Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Who are the Real White Supremacists?


Picture this: A classic line-up, like in the old crime movies. The witnesses: A motley assortment of cultural “agents of change”, including one representative each from Hollywood, the mainstream media, TV, Broadway, the Democratic Party, and of course the SPLC. The accusation: The “hate crime” of being a “white supremacist”. And the line-up includes one each from the following: (1) Neo-Nazis/skinheads/officially-white-supremacist groups; (2) a representative of the “alt-right” (might or might not be a Breitbart staffer); (3) a member of the Republican Party; (4) a member of the Trump administration; (5) a representative of the high-tech Valhalla called Silicon Valley; and (6) a representative of the international financial cartel (banks, brokers, and various and assorted money changers).

Obviously, with no further information, the witnesses will unanimously declare the members of groups 1 and 2 to be, unambiguously, white supremacists. And, after a bit of hesitation and perhaps with some qualifications, they won't fail to declare members of groups 3 and 4 likewise. As for groups 5 and 6, some good-natured chuckling will be heard – surely those groups are just fillers, just brought in to make the proceedings seem fair and impartial. It would be the most ridiculous thing in the world for anyone to seriously suspect our moguls of the digital and Internet age, or members of the international financial cartel (who are, after all, globalists by definition, and hence to be counted among the anointed elite before whom we should all bow at every opportunity), of anything as nasty, atavistic, and primitive (not to mention testosterone-laden) as white supremacy.

And yet those last two groups are, in fact, the supreme white supremacists on the planet; no one else even comes close.

Here is my argument. While the Neo-Nazis/skinheads/officially-white-supremacist groups may talk the the talk... and while the “alt-right” may say the same thing on occasion, but in a more gentlemanly manner, the ones walking the walk are those with global reach – politically and economically (and therefore militarily as well). And they, in turn, have the resources to pressure the very groups that whine endlessly about “white supremacism”, and bend them to their will. In other words, the “progressives” are doing the white supremacists' work for them.

How does this happen? Well, first we have to think about what white supremacism is and what it is not. It is, basically, the notion that the white race is superior, period – not based on history or current marks of achievement, but “just because”. And this -- let's say primitive -- point of view is little more than simple cohesion that can be found in any racial group – or, let's say, any racial group that has a will to survive. It's the ancient paradigm of Us vs. Them – of my group (race, ethnic group, tribe) vs. The Other. And as such it's human nature – or at least human nature before it is reshaped by the “agents of change” (such reshaping being, of course, notoriously ineffectual, and serving mainly to drive formerly normal and acceptable attitudes underground).

But more than one outcome can come from this basic attitude. One is the feeling that “we're the best”, but along with it comes a benign, even paternalistic (or condescending, if you like) attitude toward other races – thus the nearly-forgotten memes like “the noble savage” (referring to Native Americans) and “our little black brothers”. The point is that those other races, although considered inferior, are not only tolerated and wished no harm, but may actually be the object of charity (as they, in fact, are). But they are objects of charity precisely because they are considered inferior – and hopelessly so. But – and so the implicit logic goes – because they are perennial objects of charity, that constitutes further evidence of their inferiority. (If this rings a faint bell it's no accident.)

But then there is the other main branch of the white supremacy tree, which is more like a zero-sum premise. In order for us (the white race) to prosper, the other races have to be subdued, and there are many ways this can be expressed – political discrimination, economic exploitation, devaluing in general, unequal application of laws, and, in the extreme, slavery or even outright genocide. And history is replete with examples of all of these, and more besides. And the decision, by the dominant race, as to which of these options to elect – or which combinations to elect – varies according to economic circumstances, above all. The root of what is called “racism” is fear, certainly – but the paramount fear is nearly always the fear of The Other – the alien -- “taking over” in some way, the expected result being that “I” will wind up having less of what I have, and “They” will have some, if not all, of what I should have had. In other words, in boils down, more often than not, to issues of property, resources, income, and wealth, with other factors like skin color, cultural habits, language, religion, etc. being secondary, or reduced to mere window dressing. (Another way of putting it, in the case of African-Americans, is that skin color is a simple, easily-detected surrogate for other factors which are less visible and more complex.) (And if white people are so innately afraid of dark skin, why do they spend so much time and money getting deep tans each summer, hmmm?)

