The Trump slogan “Make America Great Again” is in my view a noble sentiment. America is a dispirited nation today. In some ways we have become a laughingstock on the international stage (Remember Kabul?). Our navy has fallen under 300 ships which means that a focus on saving Israel effectively could be an abandonment of Taiwan. Our defense industrial base is so emaciated that it can hardly support our peacetime military, let alone two stalwart allies like Ukraine and Israel willing to bleed in defense of the West. We eviscerate ourselves in masochistic eco self-flagellation and race/gender Marxism. This, for me, should be the impetus for a real campaign to Make America Great Again.
But inside that cluster of elements surrounding Trump comes a special definition for Great. “Great”, for them, is tantamount to isolationism: diplomatically, militarily, and economically. America for these folks becomes a better place when we abandon the world under the guise of our domestic problems. This won’t end well. MAGA has made itself into a funeral dirge for America.
Michael Ramirez is my go-to cartoonist for he captures our current moment so well. Ramirez harkens back to the conservatism of Reagan, Thatcher, Buckley, Goldwater, and back to a time when we had a 600-ship navy, and not to the Trump cult of personality with its infatuation for isolationism.
In the cartoon, Ramirez reminds us of the bloody future awaiting us when we let despots run wild on the continent of Europe. Trumpkins are oblivious. Dickens’s specter of Christmas Yet to Come stands before us.
ntiwar March outside Crisler Arena on the University of Michigan Campus, September 20, 1969. Courtesy of The Detroit News Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University.
Stalwarts of America First (SAF) approved the following manifesto on July 24, 2022: “[SAF] advocates that the U.S. get out of [Ukraine] for the following reasons: (a) the war hurts the [Ukrainian] people; (b) the war hurts the American people; (c) [SAF] is concerned about the [Ukrainian] and American people.”
The above is a bit of fiction. Most of the manifesto wording, with the substitution of “SAF” and “Ukrainian” for “SDS” and “Vietnamese”, was originally the official demand of the overt socialist Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam that was approved prior to their notorious March on Washington, April 17, 1965. Give it a few years and their wish would be fulfilled, and the demons turned loose. All of Indochina fell in reeducation camps, gulags, executions, a genocide of the Laotian Hmong people, the Khmer Rouge bloodlust in Cambodia, a quarter million boat people, the hammer-and-sickle red flag flying over all of Indochina.
This time, it’s Ukraine on the chopping block, and the appeasement is coming from the right in a fit of real pretzel logic. Could it be “He must be for it; therefore, I must be against it” at work? People who placed Black Lives Matter yard signs out front in 2020 are flying the flag of Ukraine in 2022. Democrats and Biden cheer Zelensky; therefore, Zelensky and Ukraine are suspect. Is it that infantile? Don’t underestimate the slipshod reasoning of our so-called “thought leaders”, whether of the left or right.
Yep, peaceniks on the right. Who would have thunk it? It’s pretty bad when a person must turn to the always-wrong left for at least a glimmer of sense. Tucker Carlson, now banished to the hinterlands of podcast world, displayed a dose of the Left’s unhinged quality on the eve of the Soviet, er, Russian, invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In language reminiscent of the 1960’s New Left, Carlson accused Ukraine of being “a pure client state of the United States State Department”. After the invasion, he kept it up, throwing mud on Zelensky. He accused Zelensky of being a dictator, a demagogue. He, Zelensky, is charged by Carlson of taking “the opportunity to turn Ukraine into effectively a one-party state, which it now is.” He’s oblivious to the attempted obliteration of Zelensky’s country, or the fact that the martial law measures were passed by the Ukrainian parliament, a parliament that was really elected.
I wonder how long would it be before Carlson starts calling for the shuttering of the New York Times after the Peoples Liberation Army comes pouring over the Sierra Nevada. George Washington marched at the head of a militia force in 1794 to put down resistance to a tax. Carlson: “Der Fuehrer Washington”? I shutter to think about Carlson’s contempt for Lincon’s suspension of habeas corpus when Lincoln was confronted with the dissolution of the Union. Overwhelming threats to national survival make opposition to national existence under the guise of freedom a dangerous luxury. You may not agree but at least it’s understandable.
Tucker’s bloviating has earned him the respect of the Putin regime, the same junta that murders opposition at home and abroad, even before Putin’s tanks embarked on their misbegotten invasion in February 2022. He’s the go-to for Putin propaganda to buoy Russian spirits in the midst of the catastrophic losses. One headline in official state media, Russia Today, says it all: “Tucker Carlson wonders why U.S. elites hate Putin. Biden will pay for ‘defending freedom’ of Ukraine out of your pocket, controversial Fox host warns Americans.”
His compatriot at Fox News, Laura Ingraham, has similar sycophantic tendencies. Zelensky’s admonition to Putin to not attack his country was turned into “a pathetic plea” by Ingraham. She characterized the bid for conquest as just a “border dispute”. According to her, we are conditioned to “hate Putin” by the Dems, our media, the “establishment”, or something. There’s nothing to worry about from dear old Vlad. Whenever aid to Ukraine comes up, you can expect an insult directed at Zelensky or Ukraine from her. She did it again last night (12/15/2022).
Not everyone at Fox News agrees. Brian Kilmeade wouldn’t let Senator J.D. Vance (R-Oh.), a favorite of the Carlson/Ingraham crowd, get away with it. Vance on more aid to Ukraine: “It feels sometimes to me like we’re just shoveling money over there without any clear plan for what it’s meant to accomplish.” The no-plan, no-objective canard didn’t sell for Kilmeade: “Think down the line, though. You let Russia take 20% of a country, what about the next country? Give them another 20?… You gotta play this out. What don’t you understand about that?” Precisely.
rian Kilmeade on the couch to the right on Fox and Friends; Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Oh.) to the left.
