Here’s a piece in the Weekly Standard featuring this post of mine.
I hope it helps get the word out about what happened in Atlantic City and Aberdeen. The latter has hardly been covered in the American press, although there was a lot in the British and Scottish press back when it was happening, which reached a peak around 2011.
I’ve long been troubled by the primary system, which has a number of flaws. Of course, the “smoke-filled room” system that preceded it had a number of other flaws. If it were still in place, people would be railing against the “elites” even more than they are now, and that’s saying something.
The primaries are problematic, however, because:
(a) they lock votes in very early, before people have time to really get to know the candidates, and without the knowledge of how candidates will react to subsequent events that may be very revealing
(b) they allow certain states to disproportionately (and probably prematurely) affect the election by setting up a momentum effect in favor of the candidate of the early states’ choices
(c) they allow opponents of each party to crossover and malignantly attempt to game the other party’s primary choices. It’s hard to see how to correct for that, since we want to be able to vote for either party, and there are bona fide reasons for changing affiliation. But (for example) I’m convinced that a lot of registered Independents in states where Independents can vote either party in the primaries are not really Independents at all.
(d) a candidate supported by a minority can win if there are so many other candidates from another bloc that they split the votes of that bloc. If primaries are meant to reflect the will of the majority of the people, that’s a flaw. In the past, this was a major complaint of conservatives—that it led to the nominations of RINOs over and over, because the conservative vote was split. This seems to have been the case in certain years (for example, I believe it led to McCain’s nomination). This year it looks to be the mechanism by which Trump could win it, unless a significant number of other candidates drop out.
This year, there is actually the possibility of a brokered GOP convention. That’s always a possibility when there are a lot of candidates. But this year it may be a bit more possible (there certainly are a lot more candidates to begin with—at least, a lot more candidates who aren’t obscure):
Because of the nature of the current Republican nomination battle, however, the possibility of an open convention has become less far-fetched than usual. It could happen this time, especially if Donald Trump wins more delegates than any other candidate, but falls short of the required majority. Rival forces would then try to take him down in the full glare of a convention brawl.
The last open GOP convention was held 68 years ago, when New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey won the 1948 nomination on the third ballot. More recently, party elites have united around likely victors ”” based on key primary wins and national poll numbers ”” well before the eventual nominees accumulated delegate majorities. That happened with Mitt Romney in 2012, John McCain in 2008, George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996. Of course, these were all conventional politicians…
Should Trump go to Cleveland with a near majority of delegates ”” let’s say 50 or 60 votes shy of the 1,236 needed to win ”” it’s probable he could wheel-and-deal his way to a majority. But if he’s short by a couple of hundred delegates, all bets are off.
To beat Trump, his adversaries would need to unite around a single alternative…
Please read the whole article.
One thing I’ve felt more and more strongly during the last couple of weeks is that, any way you slice it, we’re if for a very very bumpy ride. The mood of the voters I’ve talked to (granted, not a huge sample, but nevertheless quite a few) on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, is fear.
The details get worse and worse:
Highly classified Hillary Clinton emails that the intelligence community and State Department recently deemed too damaging to national security to release contain “operational intelligence” ”“ and their presence on the unsecure, personal email system jeopardized “sources, methods and lives,” a U.S. government official who has reviewed the documents told Fox News.
The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record and was limited in discussing the contents because of their highly classified nature, was referring to the 22 “TOP SECRET” emails that the State Department announced Friday it could not release in any form, even with entire sections redacted…
The official emphasized that the “TOP SECRET” documents were sent over an extended period of time — from shortly after the server’s 2009 installation until early 2013 when Clinton stepped down as secretary of state…
On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, one day before the Iowa caucuses, Clinton claimed ignorance on the sensitivity of the materials and stressed that they weren’t marked.
It is hard to recall exactly when we entered looking-glass world, but I think it was sometime early in the Obama administration. But actually, I think it’s just been a long, slow slide that probably began long before that. That’s just when it reached critical mass.
