Comments

Trump tweets and the uproar ensues — 114 Comments

1. Maybe there is something wrong with me. But I just don’t see anything problematic with what Trump said, particularly considering his targets.

2. The biggest problem I have with Trump’s tweets on this occasion is that the Democrats were at each others throats, and he united them and gave them a target they all hate. I think it would have been better if he’d just let them keep fighting. I think that the heads of the Democratic Party need to understand that once they’re done accusing everyone who disagrees with them as racists, it will be turned on them.

3. When I carefully parse the controversial things Trump says, the sting goes away. Oh, I get how people are annoyed — or “triggered” in the current parlance — but it’s not based on what Trump said in the context in which he spoke.

   Trump does make stupid exaggerated brags which are false. Those bother me, but not all that much. Trump is a salesman. He’s on television. He makes deals. That’s one way to sell.

   Those are not at all in the category of deliberate lies meant to deceive, like “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

4. John Hinderaker posted an earlier column, calling Trump’s tweet “a blunder of epic proportions,” and the comments ran about 780 to 60 against Hinderaker’s assessment.

5. The reaction to this has forced Pelosi, et al., to defend their childish radical wing. They’re going to have a hard time pretending “moderate” Democrats run the House, or even that such exist.

   There was nothing whatever in that series of tweets which even hinted at racism. I feel the way Trump does about Omar, and about British commentators here who go on about how awful we are. Oh yeah? How are things at home?

   When I joined my husband’s family, I was a bit alarmed by the arguments about Yugoslav politics over the dinner table. Mind, this was pre-WWII Yugoslav politics, not even current. The arguments ended with my father-in-law raising his glass and saying, “But thank God we’re all over here!” Amen! They went back to visit, some of them, but not to stay.

6. “The biggest problem I have with Trump’s tweets on this occasion is that the Democrats were at each others throats, and he united them and gave them a target they all hate.”

   Ah, but how will it look to the great middle who don’t pay all that attention? Will it look like the Dems have united in their hatred of Trump, or that they have united in their hatred of America (and Americans)?

7. Does seem like one of those cases designated as “living rent-free in their heads”. And while not actually beautiful in any conventional sense, Pres. Trump’s magnificently manipulative shit-stirring has — all taken in all — its own peculiar comeliness.

   For instance: Spk. Pelosi’s silly kneejerk “unity” (wholly temporary, since the Democrat party power struggle goes on underneath the convenient appearance of alliance against the President) with the very nitwits she was brawling with only a day before teaches the people how shallow these political stage actors are; how careless of the people’s interests; how opportunistic these ladies of the House can be.

   So, y’know, glorious in its way. Or at the least if that won’t suit, exceedingly hilarious to boot.

8. I read the Hinderaker post this morning and my take was like 90% of the commentors, “My name is Donald Trump and I approve this message” because Trump just stole the show, once more, and without paying a dime he received millions of dollars free advertising. Now instead of trying to impeach him for what he did not do on Russia, Russia, Russia they want to go after him for saying what lots of Americans really think about the ‘Squad from Squalorstains’ . That is a good days work and job well done.

9. Should be enough evidence here to the ever-Trumpers that in reality, he isnt playing three level chess…but I doubt it will.

10. Old Texan: Not all free advertising is good advertising and you have to appeal to more than your hardcore base.

11. Harry:

    That’s an interesting construction of yours: “ever-Trumpers.” I hadn’t seen that before, although maybe it’s used quite a bit and I just hadn’t noticed. It’s a nice contrast to NeverTrumpers. Maybe should be spelled EverTrumpers for emphasis.

    I believe that describes a real phenomenon. For NeverTrumpers, nothing Trump has ever done or could do is anything but dreadful. For EverTrumpers, it’s all great.

    But you know what? The vast majority of Trump supporters are people who like some things he does and don’t like others. A lot of Trump-supporters such as John Hinderaker, for example, think this was a stupid tactical move. Others think it was smart, and yet they don’t think everything he does is great. They merely see this as good for various reasons, for example: expressing what at least half of America thinks, drawing attention to how much certain Democrats seem to hate America, and any number of other things.

    You don’t have to agree with their evaluation as to whether what he said is good or bad, either morally or factually or tactically. But referring to unspecified people as EverTrumpers—as though those are the only people who could think this a smart move–doesn’t seem correct to me, and you don’t even try to prove it. What’s more, you don’t know the effect of these tweets. Over and over and over, there’s been a big brouhaha about his tweets and then it either dies down with seemingly no effect or it actually helps him.

    Maybe he’s playing three or four dimensional chess. Maybe he stepped in a steaming pile of do-do. Maybe it’ll be a wash. You don’t know.

12. Listened to Rush while running errands. He thinks Trump is baiting the more moderate democrats to defend and embrace the ‘squad’. That he wants to run against the far left, radical rhetoric of the enviro wacko, pro open borders, pro pay illegal aliens healthcare, pro abortion without limits, pro confiscate firearms, and kiss Iran’s collective behind because he’s upended the messaih’ deal with the number one terrorist sponsor in the solar system.

    Rush is often correct.

13. “The vast majority of Trump supporters are people who like some things he does and don’t like others.”

    Well, maybe.

    But I would tweak that just a bit:
    “The vast majority of Trump supporters are people who see what the alternative is and they say (either out loud or in their heart of hearts), “NO FREAKIN’ WAY”.

    And if that makes one an “ever-Trumper” (but hey, that’s a pretty wide brush: what ever happened to “nuance”? reasoned opinion? weighing the options?), then so be it.

14. Neo: Im with Hinderaker here in that this is yet another unforced error on Trump’s part and gain, more evidence Trump is no geneus. It is probably true that most people have gotten used to how Trump communicates and will ignore it, but, my god…keeping his twitter shut at thois very oment in the democrat melt-down would have been perfect and shooting oneself in the foot just now was an idiotic distraction.
    As for the Ever-Trumper term, I thought that was just an obvious term, yet no, I havent seen that term used anywhere else. Im happy to officially coin it here on the New Neo.

15. It’s normal for the MSM to leave out whatever they want from Prez Trump’s quotes. They report that he basically said, “Get out & stay out…” & therefore he’s a racist.

    What he did say was go to these 3rd world hellholes, fix them because they really need help with that, then come back & tell us how you fixed it. Racists don’t ever ask people to come back…

    Both John & Steve at PLB both thing Prez Trump’s tweets are a bad thing. But they are brutally effective & very carefully worded. The president is always moving the ball downfield…

16. What Barry M said – consider the alternative. And while I don’t think Trump is “perfect” I do think he is damn shrewd.

