I'm getting to an age that, when I look
out across the political landscape, I can pretty much, in most cases,
say (or think), “Oh yeah, I've seen that before” -- or “Here we
go again” -- or “What else is new?” or some such. There is no
more fruitful source of deja vu than politics, unless it's fashions
in clothing, which predictably recycle like clockwork every few years
or decades. When I talk to younger people about current events, and
find them puzzled/disoriented/confused, and mainly upset, I can
always go back to the Sixties as my baseline of reference for real
political strife – real alienation, real violence, real
generational and cultural gaps, and so forth. There was a civil war
going on back then, folks, let's face it. You can call it a
“cultural revolution” if you like, but in any case it was a high
water mark in the age-old story of rebellious youth vs. the
Establishment. Nothing that's happened since, and nothing that's
happening now, even comes close, I will say – in a manner that is
meant to assure whomever I'm speaking to that all is not lost, and
the world is not coming to an end. In other words, there is nothing
new under the Sun, as far as I'm aware... and as far as my personal
experience goes.
And yet here we are in the
Age/Era/Season of Trump, and it seems like genuinely new things are
happening – both quantitatively and qualitatively. And for a long
time, it seemed a puzzlement... but now I'm starting to understand,
or at least I think that I am. But before I explain, let's go over a
few salient points.
Yes, Trump is a character – and a bit
of a loose cannon. He has unconventional hair and a perpetual tan,
he talks like a New Yorker, and not an especially high-class one
either. He's in constant fighting mode, and has yet to learn what's
worth fighting over and what should simply be ignored. (In this, he
shows his marked difference from the average politician, who seems to
have remarkably thick skin. Or, at least, they can freely choose
what to get offended about, and not be constant victims of what's in
the morning paper or on TV or the Internet.) So all of these things
scream “outsider”, and Trump accepts that label and is justly
proud of it. Compared to previous “outsiders” who have reached
the very peak of American politics, he's way more of one than, say,
Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan. They had at least attended the school
of political hard knocks for a season – although in Carter's case,
it's hard to see what good it did. No, in Trump's case it's more
like he got selected at random from William F. Buckley's proverbial
phone book. And he's not even a typical businessman or a typical
billionaire; he's apparently atypical and an outlier in pretty much
every respect. In fact, his hair may be the most normal thing about
him.
And, although not an ideological
conservative, his program, when you get right down to it, contains
goals which, up until recently, would have been considered common
sense, and not all that unrealistic. But he is no absolutist, and
his proposals to date seem ripe for negotiation, except that he has
taken on the burden of making certain campaign promises which he
actually intends to keep (again, in a blatantly non-politician way),
so he's going to be in hot water with those who voted for him if he
starts getting too squishy. The “deplorables” who voted for him
tend to see things in a black-and-white way, and they are notoriously
impatient with business as usual in Washington, which is all about
wheeling and dealing, compromise, and cutting one's losses – and
mostly seeing to it that the ruling elite remain so, for their
exclusive fun and profit.
Plus, he has picked for his
administration a group of quite level-headed and experienced
individuals, which is atypical in that it defies the usual custom of
picking donors, supporters, cronies, and hacks. (Have you ever
wondered what some of these political types would do if they weren't
working for the government? One answer is that, once out of office,
they tend to disappear, although a good many transition smoothly into
lobbying organizations or NGOs. Some of then hang around Washington
in hopes that they will eventually be again called upon to donate
their skills and knowledge – such as they are – to a new
administration.)
In contrast, Trump's people actually
seem to want to get things done, and they have the knowledge base and
skills to do it – or, at the very least, have demonstrated that
they are fast learners. They enter the fray as high achievers in
other areas (military, business, etc.), which is another point of
contrast with the career politician, who is basically a one-trick pony, the trick being "getting elected to office". In this, they are, again,
superior to pretty much any group of high-level political appointees
I can recall over the past 50 years or so (unless you want to
consider JFK's “best and brightest” successful for getting us
into a war in Vietnam, or Henry Kissinger successful for aggravating
the situation in Southeast Asia, among many other lousy ideas).
(Please note that Kissinger was, and continues to be, the ultimate
globalist.)
