male chauvinist pig. You can add your own pejoratives to each and I probably wouldn’t argue with any of them.
Neither of them is acceptable to the people, nor should they be. But they’re all we have. So how do we decide?
Looking at the last 50 years or so, the congress and the people have managed to restrain the presidents from doing irrecoverably stupid things. The only exceptions to me were three really bad things:
1. Clinton requiring the banks, under threat of federal lawsuits, to make bad loans and having FannieMae and FreddieMac consolidate them in one place. Bush got distracted by 9/11 and the war and was very weak anyway so he did nothing to stop the coming disaster. This directly led to the economic crash at the end of Bush’s term and destroyed our economy for many years.
2. Bush going into Iraq when he didn’t really have adequate support. The democrats voted for it but immediately turned against him and used it as a club from then on. This reduced Bush’s power and credibility, diffused our war on militant Islam, depleted our military and took up all the funds that could have been used either to expand the economy or at least prevent the collapse at the end. And while it seemed like a victory in the end, it set up a situation where Obama, who refused to consolidate the gains made by Bush in Iraq, was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and turn the ragtag militant Islamists into a force that threatens the entire western hemisphere.
3. Obama’s disastrous overreaches that a republican party, weakened by Bush, the economic collapse and the war, and a consolidated democratic party enabled. Examples are:
Obamacare, that had the federal government take over 1/6 of the economy and did to it what they have done to every other major program in history (read as VA healthcare, welfare, unsustainable Social Security, Medicare); Obama’s burdensome ever expanding and overreaching bureaucracy
(Dodd/Frank, EPA, Justice Department); the doubling of the national debt; the loss of power and influence all over the world, especially the mid-east; the disastrous recovery that has wasted over a trillion dollars and put almost half the country out of work and on welfare; and finally, and to me most important, caused the people to lose faith in every agency of government (read IRS, EPA, OSHA, Justice Department, Secret Service, FBI, and even the Supreme Court).
You can probably think of a few others but to me these were the major ones.
I see every sign from both the democrats and the republicans in office that a Trump presidency would be constrained at every turn. It’s possible he’d be completely neutered as an agent of change. There might be 4 years of fighting back and forth with stagnation in every area but in the end in 4 years we’d be right back where we are.
Looking at the last 16 years I see no signs that a democrat in office, such as Hillary, would be constrained in any way. Obama was able to effectively play the race card against his opponents in the same manner that Hillary would be able to play the gender card.
In the words of Mark Stein, which bear repeating, talking about the democrats and Hillary: “Think of what the last eight years have wrought – Obamacare, a weaponized IRS, six-figure fines for homophobic bakeries – and then pitch America forward to 2024. Picture the most absurd scenario you can concoct – say, a federal transgender-bathroom regime. Oh, no, wait, we’ve already got that. The left is serious about power, and they don’t waste time. The idea that the most personally corrupt candidate in modern American history will govern as some sort of benign moderate centrist placeholder until the wankers who thought Jeb Bush was a superstar shoo-in come up with their next inspiration is utterly preposterous.”
For these reasons I’m convinced that Trump is the best chance for this country’s survival as a constitutional republic. At best he might effect a few of the needed changes while at worst he’d be a loud-mouthed buffoonish placeholder.
So, when the people go into the voting booth there are two possibilities. They will either be distracted by the establishment (all of them including establishment republicans) and their daily revelations of how mean, stupid and piggish Trump is and vote against him, or they will see this election as the last possible chance for change before the country crumbles and descends into social chaos and/or economic chaos and/or civil war and/or international war.
I think this is the most important election since Lincoln for the future of this country. So please, vote your conscience and pray for this country; we’ll need it either way!
Nah, we’ll be okay.
Hillary will be everything we expect, only less so. She will be crippled from both the left and right from day 1. It is rather important to retain control of the Senate though.
The next cycle in 2018 is very favorable to the GOP Senate, especially after 2 years of Hillary.
The main thing to concentrate on over the next 4 years is reforming the Trump supporters to be more responsible voters for next cycle.
Irv Says:
“Something has gone terribly wrong with the Republican party, and it has nothing to do with the flaws of Donald Trump.
No, I think Trump has a great deal to do with it. He has exploited the worst natures of people for his own aggrandizement, and in the process handed Hillary 4 years of power.
Trump is himself just a reflection of WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE VOTERS. If they cared about reform, it would bother them immensely when Trump backtracks on his pledges. But as far as I can tell, they don’t care a whit about it.
As I’ve said so many times, what they want is REVENGE. Their anger makes them easy to manipulate, and that’s exactly what happened this cycle.
P.S. Yes, the GOPe started this. But we had a chance to fix it, and we blew it. The voters couldn’t control themselves, and got taken in by a con man.
Y,
I find it amazing that so many people cling to the idea that the lights will always come on, the water always flow, the grocery shelves will always be stocked, and the police will respond within 5 seconds after they dial 911. Yes, they know things go haywire with hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. They believe super mommy and sugar daddy will always ride to the rescue. But they can not wrap their minds around the idea that long term (beyond a few days), systematic failures are always possible and that there are many potential events that can bring about such a situation, and many of the threats are beyond anyone’s ability to
They cling to the idea that those of us you ‘horde’ food, water, and ammo are paranoid nutjobs. Yes, I believe in survival and being responsible for me and mine.
We will get Hillary, everything will become exponentially worse, and we’ll get a bunch of smug internet pundits telling us “ah yes but just imagine how awful it would be under Trump” while the Republican establishment rolls on their backs and hit the snooze button. The country’s borders will be unenforced and overrun by illegal aliens and terrorists alike. Socialism is almost certainly going to take over the country and impoverish us and kill many as quality medical care tanks.
But hey at least we’ll be able to say, over fires fueled by worthless fiat currency, “Thank God Trump didn’t get elected! Can you imagine what a mess we would be in then?”
Y,
I find it amazing that so many people cling to the idea that the lights will always come on, the water always flow, the grocery shelves will always be stocked, and the police will respond within 5 seconds after they dial 911. Yes, they know things go haywire with hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
They believe super mommy and sugar daddy will always ride to the rescue. They can not wrap their minds around the idea that long term (beyond a few days), systematic failures are always possible and that there are many potential events that can bring about such a situation, and many of the threats are beyond anyone’s ability to predict or even recognize.
They cling to the idea that those of us you ‘horde’ food, water, and ammo are paranoid nutjobs. Yes, I believe in survival and being responsible for me and mine.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think we’ll be okay with Hillary. SCOTUS will be bad, and she’ll divert as much money as she thinks she needs to cronies to get what she wants, but her corruption and cynicism may actually leaven her policies.
I think as soon as it’s wrapped up and Obama is out of the white house, she’ll start cutting deals to gut Obamacare. She’ll try to replace it with single-payer, but the second part isn’t a sure thing. I think that will be part of her revenge against Obama (whom she hates). We need to keep a close eye on McConnell so he doesn’t sell us out. We need to keep a close eye on the House, which should be more in our control.
I think she has much fewer ideological ties to hard leftist causes like environmentalism. I don’t think her Wall Street connections will allow it.
At the same time, she’ll be hit with hostility from both the right and the left, and she’s not a popular person who can rely on zombie followers to get her agenda through like Obama. She will not have a great deal of latitude to ram through stuff like executive orders.
Then of course, there’s the possibility of a severe economic downturn during her presidency, which may leave her crippled like GWB at the end of his term: better than the opponent in the race, but not good enough to prevent a backlash.
Oops, posted a post I was previewing without realizing it. So much for my internet survival rate.
“Whever I see the pudendaly named . . . . I am never sure if he knows jack or sh_t . . . .” Vandeleun @ 7:11]
This is the kind of elementary school attempt at snark that I have been decrying. I disagree w/ Big Maq on most major points this election cycle. Still they represent his opinion; an opinion to which he is entitled, however well informed it might be or however uniformed it might be. To descend to this level, and yes it is a descent, has not been called for in anything he has written on this thread.
This election seems to have caused us, as a nation, to vest our egos in our opinions. We consistently forget that regardless of where we are on the Trump vs. Hillary spectrum, these are nothing more than our opinions. They are speculation and, to use Vanderdleun’s own statement, no one really gives jack or sh_t about what we think.
It is sad to think that we uselessly debase ourselves like this.
FindHome:
“But hey at least we’ll be able to say, over fires fueled by worthless fiat currency, “Thank God Trump didn’t get elected! Can you imagine what a mess we would be in then?””
Nope, without Trump fire will be forgotten. All will be lost in the darkness (won’t have the sense not to stare at the thing up in the sky) it will be a catastrophe of global scale. Humanity will cease to exist in a few weeks.
“I find it amazing that so many people cling to the idea that the lights will always come on, the water always flow . . . .” [parker @ 9:34]
We become inured to civilization. The special hypocrisy is that those who decry Western civilization because they see it as so flawed (IMO it is the greatest humanitarian achievement in human history) can do so precisely because it has been so successful and the lights always do come on and the water always does flow.
They have no conception that life itself is daily conflict and Western civilization has minimized that to the point that today we even have the luxury of thinking of world wars as aberrations rather a way of life
Robert Heinlein said:
T – That has even framed on my wall for many many years!
“We need to keep a close eye on McConnell so he doesn’t sell us out. We need to keep a close eye on the House, which should be more in our control.” [Matt_SE 2 9:46]
This is precisely the problem. Once a congressman or senator is elected they can do what they please for 2 for 6 years. Exercising control over a sitting legislator is a great idea in theory, but virtually impossible in practice.
“. . . she’s not a popular person who can rely on zombie followers to get her agenda through like Obama. She will not have a great deal of latitude to ram through stuff like executive orders. She will not have a great deal of latitude to ram through stuff like executive orders.” [Matt_SE @ 9:46]
I think you are absolutely and fundamentally incorrect. IMO the Dems in congress will do whatever she wants, the Republicans will have a tendency to rollover as they have done with Obama and the press will raise such a hue and cry that our castrated Republicans will see no alternative to giving her what she wants. They did much of that for Obama under the cloud of being called “racist,” I would fully expect them to repeat that performance under the threat of being called “sexist and misogynist” (the meme will be “You wouldn’t oppose this if the president were male!”).
Her history of politicians looking the other way on her behalf has been going on for 40 years. I think she will have all the latitude she desires or needs.
Matt_SE,
I imagine we all hope you’re right but what if you’re wrong? Really wrong? What’s your “plan b” for that scenario? You know, the scenario where it turns out that our paranoid ‘hyperbole’ turns out to be entirely accurate?
And just how exactly are we supposed to keep McConnell and his ilk from selling us out… again? What brilliant mechanism and, it must be brilliant since it previously escaped us… will we employ to keep McConnell and the GOPe from selling us out under the cover of ‘bipartisan compromise’…?
As for keeping “a close eye on the House”… Such as preventing Ryan from handing Clinton the kind of omnibus bill that he did Obama, where the GOP gave Obama and the democrats MORE than they asked for?
How shall we stop them? Will more phone calls and outraged comments on blogs do it? What else is there in the face of Ryan’s and the great bulk of incumbent’s easy re-elections?
As for Wall Street donors controlling her… its easy enough to pass laws that cater to ideological imperatives, while leaving plenty of manuevering room for Wall Street. Just look up Bernie Sanders’ speeches to confirm it.
Your denial is keeping you from recognizing the obvious; let Wall Street glut itself with riches and it will fund whomever enables its gluttony. Even a Left moving the nation toward the day when “the rich” will finally be made to pay for their ‘crimes’, having finally delivered to the Left enough ‘rope’ (power) with which to hang them.
corrected. I was thinking 30 years, but is suspect it’s actually abour 25.
“Her history of politicians looking the other way on her behalf has been going on for
4025 years. I think she will have all the latitude she desires or needs.”Sorry.
“. . . let Wall Street glut itself with riches and it will fund whomever enables its gluttony.” [GB @ 10:58]
True, that!
KBK:
I completely disagree with those who say that Trump would be impeached (I assume what they mean is impeached and convicted, because impeachment without conviction has virtually no meaning, as we learned with Bill Clinton). Here’s why.
It’s interesting to me how blithely it is said, as though it’s obvious and a foregone conclusion. It is not. In fact, no president has ever been impeached and convicted, and for the reasons I explained in that post, I doubt Trump would be, either.
T:
That offensive comment you were commenting on is gone now.
GB:
Burn it all down and trust in Trump? Plan zed.