    Some observations:

    1. Sure people will call Trump “racist” because of this. But they were going to call him racist anyway.

    2. The full tweet doesn’t sound as bad however Trump probably figured his enemies would interpret it as “go back where you came from”.

    3. It previews Trump’s re-election strategy – make sure the entire Dem party stays joined at the hip to the Gang of Four.

    PS – neo, where in Belarus did your family come from. My grandfather was born in the town of Volkovysk near Grodno – many different spellings, also near the Polish border.

17. Those who are no longer our countrymen, having only hatred and loathing for America, claiming it only deserves to survive if radically transformed… can never be appeased. It is destruction they seek for decency exposes their moral corruption.

    IMO, Kate and parker have the right of it. Trump’s tweet led Pelosi into defending the dem’s new gang of four. Who undeniably hate America. In reaction to Pelosi’s defense, the hard core vocal left then beat up on Pelosi. Proving that the dems are still engaged in eating each other. This plays nicely into the 2020 election because Trump is not allowing the dems to retreat from their embrace of extremist ideology; open borders, lawlessness, infanticide, etc, etc. Pelosi, Schumer, et al OWN those positions because they cannot retreat from them without their radical base splitting from them. Big money donors wishes are catered to but voters decide. The democrats cannot afford to alienate the gang of four’s activist supporters for they shape public perception on the left. They’ve created a monster, “a rough beast” and it is slowly devouring them.

18. But the point of the tweets, Harry, was to stop the Democrats from in-fighting.

    He wants to paint them — all of them — as Socialist, crazy-on-immigration, America haters. The more they defend AOC, etc, the more they seem like that.

    What he fears — because it is the only way he will lose the next election — is for a moderate Democrat who directly repudiates the crazies to be the next Democrat candidate.

    If he runs against someone who has to defend AOC, then he will win easily — someone who defends the “Green New Deal” is going to be hard pressed to win middle America. Someone who defends Ilhan Omar’s views on Israel isn’t going to win many Jewish voters.

    So yes, his tweets stopped the in-fighting. That was the aim.

19. NeverTrumpers want to position themselves as the mediating voices of reason who will pick up the pieces after this is all over and return us to normalcy so everyone to their right is a delusional EverTrumper and everyone to their left is a delusional socialist. Yet somehow they are rarely right about anything. They’re defending a status quo that is no longer in existence. And I can’t believe it took them THIS LONG to come up with “EverTrumper.” Dolts.

20. Polls show that these women are political poison in the swing states. They are the face of the new Democratic Party. And Trump has put them at the front of the national news. Kill shot.

21. AMartel:

    Just because I hadn’t heard the expression EverTrumper doesn’t mean anyone just came up with it now (sorry, Harry!). Google it and you’ll see that it’s quite old. In that piece it’s used to mean a strong Trump supporter rather than a kneejerk one, but in this article it means a kneejerk supporter.

22. Thanks for the clever EverTrumper tag, Harry.
    Hinderaker is no genius either. He is too often a short-horned rhino (pun). Quit reading him some years ago.

    Today’s may be one of Trump’s ways of testing his troops, the TrueTrumpers versus the Getalongs, like Sen. Scott of SC in the latter camp.

    TrueTrumpers do not need to be robots, automatons, collectivists; they understand no one is always right. But they do not have strokes and fall on the floor convulsing when Trump says or does something with which they do not 100% agree. They understand the alternative, the enemy, is the Progressive Evil, whether resident in opulence in SF or hijab-clad from MN.

23. FOAF:

    Mogilev. But I have also been told (don’t know if it’s true) that just a few decades before they left Belarus they had arrived there from Alsace-Lorraine.

24. Magnus on July 15, 2019 at 5:41 pm said:

    It’s normal for the MSM to leave out whatever they want from Prez Trump’s quotes. They report that he basically said, “Get out & stay out…” & therefore he’s a racist.
    What he did say was go to these 3rd world hellholes, fix them because they really need help with that, then come back & tell us how you fixed it. Racists don’t ever ask people to come back…
    Both John & Steve at PLB both thing Prez Trump’s tweets are a bad thing. But they are brutally effective & very carefully worded. The president is always moving the ball downfield…

    (Emphasis added.)

    Thanks, Magnus. What you wrote need to be repeated.

25. Chester Draws: :He wants to paint them — all of them — as Socialist, crazy-on-immigration, America haters. The more they defend AOC, etc, the more they seem like that.”

    They were doing a better job of doing that themselves AND they made themselves the news AND some of their far left malcontents got themselves in the spotlight protesting, replacing an American flag with a Mexican flag and getting themselves shot for performing terrorist acts. THEY were in the news and now Trumps idiotic comments are. Thats winning?

    Cicero: “Today’s may be one of Trump’s ways of testing his troops, the TrueTrumpers versus the Getalongs, like Sen. Scott of SC in the latter camp.”

    That makes sense to you? Is that somehow the 3D chess game to you? Why would you need to “test your troops” in such an idiotic fashion? To what end?

    “But they “True Trumpers” do not have strokes and fall on the floor convulsing when Trump says or does something with which they do not 100% agree.

    True Trumpers apparently dont understand the point of all of this is to win by destroying leftism. That means keeping ones mouth shut when the left are destroying themselves, not allowing them to rally around the media who is quick to change the story back to “Orangeman bad” as soon as possible, and thats what your idiot non-3D chess playing geneus had done for them.

26. This is the obvious point that must be considered very seriously. People want to be governed by other people who are like themselves. Any nation has to be made up of people who share many common factors with one another, including extended kinship, and a shared heritage and common history, not just some nebulous concept of “idea” or “proposition.” Mass immigration will end up destroying the nation-state, simply because it changes the very people who make up the original nation.

    So while we consider what Donald Trump has tweeted in 2019, take a minute to look ahead to 2040, when the U.S. population could be around 400 million people, about one-third of that recent immigrants and their descendants from 2000 onward, and with maybe a white minority of 40% or so. How do you think things will work out then?

    (And don’t forget that America in the mid-1980s was around 250 million people and 85% white, meaning a lot of change in a very short time, all from mass immigration.)

27. This Trump tweet is an excellent example of Salena Zito’s insightful observation that Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally while his opponents take him literally but not seriously.

28. FredoCons are smart. Not like people say, like dumb. They’re smart and they want respect.

29. Pres. Trump tweets again (1hr ago): “The Dems were trying to distance themselves from the four “progressives,” but now they are forced to embrace them. That means they are endorsing Socialism, hate of Israel and the USA! Not good for the Democrats!”

    https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150879404593205249

30. Trump violates Napoleon’s axiom to never interfere with your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself. It seems as though he’d rather have a poor news cycle as long as it’s about him than a good one which the cat fight was between Pelosi and the four rebels before he stuck his foot in it.

