The Republican Party post-Trump

I briefly considered being a wise-ass and just posting this title followed by nothing but a blank page. But I decided that would constitute a disservice to my loyal fans (ahem!) so am going to flesh out the idea a bit.

The point being that the Republicans do have a future, but just not on the national level. They will continue to be players in various redoubts across the fruited plain – not including the coasts, of course, nor various liberal enclaves in flyover country (cities controlled by Democrats plus university towns). They will enjoy dominance in some state legislatures and may be elected governors – although how much good it will do is questionable, since judges everywhere seem committed to reinforcing the “progressive” agenda at all costs. And they will, of course, be active at the county, small city, town, and village level. But on the national level I consider them the walking dead, and here's why.

But first a comment. Now and then someone – not necessarily a disgruntled Republican, it could be a liberal engaging in triumphalism – will contend that Donald Trump killed the Republican Party by, first, having the unmitigated gall to enter the Republican primaries in 2016, then to be nominated (aided by the Russians, no doubt), and then to be elected (ditto). And Republicans ever since then have been wringing their hands that here's this Godzilla-like creature in their midst who's ruining everything and giving Republicans a bad name, and that the nation will never forgive the Republicans for having foisted Trump off on them, and that this spells doom for generations to come, et cetera.

I have a slightly different take on this. My opinion is that Trump actually saved the Republican Party from its own boring, colorless incompetence... injected new life into it (or tried to)... and kept it, basically, alive for four more years (or however long) since it was at death's door by the end of the Obama administration, and a Hillary victory would have been the coup de grace (or coup de disgrace, whatever). The problem is that most Republicans, and especially the “never Trumpers”, would disagree with this, and contend that the party would be in much better shape now if it hadn't been forced to, somehow, support, or at least not oppose, the bulk of Trump's initiatives. Party loyalty is, of course, party loyalty, not loyalty to any one person; all we have to do is go back to the Watergate era to find confirmation of that. (And at a slightly earlier time, a lot of Democrats bailed on LBJ.) But sometimes party loyalty involves compromise – doing what you have to do. And yet there were, and are, people who disagree, the foremost example being John McCain, who took an active role in subverting the Trump administration from Day One.

But the point is that Trump, simply by being who he is and doing what he did, at least kept the Republican “brand” on the market, even though it was an operation not unlike the process of keeping a disembodied brain alive in a jar like in some horror movie. (Except in the case of the Republicans, he was keeping a body alive without a brain.)

So Trump gave the Republicans a new lease on life, except they didn't want it and didn't appreciate it. They would rather be dead (as a party) than be seen as supporting Trump, as many of them said quite explicitly during the 2016 campaign. Distance from Trump = virtue and respectability, is the message. He is as much an outsider to them as he is to the liberals/Democrats/progressives.

All of which is going to make a very interesting election season next year. Assuming that Trump survives impeachment, and doesn't simply leave office of his own free will (a very real possibility in my opinion, but not too many other people seem to have considered it), the Republicans will be faced with a bizarre dilemma – let him run again (primaries, convention, campaign) even though their support for him is lukewarm at best, and in most cases nonexistent – or call an end to the Trump Era by either not letting him into the primaries, or into the convention, i.e. by not nominating him for a second term. They are, after all, already feeling the pain of having lost the House of Representatives, which they blame squarely on Trump... and their chances of regaining it next year are nil, and they stand a good chance of losing the Senate as well, which they will also be happy to blame on Trump.

So what are they supposed to do? Hang on to Trump (or allow him to hang onto them), as troublesome as he is, even if it means losing all control of Congress and reasserting their status as irrelevant and moribund? Or try someone new and hope that all will be forgiven, and that they will be restored to (this time legitimate) power in the White House, and win back the Senate as well?

And if not Trump, which candidate is going to save the day for the Republicans? I don't see anyone out there who has even the vaguest presidential “vibes”. If they stick with tradition, I guess they could nominate Mike Pence, but like Gerald Ford in 1976 no amount of decontamination and no number of hot showers is going to rid him of the “cooties” of his old boss. So what will most likely happen is that they will, in a state of tacit despair, nominate some empty suit who can't possibly win just as a place filler, the way they nominated Bob Dole in 1996 and Mitt Romney in 2012 just to stay in the game. “Hey, it's not our fault, we nominated a fairly normal guy this time.” And then they get to return to the soporific creature comforts of minority status, except this time for keeps. Which means, incidentally, that the U.S. finally capitulates and converts to a one-party system on the national level, which is an inevitable characteristic of tyrannies and dictatorships everywhere, and that the Democratic primaries become the equivalent of the election, assuming that the Republicans even bother having primaries any longer. (Many states, cities, and counties already have a one-party system, and you can generally tell which they are by measuring their level of incompetence, corruption, and downright failure – not to mention less-exalted measures like the number of homeless and the incidence of fecal matter on public property.)

