Whose Presidency Was It Anyway?

I'm not sure I understand what all the fuss is about when it comes to “Who was in charge?” during the Biden administration, given that Biden himself was clearly not in charge, or unable to be in charge (even if he was), or deluded into thinking he was in charge (even though he wasn't), etc. The point is that someone was, indeed, in charge – even if we don't yet know who it was, and may never know for certain. It's hard enough to run a White House with no one in charge, let alone the Executive Branch, let alone the entire country (which includes foreign policy). And even if we say, well, it was more like a committee, well then who called the meetings of said committee, and who was in charge of implementing whatever they came up with? There really is no escaping this question. The White House can't be like some federal agencies, in which – as far as I can tell – no one does anything. Someone has to be doing something at least some of the time. There is, after all, discernible output, even if, in Biden's case, it could be pretty thin at times.

So the good news is that someone was in charge, because someone had to be. Ever heard of an ocean liner sailing across the Atlantic with no one in charge? Or a jumbo jet flying across the Pacific with no one in charge? No. No way. Now... someone with an excellent memory might recall what happened when Stalin died. Nobody dared to step in and single-handedly take over. After all, who could possibly fill Uncle Joe's shoes? So they came up with a “troika” – a team of three, one of whom was Nikita Khrushchev. For a while there it seemed to work, but eventually Nikita came out on top and became the new face of Soviet Russia.

But compared to the Biden administration, the post-Stalin years were a model of transparency, the way the post-Soviet years were right out in the open for everyone to see. (Even the post-Mao years had more transparency than the so-called Biden White House.)

So the first question ought not to be “who was in charge?” but “does it even matter?” The Republic survived what many (especially overseas) might consider an interregnum. And not only that, but there was nothing unprecedented about it. Any number of commentators have pointed out similarities with Wilson (with Edith taking the reins from the failing Woodrow), and with FDR (rumor has it that Alger Hiss was the one in charge at Yalta, at least).

But let's drill down a bit more. Can anyone realistically claim that Jimmy Carter was fully in charge during his term in office? (He certainly served as a convenient scapegoat in countless ways.) Or how about Bush II? It's pretty much conventional wisdom that Dick Cheney was running the show. (They even made a movie about it.)

Consider this. Presidents have a staff. They have advisors. They have aides. But they don't all have “handlers” (I call them “keepers”) – you know, people who are in charge of damage control, which means to (1) try and keep the boss from committing blunders, or gaffes, or looking bad in public; and (2) cover for him when he still messes up, by making excuses which border on the ridiculous at times; and (3) telling the viewing public not to believe their lying eyes – that the boss didn't really do or say that, and it's all a conspiracy theory and a “cheap fake” and “hate”. And, BTW, enlisting the help of the compliant media in constructing an impenetrable wall of lies. All of these strategies were on full display on a daily basis during the Biden administration – and I nominate “Dr. Jill” as the handler-in-chief, but she must have had plenty of help.

So there's a continuum, in a way, as defined by how many “handlers” a given president has, and how often they are called upon to function. I would say that Biden, at this point, anchors the scale on the high end, but one also has to consider Carter, Clinton, and Bush II as being high on the “handler” scale. Even JFK is along there somewhere. (Trump, OTOH, doesn't seem to have any handlers – not even one! What you see is what you get, and there's no one off-camera wringing their hands and wondering how to “explain this one away”.)

And – not to imply that there's anything unique about presidents here – this also applies to vice presidents, presidential candidates, vice presidential candidates, and not a few assorted governors and mayors. Politicians climb to the heights with “a little help from their friends”. 'Twas ever thus. But then why go to all that trouble? Why not just work for a candidate, or official, who's not such a handful? Well... the plus side, if you will, is that weak-willed and incompetent people are easier to manipulate and direct, so if you're in charge of a “challenged” politician you can, with any luck, basically take over and direct said politician in the ways you would like him or her to go. And this, of course, is exactly what happened with Biden; someone recently quipped that his debilitation was “not a bug, but a feature”. (Implication – the people behind the scenes are smarter than the guy out front. True! An amazing percentage of the time. Can you imagine Bush II's “aides” being dumber than he was? Not a chance. They could have been president, but they didn't have the curb appeal.) (Ever notice how often these “aides” – when you see them on camera, which is rare – look like those high school geeks who couldn't get dates? So they compensate by being the power behind the throne. Not a bad gig, when you think about it – four years of job security and absolutely immune from any blame or responsibility.) (Kind of like pretty much any government job, truth be told.)