I keep wondering why Clinton did this. Some of you may think the answer is purely, “Because she’s Hillary Clinton and she thought she could.” But that doesn’t really answer the question of “why.” Carelessness coupled with stupidity coupled with arrogance? Her desire to keep her emails away from investigation by Congress? I don’t think Clinton was a mole deliberately setting out to reveal our assets; there would be lots of other ways to do that, should she have wanted to do so, and I don’t see her as a traitor in that active sense.
At any rate, whatever the reason, the results are potentially catastrophic:
CIA and the entire Intelligence Community are in panic mode right now, trying to determine which of our intelligence officers and agents have been compromised by EmailGate. At a minimum, valuable covers have been blown, careers have been ruined, and lives have been put at serious risk. Our spies’ greatest concern now is what’s still in Hillary’s emails that investigators have yet to find.
And what about those 30,000 emails that Ms. Clinton had deleted? “I’ll spend the rest of my career trying to figure out what classified information was in those,” stated an exasperated Pentagon counterintelligence official, “everybody is mad as hell right now.” “The worst part,” the counterspy added,” is that Moscow and Beijing have that information but the Intelligence Community maybe never will.”
One of the most interesting things about the last decade or so is that actions by high public officials that one would have thought (at least, when I was growing up) would have engendered enormous and almost unanimous bipartisan outrage (such as what the IRS did, or this by Hillary) no longer do. It’s become Party Uber Alles, not just for politicians, but for way too many of the American people.
We have another report at Powerline from David Begley, the commenter known here as “Cornhead,” this time on his experience attending a Trump appearance on the day before the Iowa caucus.
As a large-scale real estate developer, Trump has sometimes sued in his efforts to use government to condemn houses belonging to people of modest means whose homes—which Trump considers insufficiently attractive—have stood near his big developments and have chosen to exercise their liberty by refusing to sell to him. That’s one of the reasons Trump agrees 100% with the SCOTUS decision in Kelo (decided in 2005): he sees it making it easier for him to use government to compel the sale of a person’s house even against that person’s will.
It’s Trump’s prerogative to approve of Kelo, and it’s certainly understandable that someone in his line of work might have that point of view. He has every right to build his projects, and to try to buy the land of those with adjacent property. But if more people knew about the tactics he has used in trying to get government to force people out of their homes against their will, and his own condescending and often insulting comments about those same people and their modest homes, he might not be seen in such a positive light. With Trump, the legal often seems to segue into the personal.
There are several examples. One occurred in the 1990s, when Trump was trying to buy the home of a 70-ish Atlantic City widow named Vera Coking. He wanted her property not for building his casino, but in order to use the land as a waiting area for limos. She had lived in the same place for three decades, and said no to Trump’s offer to buy. After that, Trump tried to get the city to condemn her property and buy it for a reduced sum, and the court battle took five years:
The decision ended a five-year condemnation dispute that had raised the fundamental question of whether the government could condemn land on behalf of someone else.
In this case, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, a state agency, had sought to seize three properties — an elderly widow’s home, a family-run Italian restaurant and a pawnshop — by invoking the Federal and state constitutions, which allow property to be condemned for “public use.” The authority then planned to turn the properties over to the Trump Organization for additional landscaping and parking, including a waiting area for guest limousines…
Judge Williams also said in his decision that he would have granted the authority’s condemnation applications had there been a firm contract between the authority and Trump Plaza as a guarantee that the seized properties would be used solely for additional parking and new trees.
Lawyers for the property owners suggested that the Trump Organization’s true interest in the properties was to expand its casino and hotel space and that the company would not be interested in acquiring the land with restrictions.
Vera Coking (and several other plaintiffs) won:
Mrs. Coking’s daughter, Branwen Torpey, said…”It feels like a big weight’s been lifted off us. We have had a lot of help from the American people, little people just like us who work and earn what they have.”