But why else, aside from their general demeanor and appearance, are the Republicans the walking dead? It's because they have become a minority party that can barely capture enough independent and “swing” votes to win elections, except in certain “deep red” locales. And why, in turn, is this? One reason is the power of ideas; the Democrats have them, and the Republicans don't. Say what you like about “AOC”, she has ideas. They may be wrong-headed, foolish, and delusional, and reflect profound ignorance, but they are ideas, and they serve to energize and inspire. And when revolution is in the air, ideas are all that count; cold reason and pragmatism can take a hike. And, of course, youth must triumph! By definition! Of course, the youth of the 1960s are now the grizzled products of the culture wars, whether they consider themselves to be on the winning side or not. They may have won many battles, but the culture war is still on or Trump would never have been elected.

Is there a Republican AOC out there anywhere? Some talk-show hosts might qualify, but they already have paying jobs and are not about to enter politics. We are, once again, in a time of revolution, the way we were in the 1960s, and the Young Turks in Congress are at the forefront, with the Old Guard forced to deal, cope, dither, rationalize, whatever it takes to hold on to their weakening grip on power. (The 60s were not just about “sex, drugs, and rock & roll”, although those were the loss leaders. They were about more profound cultural changes, which took root then and are being promoted to new levels at the present time. Anyone who wonders when this process will stop – when it will be “mission accomplished” – has missed the concept of continuous revolution, of which the most prominent advocate was Chairman Mao, but which has plenty of lesser followers, including the present-day governments of Cuba and Venezuela. For them, the revolution is not finished until Utopia is realized, and since Utopia can never be realized, the revolution is never over. Call it a full employment act for “agents of change”.)

Another reason – and this is old news, but still – is that the Democrats are busy importing new constituents from other countries, primarily Central America but other places as well. And these people are willing to do work that Americans just won't do – namely reproduce. So... to over-generalize just a bit, you have self-sterilizing Democrats, and liberal eunuchs, bolstering their numbers by letting in people who have a vested interest in their programs, i.e. “benefits”. It's a smart move, for sure. And even if Republicans do have an edge when it comes to reproduction (it would be more accurate to say that traditionalists of many different kinds have an edge in that department), there's no way it can make up for what amounts to a siege from the Third World. There is a human wave – nay, a tsunami – coming across our southern border every day. History will record this as one of the great migrations of humanity, but it's hard to appreciate historical significance when you're getting overrun. (One consolation for those who don't believe in the American Empire is that this may be the biggest single factor in its demise; time will tell.)

Then you have good old generational differences – and, as always, the revolutionaries are on the young side and the conservatives are on the old side. This is not to say that the conservatives will some day be totally replaced by the revolutionaries, because even in the worst of times there are people who, somehow, manage to engage in rational thinking... but we are, basically, looking at a revolutionary society on the national level (a process which has been building slowly over a century at least, but which is now coming to full fruition) which will do everything in its power (which is considerable) to silence and neutralize all opposition, if not engage in its outright extermination. (As things stand, the liberals are busy exterminating themselves through abortion, which is ironic to say the least. So the race is on – do they cease to exist before, during, or after the revolution? Time will tell. And if they do cease to exist, who keeps the revolution going?)