Other voices from the newly emerging isolationist right have jumped onto the pro-Putin bandwagon with gusto. Candace Owens is foremost, after she removes her foot from her mouth. In a full-throated endorsement of Putin propaganda, she refuted Ukraine’s right to exist. She said, “Obviously Ukraine wasn’t a thing until 1989. Further, “Ukraine was created by the Russians. They speak Russian.” Actually, according to their latest census before the invasion, 29% of Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language.
Candace Owens
She went further. The Left has claimed for years that the U.S. is at fault for provoking our international conflicts. From the right comes Candace Owens to blame America first. She tweeted, “As I’ve said for [a] month— NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward. WE are at fault.” In her fevered imagination, we upset Vlad and we ought not tinker with the delicate sensibilities of a despot. This is akin to the hazy “systemic racism”. Think of systemic America’s fault, equally as vague as the chants of Antifa.
The retort to Owens came from an imminent historian of Soviet atrocities (the gulags, the Holodomor), Anne Applebaum. She succinctly tweeted in reference to Owens, “Behold the face of pure ignorance.” Quite right.
Anne Applebaum
The symmetry of the peacenik left and peacenik right is evident in recent remarks by that aging paragon of the 60s New Left, Noam Chomsky. He praises Trump for opposing aid to Ukraine. His compatriots at left-wing publications such as “Jacobin”, “New Left Review”, and “Democracy Now!” blame, like Owens, the U.S. and NATO for Putin’s brutal invasion. Is the horseshoe theory of politics – when the political extremes come to take common positions – validated in our time? Mmmmm, something to think about.
Appeasement doesn’t normally go well, especially on the continent of Europe. 1939-40 brought us the America First movement, and Hitler’s and Japan’s rampages over Europe and Asia. The 1960s brought us the New Left’s Anti-War Movement, and the bloodbath in Indochina. The Age of Trump has horseshoed us back to the old isolationism, this time under MAGA. What is in store for us under this New Right?
RogerG
Sources:
* “On the eve of war, Tucker Carlson defended Putin. Now he’s backpedaling”, Lorraine Ali, LA Times, 2/24/22, at https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2022-02-24/ukraine-russia-vladimir-putin-tucker-carlson-laura-ingraham-fox-news
* “Why America’s Far Right and Far Left Have Aligned Against Helping Ukraine”, Jan Dutkiewicz and Dominik Stecuła, Foreign Policy, 7/4/22, at https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/04/us-politics-ukraine-russia-far-right-left-progressive-horseshoe-theory/
* “Fox News Host Confronts GOP Senator J.D. Vance on Opposition to Ukraine Aid”, Fatma Khaled, Newsweek, 1/27/23, at https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-host-confronts-gop-senator-jd-vance-opposition-ukraine-aid-1777122
* “Resistance and Revolution: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement at the University of Michigan, 1965-1972”, “The March on Washington”, at https://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/the_teach_ins/national_teach_in_1965#:~:text=The%20SDS%20March%20on%20Washington%20to%20End%20the,college%20students%20and%20others%20to%20the%20nation%E2%80%99s%20capital.
* “Tucker Carlson wonders why US elites hate Putin”, Russia Today (RT), 2/23/22, at https://www.rt.com/russia/550320-tucker-carlson-putin-hate/
* “Candace Owens Blames America For Russian Invasion of Ukraine: ‘WE Are at Fault’”, Caleb Howe, Mediaite, 2/22/22, at https://www.mediaite.com/politics/candace-owens-blames-america-for-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-we-are-at-fault/
* “‘Behold the face of pure ignorance’: Candace Owens mocked by Pulitzer-winning historian for Ukraine comment”, Gino Spocchia, The Independent, 3/19/22, at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/candace-owens-ukraine-anne-applebaum-b2039581.html
* “Is Ukraine a Democracy? Separating Fact From Fiction”, Darragh Roche, Newsweek, 3/22/22, at https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-democracy-separating-fact-fiction-russia-1690505
* “Tucker Carlson, downplaying Russia-Ukraine conflict, urges Americans to ask, ‘Why do I hate Putin?’”, Timothy Bella, Washington Post, 2/23/22, at https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/02/23/tucker-carlson-putin-russia-ukraine/
* “Tucker Carlson Challenges Zelensky to Prove Ukraine Is a Democracy”, Aleks Phillips, Newsweek, 1/23/23, at https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-volodymyr-zelensky-ukraine-democracy-1809590
* “Candace Owens Says U.S., NATO to Blame for Russia’s Ukraine Invasion”, Patricia McKnight, Newsweek, 2/22/22, at https://www.newsweek.com/candace-owens-says-us-nato-blame-russias-ukraine-invasion-1681589
* “Candace Owens Backs Putin’s Claim Russia Created Ukraine”, Katherine Fung, Newsweek, 3/16/22, at https://www.newsweek.com/candace-owens-backs-putins-claim-russia-created-ukraine-1688700
Hugh Hewitt got me going. I was listening to his interview with Tim Alberta in last week’s program (12/6/23) about Alberta’s new book on the rise of Christian Nationalism (CN) in the evangelical movement. Hewitt disputed Alberta’s claim of a growing Christian Nationalist sentiment among evangelicals. Regardless of the trend’s size – and neither Hewitt or Alberta could put a finger on its actual magnitude – Hewitt misses the point. I think that Hewitt certainly understates CN’s impact, and, more importantly, he ignored the probability of it as a manifestation of Trump’s baleful influence within a good chunk of the Republican base, evangelicals. Today, Christian Nationalism is religious Trumpism.
Hugh Hewitt interviewing Tim Alberta
So, what is Christian Nationalism? Historically, it’s the identification of Christianity with American patriotism. The concoction is too strong for my tastes; however, I saw a reasonable commonality of interest of the two at a certain point in time. The term goes back to the Cold War. At the time, many Americans viewed the contest as a battle between a mostly Christian USA and godless Soviet atheism. It was a contest of powerful and obviously incompatible ideas. The latter was a serious threat to the former. The intersection of Christianity and American patriotism made sense.