31. But then there’s Sen. Mitt Romney’s tweet (which? who?): “The president’s comments were destructive, demeaning, and disunifying. The President of the United States has a unique and noble calling to unite the American people – of all different races, colors, and national origins. In that respect, the president failed badly.”

    https://mobile.twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1150883149372645388

    Gawd, listen to that stampede to Romney’s side! (Not) Awe inspiring stuff, no? Wadda champeen.

32. Odd, but not surprising, that Harry would weigh in with a line about “EverTrumpers” on this forum. There may be a few but, I haven’t really noticed.

    As Barry Meislin noted, many people look at Trump and think about the alternative so they tend to defend him against the howling of the pack; and thereby earn pejorative labels from such as “Good Old Harry”. Some of us also wish that he would tone down the rhetoric on trivial matters, but agree with most of what he is trying to accomplish. And when I say, “wish he would tone down the rhetoric” I am not thinking of this latest episode. What these miserable women are doing is not trivial. Someone needs to call then out and it appears that Trump is the only one willing to do so. Too bad that the President has to do that kind of work, there are more urgent demands on his attention. Their “so called” party leadership should have long since taken up the cudgel; along with every Republican in Congress. But, good for him.

33. Again, the awfulness and the discord among the Democrats were, for a short time the focus of attention. Thanks for the genius of Trump, the focus is back on Trump. The only saving grace here is the extreme rhetoric in which this is delivered.
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aoc-squad-news-conference-trump-call-go-back-home?fbclid=IwAR3APFpw2siol_3KkfLs_wdnncSa3bJ19z-Hbn8jo7Qv-IDr_2wIWnfUt8o

34. What a Monday: Omar brings up the false claim that folks have to drink out of toilets in detention centers; Trump falsely accuses Omar of praising al Qaeda

35. The Rebel tweets: “@AOC, @IlhanMN repeatedly REFUSE to condemn Antifa attack on the ICE center in Tacoma!”

    https://mobile.twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/1150906713274540034

36. Trump violates Napoleon’s axiom to never interfere with your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.

    DonKeyoti: That’s a proverb, not an axiom. More of a rule of thumb. Not an absolute law.

    If you have the chance at a tactical killshot, why not take it? As is often the case, the choice is a matter of weighing specific pros and cons.

    As I assess this situation, the tensions between Pelosi and the Squad don’t go away because of Trump’s tweets. So there doesn’t look like much downside.

    Furthermore, I buy the argument that Trump is forcing Pelosi together with the Squad in the minds of moderate Americans, which looks like a win to me and a harbinger of Trump’s 2020 campaign strategy.

37. Trump is just playing the democrats and I think it’s funny. The democrats are always calling people names and I think it’s childish. Trump was in the entertainment business, so maybe he subscribes to the old saying, “I don’t care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right.”

38. if Canada is so great and America is bad, what is stopping Hispanic illegal immigrants from continuing their journey to our neighbor in the north where democrats believe where the true utopia of equality and opportunity lies? The only racists I see are people constantly using their identity and skin colour as a shield to deflect any legitimate criticism directed at the failed policies they promote. Seriously, there is nothing more racist than demanding people to listen to your putrid socialist country bankrupting bull crap for no other reasons beside you are not man and you are not white. Stop trying to change America into the shithole you escaped, if your country were better, why come? I am an immigrant myself, I see no white supremacy in America, all I see is nonwhite supremacy, people claiming they are superior because they are not white men.

39. All,

    Chester Draws has read Trump’s strategy correctly.

    Go listen to Scott Adams’ podcast for today #598 at
    https://blog.dilbert.com/
    Scott analyzes exactly what persuasion technique Trump is using.

40. And another persuasion technique of Trump — the pre-announced ICE raids that really did not take place.

    Trump flushed out all the dumb-o-crats, i.e. those who made great public announcements on how the illegal criminals who were supposed to be swept up by ICE could flout the law and avoid capture.

    There will be lots of video clips played later on of these idiots publically stating their support for criminals. Even Nancy fell for it.

41. Ann:

    You are stooping pretty low to apologize for Illan Omar. I’ve watched the video where she was speaking of al Qaeda with a sympathetic interviewer of her own faith. I’ve also watched the video of her ‘some people did something’ (and then play the victim card) to know quite enough about her. She is quite the piece of work.

42. DonKeyoti said: “Trump violates Napoleon’s axiom to never interfere with your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.”

    Quoting (or in this case, paraphrasing*) Napolean, when one does not have a more thorough grasp of tactics and strategy does not make one sound knowledgeable.

    First, I’m not entirely sure the Democrats were making a mistake. Its possible. But I’m not convinced yet. I think they will still be infighting months from now and everything Trump says by Tweet, no matter how benign will always be Beyond The Pale.

    And Trump might be more focused on unifying his own supporters and the Right.

    Or Trump might be trying to bring his enemies to together. Sometimes this is necessary. On the small scale, think about dropping ordinance on the enemy when they are bunched up rather than spread out.

    Trump might fail. Or not. I reckon not because 90% of the people I know, even the apolitical ones agreed with everything he said.

    Regardless, I am not an ‘EverTrumper’. I am an NeverLeftist. So, I support whoever fights them. And so Trump does, mistakes and all. And so I support him. But I will take mistakes over inaction. I will take mistakes of Go-Along-Get-Along.

    *The original is ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.’

43. om:

    When I watch Omar speak, I think of Shakespeare’s “one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

44. And for those who want to hold Trump to one of Napolean’s quotes, I would point them toward this one:

    “Audacity, audacity, audacity. Always audacity.”

45. Put me down in the Trump-is-a-genius camp. In this case at least.

    Pre-Trump, the democrats would have been allowed to patch up their puerile disagreements without let or hindrance, and the end result would have been a unified party going into the 2020 election.

    Sure, there would have been plenty of jaw-jaw, but the more open-mouthed crazies would have been tamped down, allowing the pretend saner and tactically quiet leftists to claim that they don’t hate God, America, Americans, American culture, etc. It’s happened plenty of times before.

    Now, Trump has forced the left to let the mask slip, because to attack him they at least have to mention what he said. This shines a spotlight upon their unpopular opinions, which isn’t good for them.

    Or their globalist gop allies, who have popped up to deploy all the usual platitudes, and are as always irrelevant. Nothing more need be said about them.