So, to sum up, Trump arguably saved us from a headlong rush into this fate for... maybe not even four years, depending. But it does seem inevitable, and that applies in any case – Trump getting re-elected, some other Republican getting elected, or a Democrat getting elected in 2020. The long-term trends are what they are... and I haven't even touched on aggravating factors like the national debt, crony capitalism, environmental degradation, infrastructure, the cost of empire, the collapse of our public education system, social media turning us all into robots, corruption in general, and so on. Everything else that's happening at this time can be considered an accelerant; there are no counter-trends that I can think of. Trump's hard-core supporters will continue to be so until the day he moves back to his golden palace atop Trump Tower, but they're not going to matter as long as Trump loses the narrow edge he achieved in various states in 2016. Those weren't all Trump supporters; there were also “never Hillary” voters in the mix. But they won't be a factor next year (unless she runs again – and yes, she's thinking about it). And there were also independents who cared for neither candidate but figured Trump might be preferable, or more palatable, for some reason. (For one thing, he's rich enough not be bribed, which is no small consideration.) Well, now he's had a chance to prove himself, at least in terms of initiatives, if not actual accomplishments – and it's up to people to decide whether that's good enough, and I suspect that enough of them will decide that it's not good enough and thus flip some of those states that delivered for Trump in 2016. As always in any election, the hard core tends to remain the hard core; what changes (and who the candidates are really trying to appeal to) are the independents, “undecideds”, and plain pragmatists – how does it affect my quality of life, my pocketbook, etc.? These are what we might call the non-idea people – not that they're uneducated or ignorant, simply that they are not into ideas or ideology. They are bottom line-oriented, in other words. And yet they're the ones who really count. Trump can have all the enthusiastic, high-energy rallies he wants – as can Biden, Sanders, Warren, Butti-whatever, et al. – but a minority is still a minority. I'm not even convinced that the Democrats can patch together a majority out of true believers either; that's why they need to recruit new voters from other countries. Those voters, I imagine, are much more pragmatic and “bottom line” than most citizens; if you can vote other people's money into your own pocket you'd be a fool not to. Traditional American notions of self-sufficiency are simply not on their radar.

So what we may well see next year, in one fashion or another, is the final death rattle of the Republicans on the national level – an event which will be celebrated far and wide, no doubt. And the conventional wisdom will be that Trump was what did it – he was the bull in the china shop, the disrupter, the destroyer. But if that's true, once Trump leaves the political stage the Republicans should expect to recover whatever respect they enjoyed before he took that fabled escalator ride. The problem with that idea is they didn't enjoy any such respect, except possibly in their own deluded world view. And remember that Trump's hard-core supporters didn't vote for him because he was a Republican; they voted for him because he was who he was. (He might even have won as an independent candidate, the way Ross Perot tried to do.) So without him to prop them up, the Republicans are going to collapse – said collapse being long overdue. And Trump's hard-core supporters will fade back into the fields and forests of flyover country, satisfied that, for one brief shining moment, their voices were heard and their values were honored. They will hunker down and wait out the revolution, hoping that one day they, or their descendants, will once again have a voice.

Epitaph for “The Trump Era” – A Fantasy in One Act

Trump isn't a lame duck yet, but he is in the sense that he only enjoys minority support in Congress, even though Republicans are in the majority. As a result, pretty much everything of significance that he's accomplished has been done by way of executive order, that most fragile of instruments. For what one president can do via executive order, another president can just as readily undo, as has been amply demonstrated. So one descriptor of The Trump Era will be the very brief half-life of his executive orders, and the lack of any significant and long-lasting legislation.

The Democrats already have an extensive laundry list of things that will be done immediately, upon their rightful (as they see it) reclaiming of the Executive Branch.  (Mark it on your calendars – the new Congress will be sworn in on January 3, 2019.)  Among them: Moving the United States Embassy back to Tel Aviv (or, more precisely, canceling its removal to Jerusalem, since that has not yet been fully accomplished); reaffirming the Paris Agreement; reaffirming our membership in the TPP; reaffirming our abject subordination to – oops, make that “alliance with” – the EU; and, of course, bringing the treaty with Iran back to life. (These constitute a big chunk of the globalists' list to Santa.) The Democrats will undo all that the Trump presidency (they may refer to it as a pseudo-presidency) has done, the way Trump has tried – with mixed success – to undo all that the Obama presidency did. Of course, two years of executive orders are easier to undo than eight years of legislation, but they will still give themselves credit for having rescued – just in the nick of time! – America, and civilization in general, from imminent doom.

The goal, in short, will be to make the Trump administration into, basically, a blank spot in history – an interregnum – a time when nothing happened because there was no one with the proper credentials to make it happen. In this they have already gotten plenty of practice, “1984”-style, in rewriting history and in brainwashing the citizenry. Look for the Trump presidency to be declared not only illegitimate, but null and void; it never happened, therefore everything that it allegedly accomplished never happened either. This will, by the way, cover things like Supreme Court appointments, which will likewise be declared null and void, as well as any of the pathetically few pieces of legislation Trump has signed, and any agreements with other countries, formal or informal – including “peace initiatives” (which are never worth much anyway, truth to tell).