In the interlude after the implosion of the Soviet Union, CN went dormant. In the last five or so years, it was reawakened in fits of despair over failures to break the Democrats’ and their neo-Marxist allies’ grip on political and cultural power.
And guess who appeared on the stage in 2015 to champion the dejected? Why, of course, Donald Trump. They wanted a fighter and they got one, and everything associated with it such as combativeness, bellicosity, and bombast. No deep thought and contemplation here, just in-your-face belligerence. The desire for drama quickly overshadowed policies and ideas. The Trump wave particularly spread over evangelicals and a reconstituted Christian Nationalism became just another manifestation of Trump’s cult of personality.
Yes, personality. Trump’s searing attraction was his pugilistic personality. It’s no surprise that a tabloid star would garner such loyalty in this combustible atmosphere. The Cold War’s battle of ideas degenerated into today’s mudslinging between the Democrats’ New Left and the Republican personality cult.
Trump didn’t bring anything to the table but histrionics, and a couple of policy ideas easily grasped and exploitable for visceral effect: the wall and evil foreigners stealing our jobs. There’s a great deal of truth in the need for a wall on the southern border, and much balderdash about the theft of jobs. While trade with Communist China is indeed a scandal for national security reasons, tariffing trade with allies is the height of stupidity. As the CCP becomes a global enterprise in Belt-and-Roads and a 300-ship and growing navy, Trump told our Asian allies to pound sand by taking TPP off the table and threatened tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and on the exports of a host of present and future allies. The guy loves and brandishes tariffs if all his talk of the glories of them is sincere.
Pres. Trump signs executive order imposing tariffs on imported steel from Canada and Mexico.Pres. Trump shows signed executive order withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Jan. 27, 2017.
The related issues of outsourcing and offshoring were demagogued; all the while, our contribution to driving American businesses away went down the memory hole. Alongside empowered NIMBY’s everywhere on American soil, EPA-like commissariats at all levels of American government, armies of neo-Marxist activists cropping up everywhere, and unions driving heavy manufacturing into bankruptcy, we voluntarily bludgeoned our home-grown enterprises with the highest corporate income tax rate in the world (see The Tax Foundation below). Yes, congressional Republicans and President Trump cut those rates beginning in 2018 (Tax Cut and Jobs Act), but that wasn’t part of Trump’s schtick in 2016 when the Trump sect made its appearance. It’s much more politically fruitful to blame foreigners than Americans for the situation. Instead, Trump’s tariffs were always the locus of his heart’s desire. They fit his style.
His allure washed over Republicans and the evangelical wing of the base. For the religious-minded, the cultural issues took center stage and Trump delivered the Supreme Court. For some with an evangelical bent, Trump would be identified with the Old Testament’s King Cyrus, a foreigner, a pagan who nonetheless was God’s agent to do good according to the prophet Isaiah. That formulation is the seed of a new Christian Nationalism centering on Trump. Today, when I read Christian Nationalism, I read Trump.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaks the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit held at the Tampa Convention Center on July 23, 2022 in Tampa, Florida.
The bright glow of the Trump personality attracted all sorts of imitators like moths to a lamp. Marjorie Taylor Greene, that Trumper of all Trumpers, pulls no punches in donning the garb of Christian Nationalism in 2022 at a Turning Point gathering when she declared, “We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”
Lauren Boebert
For such people, brashness is a virtue. There’s no one more brash than Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R, Colorado, 3rd Dist.). She scoffed at the commonly understood separation of church and state when she announced during a sermon at Cornerstone Christian Center in 2022, “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk — that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like they say it does.” She goes further, “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.” Brashness has no room for subtleties and nuance. Trumpian brashness is entertaining. There’s always time later to clean up the verbose mess.
Lauren Boebert speaking at the Cornerstone Christian Center
I suspect that Hewitt tried to diminish the influence of Christian Nationalism to protect the Trump brand from potential turn-offs to large swaths of the voting electorate in 2024. He’s got a big job ahead of him. Overt brashness, conceit, and narcissism invite trouble for those trying to piece together a winning coalition of voters. Hewitt’s tactic is to dismiss CN’s representativeness in the Trump base, and Trumpism, which is more stage temperament – i.e. personality – than policies or ideas.
We are entering dangerous territory in our current state of hyperbolic politics. Both parties are becoming extremely problematic. The Democrats’ neo-Marxism is a national suicide pill. For Republicans, toxic currents are swirling in their pool. What do I mean? The trumpeted marriage of Christianity to nationalism in the bluster of people like Lauren Boebert is, in fact, an inaccurate description. More properly, it’s nuptials between Christianity and Trumpism, that attempt to peddle the personality trait of brashness as a substitute for adult thinking. It’ll be a big turn-off once the 2024 campaigns begin in full swing no matter Hewitt’s declaration of Christian Nationalism to be insignificant.
Hewitt’s only hope is a greater loathing for Biden than Trump, a contest between who smells worse. Hewitt is doing his best to spray Glade over Trump’s pungency.
RogerG
Read more here:
* “Corporate Income Tax Rates around the World, 2017”, Kari Jahnsen and Kyle Pomerleau, Tax Foundation, 9/7/2017, at https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/global/corporate-income-tax-rates-around-the-world-2017/#:~:text=Key%20Findings%201%20The%20United%20States%20has%20the,percent%20when%20weighted%20by%20GDP%29.%20…%20More%20items
* Marjorie Taylor Greene’s endorsement of Christian Nationalism: “Opinion: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s words on Christian nationalism are a wake-up call”, Amanda Tyler, CNN, 7/27/2022, at https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/opinions/christian-nationalism-marjorie-taylor-greene-tyler/index.html
* Lauren Boebert’s endorsement of Christian Nationalism: “Boebert says she is ‘tired’ of separation between church and state: ‘The church is supposed to direct the government’”, Brad Dress, The Hill, 6/22/2022, at https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3540071-boebert-says-she-is-tired-of-separation-between-church-and-state-the-church-is-supposed-to-direct-the-government/
* The full Boebert talk at Cornerstone Christian Center can be viewed in full on YouTube at https://youtu.be/P-G-oAl9pF8?si=qbQnoTmB4xxRSJE4
Last night (11/30/23), Gov. Ron DeSantis (R, Fla.) squared off against Gov. Gavin Newsom (D, Ca.) in a debate. It was interesting to note that Newsom tried to use Trump against DeSantis. It’s true that Trump prefers to tear down his opponents early and often with any tool at hand, usually with a huge dollop of balderdash, so there’s much on the record for Newsom to use. Ironically, Newsom’s exploitation of Trump’s hostile words about DeSantis underscores a deepening divide within the GOP that can be summarized as MAGA v. Reagan. You may or may not be aware of it but it is happening before your eyes.