Ms. Coking had said earlier that “This is my home. This is my castle.” Trump had disagreed; he had built a different kind of castle with a different kind of aesthetic, and he made it clear that her home didn’t fit into his picture:
Everybody coming into Atlantic City sees that [Coking] property,” Trump continued…”They’re staring at this terrible house instead of staring at beautiful fountains and beautiful other things that would be good.”
In case you were wondering, here’s a photo of Coking’s “terrible” house, with Trump’s casino (and accompanying advertisements) in the background. I’m not sure everyone would agree as to which of the two buildings is more aesthetically pleasing, although of course it’s Trump’s prerogative to design the building as he saw fit:
Vera Coking wasn’t just playing a game, either; she did want to stay in her house, and lived there until 2010. Trump’s casino, of course, is now defunct, having gone bankrupt—and not because of Vera Coking’s “terrible” home.
Someone running against Trump should make a campaign advertisement out of parts of the following video. In it, Trump demonstrates a remarkable (and perhaps feigned) obtuseness about the difference between eminent domain for public use and for private business (Dana Berliner, seen in the video, was Coking’s lawyer):
The video tells us a quite a bit about Trump and his lack of respect for property rights (except his own). I can assure you that, if Trump ends up being the Republican nominee, the Democrats will not hesitate to use it. They will have a field day with this and other similar actions of Trump’s.
As an example of one of those “similar actions,” much more recently Trump tried to do virtually the same thing to people living near—not on but near—a luxury golf course and resort he was planning in Scotland. So this story had an international flavor. Again, Trump wanted to buy their property, despite their adamant refusal to sell, because they lived near his planned golf course and he felt that they homes would spoil the view for his wealthy clients.
In Scotland as in Atlantic City, Trump again tried to get an agency of local government to condemn their homes and evict them. This time, Trump also let loose with a fusillade of very personal insults toward some of the holdouts themselves, as well as their property, insults that were considerably worse than what he’d said about the home of Vera Coking. Among the insults he leveled against one man in particular in Scotland named Michael Forbes was to say he was “the village idiot” and that he “lives like a pig.”
There are many videos about the incident available on YouTube, nearly all of them taken from a documentary entitled “You’ve Been Trumped” that was made in 2011 (the entire film is available at YouTube, as well). Here is a trailer from the movie; Trump can be seen spouting a few of the insults from 0:18 to 0:23, right after Forbes has spoken. Afterwards I’ve posted a somewhat longer video with more background material (you might want to use the caption function when you watch; the Scottish accents can be hard to understand):
You can be certain that this is the sort of ammunition that Democrats are saving up to use against Trump in the general election if he becomes the nominee. There is a ton more where that came from, all of it with the potential to make him look very bad in the eyes of Independents and Democrats in particular—and, I would add, in the eyes of many conservatives and libertarians as well.
[BUMPED UP: Even though it’s Sunday and I don’t often blog on Sunday, I have some new posts below for today. I’m bumping this one from yesterday up, though, because I want people to read it if they haven’t already.]
I keep trying to get away from writing about the Trump phenomenon, but it keeps drawing me back in, with a certain morbid fascination.
This was going to be a great year. It would be Obama’s last as president. There was an unusually good field of GOP candidates, with several I liked a fair amount, and an increasingly weak Democratic opponent. And then Trump entered the race.
Prior to that, I was somewhat of a Trump virgin—that is, hadn’t watched his shows, hadn’t read much about him, just really had very little interest in him. Of course, since I wasn’t living under a rock, I knew he’d had a series of wives, some European; and that he was a mega-rich real estate developer from the New York area who was a very colorful and flamboyant personality who liked to be in the limelight and had a successful reality show. He didn’t interest me nor did he particularly offend me, so I not only didn’t have a pre-existent hatred, I didn’t have much of an opinion at all.
If anything, Trump’s blunt style of talking resonated somewhat with me because it was the milieu in which I was raised—New York, that is, not mega-rich real estate developers, although my family even knew a couple of those, less mega than Trump—among people who did not pussyfoot around when they spoke. In fact, they were seldom what you’d call polite or tactful.