Now, let's admit that anyone who is president, no matter their level of intelligence or competence or energy, has an impossible job. If you read the Constitution, the job of president doesn't sound all that complicated or difficult; you basically have to have a modicum of wisdom and have the best interests of the American people at heart, and be a competent administrator. But, 200-plus years later, the job has turned into, #1, more of a kingship than a mere office, and #2, an all-powerful image of someone who can do anything, who puts Superman to shame, and who merits worship more suitable for a Roman deity. The problem here is that it sets an impossible standard, and raises expectations to stratospheric heights, with the result that any perceived failure is met with anger, indignation, and – too often – homicidal rage. When your god turns out to have feet of clay, he must die! So what motivates assassins is, at least in part, frustration – their victim was not perfect. He was tried and found wanting, so he has to go, and they're the one to make it happen.

A while back I put up blog posts which touched on the subject of Obama as The Chosen One, and that he subsequently became the kingmaker, brushing off all contenders for the nomination in 2016, including Joe Biden, in favor of Hillary Clinton. And when she was defeated for reasons yet to be determined, he remained in that role and, four years later, brushed off everyone except his vice president, namely Joe Biden. And when Joe Biden started to stumble (literally and figuratively), guess what, Obama stepped in once again and helped to engineer what has been described as a “coup” (a palace coup, at least), putting Uncle Joe out to pasture and putting Kamala up for election.

And lest we forget, there are many other ways this could have been accomplished. Biden could have been persuaded to retire prior to the election, which would have made Kamala the president, and increase her chances of winning in 2024 (not guaranteed, as witness Gerald Ford). Or, they could have left Biden on the ticket, let him win in 2024, and then persuaded him to quit, which would have made Kamala the president anyway. In a sense, the path they chose was the most risky one – get Biden to give up on being re-elected, but keep him in office, and declare Kamala the nominee without benefit of a primary, but force her to campaign to the best of her abilities with limited time. It kinda makes you wonder... why did they choose that route? It's mainly because Trump at that point was under siege, and everyone was convinced he'd be in jail by Election Day, which would sort of put a crimp in his chances of winning (even though he could, theoretically, have been elected while in jail – it's happened elsewhere in the world, and more than once). So with Trump on the defense on all fronts, Kamala seemed like a shoo-in.

But Trump fought back – and when you think about it, what does it take, after all, to make it big in New York City? And in real estate? You have to deal with regulations, corrupt politicians, the Mob, bankers, the media, the unions... it's basically impossible, and yet the tough somehow manage to survive. Now, given that, compared to New York City Washington D.C. is a much deeper cesspool of corruption and is a much bigger power center with a much larger entrenched bureaucracy, Trump's experience from his years in NYC paid off – first in 2016 and then again in 2024 (once he “wised up” about Washington, since he had underestimated it in 2016 and pretty much took office in 2017 as a lame duck).

But now, wait a minute! I said that Obama helped to engineer the “coup” that took Biden out of contention for 2024. People talk about Pelosi and Shumer, but no one mentions Obama.  "Ignore the man behind the curtain!"  So let's go back to 2017 when Trump takes office for the first time. What does Obama do? Does he retire, in the Bill Clinton mode? Does he go on book and lecture tours, or take a cushy job in academics or at a non-profit? No! He moves into a mansion in D.C., and... what? How many ex-presidents have taken up residence in Washington, D.C.? Only one, as I recall. But why? And why, despite all that, did we hear and see very little of him during Trump's first term? What was he doing all that time? Remember that he's an activist – a community organizer – a rabble-rouser. A true believer. Is he just going to fade away? Of course not.

My theory is that Obama was, during Trump's first term, running what is called The Deep State, i.e. the massive, unelected bureaucracy, and that their sole purpose during that period was to thwart, prevent, and sabotage if need be, any and all of Trump's initiatives and programs, which, let's admit, they pretty much did. Not only that, but they came right out in public and admitted it, for example in the impeachment hearings. It was their patriotic duty, after all. (So much for the Deep State being a “conspiracy theory” – they stood right up to be counted, with the cameras rolling.)

And it worked – or some will say that it worked, the proof being that Biden defeated Trump in 2020, whether legitimately or not matters little at this point. And Trump could have just gone back to his good life as a real estate tycoon, shaken the D.C. dust from his shoes, and pronounced a curse upon politics. And this is what everyone was hoping for – including, let's admit, most Republicans. The Never Trumpers became the Never Again Trumpers. And yet... after four years of “lawfare”, guess who won the nomination without even participating in any of the primary debates?