But none of this apparent
reasonableness and moderation impresses the opposition, because since
Election Day they've been in the streets, and on the airwaves and the
Internet, screaming and turning purple, and having psychotic
breakdowns right in plain sight, over the “fact” that Trump is
not just another Hitler, but that he is Hitler, reincarnated
in some mysterious way. And if he is Hitler, as they all seem to
believe, the glory days of the Nuremberg rallies are long gone, and
he will never enjoy being chauffeured victorious through the streets
of Prague and Warsaw. No – he is already hiding deep in an
underground bunker in the middle of Berlin, shaking in fear every
time he hears the muffled thud of bombs going off overhead. His
movie is almost over; he's in the last scene, like Edward G. Robinson
in “Little Caesar”. (“Is this the end of The Donald?”) And
his followers are paralyzed with fear, and busy plotting ways to save
their skins once the administration collapses (any room on a slow
boat to Argentina?).
This is what passes for conventional
wisdom among the media and commentariat these days. Trump is on the
ropes, he's washed up, and his people are scattering like the
proverbial rats from a sinking ship. And of course, what little in
the way of governing they manage to eke out is quickly snuffed,
neutralized, and canceled by the efforts of the embedded bureaucracy
(now called “the Deep State”) which consists entirely of
holdovers from the previous administration who, for some mysterious
reason, cannot be removed because, among other things, they can't
even be found. (This is also, please note, a departure from politics
as usual, where the long knives come out the day after Inauguration
Day, and someone from the new administration shows up with “a
little list” like the guy in “The Mikado”.)
Not only that, but Trump has an
ex-president living just up the street, sharing an upscale house with
his most loyal staff members, and they are in charge not only of the
Deep State but of a shadow cabinet, which is ready to take back the
reins of power as soon as the pretender can be ejected from his
throne. And not only that, but – most dangerous of all – he has
the entire national security/intelligence apparatus arrayed against
him, and how is he supposed to conduct foreign policy (including
military operations) if they won't tell him anything he needs to
know, or if what they do tell him is designed to deceive, misdirect,
and sabotage? Any notion that the intel community, along with the
military, is on the conservative side of things has now been proven
quite wrong. If it were ever true, is no longer is. And it's no
real surprise, since, like anyone else in the system, they are
attracted to power and tend to gravitate toward it and toward
politicians who are willing to grant it. And in this, I might add,
both parties are guilty of giving away too much power, but the
consistently totalitarian tone of Democrat policies and programs
gives them an edge, and a greater claim on the loyalty of the intel
types. What better purpose for a world-wide intelligence apparatus
combined with a vast mercenary army than to establish and maintain a
one-world government?
So what we have here is, basically, an
interregnum – a person who is president, at least for the time
being, and who is nominally in charge, but who, in fact, has no power
and who is opposed by virtually everyone in Washington and in the
media, the Internet, Hollywood, etc. In other words, everyone hates
him except the people who voted for him, and I suspect that some of
them are starting to have their doubts. So he is flailing, and
everyone around him is flailing, and it's hard to see how they can do
otherwise. At least – once again – this is the conventional
wisdom. But there are data to back it up, and I have to note that
the only thing Trump has managed to do in a decisive way so far is
toss a few dozen cruise missiles at Syria, for the simple reason that
the only area of government where the mythical Congressional “checks
and balances” do not apply is in the area of starting and
perpetuating wars.
Strange, isn't it? Congress supposedly
has the sole power to declare war, but whoever came up with that
phraseology forgot that you can make war without declaring it. This
modern spin on things started with Korea, and continued with Vietnam,
and now here we are with the perpetual, endless “War on Terror”.
(And don't bother mentioning any of these pathetic “war powers
acts” by Congress when they occasionally regret their cowardice.
The attitude of whoever is president at the time is typically akin to
Stalin's -- “How many divisions does Congress have?”)
But if Trump doesn't have any power
aside from this, where does the power lie these days? With the
Republicans, who, despite their majorities in both the Senate and the
House, never seem to know what to do with power, and who, on any
given day, would probably really rather they didn't have any? No –
the power all lies with the minority, so-called – with the likes of
Schumer, Pelosi, Franken, and Feinstein. They're still pulling all
the levers, and they can because they are, in effect, the chief
operatives of the Deep State, with Obama at the top and Hillary
Clinton as empress-in-waiting. (And by the way, if you don't think
Hillary is planning a comeback long before 2020 rolls around, think
again. She can spot a weakness the way a vulture can spot an animal
that is on its last legs.) Apparently this cabal even has the power
to shut down the government, although they are in the minority in
both houses of Congress – thus another unfathomable mystery when it
comes to the American system. When the Democrats are in charge, they're in charge. And when they aren't in charge, they're still in charge. Figure that one out if you will.