“This is precisely the problem. Once a congressman or senator is elected they can do what they please for 2 for 6 years. Exercising control over a sitting legislator is a great idea in theory, but virtually impossible in practice.”
Oh, ask John Boehner about that. Or maybe ask Cantor, Boehner’s former 2nd in command from the Richmond area of VA that was booted out by a Tea Party. Is it easy? No, do entrenched incumbents have immense advantages? Yes. Is give up and burn it down the answer? No.
There are methods to address the power of incumbency and the 17th amendment that exist in the constitution. Better methods than burn-it-all-down or civil war 2. 😉
T Says:
I think you are absolutely and fundamentally incorrect. IMO the Dems in congress will do whatever she wants
Not whatever. TPP is not popular with the Dem base, and there would be defections. Things that bolster Wall Street and confirm the worst criticisms of Hillary wouldn’t just sail through.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
I imagine we all hope you’re right but what if you’re wrong? Really wrong? What’s your “plan b” for that scenario?
I think you must mean “plan C,” because electing a Republican was plan A. That went out the window with Trump, so stopping Hillary with congress IS plan B. If plan B falls through, we can only try and slow the process down using the courts. There is no plan D.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
And just how exactly are we supposed to keep McConnell and his ilk from selling us out… again?
Probably by driving to D.C. for a giant rally on the stairs of congress. Also, giant rallies/protests in front of congressmens’ houses. No more internet activism.
If you’re not willing to do that, then I guess you want Hillary to win.
The most convincing argument to vote Trump so far I found in Pat Buchanan article: http://buchanan.org/blog/an-establishment-in-panic-3-125855
What this election made clear is not what is wrong with Washington establishment, both Republican and Democrat, but what is wrong with voters and democracy as such. When values of liberty are not paramount to majority of population, in democracy they will be abandoned and replaced with illiberal, paternalistic oligarchy, just as happened in ancient Greek democracy. Republic will perish, since population is not anymore capable “to keep it”.
“Oh, ask John Boehner about that. Or maybe ask Cantor . . . .” [OM @ 1:31]
Two out of five hundred and thirty eight? I would say first, that those say those are the exceptions which prove the rule; and second, you have just reinforce my point @ 10:53 —“Once a congressman or senator is elected they can do what they please for 2 for 6 years.” Don’t think that much damage can be done int hthat time? See Obama. I hardly call that control.
“When values of liberty are not paramount to majority of population . . . .” [Sergey @ 6:28]
As I said above (@ 10:25 pm), we become inured to civilization and freedom. We expect them and take them for granted; we don’t think of them as gifts which must be earned or defended. MAtt_SE is correct about one thing, we should exert more influence over congress when they fail us, but until we take up Eric’s call and become as interested in activism as the left, that will not happen.
I do not blame the people for the values of liberty not being paramount. When the liberal get into power one of the first things they destroy is the education system. Our education system has turned into a propaganda system for the liberal establishment.
The next thing they destroy is the economic system so the people have no way of surviving other than the state supporting. This causes the people to begin to vote their pocketbooks with no realization (because of no education) that they have entered into a system that destroys every thing it touches.
Just look at what unrestrained welfare used to buy votes and keep the entrenched in power has done to the Native Americans, the Europeans, Argentina, Venezuela. All are in various stages of collapse due to entrenched liberal power.
If the people had not been dumbed down and made dependent on the state then they might be able to realize that it is a corrupt failing system.
Once the welfare system and/or government employment goes over 50% of the voting public there is no return.
As Romney said, we were at 47% then and Obama has made gains since then.
There is still a large group that thinks if they could just stop the establishment they could institute changes enough to get a sizable number of people of of welfare and into self support they could change the vote totals in the future.
If they at the same time stop the propaganda system in the schools and again begin to teach the values of democracy and capitalism then they have a chance of returning the country to its values.
That’s why I’m voting Trump. Getting the liberal establishment out of power is more important to the future of the country than anything else. If it isn’t done now they will go over 50% by a good margin before the end of 4 years.
When that happens, goodbye America, hello Venezuela.
Sergey:
“The most convincing argument to vote Trump so far I found in Pat Buchanan article”
The article you linked may be convincing, and well written, but the author is nothing more than an anti-Semitic bigot. When he was running for President I drove some distance from my home to hear him give a campaign speech in the little mill town of Hayfork, California. He chose that out of the way place because a lumber mill had closed leaving the town without its only major source of jobs. This was also when China was buying up whole mills and shipping them to Siberia or who knows where. His focus was his usual theme of protectionism and anti-immigrant scapegoating. But what the local TV station didn’t catch in their 2 minute soundbite, were his interspersed gibes at Jews. He was very clever how he did it. They were off the cuff, very oblique references to who “really” controlled Wall Street and the banks, the “people” who had the money and influence but their hearts where with another country, the “ones” who were selling us out.
So sorry, but anything Buchanan writes is suspect. I know where he’s coming from.
It’s tedious I admit, but possibly worthwhile to inspect more carefully our own rhetoric when speaking of politics and political matters. The reason I write that sentence is due to the following term: “values” (albeit only one among many many other terms of political speech we commonly use without close inspection or reflection).
It’s for shit, see. Why? Because of a number of things.
To begin with then, what political term was “values” functionally introduced to replace (by F. Nietzsche, for one among the primary introducers)? How about good, yes?
Yes. But “values” is so much more scientific! Y’know, the fact-value distinction? Right. That.
Notice too the place of pride “values” takes in the political language of our founding revolutionary and their succeeding framing generations? That’s correct again! It isn’t there at all. Those men and women never used it in this newer (later) sense. So how, one might ask, would the present generation return to something which was not there at all? Maybe a good question. But is it a values question?
I do not dispute that Buchanan is and always was an antisemite. This still does not make his arguments invalid. There are serious reasons for rejecting open borders and free trade beyond crass xenophobia, and to doubt nation building and promoting democracy in backward societies historically unprepared for it. All these items were articles of faiths for neoconservatives, and history made a tough test of these dogmas and found them wanting a lot. The same criticism was leveled against neo-conservatism by David Goldman who can not be suspected in antisemitism at all, so now we have a split between conservative movement as presented by National Review and alt-con, who founded a new journal “American Greatness” and declared their independence from neocons. So now a new generation of conservatives has some points of consensus with traditional paleocons like Buchanan and independent conservatives like VDH and Spengler. Has it anything to do with Jews? Of course it has, as all important intellectual and ideological movements always had. What always annoyed me in Jewish intellectuals is their readiness to embrace faddish gentile utopian philosophies like Marxism, Trotskysm, liberalism, democracy, race and gender equality and so on at expense of their own much more realistic and anthropologically sound, very conservative and antimodernist legacy. So paint me as neopaleocon, that is, profoundly racist, sexist, anti-democratic religious Zionist.
T:
Regarding congress Geoffrey made another despairing observation about how utterly unresponsive our representatives are. It didn’t take more than a few moments to recall two of the most powerful members of the House that learned something to the contrary. So say it was an exception that does not make the rule, which is true, but Geoffrey seems to be mired in pessimism sometimes.
“you have to realize that there is an anti-Hillary camp (I know you do not support Hillary either) that sees Trump as a potentially viable alternative.”
I definitely see and understand that.
I do say Steyn is “WRONG”, indeed, because that is my opinion.
BUT, Steyn didn’t make the positive case for trump – so he really didn’t “prove” that trump was the better choice.
That is my point.
It wasn’t comparative in the least.
So, what should one make of such an “argument”?
Was he just being lazy?
Or, merely biased?
We might cynically (because there have been other media personalities this cycle who have) conclude that it is an appeal to reinforce an audience. A retention mechanism, given how long Steyn’s been out of the fray this election cycle (which I found unusual, given how global communications are nowadays)
“Actually, IMO, gridlock is precisely what the founders intended; a series of checks and balances between three self-interested divisions so that only the most important and most necessary legislation sees passage. The more citizens agitate for cooperation among those three entities and the more cooperation that occurs, the less free we become. Hence the 173,000 pages (346 reams, 34.6 cartons) of laws and regulations in the U.S. Code.” – T
Very much agree with this. This is one of the “exceptional” aspects of our American system.
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Although the US is described as bicameral along with, say, the UK, or Canada, two things are very different:
1) The executive in the US is separate from the House of Commons (where the majority party forming the executive and cabinet), and retains it’s own veto on legislation (whereas the executive vote in the UK / Cda is part of the HoC’s vote).
2) Their House of Lords / Senate are long term appointments by the lead party in their House of Commons.
In practice, the UK HoL / Cdn Senate provide little more than rubber stamp authorization to legislation. They have a theoretical veto, perhaps useful in the most extreme cases, but, IIRC from studies, they can be overcome by the HoC.
The barriers in the US are far higher to get new legislation.
And, higher to repeal legislation.
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Much of today’s anger here seems to be from frustrations (on BOTH sides) in getting what they (each) want done, a good portion of which is blocked by this process our Founders put in place.
This anger seems very much the rationale for both cheering on a hoped for leader who will bend and bypass the rules in favor of action to support their desired outcome.
“We complain about too many laws, but judge legislators’ effectiveness by how much legislation they originate during their term. We actually think a “do nothing” congress is a bad thing, and none of these points even include the super mommy and sugar-daddy rent seekers that you mention.” – T
Agree.
We also frequently hear “there ought to be a law for …. (fill in the blank)” from our side, advocating more onto the mess we have.
The more we all want to add, the more power is given. Invariably, those who administer those laws find ways to (ab)use them in ways well beyond their intended target.
Just one example, asset forfeiture – has now become a significant source of funding for some LE. Another – John Doe laws in Wisconsin.
All have “good intentions”, but too many have awful consequences.
Big Maq – “This anger seems very much the rationale for both cheering on a hoped for leader who will bend and bypass the rules in favor of action to support their desired outcome.”
I see a great difference in a group wanting to return to and uphold the constitution as written and one wanting to interpret and/or ignore it to their own ends. These are not equivalents. One group believes in the rule of law and the other believes in the rule of people.
I’m a big fan of the rule of law. I do not want to elect someone to do my will except insofar as my will is to obey the law.
We know for a fact that Hillary will not obey the law. Trump may take advantage of poorly written laws but he has no history of breaking them.
” I disagree w/ Big Maq on most major points this election cycle. Still they represent his opinion; an opinion to which he is entitled, however well informed it might be or however uniformed it might be.” – T
Thanks.
And, yes, I do think my arguments are particularly “uniformed” and consistent.
Agree with the argument that we’ve all had to form opinions / judgements wrt this election.
I do find many of the arguments opposite to be over-formed, under-formed, uninformed, malformed and misinformed. (just to play on words) 😉
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There have been some “good” arguments, but they’ve been few and far between, even by “conservative” pundits. Rather feel that I could have made a better case than most have for trump, but I won’t do their job for them (besides, I think trump, himself, pretty much destroyed those arguments by now).
Far too many make it about “not clinton” – and that is not enough.
In their minds, she’s never been the “stalin” who will bring us “gulags”, nor the “flight 93” case, as some have tried to argue. If she actually would be an IRL stalin or mao, that might win the day, but she isn’t.
An overwrought case does not buy voters who are “undecided” and persuadable. trump has long had net negatives below clinton, and all the concentration has been to bring her down to trump’s level, never to raise his.
This message never speaks to them and their concerns. If anything, it alienates them (though it plays very well to those who already “hate” clinton).
As we now see, that “not clinton” message is just not enough to swing voters to GOP.
“In their minds” refers to the undecided persuadable voters.
“How shall we stop them? Will more phone calls and outraged comments on blogs do it? What else is there in the face of Ryan’s and the great bulk of incumbent’s easy re-elections? “ – GB
I guess you missed the first comment posted here.
If you still cling to trump as being the right answer, and carry on with an overwrought case, then we will continue to be on the losing end of this, as to do ANYTHING meaningful means we need to have public support.
By definition that is how our Republic works.
We cannot just “close down the government” over the budget without laying the ground work for popular support.
Well, we could, but without that support, guess which side will “cave”. Do this too many times and it is like “crying wolf”, raising the bar on the case for the next time we want to take major action.
What can we do about it?
Check out the link in the first comment – it starts with some of the ideas by JJ and others follow below his.
And yet of the posts I’m reading here that are “not Clinton,” the majority of them give the reasons why they think Trump would not be as bad. Very few of the “never Trump” group ever mention Clinton and when they do they just assert the belief that she wouldnt’ be as bad as the others claim. I’d love to see a head to head comparison on the issues.