One can see this very clearly when it comes to the issue of immigration, which is styled a “racism” issue by the open-borders crowd, but which is, more than anything else, a matter of economics – although crime and lifestyle issues have some relevance as well, as does the “changing the face of America” notion, although I would be willing to bet that that is, again, more window dressing than anything else. (For, after all, America has, and has always had, more than one face, which is easy enough to discover if one is willing to venture more than a few miles from one's birthplace.)

I'll go further than that. I've always felt that slavery (of blacks by whites in the American South) was not an example of racism, although it was certainly the essence of white supremacy. The whites didn't hate the slaves for being black; in fact, I doubt they hated them at all. Blacks were a commodity and a resource; they were bought and sold, not unlike livestock or land or farm equipment or real estate. The fact that they also happened to be human beings was briefly noted by some, ignored by others, and made into a political movement by Northern activists. And here was, of course, a great political divide, but it was more subtle than the current wisdom would recognize. Among Southerners who considered blacks to be an inferior species, there were no regrets about slavery (other than, perhaps, the same kind of regret one might feel about mistreatment of horses or other livestock). Among those who recognized the humanity of the slaves, but also recognized that they were essential to the Southern economy, there was considerable ambivalence and regret – and this has been extensively documented. And I'm sure there were Southerners who refused to own slaves on principle (and not because they were too expensive), but who more or less kept their opinions to themselves. In the North, on the other hand, I can't believe that all was lily-white (so to speak). For one thing, it was Northern merchants who had a vital role to play in the slave trade; they may not have owned slaves (although many did in colonial times) but they were perfectly happy to ship them between Africa and the South. And I imagine there were Northerners who would have been perfectly happy to own slaves if the opportunity was there. As always down through history, the activists – the anti-slavery movement – were a minority, at least at the start, and possibly right up to the Civil War. If the citizens of the North were anything like citizens these days, the most common attitude was probably along the lines of “I don't want to get involved”, “It's none of my business”, “It's a Southern thing”, “I don't know any black people”, or even “They're probably better off than they would have been if they'd stayed in Africa” -- that last being a notion that persists to this day when it comes to the descendants of the slaves.

Now, having said all that, I also imagine that there was a more or less instantaneous attitude change among Southern whites after the war was lost (the Emancipation Proclamation only having made the end of slavery official). Suddenly, blacks were a threat – politically, economically, and in many other ways – so if “racism” didn't exist prior to that date, that would be when it began in the South. (Some insight into this phenomenon can be gained from viewing the D. W. Griffith classic, “Birth of a Nation” -- assuming one can even find it these days.)

The point I'm trying to make is that racism is not only about skin color. In fact, it may not even be primarily about skin color; there is always more to it. But skin color does, obviously, have symbolic significance and is an easy marker – a bit of perceptual shorthand, if you will. In any case, any form or degree of racism, since it represents fear of The Other, also represents a preference for one's own group, and an at least implied feeling of the superiority of one's own group – in short, white supremacy, even if it's not called that or if that is not a major theme in the debate. It could even take the form of believing that blacks are equal in pretty much every way – beyond mere legal equality – but that they're still alien in some sense, and therefore deserving of no more than second-class citizenship. There are as many nuances to this issue as there are people concerned with it, I suppose – since of all the political and social issues of our time, this is the one that permeates all areas of society the most, and about which it is the most impossible to be neutral, apathetic, or ignorant. (The announcement that the election of Barack Obama in 2008 reflected that we had become a “post-racial” society was a masterpiece of propaganda, or naiveté, or both. If anything, positions have hardened since then.)

Let us now shift gears and talk about that erstwhile progressive movement called eugenics, of which the sainted heroine and leader in this country was none other than Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and still held in the highest esteem by liberals, progressives, environmentalists, Utopians, and all right-thinking citizens. This concept and movement was based on the premise that, contrary to the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg address, all men are not created equal – that there are many points of superiority of the white race over other races, and of the healthy over the handicapped, and of the dim-witted over the clever. And no one, please note, objected to this premise in strident tones, or in any tones at all as far as I'm aware, with the possible exception of the Catholic Church.

From this basic premise flow a number of possible consequences. One – the most benign – would be to provide adequate prenatal care and nutrition, and procedures to maximize the chances of a healthy birth, combined with enlightened infant care (including, most obviously, breast feeding – and we forget that in former times that was considered nasty, primitive, and unsanitary – and a habit of the lower classes). These measures might (and have been proven to) reduce the incidence of handicaps both physical and mental. And this may very well have been part of the eugenics movement, at least at the beginning.