Let’s face it, and here’s the point, Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan in thought and comportment. Trump has come to symbolize a rising isolationist element in the GOP. Reagan was a patriot but no isolationist. The dividing lines within the GOP are becoming starker by the month as one part of the party coalescing around Trump pays rhetorical homage to Reagan while they are busy tearing down his legacy.
It’s a battle between big-government isolationism (MAGA) and a philosophy of governance built on smaller government combined with international engagement (Reagan). A couple of weeks prior to the Newsom/DeSantis face-off, David Bahnsen (of the Reagan philosophy) engaged Oren Cass (of the emerging MAGA philosophy) in a debate about this growing rift. This chasm has a greater impact on the future of the GOP than the spat between Newsom and DeSantis.
They debated over this proposition: There should be a greater role for public policy (government) in markets. Oren Cass in the affirmative (MAGA), David Bahnsen in the negative (Reagan).
If you are a Trump supporter, you must ask yourself one simple question: Where would he lead us if elected again? Yes, his first term was Reaganite because he drew from the GOP’s ample stable of Reaganite thinkers, but he burned bridges with them long ago. A second term would draw from the coterie of big-government isolationists such as Oren Cass. You would be voting for this.
Here’s a few takeaways from the Bahnsen/Cass challenge:
#1 – To set up the big-government approach, you have to tar the alternative. The alternative is a more restrained government in order to let markets breathe, what is called free markets. A market is merely a spontaneous arrangement that brings together buyers and sellers, voluntarily and thus free. So, a host of problems are assigned to markets by people like Cass to gouge out a bigger role for government to manipulate and direct them. Though, can stagnating wages, a languishing standard of living, and outsourcing of some American manufacturing justifiably be laid at the feet of markets? That leads me to #2.
#2 – Cass and his cohort in and out of government won’t say it but they’re into central planning. Central planning is government actors – bureaucrats, public employees, and politicians – directing the buyers and sellers. What does this smell like? It smells like politics being injected into people’s private decisions on what they produce, how they produce it, and what they buy. If it was a medical treatment, it’s a poor one. Politician-witchdoctors overriding our individual judgments turns us into serfs and causes more of what they are blaming markets for. That leads me to #3.
#3 – The knowledge problem. Cass and the politicians on the other side of the fence like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren believe that government is filled with wise demi-gods. Do you, or anyone for that matter, actually believe that politicians and public employees possess the knowledge and wisdom to substitute their decision-making for that of millions of people in millions of individual circumstances? It’s been tried before. It’s the culprit behind the implosion of the Soviet Union. North Korea’s misery is caused by it. FDR’s New Deal turned a depression into a Great Depression. For the old timers like me, the 1970’s stagflation was caused by it. Those kvetching about today’s stagnated prosperity don’t realize that it is rooted in it. It’s amazing that the MAGA coterie want more government to cure the ailments caused by government. How’s that supposed to work? That leads me to #4.
#4 – The subsequent lawmaking and enforcement are infected with fatal pathogens, the fingerprints of government, i.e. politics, at work. Let’s take a look at the heralded CHIPS Act. The intent to replant chip manufacturing in the U.S. was larded with ESG, DEI, eco-nuttery, child care mandates, etc. Billions of taxpayer dollars are to be showered on billion-dollar corporate biggies while hitting them with the kind of thing that drove them from American shores to begin with. Go figure. The Cass/MAGA approach has been around for years. Speaking of Gavin Newsom, California is a microcosm of the consequences of this state of mind. Currently, it is causing Californios to flea the state (800,000 between 2020 and 2022) in like manner as American companies found the grass to be greener in China and the Philippines. You don’t need to shower taxpayer largesse on a handpicked industry and its towering players to entice them back. Try not punishing them. Try acting like you actually like them. Dah!
This is the debate that we ought to be having in the GOP. We need more face-offs between the MAGA and the Reagan philosophies so Republican voters know what they’re getting into. I’m afraid that it’s not happening often enough. We’ll end up with a lose-lose. If we win, we’ll get the misery from big-government foolishness under a Republican label. If we lose, we’ll get it from the Democrats. Are we even aware of it?
The Sicarii (Latin for “dagger wielders” or “dagger men”) were a violent splinter group of Jewish Zealots who were militant enthusiasts of the First Jewish Revolt (or first Jewish-Roman War). As Jerusalem was falling to Roman legions in 70 A.D., a portion of the Sicarii escaped to occupy the mountaintop fortress of Masada. There, they committed mass suicide just before the Romans overran their defenses in 74 A.D. according to the ancient historian Josephus.
Sicarii assassinsThe last Sicarii zealot committing suicide before the enter the Masada fortress.The ruins of Masada today
Blind fury, combined with the self-conceit of the purity of one’s motives and beliefs, can take a person to some horrible places. Is Matt Rosendale willing to help lead the GOP to its own Masada?
I am a Montanan and flabbergasted that a person like Rosendale calls himself a Republican and occupies Montana’s second congressional seat. He’s an embarrassment.
To be sure, Sicarii-like mental states can be found Left and Right. Anywhere from much of the Democrats’ base to Antifa/BLM can be found the burn-it-all-down state of mind. Now, in the Age of Trump, Republicans have developed their own Sicarii.