Another way of putting it is that the ultimate goal is not, as is widely contended, the mere removal of Trump via impeachment, but the de-legitimizing of his entire administration. And if you want an example of “uncharted territory” that goes way beyond the Constitution and the wildest imaginings of its authors, get ready. Because if not only is Trump impeached, but his entire administration is as well, in effect – what are the consequences? His election is declared null and void, and the states are asked to re-submit their electoral votes minus those for Trump (or minus those for Trump that electors are unwilling to change). The result? Hillary! Yes – the Queen, Empress, and Suzerain of all the known Universe and beyond! She will be declared the winner and will take over the White House in triumph, while the Trumps make their way out of town in a broken-down jalopy like the Joads in “Grapes of Wrath" while being pelted with rotten eggs by the jubilant citizenry.  

Among many good questions – what will this do to our foreign relations, particularly to our image as a more or less stable, reliable country? I imagine it will, basically, render us a kind of renegade, or outlier, that is never to be trusted again. But this is not something that concerns the Resistance in the slightest, because they want nothing more than to see the U.S. rendered impotent and prostrate like a beached whale.

At the very least, it will be a reprise of the Obama era where we were squabbling with Israel but still, basically, following orders like an obstreperous child who's being pulled along by the ear. Perpetual war will remain perpetual, and our military budget will continue to dwarf those of all other countries combined. (Except for the Space Force, that's DOA.) These are, at least, the unchangeables – things you can count on no matter who's in charge. North Korea will once again be designated as a rogue state that is beyond the pale, because we need enemies as much as we need friends. As for Russia, well... that's going to be a bit trickier, but at least on the surface they will be declared personae non grata for the unpardonable sin of putting Trump into office. NATO, on the other hand, will be sent to a Vic Tanny gym in order to get totally “ripped”, after which we will establish a modern-day Maginot Line along the entire western border of Russia. (Not to be “provocative” or anything, of course.) And as for China – well, since Trump has been equivocal with regard to the Middle Kingdom, you can expect the next administration to follow suit. In diplomacy, the opposite of neutrality is more neutrality.

Domestically, well... the long knives will come out when any issue of religious freedom is involved (“Bake that damn cake or die!”); religiously-based organizations will increasingly have to choose between capitulating to government regulations (and thus staying in business) or adhering to their beliefs (and thus being forced out of business). ICE will, indeed, be abolished as will any hint of a wall or any other semblance of border security. The result will be a flood of undocumented immigrants that will pretty much overwhelm the Southwest and make serious inroads elsewhere. But hey, they all vote, right? (What the Regime seems to forget is that most of them are also Catholic; this could have unanticipated consequences down the road.) And what was quaintly termed “political correctness” will be turned into law – with the SPLC doing all the writing -- and enforced by a policing body modeled on the Gestapo. Things that won't change include the mainstream media and the technology sector, since they've been with the program from the start. But they may find that being on the winning side isn't all it's cracked up to be; recall that once the Russian revolution had been consolidated, one of the first groups to be shot or dragged off to the gulag were the “old Bolsheviks”.

And as for “academic freedom”, the Regime will be, more than ever, on the side of the total suppression of any non-liberal, non-progressive, non-totalitarian, non-collectivist points of view. “Conservatism”, if it survives at all, will have to go deep underground on college and university campuses, just as it will elsewhere in society. (Freedom of speech is already nonexistent on most campuses, but that has yet to be made official.)

But what about the non-mainstream media, and the non-Resistance social media? Well, the latter are already being dealt with, through censorship and suppression, by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Google, and as to the former – well, remember the “hush Rush” (re: Rush Limbaugh) bill that didn't make it through Congress the first time around? Expect it be dug out of the grooveyard and infused with new life like Frankenstein's monster. (Plus, don't forget sponsor boycotts. And the re-weaponization of the IRS will have a profound effect as well.) “Net neutrality” will pave the way for all of this – the ultimate goal being that only one voice will be heard in the land, namely that of the Regime, disguised as Democrats, the Resistance, progressives, liberals, etc.

We also have to consider the things that, at least according to some measures, have significantly improved under Trump, for whatever reason. Will unemployment, especially among blacks and Hispanics, remain at an all-time low? Hardly. The Democrats depend on misery, and the more unemployment the more misery, so expect policy changes that will put us, with nary a bump, back into the Obama era economically. (Expect the next administration to be equally as adept as Obama's was at promoting a “post-racial” society.)