You may not think that Trump will be able to or even try to do the things outlined in his ‘first hundred days’ speech on Saturday but at least the things he promised to do have the support of the majority of the people. And he has a history of success in his endeavors. Also, for every person who speaks out against his character there at least as many attesting to it.
What I’m saying is that with Clinton you have a proven lack of character and blatant unrepentant dishonesty all to the detriment of the country. With Trump there is at least a love of the country that has enabled him to be a success. He would have a lot invested in the economic success of the country whereas Clinton’s road to success is to continue to sell out to our enemies as long as it enriches her.
To me that’s an easy decision.
“I see a great difference in a group wanting to return to and uphold the constitution as written and one wanting to interpret and/or ignore it to their own ends. These are not equivalents. One group believes in the rule of law and the other believes in the rule of people. … I’m a big fan of the rule of law. I do not want to elect someone to do my will except insofar as my will is to obey the law.” – Irv
I do see a difference too!
Where we differ is that I see many supporters for trump hoping for a shortcut of the legislative process.
I don’t for a moment believe that the hard core trump supporters have an interest in maintaining the Constitution. They cheer comments by trump that question his commitment to abide by it, and why he rides the boundary on this point:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/donald-trump-vs.-the-constitution/article/2581763
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/2016-donald-trump-constitution-guide-unconstitutional-freedom-liberty-khan-214139
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/trump-constitution/503540/
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/435296/donald-trump-constitution-end-separation-powers
Yes, there are some of us here who do, but I think they are ignoring or downplaying this possibility with trump.
When they do this or don’t really acknowledge the risk, I presume they mustn’t be looking very hard, and perhaps really don’t have fidelity to the rule of law as a real concern.
This is the heart of our disagreement – I see BOTH as leading in that same direction, whereas others can only see clinton doing so, and surprisingly fail to see any possibility of such wrt trump.
Others who do see risk assume too much in place today that can restrain trump, which very much counters their argument that our government has essentially lost its ability to restrain within the confines of the law, or they assume that the consummate deal maker wont make deals with the dems and trade away these things.
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“We know for a fact that Hillary will not obey the law. Trump may take advantage of poorly written laws but he has no history of breaking them.”
Well, even if we take your statement wrt clinton as true, if trump did grab someone’s genitals, that would also constitute breaking the law.
That he brags (in a generic sense) about doing so, enabled by his “star power”, should give us pause about what the power of POTUS will mean in his hands.
This is only one of many red flags in this regard on trump.
We may not “know for a fact” because he has not held office, but this is where character, past behavior, and past positions come in play. Too much is there that points against your contention wrt trump to trust him on that very point, and that he shares our concern about rule of law, the Constitution, the separation of powers, etc., etc., etc..
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In the end your argument reverts to “not clinton”, and that is just not enough. It has to be about what trump will do to fix these things. One has to suspect that the reversion is due to the lack of a positive case for trump to begin with.
“And yet of the posts I’m reading here that are “not Clinton,” the majority of them give the reasons why they think Trump would not be as bad. Very few of the “never Trump” group ever mention Clinton and when they do they just assert the belief that she wouldnt’ be as bad as the others claim. “
Well, you and I differ on what constitutes a positive case for trump – I hardly see the majority of responses making the positive case rather than talking about clinton and assuming or stating that trump would not be like that. Yours, as I responded to immediately above, is one for instance.
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One of the crucial points that most positive trump cases rely on is the implied assumption that trump is believable on any one thing. There have been many inconsistencies on several of his key issues that one has to be selective in what they want to point to as to what trump will do. IOW, trump is mutable. I made that point here…
http://neoneocon.com/2016/10/20/is-trumps-refusal-to-say-hed-accept-the-results-of-the-election-the-only-thing-that-happened-on-earth-today/#comment-1800105
As I said in a comment above, trump, by his own hand/mouth, has pretty much destroyed any positive case for himself.
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Still, I took one of the positive points for trump – illegal immigration – and provided links that identified trump’s conflicting stances. It was my Part II following the Part I in the link above. It was blocked from posting, going to “moderation”. I suspect a link in that one was a red flag (it pointed to an archived version of trump’s own website), but I don’t know for sure. The problem is that when they disappear like this, that is work lost. 🙁
We know for a fact that Hillary will not obey the law.
I know for a fact that every Leftist in the US is a traitor and will obey their Authority, which does not mean the law. So what are you and Trum going to do about them?
Is the excuse for giving tyrants power always that they will make the trains run on time?
Irv:
I don’t see that Trump’s investments have demonstrated love of country. Why not love of money? He’s certainly invested in other countries, too, and used foreign labor and foreign products when it could save him a buck. By the way, I’m not faulting him for that—business people should save money. I just don’t see his investments as love of country.
Actually, if Trump loved this country (and wanted to save it from Hillary Clinton), he should step down right now and let Pence run. But he won’t.
He has never served his country in any capacity other than as a real estate developer (including holding any political office), which as I said I don’t see as evincing love of country. He has mocked people like McCain. He gives very little money to charity (I documented that in a post that I can’t find at the moment, but see this). Two of his three wives are foreign (not that there’s anything wrong with that 🙂 ).
His love of country is rhetorical. It may be sincere or it may not, like everything Trump says.
But for me, one of the many many particularly awful things about Trump (that to me, belies a love of country or much of anything else except the desire to say things that get him press) has been something I described in this post I wrote early on, as well as other posts I’ve written. Here’s an excerpt in which I describe what Trump said in an interview in 2011 (and some of these things Trump reiterated during this 2016 campaign):
Big Maq – Thanks for making my point for me. Once again the discussion is solely about Trump and how he might not be who he says he is.
There is no positive case to make about either of them. The only case that matters is in reference to each other since we will wind up with one or the other.
Please stop telling me how bad Trump is unless you compare him to Clinton. When I said I had no interest in either of them except in the context of the election I meant it. I don’t judge others who have no influence in my life. I’ll leave that to others. I have a hard enough time handling my life without trying to judge how others are living theirs.
I would never ever mention the names of either of them if they weren’t about to have a significant influence in my life and I have to choose which influence will do the least damage to me and my family.
Neo – What I just said to Big Maq applies. One-sided discussions do nothing to further the decision-making process in my opinion. Even if everything you say about Trump is true, and I think many of the judgments are way too harsh, it means nothing to me outside of the context of the election.
Here, perhaps, is the difficulty Irv: you speak of country, whereas I speak of regime.
Trump loves the country, you say. Well yes, I’m happy to grant as much. But do you see that this is no more than the simple equivocation expressed sometime back by PresidentPsyeudonym when he said that sure, he believes in American exceptionalism just as any proper Brit would believe in British exceptionalism or Greek in Greek exceptionalism?
If you can grasp this distinction, then I think you’ll be on the road to grasping what is utterly insufficient in Donald Trump. He doesn’t give a crap about the regime, except insofar has he can himself capture it for purposes of power.
Irv Greenberg Says:
Please stop telling me how bad Trump is unless you compare him to Clinton.
Hillary has said she’d like to start gutting Obamacare; we suspect this is her true position because she said it to her Wall Street donors. It’s her public position that’s phony.
Trump has been on both sides of the issue, depending on which quote you’d like to believe.
Matt_SE – Since everyone seems to be convinced that both of them are liars, then the only question is what do you think they would actually do in office? Isn’t that the real question?
parker Says:
October 22nd, 2016 at 9:42 pm
I’ve been checking out the secret survival garden created by some guy who created a two person retreat up on a mountain and ended up creating a garden forest that produced more food than normal farms, without using fertilizer or pesticides. The link might still be good for a few days, on the free online webinar. https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/preparation-summit-for-survivalists-self-defense-civilians-and-assorted-others/
But even if it goes offline later, Rick Austin’s book on Amazon is still there. His concepts feel very flexible and creative, even genius, in terms of pulling humanity ahead. GM crops and seeds have done similar work in feeding humanity, but it may not be necessary to modify the DNA of these crops to be resistant to pesticides or poisons or insects or weather changes, if it is our farming methods which are outdated.
It is very similar to the Aquaponics idea I’ve heard before, where fish fertilize plants grown in a column, without the need for water or maintenance.
For anyone with any kind of property that they can use to grow a garden of food or small trees, those two ideas are something they might wish to look into from a defensive/survivalist perspective. Self reliance and independence from the government will do far more to fight the evil of DC and the Leftist alliance, than a million elections will or have done.
So the people start clamoring for change and the louder they demand change the harder the establishment fights against. Every agent of change that comes forward is immediately and ruthlessly crushed by the establishment and its agents (read as democrats, the mainstream media, the education system, the unions, even the republican establishment) who are deathly afraid that any change they don’t manage will reduce their power, influence, status and incomes.
So the people finally give up trying to elect their desired agents of change and become willing to accept any agent as long as he/she doesn’t represent the establishment. Thus the acceptance of Hitler in the thirties and Trump today. I’m not equating Trump and Hitler, I’m equating the reasons the people backed people they would not normally have backed.-Irv
Some here have come to the same conclusions. The question people argue is about the action to take now or later.
This reduced Bush’s power and credibility, diffused our war on militant Islam, depleted our military and took up all the funds that could have been used either to expand the economy or at least prevent the collapse at the end.
Federal funding that goes into US military budgets cannot be used to “expand the economy” unless you’re of FDR’s camp.
As for OIF, that was why it was an international coalition, not merely a go it alone Libya or Syrian bombing campaign that helps terrorists, which warmonger Democrats tend to get stuck in. Americans have this habit of pretending nobody else exists, even their allies, in the military sphere. American military dominance cannot last so long as the government intentionally seeks to lose in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan.
For these reasons I’m convinced that Trump is the best chance for this country’s survival as a constitutional republic. At best he might effect a few of the needed changes while at worst he’d be a loud-mouthed buffoonish placeholder.
Your “imagination of the worst” is sorely in need of an upgrade. Since I could imagine in 2007, what it only took you until now to realize about the power of the Leftist alliance and DC.
The worst under Trum would be that he works for the Left, as a liberal and 70 yo NY Demoncrat. He would only get bottlenecked if he tried to push conservative agendas, such as pro Tea Party. Trum doesn’t like the Tea Party and doesn’t like Cruz as a result of it, including all the Tea Party’s delegates or elected local officials. It’s less likely Trum will fight the Left, as the Left is hard to beat, as Trum will beat on Tea Party members such as Cruz.
Even under Bush II’s admin, he worked with Ted Kennedy, that drowner of women, on No Child Left Behind. The Left doesn’t get less powerful under a Republican President, their secret alliances only get more powerful. The idea that Trum can slow or stop any of that, would make more logical force of argument if Trum hadn’t been a Democrat and Leftist that liked socialized medicine in 2015. Between 2015 and now, Trum had a change of heart equal to Saul to Paul conversion? Don’t think so. We have seen true conversions and change of hearts, such as Neo Neo, even if Neo classifies that as merely remaining true to heart but changing one’s loyalties to humans.
But hey at least we’ll be able to say, over fires fueled by worthless fiat currency, “Thank God Trump didn’t get elected! Can you imagine what a mess we would be in then?”
The USA will be free falling into evil and Armageddon irregardless of who wins the US election. That isn’t going to change the fact that Trum supporters will be using the “stab in the back” argument to further peddle their love of DC influence and power. Ostracized splinter groups, left wing or right wing ideologies and fanatics, are not going to just sit down and shut up once they have tasted the sweet honey of the Power of DC and by extension, the United States military and economic machine. Red vs Blue will become reality, where Red is another “New Man” made philosophy like Marxism or Jim Jones, while Blue will be another totalitarian dystopia like Animal Farm.
Islam has proven to you that a minority of fanatics can gain control of the majority. By supporting Trum’s claim to power over us all, what Americans have done is open the door to a force which is just as dominating and as inefficient, as the Leftist alliance. What Trum voters need to worry about taking responsibility for isn’t Clinton or Trum’s actions, but the actions of their fellow allies, who will dominate them more and more as the “enemy” is setup via propaganda.
The police are made to fear criminals, thus giving power to police unions. The citizens are made to fear the police, thus giving criminals more power. And the criminals, are bought by Demoncrat mayors, who control the thugs and the police.
That relationship will easily become recognizable when Democrats and Republicans all join in the same totalitarian bullsh.
Matt_SE Says:
October 22nd, 2016 at 9:46 pm
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think we’ll be okay with Hillary. SCOTUS will be bad, and she’ll divert as much money as she thinks she needs to cronies to get what she wants, but her corruption and cynicism may actually leaven her policies.