Back in October, in an interview in The Messenger (see below), Rosendale said that he prayed for the defeat of some Republican candidates in 2022 midterms, just enough to ensure a narrow Republican majority in the House. Here’s Rosendale:
“Look, we have shown, OK, with a very small handful of people, six at times, five at times, that we can have tremendous impact in that body and when a lot of people, unfortunately, were voting to have a 270, 280 Republican House, I was praying each evening for a small majority,”
The Sicarii didn’t only direct their anger at Romans. They targeted “collaborators”, fellow Jews. Rosendale, like all fire-breathing zealots going back millennia, heaped scorn on fellow Republicans. Fanatics have their own rhetoric to identify the “enemy” amongst their normal and natural allies. “Establishment” and “RINO” serve the same function for Rosendale and company as “collaborator”.
He says that he wants to push the party further to the right, right into a Republican Masada. Rosendale can’t grasp the fact that there exist many, many people who don’t agree with him, that he doesn’t reflect the Party or the country. His little faction is a splinter of a splinter. Is this guy a loon or what? Does he know the difference between governing and campaigning?
Governing requires working with others who disagree, and there will always be many of those. An adult would understand half-a-loaf and compromise. Not the Republican Sicarii. They have turned the House Republican caucus into a clown car.
I’m in District 1 and represented by Ryan Zinke (R), thank God. Are the constituents of District 2 happy with a politically suicidal Sicarius pulling them into a political rut?
What started out as Joan of Arc ends up as George Armstrong Custer.
RogerG
Read more here:
* “Montana GOP Rep. Prayed for Smaller Republican Majority After 2022 Midterms (Exclusive)”, Dan Merico and Matt Holt, The Messenger, 10/2/23, at https://themessenger.com/politics/montana-republican-house-prayed-smaller-majority
** Also in my Substack feed, The Golden Mean, at https://rogerlgraf.substack.com/
Well, both parties have gone bananas. The Democrats have gone over to denigrating the entire corpus of western civilization. They are essentially Marxists in belief with their race/gender hucksterism and eco-central planning. Republicans are in a state of madness, consumed in a cult of Trump. If you are an actual conservative, and not a cult member, expect to be reviled and abused. It happened to Mitt Romney.
At times, I have been no fan of Romney. His decision to march with Black Lives Matter in 2020 was a low point in my esteem for Mitt. In February 2020, he was the lone Republican senator to vote in support of one of the two articles of impeachment. I found both charges to be rank partisan prosecutions, something out of Stalin’s playbook. But at least he had the wherewithal to express loathing for repulsive Trump behavior. Rumors have been rife among Republican congressional members and staff of their disgust for Trump but were paralyzed by fear for their personal and family’s safety if they came out of the closet. They have good reason to fear the cult.
One incident stands out. On January 5, 2021, one day before the January 6th riot, Mitt Romney boarded a plane in Salt Lake City for a flight to Washington, D.C. So, to were others who were flying to D.C. for the Trump rally that devolved into the infamous riot. He was met with boos and chants of “Traitor” and “lowlife” on the plane (see below). Is finding merit in one of the two impeachment charges, or expressing disapproval of Trump’s conduct, “treason”? Is disagreement with Trump a measure of “lowlife”?
Apparently, Romney is more attuned to popular sentiment than the Trumpers on the plane. Polls consistently show Trump’s disapprovals to hover around the mid-fifties. It’s just that at this juncture, Biden has attained a level of repulsiveness equal to or slightly exceeding Trump’s. So, in a contest limited to Biden v. Trump, Trump edges out Biden – and the celebrity pundits on Fox News are in a party mood.
They miss the point. In a contest against a clearly, mentally and physically wobbly opponent, Trump can only eke out a narrow lead within the margin of error. Don’t mistake these results for a suddenly growing and popular embrace of Trump. That would be a big error in judgment.
The most recent NBC News poll (see below), like all the others going back a year or so, show a consistent distaste for Trump and an overriding dislike of Biden to match. In this binary matchup, Trump is ahead by 2 points for the first time in this poll. But lying in the poll’s weeds are some other interesting findings. Any generic Republican facing Biden is 11 points ahead, and any generic Democrat forges 8 points ahead of Trump. A no-name Republican does 9 points better than Trump against Biden; a no-name Democrat enjoys a landslide vis-à-vis Trump.
For the Democrats, the task is simple: remove Biden from the ticket. They may do it. Democrats are nimbler on their feet. Republicans seem to be hellbent on running their Trump Titanic into the iceberg. On the other hand, he could win if Biden is on the ballot, but don’t expect any coattails if the Trump personality is evident down ballot. Trumpism is a personality cult, and a not very endearing one.
RogerG
Read more here:
* “Kornacki: First Time In 16 NBC News Polls Over Four Years Where Donald Trump Leads Joe Biden”, Tim Haines, Real Clear Politics, November 20, 2023, at https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/11/20/kornacki_first_time_in_16_nbc_news_polls_over_four_years_where_donald_trump_leads_joe_biden.html
* Steve Kornacke on X about the NBC News poll at https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1726247457414414630
** Also in my Substack feed, The Golden Mean, at https://rogerlgraf.substack.com/
While listening to a podcast of the musical career of Simon and Garfunkel, up popped a segment of their song “Mrs. Robinson”. The verse struck me as oddly reminiscent of today. Think of the looming contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The verse:
“Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates’ debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you’ve got to choose
Every way you look at it, you lose”
I don’t expect much practical wisdom from rock stars, but this verse hits a chord. A verse from 1968 comes full circle to meet 2024.
A week ago, I happened to be watching an episode of Fox News’s “The Five”. A new Fox News poll had just been released showing Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden. Four of the five hosts were almost dancing a jig on the table about the results, as if votes had already been counted and Trump was preparing his coronation speech. Is Trump becoming popular, or, more likely, is this a choice between the most abhorrent candidates of all time?