But let's get back to Obama for a moment. Let's say he really was running the Deep State all during Trump's first term – with the blessing of the Clintons, of course, who remain the true spiritual (if that is the word) leaders of the Democratic Party. So Biden takes office in 2021. Does Obama say “mission accomplished” and finally retire? Not a chance. Suddenly the Deep State becomes the state, and who better to stay in charge of it than Obama? (You think he'd trust Biden with anything that important? Or Kamala? Cue the laugh track.) And when the 2024 election loomed, the king maker became the king breaker (and the queen maker), calculating that the proper strategy was to get Biden to drop out of the race but not leave office until after the election. A risky strategy, as I said, but everyone on that side underestimated not only Trump's base, but the sophistication of his (and the Republicans') election watchdogs. (“We won't be fooled again.”)

So now we have, first, what I call Obama's third term, namely Trump's first term, followed by Obama's fourth term, namely Biden's first (and only) term. So... is it time for Obama to really and truly retire, at long last? Can he finally become history, rather than current events? Another way of putting it is that Obama, for all intents and purposes, served for four full terms – which beats FDR, who gave it a try but was rudely interrupted by his own demise. (Seem like there's something in the Constitution about all this, but like so many things in the Constitution it's pretty much either forgotten or ignored.) (And! If Kamala had won last November, we'd be at the start of Obama's fifth term! And here I thought only third-world countries had “presidents for life”.)

Now, of course, we have Trump trolling the media and the Democrats by talking about a third term for himself. Who knew you could have so much fun pretending to set fire to the Constitution? Frankly, if Trump was already thinking about the 2028 election, he wouldn't be on a search and destroy mission vis-a-vis the Deep State. As it is, he has nothing to lose, and even if he doesn't succeed in driving a stake through the heart of the Deep State, he's certainly put it on notice that it's not all-powerful, and has exposed its machinations through the efforts of the gnomes of DOGE.

So, boys and girls, the bottom line (for now) is that, yes, someone is always in charge. The world is too big and too complex for it to be otherwise. Plus, power has always been a great magnet (some would say aphrodisiac) for certain types of people. So that's not the question. The question is who, what's their agenda, and what's their strategy? And an even better question is simply this: Are you pleased with the results? No matter who was actually running things for Biden's four years in office, was the country, and world, better off at the end of his term than it had been at the start? That should be the sole criterion for any assessment of his presidency, even if he was no more than a propped-up figurehead. The verdict may not be against him, but it has to be against someone. Or for someone. You make the call.

2024 -- Another annus horribilis?

2024 is looming, like one of those hurricanes out in the Atlantic that's not yet causing much damage, but just wait until it reaches land! I don't want to be just another alarmist (the field is much too crowded already), but I'm afraid that the Republican convention next year may make the Democratic convention of 1968 look like a tea party. (And the Republicans won't have a Mayor Daley to back them up – and I can't imagine the Milwaukee police department will be much help, since they've probably fallen prey to defunding and other forms of demoralizing and neutering.)

This is, of course, predicated on (1) Trump not being in jail at that point; (2) Trump still being in the race (or, Trump being in jail but still being in the race – hey, it could happen!); (3) The mainstream Republicans not having succeeded in keeping him out of the primaries; and (4) The mainstream Republicans accepting primary results that favor Trump, rather than declaring them null and void and going to a caucus, AKA “smoke-filled room”, system.

Note that the Colorado Supreme Court has already barred Trump from both the primaries and the general election, and they are likely to be followed by many other state supreme courts across the land – and in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, etc. (How exciting it is to keep an ex-president from running for president!  And just about anyone can play!) – but especially in states with high population levels (all you need is the West Coast and the Northeast). While Trump's base is justifiably outraged by this – as are a handful of commentators on Fox News – the Republican mainstream is strangely silent on the matter. Perhaps it's because they're glad to have someone else do the dirty work for them so they won't get in trouble with Trump's base, and/or they see it as an example of how easy it is to keep someone out of the primaries, as in “Hey, why didn't we think of that?” (Actually, they did, when it came to Ron Paul.) (OTOH, RFK Jr. has been subjected to a total media blackout, probably because, like Ron Paul, he has a lot of good ideas. But they can't make fun of him because of the family name – unlike Ross Perot, who at least had amusing ears.) To put it another way – I suspect that much of the Republican mainstream is secretly celebrating this, oblivious to the fact that if it can happen to Trump it can happen to any of them as well.