I remember your last prediction, Matt SE, concerning healthcare and how many people will begin to hate or disapprove of Hussein because of the pains of the Healthcare costs. Well the healthcare costs have bombed through people’s wallets, and yet Hussein’s approval rate and the Left’s power, only increases.
The problem with being a false prophet, Matt SE, is that you yourself don’t seem to recognize your lack of accuracy. Which calls into question your methodology.
I told you before that people, even after feeling the minor pain of ObamaCare, won’t change as you said they would. And guess what happened. It will take a lot more “pain” than that.
I do not care whether a prophecy or prediction of the future comes from God or human statistical analysis, but accuracy is the sole thing I demand of the argument between truth and fiction. I’m rather practical in that sense.
Sergey Says:
October 23rd, 2016 at 6:28 am
What this election made clear is not what is wrong with Washington establishment, both Republican and Democrat, but what is wrong with voters and democracy as such.
Indeed, as Sergey wrote and as GB would probably agree with, the problem with this system isn’t merely the leadership. It’s everybody else also. Democracy only ends up killing people like Socrates at the end. Then it becomes an oligarchy of the powerful, which then converts mostly to a dictatorship.
51% of 100, is a majority. Yet 51% of 51% is also a majority. Then 51% of 26% is then the deciding majority vote block. And 51% of 14% is then the deciding ruling elites. And 51% of 8% is then the Ruling Class. And 51% of the 5% which commands for the 8% of the Ruling Class, are the top echelon spiritual prophets of the Leftist alliance.
Eventually, Democracy just means Rule by One Totalitarian MFer. After he kills everybody else in the majority clique that is. No wonder Plato and the Founding Fathers chose a Republic of wise leaders in an oligarchy instead.
When the liberal get into power one of the first things they destroy is the education system. Our education system has turned into a propaganda system for the liberal establishment.-Irv
Many people here won’t attempt to refute that. But the debate is always about the details, even if we believe in the same goal, because we believe in different things, our methods will be different. And they will conflict. Yet look at the unified force of the Leftist alliance, normally they should have shattered themselves long before now, especially with Islam by their side. Yet they have now. Witness the power of evil, and compare it to what little good, your side of humanity has done with even more resources and chances.
There is still a large group that thinks if they could just stop the establishment they could institute changes enough to get a sizable number of people of of welfare and into self support they could change the vote totals in the future.
Are you under the impression the Left came to hijack and dominate your mainstream Culture and US politics by electing Democrat Presidents? Hah, that is a gross mistake in perception of the Left’s strategic offensives if it is so.
The Left did not come to dominate the US by first controlling the established powers that be. Thus even if you dislodge the established powers that be, it will not affect the offensive power of the Leftist alliance nor their strategic reserves. It will slow things down for the Left, yes, as they can’t merely write down commands by pen and extra judicial writ, but it will not devastate their strategic reserves.
If they at the same time stop the propaganda system in the schools and again begin to teach the values of democracy and capitalism then they have a chance of returning the country to its values.
Returning the country to its values. That’s like returning a human soul to a zombie which sold that soul to Lucifer for power and promises of dominion over man. It’s easy for evil to flip good to evil. But when have you ever seen the opposite? And yet given the rarity of the reverse flip, how can anyone claim with surety and confidence that they can do a better job of it. They cannot guarantee success. Not even God can or will guarantee that human souls will be saved when they are evil and unrepentant. The evil and righteous may be reconstructed at the End Times, but that is not a pragmatic argument for now.
That’s why I’m voting Trump. Getting the liberal establishment out of power is more important to the future of the country than anything else.
Since Trum is a 70 yo liberal Demoncrat Leftist from New York…. how is that going to get the “liberal establishment” out of power. Even Bush II worked with Kennedy on No Child Left Behind, so don’t think the “liberal establishment” of traitors and evil freaks are just going to sit down, shut up, or go away because you think you Won an Election.
Sergey Says:
October 23rd, 2016 at 10:43 am
I do not dispute that Buchanan is and always was an antisemite. This still does not make his arguments invalid.
That is also true. Originally the anti semite argument was a German policy used to treat religious Jews and non religious culturally assimilated Jews, as the same enemy tribe. But it’s been used increasingly by people over the years as an argument stopper or personal character assassination, instead of logical debate. The old Godwin Law, except inverted. VoxDay is a “red” racial nationalist, plus a kind of White Christian Nationalism too. Yet that doesn’t change the accuracy of his statistical inferences or cultural arguments.
The more we all want to add, the more power is given. Invariably, those who administer those laws find ways to (ab)use them in ways well beyond their intended target.-B
Which is also true. If America wants to save themselves, they’ll have to transform their own soul, mind, and body first. People who need DC or the feds to do anything for them, have already lost.
The super majority of humans need an organization, a tribe, to look out for them. Weaklings gather to each other, to defend each other. The truly strong in human history, never did need the help of other humans, although it was convenient and luxurious at times. There are many stories such as the White Death, a single sniper holding back hordes of Soviets in WWII. Or the Man of the Mountain, who waged his own private war against Indian tribes for decades, without being killed or captured. Even the Japanese recently had to order one of their agents to stop shooting at the Phillippinos, because guess what, the War Was Over, yet the agent refused to believe it until his old CO came to give it to him personally, and this was around 2000 after Christ. Historically, the truly strong formed their own communities after a time, as people came to trust and depend on the strength of the One.
Well, Trum is the “One” so to speak. And Hillary Rod Damn Clinton is another “One” to US traitors and Leftists.
All have “good intentions”
The good intentions are the ones here who claim they have good intentions. It is of course, untrue, since the Left has evil intentions.
One group believes in the rule of law and the other believes in the rule of people.
The Alt Right, your allies, contain more than just two groups.
“Just one example, asset forfeiture . . . . All have “good intentions”, but too many have awful consequences.” [Big Maq @ 12:15]
I swear that when progressives die they’re given work in the afterlife on the paving crew.
“As we now see, that “not clinton” message is just not enough to swing voters to GOP.” [Big Maq @ 12:53]
Ah! But will it be enough ro make them vote for Trump? That, IMO, is an entirely different question. Frankly, the Republican party lost me. I am as anti-Dem as I have always been (altho a registered Dem for local reasons), but any illusions I have or had about the Republican party are long gone. That is one of the major effects that the Trump campaign has had for me in this cycle.
“Where we differ is that I see many supporters for trump hoping for a shortcut of the legislative process.
I don’t for a moment believe that the hard core trump supporters have an interest in maintaining the Constitution.” [Big Maq @ 1:55]
Well that would certainly not include me. I do not see Trump as a “short cut” around the constitution. In fact, my belief is that if he would try that, the animosity Trump has built within the political world and in the public eye would motivate or erstwhile lo-T (no pun intended) congress to oppose Trump more vigorously than a Clinton administration. As for the hard core alt-right Trumpers, I place them in the Peggy Johnson category (you remember, she was the woman who said she wouldn’t have to pay her mtg or pay for gas in her car if Obama was elected). I think that they might well be the most disappointed by a Trump administration.
“. . . motivate
orour erstwhile lo-T . . . ”Fixed it.
@T – I suspect that you and I have a LOT more overlap than disagreement. In fact, I believe that true for most “reluctant” trump supporters.
I think it is you who said somewhere else that our differences come down to a judgement call – agree.
You seem to acknowledge risk with trump, but that there would be strong enough (my interpretation) resistance to him going down the wrong path.
In December 2015, I would have agreed.
Today, after having seen a collapse in GOP leaders behind trump (and fast it was), I just don’t have the confidence that it would be strong enough – itself representing a gamble, even with the “animosity” that he has built up.
The GOP in Congress would be a surer bet resisting clinton than vs trump (a man and his supporters, inside and outside of Congress, who would be emboldened and energized by his win).
I have no doubt that a trump admin would be a disappointment – a HUGE one – just assuming he’d stick to the “better” side to some of his policy stands (i.e. ignoring statements that imply the more extreme aspects).
If we think we have widespread anger now, it will then quickly escalate, as we see how trump, his surrogates, and his hard core supporters rhetorically deal with failure.
Big Maq – Even if you’re right in your judgment of Trump (which I think is way too harsh) how does that make his presidency worse than Hillary’s?
What I’ve never understood – people on this comments thread literally predict the end of the Republic if Hillary is elected.
The end of the Republic.
Yet the GOP nominated the absolute worst guy to beat Hillary. If the polls are correct (I know, I know, all skewed and rigged) he’s going to lose big. Big. Yuge. Was this all just a game for everyone? If the Republic was really in that much danger, is this how a party acts?
If Trump loved his country he would have dropped out and let someone else lead. instead he’s spent his time attacking Republicans, the very people who are supposed to help him stop the slide into oblivion.
If all of you really believed that an HRC win would be as disastrous as you say, you would have worked as hard as you can to support someone who could win when it mattered. Most of you have said you supported Cruz, then Rubio, then Fiorina. The man you now support shamelessly slandered all of them.
His first 100 days will be spent going after his enemies. He said as much at Gettysburg.
This is all so frustrating. The GOP has killed itself. This is suicide and it sure as heck isn’t the fault of NeverTrump.
A party that stupid wasn’t going to do anything to make things better anyway. My plan B is to search for and support anyone (anyone!) who can create a new conservative movement out of the ashes.
Is the way forward to “Forget Trump Ever Happened”?
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-10-23/on-nov-9-let-s-forget-donald-trump-happened
Is this how Germany and Japan recovered? (Not a Godwin Law reference – honest)
$Obamacare$ might help sink Hellary to a 4 year term at least. Might even sink some other Dims.
“how does that make his presidency worse than Hillary’s?”
It’s all just probabilities and conjectures at this point, but people are who they are. Trump has shown us who he is – clearly.
Biggest reason: He’ll kill whatever’s left of conservatism. It’s like doing the trapeze without a safety net – the only remaining stop the leftward march is Trump himself (who is an NYC leftist without a cogent political philosophy beyond “what’s best for Trump” and has shown red-light warnings of authoritarian tendencies and therefore worthless at stopping any march) and whatever remains of the alt-right infested GOP. It’s not worth it. Longer term, it’s a disaster. A Trump-stained alt-right smeared conservatism (isolationist, misogynistic, racist) will not be listened to by the majority of the country. People will gladly move left. I’ve already seen it happen.
I don’t think the Republic will end, but I actually believe with Trump leading it the conservative movement is shattered and we move away from the divided government people above have lauded. We will move more leftward, faster, rather than rightward.
If she wins: Things will be bad, Obama’s third term bad, but she’s a really bad politician and will be much easier to oppose than Obama. The GOP will have a cause to galvanize around that opposition after the confusion and division of 2016. If you want to argue with me that the GOPe (I’m so sick of the term “establishment” at this point) gave Obama everything he wanted please research Neo’s comments and posts on that first. It’s a myth ginned up by the ratings-whores in “conservative” media.
Finally – at some point you just can’t pull a lever for a person. He said he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and his followers would still follow him. He was right. There is ample, ample evidence that he is massively dishonest, is a sexual predator with a long history of abuse (verbally and otherwise) of women, a swindler, and someone who doesn’t really care for the “little guy” if his eminent domain actions show us anything. He also has expressed admiration for dictators and equivalenced the US with Putin’s Russia when discussing the murdering of reporters. He mocked a disabled guy, publicly, which shows that he is both stupid and (this is unkind and ungracious to say, I know) a piece of human garbage.
I know those of you that are voting for him are good people. Salt of the earth. I understand your reasons for doing so. I am arguing that there comes a point where we need to reject both major party candidates and not reward them with our votes.
Vote your conscience.
My conscience says vote for the person who will do the least amount of damage to the country. We obviously disagree in our evaluations of Trump and Hillary but I really wish you wouldn’t impute motives to people just because you think some of the people who disagree with you have poor thought processes or base motives.
Believe it or not, there are people who are of high moral character and intelligence who analyze the situation differently. A little more emphasis here and a little less there on how important the various considerations are and you come up with a different result.
So please spare me the talk about how stupid republicans have been. The republican party is very badly split along ideological lines. There are many many people fighting for the soul of the party and which way it will go is still undecided but it certainly isn’t monolithic.
I think what was once the conservative party is still worth fighting for in large part because any other course of action seems to me to be futile.
“So please spare me the talk about how stupid republicans have been. “
Irv, I know that you are a good person and you certainly seem intelligent to me.