    Thus, I conclude that the democrats- who are all radical America hating leftists but who are also experts at hiding that vile fact- will still manage to go into 2020 as a unified party, because they always do.

    But because of Trump, one much more exposed than normal- and thus, one much weaker.

46. AOC has been calling a chinese man like me a white supremacist when she claimed all trump supporters were white supremacists, when is she going to personally apologize to me? This dumbF**k is so clueless that she thought a tax exemption pretty much a discount on tax giving to a company in exchange for them investing more into the city bringing in more tax revenue, job opportunities, technologies and training to the city is a government handout. complaining about capitalism but can’t wait to be an opportunist and capitalist herself by capitalizing on her hotness pretty much only commodity and value to society she possesses to claim to places where she doesn’t belong. why not ruin her beauty by putting some acid on her own face and earn being taken seriously by her own merit if capitalism is what she hates so much.

47. Trump is messy, and is certainly not as polite and civilized as, say, Romney— the Republican’s Mrs. Dumont—but Trump is spot on.

    Trump is, in his own, inimitable way, saying what a whole hell of a lot of Americans are thinking, and perhaps even shouting at their TV and computer screens.

    It seems to me that Trump is making the Democrats own up to who they really are, and what they really stand for.

    He’s fixed them in place, pushed them into an ideological corner.

    Never a good place to be.

    For far too long Republicans have been Mrs. Dumont , and gotten the hell kicked out of them.

    Time for this defeatist and craven attitude to end, and to go on the attack!

48. One thing unifies the democrats and their voters: Trump. The tiff between the old guard and the crazies will not cause one voter to fail to vote for their party’s candidate come election day 2020. Trump wants to paint the eventual nominee as the candidate of the crazies. It took me more time than care to admit before I figured out Trump. Apparently some here are still in the dark.

49. That Bookworm discussion about moving the Overton window back makes a lot of sense. (See Neo’s ADDENDUM II.)

50. Has Sean Penn moved to Venezuela yet?

51. “De l’audace, encore l’audace, toujours de l’audace . . . etc.”: Georges Danton, Jacobin revolutionary, later guillotined by his onetime confreres.

52. Have the celebrities who vowed they would move to Canada if Trump wins moved to Canada yet?

53. Trump is messy, and is certainly not as polite and civilized as, say, Romney— the Republican’s Mrs. Dumont—but Trump is spot on.

    Snow on Pine: You’re killing me!

    For those who may not recall, Dumont was Groucho’s “straight woman” in iconic Marx Brothers comedies.

    I’ve read Dumont was not the brightest of bulbs and genuinely did not get most of Groucho’s jokes. Thus, her state of constant beflusterment in the face of Groucho’s multi-leveled gags was real.

    Anyway. I liked Romney back in the day, but he has shown himself to be useful idiot for the left since Trump began politically stomping the earth like T. Rex.

54. I don’t think Trump is an eighth-dimensional grandmaster. Sometimes these little gambits of his don’t work out so well for him.

    But it is amazing how three years into the Trump era so many of his enemies still believe and act as if he’s just some utter moron who never has a plan behind ANYTHING he does.

    Mike

55. Boy, it does seem like a lot of the old conservative guard yearn for the days of polite cocktail parties with Democrats over spritzers and cucumber sandwiches.

56. sdferr,

    Thank you! I stand corrected. I had always thought Boney said that. And he probably did, after looking it up, he was likely quoting Danton.

57. Nappy may well have Fractal, as one frog quoting another.

    So I may chorus again, with gusto this time: brekekekex koax koax!

58. So I may chorus again, with gusto this time: brekekekex koax koax!

    sdferr: We have such an erudite commenting pool!

59. I think a vast majority of people like me who turned conservative from liberal in 1991 can never be Never Trump and are never Ever Trump and wish there was some way the unhelpful comments from AOC, Trump, Omar, Schumer, etc would cease and we actually have a DISCUSSION about policy and solutions with history and context.

    Liberalism/Socialism/Identity politics will never work. Free markets and meritocracy is what solves problems as people realize that personal responsibility is key.

    So while Trump is an inarticulate boob from Queens who doesn’t know the first thing about 3 dimensional chess (neither do I), he isn’t helpful but the most articulate didn’t win the GOP primary and we got stuck with this ass who is shaking things up and showing people what liberalism means – and it is ugly.

60. Huxley, I haven’t been here for awhile but geez – Trump’s language sure has liberals fired up but none of their own politicians seem to ever rile them up.

    It is an insane situation. Conservatives be like, “Whaaaaa!”??? It’s almost like a tennis match with Trump on one side (surrounded by Diamond and Silk) and the entire establishment press, Democrat politicians and hollywood on the other. I can’t say anything at work or anywhere being here in California .

61. sdferr,

    Well said!

62. Perhaps our tendency to preference for DJT over Mittens parallels Aristophanes’ preference for more stolid oldfogey Aesculus over hipper, more innovative and up-to-date Euripides, eh hux? Heh.

63. Anyways, I am pretty sure you don’t play 3 D chess by swiping all of the pieces to the ground, lifting the table sideways and calling the opponent names.

    While the referees like Mitt Romney might think he has a following other than the mainstream press reporting what Romney said it has been like this for a long time:

    1) Democrat politicians have been moving the rook in other ways than an L shape.
    2) THey have been moving the bishops to east and west and north and south instead of diagonal
    3) The queen they tried to get elected was crooked and we all knew it.
    4) They are taking the ivory pieces and replacing them with plastic ones right in front of our eyes.
    5) The tech companies are saying, “legal move” to the Democrats – illegal move to the Republicans and making Republicans take a pass and giving Democrats extra turns
    6) The press on the sidelines are like yelling at anyone with an R after their name – and the alternative press James O’Keefe is getting called racist Nazi.
    7) Kamala Harris is openly declared a plan to GIVE cash to everyone who is black and yet she isn’t racist…..

64. Pelosi is falling into the trap that Trump has laid. She is throwing her lot in with “The Squad”:

    https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/15/pelosi-resolution-trump-ocasio-cortez-other-freshman-democrats/

    Pelosi Announces Resolution Condemning Trump For ‘Go Back’ Tweets Directed At Ocasio-Cortez, Other Freshman Democrats

    I await Trump asking Br’er Pelosi to not throw him into that briar patch.

65. Prez Trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the room, just as he planned to…

    Who do the Dems have running for president these days? I haven’t seen any news about them…

66. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/06/kamala-harris-homeownership-2020-1399253

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/451835-harris-releases-100-billion-plan-to-close-racial-homeownership-gap

    Look at these racist organizations writing crappy headlines for Kamala Harris.