And how about the stock market? This raises, perhaps, the biggest mystery of our time, namely why Trump hasn't gotten more enthusiastic public support from big business – you know, those entities whose fates are daily traced by the fluctuations of the Dow. You'd think they'd be ecstatic, but apparently they aren't, and it may be because, other than being globalists in principle, they are better than anyone else at seeing the handwriting on the wall. They know the Trump Era is not long for this world, and so are bracing themselves and, you may be sure, engaging in a lot of profit-taking while the time is ripe. I think you can depend on the stock market to nose-dive the minute the Democrats win enough seats to take over Congress, and anyone who's the least bit smart will have gotten safely away from the deluge long before. The losers will be – as usual – the poor chumps who have their retirement money in mutual funds. It will be 2008 all over again, just in time for the 10^th anniversary – and not even with the help of sub-prime mortgages.

And as for the national debt – whoo, the sky's the limit! One thing that is long overdue (in some people's minds) is for Congress to disqualify itself from any future legislative powers to approve raising the debt ceiling. It's pretty much turned into a rubber stamp anyway, so this will not be a major change.

And then there's the “regulatory state”. One of Trump's more successful efforts when it comes to “draining the swamp” has been to chip away at the oppressive mountain of regulations that are designed to stifle free enterprise and innovation, not to mention – gasp! – “profits”. You can expect this monolith to rise again, like Godzilla rising out of the murky waters of Tokyo Bay to wreak further destruction. How does this relate to the “swamp”? Simply because regulations do, in fact, generate jobs – namely all of the jobs that are required in order to enforce regulations. So the Deep State has a vested interest – nay, a downright existential interest – in maximizing regulations and in continually looking for new activities that “need” government regulation.

And as for taxes, well... the Democrats are already primed to claw back all of the so-called “crumbs” that Trump's tax-reduction efforts have put back into the hands of the citizenry. But wait, if these really are “crumbs”, then why is it so important to take them back? It's the principle of the thing, don't you know... the idea, as Bill Clinton memorably said, that the American people simply can't be trusted with their own money. Why, they might spend it on the wrong things! And this has to be prevented by, as much as possible, relieving them of the burden of discretionary cash.

But then what of the hard-core Trump supporters – the “deplorables”? They've had their day in the sun, their hero has been raised on high, but he is now as defeated and wrecked as a Confederate statue. Their dreams are as crushed as were the dreams of Hillary supporters on election night. How are they supposed to react? Well, I've already discussed this issue in a previous blog, “Impeachment and Revolution” (Feb. 7). To provide a hint, just ask yourself who has all the guns, and no, it's not the “snowflakes” or the cry babies who insist on “safe spaces” and on being protected from “triggers”.  The immediate aftermath of the removal of Donald Trump could well be riots and chaos comparable to 1968, if not worse. (And the “peaceniks” of the 1960s will be in charge of crushing any revolts – thus, the ironies of history.)

And what – just in case anyone even cares – of the Republican Party? They will, of course, be blamed for having allowed Donald Trump to be nominated and then having allowed him to be elected; the Democrats managed to knee-cap Bernie, why couldn't the Republicans knee-cap Trump? The few who supported Trump will be sent into exile (figuratively at least), and the “never Trumpers” will be allowed to remain in office as long as they agree to act in a totally bipartisan way (i.e., do whatever the Democrats tell them to do) and promise to never, i.e. never never never, in a million years, come anywhere near nominating anyone like Donald Trump ever again. Or else! So they will, in effect, be “nutted” and turned into eunuchs and geldings (if they aren't already) and relegated to second-class political citizenry for as long as the Republic shall last. And no one will mourn their passing. (And by the way, anyone who had anything, no matter how remote, to do with the Trump administration will be told, in no uncertain terms, that “they'll never work in this town again”, so they may as well start packing.) (Who said the spoils system was a thing of the past? It's more with us now than ever.)

One consequence of the liberal counter-counter-revolution that is, perhaps, unanticipated may be the revival of the libertarian movement, which reached a peak during Ron Paul's campaign. As Seth McLaughlin recently pointed out in a Washington Times article, the libertarian movement Ron and Rand Paul “spawned is a shell of what it once was, torn asunder by the twin forces of Donald Trump on the one hand, and frustration on the other.” Trump has co-opted much of the energy behind the libertarian movement, in other words – even if the results have been of questionable value when compared to the libertarian agenda. But with Trump out of the way, there will be no reason for the libertarians not to go back to their roots and be re-energized.

And as the rest of the world looks on in awe, the United States will undergo the biggest meltdown in its history – and they will have to ask, do we really want to have anything to do with these maniacs any longer? Can't we get along without them? Can't we at least try?

Sure, it's a fantasy – but it's amazing how often dreams (and nightmares) come true.