But if you are waiting for me to defend GOP primary voters for nominating Donald Trump in a year in which many people are claiming the stakes are sky high, or defend guys like Rush/Hannity/Coulter/Ingraham Giulliani, Christy, Carson or Reince (among many others), you’ll be waiting for a long time.
They may be many things – good to their families, good Christians, smart enough to make it big in their fields, charitable, etc. I don’t know. But what they did and who they supported in 2015/16 was dumb. Very, very dumb.
The GOP can resurrect itself, but only if it jettisons Trumpism and fumigates itself of the alt-right goons who got in through the attic.
My opinion.
@Irv – at the end of the day what most of us here who are critical of trump are saying is that BOTH are awful – BOTH are beyond a threshold barrier of “goodness” for the office, for this country.
Afaic, trump is heading in much the same leftist direction as clinton. Both will be harmful to this country for very similar reasons.
He “might” be a smidgen better (and probably not in ways many trump supporters think, imho), but there is potential to be much, much worse (for many reasons articulated here by myself and others). It is not worth the trade off.
I also think there is greater likelihood he will push the envelope much further on executive action (than clinton ever could) that would leave the door wide open in 2020 for the thing most ardent trump supporters fear most right now.
Will the election turn on my say so? No. But, I would suggest that many in the electorate who are rather unhappy with clinton, and might have voted for a GOP presidential candidate (above I said simply “for GOP”, but it got taken as for the party vs the candidate), are seeing much the same thing as we’ve been talking about in the comments of this blog since this time last year.
Rather than relitigating it all, we ought to be talking about what next?
Anyone think pubis deceivious (aka brett decker – my best guess – coincidentally published book day after “flight 93” hit, very critical of nevertrump) has a plan B?
Join trump TV?
Irv:
I have certainly (as I said earlier) not ignored Hillary’s failings. My arguments are not one-sided.
However, if you mean that any time anyone says a negative thing about Trump, that person MUST then counterbalance it with an immediate “Hillary, on the other hand…” then that’s pretty absurd. In addition, when I was responding to you about whether Trump loved this country, I was countering an assertion you had made about Trump: ” With Trump there is at least a love of the country that has enabled him to be a success.” I was merely trying to address that one point, and explain why it might be wrong, or at least why I see very little evidence for it, and a certain amount of evidence to the contrary.
I used to agree about that point, by the way; that Trump was sincere in love of country. I’ve come to doubt it, though.
“You seem to acknowledge risk with trump, but that there would be strong enough (my interpretation) resistance to him going down the wrong path.” [Big Maq @ 4:39]
To clarify my position I would say there might be not “would be” strong enough resistance. I look at the possibility of a Trump administration with open eyes; I understand that I may find him a huge disappointment, and I have never, never, thought of him as some kind of anti-Obama savior. If he were to govern like a Scoop Jackson Democrat I could live with that temporarily as a better alternative than Clinton.
My primary antipathy for Clinton comes on the heels of 8 years of Obama transformation. Were we coming out of a 4 year Romney administration where the ship had been righted at least a little bit, I would feel less uneasy. As I have said before, however, I think we are at (or close to) a critical mass of Progressivism from which there is no turning back.
Much of this is because of the left’s Gramscian march through the institutions but a great deal of what the left has accomplished is because there has been no (at least little) opposition from the feckless, lo-T, castrated Republican party that seems to enjoy it’s position as a minority Dem-Lite party, rather than fight for conservative principles. They claim to support them, but words—just words.
I can understand not choosing to chance dying on certain hills; I can not understand making that decision repeatedly at most every hill one approaches. Many commenters here talk of the Republican party rebuilding. As what? A new version of Dem Lite? To Hell with that.
My great disappointment in the primaries was that Scott Walker, a candidate with demonstrated conservative principles and a track record of implementing conservative policies could gain no early traction. Who did the Republicans want to see as their nominee? Dynastic Jeb Bush. Why? Because it was his turn? To that Republican party I say screw them and the horses they rode in on.
Pardon my venting ( I really do not know where this came from, but it felt good). It still doesn’t mean that I’ll vote Democrat—enough time for that after I’m dead.
T:
Yes indeed the Republican party process that gave the country the choice of Trump or Hillary (since they assumed that the third party was a third rail) has screwed the pooch. Trump appears to be quite happy trying to administer the coup de grace. May Trump go the way of Enron.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-23/new-podesta-email-exposes-dem-playbook-rigging-polls-through-oversamples
I’ve posted time and again that Robert Cialdini’s playbook revolves around managing expectations.
Rigging the polling is exactly that.
In this Podesta email he lays out — blow by blow — how his captive pollsters are to deliberately oversample demographics known to wildly favor Hillary — and how those same pollsters are to stay away from old folks. ( don’t dial into retirement communities )
Podesta is even dialled into which urban areas are in his camp — or not. He instructs pollsters where they are to get their “random” samples.
ABC// WaPo is orchestrated as part of the Clinton Machine. Bezos, the owner of the WaPo flatly admitted that his motivation for buying that rag was to put HRC in the oval office and crush Donald Trump.
So is it any surprise that of late that pollster printed a +12 lead for Hillary ?
It’s plain that this poll oversamples Democrats and Independents — by quite a bit. But you’re not given any further breakdown by demographic. I assume because yet other distortions would be very apparent.
IBD is not getting Podesta’s email instructions. So their polling has Trump at +2.
IMHO this race is still as tight as a drum.
&&&&
As for the tabulation: George Soros controls the firm that controls the voting machines in 16 states — many are battleground states. This is the same firm that corrupted the Venezuelan vote over a decade ago. From that time until now, its ownership is obscured by a stack of shell corporations. (!!!)
Yet this is the firm that ‘won’ a slew of tabulation contracts even in the USA.
Trump has EVERY reason to expect that the tabulation is going to be hacked.
I live in a Liberal California bastion. I’m not seeing ANY ‘HRC for President’ signs. Whereas in 2012 there were plenty of 0bama-Biden signs. There are also no Trump-Pence signs, either.
No-one is willing to identify in public with the heads of either ticket!
I wonder why? /s
OM Says:
October 23rd, 2016 at 7:44 pm
T:
Yes indeed the Republican party process that gave the country the choice of Trump or Hillary (since they assumed that the third party was a third rail) has screwed the pooch. Trump appears to be quite happy trying to administer the coup de grace. May Trump go the way of Enron.
%%%
The demographic flood of Hillary will take your vote down that same drain.
Yes, we’ll still have votes. They will just be simulacrum. Meaningless. Forgone. Like our voting in California. The GOP doesn’t even have enough clout to be a rump party.
The Democrats in this state have a super-majority every where you can point a finger.
The race is tight as a drum.
Hillary’s flood will eliminate any chance that your dreams of a push back, of a correction, of a return to normality — will be for naught.
This progression of immigrants warping the demographic took only a few elections here in California. Should California’s excess Democrats move into adjoining states, they’ll flip from red to blue. ( cf Nevada )
Then there will be no automatic GOP states. 220 Deep Blue electoral votes — and all the rest go purple.
Put a fork in the Republic. It’s DONE.
Thanks.
“The race is tight as a drum.”
Well time will tell who’s drum gets beat. It looks like Trump is being thumped. Thanks to Trump, and all those who sung his praises bear no responsibility? Probably, not, he doesn’t care to learn or listen, so it’s all on him. Now if people choose to follow Trump after Nov. 9, that’s another matter.
Everything isn’t California BTW. Sorry to break that news to you. As regards the Republic, some don’t agree with your either. Last time I checked the border between CA, OR, NV, and AZ are still open. You are allowed to leave, fight the progressives, or give up.
You’re welcome. 🙂
I am tIred of hearing about California. Your problems aren’t caused by immigration.
I live in Texas. Huge, long border with Mexico. The city I live in is the most diverse city in the country. We have people from all over the world here. Tons of Hispanics and a lot of, I’m sure, illegal immigrants. Texas is a great place to live and quite conservative.
We’ve been solid red for a long, long time. But are actually in danger of flipping blue for the first time in a long time. Because the candidate the Republicans nominated is repulsive to hispanics.
Think it would have been a little different with Rubio or Cruz as the nominee?
“Put a fork in the Republic. It’s DONE.”
You’re free to give up but I’d counsel not giving in to despair.
Bill Says:
October 23rd, 2016 at 5:18 pm
What are you smoking?
Absolutely no-one is going to get Hillary to enforce border control. She will play the exact same hand as 0bama, a pat hand.
She will permanently alter the demographics of the nation — making your thoughts of redressing matters in the future a pipe dream.
The demographic flood has already WIPED OUT the California GOP. It lacks the votes to block ANY legislation. It’s just a talking shop.
This demographic transition occurs FAST.
Harlem and Watts have become Latino bastions. (!) Very soon Black representation in Congress will collapse. When the ancient dons die, everyone will be replaced by a Latino.
Mexican Americans are very rapidly moving to become the majority-minority everywhere outside of Atlanta.
The Bushes figured that they could harness this demographic to their benefit. That dream was the very heart of the !Jeb! campaign.
It proved to be a losing bet.
You MUST accept that the nation has been pulled to the Left by demographics, not argument. Logical appeals fall flat with en bloc minority voters. They vote their tribe. On this point the alt-right is correct.
It is plain from your posts that you’ve never experienced the politics of ethnic voting and a one-party state.
It’s an eye-opener, believe me.
All of the stuff that is material to you is immaterial to en bloc ethnic voters.
That’s right, policy counts for NOTHING.
It’s a spoils harvesting vote.
This dynamic IS what constitutes politics across the Third World. ( Mexico, et. al. plus: China, Japan )
HRC means that Loretta Lynch stays on as Attorney General.
It means that the war on White men will ramp UP.
It means that ZIRP will be continued — until the economy blows up.
Then we’ll see a revolution in the streets. ( Venezuela )
All of your arguments were appropriate for the PRIMARIES.
They are too late now.
Donald Trump was selected by the MSM; Not Hannity, not Coulter, not any Republican.
Everything has proceeded as I foresaw: Trump was pumped up by the Leftist Media — so that they could trash him in the general election — with miles and miles of video tape.
Rubio and Cruz HAD to sabotaged. The MSM did the sabotage.
They put the cone of silence on them.
Walker got quite a bit of the cone of silence, too.
Even when he was at the top of the GOP polls — the microphones were missing. Everyone was off to interview Trump. Donald didn’t even have to be clever. ANYTHING he said was deemed so newsworthy that Walker never made the news. That was NOT a coincidence.
You are providing all of us with a totally false choice. Trump is the ONLY blocking vote that stops Hillary and mass demographic change.
He need not do anything beyond sparing the nation from Hillary — and he’d be worthy of Mount Rushmore.
That’s not an exaggeration.
If she prevails ( way too likely ) you’ll come to agree.
But it will be TOO LATE.
Can’t wait for it to be over. The claims of the two camps are so wildly divergent, someone’s gonna end up with egg on their faces.
My opinion is that on the Trump side, what we’re seeing is a form of mass hysteria, fed by the echo-chambers of the blogs.
Really, it’s quite pathetic.
OM Says:
October 23rd, 2016 at 9:26 pm
News flash, California is 40% of the way to the Oval Office — all by itself.
It’s not even in contention.
It is the source of immense amount of Democrat funding — that is jamming your airwaves.
What’s happened here is CERTAIN to happen in nearby states.
Ex-Californians transformed Washington and Oregon from purple to Deep Blue — quite a ways back. California is so massive that it took only a minor fraction of Blue boys to flip those states. ( Washington would be red if they were not resident. )
The selection of Trump was engineered by our opponents.
He is a L O N G way from my ideal. I’m a Ted Cruz supporter.
The MSM actively sabotaged Ted’s campaign, just no doubt about it.
( Ditto for Walker )
Matt_SE Says:
October 23rd, 2016 at 9:45 pm
My opinion is that on the Trump side, what we’re seeing is a form of mass hysteria, fed by the echo-chambers of the blogs.
Really, it’s quite pathetic.
&&&
I see a fair level of emotional denial… the belief that massively changing demographics does not carry import.
Check out the vote chasing in Britain.
The ENTIRE Brexit vote was ACROSS the spectrum and it was because the English had had more than enough with demographic replacement.
The only way for Britain to control her borders — again — was to drop out, drop back and become sovereign again.
What we have RIGHT NOW are wide open borders.
As the American Indian natives might explain it to you, demographics crushes your culture, your politics, your economy. ( especially a buffalo economy )
You are obviously under the miss-impression that the American airplane still has enough runway to get off the ground.
