We’ve had the Reichstag fire – what’s next?
Now that Washington DC is an armed camp after the January 6 Reichstag fire, and the Senate is busy trying the previous president and pretending they have the authority to do so, what’s next?
Let’s see. Let’s not forget that we currently also have the purge of the armed forces to root out those defined as extremists on the right. It’s not the same as a personal loyalty oath to the leader that was required of the German military under Hitler, but it’s a way to make sure our military is composed of people unlikely to turn on the left no matter what.
The Enabling Act was the method by which the Reischstag effectively dissolved itself and placed all power in the executive. Even though by then the Nazis pretty much controlled the legislative body and the various other parties that still remained, the Reichstag’s mere existence was apparently felt to be enough of a threat and/or impediment to speedy efficiency that it was better to be rid of it except for ceremonial purposes.
But in the US there’s no need to go that far. Instead we have the mechanism of the executive order, which Biden (or whoever is in charge in his administration) can employ to expedite the implementation of orders that once would have been effected only through legislation. But since our Congress is presently so evenly split that unless nearly all the Democrats hang firm and also eliminate the filibuster (which might happen), very little far-left legislation will be passed and the EO is the way to go instead.
Which brings us to the last hope of stopping this – the judiciary. It’s a faint hope to be sure, but it seems to be the only mechanism by which at least some of the EOs could be invalidated (except, I suppose, by state-by-state defiance). Of course, that’s where court-packing comes in, but that also requires the end of the filibuster.
Are these comparisons hyperbole on my part? Perhaps; perhaps not. The left in this country are not Nazis, although they’d have people think that people on the right are exactly that. But the left in this country are totalitarians and/or totalitarian wannabees.
These developments are just another reminder that, brilliant as the Constitution is and brilliant as the men who devised it were, a constitution cannot rein in a people who have lost their virtue and who support a party that believes the ends justify the means. And the Founders knew that they could not protect us indefinitely from that.
“a constitution cannot rein in a people who have lost their virtue and who support a party that believes the ends justify the means.”
Amen, Neo, Amen.
The concept of virtue goes back many many centuries, all the way back to Aristotle.
We may have made ourselves into the modern version of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lots of evidence to support that notion. But Lot could flee, and we cannot.
Where I think this analogy breaks down is that there is not a charismatic leader claiming the loyalty of the people behind it. It’s organizations working together behind the scenes, sometimes not very far behind.
It seems like a sort of oligarchy acting to achieve collective ends.
The charismatic leader, if one appears, will be leading the reaction. More 18th Brumaire than Reichstag Fire, which means we’re about due for the Terror here pretty soon.
You’re correct, the left in this country is not Nazis- they’re Communists. Nazis wouldn’t be busy surrendering our sovereignty.
Lawfare cannot stop them, but it can slow them down. The Dems used it against Trump to good effect. Anything that harasses and troubles them is worth the doing. Throw some sand in the gears. The judges may not be able to withstand the pressure, but why not try?
But the left in this country are totalitarians and/or totalitarian wannabees.
I think that is exactly correct in the sense that the vast majority of the electorate that voted for all of this, do want the total utopia and want it now.
But to split what I feel is a significant hair, the people near the top of the political food chain who are implementing this agenda couldn’t care less about utopias or the common man or woman. For the most part they are greedy and vicious authoritarians. I had typed “just greedy …” but that under rates them. They are smart, hard working people using complex time tested schemes.
Our only hope is that they are overplaying their hand. And even in that case it won’t matter, unless the folks on the right also have smart, time tested plans for a turn-about.
“Now that Washington DC is an armed camp after the January 6 Reichstag fire, and the Senate is busy trying the previous president and pretending they have the authority to do so, what’s next?”
Well, I would not mind one bit if the US military decides to violently intervene – using any and all means and any and all weapons at their dispostal – to remove the imposters that claim they were honestly voted into office and to remove all those – using any and all means – that initiated, supported and helped implement the Stalinist show trial we are now witnessing in DC.