67. I await Trump asking Br’er Pelosi to not throw him into that briar patch.

    Edward: You’re killing me too!

68. Baklava: I was wondering where I’d seen you before. It’s been a while, bro!

    I don’t think Trump is playing any sort of chess. He’s a cutthroat New York real estate developer and a reality TV show host. He’s got a gut, street-level set of skills which we haven’t seen since … well, LBJ anyway.

    Of course your criticism is aimed at the Dems and they aren’t playing chess either.

69. Meawhile,
    There are really dark days ahead economically and technically
    https://www.thepostmillennial.com/breaking-twitter-silences-canadian-free-speech-activist-lindsay-shepherd/

70. Thread, being a brief history of the recent statements of the Squadster Sisters Omar, Tlaib and O-Cortez, courtesy of Elizabeth Harrington (14 tweets, just scroll down): https://mobile.twitter.com/LizRNC/status/1150880188957364224

71. Yeah, I came back for the Kavanaugh fight. The only blog I really read regulary is Neo’s.

    Spending time in this quicksand isn’t my thing – there is not persuasion any more. Back in the day I was able to persuade people to move away from liberalism. Now it’s all about Trump.

72. The biggest reason personal responsibility is the only answer (not the AOC way):

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-15/global-debt-hits-246-trillion-320-gdp-developing-debt-hit-all-time-high

73. Baklava: The debt bomb is the only thing I really worry about these days, aside from non-linear things like asteroid collisions or nuclear war.

    The only comfort for Americans is that most other countries will hit bottom faster and harder than we will.

    We are still such a rich nation, though we work hard to piss it away.

74. I agree Hux.

    There is no math to make it right but everyone I know understand we need land with chickens and vegetables…

75. Baklava: You mean I have to go back to my hippie commune days? I hated working the land, dealing with chickenshit and picking vegetables.

76. Well – On the day the lights go out on our cell phones and FB and IG cease to exist and there is not more “The View” to watch – we all better have a way to feed ourselves – and know a doctor. 🙂

    The Walking Dead was a show that showed us what we’ll need – friends and land 🙂

77. “It took me more time than care to admit before I figured out Trump. ”

    Me too parker, and I’m still working on it. But this latest is not some mindless bloviation from Trump. It may be 3-D chess or it may be a blunderbuss but he is definitely working on the campaign trying to make sure Democrats stay tied to the Squad.

78. “Free markets and meritocracy is what solves problems as people realize that personal responsibility is key.” –Balava

    In one sentence, this!

79. This is really interesting:
    https://www.takimag.com/article/san-francisco-vs-frisco/#.XSfQAamrkPM.twitter

    Kamala Harris’s district has a racial problem.

80. Excerpt:
    In general, highly liberal school districts, whether in college towns, woke suburbs, or big cities, are worse for racial equality.

    For example, rich and leftist San Francisco (where Hillary won 84–10) combines big race divides (a white-black gap of 3.7 years) with weak test scores.

    Amusingly, San Francisco is the opposite of Frisco, Tex., a sprawling Dallas exurb that has grown from 33,000 to 188,000 in this century. In contrast to highly gay San Francisco, Frisco, the weekday home to the Dallas Cowboys, has been called “the Best Place to Raise an Athlete.”

    Ironically, while everybody in San Francisco hates when you call it by its unloved nickname “Frisco,” Republican-voting Frisco is much better at narrowing racial divides than is liberal San Francisco. Frisco has a white-black gap of only 1.4 years.

81. No one knows how anything,(including elections, the economy, the mass debt) will unwind. We all have our guesses. I only trust mine. 😉

82. This is all familiar. History doesn’t repeat exactly but it does have similar cycles. We are repeating the 1960s and 70s. Trump is the Vietnam War. The Progressives are all against him as they were against the Vietnam War. Antifa is the Weather Underground. Black Lives Matter is the Black Panthers. Underneath all the anti-Americanism are the hard core Communists as they were in the 1960s/70s. They were attempting to use the war to overthrow the government. Now Trump is excuse to overthrow our system. They are are now becoming more open and vocal. (The Squad) Socialism/Communism was being touted as “agrarian reform” or “sticking it to the man” back in the day. Now it is social/racial justice reform. But it’s the same ideology as we saw in 1960/70s. And the goal is the same.

    I’ve seen this play before. An Antifa member attacked an ICE detention center in Tacoma last weekend. Died for his efforts. It’s going to get more violent and louder. Until the citizenry see what’s happening (Trump is trying to show them), begin to back strict law and order, a closed border, and free market policies; this will continue. I hope it doesn’t get as violent as the old days, but the Communists, as exemplified by the Squad, are well entrenched and determined that they won’t fail this time. Be ready to stand with the forces of freedom and sanity.

83. WHAT happened to Drudge?? It’s totally not the same site.

84. Ironically, while everybody in San Francisco hates when you call it by its unloved nickname “Frisco,”…

    Baklava: Aiieee! The sound, it burns. But San Francisco is a lot of thick syllables, so the solution in the Bay Area was to call it, “The City.” Which is kind of pretentious.

    Albuquerque has several nicknames: Burque (burr-kay), Duke City and a recent mayor tried to get people to call it “The Q.” I dislike spelling out Albuquerque and tend to write ABQ after the airport designation.

85. Didn’t read all the comments so if I am repeating someone else’s, I’m sorry.

    it probably inoculated me from leftism for life, although I was a liberal Democrat at the time, as was my entire family.

    Those liberal Democrats are gone. My father-in-law was one. He knew Hubert Humphrey. Hubert Humphrey stood on the Senate floor and said that if the 1964 Civil Rights Act resulted in quotas, he would eat the bill. He didn’t live long enough.

    The last few, Trump is flushing out of cover. They are now joined at the hip with the “Gang of Four.”

86. This is all familiar. History doesn’t repeat exactly but it does have similar cycles. We are repeating the 1960s and 70s.

    J.J.: It is reminiscent and I suspect it will lead to a similar rejection of the radical left.

    This country is going so far to the right you won’t recognize it.

    –John Mitchell, US Attorney General, 1969-1972

87. Kevin Drum is one of the more rational voices on the left. He has an article in the current, “Mother Jones,” titled “Are Democrats Now the Party of Open Borders?”

    https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/07/are-democrats-now-the-party-of-open-borders/

    Commenters are thoughtful. “Kevin is right; it does sound like open borders and voters will vote us down.” Or hard-core leftist. “Unless Democrats explicitly say they are for open borders, it is right-wing slander.”