Look at the candidates’ negatives. They are far and away more detested than loved. A smattering of polls from the Nov. 8-14 shows these guys to be stinkers (see below). Biden’s detestability hovers between 53% and 59%. Trump’s swings from 54% to 56%. Biden has achieved a level of loathsomeness slightly greater than Trump’s. And the hosts of The Five are dancing a jig over this?
The contest is a consequence of the parties foisting on the general voting public execrable nominees. The Democrats can’t come around to jettisoning their enfeebled sellout to the party’s neo-Marxist Left. The Republicans can’t shake their enchantment with a narcissistic lunatic. Now, the public has experienced both behind the Resolute desk and the bully pulpit. If the contest is reduced to this binary, then the choice is about the least reviled.
So, why does Trump appear to be allegedly riding high? Biden is in the seat of power, more immediate, before cameras, at the head of the nightly newscast, the subject of much conversation, and people get a daily dose of the failures of the party’s neo-Marxism: an overrun border, inflation, climate-change central planning, the unraveling of civilization, the group-guilt shaming, the international scene coming unglued, etc. The present soon overwhelms the past. Trump slides into background noise amid court appearances. As a consequence, if the election were held today, the possibility of a president taking the oath while wearing an ankle bracelet looms large.
What’s there to like?
It is said by many that people prefer Trump’s policies but personally dislike Trump. There’s a lot to that, but those cherished policies are a reflection of longstanding GOP platforms. Prior to 2015 and Trump’s grandstanding on Obama’s birth certificate, Trump had few if any policy ideas other than the border and trade protectionism. His ignorance was profound. In a 2016 debate, he couldn’t name the legs of the strategic triad. He was befuddled by the term “triad”. When he amazingly got elected as a Republican, he not surprisingly turned to Republicans to fill out his administration. From a guy who was a policy empty suit, many of his “wins” were crafted by the input of others who would later be insulted into oblivion. Bill Barr, John Bolton, Mike Pence, Kelly, McMaster, et al, and the congressional leadership who were the fount of these ideas such as Paul Ryan, won’t be around for a Trump second bite at the apple.
In a Trump term #2, who will he turn to, the clown caucus of Matt Gaetz and company? A person still possessing their wits would be a fool to get too close to Trump. Expect any future Trump presidency to be filled with “fighters”, fighters who are a bit too punch drunk: the clown car caucus moves from Congress to the executive branch; the extended universe of isolationists and sycophants; and the rule of the Democrats’ craziness would be replaced by those who romanticize 1932’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the American Firsters of 1940. Mmmm. What would that world look like?
I have to amend my prediction that Trump is a loser. Er, he is; you just might have to look down ballot for the misery. The guy has no coattails because he’s kryptonite at the state and local level. As long as Trump is far from you, he might be tolerable, even if you’ll only see him on parole or probation. Yet don’t count out that Democrat vote-harvesting machine so quickly, or the possibility that they’ll do a switcheroo replacing the enfeebled with a fresh-faced, milquetoast neo-Marxist from the party’s ranks.
RogerG
Read more here:
* For the latest polls turn to https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
** Also in my Substack feed, The Golden Mean, at https://rogerlgraf.substack.com/publish/home
Part of the House Republican clown caucus (l-r): Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Majorie Taylor Greene
As a public-school teacher for 30 years, I know the critical rule of classroom management. If one kid’s bad behavior is left unattended, it won’t take long for the classroom to become a zoo. A parallel is Trump’s entry into the Republican presidential sweepstakes in 2015. More than Trump entered the race, also came his personality. It has left an impression on certain adolescent-minded clusters of grownups in the Republican Party – both registered voters and some in elected office. Think of the clown caucus who engineered the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.
“Trumpian” boils down to braggadocio, bombast, simplistic and blunt issues in a blunt style with a lot of bullying of friends and foes alike. It’s the over-the-top behavior of a person who craves the tabloid limelight. The Obama birth certificate dustup is a classic example of a simplistic and blunt issue to be exploited for personal gain, which would be Trump’s signature approach to modern politics. The only thing is, the bombast that drew so much attention ended in Trump scaping egg off his face when Obama produced the document.
Few, however, would predict that a windbag’s curtly rudeness would have an appeal among the rank and file. And the whole style seemed to be electorally validated when Trump won in a 2016 black swan event. Success can bring out the worst in people, and “Trumpian” came to be as fashionable as the John Wayne swagger in the 1950s.
While the personality type is appealing to certain party voters, it’s a big turnoff to getable swaths of the general electorate. After 2016, Trump’s appeal down ballot was a disaster. Let’s not forget 2022, at a time when the Democrats have made a shambles of the country, the Republicans could only squeak out a bare majority in the House leaving the clown caucus in a position to put their Trumpian hijinks on public display. The Republicans are proving that neo-Marxism is survivable if Trump, his political personality, and the clown caucus are the face of party.
In Orwell’s “1984”, Big Brother had a face. In today’s rendition of the Republican Party, its face is that of Donald Trump with the likes of Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Majorie Taylor Greene, Matt Rosendale, and Nancy Mace in a chorus line behind. Big Brother wouldn’t be laughed at; the picture of Trump and the Trumpkins elicits guffaws at first, followed by beads of sweat from the realization that they have actual power. To be sure, these are not the kind of people that I would trust with my kids.
Big brother from 1984
The despicability of the Democratic Party and a sizeable faction in the Republican Party is registered in polls, something that you’ll recognize if you rely on more than Laura Ingraham for your news. She doesn’t hesitate to bellow a poll with Trump ahead of Biden. Yet, the reality in the most recent Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll presents a more complicated picture (see below). Yes, among Republican primary voters, Trump is far and away the favorite with 58%. Metrics of enthusiasm for Trump are high among these voters. But – here’s the key number – among the general electorate, Biden squeaks out a tiny lead, essentially a tie.