Why That Rudy is so Rude

What, Obama not a patriot? I won't hear of it! Doesn't love America? Balderdash and pooh. He absolutely loves America. Or... he would, if he could only succeed in transforming it into the country it ought to be (and should always have been) – basically a vast horde of helpless, mindless, thumb-sucking serfs, afraid of their own shadows and totally dependent on government for everything, with him in charge. This is, and has always been, the dream of liberals, going back to the the progressives of more than a century ago. The basic premise is that the “common people” are hopelessly ignorant, superstitious, and hate-filled, and have no idea what is good for them – but that the intellectuals have all the answers and all the skills required to transform society into a Utopia, and that they should, therefore, be put in charge for perpetuity. The first president who fully embraced this notion seems to have been Theodore Roosevelt, but many others followed in his footsteps – most notably FDR, Johnson, and now Obama. And it matters little what the personal foibles and failures of a given leader are; all that counts is good intentions (alleged), good presentation, and “optics”. And a bit of political or financial pressure applied at the right time to the right people – regrettable, of course, but fully justified given the nobility of the cause.

This is what it would take for Obama to love America – for who doesn't love his own creation? Think about Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. If FDR were still around (having given up smoking, of course), he would be ecstatic when surveying the current political scene, because even though the New Deal did not survive fully intact, what we have now includes all of its ideas, most of which have been implemented beyond his wildest dreams. And as far as LBJ and the Great Society -- “If you seek his monument, look around you”, in cities like Washington, D.C., Detroit, Newark, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, etc. Far from being the abject failures that conservatives accuse them of being, they are a stunning success, if your definition of “success” is, first and foremost, increasing the power and scope of government at the expense of the citizenry. That, and not only defining deviancy down, but defining it out of existence. The agents of social change have done their work in our large cities, and proud of it; the only sour note was that many people were insufficiently enlightened to appreciate their efforts, and so fled to the suburbs. (But that's change too, and change is always good, right?)

And as for Obama's patriotism – why, who has ever waved the flag higher? By which I mean the flag for things like “diversity”, which is little more than totalitarianism and enforced uniformity in disguise. He could lead a very long parade of victim groups (both official and self-styled), as long as they all fit into the liberal-progressive-secular-materialist agenda. God-fearing religious people need not apply, nor do small businessmen, “angry white men” (who are, undoubtedly, also racist, sexist, and homophobic), stay-at-home moms (terribly oppressed, don'tcha know), families who opt out of government schools, and anyone who believes in freedom of economic choice.

Champions of “the people” are never the least bit interested in the hopes and dreams of real people – especially when said people are “held back” by ancient loyalties to race, religion, ethnic group, and tradition. “Diversity” to a progressive is one long “It's a Small World” ride, with colorful stereotyped costumes and stereotyped music... a sanitized street festival with all sorts of foodstuffs, kumbaya and drumming... but heaven forbid anyone try to insert real handed-down traditions and attitudes, and – yes – prejudices into the proceedings, because that is not the kind of world we want, is it? Racial, ethnic, and religious groups have been defined down through the millennia as having pride in themselves and in their own kind, and a healthy suspicion of strangers – of “the other”. This is, in fact, the key to any group's survival, and no one has questioned it up until the current era – especially when it comes to minorities. But this cannot be permitted in the New World Order; human nature must be changed, and the progressives are the ones to do it (just as the Bolsheviks were the ones to do it a century or so ago). The way must be made straight through tangled, messy human nature, and all the rough places made plain. There must be a great leveling process, starting with equal opportunity and gradually evolving into equal outcomes (once we've passed the quotas/affirmative action/reparations stage, that is). And the battle cry from the beginning to the end of this process must be “fairness” (at all costs)!

Conservatives, on the other hand -- while not perfect in this respect -- are much more capable of seeing, and accepting, human nature as it is, whether applied to individuals or groups, rather than what we might want it to be based on some idyllic image of a past that never existed, or of a future that is highly unlikely this side of the Apocalypse. They are neither offended by the way people actually are and how they behave, nor do they put “the people” on an impossibly high pedestal based on pure Utopian fantasy. Conservatives are even willing to accept the reality that some people really are dependent and need charity, while at the same time allowing others (hopefully the majority) to seek their fortune without impediment and harassment by the government. (This, by the way, is how “compassionate conservatism” should have been defined, but the people promoting it didn't have sufficient insight to do so, with the result that the term became an object of derision.)

So, when every flag is a rainbow flag, but all true differences and individuality have been snuffed out, then you can expect Obama and his ilk to be the greatest of patriots. They will look upon that which they have created, and pronounce it good.