Then, as Trump gained more supporters, I started reading about him, listening to him, watching him, and I did so with growing alarm. This happened on two levels. The first was cognitive. What he said seemed poorly thought out, rabble-rousing, and mostly consisted of braggadocio, with very little content or detail other than the assurances that all would be great. It was entertaining, of course, but it just seemed like BS to me (now I’m sounding like a New Yorker). Whenever anyone threatened to gain on Trump in the polls, he attacked them, but in ways that were particularly vicious, childish, and often deceptive.
Video clips of Trump’s previous interviews and speeches and behavior were not the least bit reassuring, either. His immature attacks and his bragging in the past were consistent with his behavior now, although at times a bit more vulgar, but his political points of view were all over the place. In particular, his accusations towards President Bush were as over-the-top as those of any leftist, and he has never apologized for any of it. In fact, I don’t think he’s ever apologized for anything, nor will he.
I could go on and on, but if you’ve read my blog for any length of time you get the idea. Suffice to say that, over time, my revulsion at many of his political positions (some in the past, and some in the present), and his lack of integrity and willingness not just to attack an opponent but to do so viciously and mendaciously, was joined by my growing sense that he was in this for power, and that power is what Trump is really about. And for him, it’s personal—personal power. That seems dangerous.
I’m agnostic on whether Trump really intends to do what he says he wants to do. I see no reason to trust him, but it’s certainly possible. But one thing of which I am fairly sure is that, because it’s power he likes and power he’s after (money and women were just a means to that, although they’re fun also), that he will have no hesitation to ride roughshod over the Constitution, or over your rights if you get in his way. And he’ll try to destroy the reputation of anyone who doesn’t support him or do what he wants.
Which brings me to Part II of this tome: Trump’s followers. I don’t like to use cutesy names for them—Trumpets, Trumpettes, Trumpbots, whatever—because I don’t find them cute or funny. But for want of a better term I’ll call them Trumpers for the sake of brevity in this post.
They are not a unitary group, however, not by any means. They constitute (apparently, if polls are to be believed, and I think they basically are) about a third of those identifying as Republican primary voters. I believe the Trumper cohert is made up of three main segments. The first and probably most numerous group are what I’ll call the sincere Trumpers. They’re afraid of illegal immigration and detest the way our government has enabled it so far, and they’re angry at the GOP, and they trust and like Trump. The second and smaller group are the activists of the right. They’re a lot angrier, and they’re a lot more instrumental and vocal around the internet, as bloggers and commenters. I think they are organized, and they tend to come in groups, although not always. Some might even be paid by Trump; I really have no way to know about that, and it may or may not be so. They use leftist techniques: intimidation, name-calling, lying about other candidates, mockery, and statements of Trump’s inevitable victory with the goal of creating a feeling of crushing defeat and hopelessness in followers of his opponents, and some in the first group follow their lead in this.
What does this second group actually want? What is their endgame? I think they would be pleased if Trump were elected, but that’s not really their ultimate aim. Their real goal is to destroy the Republican Party and remake it in a different image. It’s a win-win proposition for them if they can push Trump onto the GOP. If Trump wins the nomination without winning the presidency, they believe the GOP as we know it has almost certainly been destroyed, so that’s okay. And they believe that if Trump wins the presidency, the GOP as we know it is also destroyed. As I said, win-win.
What do they want to replace the GOP with? I think there are actually many subgroups within this group of Trumper activists on the right, and they don’t necessarily agree on the goals for replacement. One group might sincerely see this as a transition to small government conservatism (although they’d have to look to a post-Trump president for that, because Trump is definitely a big-government guy). One group might not care; they really do just want to let their inner nihilist rip and watch the world burn. Another group may be solely about power itself, and another group may be neo-Nazi.