And by removal I mean the removal from the entire LIVING class of carbon based life forms. In this way, they will not have the opportunity to regroup and rig another election.
They deserve the same “justice” that Stalin’s political opponents / victims received ; those that were sent off to the basement of Lubyanka prison immediately after being convicted in Stalin’s infamous show trials of 1938.
Of course, the “trial” was a sham; the judges / prosecutors were Stalin appointees and the trial was merely for show; to impress the world’s “useful idiots ” (that is, those in Europe and the USA) . The accused were dead men walking the second they were arrested on Trumped-up charges.
The US Congress no longer functions; it is a joke. No different than was Stalin’s or Hitler’s parliament. They might as well just go home; prezidant Josef Putin —- oops, I meant Bidet – rules by edict / proclamation/ executive order (EO) , routinely rendering established law void.
This is blatantly UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
One would think that the incompetent, feckless, stupid, chicken shit republicans would challenge these EOs and bring them before the SCOTUS.
But of course, they do not.
We have a govt. that is an oligarchy; their constituency is Wall Street, Big Tech and social media tycoons and their billionaire owners/founders, and the Euro elites of the EU who, despite Brexit, are doing their best to install a world govt. of, by and for the ruling elites.
I used to think this world govt talk was total nonsense;, just stupid crap emanating from the pie holes of wacko extremists.
Well, not anymore.
If you look at Bidet’s policies, NONE of them help the average American citizen. NOT ONE. In fact they HARM the average citizen.
Open borders, putting workers out of a job , etc.
But they conform to the ideology of the billionaire elites , “intellectuals” , EU bureaucrats and the hundreds of thousands of parasites that exist within the deep state. After all, Bidet’s policies just give more control by the govt. of the unwashed masses.
And now I know why they hated Trump so much – from his first day in office.
He repudiated the world govt, Utopian vision of the world’s elites, and these elites, here and around the world, had to make sure he disappeared.
And yep, the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, Venezuelans and Cubans are all besides themselves with glee; they are still pinching themselves to make sure they are not dreaming.
Hey US MILITARY, where are you ??
How about, for once, defending the US Constitution here in the USA .
I’ve been out of town and offline and have only looked at a few of your most recent posts, but I am afraid you may be right, neo. As Frederick points out, it’s not a single, charismatic ruler this time, but a global cabal of oligarchs and foreign actors who have various reasons to alter our nation. But this seems to be organized and planned. Or, at the very least, as with George Floyd, the plan was in place and ready to go the instant any crisis could be manipulated to fit the narrative.
It is also interesting, however, that so many seem to be wise to the game, and not getting sucked into the drama and emotion the planners are attempting to illicit. Aside from media folks, few are paying attention or care about the impeachment hearings. Even my friends who hate Trump are not getting joy from this farce. And talented folks like you are doing a great job of countering the narrative.
God help us.
“[B]rilliant as the Constitution is and brilliant as the men who devised it were, a constitution cannot rein in a people who have lost their virtue and who support a party that believes the ends justify the means.”
The Constitution itself cannot rein in people who have lost their virtue, but the Constitution provided the means by which those who retain their virtue can do so: The 2nd Amendment.
What’s next, after the military is purged of those who would refuse to obey the illegal order to confiscate the weapons of the citizens, is to start censuring and removing Republicans (other than the odious gang of six) from any important committee positions. After that, they will take steps to remove them from Congress altogether, perhaps through trumped-up (pun not intended) charges leading to more show trials. Then they will vote against seating any replacements. Once Biden is no longer needed, Harris can replace him in a disturbingly exact simulacrum of the process used to install Hitler in pre-war Germany. As has been said many times, history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes.
I have strong hope that the McGrath North law firm here in Omaha will file a lawsuit in Nebraska federal court seeking to reverse the EO on KXL.
I know KXL’s lawyers and three of NE federal judges; two are good men while the third is my former neighbor and very much a liberal.