You can see the run-up increasing in intensity on a daily basis, primarily in the mainstream media but also in statements by Biden lackeys, certain academicians, certain “entertainers”... all reading from the same sheet of talking points, of which #1 is always “Trump is Hitler” (not “will be Hitler”, note, but he's already Hitler, in some kind of mysterious reincarnation phenomenon). The Ministry of Propaganda aside, what the Fox News folks call “lawfare” is also well underway, and is merely a seamless continuation of the impeachments while Trump was in office – with many of the same people calling the shots as during Trump's administration. Of course the “bloody shirt” that is constantly waved in the air is January 6 – a date that will live in infamy! – but it's far from the only weapon in their arsenal (heck, even the Russia collusion hoax is still alive and well in the fever dreams of many of them).

But behind it all – the thinly-concealed threat, if you will – is the very real possibility that the troops are already being organized to show up in force at primaries and at the convention – and yes, I mean the same folks who did all the burning and pillaging and vandalism back in 2020 (and who continue to do so at selected locations just to keep in practice). And this goes way beyond the time-honored “rent-a-mob” technique on the local level (often, depending on the issue, with Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton parachuting in to add spice to the mix).  As in 2020, these so-called anarchists (totalitarians in disguise, I mean) will arrive from all over the country, brought in by plane, train, bus, and automobile, and with pockets full of cash from their billionaire sponsors, who – recalling a phrase from the war in Vietnam – believe that it's necessary to destroy the country in order to save it.

So what it really amounts to is a protection racket of sorts (remember the “long hot summer” threats of times past?). Keep Trump on the primary ballots and this is what will happen – and just try nominating him and putting him on the national ballot! Cities will burn! And the mainstream Republicans, ever the gentlemen (and gentlewomen), will, I expect, bow to mob rule and disown that troublemaker – i.e. Trump – once and for all, rather than just being passive-aggressive about it the way they were during his administration. And we'll wind up with some garden-variety neocon who won't ruffle the Democrats' feathers – Nikki Haley* being in the lead for that role at this point (and please note she's getting support from some Democrats simply for being the anti-Trump). And then, in turn, if the Republicans come up with another uninspiring, ho-hum candidate, that person will lose the election to Uncle Joe or whoever the Democrats have called up from the bench to replace him. (And – highly likely – the Trump base will simply sit out the election as a form of protest, thus giving Uncle Joe even more of a mandate than he would have had otherwise.)

So – bottom line – the protection racket will have worked. And no, it's not democracy or even a pale semblance thereof; it's strictly mob rule of the kind that can be found in many “banana republics” and other pseudo-democracies across the globe. But if this is what we've come to, well... some will call it karma, others will say it's the way empires decline and fall, and many of the citizenry – thoroughly demoralized already -- will just shrug and say (or think) “Eh, what do you expect?” Faith in government, anyone? I'm afraid that's already extinct at this point. Rule of law? The Colorado Supreme Court certainly doesn't have any use for it. There's just enough residual faith for some people to think that voting might actually make a difference; the rest of us are either cynical, or pessimistic, or just plain realistic – and if you can tell me the difference these days, please let me know.

* This just in – she failed to denounce slavery! Looks like the establishment has already administered the kill shot.

Don't Even Think About Running for President in 2024 (if you're a Republican)

 

The conventional wisdom among the conservative commentariat is that Trump and his family, and various members of his administration, are being hounded by the government (at all levels – federal, state (NY and Florida), and local (NYC)) in order to insure that he doesn't run for president in 2024. With all due respect, I disagree, and here's why.

#1, he'd be out of his mind to run (even assuming he's not in jail by that time, or some law or Constitutional amendment hasn't been dredged up to render him disqualified) given the treatment he received the last time around – from the day of his announcement through the campaign, and though his entire time in office, and even afterwards up to the present day. (I made some related comments in a blog post, “4 More Years? Really??”, July 28, 2020.) Trump may have some less-than-stellar personality traits, but I don't think masochism is one of them.

#2, if Biden managed to win against Trump in 2020, he can win against him again in 2024. Period! Or – whoever the DNC chooses to replace Biden can win likewise. The counterargument is that Biden (or whoever) would, in 2024, be running not only against Trump but against his (Biden's) own record during his first term – which, to the same commentariat, is considered dismal, to put it mildly. The problem there is that Biden has not lost a bit of support, either politically or among the electorate, since his inauguration. His fan club in the mainstream media are unstinting in their support and in running interference for him, and have yet to publish, or broadcast, any “news” which would be detrimental to him or his administration. (If Reagan was the “Teflon president”, then Biden is the “new improved Teflon president”. Not only does nothing stick, nothing even gets close.) To put it another way, Biden is a roaring success at this point, going from one victory to another – and as long as the faithful continue to believe this, he's good to go for 2024. (And it's hard to imagine anything that could cause the faithful not to keep believing. I mean, if a simple comparison of the way things are now with the way they were in January 2021 isn't sufficient, then nothing is.)

