Video roundup
I find that there are many good YouTube videos on the topic of what’s going on between Israel and Gaza. Here are two recent ones. (I suggest, as usual with these talking heads videos, going to “settings” and watching at either 1.5 or 1.75 speed):
And here is Victor Davis Hanson, talking about his viewpoint on Donald Trump. The entire thing is well worth hearing, but I’ve cued it up for the shorter segment on Trump:
The UK does not have First Amendment. Hate speech as a criminal as matter is whatever a cop shop says it is. Hence the popularity of “Islam is right about women!” Or “about gays!”
So radio callers are taking more of a risk than we might think.
VDH spells out what I believe — Trump is flawed, but he was successful as president. Can he be successful again? Will he have the opportunity? Not if the Establishment — on both sides of the aisle — have their way. He will be sent to prison, or precluded from nomination and candidacy because of a made-up scandal, or otherwise sidelined. And we will end up with Biden, who is incompetent, or Newsom, who is both incompetent and corrupt, or (heaven help us) Kamala Harris, who is incompetent, corrupt sleazy. What a Greek drama we are facing! I am not looking forward to voting for Trump, but I am looking forward to that more than voting for anyone else.
I thought for a while I could support DeSantis, or Ramaswamy, or even Burgum. Now I guess I could vote for Nikki Haley, but I would not be happy with that choice. I guess the only Republican candidate whom I would be happy with would be Youngkin.
Wait a minute. Biden isn’t just incompetent…he’s both incompetent and corrupt. The only notable difference between Newsome and Biden is that Newsome has better hair!
I think VDH gets it wrong with Trump. As has been said about his appeal, ordinary people take him seriously but not literally, while the over educated take him literally but not seriously. With one term of Trump’s policies and three quarters of Gang Biden, there’s no contest on who is better at running the government. The people who deal in words don’t care, power and ideology is all, but the ordinary people who have to deal in results certainly do. It shows in the huge attendance at his campaign speeches right now, Biden, not so much. I don’t think Trump is done for.
My approach to politics for years has been to look at the deeds and ignore the words, mainly because all the political speeches are just so much hot air.
I don’t follow you, Paul. VDH is saying that Trump is a tragic figure in that he’s crude but gets the job done, whereas the establishment is all about the niceties but incapable of solving problems. You say that ordinary people take him seriously but not literally, and this seems to me to be the same as the crude tragic figure in that taking him seriously is trusting that he’ll fix problems rather than dither. And you say the over-educated take him literally but not seriously, and this seems the same as their belief that niceties, which he offends, are more important to them than serious solutions.
I’m fairly over-educated in having 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 5 years of surgical residency, and 2 years of vascular surgical fellowship, but grew up with middle-class Midwestern values. In my opinion, Trump’s a blowhard, and when he was on The Apprentice, I didn’t like watching it because frequently he seemed unnecessarily mean. But I like his values much more than than a lot of politicians, even Republican, because he strikes me as more honest, rather than trying to snow us with a blizzard of words without saying anything substantial as most politicians do.
So this over-educated redneck identifies much more with ‘ordinary people’ and who also considers Trump in the crude tragic VDH tradition that many effective WWI & WWII generals were, when the ‘proper’ types choked.
For ‘Trump’ insert ‘Churchill’.
@ molly Brown – Indeed. Although Churchill was light-years ahead of Trump in all ways, both of them love their country and did they best they could to serve it, despite being criticized by the people they offended.
Great review of a new bio, and extensive information about the Prime Minister, including what made him such an effective war-time leader, and how he had been massively prepared for that position.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/eliot-cohen/churchill-at-war/
PS I had always heard that the same sometimes-abrasive qualities led to his ouster afterwards, but his loss of office was not individual. “After the Conservatives’ defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition” and he was PM again from 1951 to 1955, having been a Member of Parliament from 1900 to 1964 except for 2 years 1922-1924 (per Wikipedia).
Trump Appreciation Week coming.
https://babylonbee.com/news/thousands-already-lined-up-for-black-friday-after-grocery-store-offers-prices-from-when-trump-was-president
Churchill also got the Trump treatment in WWI when he was First Lord of the Admiralty. Others in power didn’t like him. From what I’ve read, his strategy for the Gallipoli battle got ignored, and then he got blamed for the defeat.
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