But this, sadly, was not good enough to insure a happy, healthy society on the road to Utopia – so sterner measures had to be adopted, starting, of course, with “family planning”, which is another word for birth control, which is the same as contraception (again, at first). And this was all presented as “education” -- i.e. of the racially, ethnically, and economically inferior classes – and as a way to free women from the tyranny of men and their unbridled lusts, and from the burden of bearing and raising children – at least more children than someone in polite society should have, which is generally considered two, i.e. “replacement level” (but not quite). (And, please note, there was plenty of implicit and not-so-implicit religious bigotry at work here, which was a natural extension of the anxiety – already nearly a century old – about various ethnic immigrant groups, most of which were Catholic, invading our shores. Catholics – then as now (mistakenly) – were notorious for having “all those children” because the Pope ordered them to. And once again, it's the fear of The Other on the surface, but really the fear of aliens flooding in and “taking over”.) So all across the land, bourgeois (and Protestant, if that) women in big flowered hats were getting together of an afternoon over tea, and regretting how the populations of various alien elements (starting with the Irish, I guess) had gotten out of control, and pledging both time and money to rescue their less fortunate sisters from squalor. One of the pillars of “Americanization” was to get these new arrivals to “control themselves” and have smaller families – again, to deal the the threat of them “taking over”.

And on the professional medical side, the campaign took other forms, including mass sterilization of black women and of the “feeble-minded”, among others. Science saves the day! But of course it didn't end there. Eventually, crude methods of contraception were replaced (but not entirely) by “the Pill” -- and we can debate far into the night as to the overall impact of the Pill on women's health. But there were plenty of other techniques as well, all receiving the seal of approval from medical and public health entities, which were almost unanimously "progressive" in their orientation.  

And, as we all know, the culmination of all of this was the legalization of abortion, which was commonly presented as a last resort -- “when all else fails”, including abstinence (always a dead letter), non-pharmaceutical methods like spacing or “rhythm”, and contraception. So in a sense, legalized (and often free) abortion is the end game, or the reductio ad absurdum, of progressivism; the road to Utopia, it turns out, must run through a vast graveyard.

At this point it bears mentioning that abortion has now gone beyond alleged economic necessity or convenience, and morphed into a hard-core eugenicist agenda, namely the elimination of the handicapped (and those deemed likely to be handicapped). And what is presented as “merciful” for the parents (mainly the mothers) is, clearly, nothing more than an economic consideration for those in charge; why should anyone who will inevitably be handicapped, and thus a burden to society, be allowed to live, i.e. be born?

Please note that this argument is made by the very same people who campaigned for the Americans with Disabilities Act, and who are unwavering in their support for “accommodations” for every sort of physical, mental, and emotional disability, regardless of the economic and social cost. What it boils down to is that the progressives have claimed for themselves the right to determine who is, and who is not, a human being and thus deserving of life. The unborn have no rights because they are not human, but the born have rights no one ever dreamed of up until recently.

Except! There is also a quiet but growing movement in favor of, let's call it, retroactive abortion, another word for infanticide. Simply being born is no longer enough; now there has to be a kind of trial period during which the individual's fitness is determined by “experts” -- which is another way of saying how well they will fit into society with the minimum expense and inconvenience. (Whoever is afraid of “death panels” as an inevitable facet of socialized medicine has to start here.)

To give credit where credit is due, these progressives are more consistent than those for whom the mere technicality of birth is the great divide. If the powers that be can declare that the unborn are not (yet) human, they should certainly be able, and entitled, to declare born children not yet human, until certain factors are checked off on a list. In other words, if the definition of life is political rather than medical, then let us make the most of it – and this includes, by the way, the “brain dead” and other hopeless cases resulting from injury or disease, and of course the elderly. Value to society becomes paramount, and anyone deemed of no, or negative, value can be justifiably eliminated. If this sounds like a page out of the basic text for Nazism, it is, and not coincidentally because the Nazis were great fans of Margaret Sanger (as were others of like mind in Europe as well as the U.S.).

All of the above points could be expanded on at greater length, but I want to get back to the main theme, which is “white supremacism”, real or alleged. Surely, if one is the more vicious sort of white supremacist, they will have absolutely no problem with birth control/abortion programs that always seem to be aimed at minorities. (Whether there is conscious racism involved can be debated, but what is called in other contexts “adverse impact” cannot. The numbers are there, and they are striking.) In fact, if I were a white supremacist I would donate every spare dime I had to Planned Parenthood. And for all I know, that is what some skinheads/Neo-Nazis do with money they don't spend on beer, junk food, and motorcycles.