Frederick:
By the way, what do you mean by “McCain was allowed to block it”? How would they have stopped him?
Do you recall exactly what he did and how he did it? He blindsided the leadership. See this.
@neo:How would they have stopped him?
By not letting his vote BE the killing vote. First, they could have found a compromise for the other two Senators who are also act like McCains whenever they want something–they were already on “skinny” repeal and so had made compromises already–but failing that, they didn’t have to let the matter end with McCain’s vote. There is any amount of process they can have if they want it. Remember all the procedural shenanigans that had to happen to pass Obamacare in the first place? Democrats never gave up on that until they got what they wanted.
These rules and processes don’t come from Mt Sinai or the Constitution or statutory law. These rules are what the Senate collectively wants them to be…
For whatever reason, Republicans didn’t care as much about ending it as Democrats did about establishing and protecting it. No matter how hard they campaigned on it. Oh John McCain spoke, nothing we can do. Hogwash. Nothing they WANTED to do.
We will never have another fair equitable national election. And that will lead to a one-party system, which in turn will lead to a dictatorship. The only question is how long it will take? ( Biden’s handlers obviously want to hurry it up.)
I hope and pray, for my children’s and grandchildren’s sake, that it takes a few decades but I grieve for them. We’ve been an exceptional county for 240 some years and God simply isn’t with us any more. We have forgotten Him.
Frederick:
There was a long long history that led up to that “skinny repeal” bill. They had already tried a lot of things. Those three were recalcitrant. McCain died only a couple of months before the 2018 election when they lost the House.
You can interpret it any way you want, but I think a goodly part of the problem is the personality differences between left and right. You say you don’t wish the right was more collectivist and/or dirty, but you just somehow think they could have gotten those people onboard (magically?) if they’d just tried harder. I disagree.
Grandpagrumble, I totally agreed with you! You have spoken the words I say to my family and friends! I read Neo’s posts every day and have learned a lot, but makes my heart sick at how much this country has changed..and not for the better!
I agree. As I have said before myself, “left” and “right” are really just shorthand political terms used to label people with certain character and personality traits when they gravitate together in a polity.
There are profound differences in the fundamental stances people take with regard to how they characterize experienced reality – you might say metaphysical views, or you might call it a Weltanschauung instead – and a great deal has to do with character and personality.
Hell, we know that one difference is whether people believe in the concept of objective truth and in it’s importance, enough to trouble themselves to seek it. Or to what extent people believe they are responsible for themselves and accountable for their own behavior.
We can ask ourselves how many conservative pajama boys do we know? How many collectivist and inclusion seeking cattle ranchers?
Neo mentions “state by state defiance” of Biden’s EOs. I’m hoping that we begin to see more of that. It may be our best hope, or at least a good start.
Chris B:
See the actions already taken by North and South Dakota and Texas if you want examples of state resistance to the Junta.
As John Adams said “the Constitution is meant for a moral and religious people, it is wholly insufficient for any other”. The leaders of the Democrat Party and their allies and followers are the “any other”.
Fortunately they do not have a genuine charismatic leader, they are just a rabble of grifters who have achieved their goal by stealth and deceit . There’s plenty of the country outside the coasts that doesn’t accept what they’ve done and will fight back. It’s early yet, barely three weeks since the inauguration, but we’re already seeing resistance forming in places like Texas and Florida. Don’t despair.
“state by state defiance I’m hoping that we begin to see more of that. It may be our best hope,”
We may see that soon. It was announced that the WH is considering a ban on travel to and from Florida due to the “virus”. DeSantis is not pleased.
“We’re doomed!” — C3PO
@Chris B, physicsguy:Neo mentions “state by state defiance” of Biden’s EOs.
More of this. Our states share sovereignty for a reason. See Federalist 46:
…should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter. But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other. But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other.