88. “Well – On the day the lights go out on our cell phones and FB and IG cease to exist and there is not more “The View” to watch – we all better have a way to feed ourselves – and know a doctor.”

    LOL I have a Ford tractor and a rather mediocre 80 acre vacation farm 75 of it clear, and my kid sis and nephew are doctors and etc.

    But it occurs to me, that almost none of us here in the US are really prepared for a protracted emergency. Me, most especially me perhaps, included. And though I got the relevant info back when I was in college decades ago, I never did build that methane generator.

    It gets worse.

    For example, the tractor is diesel, and I don’t have storage tanks in the ground, nor the hand pumps that used to be found on farms. I’d be cranking it out of 50 gallon drums … in an unlikely nest case scenario.

    No livestock either.

    The well is 150 feet deep; and was upgraded 20 years ago to a submersible pump. The old pump jack well head and rods were removed and the rods pulled during that operation. The cup leathers of the cylinder valves are probably all dried out; and the even older pre-electric windmills which lay ruined in the grass out by the plough fields 30 years ago, are now wrecked by time completely.

    And even at that the 2 and 3 ft diameter oaks in the grove surrounding the house are too big to allow much air flow for that well … if we tried to convert it. If you had enough gas for your chainsaw you might be able to get through them in a few weeks.

    Oh, and I don’t have a good plow or harrow. Did I mention that? Or any seeds, or a seed drill. Or a cultivator. Nor even a cheap old held-together-with-bailing-wire a combine for that matter. Nor a hay wagon.

    Do how many years of freeze dried food had you better have before embarking on an 1890’s – 1920’s lifestyle?

    I remember my aerospace machine shop owning uncle, taking to a jig borer himself, and re-bushing that pump arm when it was clanking. We had three highly sophisticated machine shops in my mother’s family.

    Now, my cousin has a couple Bridgeports and lathes he keeps in one of the old buildings, just for sentimental reasons. And that’s about it.

    Yeah, and “Up North”? Those fat, disability collecting, early Chrysler retiree assh*les, who notoriously poach deer in the middle of the night over their yard light lit bait piles about a mile away, would probably have everything cleaned out of the township within weeks. Including any fawns.

    Somebody would have to deal with them.

    You would have to get deadly serious, mighty quick, in order to survive.

    And only then might we fully realize just how our lives and energies have been siphoned away for two generations now, by tolerating mentally ill males and females, and enabling them to express their worthlessness and craziness in society and through the agency of politics as if they were sane, and moral, and worthy of being treated as serious peers in the first place.

89. “in an unlikely best case scenario”

    “So how many years …?”

    Bring back editing! I’m too sloppy. I need it.

90. Omar’s father, Nur Omar Mohamed (aka Nur Said Elmi Mohamed), is connected to the former dictator in Somalia, Said Barre. Nur and other former Barre accomplices are living in the US illegally. Omar’s father Mohamed, is living in the US. He and other Somalians like Yusuf Abdi Ali, who killed thousands for Barre, escaped to the West and were not vetted properly before entering the country. Barre was a dictator and was connected to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Ali is a convicted war criminal who did the killing himself. Ali has been located in the US working as security at Dulles International Airport and driving for Uber in 2019. He reportedly lived at one time in Alexandria, Virginia. Ali was a Colonel in the Somalian Army’s 5th Mechanized Brigade in 1987 and was a graduate of the Pentegon’s Program for Foreign Officers in 1986. He’s also a war criminal in response to his actions in Somalia. Nur, Representative Omar’s father, appears to have been a party propagandist under the dictator and was responsible for ‘ideological’ aspects of the Red-Green revolution. (He worked for the Marxist/Stalinist regime under dictator Baare as a teacher of teachers.) This could have included providing the ideological/political justification for the massacres of the late eighties.

    Both Ali and Nur escaped Somalia after the fall of Barre. Because they were no longer safe there and would have been put on trial and shot if caught, they exited the country. Both ended up in the US and both hid the fact that they worked for a totalitarian regime. Both lied on their Form N-400, Application for Naturalization about their communist background. (They had to or they wouldn’t be here.)

91. Mike K: “Those liberal Democrats are gone”.

    Exactly. Dan Moynihan and Scoop Jackson would be drummed out of the party now the way Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller were. That’s when I left the party, when it became clear to me that not only had the Michael Moore wing taken over, but that the party “elders” who should have known better went along with it for cynical political reasons.

92. Neo: Im with Hinderaker here in that this is yet another unforced error on Trump’s part and gain, more evidence Trump is no geneus.

    this from the genius that cant spell it…
    IF your going to comment that way, do spend some extra time checking
    otherwise, it looks bad and you lose your whole point..

    but the point of a genius is that regular people dont see what they see
    and that the genius has to bring them there and show them

    your point speaks more to him being one than not…
    [and this is not without knowing the other things he is a part of and how the assumptives are mostly false… ]

93. Cicero: “Today’s may be one of Trump’s ways of testing his troops, the TrueTrumpers versus the Getalongs, like Sen. Scott of SC in the latter camp.”

    That makes sense to you? Is that somehow the 3D chess game to you? Why would you need to “test your troops” in such an idiotic fashion? To what end?

    to know who is loyal and on your side and who will show up. you know, so you dont go to battle screaming charge with no one behind you like william wallace..

    Loyalty is key to what choices a leader has..
    Cortez burned his ships…
    mobsters assasinate on rumor

    and a the left, and chinese potential emperors ask how you you like the deer that is a horse?

    so the idea that what is old and important (Care to hear Nietzsche on it?), is wrong, shows your not educated in this area of combat…

    your have never led and ended up turning around with no one there.

    Chinese Stories Calling a deer a horse:
    When Qin Shihuangdi died of illness in Shaqiu, there were three persons with him: Li Si, Zhao Gao, and Ying Huhai. Li Si was the left hand man of Qin Shihuangdi, who had helped the emperor defeat his enemies and rule China. Huhai was the second son of the late emperor. Zhao Gao was a lowly eunuch. Zhao Gao suggested killing Fusu by faking a letter from the late emperor and letting Huhai become the next emperor. Li Si, who was concerned whether Fusu would support him, accepted. Huhai, who was unwise, accepted as well. This is the story of how Zhao Gao came to power.

94. The people who have been having hysterical fits about Trump for the last two and a half years think what he said was horrible and racist. All the rest of us, most of whom know better than to speak up in public because we see what happens to those who do, are thinking, “Bravo.”

    The US isn’t perfect, but the radical left wants to turn it into a third-world sh1thole and are increasingly up front and unapologetic about that reality. They can’t wait to kill every last golden goose – er, law-abiding, taxpaying US citizen – and give all the eggs to third worlders that will vote for them.

95. Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.
    Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

    “When you have a good friend that really cares for you and tries to stick in there with you, you treat them like nothing. Learn to be a good friend because one day you’re gonna look up and say I lost a good friend. Learn how to be respectful to your friends, don’t just start arguments with them and don’t tell them the reason, always remember your friends will be there quicker than your family. Learn to remember you got great friends, don’t forget that and they will always care for you no matter what. Always remember to smile and look up at what you got in life.”
    ? Marilyn Monroe

    what does trump do that Tsun Tsu advises?

    You have to believe in yourself.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    All warfare is based on deception.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.

    “Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.”
    ? Confucius, The Analects

96. We are, most of us, “playing games” with our lives; socially speaking. Putting up with the BS of others, and to some extent ourselves; in an effort to be nice, and compassionate, and civilized, and because “There no chance that the shit will ever really hit the fan.”

    So why be “hard”? Why be “cruel”? Why be demanding and “intolerant”?

    It’s easier to keep the peace in your house that way and with your spouse or relatives … many of us figure.

    It seems wise until you realize how thinly supported the level of comfort and sophistication we enjoy really is, and how social upheaval could send it into a long-term downward spiral.

    And once the manufacturing and technical skills are lost – in, it seems, about the third catastrophe – there is no relighting the flame of the previous civilization from a preserved pilot.

    Archeologists for example, can trace the undulating decline of post-Roman Britain after the last legions were pulled and after the last competent militia types went to Gaul to try and aid the surviving rump state of Soissons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Soissons

    They can see how after the Pictish invasion was repulsed with the help of Saxon hirelings, there was some recovery. And how even after the initial English mercenary revolt was temporarily stymied, there was some rebuilding in towns in the west. But eventually, after a good plague or two more and the deaths of the last real Romanized aristocrats and their skilled technicians … everything went completely to hell.

    There were no properly running hold-out cities left. There could not be then, and can’t be now. Because he-hawing barbarized moron nihilists, be they domestic or foreign, and who are content with a lifestyle that relies on pillage, ultimately have nothing better to do with their lives, and want nothing better to do with their lives, than to camp in their own bodily waste and to plot the exploitation and destruction of those who do know better.

    Being civilized, is not easy … though it has seemed so to us. So much so that Ilhan Omar, a mentally and morally disordered alien lunatic, an enemy of both liberty and my country, is treated to a press conference, instead of a weighted canvas bag dumped in the sea. Let us hope it never comes to that in this country.

97. DonKeyoti
    Napoleon said ‘Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.’

    so no, your not using a smart adage from a dictator who won..
    your using something else as such, and so, lost your point to those who know

    Tsun Tsu also never said it either…

98. Nothing to add to the opinions already expressed — yes, Trump is a thin-skinned asshole who can’t keep his mouth and twitter-finger shut, and who does great things for the country and the world.

    Just wanted to note a couple of points that haven’t been mentioned: first, although Puerto Rico is not a separate country, it certainly is one of the most corrupt places in the first (???) world. The FBI recently rounded up a half dozen of the usual suspects for corruption. Trump was certainly justified in including PR in his exhortation that they “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” And Detroit — need anymore be said?

    Second, nobody pays much attention to the fourth member of the squad, Ayanna Pressley, but she is just as much a hard-line Maoist as the others. She recently gave a speech in which she called for more “politico-racism” (I can’t think of a better term for it, maybe someone else can) — if a black, brown, or gay person doesn’t toe the party line, they’re not really black, brown, or gay:

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/07/14/rep_ayanna_pressley_we_dont_need_any_more_brown_faces_that_dont_want_to_be_a_brown_voice.html

99. Trump falsely accuses Omar of praising al Qaeda

    well, if you go to google, everything htat comes up is the top left sites
    these people would claim there was plenty of food as millions starve!!!

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties,” Omar said at a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) fundraiser.

    “Here’s your something: 2,977 people dead by terrorism.” – NY Post

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    “When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. … The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up,” Omar said during an interview from 2013 when she was an activist within the Somali community, chuckling as she imitated the professor saying “Al Qaeda” and “Hezbollah.”

    “But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “… But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.”

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    following the brutal al-Shabab attack on a Kenyan shopping mall in 2013 that killed nearly 70 people and wounded 200 Omar described acts of terrorism as a reaction to “our involvement in other people’s affairs”

    Nobody wants to face how the actions of the other people that are involved in the world have contributed to the rise of the radicalization and the rise of terrorist acts

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

100. Has Sean Penn moved to Venezuela yet?

     nope… he wont go unless Danny Glover is his lover…

101. Anyways, I am pretty sure you don’t play 3 D chess by swiping all of the pieces to the ground, lifting the table sideways and calling the opponent names.

     yeah… sure… great nonsense point..
     im sure you dont win polo either by dancing in a tu tu the way you can dancing wiht the stars…

     hey… dip.. its an ABSTRACTION…

     ie. playing a game that is so hard to win no one can fathom the depths..

     well he is playing a game no one can fathom the rules, which arent even static and are partly built on the emotional and instinctive things that work with ANIMALS..

     in politics and in ruler ship, a valid move is knocking all the pieces to the ground..
     its makes a statment…

     We are only playing this game by these rules because i let you and volunteer… otherwise, there is no game, and there are no rules, and at any time upend you… your plans… your whole game…

     its a powerful statement that people ignore who does it
     when a 12 year old does it playing chess, its one thing
     when an emperor or king or president or leader of parliment does it, its a whole other message
     precisely because they dont do it normally

     Often, we are not even aware of the games we are playing with others.

     If we didn’t play any games, we would treat people as equals.

     His petulant acts you dont like tells the others who would top from the bottom that he is in control of the games and what gets played and what the outcome is. you do what you do at his behest or he will change chess to Parcheesi… you will have to risk going from a game you know to one you dont..

     and he keeps them hopping,.. this is Clauswitz and Tsun Tsu at their best..

     would you say a warden of a prison is a child if he takes the paints away from a convict?
     or does he do it to tell the convict, he is in control…

     by the way… THIS is why its done… the fact you dont like it is the WHOLE POINT…
     you do not like someone else taking control of something you want and like and destroying it
     even worse… the destruction is your own for crossing clear boundaries.. (if not a child doing it)

     this is power politics and most people are NICE and do not get that these things they dislike
     are disliked because they work for all the wrong reasons for people who, if they played by your rules
     would lose to you, which is why you like those rules…

102. wendy:

     TDS happened to Drudge. Has been that way for a long time. I don’t read Drudge much, so I can’t track it for you, but I noticed it quite some time ago.