And what about the “Alt-Right”? Are they in favor of eugenics? Because there is, after all, a considerable overlap between the alt-right and conservatism, and conservatives are reliably opposed to any progressive/liberal programs, including free abortion on demand for any reason. What I suspect is that some members of the “Alt-Right” are secretly not all that upset about the abortion industry's focus on people who are likely to become wards of the state and/or troublemakers. Others are willing to accept those costs in order to adhere to pro-life principles. I would not want to be the one calling for a “show of hands” on this question at an Alt-Right gathering – not that there would be any guarantee of honest answers.

Charity is where you find it – and it's an odd thing when charity is selectively directed at certain categories of the powerless but not at others. The same can be said of “humanism”; which humans are deserving and which ones are not? What I will call “radical” or “heroic” charity can be found – or so it appears – primarily among seriously religious people, with Catholics leading the way more often than not. It's a mindset that is also found among traditional missionaries – to honor all life, regardless of physical or mental status or potential – and regardless of religious convictions, for that matter. Do the good works of missionaries stop at the church door? Not that I'm aware. I doubt very much if St. Teresa of Calcutta quizzed the sick and destitute as to their belief systems prior to accepting them for care.

But moving right along, we now come to Republicans and “Trumpists”, and here I suspect that many, if not most, are pretty much convinced that the white race is superior – or that, at the very least, it has contributed more on the plus side to humanity and to world history than other races. The more intellectual among them will defend the “Western tradition”, and point to Europe (historic, not current) as the exemplar. But at the same time, I don't think that premise keeps them from maintaining a basically charitable attitude toward other races... and I certainly don't think it has convinced any of them to give up the pro-life vs. pro-choice fight. If you want to say, well, it's all just politics and cynicism, I will point to cases where political futures have been threatened, or terminated, because a politician was insufficiently “pro-choice”. They were willing to pay the price for their inconvenient beliefs.

I'll go further than that. I suspect that many of our conservative (of whatever variety) politicians, being believers in God, fear that the triumph of abortion has put our (presumed) privileged status as a nation and as a society at risk. In other words, if America is, in any sense, “God's country”, how much longer can it remain so if abortion is not only legal but, by and large, tolerated? One can find testimonies to this effect in many speeches and writings by conservative politicians... and again, I think there's more going on there than base politics. Personally, I'm willing to accept what they say as their actual beliefs until proven otherwise. So if they are, nonetheless, white supremacists, it's white supremacism of the softest, most benign sort.

Now we come to the true villains of the piece – the titans of American industry and their colleagues across the water. If you like to follow the money, then by all means let's do so. American high-tech moguls may not be unanimous in this respect, but they are nearly so – they provide tremendous financial as well as political support for... well, you pick the term. “Family planning”... “reproductive rights”... “population control”... and so many other bloodless terms for what is, in actuality, a very bloody business. And what is the focus of all their support? Why, the “third world”, of course, which, oddly enough, seems populated (or over-populated) almost exclusively by persons of a non-white persuasion.

So what is their motive? Granted, they are all Utopians to some degree or other – and they dream of a perfect world... not the “next world”, which I suspect never crosses their minds, but making this world perfect... in their own image, if you will. The whole world ought to be like Silicon Valley. But there are things standing in the way. One is, of course, religion, which they like to call “superstition”. Others are nasty old things like traditions, customs, ethnic identity, and of course the great mantra of our time, “racism/sexism/homophobia”. “Why can't these people just... I don't know... get their act together? What's wrong with them? But we can help!” (Do I hear echoes of colonialism, and of the “white man's burden”? Freakin' right I do!)

And thus begins the next long march. First it was humanism (with the French Revolution as the key energizing event), then “Manifest Destiny” (a polite term for genocide against the American Indians), then international communism, then the long march through American institutions (which has resulted in, among other things, the nice library lady now being an “agent of (radical social) change”), and now the eugenics/population control continuum, which is championed and enforced by allegedly benign entities like the United Nations.