As Molly Hemingway pointed out, it’s an extremely scary time we have entered in America if it is acceptable for an armed militia to guard Washington and also a former president, Donald Trump, to sit for an impeachment trial made for political theater. She said, ‘I don’t think people realize how horrifying it is for many people in the country to see their Capitol surrounded by troops, while the previous president is paraded in front of cameras for a show trial. This is something that you think of as banana republic or Third World-country stuff. If it was happening in Russia, you would say that the regime is very seriously threatened.”
https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/09/hemingway-troops-around-capitol-and-show-trials-of-political-opposition-are-banana-republic-things/
Well the GOP demonstrably loves cowards. Aren’t you sick of it yet Neo? I’m with Frederick on this one.
… but you just somehow think they could have gotten those people [congresspersons] onboard (magically?) if they’d just tried harder.
Good Lord. The leadership needs to do what they nearly always do; bribe and extort. Oh, excuse me, entice and dissuade. If a little doesn’t work, do more.
Years ago I watched a moderate amount of live congressional CSPAN. Newly minted freshman congresswoman Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky didn’t want to vote for the big tax-and-spend Clinton budget bill (1993) because she knew her voters didn’t want it. She was practically lynched on the floor of the House until she switched her critical vote and put the bill over the top. And she was voted out of office in the next election.
All this sturm and drang wasn’t perpetrated over crucial or fundamental issues of governance, but the mere fact that the Dems wished to go on a little spending spree.
Republicans are better than that? Fine. Now, what is the GOP willing to do??
______
Most of the great changes in history come from some person or group with leadership capabilities and one of those necessary qualities is the ability to execute. There are also history making events that are essentially a resistance to change, and there we also see the ability of the leadership to execute.
An example of the latter was when Manuel Zelaya tried to unconstitutionally take a third term to his presidency. The Supreme Court held an emergency meeting and decided to order the army to arrest the president. The Chief Justice took the lead in all this. Do you suppose that if the first vote to arrest the president was against, the Chief just would have said “Oh well” and went home? Do you think the guy had courage?
For what it’s worth, Robert Barnes, in the most recent discussion on Viva Frei and Barnes was adamantly opposed to the concept of using either The Insurrection Act or Martial law as a response to the theft of the 2020 election. He gave his reasons.
To be clear, I mentioned the Manuel Zelaya incident (or coup against Zelaya according the to Hillary Clinton State Dept.) only as an example leadership, courage, and the ability to execute. No equivalencies between Election 2020 and a proposed fraudulent election in Honduras are implied.
How dare the Democrats show a video that accuses President Trump of inciting violence that omitted his clear admonishments to the absolute contrary?!
And why did not every Republican Senator immediately stand up and walk out at such blatant dishonesty? Or better yet, immediately commence to brawling in a manner worthy of the South Korean Parliament?
What’s next?
Political prisoners. Full on censorship. Social credit scores. Economic depression. Sovereign bankruptcy. Fiscal collapse.
“The left in this country are not Nazis, although they’d have people think that people on the right are exactly that. But the left in this country are totalitarians and/or totalitarian wannabees.” neo
Heh. A difference without meaning. Marxists have murdered so many more millions than the Nazi’s did that they’re not even in the same ballpark.
A party that believes the ends justify the means has no moral limits.
“Lawfare cannot stop them, but it can slow them down.” J. J.
It certainly should be tried. What basis is there for hoping that the Xiden administration will obey judicial rulings?
Grandpagrumble,
“We will never have another fair equitable national election. And that will lead to a one-party system, which in turn will lead to a dictatorship.”
Never say never. We already have a one-party system. One made up of various factions. The GOPe has now shed its former plausible deniability and confirmed that it is in fact simply one of the Uniparty’s factions.
Xiden, by his own prior assertion, is acting as a puppet dictator.
“God simply isn’t with us any more.”
No, it’s not that he isn’t with us anymore, it’s that he’s allowing us to experience the consequences of our ‘collective’ decisions. A slim majority of Americans elected Bill Clinton. A slimmer majority of Americans elected Barack Obama… twice. In a constitutional, representative democracy, majority rules within the constraints of that Constitution. By blatantly violating it, in effect those who do so declare their treason.