But wait – I said at the beginning
that some things had developed that were truly new and unprecedented.
But isn't all of the above fairly typical, and differing primarily
in degree from prior episodes? There are always political holdovers
throughout the bureaucracy. The media always take sides, and prefer
one president over another and one party over another; the same holds
true of the academic community, Hollywood, the Internet, etc. And as
far as street demonstrations go, nothing these days can hold a candle
to the action back during the war in Vietnam. Hasn't every
presidential administration from, say, LBJ on, had to deal with
non-stop opposition from the first day to the last? There are no
longer any good losers in Washington, even though there are
occasionally good winners.
The answer, of course, is yes, it's all
happened before – but that's not where the difference lies. One
difference is in the sheer magnitude of the opposition – the fact
that it is not only non-stop, but is at a fever pitch day in and day
out, with no let-up. This hostility informs and infects virtually
every story that emanates from the mainstream media; it's headline
news each and every day. And as far as academics, Hollywood, and the
Internet are concerned, I don't think even LBJ had to deal with the
white-hot psychotic hatred from all quarters that Trump (and his
family, note) have to deal with. At least he could wave the Civil Rights Act in front of them, and dazzle them enough to make them temporarily forget the debacle in Vietnam.
So yes, it's a matter of degree, but
it's also a matter of kind, or of content. When I described the
Trump administration and its policies above, I was not, it seems to
me, describing anything that could ever set off this level of
hostility and violence (both verbal and physical, including the
threat of physical) . Most of these policies, if they had come from
some other – any other – administration, of either party, might
have set off some controversy and opposition, but nothing like what
we're seeing here. And when I go back and look at Trump's fabled
first news conference on Jan. 11, and his Mardi Gras speech to
Congress, and pretty much any public pronouncements that have
emanated from the White House since, I have to keep asking, why the
outrage? Why the hatred?
One clue is that, when you listen to,
or read, the protests, no matter the source, you will find that the
verbal content has very little to do with the actual programs or
goals of the administration. The subject matter may be the same in
some cases, but the sheer paranoia and wild exaggeration, fantasy,
delusion, and – yes – fake news makes that all beside the point.
In other words, the protests are not about what is actually taking
place, or what is intended, but about fantasies – an army of straw
men. The advantage, if I can call it that, is that if delusion and
fantasy are what is feeding into all of this, there is no satisfying
it. Nothing can be done to make it “OK”, because there are no
objective criteria; Trump has to go – period, full stop. Trump has
become the ultimate scapegoat for all that is wrong in America, a
mere three months into his administration – some kind of record, if
records of this sort were being kept.
So if it's not about the program per
se, or Trump's being an outsider per se, what is it about? Where
does all this negative energy come form? What is its source of
fuel? At least in the Sixties, it was easy to see what people were
protesting about, and it was real. The government was doing
genuinely terrible things both here and overseas, and so the protests
made sense; it would have been shameful if there had not been
widespread protests. But now there's this mismatch, both in
quantitative terms (magnitude, volume, violence) and in qualitative
terms (the mismatch described above). So what sustains it?
There's clearly much more going on here
than most people think – and it's not just about the “Deep
State”. (And I'm sorry that term has been expropriated to describe
something as temporary and dull as Obama holdovers in the
bureaucracy. I liked it better when it was another word for the
Regime, AKA “the people who are really in charge”, which has
nothing to do with civil servants, political appointees, or even
presidents. Now we'll have to adopt another term – like “Deeper
State”, the way Trump came up with “very fake news”.)
I said that Trump was an outsider, but
he's clearly more than that. I've already presented my theory about
incoming presidents, how they get “the talk” from representatives
of the Regime, at some point between the oath and the Inaugural Ball,
that basically lays out, in no uncertain terms, what their options
are and what they had better not fool with – or if they do, it will
be at their peril. What's happening right now is evidence that Trump
did, in fact, get “the talk” at some point, but basically told
whoever was delivering the message to stick it where the sun don't
shine, and to go back and tell whoever sent them to do the same
thing. So he declared war, and now he's at war; how could it be
otherwise?
