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To all those who say that Trump’s appointments are too radical … — 10 Comments

1. I’m not at all worried they are too radical. I am a bit concerned at how competent some are, but that’s impossible to say until they’re in those positions, and the people just elected Donald Trump to make that judgement call.

2. This is a good comment by VDH about the cabinet selections….

   https://x.com/VDHanson/status/1857579416471372198?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1857579416471372198%7Ctwgr%5Ebe70f4a8cdfcd73a52aa2f8503a4281dac1985bc%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F684890%2F

3. While strolling through the internet today, I encountered a post by Brad Torgersen from 2021, which is amazingly prescient about the trajectory of the political ideologues of the Left, especially under the tenure of Biden Inc.

   He puts into words the actions that have been memorialized in what’s sometimes called Musk’s Moving Center Meme aka Political Spectrum Meme.
   (the one that looks like 3 people on a teeter-totter).

   https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144

   The prologue is Old News, but you could substitute any number of names for the two given.

   https://bradrtorgersen.blog/2021/09/23/when-they-compassionately-defenestrate-you/

   Watching Rose McGowan and Nicki Minaj get raked across the coals of Leftist media reminds me of the fact that we’re seeing an ideological sorting hat at work: people can either be liberal, or they can be Woke, but they can’t be both. And if you’re a liberal you will be shoved onto the other side, along with conservatives, libertarians, and everyone else who just wants to not be bothered with 24/7 impassioned harangues, histrionic commandments, unconstitutional restrictions, and dogmatic doggerel.

   The attached web comic made the rounds this morning. It reminded me of my philosophical and political journey since 2001. I’ve been shoved over that line so many times on so many issues, I’ve lost count. The multi-headed hydra of Wokeness — which has been gradually manifesting in ever more hideous forms since the end of the 1990s — brooks no compromise. It’s a purely tribal thing. Admitting that a given topic or subject may be multifaceted or nuanced, or that there may be more than one accurate analysis of a specific problem, gets you ejected from the circle of correct thinking. And it’s gotten so aggressive across all arenas of life, people are being forced to make choices: stand up for your independence and your freedom to make up your own mind, or become a robot who simply regurgitates whatever madness the Left is churning out this week.

   I honestly can’t see how America survives this. There must be room for difference, or America isn’t America at all. Back in the counterculture 1960s the American Left devoted all its time to crying for space to do what it wanted to do, think what it wanted to think, and be what it wanted to be. And now that the American Left has all the cultural, economic, and political power it did not possess previously, the American Left is determined to stamp out disagreement — both real, and perceived — at every turn. We are not allowed to question. We are not allowed to arrive at our own conclusions. And if we resist being tamped down like square pegs in round holes, we are cast out. Cancelled. The people who hang their hats on caring and compassion behave like the worst, most despotic cretins imaginable.

   You don’t have to guess what they’re thinking. They tell you every day all day on Twitter, and from a menagerie of media outlets — who all toe and parrot the same political line.

   The Sovietization of American society may fail, however, if enough people simply decide they’ve had it. Been pushed too far. Are expected to swallow too many lies. Defenestrate too many friends. The chief strength of Wokeness is that it’s monolithic. But this is also its chief weakness. Because monolithic ideologies tend to crush an ever-expanding number of people who simply by dint of being individual human beings, cannot or will not abide the crushing. So one by one folks stand up. Refuse to be afraid. Cannot be made to cower. And when a critical mass of protestants (note the small p) is reached, the monolith crumbles. Because the monolith only has power so long as a majority of the population embraces that power.

   If enough people scofflaw — as I have pointed out in this space previously — the law becomes worthless. Ineffective. For any rule to function, people must cooperatively and voluntarily embrace it.

   The various and sundry overreaches of the past two decades, being capped by Covid Panic and all its excesses, may be the tipping point when sufficient numbers of free people conclude there’s literally no more benefit to going along with the totalitarian charade. How many rights must be curtailed or forfeited? How many people punished? How much red-pilling does it take for a society to simultaneously barf up the dog’s breakfast of Left-wing assertions, shibboleths, diatribes, and absolutely mindless samethink which has been shoved down our throats since the turn of the young century?

   The real tipping point turned out to be the continued persecution and warped prosecution of President Trump, including 3 assassination attempts, because, Orange Man Bad is Literally Hitler.

   Or, if you want a sharper point, the euthanization of a pet squirrel by The Bureaucrats. Which actually backs up Brad’s points about the totalitarian overreaching.

   Brad is a science fiction writer, but I’m not sure even he could have plotted a novel more absurd than the few years since he wrote this post.