Trump is favored on a host of issues – the border, economy, foreign affairs – but when offered a choice between Biden and Trump, it’s essentially a dead heat. What’s holding Trump and the Republicans back from a sweeping lead? Look at Trump’s negatives. He’s even more reviled than Biden in a recent NBC News poll (see below). Biden’s negative rating stands at 49%; Trump registers a 54% downside. Megaphones like Laura Ingraham of Fox News would mention a Trump lead in a poll’s head-to-head matchup, but nary a word about Trump’s unlikability. Does “putting lipstick on a pig” remind you of anything?
The Trump personality is only appealing to a sizeable portion of the Republican Party base. It’s reviled nearly everywhere else. Trumpian bluster might carry a candidate through the primary, but in places other than a crimson district, it’s the kiss of death. If you want to stop the Democrats’ neo-Marxism, first win elections. What’s a turn-on for primary voters can be poison in the general election.
Democrats know this. That’s why they’re interfering in Republican primaries to elect Trumpians. In my home state of Montana, mysterious ads are appearing that throw mud on Tim Sheehy, who’s challenged in the primary by the Trumpian Matt Rosendale. Not a word in these hit pieces about Rosendale.
The group – Last Best Place PAC – is an undercover Democrat operation (see below) to help get Rosendale the nomination and, thus, an easier challenger for incumbent Democrat John Tester. It’s the same Democrat tried-and-true tactic from 2022. It’s not out of distaste for Sheehy that drives Schumer and company to stick it to Sheehy. He knows, like everyone else who are not fans of the Trump schtick, that a Trumpian is a weaker candidate. What worked in Arizona, Pennsylvania, et al, in 2022 has a good chance of succeeding in 2024. Watch Republicans rush headlong into the trap.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Further, watch an example of a boisterous Trumpian on full display, Lauren Boebert from September of this year. After this, is she like Trump – “I could stand in the middle of 5th Ave. and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters” – and therefore immune from the voters’ wrath? Are some Republican voters that morally stunted? Is the Trumpian personality that hypnotizing?
The Trumpian personality came through the door in 2016 and has entrenched itself. At this point, the party will have to face a disaster before the malignancy can be removed. Like a classroom under the control of hellions, we have a party that has allowed this element to run roughshod. And we will pay the piper.
RogerG
Read more here:
* For deep dive into the Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll, see the full text of the poll at https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2023/10_24_2023_marginals_embargoed_2.pdf?la=en&hash=ABF93DCEAAFCA91DBE9BD17A2A10E4E4A2C6189E
* The NBC News poll can be read at https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/poll-overwhelming-majorities-express-concerns-biden-trump-ahead-2024-r-rcna111347
* “Nine months before the Montana GOP primary, a mysterious super PAC is on the airwaves attacking Tim Sheehy”, Ally Mutnick, Politico, September 12, 2023, at https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/09/12/congress/montana-senate-sheehy-pac-ads-00115276
* More on the Democrat-affiliated PAC: “Dems Look To Meddle in Montana’s GOP Senate Primary”, Meghan Blonder, The Washington Free Beacon, September 13, 2023, at https://freebeacon.com/elections/dems-look-to-meddle-in-montanas-gop-senate-primary/
Our politics are insane, much more so than normal. Our national figures act as if they walked off the drawing boards of the cartoonists for Warner Brothers Looney Tunes. Our two major political parties modulate between a cult of personality and a nest of neo-Marxist revolutionaries. It’s deranged. Why vote?
Of special note is Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP. Opinion polls consistently show him to be the far-and-away front runner for the nomination. Objectively, by any measure, the guy is loathsome. Would you actually like your children if they grew up to behave like him? Think about it. The bombastic self-promoting narcissism has left a trail of former allies, now turned enemies, in its wake. All that’s left are sycophants and a chunk of the party base seemingly in the grip of a mass psychosis, for want of a better term.
To understand the gravity of Trump’s scorched earth of the party, first we must grasp the fact that there aren’t any serious RINO’s – “Republican in name only” in the mold of Lowell Weicker or the Rockefellers – in the party anymore. Reaganite fusionism defined the character of the party, and for most still does. RINO has been mindlessly coopted by Trumpers for anyone not enthralled by the man from Mar-a-Lago. “RINO” is conjoined to “establishment” and the “swamp” to make the nonsense compelling to those consumed in jargon and sloganeering, and nothing else weightier.
Speaking of nothing else weightier in the head, so bound up in jargon are Trumpkins, and so ill-informed, that a gaggle of them showed up at a July 29 meeting of the California GOP to protest a rules change at the behest of their political guru, DJT. They thought that it was the “establishment” trying to screw Trump, completely unaware that the rules change was concocted by the Trump campaign for the benefit of Trump. Whew, go figure.
Let’s examine the line of corpses along Trump’s path to power. Jeff Sessions, an early endorser and Trump’s first AG, was one of the first to end up on the cult’s blacklist. The Bushes, not as flamboyant as the orange man, were reduced to wishy-washy “neo-conservative” and “establishment”, not that most of the cult’s enthusiasts could define the words. Ex-military commanders such as John Kelley (chief of staff) and James Mattis (SecDef) quickly learned that working with an ignorant blowhard is untenable. Hawks of the peace-through-strength variety like John Bolton – the Democrats’ bette noir and now Trump’s – was tarred for not acceding to Trump’s impulsive isolationism. Bill Barr, Trump’s latest AG and bulwark against the Democrats’ Mueller grotesquerie, was blasted for not being sufficiently supportive of Trump’s stop-the-steal drivel. One could go on and on. The track record would invite the conclusion that anyone friendly to Trump will eventually become an enemy, given enough time. The closer you get, the more likely you will get burned.
It’s even true for that mainstay of conservatism, Mike Pence, VP under Trump. He’s now enemy # . . . for not rejecting Electoral College votes from states of Trump’s choosing on January 6. Trump besmirched Pence with the schoolyard taunt “Liddle Mike Pence” after Pence forthrightly recalled on Fox News, “The American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisers didn’t just ask me to pause. They asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election.” As if on cue, Trumpists showed up at a recent Pence event in New Hampshire yelling “traitor” and “sellout” as he tried to speak.