Then there are the activists of the left, who make up group three of the Trump supporters. I have become more and more convinced that some activists on the left are deeply involved in pro-Trump battles. They want to destroy the GOP, too—in their case, in order to facilitate the triumph of the left—and in Trump they feel that they have found the perfect Trojan horse with which to do it. Whether Trump is in on these leftists’ game I really don’t know; I tend to doubt it. It’s possible Hillary and Bill are, but again, I have no idea and I don’t think so.
I think that members of this third group (which is quite organized) think they can use Trump for their purposes, and their general plan is to help him along to the GOP nomination and then to shaft him once he is nominated and the general election campaign begins. How will they do this? Oh, it’ll be a piece of cake. There are so many awful video clips of Trump, and so many old quotes and articles from his past, that they’ll have an embarrassment of riches from which to choose, and although Trumpers of the right are not dissuaded by his history, the general population is far more likely to be turned off.
Both of these activist groups, right and left, are the Trumpers who lead the way for the other Trumpers, that first group of sincere Trumpers who just want a Trump presidency because they believe in him and his promises to them. For the most part, the activists come up with the memes with which to fight, and then behave in a manner some of the sincere Trumpers emulate:
What are their methods? In other posts, I’ve already described some of the mockery and taunting, but there’s much much more:
(a) saying it’s inevitable that Trump will be nominated; you see again and again the assertion that “it’s already over,” which is designed to induce a feeling of resignation and ennui in supporters of Trump’s opponents
(b) saying that Trump is the only one who…(fights immigration, etc—fill in the blank—even though he’s not the only one)
(c) saying that Trump is the one who will get the most crossover voters: Democrats, black people, etc. (I’ve written about this several times and about how the polls have not supported these contentions so far)
(d) ignoring all the negative Trump lore (videos, articles, etc.) that’s out there as though it’s irrelevant, or justifying it
(e) ad hominem attacks on sources of negative information or opinions on Trump, including the people who post it or say it
(f) the sheer volume of their comments on blogs and discussion boards, and their indefatigability in hammering away on them
I doubt that’s an exhaustive list; that’s just what comes to mind at the moment.
I’ve always been puzzled by Trump supporters who say that Trump’s vast wealth means he’s unlikely to be corrupted by the need to raise money from donors. That’s not the only way to be corrupt. It may be hard to buy Trump, but Trump is the one candidate with nearly unlimited resources to buy others—their support, their silence, their cooperation, their acquiescence for fear of being lied about and smeared. If you think he’s a good guy who means well, and that you can therefore trust him, then I just don’t think you know much about Donald Trump and the way he’s conducted his life (or his politics) and how he’s wielded his power so far, how he’s lied and betrayed the trust of people over and over again. I think you should be very very uncomfortable with facilitating his ascent to the most powerful office in the world.
[ADDENDUM: You might think “hey, this post was long enough, so why an addendum?”
Well, I found it fascinating that—almost as though conjured up—a new commenter and Trump supporter arrived in the comments section of this thread with some approaches I had left out in my non-exhaustive list. So I thought I’d highlight them.
“Ben Johnston” is a Trump supporter, and my guess is that he’s a member of group one: sincere. He’s polite rather than insulting, for example. He’s a nice guy, I think. But he suddenly arrives and in his first comment he says this:
I fear you may be missing the point. This is a rebellion. The powers that be are the money sources behind the governing elite. People see how politicians are corrupted by forces seeking to unify world governance. Look at the latest example of Paul Ryan, as his bank account rises his votes seem inexplicable. There is no difference between republican and democrat. Trump is a hail Mary for a frustrated population continuously disappointing by the results of their votes and fearful of being left to the dogs.
In answer to Ben Johnson and another commenter, I explained here that I know full well it’s a rebellion. I’ve also written about that phenomenon many times before on this blog, too, although as a newcomer I wouldn’t expect Ben Johnston to know that. But in addition, although I don’t actually use the word “rebellion” in this post, I certainly refered to this group’s anger and their desire to destroy the enabling GOP and replace it with a party in a new image. What is that if not rebellion?