And of course there is an economic component to all of this; in fact it's the single biggest component. Nary does one head of a Silicon Valley titan fall upon the pillow after a hard day's work than he will be jolted awake in the dark of night by visions of numberless hordes of darker-skinned people than he forming a bridge across the ocean like army ants and surging up the California coast with nothing else in mind but invading his palatial gated estate and taking his stuff. The invading armies have already taken over great swaths of Europe (wherever not seriously resisted), but the Rio Grande is a lot closer. Military action (which they could procure if need be) is too crude and ham-handed – at least for the time being. So the problem has to be attacked at the root – namely reproduction (one blushes to think upon this, but one must press on). And so we have plane loads of contraceptives being parachuted onto dusty third world fields... and agents of change under the U.N. flag trying to convince women (and men, if need be) that this family and children thing is overrated... and, as usual – and not even as a last resort – abortion for all, and don't worry about what those silly old priests, pastors, and witch doctors say. Sterilization is the future! (When actually it's a non-future.) And this has gotten to the point where third world leaders are, basically, bribed by the U.N. and other entities to accept what amounts to the soft genocide of their own people, in exchange for a panoply of “benefits”. (Oh, wait – hasn't the same deal been worked out with the “black leadership” in this country? Or am I just imagining things?)

A further irony – why is the Third World suddenly showing not only a striking ability to reproduce, but an equally striking ability to have most of those who are born survive to adulthood, and thus to reproductive age? A lot of it has to do with advances in medicine, sanitation, and nutrition... and those are, in turn, by and large products of guess who, the Western, i.e. white, powers – America and Western Europe. So we invested heavily in the welfare of the Third World – in an act of charity, at least to some extent – and now we seem to be plagued by regret. “Oh, wait – you mean that if you provide improved medical care, sanitation, and nutrition, you wind up getting more people? More than you want, in fact? More than are “sustainable”? Well golly gosh, who'd a thunk it?” So in that sense, we created a monster – a well-nourished one – and said monster is now taking over considerable chunks of Paris (cue Mickey Mouse as “The Sorcerer's Apprentice”). Another way of putting it is that the road to Utopia has, as its goal, enhancement of “quality of life”, while at the same time suppressing quantity of life. Any Utopian vision you can name (and there are many) paints a picture of, basically, an all-middle class world ruled by an elite – or, failing that, a massive slave army ruled by an elite, with a middle class remnant populating the bureaucracy. And this vision has, in fact, been realized more than once in the 20th Century, most prominently by totalitarian regimes, but to a less extent by “soft” socialistic regimes. But their work is not yet done.

Finally we turn to the global elite, AKA The Regime (as opposed to national regimes, which come and go at an alarming rate). And actually, all that I said about the high-tech/media/entertainment/political regime in this country can be applied on a global basis as well, since our home-grown elites have become (assuming they weren't always) a subsidiary of the global entity. Their world views are the same, their goals are the same, and their techniques are, basically, the same. If there are uneasy heads among the elite in this country, then there are equally uneasy heads among the global elite – perhaps even more so since the tide of humanity they dread is already lapping at their doorstep. Utopia is on their mind, make no mistake – a perfect world with them in charge and with anything that threatens it in the cross hairs. And the Europeans are no amateurs in this matter; all we have to do is recall the vision of “The New Soviet Man” in the USSR, or “the Master Race” in Nazi Germany. They showed the way; their mistake was in being too obviously radical and ham-handed about it. They could not harness the propaganda potential of the world-wide media, “entertainment”, and the Internet because those things didn't exist up until recently. But all of these difficulties have been overcome, not in small part because of the influence of the United Nations, but also aided by the global reach of the banking and “securities” industries. Plus, the USSR and Nazi Germany still held out for their respective brands of nationalism, whereas “nationalism” has now become a dirty word, and something to be avoided and suppressed whenever and wherever found. This is why Brexit has caused such an uproar, and why resurgent nationalism in Europe is subject to perpetual criticism and indignation – and why, needless to say, the Trump phenomenon has caused the globalists to come out of the woodwork. Based on the reactions of the elite and of their unthinking robotic army of flying monkeys, it is clear that globalism is the new world religion, with all other liberal/progressive causes being subordinate. You name the liberal/progressive cause or obsession, and I'll show you its intimate connection with globalism, and thus with Utopianism on a world scale. And lest the “check engine” light labeled “conspiracy theories” on your dashboard has come on, I will merely point out that none of this is the least bit secret; it's an open agenda which is pursued openly, in broad daylight – such is the confidence that those in charge of pursing the agenda have in its success. But the Achilles heel of all of this is in that little phrase, “demographics are destiny”. As secure as the elite are in their fortresses (and yes, they do believe in walls after all) they are having as hard a time dealing with human nature as the Soviets and Nazis did. Most of the human race is still (without necessarily knowing it) obeying the command given to Noah and his sons: “Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth.”