Pence heckled by Trump supporters in New Hampshire
The stupidity should blast anyone in the face still in charge of their wits. Trumpkins enjoy the jargon of epithets, such as “neo-conservative” as a substitute for adult reasoning. That abuse of “neoconservative” by Trumpkins obscures the policy reality of “peace through strength”. Strength for what? Yes, peace, but also a peace worth living. Reagan’s “evil empire” and “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” is the quintessence of what used to be standard Republican foreign policy. If Trump exercised a little (liddle?) self-reflection, it was his too. Only, since the guy doesn’t read – he’s “too smart” for that – Trump had to first see it on tv: the bodies of gassed children after an Assad bombing. It took tv before Trump realized that’s there’s something more to foreign policy than “America First” sloganeering.
Go figure, dump Reagan to chase after an opinionated cretin. I refuse to follow the lemmings. That old saw about the election being a binary won’t wash a third time. I am not going to let a cult force me into seeing Trump as our only bastion against neo-Marxism. If the country chooses neo-Marxism to Trump, which seems likely, many Republicans will have to face life outside the cult and the country will have to face life inside a hellscape. Republicans should have presented a better option to the country.
And that’s speaking truth to the . . . unhinged.
RogerG
Read more here:
* The Trump/Pence imbroglio is recounted in, of all places, Newsmax: “Trump Says ‘Liddle Mike Pence’ Has Turned to Dark Side”, August 6, 2023, at https://www.newsmax.com/politics/donald-trump-mike-pence-truth/2023/08/06/id/1129783/
* The ill-informed but excitable Trump following at the July 29 meeting of the California GOP: “Tensions flare as California GOP gives Trump a boost by overhauling state primary rules”, LA Times, July 29, 2023, at https://news.yahoo.com/tensions-flare-california-republicans-trump-211138809.html
“Give me the man, and I will find the crime [for him].” Stalin’s chief prosecutor, Andrey Vyshinsky, or Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s head of the NKVD (secret police)
Which one made the historic quote from the 1930’s in Bolshevik Russia? Possibly both, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the official governing philosophy of a country that long ago aborted the rule of law. The law is whatever those in power say it is, a classic definition of tyranny. Welcome to the USA, circa 2023.
Beria and StalinAndrey Vyshinsky
Execrable people do execrable things, such as pretend to use the law, absent any law, to target a person, just like the Stalin gang. To be honest, though, Donald J. Trump is an execrable character. Well, to be honest, Jack Smith, Special Counsel, is an execrable character. Well, to be honest, the entire cabal of talking heads of the Democratic Party and their media sycophants are pretty execrable characters. If for no other reason, this is damning proof of our descent to the level of governing respectability of the Assad regime (without the barrel bombs and poison gas) or Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan (from Freedom House’s list of the worst of the worst). Execrable potentates produce execrable government.
As such, banana republic may not go far enough in describing our fall from grace.
“Execrable” behavior, it must be admitted, is not necessarily a crime. Marriage infidelity is not a crime (ergo Bill Clinton and Donald Trump), but it certainly is ruinous to the pocketbook in divorce court and lawsuits. Ask them. Politically, the only decent way to remove execrable characters is to vote them out of the way, and hopefully not empower other execrables in the process. If a narcissistic, self-serving blowhard is not to your liking, here’s a clue, don’t vote for them. But don’t take a law and stretch it to the breaking point around the necks of the detestable-but-politically-viable, as is the habit of Jack Smith and his discreditable Washington, D.C., grand jury.
But such is the modus operandi of the Democratic Party. In the latest episode of the execrable targeting the execrable, Smith laid before us a third indictment of Trump. Read the monstrosity here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.232192/gov.uscourts.dcd.232192.275.0.pdf.
In the plethora of Trump verbalisms since the 2020 election, Smith (er, Vyshinsky) thinks that he found the smoking gun of Trump’s state of mind, because Smith’s overly distended application of the law demands clairvoyancy of the inner recesses of Trump’s brain. In a discussion with senior advisers, Trump alludes to a matter being turned over to the next president. What a thin reed to hang a political rival. Do I really need to go over this flimsy thread of legal mishmash?
Yesterday (8/2/23), Bill Barr, Trump’s ex-AG, went on CNN to declare that the indictment has validity. Hogwash. Entering into state-of-mind divination is a dubious gambit, and doubly so when aimed at one’s political rivals. Now, Barr may be right in that the indictment presents only a bare-bones preview of the case against Trump. Regardless, the appearance of impropriety will do more damage to our national reputation than any actual impropriety. If actions aren’t clearly illegal, delving into the equivalent of psychological augury won’t make them smell any better.
The administrative state’s open Democrat favoritism, the Russia Collusion hoax, the chicanery of the tech biggies and politicized intel heavies to shove Hunter’s laptop down the memory hole, the obvious double standards so numerous as to boggle the mind, etc., should make any sentient adult cringe. We have disqualified ourselves as assessors of any other nation’s governing practices. We should be under international observation, not be the observers. And I don’t need Barr’s mumbo-jumbo, whatever Barr’s state of mind might be, to mask the stench oozing out of this indictment.
The second impeachment had legitimacy, mostly because impeachment is as much a political act as anything. Trump’s behavior post-election was, and continues to be, reprehensible. Reprehensible behavior is impeachable. For all practical purposes, a legal pretext is nice but not necessary. Not everything can be innocently written off as Trumpiness.
The documents indictment similarly has legal legs. But prosecution for expressing a belief about some set of circumstances, whether actually believed or not, takes us into very dark and unsavory places. It’s the stuff of governance in most countries of the UN General Assembly and Putin’s Russia. Are poisonings and mysterious falls from 15-story windows next?
Are we a banana republic or something worse? What’s even more troubling is the fact that many of the people on the public stage and with ultimate authority are either supported or elected by us. Is this the best that we can come up with?