Fella, that’s the crash barrier you’re looking at. We are clean out of ejection seats, parachutes — even worry beads.
Strap in.
” It is plain from your posts that you’ve never experienced the politics of ethnic voting and a one-party state.”
You must have missed the part about me living in a border state even larger than CA with a longer border, and me living in the most ethnically diverse city in the country
California is messed up, sounds like. My guess is the reasons are pretty complex.
More than a few never Trumpers fail to realize that their negative apprehensions have been created by their political opponents.
The endless ad hominems against Trump are not coming from fellas that seek to bring a higher truth, that are worried about the future of the Republic.
They are coming from your dire opponents.
They KNOW your hot buttons.
You are being PLAYED.
They are that crass, that cynical.
You MUST read Robert Cialdini’s master work:
Pre-Suasion. ISBN 978-1-5011-0979-9
Dr. Goebbels has been reborn!
Until Cialdini published, I never really understood HOW Dr. Goebbels conned the German nation. ( He was a devil. )
Surviving German civilians have related to me that Dr. Goebbels was MORE manipulative and influential than Adolf.
It may surprise you to know that Hitler stopped most all public speaking after WWII broke out. Even his radio addresses were rare.
Whereas Dr. Goebbels was just about never off the air. That SOB had spin on every event that occurred.
Dr. Goebbels AND Robert Cialdini discovered that you can totally manipulate the human mind by PRE setting the stage before you utter a single word.
This manipulation wholly negates IQ, high education, logic, you name it.
In the word of software, such cunning would be deemed Assembly Code — running underneath the Operating System.
It constitutes an emotional hacking of the human mind.
None of us has any intrinsic defense against such a ‘hack’ attack.
It’s THIS that Scott Adams is referring to when he talks about Master Persuaders.
Trump is way high on this talent.
Cialdini ( Clinton’s guru ) is considered the acme of the art.
The recent stage stunt by HRC “That’s outrageous.” is PURE Cialdini.
For those brave enough to learn more — be prepared to be stunned — and to learn how to close more sales and earn more money than you’ve ever dreamed of.
For, after a fashion, we’re all salesmen.
It dawned on me, this being a neo-conservative blog, Trump will get no support here.
But it’s one thing to be opposed to Trump, but arguing with innuendo and vitriol (words like madman and sexual predator (that would be Bill Clinton)) sound less like you’re opposed to Trump as actively campaigning for his defeat.
To the detriment of the country.
I think Trump looks more like Nixon who was no conservative, but did bring about an end to the war, which the Democrat party sabotaged. I don’t think for going to see any Scoop Jackson, in that Hillary is more bellicose than Trump.
It was the Hillary/Obama
that let Russia into the ME and financed their partnership with Iran.
@ blert:
Or, you messed up when you nominated a clown. I’ve got the feeling that if you nominate someone who isn’t utterly repulsive next time, you might have better luck.
…and no, that doesn’t mean Jeb. There are more choices than Trump and Jeb.
BrianE:
Are you dense or what? The title of the blog belongs to our hostess. You have noticed it isn’t Trumpbart, congratulations you have been paying some attention.
blert Says:
More than a few never Trumpers fail to realize that their negative apprehensions have been created by their political opponents.
Now that you mention it, you’re right!
Why, just the other day I was chatting with the guys at the local gym about grabbing some strange woman’s pussy. I’d forgotten all about it when the evil, evil media made me freak out over Trump’s actions. Actions which I’ve done myself three or four hundred times.
Thanks for setting me straight on that.
Blert:
Stuck on California much?
blert Says:
It constitutes an emotional hacking of the human mind.
None of us has any intrinsic defense against such a ‘hack’ attack.
It doesn’t seem like you do.
Blert:
The Scott Adams master persuaders of the meat puppets. Fortunately, Trump voters are immune to such manipulation! They are immune to all manipulation and see the truth in it’s manifold wonders! /jk :0
“Much of this is because of the left’s Gramscian march through the institutions but a great deal of what the left has accomplished is because there has been no (at least little) opposition from the feckless, lo-T, castrated Republican party that seems to enjoy it’s position as a minority Dem-Lite party, rather than fight for conservative principles. They claim to support them, but words–just words.” – T
The GOP have been weak, for sure, BUT is it all that you describe, or is there some overstatement – Neo has done a good job of at least countering the more ignorant of claims some here have made against the GOP.
The people who changed the most from their words were those who, early on, fell behind trump – both GOP leaders and “conservative” media. Ideas and policies that were not okay were suddenly okay.
One thing to get elected and not deliver – intentional? IDK. But, changing your stand that you’ve had for years, and arguing / defending something very different – that is shocking.
At some point, we have to look at who we are listening to – maybe they have been hyping up expectations and fomenting anger when those are not met?
Maybe they are more interested in ratings rather than the principles they’ve long argued for and then gave up on.
Seriously! trump is the most dem-like of any in a generation.
.
Did “the party” want Jeb? Don’t think so. Well, there were some people who were willing to spend $100M on him. But, that does not constitute the party. Seems to me the party couldn’t really decide, leaving trump to take it with a small plurality.
How much of that is intentional with the party, or a function of the process as laid out, and the incentives for each player?
Walker may have had the wisdom early enough to see the writing on the wall, given his funding issue and (minor) missteps on message.
Part of the case against clinton was the need for change – a “dynasty fight” with Jeb would have made that a harder argument to make vs a continuation of a GWB presidency.
.
What we need are people who can communicate / market and strategize, as well as work the system.
If anything, we’ve had people who play inside baseball, but failed to take the public with them, and thus have been stymied at every turn by the dems.
How much have we heard from Boehner or McConnell in any media, let alone “conservaitve” media? Not much?
How much have they been using internet / social media other than for posting messages like those on a bulletin board at the cafeteria?
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Felt like venting a million times these past several months – watching this slo-mo car crash with trump.
blert:
Believe me, my “negative apprehensions” come from my very own, personal, individual, lonely study of (1) the words of Donald Trump himself, including tweets, debates, and speeches, as well as interviews, statements, and biographies of the man going back all the way to the 70s (2) the demeanor of Donald Trump (3) the history of the actions of Donald Trump.
I would wager I’ve done a far more in-depth study of said Donald Trump than you, or than most people on earth. Whether or not that’s true, I can assure you (and I think you should already know, from reading this blog) that I think for myself. I could not care less what other bloggers and pundits and opinion writers say.
And I find it rather surprising that you wouldn’t see that many other people who have “negative apprehensions” about Trump have come to it based on the evidence, and their own conclusions about it. It is extremely apparent—extremely—that Trump is a terrible person, ignorant and inexperienced in world affairs, a cheater, a narcissist, a liar, a con artist, and even more importantly a loose cannon who cannot be trusted.
I would think that would be enough reason to justify a set of “negative apprehensions” about him without having to evoke ideas of Goebbelsian brainwashing and mind control in order to reach those “negative apprehensions.”
You don’t agree with the worst of the negativity about Trump. Fine. There’s a disagreement. But disagreement with you doesn’t mean that the people who disagree are brainwashed.
See, neo-neocon? Hysteria and mass-delusion.
And the blogs (not this one) are amplifying it, I think by taking the individual, dilute acts of leftist nonsense occurring to 320 million people and condensing it until it seems like it’s everywhere (although almost nobody has experienced it themselves).
I’m attending classes right now, and I’ve experienced none of the insanity I read about on campuses (to be fair, it’s state U).
You hear about some baker in Oregon sued for a gay wedding cake, read about it every day, and it seems like it’s happening right down the street.
The blogs are whipping people into a frenzy.
Trumpkins are encapsulated in this echo-chamber, and feel they’re under siege. To them, this talk of apocalypse if Hillary is elected seems rational because that’s all they ever hear. It’s just like cutting cult members off from external stimuli.
Hack attach?
Oh please, if you are not immune, you should be sequestered on a remote atoll in the Indian Ocean for a decade. Come to think of it, that applies to 70% of the electorate and 99.99 % of the illegal aliens allowed to vote via motor voter. Ignorance is not an excuse.
Once a person starts using various conspiracy theories to explain every aspect of the election, it becomes futile to argue, and unnecessary.
The goofiest part is the internally inconsistent notion that everyone are meat puppets moved by master persuaders – unknown to the people moved, but known to the people articulating this, who are somehow immune to the message’s power, having unarticulated special observational powers themselves.
Different story wrt those blogs – infowusses, dimbart, sludge
However, they cater to those who want to hear that kind of message rather than be thoughtful and informed… and can handle disagreement.
Donald Trump’s latest sex accuser has launched her own online store to sell adult videos, toys, and sexual equipment. She announced the opening of the store one day before going public with her Trump allegations.
Jessica Drake, an adult film actress, appeared with feminist attorney Gloria Allred Saturday at a press conference, alleging that Trump tried to sleep with her after allegedly touching her. Variety reported:
She said that she met Trump ten years ago at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Calif.
She said Trump invited her to his suite after the tournament, and she went with some women friends. When they arrived, she said, he grabbed each of them tightly and kissed them. After they left him, one of his representatives called to invite her to his room alone, but she said she declined.
Then Trump himself called and asked, “What do you want? How much?” After she declined his invite, he eventually offered her $10,000, she said.
Drake said that she “may be called a liar or opportunist,” but her motives are pure. She offered a photograph of herself, clothed, beside Trump, at the golf event in question as evidence that she met him.
In past interviews she’s spoken at length about her experience:
“I’ve done fellatio positions, anal, uh, G-spot female ejaculation, female masturbation, anal play for men, woman-to-woman. And I’ve done them based on questions and feedback that I’ve gotten from women and couples during the seminars that I’m giving,” Drake said on the topic of her Guide To Wicked Sex series of educational DVD’s, an anthology of her sexual expertise.
She’s even had a realistic doll made in her likeness.
Art:
Shoot the messenger ignore the message.
“And I find it rather surprising that you wouldn’t see that many other people who have “negative apprehensions” about Trump have come to it based on the evidence, and their own conclusions about it. It is extremely apparent–extremely–that Trump is a terrible person, ignorant and inexperienced in world affairs, a cheater, a narcissist, a liar, a con artist, and even more importantly a loose cannon who cannot be trusted.”- neoneocon
____
Obama is a terrible person, cunning and inexperienced in world affairs, a cheater, a narcissist, a liar, a con artist, and even more importantly a loose cannon who cannot be trusted. Hmmm. It fits!
Hillary is a terrible person, ignorant (think Libya) and experienced in world affairs, a cheater, an enabler, a liar, a con artist, and even more importantly secretive person who cannot be trusted. Hmmm. That fits too!
As I’ve said before, Trump is a flawed man. Like many rich people they develop a sense of entitlement. How many of the allegations of inappropriate behavior are true is unknown. As we’ve talked about before, there are a couple that ring true. Some are opportunists. But…..(here’s where the defense comes in) I think the evidence that Hillary’s campaign has engage in unlawful acts and unlawful coordination is more damaging to the rule of law.
By keeping on Lynch as AG, and it looks like that was the deal struck when Bill visited Lynch, we may see lawlessness by portions of the government increase.
What is legal and illegal is defined by what the government chooses to enforce. The blindfold is slipping and the scales are being tipped.
Those are actions that we may never recover from, as the left uses this opportunity to advance many separate causes to hollow out traditional America.
___
See, neo-neocon? Hysteria and mass-delusion.
And the blogs (not this one) are amplifying it, I think by taking the individual, dilute acts of leftist nonsense occurring to 320 million people and condensing it until it seems like it’s everywhere (although almost nobody has experienced it themselves)…You hear about some baker in Oregon sued for a gay wedding cake, read about it every day, and it seems like it’s happening right down the street..-Matt_SE
____
Matt, it’s called setting an example. Using the full power of the government to ruin some baker or some florist and other bakers and florists fall in line.
I see you’re a college student. Good for you. But you might consider that your limited perspective of how America has changed in the last 50 years and what is changing and the rate that change is occurring should make you more cautious.
Why are you a conservative? What exactly do you want to conserve?
Brian E – Why are you a conservative? What exactly do you want to conserve?
The problem with statements / questions like that – It implies that the one asking those questions is supporting a candidate who will be doing those things.
It is far from clear that trump is, and there is much to indicate that he is actively not, and is likely the most dem of any GOP candidate in generations.
Brian E:
Since 2008, I’ve been writing about how terrible Obama is. I’ve also written en enormous number of posts on how terrible Clinton is.