Now, what is the main agenda of the
Regime? All evidence is that it's pretty much synonymous with what's
called globalism – and guess what, Trump is the first president who
has ever explicitly come out against globalism as not being in the
best interests of the American people. I suppose the last true
presidential anti-globalist, if there had even been such a concept back
then, could be said to be Calvin Coolidge. Every president since
then has been, to some degree, a globalist, either explicitly or
implicitly. A turning point – a tectonic shift – came when the
U.S. ceased to be the obvious and inevitable leader of the globalist
movement, and I would put that, at the latest, at the time of our
defeat in Vietnam. Someone at that point decided that globalism was
too important a project to be left in the hands of the stumbling,
bumbling U.S. Since then, foreign policy (ours and everyone else's)
has been in the hands of an anti-nationalist, globalist elite, most
likely centered in Europe, but not synonymous with the EU by any
means. They issue orders, and we follow; it's as simple as that.
Everything else in foreign policy and in military activity is noise
level.
So if this is Job One of the Regime,
and they run into a president who is unwilling to cooperate, what do
you think is going to happen? They will call all of their resources
into play, and this will include (1) already-brainwashed (thanks to
the public, i.e. government, schools) college and university students
(the “snowflakes” being the most readily manipulated, and no more
than cannon fodder to whoever is running the show); (2) Hollywood,
which has been signed on to globalism for nearly as long as it has
existed; (3) the mainstream media, ditto; (4)
liberals/Democrats/Progressives, ditto; and (5) mainstream
Republicans, who have been globalists starting at least with
Eisenhower's administration. (Who talked about a “new world
order”? A Republican! I doubt that Trump has much use for that
idea.)
Now let's review. Who is wedded and
dedicated to globalism, along with all of its ancillary features like
anti-nationalism, world government, open borders, economic leveling,
social leveling, socialized medicine, government educational
monopolies, totalitarianism of all sorts (especially with regard to
information and law enforcement), and “diversity” (which is a
hoax and an actual stalking horse for total conformity)? And who is
completely energized and going completely mental about Trump? The
answer: The same people. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with
Trump as a person, or with any of his associates, or his
administration, or its programs, policies, and plans – with the
exception of any that come into conflict with the globalist agenda
(and let's admit that the attack on Syria may have been a way of
walking back, to some extent, Trump's prior “reckless” statements
in opposition to globalism).
The apparently missing link is between
the Regime and the vast army of protesters, demonstrators, mass
hysterics, and everyone else who is on the verge (or past it) of a
nervous breakdown about Trump. After all, the Regime is “up there”,
and only comes out in public for occasional confabs like Davos. But
like any military organization, it has a structure, and a hierarchy,
and resources, and – most important of all – ways in which orders
get efficiently passed down from the top to the foot soldiers. How
else do these mobs of protesters appear out of thin air every time
there's a person, or a meeting, or some other event that is
considered worthy of protest? (If only SEAL Team Six were that
responsive!) Why do all mainstream media outlets parrot the same
“talking points” at the same time, using the exact same words and
phrases? Why do the Hollywood, entertainment, and Internet types
erupt pretty much simultaneously whenever the most minute issue or
event attracts their attention? Clearly there is a single source of
orders, instructions, guidance – call it what you will. The
opposition can no longer be described as an aggregate of individuals
(assuming it ever could); it is now behaving like a single organism –
a great steaming blob with millions of hands, eyes, and voices, like
something out of a horror movie.
And there also has to be a source of
funding; start with communications staff, and transportation to and
from the demonstration du jour. And let's not overlook the fact
that, although many of the demonstrators are activists and amateurs
(i.e. unpaid) there is invariably a core group of professionals –
the ones dressed all in black, with face masks. They're not there
for their health; they're there because they're paid to be there.
And where do these funds come from? It's not because the protesters
hand around foam cups to collect contributions. The Regime includes
any number of extremely wealthy individuals who are very good at
scattering resources where they will do the most good.
And this is not to say that many of the
street protesters, and many of the hooters and hollerers in the
media, Hollywood, etc. aren't sincere in their delusions. The
mistake they're making is in assuming that they are acting
independently and spontaneously, whereas the truth is that they're
being manipulated and exploited. They are – to use an overworked
term – the “useful idiots” of our time, the middle-class
reincarnation of the lumpen proletariat of a bygone era.
Plus, please note that among the most
intensive areas of operation of the Regime are in foreign
intelligence (CIA, NSA) and immigration – both foreign policy
matters. When it comes to strictly domestic matters, they could not
care less, although issues such as Obamacare are useful in that they
tend to mobilize the opposition.