103. I honestly hate the democrats 1000 times more than ISIS and i am sure the democrats feel the same about us, what is the point of living together when we hate each others this much? seriously I don’t want to share a country with them anymore, can we just separate the country into two half and move on from each others?

104. It’s surreal. I don’t know much about bull fighting, but Trump seems like a cartoon matador waving a red cape concealing a sword. The audience screams in terror as the inflamed, outraged bull charges him in multiple near death passes, until the bull becomes exhausted, and then…

105. Esther:

     We can hope. 😉

106. TDS happened to Drudge. -neo

     That’s my impression too. I was surprised — Drudge never struck me as a country club Republican sipping Arnold Palmers with David Brooks in the clubhouse.

107. DNW,
     It is a bleak picture indeed. I’ve thought it through also.

     It is why you will need many friends and land and then the bleak picture gets really bleak because the friends you thought were friends will not be friends – they will turn on a piece of bread instead of thinking for the long term viability of humanity.

108. Artfuldgr on July 16, 2019 at 1:01 pm said:
     DonKeyoti
     Napoleon said ‘Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.’
     so no, your not using a smart adage from a dictator who won..
     your using something else as such, and so, lost your point to those who know
     Tsun Tsu also never said it either…

     Well, consider me slapped down and put in my place. Just look at this thread to see how divisive we have become. Check out what NRO’s Andrew McCarthy has to say on this very subject. Trump is not a unifier, only plays to his hard core base, and couldn’t sit in front of a chess board for longer than a minute let alone play 3-D chess on it (sorry Neo, but I respectfully disagree). He continues to light fires in dumpsters all over the land because he is so insecure in his own skin. Look at what we conservatives have become.

109. DNW—Hate to be a “downer,” but I have written about my viewpoint and concern here in the past, and I believe it deserves repeating.

     My reading of the histories of different eras and cultures—both ancient and modern–pretty conclusively demonstrated for me that the lot of the vast majority of human beings throughout recorded history and, no doubt, all the unrecorded history before that—the 99.999%–was, for the most part, one of deprivation and misery—certainly a bright spot here and there, for a brief time or so–but, much more often, a “state of nature”–featuring happenstance, circumstance, and unremitting toil, ignorance, poverty, starvation, violence, death, war, domination, accident, illness, the cold, and the damp; in sum, it was not a pretty picture.

     The strong dominating and taking from the weak and, the very fortunate few who, by luck, strength, guile, or inheritance ended up ruling from the top of the hierarchy.

     Showed me, as well, how through unremitting toil, perseverance, and the rare flash of genius and ingenuity–”two steps forward, one step back”–millennia, by millennia, century by century, civilization and culture by civilization and culture, Philosophy, Religion, idea and invention by Philosophy, Religion, idea and invention—standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, understanding and highly valuing, conserving, then building on what they achieved—many peoples and parts of this world have slowly—to one extent or the other–escaped that wretched “state of nature,” and have risen to the heights we have ascended to today.

     Convinced me as well, though, that that attainment—the pinnacle we stand on, here in the West, and especially here in the U.S.–is a far more precarious place to be than one might think, and that that veneer of civilization is fragile, and very thin, indeed.

     Unfortunately, many, perhaps most of us, have no idea about just how precious and precarious this thing called “civilization” is; a thing of ideas, language, viewpoint, values, trust, boundaries, custom, law and behavior much more than of machines—and of how quickly things can change, and us plunge back into some species of that “state of nature.”

     No idea, either, of just how singular and unique in the history of the world the United States, and the freedom and liberty, the comparative health, wealth, and abundance our people enjoy is; how almost miraculous, but fragile these precious and unique things actually are, and how easily they could revert to the “norm.”

     All this in our current highly connected, interdependent, electronic, high technology, computer age—with the confluence of computers, AI, and robots, or some other totally unforeseen “Black Swan” event steering us, perhaps, toward some sort of “Singularity.”

     Thus, as I see it, the present is an even more precarious and perilous situation for a people who, increasingly, have no conception of what has gone before, people who, oblivious, are—“walking along singing a song”–people who don’t appreciate how incredibly fortunate they are to have been born into this place and time, here in the West, and especially here in the United States—talk about “winning the lottery”—people who are skating on thin ice, with only a comparative few having any clue that things could rather quickly “go South,” or how to deal with it, if things suddenly fall apart, and we rather quickly revert back to the “norm,” to that “state of nature,” and perhaps, as well, to an 18th or even 17th century technology.

110. Snow on Pine:

     Probably worse than 17th or 18th century technology. I would hazard that the easily accessible ore deposits used in the 17th and 18th centuries (iron, copper, etc., base metals) and fossil fuels (coal and oil) are long gone.

111. om–As I said above,

     “Unfortunately, many, perhaps most of us, have no idea about just how precious and precarious this thing called “civilization” is; a thing of ideas, language, viewpoint, values, trust, boundaries, custom, law and behavior much more than of machines—and of how quickly things can change, and us plunge back into some species of that “state of nature.”

     And it is these elements that comprise and define “civilization”– ideas, language, viewpoint, values, trust, boundaries, custom, law and behavior–which are the things that the far Left is trying to subvert, undermine, destroy, and parasitize; to make over in their own image.

112. Snow on Pine:

     Because of course all those values of western civilization are. to the far left, not “sustainable.”

113. om–I’d imagine that nothing clarifies things, and concentrates the mind like having some invader occupy, try to take our country away from you, and make you “bend the knee.”

     Up until today’s slow motion invasion across our Southern border–we have not had a foreign invasion on our soil since the War of 1812–and that effects how people think–and this absence of the experience and memory of the invasions that have been and are so common elsewhere on the planet has bred a certain naivete and blindness in many of our people’s minds, the idea that “it can’t happen here.”

     Had we had the experience and memory of such a recent invasion, I’d imagine that a lot more people would be much more aware and protective of, and appreciate how rare and precious our Heritage, form of government, and Freedoms are, would not be so sanguine about how things stand today, and would be much more alert to the possibility that things could go very badly wrong.

     Mimetic and Ideological warfare are also forms of “invasion,” this time by ideas–see, for instance, the “Frankfurt School” and its “Critical Theory,”

114. Snow on Pine:

     See “Operation Wetback” in President Eisenhower, or Panucho Villa in the early 1900’s. The current problems on the US/Mexico border are not new but not the same as in those earlier situations. The US congress and the leftist in that body are more of the problem than most of the people from other countries that come here.

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