Former Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus pointed directly to a major collective decision, when he spoke of President Obama’s election;
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency.
It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president.”
In betraying the Constitution and effectively working for an illegal dissolution of that Constitution, those on the left, either directly or indirectly through their support are the ones who are in actuality participating in insurrection. Indirect participation in a crime does not obviate complicity in that crime. The premise that “ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law” is an arguable one but willful blindness cannot logically be used as a defense against complicity.
I am looking forward to find out who will be the targets, when the Night of the Long Knives arrives.
RE: “Which brings us to the last hope of stopping this – the judiciary.”
That road block only exists if the DNC fails to pass their “judicial reform” bill.
RE: “These developments are just another reminder that, brilliant as the Constitution is and brilliant as the men who devised it were, a constitution cannot rein in a people who have lost their virtue and who support a party that believes the ends justify the means.”
Indeed.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams
What comes next?
Why, the Fallbeil, of course. Natürlich.
Still, I think we (all of us, but some more than others, heh) might benefit by restraining our very natural human tendency to Fight the Last War and look more to the French Revolution.
Trump’s 2nd Impeachment Trial == Tennis Court Oath?
Too Early to Say.
What’s next?
https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306
That’s a look at the U.S. budget deficit by year. The deficit for fiscal years 2020 and 2021 is going to be more than the combined deficits for 2009, 2010, and 2011, the years following the Great Recession. And the people now in charge of the federal government are actively hostile to all of the things which demonstrably improved the economy over the past four years.
I don’t know what or when it’s coming, but something is coming and it’s going to get here fairly soon.
Mike
“a constitution cannot rein in a people who have lost their virtue”
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams
Absolutely true…There is nothing standing between the “witch-burning” impeachment spectacle going on right now, & the literal burning of any who stand between the Marxo-Fascists & whatever goal they set next. Too many for too long have abandoned faith, virtue & morality for self-indulgence & expediency.
Two from CS Lewis –
“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
“It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls.”
You have not heard from me much since election night when I saw what was happening and said – “The rest is drama” and stopped all direct engagement with American politics. I find I still think about it but it does allow me to get some emotional distance from the stickiness of the drama and I therefore have a more detached but also more low resolution view of the festivities. My view of the election having seen Trump doing roughly as well as he did in 2016 and then the counting stop in the critical states he needed to win gave me the unmistakable appearance of coordination. That is why I felt at the time that his demanding the counting stop entirely was naive and underestimated the determination of the establishments of both parties to throw him out and felt strongly at the time that the judiciary would not overturn the election. Whatever the establishment did – legally or otherwise – I think, as many here said before the election, Trump had to win by a landslide to stay in office. So to extend my low resolution view of the impeachment it occurs to me that the absurdity of using a procedure designed to remove a president or a judge from office on a someone already out of office is a way for the establishment to bring Trump to trial and convict him without the bother of actually bringing a real indictment and proving it in court. And that perhaps the Republicans are going along with that so they all can get their snouts back in the trough while hoping we won’t notice. I apologise if all these views have already been expressed by Neo and her excellent commentariat.
Speaking of NAZI Germany, leftwing cancel culture just came for a former MMA competitor and actress from the Mandalorian, in part because of her observation that the NAZIs convinced average people to hate the Jews, before the government got around to killing them. https://www.theblaze.com/news/gina-carano-fired-mandalorian-jews
Show trials for a fake “government” headed by a fraud. Perfect.
This!
Lorenz Guide wrote: “You have not heard from me much since election night when I saw what was happening and said – “The rest is drama” and stopped all direct engagement with American politics. I find I still think about it but it does allow me to get some emotional distance from the stickiness of the drama and I therefore have a more detached but also more low resolution view of the festivities.”
“Of course, that’s where court-packing comes in, but that also requires the end of the filibuster.”
Well—gosh—then, first they’ll just have to eliminate the filibuster.
And then they’ll…just have to pack the Court.