It all makes perfect sense, when you
think about it – and it's not even all that controversial. We know
that globalism has been a trend going back to Wilson (for us) and the
Bolsheviks (for the USSR). We know that the trend was accelerated
during FDR's administration, which segued into World War II, which
segued into the U.N., which was the first successful (as opposed to
the League of Nations) explicitly globalist organization. Every U.S.
administration has signed on, and pretty much every European
administration as well – at least since World War II. But then
along came Brexit on their side of the Atlantic, and Trump on our
side – and the parallels between the two have been drawn out in
great detail, so I don't need to add anything. And Brexit was only
the most obvious case of resurgent nationalism in Europe – you
know, that oddball trend that the globalists invariably describe as
“fascist”, and their leaders as “Hitlers” and “Nazis”.
(Did Hitler really give nationalism a bad name for all time? It
appears so, because there can be no other reason for it – or so the
opposition says – than a burning desire to return to the glory days
of the Third Reich. Fire up the ovens! Get the cattle cars back on
the tracks! Der Trumpmeister is in charge, and can't wait to lead
the master race to victory.)
So it appears that what was weird and
mysterious has now become simple and almost obvious. There are many
nuances and subtexts, of course – and many points of debate. And
Trump is not the perfect anti-globalist by a long shot. (Ron Paul
would have been.) His blind pursuit of the already-failed War on
Islam, oops, I mean War on Terror neatly fits into the globalist
agenda. For one thing, it requires massive resources in order to
support perpetual war, which in turn impoverishes the economy in
other areas and makes people more dependent on government, which
makes government more powerful and accelerates the trend toward
totalitarianism. Mission accomplished! For another thing, it makes
the Euro-American-Israeli Regime more cohesive (despite minor
annoyances like Brexit) by defining a perpetual enemy – the
ultimate “Other” -- namely, Islam/Terror. So we're off to war to
defeat a religion and a feeling – wow, it makes most other wars
seem downright sane and just.
But if the American Empire – its care
and feeding – is symbiotic with globalism, resurgent nationalism,
especially of the economic and cultural sort, is not. And in fact,
the American Empire is not American at all, but is a subset of the
globalist military empire, except that we have been duped into doing
all of the heavy lifting (and most of the dying). It's one thing to
have a dull-witted servant at one's beck and call, but when that
servant starts to get funny ideas about national pride and autonomy,
it's time to put him in his place.
And by the way, speaking of
brainwashing – this newfound reverence for Islam and Muslims amazes
me. It was not that long ago that, as far as nearly all Americans
were concerned, Muslims, and especially Arabs, were the lowest of the
low... the scum of the earth, basically. The notion of them some day
having any “rights”, or claims, would have been considered absurd
– and by no one more than the same college/university students (or
the same types, anyway) who are now falling all over themselves to
provide what amounts to affirmative action for Muslims. This is
nothing more than an instance of brainwashing – and you can bet
that if the people in charge decided to turn their hordes of flying
monkeys back into haters of Muslims, they could do it in no time.
Why is it so easy? Because there are no principles involved, the
same way “principles” of any sort are no longer part of the
curriculum in nearly every institution of “higher education”. If
everything is political, and everything is arbitrary, anything can be
changed at the drop of a hat for any reason, or for no reason. (One
has only to recall that the USSR turned on a dime when the glory days
of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact ended abruptly with the Nazi invasion
of Russia.) This is one of the great blessings of the value-free
culture that the globalists, among others, have concocted for us over
the years – with the full cooperation of all the usual suspects.
I would say that, as a general rule,
the more people you see freaking out about something that is just in
their fevered imagination, and the more severe the freak-out, the
more likely you are to be seeing the product of brainwashing. The
current round of demonstrations reminds me of nothing more than what
goes on all the time in North Korea, or what went on in China during
the Cultural Revolution. And the people involved, far from having
any steadfast principles, are infinitely malleable; this is what
makes them so useful to the controllers. Political correctness is,
by definition, political... and mob rule is the end result of the
devolution of a political system into nothing but politics.
Political processes are supposed to serve a greater good – but when
politics is the only good, it becomes a destructive force like
no other.
It's small consolation, I guess, but
one thing about mob rule that people tend to forget is that the mob
can turn on its controllers; it has happened before, any number of
times in history. Today's demagogue, being carried on the shoulders
of the adoring masses, can tomorrow be on the way to the gallows.
(Just ask Georges Danton.) And revolutions do have a way of cannibalizing
themselves. Occasionally justice will out – or at least karma will
set in. But there has to be a lot of discomfort in the meantime.
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