Thursday, November 16, 2017

Assume the Position


The conventional wisdom in real estate is that location is everything. To which we might add, timing is also everything. I recall the gas crises back in the 1970s when the market for homes outside the Beltway – i.e., more than 30 minutes away from downtown or the Mall – went comatose. That was the time to buy, of course, since the minute gasoline became plentiful again real estate in the D.C. suburbs started on its course to stratospheric heights – a trend which continues to this day. (I've always felt that there is a certain poetic justice in the fact that the people who believe themselves entitled to tell everyone else how to live their lives have to, themselves, live with astronomical housing prices as well as grotesque traffic jams from pre-dawn to far into the night.) (Not to mention the truly horrific summer weather.)

It's a similar story in politics. Location – and let us translate that to “position” or “stance”, or even “optics” -- is everything, and timing is everything as well. It's a truism that what motivates politicians above all – Job One – is running for office, winning, and then staying in office... and they will pretty much do, and say, whatever it takes in order to achieve those goals. Politicians in our time can rarely be described as men (or women) of principle, and it's enough to make one weep to consider the Founding Fathers, who were, by comparison, philosophers – and deep thinkers when it came to the nature of man, society, the significance of America, and government. By comparison, today's politicians, while some may be technically intelligent, are total knuckle-draggers when it comes to real thinking, and, in way too many cases, moral imbeciles. So for them survival is not only Job One, but the only thing that makes any sense. “Public service” is something they talk about, and pretend to believe in, but judging by their behavior it winds up on the cutting room floor, more often than not.

If it's true that we get the government we deserve, then it must also be true that we get the leaders and, in general, the politicians we deserve. The basic model for the American Experiment included the concept of an informed and enlightened citizenry – and this was back in the days when “the press” involved setting type by hand and printing one sheet at a time. What we have evolved into is a world of information... of nothing but information, in fact, but most of it is noise disguised as information – random outpourings of the monster we call “the media” which are designed to keep us safely locked in our respective cocoons while believing that we are “informed”.

And politicians are victims of this system as well; let's face it. They tend – if we believe even half of what they say – to be even more deluded than the bulk of the citizenry. They believe – or claim to believe – in ideas that were suspect from the beginning, and which have long since been shown to be delusional and destructive. They are not only creatures of the media, but are totally dependent on those media for their survival – for the sustaining of their image. If politicians are Dr. Frankenstein and the media are the monster, then it's clear that the monster has taken over the castle and that the hapless doctor has to bend to his every whim.

There's nothing terribly new about any of this, and in fact the “Information Age” got under way in earnest soon after World War II, although there were precursors (like radio), and of course the printed word has been with us always – or so it seems. And there's no sense pretending that there is, or ever has been, any such thing as pure, unbiased “news”. Any medium, no matter how venerable, has, to some degree, been an instrument of influence, opinion-making, and propaganda, and the average citizen has ever been at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding events outside his immediate purview. (I recall that we used to regularly mock and make fun of the obvious and blatant propaganda organs of the Soviet Union, like Pravda, Izvestia, and Radio Moscow. That was before we discovered how many American newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV stations were firmly under the thumb of the CIA.) (And don't even get me started on Radio Free Europe, whose broadcasts were, mysteriously, unavailable to anyone living in the U.S.)

But again, this is all business as usual, and no surprise to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock since infancy. We are doomed to act not on what we know (which is very limited in scope) but on what we think we know, or what we believe, or what we (as my high school chemistry teacher used to say ) “fancy”. Ignorance is our lot, sadly. And that ignorance is only aggravated by the amount of time we spend riveted to, and obsessing about, “the news”. It can be said that the more we think we know, the higher a percentage of our “knowledge” is delusion and flights of fancy. (Back when the Cold War was still hot, I used to imagine being up in front of a philosophy class and challenging them to prove to me that there was such a place as Russia (anyone who had actually been there was disqualified). No one was ever able to do this – but, of course, it was only my imagination so who knows?) (The idea was that “Russia” may have been no more than a fictitious bogeyman invented by the government in order to scare people into supporting massive arms buildups and the military draft.) (And here we are in 2017 and the bogeyman hiding under everyone's bed and plotting to steal their vote is -- Russia!)