But it’s actually another part of that comment of Ben Johnston’s that I find particularly odd:
The powers that be are the money sources behind the governing elite.
My response is: that’s an excellent description of one prominent aspect of Trump’s rather long resume: donating money to get political influence and favors. And Trump has donated a lot of money to extremely non-conservative politicians and causes (the list is long), and not just local people who would benefit his business interests, either.
Ben Johnston goes on to say, in another comment to the post:
Reminds me very much of the status quo reaction to Ronald Regan [sic].
When I saw that, it reminded me that that I’ve seen comments like that from Trumpers all around the blogosphere, over and over. It’s actually one of the standard memes, and I should have listed it in the post along with the rest, because it deserves some attention.
It is true that the “establishment” was against Reagan and it is against Trump. But other than being white males of approximately the same age, and that, I can’t think of much else they have in common. What’s more, there isn’t a single criticism of Trump in my post (or on this blog, as far as I can remember) that resembles the GOP’s criticism of Reagan way back when. The GOP thought Reagan radical because he was too conservative, and they also thought he couldn’t win because of his extreme conservatism. They did not think he was (and here I’m summarizing just a few of the things I have against Trump): an unscrupulous liar who would do anything for a buck, a childish narcissist who strikes out with personal insults (some of them of a vile and mendacious nature) at anyone who doesn’t do what he wants, a NON-conservative, a believer in big government, and a power-mad man who has no respect for the constitution. And that’s not even a complete list.
Plus, of course, another difference was that, by the time he ran for the presidency, Reagan had long been governor of California with a proven record in public office, and he was extremely good at articulating conservative principles and had for the most part walked the walk in addition to talking the talk.
So repeated attempts to link Trump to Reagan because the GOP is against them both—as though that means somehow they are alike in other ways—is nonsense. But the Trumpers must think it’s effective nonsense, because they do it very often.
The third comment of Ben Johnston’s I want to take up is this, which is another meme I’ve seen Trump supporters stating over and over again:
Cruz is religious right and therefore unelectable.
Now, that is actually the sort of thing the GOP used to say about Reagan—not the “too religious” part, but the idea that he was too far to the right to be elected. However, it turns out that in national polls against opponents Hillary, Sanders, or Biden, Cruz has very consistently polled better than Trump does. His unfavorables have been much lower, and there are a lot fewer people who say they would never vote for him. So although no doubt there are people who wouldn’t vote for him for that reason, there is every indication he would be more likely to win a general election than Trump would. I’ve written several posts on that, too, so I won’t go into the details now.
Cruz is the person the Trumpers fear most as a rival of Trump’s, because Cruz actually is the person who has fought the GOP establishment. He is the natural repository for the votes of those who are in rebellion against it, so various memes must be spread to harm him. The three favorites are (a) he’s nasty and unlikable (b) he’s too religious (as BJ wrote); and (c) he’s really a RINO in disguise.]
Now that I’ve got your attention, read this.
Towards the tail end, there’s a Facebook book (January 20) by Robert Reich, who was Clinton’s Secretary of Labor. Reich makes it clear that he—and other liberal/left Democrats—should and do prefer a President Trump over a President Cruz.
Now, I’m not one to say that if liberals or the left like a candidate, it means that candidate is automatically a bad choice for conservatives. But Reich’s list of reasons for liberals and the left to fear Cruz constitutes what, to a conservative, would be a ringing endorsement. The items on the list can be summarized by saying that Cruz is brilliant, has character, and is a staunch conservative who has fought for conservative principles all his public life. And Trump? None of the above.
I suggest you read the whole thing. But here are some excerpts:
1. [Cruz is] more fanatical. Trump is a bully and bigot but doesn’t hew to any sharp ideological line…
2. Cruz is a true believer. Trump has no firm principles except making money, getting attention, and gaining power. But Cruz really does detest the federal government, and has spent much of his life embracing radical right economic and political views…
3. [Cruz is] Smarter. Trump is no slouch but he hasn’t given any indication of a sharp mind. Cruz is razor-sharp…
4. [Cruz is] more disciplined and strategic. Trump is all over the place, often winging it, saying whatever pops into his mind. Cruz hews to a clear script and a carefully crafted strategy. He plays the long game…Cruz’s legal career entailed a sustained use of the courts to achieve conservative ends, and he plots his moves carefully.