4. Part II on radicals.
   A commenter on Brad’s post cited a study by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority, ”which I think has been seen here before, and then discussed another study which pointed out that the success of a radical group can cut both ways.

   https://bradrtorgersen.blog/2021/09/23/when-they-compassionately-defenestrate-you/#comment-19720

   Reziac says:
   There’s also an interesting paper summarized here:

   freakonomics DOT com/2011/07/28/minority-rules-why-10-percent-is-all-you-need/
   and available in full here:
   sci-hub DOT st/https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.84.011130

   I’ve personally noted (based on observations of the ongoing spread of that ultimate example of an intolerant minority, Islam) that the tipping point is actually lower, around 4 to 5 percent, and by the time you reach 10% it’s too late to stop full conversion. Survey data (that seems tolerably balanced) presently puts the far-left minority in the U.S. at around 8% (probably 2-3x that in Europe, where all the conformists stayed home when the Oh Yeah? contingent left for America). We are very close to it being Too Late.

   So… if we want to tip things back toward sane, it appears we need to become that strident, implacable minority, to make it “easier” to just go along with us than to try to compromise or reason with us. Because we’re actually the solid majority, but we’re not convincing enough people fast enough to firmly counter that strident minority on the Left, and that means the Left gets to make the rules. Convincing people by ones and twos doesn’t cut it when they make it “easier” for whole swaths to go along with them than to fight back and get canceled. And if they win, we ALL lose.

   Because being the reasonable and tolerant ones clearly is not working, or we wouldn’t need to have this discussion at all.

   And I recall that when we were a nation of “intolerant, unreasonable” people who did not tolerate gross deviancy, we were also a lot more secure in our homes and persons, and the spectre of an armed divorce was nowhere to be seen. By being so tolerant and reasonable, we’ve actually encouraged the present situation into being.

   I should note that I used to be of the tolerant and opposite persuasion, that all should be allowed their individual choices and behaviors (so long as not actively criminal against others). I’ve changed my mind, and it’s their own damn fault.

5. Michael Spicer hilariously captures the dilemma for any Labour minister who has previously called out Trump in no uncertain terms.
   Here is some humor from across the pond, where Steven Pineless, a Labour minister, tries to ignore his many negative tweets about Trump by stating that the UK will have a good relationship w Trump etc. It ends with a picture of the Labour minister’s profile photo. Hilarious!

   Also in Instapundit.IT’S SATIRE, BUT IS IT REALLY?

6. Part III on radicals.

   One of the early posts about Musk’s Moving Center Meme took issue with the implication that all the movement has been to the left, with the rightist and the centrist staying put.

   I’ve seen some “political spectrum” charts which do in fact show that the distribution curve of the Right has had some movement, although not nearly so much as the Left, and not enough IMO to significantly change the displacement of the center point.

   But it’s only fair to let him have his say.
   https://www.newsweek.com/problem-elon-musk-political-spectrum-meme-1702094

   According to research published by the Washington-based think tank in March, Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically today than they had been at any time in the past 50 years, with Republicans moving further to the right than Democrats have to the left.

   The research – which used lawmakers’ roll-call votes to place members of Congress in a two-dimensional ideological space – found that both parties had moved away from the ideological center from the 1970s, with Democrats becoming on average more liberal and Republicans “much more” conservative.

   Please note that the poll cited by the author is specifically about votes in Congress, whereas it’s pretty clear that Musk is referring to the entire country.
   All that proves is that, so far, the more manic positions of the Left haven’t made it to a vote.

   https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/

7. Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad Toady!

   Is that worse than a Putin fangirl?

   Here is Glen Greenwalt talking about Bari Weiss talking about Tulsi on The Joe Rogan show. On display is a level of ignorance that makes one wonder how intellectually vacuous the left really is.

   She calls Gabbard an Assad toady and when Rogan asks her what a toady is she’s forced to ask her assistant to look up the definition. It gets worse after that.

   Joe Rogan EXPOSES Bari Weiss’s Baseless Smears Against Tulsi
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj9-cAxykmw

8. I too am not at all worried that they are too radical. As for their competency, time will tell. But one thing I think certain with an older and wiser Trump; while loyalty to Trump got them the job, he expects them to measure up and won’t hesitate to fire any who don’t. Hopefully, each appointee has been assigned an ‘understudy’ one who’ll be ready to step in for any who end up being shown the door…

9. It all started with the Afghan withdrawal ( lying). No one believed a word they said.

10. One thing not being mentioned is the absolute impossibility of getting a conviction against any Swampian in DC or any Blue area.

    Jurors claiming hero status for resisting MAGA attempts to prosecute the guilty will become standard MSM fare.

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