That post of mine you quote about the terribleness of Trump was in response to a claim by blert that those who have “negative apprehensions” about Trump are under some some of Goebellsian mind-control. I was merely explaining the obvious—that mind control is not needed in order to have “negative apprehensions” about him.
“It is far from clear that trump is, and there is much to indicate that he is actively not, and is likely the most dem of any GOP candidate in generations.” -Big Maq
____
Yes, since Nixon. With Nixon we got Medicare, EPA, price controls, and a manufactured constitutional crisis (which I might add Hillary was part of, though in a small insignificant way)
But Nixon was vastly preferable to McGovern.
See, it usually comes down to a choice of the lesser evils. We’re never going to get the ideal candidate. He/She doesn’t exist. With Reagan the compromise to build the military allowed the left to expand the government and the awful amnesty compromise.
Bush the elder used that military to defend Arab oligarchies that in turn funded the terrorists that led to 9-11.
Bush Jr. was fixated on bringing peace to the ME that he brought down the wrong regime in exhange allowing the liberals in Congress to further expand the government, entrench their version of payola via Freddie Mae that culminated in the lesser Depression.
So I don’t have many expectations for Trump. But at least he’s not engaged in criminal activity undermining the rule of law in this country.
Brian E:
“I see you’re a college student. Good for you. But you might consider that your limited perspective of how America has changed in the last 50 years and what is changing and the rate that change is occurring should make you more cautious.”
I see you are making unsupported assumptions regarding Matt-E’s age, life experiences, and perspective. Ever hear of non-degree programs? Continuing education? Post-graduate education? Short courses?
“Bush the elder used that military to defend Arab oligarchies that in turn funded the terrorists that led to 9-11.”
Condensed history is so clear and so simple, and mostly of little value.
Even still, there are some rather bright young ones out there, who can still see what is going on, who might be well read, who might be wiser than their age.
The difference might be in the experience in how to get things done, or in weighing idealism over reality (I know, rather fresh coming from a nevertrumper, right?).
I’d take the bright youth over the dimly aged who have given up any day!
😉
On the question on what to do going forward, some interesting thoughts here…
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441320/republican-party-after-donald-trump-questions-rebuilding
“I’d take the bright youth over the dimly aged who have given up any day!”- Big Maq
That made me laugh, I mean out loud chuckle. But no, I haven’t given up.
OM– I guess we’ll let Matt chime in. I would say it wasn’t unsupported, based on what he said and how he said it. And yes I have heard of all them there learning things.
And my simplistic synopsis of Bush the Elder was making a larger point that is valid. Unintended consequences that overwhelm good intentions.
After the stranglehold of OPEC in the 70’s, we had an opportunity to break their monopoly in the 80’s and we didn’t take it, allowing the Saudis to export not only oil but Wahhabism to the world. I don’t blame Bush for that.
Let Pete Wehner think in terms of Hamlet, which tragedy begins in a murder (or if we need say, worse: a fratricidal-regicide) in demand of revenge, and where nearly everyone ends up dead with the nation’s sovereignty changing hands in the sequel, rather than, say, Austen’s Persuasion where more than a few persons make it through relatively intact in body and soul — if still bumblingly human — with a satisfying union the primary object achieved, and you have what’s hilariously apt about Wehner’s own presence on the scene and in our politics.
So then (speaking of regicides) — that Wehner seems to have no clue as to his own effect nearly forces upon us Cromwell’s malediction against the Long Parliament:
“It is extremely apparent–extremely–that Trump is a terrible person, ignorant and inexperienced in world affairs, a cheater, a narcissist, a liar, a con artist, and even more importantly a loose cannon who cannot be trusted.”- neoneocon”
All true and all absolutely irrelevant. The same applies to almost every USA president for the last 60 years, it is like job description for the office. May be it would be more constructive to discuss policies rather than personas?
Krauthammer today said he’s writing in someone other than the two major candidates. I find that to be unimaginable for someone of intelligence and maturity such as him.
The situation is that one of two people will have a significant effect on all of our lives for at least the next 4 years. If you believe that they are equally bad (notice I said EQUALLY bad, not BOTH bad) then it doesn’t matter how you vote.
But, if you believe that one would be worse than the other and you don’t vote for the least bad then you’re giving up your opportunity to ameliorate the damage.
I understand feeling that neither is worthy of your vote but I don’t understand not trying to minimize the damage the worst of them might do.
If there is a difference, no matter how small, it seems rather immature to waste your vote. Life is full of choices involving the lesser of two evils and mature adults understand this and choose accordingly. You can either choose or you can give up control of your life to others who may not have your best interests at heart.
Irv Greenberg:
Maybe Krauthammer thinks that they are different but equally bad, just in different ways, and that both are very bad indeed.
Maybe he also thinks that Trump is finished, so why compromise his own integrity by voting for him when there’s no payoff?
Maybe he lives in a place that’s so overwhelmingly liberal that he knows Hillary will win (NY? DC?), so there’s no need to compromise his own integrity by voting for Trump when there’s no payoff.
Voting for Trump – “Unintended consequences that overwhelm good intentions.” Does Trump have good intentions?
Voting for Trump – “Unintended consequences that overwhelm good intentions.” Does Trump have good intentions?
Sergey:
I completely disagree with you. Completely.
Sergey – you wrote “All true and all absolutely irrelevant. The same applies to almost every USA president for the last 60 years, it is like job description for the office. May be it would be more constructive to discuss policies rather than personas?”
I don’t intend offense here, but if I remember correctly you aren’t an American – you live in Russia.
Character absolutely matters to many of us.
Plus, a lot of Trump’s policies are whack.
“I find that to be unimaginable for someone of intelligence and maturity such as him.”
Irv, you’re going to have to accept that a lot of people don’t find Trump acceptable, even in a “lesser of two evils” measure.
For my part, I find it very hard to figure out which is worse. I think Trump is going to be a disaster and can’t put my vote toward that. I think Hillary is going to be a disaster too. Republicans are the stupid party. I’m not a Republican anymore. And I’m about as conservative a person as you’ll find. I didn’t leave the GOP. The GOP left me. They’ll have to win without my little vote. I hope they lose.
They wanted to burn it down. Mission accomplished.
Bill – Acceptable doesn’t enter into it. You’re going to get one of them, like it or not. Wouldn’t you prefer to minimize the damage if they are not equally bad?
If they are equally bad then this discussion is moot.
And so is the election.
I’m a pilot. If I’m going to crash at least I can head for a field rather than a mountain!
Neo – I never consider it compromising my integrity when I vote my own enlightened self-interest. I vote for me, not for them.
@ Brian E:
1) I’m a RETURNING college student. I’m 45 years old. Don’t patronize me, punk.
2) Why are you a conservative? What exactly do you want to conserve?
Take your freshman philosophy crap and shove it. Better yet, go ask Decius what he wants to conserve, since he refers to himself as a conservative when it suits him. Or go ask Conservative Treehouse what they’ve conserved.
Personally, I blame the decline of the country on the alt-right and Trumpkins, who stood by while it was happening. See? I can play that game too!
Matt_SE – The blame always lies with the people. We get the government we accept. Parties and people have no power except what we give them.
Sergey Says:
“May be it would be more constructive to discuss policies rather than personas?”
The problem would be getting Trump to intelligently and coherently describe and defend his Teleprompter’s policies off the cuff.
“Bill — Acceptable doesn’t enter into it. You’re going to get one of them, like it or not. Wouldn’t you prefer to minimize the damage if they are not equally bad?”
Irv, they are both bad in different ways.
I’m in a no win situation here. I’m truly not being nitpicky.
I can’t imagine any scenario where I would vote for either one.
I don’t vote for people that I know are con-men, are sexual predators, are cruel, are serially dishonest, are unfaithful, and aren’t conservative.
As well as I can know almost anything, I can know those things about DJT.
So it’s just a bad election. I know the consequences will be bad. This isn’t being nitpicky about obvious lessers of two evils.
The “obviousness” to some is what gets me. Everyone thinks they can predict the future. “Trump will obviously be better than HRC”, etc.
I can’t predict the future. So I’ve based not voting for either based on what I know about both.
But – bottom line – I lean toward HRC being less destructive to the conservative movement, which is vital and is more important than one election cycle. I won’t vote for her, but I hope the polls are right and Trump goes down in flames, along with all the rest of the alt-right thugs and “conservative” media ratings whores.
Unfortunately, all will hang around, and we’ll get to hear nothing but finger-pointing and blame shifting for the next four years anytime HRC does something that “conservatives” don’t like. It will all be neverTrump’s fault.
I’m not in the GOP anymore, and I’m not voting for your man. I’m voting McMullin/Finn.
“1) I’m a RETURNING college student. I’m 45 years old. Don’t patronize me, punk.
2) Why are you a conservative? What exactly do you want to conserve?
Take your freshman philosophy crap and shove it.”- Matt_SE
I’m not sure why that should have offended you, but it makes sense in that as a returning college student it’s unlikely your engage in the sort of campus life where a certain ideological POV is allowed and others are ostracized.
That hasn’t changed, since it was prevalent when I was in school in the 60’s.
As to the question about what we want to conserve as “conservatives”, I think that is a valid question.
I want to preserve a strong nuclear family, the Judeo-Christian values that informed the remarkable document our country was built on.
I want to preserve freedom of thought, sanctity of life, free markets, government that is willing to recognize it’s limits for example.
Brian E
I want to preserve a strong nuclear family, the Judeo-Christian values that informed the remarkable document our country was built on.
With Trump? A serial adulterer who’s never felt like he needed forgiveness?
I want to preserve freedom of thought
Trump has repeatedly stated he wants to sue news services that say mean things about him.
sanctity of life
https://medium.com/@mattleeanderson/we-are-now-in-the-12th-hour-of-the-conservatisms-life-in-this-election-cycle-which-means-it-is-as-ceca1f7106f5#.szzx7ipz4
free markets
Trump is the most anti-free markets Republican in my lifetime. He’s an economic isolationist and will be a bull in the economic china-closet
government that is willing to recognize it’s limits
I’ve seen no evidence that Trump could even explain the constitutional limits and duties of the various branches. He tends pretty heavily in the way he talks toward authoritarianism.
“Bill — Acceptable doesn’t enter into it. You’re going to get one of them, like it or not.” – Irv
At this point, carrying on this argument is not fruitful, since, “like it or not”, you will ONLY get one of them – clinton.
This is a direct result of putting up awful as the choice against another awful and being glued to / insisting on a binary paradigm.
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Choosing a person who veers so far from what the party stood for is bound to alienate segments within the party. To replace them requires outreach well beyond the party. Or, they need to be courted back into the party.
We were told that trump has vast appeal to take away disaffected voters from the dems, and doesn’t need those disaffected conservatives.
Turns out is was a false premise (based on shaky “mathematics” to begin with), with an extremely flawed candidate.
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Not going to spend much more time engaging in the trump vs clinton debate anymore, as “the will of the people” will speak in about two weeks.
trump is underwater too deep, and has too weak a campaign to make it up, without some black swan event he has no control over.
.
I hate the idea of the dems claiming a “mandate” with as big a win as it is looking like (a rout?), even if that provides a clear refutation of the themes and ideas (well outside of conservative thought) that trump has aligned himself with.
But it would put to bed the destructive idea that the election is “rigged” for all but the most conspiracy attracted.
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In any case, we still must head to the polls and support down ticket GOP to shore up Congress for the next few years vs clinton.
Bill – I’d be a lot more impressed if you left off the name calling and hyperbole. It really detracts from your point. You’re starting to sound like a democrat troll. I don’t mean to say you are one, it’s just starting to sound that way.
I’ll give up when we hit the ground on November 9th, not before. Too many “inevitable” crashes have been prevented at the last minute.
Irv:
The Sully vs Flight 93 model?
Both ended better because they didn’t give up. Even Flt 93 succeeded somewhat (at a terrible price) by preventing a crash into the Capitol or the White House.
Irv
” Bill — I’d be a lot more impressed if you left off the name calling and hyperbole. It really detracts from your point. You’re starting to sound like a democrat troll.”
For what it’s worth, I apologize for offending you and anyone else on this site. I admit lately that some of my anger at this very avoidable catastrope is starting to show through. I probably need to gain some perspective.
I am not a troll. And I’m certainly not a democrat. But hopefully I’ll be a bit more circumspect in my posting here so people will stop thinking that (you’re not the first)
Peace.
Big Maq – you’re right that the conversation is becoming academic at this point as the result seems pretty well locked in. I’m looking forward to taking about the path forward.