5. Cruz is a loner who’s willing to destroy institutions. Trump has spent his career using the federal government and making friends with big shots. Not Cruz. Most of his Republican colleagues in the Senate detest him. And Cruz is eager to destroy: He has repeatedly crossed to the other side of the Capitol and led House Republicans toward fiscal cliffs…
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Those of you who think Hillary Clinton will be indicted may be mistaken:
“That will be a decision made by the Department of Justice and prosecutors over there,” said Earnest. “What I know that some officials over there have said is that she is not a target of the investigation. So that does not seem to be the direction that it’s trending. But I’m certainly not going to weigh in on a decision or in that process in any way. That is a decision to be made solely by independent prosecutors but again, based on what we know from the Department of Justice, it does not seem to be headed in that direction.”
They’re being careful to send out the word that it’s highly unlikely, but they won’t say it will not happen because they like to build in a little flexibility in case they can think of a candidate for 2016 who might be a great deal more likely than Hillary to win. I think that, at this point, they not only think she will win, but they just don’t see anyone better for their purposes who is willing to run.
I have continued to say that the Obama DOJ will never indict her, and it doesn’t matter what the FBI says or thinks, or what new revelation of wrongdoing emerges. It doesn’t matter, just as it hasn’t mattered what Obama or the IRS or any number of other agencies or people have done. It’s all about politics and power.
And if she is indicted without some dramatic weakening of her position and a strengthening of a rival’s position, I’ll be happy to say I was wrong.
Oh, and I think the person they all want to see nominated to run against her is Donald Trump.
Oh, woe is me.
First of all, I keep trying to stay away from so many Donald Trump posts—and mostly failing. Only two days from Iowa, I feel a certain sense of urgency to get the word out by writing about things I keep discovering about him of which most people are unaware. I realize that his activist supporters do not care, but everyone else certainly should.
And then this morning I spent almost an hour trying to embed an especially wonderful Ukrainian dance video that someone had sent me through Facebook. I’m not on Facebook, and although I copied the embed code it didn’t work. Then I tried to find the same video on YouTube. No dice, but I had to watch a large number of them that seemed similar before I gave up. For now.
But even before that happened, I couldn’t get to my blog dashboard page. That’s sort of command central for a blog, and there’s no way to post without it. Every now and then this happens, but when it does there’s really nothing to do but wait, and sweat: why is it happening? when will it end? is it just my blog or is it the host or WordPress? Those latter questions can be checked out, of course, but that takes time, too, and meanwhile the entire episode is always tension-provoking. In this day and age there’s also the chance it was purposeful action by someone trying to mess with the blog, and although there are all sorts of safeguards built in, it’s still always a possibility, even for a relatively little fish like me.
Yes, I want a little sympathy/empathy.
On the other hand, we’re in for a warm spell all over New England in the coming week. So there’s that.
And demographically speaking, 123 men to 100 women (as is now estimated to be the case in Sweden) is not usually a good thing, as China has already discovered :
Under each of these scenarios, large numbers of young men competing for dominance elevate local rates of violence, homicide and lawlessness…
China is already feeling the effects of so many bare branches. The economist Lena Edlund estimates that every one percent increase in the sex ratio results in a six percent increase in the rates of violent and property crime. In addition, the parts of China with the most male-biased sex ratios are experiencing a variety of other maladies, all tied to the presence of too many young men. Gambling, alcohol and drug abuse, kidnapping and trafficking of women are rising steeply in China.
But in China these extra men are Chinese, part and parcel of the dominant culture. They are the result of the reproductive policies of China’s government that encouraged one-child limits, and widespread abortion of female fetuses followed.