(Because they are the good guys. “Goodfellas”.
“And who’s gonna stop us??”)
File under: https://tinyurl.com/uufsgnan
Lorenz, always enjoy your comments. I was in shock, as well Still am, I’m pretty sure…. (And if history is any guide, the horror of the several past months will get worse before—IF—it gets better.)
You wrote:
“Trump had to win by a landslide to stay in office.”
Except that he did win by a landslide.
But those “adjudicated” (ironic term, that) “votes”, which in previous elections would have been thrown out—the great majority of which, if not ALL, going to Biden—along with those truckloads of perfectly, as well as not-so-perfectly, inked-in fraudulent ballots (many of them containing votes ONLY for the Presidential candidate)—and of which, likewise (surprise!), the great majority, if not ALL, were for Biden—would have just kept coming, as long as it was necessary.
As the Democrats just “kept on truckin’ ….
https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o-neil/2020/12/01/whistleblower-i-drove-thousands-of-ballots-from-new-york-to-pennsylvania-n1184008
https://thedailycoin.org/2020/12/02/whistleblowers-allege-ballots-illegally-crossed-state-lines-ballot-backdating-digital-manipulation/
https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/12/lawsuit-claims-40000-plus-fraudulent-ballots-pumped-through-detroit-for-joe-biden/
https://www.rt.com/usa/505957-pennsylvania-postal-whistleblower-ballots/
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/11/11/i-did-not-recant-postal-whistleblower-in-pennsylvania-disputes-claims-by-media-that-he-recanted-995196/
Oh, and shredding ballots, too…
https://citizenwells.com/2021/01/01/fulton-county-ga-ballots-removed-by-trucks-for-shredding-jovan-pulitzer-claim-in-monica-matthews-dec-31-interview-if-so-that-is-clear-evidence-of-fraud/
Etc., etc, etc.,
Will the Truth (heh!) ever emerge?
This is precisely what the Democrats are afraid of.
Which is why DC is an armed camp, the kangaroo “impeachment” trial must be hyped up to full volume (and lied about).
And why Biden is issuing EOs by the dozens (and will continue to do so).
And why that “TIME” magazine article had to be planted. (Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe the whistleblower accounts were discussed honestly and with candor(!)….)
Of course, the Democrats were concerned that Russiagate would also be uncontainable.
…But the solved that problem pretty “deftly”…
The CRISIS must NEVER end…
Covid was/is an event that no one saw coming that played into Dem hands. I’m with Bunge that there is a decent chance of macro-economics getting out of control and broadsiding Dem plans of utopia.
They, and indeed the powers that be as a whole, are MMT proponents. They are slowly hollowing out confidence in the $US and as they say “it’s the economy, stupid”.
“Which brings us to the last hope of stopping this – the judiciary. It’s a faint hope to be sure, but it seems to be the only mechanism by which at least some of the EOs could be invalidated (except, I suppose, by state-by-state defiance).”
The Supreme Court abdication when we needed it the most– the Texas election lawsuit, doesn’t bode well for the future, but is it possible they will have learned from their mistake and find a new appreciation for the relationship between states and between states and the federal government.
The states, for their part, need to provide a united front against the lawlessness of the new administration.
I noticed that South Dakota, either by legislation or governor action, have said they will ignore unconstitutional executive orders. Other states need to get on board. Ignore the EO’s and let the federal government force compliance.
Border states need to begin their own enforcement, and let the feds bring suit against them for trying to protect their own states, since the federal government is unwilling to do so.
All of this may come to nothing– but you wage war with the army you’ve got.
Lee Smith has an interesting analysis of how we got to the Chamber of Commerce and the AFLCIO on the same side of the aisle in what we now know as globalism.
Lee revisits the NYT columnist Thomas Friedman’s appreciation for the CCP regime.
“In the more than 10 years since Friedman’s column was published, the disenchanted elite that the Times columnist identified has further impoverished American workers while enriching themselves. The one-word motto they came to live by was globalism—that is, the freedom to structure commercial relationships and social enterprises without reference to the well-being of the particular society in which they happened to make their livings and raise their children.”