OM Says:
October 23rd, 2016 at 11:50 pm
Blert:
Stuck on California much?
&&&
Stuck on ad hominem much ?
I’m stuck on bitter experience.
Demographic replacement on a wholesale basis takes logic and argument entirely out of the picture.
En bloc voting means folks voting for their faction — come what may. Political discourse and historical events scarcely count.
I will admit that MOST folks don’t believe any of this in their gut — until they get steam rolled.
Like the California Jew (IQ ~ 150) I knew who retired to Honolulu with his millions intending to dabble in Liberal Democrat politics — and fund same.
He came back ashen faced. He found out that the ‘Democrat’ Japanese political machine in the Islands was rabidly anti-Jewish. Culturally, it was a Nazi state. Their M/O is to loot you and then kick you out — perhaps bare naked. ( Not too much of an exaggeration, IMHO. )
He came back to California, family and all, stupefied.
That Democra bastion, Honolulu, didn’t operate whatsoever like liberal America — more like O’Hare’s Chicago. ( Al Capone’s buddy.)
He was not the first, last or the least bit unusual.
Japanese Americans born and raised in California suffered the exact same treatment. I will not repeat the slurs and insults uttered. ( Way too rude. )
&&&&
We are ALL looking at a transition to Brazilian // Argentinian politcs.
The middle class, the moral class, is to be swamped by LIV — imported LIV in our case.
The average IQ in Mexico is down at the world average ~ 85-87. That average means that a frightful number can scarcely read — let alone write.
Time was that America got pretty much the cream of Mexican immigrants. That is wholly untrue for the last generation. ENTIRE villages have been de-populated to man the chicken processing lines of our agri-businesses.
This process, the WHOLESALE replacement of our citizens has occurred factory by factory.
Even PBS has aired shocking videos WRT this ‘swap out.’
On the economics, the local county is driven to the wall.
1) The natives all lose their employment.
2) The Mexican ‘imports’ all have dire health needs — so the County’s health tab goes straight into orbit. ( The healthy young adult Mexicans brought their relatives. )
3) The Mexicans are flamingly illegal. This means that Mr. Big Agri-business can crack the whip like they’re indentered// enslaved… ’cause they really ARE.
4) Not knowing nothing, the Mexicans are abused like sheep at every turn.
5) All of the ancillary businesses and shop in the local burg fold up and blow away. Even the barber goes belly up. So, the County’s tax base implodes… unexpectedly.
This has been repeated everywhere from the Carolinas to California.
What’s hard on Whites — is a total disaster for Blacks. They fall back to a minority-minority political status — then discovering that suddenly even their local Democrat pols don’t give a hoot about them. So they flee to Atlanta.
As you might imagine, such indentured labor votes — en bloc — the way that they’re told to. This scheme is straight out of the 19th Century, Samuel Gompers, The AFI, and the beginning of the American labor movement — which was always oriented towards the the elimination of imported labor// immigrants.
Silicon Valley pitches Big Wages in Red China and India. The youthful geniuses discover — way too late — that the cost of living in Santa Clara county is IN ORBIT. Their apparently huge paychecks evaporate under Jerry Brown’s tax regime.
Is it ANY surprise that most Indians flee back home once their penury is ended ?
In the meantime, (native) career after career is terminated in the USA.
Even though ‘the imports’ are — in fact — FAR inferior in economic output — the Game Dynamic which gives the employers the upper hand is just to juicy to resist.
This dynamic is something that economic theory is just not prepared to address. Yes, it’s that ugly monster hiding in that dark closet. ( Don’t open that door!)
%%%%
All of this is of a part: the establishment of an economic ELITE through Corporatism, corruption, crony capitalism, and raw power manipulations.
ALL of those paying out — and into — the system are deceived.
&&&&
The never Trumpers posting here are trolling us with the flamingly absurd notion that the GOP can bounce back from wholesale demographic replacement.
It’s a logical impossibility.
It would be a historical break from ALL that has come before.
Demographic replacement usually is due to a staggering military defeat or some awful pandemic — like the Black Death.
In our time, it’s the result of a parasitic fantasy — a dream, if you will.
The dream is that humanity is undifferentiated, that humanity is logical, that humanity — in all its variety — has the same IQ distribution — and that bitterly hostile cultures will sing Kumbya if one only hums the right key.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJMtn6IJeE
Blert:
California isn’t everything. But I repeat myself.
Have you ever considered that your argument about Mexicans and IQ is the same trope that was posited about the Irish, Southern Europeans (Italians and others), Eastern Europeans, and of course Africans and African Americans? Amazing when you think about it.
But back to Trump. Rah Rah!
Big Maq Says:
October 24th, 2016 at 3:41 pm
It’s now out in the open.
Podesta has been dictating the polling that you take so seriously.
I’ve posted time and again that these fake polls are Cialdini’s brain wave.
Now it’s revealed that Podesta has been orchestrating them. The pollsters are happy to oblige… and have done so.
There are some pollsters not on Podesta’s rollodex. They show Trump +2, +3,+4…
The race is not a blow out. It’s as tight as a drum.
I never expected the Wikileaks. They have caused quite a few Democrats to shift to Stein or to simply go silent. They are going to sit this one out. — Kind of like Bill and BM.
HRC has done wonders to demoralize Democrat ranks. Yes, the Wikileaks revelations don’t convert Democrats into GOP voters. What they’re doing is motivational. They are motivating voters to stay home.
The Cialdini gambit is to make BM and Bill — and many another — give up.
Yet the race is still very tight.
It will be decided based on turn out — and hacking.
Soros has his finger resting on the tabulation machines in many, many states.
There is NO WAY he will sit still and let Trump prevail.
The mind reader speaks, more conspiracies, and dark controlling forces, since the obvious is not acceptable.
Here I go again. I apologize to all who this offends except the one who it’s addressed to.
Blert – in what world is your recent post about the dystopian future ahead of us due to.low Mexican IQs not blatantly racist.
I know a LOT of hispanics. Possibly more than you. Inhavr hispanic friends. This is the aspect of Trumpism I simply can’t stand and can’t align with and (apologies to Irv) it raises my ire.
Republicans have long been wrongly (I believe) accused of racism. Then 2016 rolled around and the Republican nominee and many of his supporters began confirming every stereotype the left has of conservatives. It’s going to take years to recover as a party from this.
Inhavr = I have. I need to start previewing my comments….
Pre-Suasion. ISBN 978-1-5011-0979-9
Dr. Goebbels has been reborn!
Until Cialdini published, I never really understood HOW Dr. Goebbels conned the German nation. ( He was a devil. )
I researched mind control and the Art of Propaganda years before you read that book, Blert. Thus I’m your senior on this matter, and frankly, just readin ga book doesn’t mean much. Those concepts are not your own, and can very well have “hijacked” your own reasoning and emotional cores. You think you came up with the ideas about all these interconnected subjects, but it was in fact a suggestion given to you by reading the book, which gave you what you wanted to believe or feared was true.
Without mastery the concepts of human manipulation, Weapons of Mass Deception, the Art of Propaganda, the Left’s newest version of Mind control via linguistics, you cannot comprehend the subject well enough to create defenses or resistance profiles for it.
As for people being critical of Trum being led by the nose to it, that would be impossible for people like me who have no connection to social media, Democrat gossips, or other sources of Leftist propaganda. It’s called a firewall, mentally speaking. Perhaps people who worry about being brain jacked, should do more work in creating resistance and defenses than to make inferences with an open port and defenseless mind.
There’s no way to hack or crack a computer that is completely isolated, off grid, on its own power source, with no wireless or hard line network entrance or USP or other input connection. Of course there are software firewalls, security filters, and various other programs on top of the physical firewall. There are virtual OSes run inside other OSes, like Wine or DosBox. And there are virtual OSes created to trap and deceive external viruses that seek to hijack vital functions to produce more of themselves. Viral behavior that is designed to hijack the human emotion, identity, and logic cores can be studied and counter measures prepared, without being exposed directly to the viral meme.
The idea that humans have no defense against manipulation and propaganda is wrong, although it seems that way because the weapon of mass deception is very powerful and fearsome. Like any con game, they don’t need to crack the best of humanity. They just need a majority of tools and zombies, which they can easily acquire and hijack.
The never Trumpers posting here are trolling us with the flamingly absurd notion that the GOP can bounce back from wholesale demographic replacement.
It’s a logical impossibility.
What’s a logical impossibility is thinking that less than 15% of the Left’s strategic reserve, makes for certain defeat. If you think the Left can beat all of you with just under 15% of their strategic assets mobilized, what are you going to do when you find out what else they have to use against you? Because everything Blert has said and detailed in this thread, is less than 20% of the Leftist alliance’s true power.
Even if deployed entirely in war, if added to today’s current ratio, it would still be under 50% of the Left’s total strategic reserve.
Right now Silicon Valley and Hollywood are not deployed directly to war against you or anyone else, they are busy making money, since the sinews of war are money. Much of that money is spent funding the Left’s vanguard organizations, like BLM, through Soros connections or money laundering unions.
As for the anti Trum faction here, many of them honestly believe the nation will survive another Presidential election or two, that CW2 is not only avoidable but that it is crazy to think of preparing for one. That is the opposite of trolling, it is called sincere belief. One thing those who think to render judgment on the Left’s Weapons of Mass Deception, Mass Mind Control, and brainwashing techniques, should have avoided getting wrong, if only for personal credibility’s sake.
As for Nixon, he had or rather has a thousand times more integrity and statesmanship than does Trum.
Oh great Y take a hike or hyku.
Blert:
“It will be decided based on turn out – and hacking.”
Doesn’t “turn out” require a “ground game?” Oh, I forgot Trump and the master persuaders don’t need no stinkin ground game, since Trump has the gold, sacks of gold ( roll “The Treasure of Sierra Madre”).
While Mexico is ranked 19th in average IQ, statistics like that only pertain to the group. It doesn’t and can’t make any determination about any individual in that group.
Is it racist to notice that countries with low average IQ are often the least developed and stable- much of Africa, Latin America and some of the Caribbean?
Now I do think Blert’s comments were ill advised, since I would want more information that villages of low IQ Latin Americans are being emptied to illegally enter the US.
It doesn’t mean that we should secure the border and enforce our immigration laws.
1. Immigrants are not assimilating at the rate they did in the past.
2. High immigration rates in the past could be absorbed by growth in the industrial base. That’s not the case now. For much of our history, the disaffected could go west and make their own future. I would like to see legal immigration pegged to GDP or job growth.
3. We need to know who is immigrating, to what extent they may carry communicable diseases, whether they pose a risk to our society.
4. We should encourage a diversity of cultures in our immigration policy which would encourage assimilation.
5. Even is Trump successfully seals off the southern border, we will still accept around 10 million legal immigrants a year, which is the historical average I believe (or something approaching that.)
6. I think people that have questioned the porous southern border and then rewarding these same people with amnesty have recognized early on, that the effect has been to not improve our culture but to weaken it. There is a reason that Europe still has borders and the countries remain very homogeneous. We may be the most diverse country on the planet (and least racist), but that doesn’t mean there is a practical limit to the diversity and still remain a healthy country.
America is a compassionate country. We are quick to bring aid to other countries and that should continue.
My wife and I work closely with a charity, Hope 2 Liberia that digs wells and distributes water purification systems along with sharing the good news of Jesus.
That’s how we can help raise the hope of people around the world.
Our country does run a diversity lottery drawing in specific countries around the world where 50,000 people a year win the right to immigrate, if they can raise enough money to come here.
A well can be hand dug in Liberia for between $2-3000 and reduce the incidence of diseases exponentially for hundreds of villagers for each well, or bring one lottery winner to the US.
While I understand the lottery winners desperate desire to get to America, Hope 2 Liberia improves the lives of thousands of Liberians yearly.
OM, based on what Authority are you going to use to make me?
All you got is talk and words, which is a pathetic weakling’s field of expertise.
While I understand the lottery winners desperate desire to get to America, Hope 2 Liberia improves the lives of thousands of Liberians yearly.
That’s a good argument for them or you being US King, doesn’t mean Trum who pays little to nothing in terms of charity or does any volunteer work, is an adequate vessel for anybody’s power or hopes.
Ymarsakar,
We seem to have the mistaken idea that the only compassionate response to suffering is to bring the world to the US.
We help more by improving their lives in their native countries. It’s more effective.
By the way, China is making inroads into Africa, buying natural resources while building infrastructure.