So in a sense we can pity the politicians, since they are in the same epistemological boat as the rest of us. The problem is that, even though they are fellow victims, they take advantage of the situation to further victimize others. They are adept at the “fact” game, and the “truth” game; they are fast talkers (if not fast thinkers) and just love to tell us what we want to hear, even if it's terrifying. The goal of what I will call verbal terrorism is, of course, to frighten us into not only giving up our common-sense view of things, but becoming helpless and dependent, and easy prey for them and whoever comes along afterward. Think of it as them gaming the system in their favor, the way certain wily prison or concentration camp inmates will somehow gain advantages in power, influence, and resources through scheming, wile, and social dominance (all familiar traits of politicians). Yes, they are in the system, they are victims in a way, and they harbor many of the same delusions the rest of us do, but within those constraints they manage to turn things to their advantage.

Consider now the dilemma of the current crop of politicians in Congress. Actually, consider the dilemma of the Republicans, since the Democrats are facing no dilemma whatsoever as they contemplate the 2018 election season. The Democrats' position is crystal clear: Trump is illegitimate and a usurper who stole the presidency with the help of the Russians, and we must, by any and all means, drive him from office as soon as possible. This is their position, pure and simple, and we can expect them to run on that position, since they have no other. Their thinking at this point goes no further than the image of Trump fleeing the White House with family in tow and being escorted out of town – tar and feathers optional. Of course, it may have occurred to a few of them that the result of this would be that Mike Pence would become president. But that would be illegitimate as well, so he would also have to be impeached, and... well, it's hard to come up with a scenario where Hillary would return to Washington in triumph and ascend to the throne that she has been so rudely denied for so long. At least it's hard to come up with that scenario consistent with the Constitution – but who cares about that silly old hunk of paper anyway? If Hillary descended on Washington the way Lenin descended on Petrograd, she would undoubtedly be declared president by popular acclaim, and any naysayers would be dealt with most severely; at least this is the fantasy no doubt entertained by many members of the “resistance”.

That's the Democratic position in a nutshell; cue “To Dream the Impossible Dream”. The party may lack a clear leadership structure (as witness the cat fight between Hillary and Donna “Bobo” Brazile), but no one can deny that it represents ideas – a world view. And there are countless weak-egoed people in that party who would still be willing to walk over hot coals at Hillary's bidding. For the Republicans, however, it's a far different story. Leadership? Hard to say. Ideas? None that I can come up with offhand. And who's going to walk over hot coals for Yertle the Turtle, er, I mean Mitch McConnell?

Here's where we get back to “position” and “timing”. For starters, we're already seeing Republicans dropping out simply because it would offend their tender sensibilities to run again under the Republican banner, which has been so badly contaminated by Trump and “Trumpism”. They prefer to wash their hands of the entire matter, and thus remain as pure as the driven snow. Yeah, right. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of them (all representatives and a third of senators) have to make a decision, and make it soon. Many of them were “never Trumpers” during the election season last year, and others undoubtedly agreed but hesitated to say so in so many words because they knew which way the wind was blowing. Some got elected because they openly supported Trump, and some because they openly opposed him; same with the losers. Again, position and timing. (And location, if we're talking “red” vs. “blue” vs. “hard to predict”.) In short, the 2016 election was, for many of them, a gamble – and for the House of Representatives it's going to be “here we go again” next year.

But this time the landscape has changed. Instead of having to respond to Trump's campaign, and adopt positions vis-a-vis the many issues he brought up, now they have to stake out a position vis-a-vis the actual Trump administration – 9 months young at this time, but over twice that come November of 2018.

And how are they responding, other than the ones who've already bailed? Well, the “never Trumpers” are holding firm, more or less, and showing solidarity with the Democrats. But is that anything that will get them re-elected a year from now? Isn't loyalty worth anything any longer?

Then you have the more or less silent majority, who remain more or less silent, but sooner or later their constituents will, hopefully, demand that they fish or cut bait, and declare which side they're on.

Then you have the ones who openly support Trump, or seem to be doing so – but is this nothing more than a gamble on their part? And will this positioning morph in some way over the next year?

They're all gambling, as a matter of fact, and they're gambling on at least two things at once: (1) the fate of the Trump administration; and (2) public opinion. And that gamble has a temporal element in that the administration's fortunes will surely continue to develop in as chaotic a fashion as they've been doing to date... and as to public opinion, we know how it can turn on a dime.

If there were a publicly-traded crystal ball industry, a “buy” recommendation would be in order at this point. Unfortunately, there is no such entity, so the denizens of Capitol Hill are caught in a multi-layered dilemma – and richly-deserved, in my opinion.