But he leads us from the beginning- the Kissinger-Nixon rapprochement with China to our present accommodation of a repressive regime.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-thirty-tyrants
Brian E reminds me of other leading lights here, commenting away.
In light of recent weeks and months developments, I’m reading or re-reading in slow detail Angelo Codevilla’s majesterial thought piece, “ Clarity in Trump’s Wake; The United States of America is now a classic oligarchy.”
https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/19/clarity-in-trumps-wake/
Incompetence? Yes. But worse, the rogue and destructive nature of our Ruling Class is a theme evident on Cap Hill, here and on January 6th. As well as for decades in Codevilla’s eyes.
He believes they are not long in secure authority. And that their ongoing, persistent evils will shape the extent of violence of the coming reaction defeating them.
My sense here at Neo’s place is that commenter Geoffrey Britain is channeling Codevilla very adeptly. Followed by a Barry Meislin and, often enough, DNW.
Codevillain insights prompt me to think that We need a programmatically minded manifesto, blending Trumpian policies (as articulated by Victor Davis Hansen, for example), coupled with a deeper, broader, much more fundamental political reform agenda that confronts our Ruling Class’ malfeasance.
And behind this Manifesto, rallying to this standard, the RepubliCRATS can be bent to the popular will.
A central demand must be defunding The Privileged Incompetents, wherever we find them.
Just sent this off to my Senators:
Dear Senator Cantwell,
I have watched the impeachment proceedings with interest. So far I have seen a repeated litany of reasons why the Democrats hate President Trump and his supporters. Such dislike is understandable. You are political opponents. You have different policy ideas. But attempting to criminalize a difference of political beliefs is what the House is attempting to do. That is Banana Republic stuff.
The charge is that the President ordered an attack on the Capitol. Though much horrendous tape of the actual incursion was shown, no evidence but hearsay and conjecture about the charge was presented.
One thing I don’t see is any introspection by the Democrat Party as to why people support a man like Trump. The open borders policies, the shipping of jobs to China, the hollowing out of the middle class, the enmity towards our natural resource industries, the constant and poorly executed military interventions around the world, the lack of support for law enforcement and law and order, higher taxes, and more are all things that struggling people in the middle class see and object to.
You may think you are going to bury Donald Trump and his supporters with this impeachment trial. You’re sadly mistaken. You need to understand why a man like Trump was elected. It was because your policies are ruining the middleclass of this country.
Next won’t be a government operation yet, but soon enough.
Cancel culture is getting a head of steam that anyone who was a Trump supporter or just a MAGA fan will become a renegade and wiped out in their careers, personal relationships will be wiped out. Then the government will step in and finish that off
From The Hill
Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued stunning remarks breaking with former President Trump, telling Politico in an interview published Friday that she believes he “let us down.” “We need to acknowledge he let us down,” Haley, who served in her ambassador role under Trump, said. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”
Won’t be following Nikki on any ballot anytime in the future. Jeb! in a skirt and makeup?
Nothing worse than being “openly Jewish?” Otay Einstein, the POTW is calling you.
I thought Haley did a good job at the UN. She stood up against all the UN bully boys. Obviously, she thinks she needs to break with Trump to further her opportunities to run for POTUS or VPOTUS. Glad she’s showing her true colors. GOPe to the core. Sad.
From The Hill
She might have gotten away with the first sentence; arguing perhaps that Trump’s storming of twitter triumph became a liability when he could not tactically relinquish it.
But the rest of her hopefully confessed remarks should serve her about as well as George Romney’s infamous “I was brainwashed” excuse did.
You see, because “the devil made her do it”. She was “just being a good German”, etc, etc. The opposition script just keeps writing itself.
She did, when the chips were not down. Her need to be liked and included however, is apparently stronger than either the call of duty ( principle) or any innate sense of combativeness …. Palmer and Hartmann, you reading this?