Sweden is different. There, the extra men are recent arrivals from Muslim countries. For teenagers 16-17, that country is most likely to be Afghanistan:
Sweden has received more asylum applications per capita than any other country in Europe – 163,000 last year. The country’s population is just 9.7 million.
What is surprising is that if you look at the breakdown of the ages of applicants in Sweden, there’s a huge bump in the figures at the age of 16 – often unaccompanied minors arriving without a parent or guardian.
And 92% of unaccompanied minors aged 16 and 17 years old are male.
The author uses the term “surprising.” But there’s nothing surprising about it. If you reward a behavior, you will get more of it, and word has gotten out that this is the way Sweden deals with its arrivals:
“If you’re underage, first of all, you get housing, you get more financial resources. You also have a lot of staff around you helping you with different issues,” says Hanif Bali, a member of the opposition Moderate Party in the Swedish parliament – which is on the centre right of the political spectrum. “If you need food, clothing, everything, you can go to the municipality and demand this money.”
But there is another even bigger benefit, which Bali believes is significant. “You have the right to family reunification. So you can bring all of your family to Sweden, if you are underage.”
So there are huge incentives for getting to Sweden before you turn 18. This might explain why many young people make the journey at this point in their lives.
Or do they? The article goes on to say that there is a strong suspicion that many of the new arrivals are lying about their ages in order to make themselves seem younger than they actually are. Makes sense. And since most of them have no papers and Sweden accepts them without those papers, one would expect a lot of lying to be going on. Apparently, the Swedes are considering being more rigorous about age, but it hasn’t happened yet, and it’s not clear what standards would or could be applied.
But the article ends on what I can only assume the authors think is a happy note. Or perhaps it’s a sarcastic note. I’m really not sure:
Long term, the gender imbalance in the group of people who are currently 16 and 17 may shrink. As refugees under 18 can invite their immediate family to join them, it’s possible that their sisters will one day also travel to Sweden.
Well, that could end the “surplus of young men” problem. But it certainly wouldn’t end the problem of how Sweden might avoid cultural suicide (see also this and this).
[Hat tip: Legal Insurrection.]
There’s agreement on all sides that the EU’s state of health, and even its very existence, is threatened. Depending on what you think of the EU, that’s either good news or bad news (I think the EU needs to go). But whichever way you slice it, it’s destabilizing news:
“Europe could fall apart,” Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, declared in a recent speech, adding that the EU’s “failure is a realistic scenario.”
The grim prognosis could have come from the mouth of Marine Le Pen.
Reflecting on the potential repercussions of Brexit last month, the nationalist French politician predicted it would “be the beginning of the end of the European Union.”
“I compare Brussels to the Berlin Wall. If Great Britain knocks down part of the wall, it’s finished, it’s over,” Le Pen told The Telegraph.
But it could limp along:
Still, a classic European muddle, a series of half-measures that keep the union intact at all cost without addressing the root causes for its problems, could be worse than a total collapse in the long term.
“The worst case scenario is a system that can’t die,” Guérot said. “It’s like the frog that doesn’t jump out of boiling water.”
Jump, jump!
This is outrageous, and it’s shocking that it’s not more surprising:
The Department of Health and Human Services placed more than a dozen immigrant children in the custody of human traffickers after it failed to conduct background checks of caregivers, according to a Senate report released on Thursday.
Examining how the federal agency processes minors who arrive at the border without a guardian, lawmakers said they found that it had not followed basic practices of child welfare agencies, like making home visits.
The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations opened its inquiry after law enforcement officials uncovered a human trafficking ring in Marion, Ohio, last year. At least six children were lured to the United States from Guatemala with the promise of a better life, then were made to work on egg farms. The children, as young as 14, had been in federal custody before being entrusted to the traffickers…
The report also said that it was unclear how many of the approximately 90,000 children the agency had placed in the past two years fell prey to traffickers, including sex traffickers, because it does not keep track of such cases.
Excuse me while I go throw up.