The trajectory, or fate, of the Trump administration is anyone's guess. To begin with, his administration has yet to get off the ground. Sure, he's managed to spray roach killer on a lot of Obama's executive orders with executive orders of his own; this was Job One, and he's doing it. All well and good. But if you only live by the executive order, you also die by the executive order. What counts in the long run is legislation, and in that area Trump's program, or proposed program, is at a standstill. And this is with majorities in both houses of Congress! But again, we have to remember that the “never Trumpers” tip the scales; as they indicated, without a hint of shame, during the 2016 campaign, they would rather lose the election than see Trump as president, and now they are saying that they would rather join the Democrats than see Trump succeed. But again, how is this going to play out in flyover country next year? Time will tell.

If we want to be brutally frank about it, we are still operating under Obama's policies and with Obama's programs. The Trump administration is, so far, Obama's third term, with no signs of anything that can change it. Obama rules the bureaucracy, AKA the “deep state”, from his mansion on a hill in D.C.; why else would he have stayed in Washington if it were not to perform this function?  He's got plenty of time to go back to Chicago and return to community activism.  He has become the gray eminence of the Democratic Party, gently easing out Bill Clinton, although the latter could always reassert his Svengali-like control if he felt the urge. What all of this adds up to is that Trump is in a position new to American politics: With his (OK, “his”) party in power in both houses, he finds himself hobbled and kneecapped at every turn, because half of “his” party is against him, in addition to pretty much everyone else on Earth except those who voted for him, who have shown, so far, admirable loyalty.

What this means is that, short of actual impeachment, the Trump administration is going to remain theoretical. It's going to slog along, confined to the White House, while the rest of the country goes on its merry, or not so merry, way. But, again, we have this hard core of loyal Trump supporters, and we have to assume that they will vote in 2018. So any Republican who expects to get elected, or re-elected, in 2018 has to concentrate on positioning. Who will be going to the polls on Election Day of 2018? Trump loyalists? Never Trumpers? Skeptics? Independents? The mind boggles.

But let's not overlook the temporal dimension. Between now and a year from now, anything can happen. Trump might pull off some significant triumphs in terms of domestic (read: economic) policy, or in terms of foreign policy. That would enhance his value as an ally and as a possible source of support. On the other hand, any number of bad things might happen domestically (read: economically) or foreign policy-wise. And in that case, Trump is going to become a liability that no one will want to be identified with.

All of this adds up to an Excedrin headache par excellence for Republican office holders and office-seekers. One can almost smell the scent of fear and cowardice oozing out of the Capitol. Now, life would be simpler for them if they were men (women) of principle. If that were so, they could simply run on the basis of principles and ideas, and the pro- vs. anti-Trump issue wouldn't even come up. Or if it did, it would be irrelevant. But that's not the way things work these days. Everyone is looking for coattails to ride, and whoever rode in on Trump's coattails may be starting to wonder if that was such a good idea. Ditto with anti-Trump coattails (whatever they might be). The current “buzz” is that you have to be pro-Trump to get elected or re-elected. Even if that's true, it's only true right now, today. It may not be true tomorrow. By the time next fall rolls around, Republican candidates may have all joined the resistance, and be trash-talking along with Pelosi and Schumer. (In which case, why bother voting for a Republican when you can vote for the real thing? But that's been a question ever since the Republicans ceased being true conservatives.)

The only bright spot in all of this is that Trump seems to be more able than any career politician to ignore the “nattering nabobs” in Congress, and the media, and Hollywood, and everywhere that nattering nabobs congregate. He seems to have a vision, and a program, and a plan, and he seems to be determined and consistent about it, and not spending a whole lot of time figuring out how to make people happy and like him – which, in itself, is extremely refreshing. But if Trumpism is so radically removed from business as usual in Washington, are its chances of survival, not to mention success, any better than those of any other outsider and/or populist movement down through history? Are we to have, basically, four years of stalemate followed by a return to the usual way of doing things (accompanied by a resounding Republican defeat in 2020, no doubt)? Will the establishment have taught those pesky populists a damn good lesson? (Bernie-ites and Warren-ites should be paying attention to this as well, by the way.) And – if the pendulum has swung more in the populist direction than ever before with the ascendence of Donald Trump, what will it look like when it swings back the other way, which it almost certainly will?

Ah, yes -- “interesting times”.