#3, even if Trump returned from political Siberia and staged a comeback not unlike that of Napoleon when he returned from Elba, would he attract any support outside of his hard-core MAGA constituency – the ones who attend his rallies? My sense is that his former supporters among the Republican mainstream have suffered enough – they have a chronic case of “Trump fatigue” that will not be eradicated. (And this is not Trump's fault, by the way – it's just that they're tired of the endless domestic warfare that Trump's being in the White House led to and sustained for more than four years.) (Call Trump fatigue the flip side of Trump Derangement Syndrome, if you like – both very much with us, especially now that the latter is official government policy.) And if his erstwhile supporters among Republicans are demoralized and worn out, imagine where the “independents” who voted for him in 2016 stand; they don't even have any party loyalty to hold them together. They were the first to jump ship, and are nowhere to be found at this point.

So, bottom line, the Democrats have nothing whatsoever to fear from Trump in 2024, and I think they know it. If he should dare to run, they could run the proverbial yellow dog against him and the dog would win. So it's not about Trump at all, is it? At least not in terms of the election of 2024. So if it's not about him, what is it about, other than playing to the paranoiac crowd?

There are two factors motivating the War on All Things Trump. One is simple vengeance. Trump deserves to be punished severely, and in perpetuity, for even having run for president and – even worse – for having won, and – even worse – for managing to stay in office for a full four-year term, despite two, count 'em, two impeachments – not to mention being accused of treason and being Putin's lapdog, along with countless other crimes. Lest we forget, his candidacy started out as a joke (to the media), and no one except Anne Coulter took it seriously – at least in public – until the morning after Election Day, when the sky fell and the pillars of the temple crumbled to dust. Privately, of course, the counter-candidacy drive was on from day one, with various elements of the Obama administration taking a leading role.

And then there was the humiliation of Hillary Clinton, Empress-in-Waiting, who never hurt a fly and in no wise deserved such shabby treatment as to be defeated by this big orange guy from New York City (just down the road from Chappaqua, to add to the insult).

And then there was the fact that, once in office, he tried to run the government like a business, and actually make changes that were more than merely cosmetic. And this, of course, was a wake-up call for the bureaucracy, AKA the Deep State, which marshaled its forces in an all-out effort to thwart, neutralize, or at the very least ignore his every initiative – with signal success, I might add. But the fact that he didn't back down – no “walking back”, “clarifying”, or “reconsidering” with this guy -- caused the derangement to boil over into public view (the impeachment hearings providing a prime example, where one petty bureaucrat after another got up and said that they considered it their patriotic duty as Americans to sabotage any Trump programs).

So yes – for breaking all the rules, and never apologizing, Trump deserves all he's getting, and more. And clearly the “numbers” didn't count, i.e. the various measures of the success of his initiatives which continued to mount up, and which the mainstream media and the Democrats could only answer either with “It's a lie” or “It doesn't matter”. (Although it's funny how Biden and his minions spout the same sorts of numbers every day, and we're all expected to believe them without question.)

That's the punishment-vengeance-vendetta piece, perfectly understandable in this day and age. America at its finest! An entire administration devoted to one thing, the punishment of the previous administration. Can you say “banana republic”, class?

The second factor is, if you will, less emotional and more strategic, and that's to show anyone foolish enough to consider running for president on the Republican ticket in 2024 what will happen to them if they go through with it. Well, number one, they won't win for many of the same reasons Trump couldn't win, even if they are identified as never-Trumpers, anti-MAGA hatters... untouched by the outrages of the Trump “era”... pure as the driven snow. For one thing, the Democrats are the majority party now at the federal level at least, and it's delusional to think otherwise. So a Republican with all the finest anti-Trump credentials – let's say a reincarnation of John McCain – and not festooned with Trump cooties – has very little chance, because they will inevitably be lumped in with Trump anyway and called his clone, or Trump 2.0, or some such. (Plus, the chances are that their kids' nanny's brother-in-law once changed the oil in one of Trump's cars, and that is sufficient evidence to find the hapless candidate guilty as charged.) (This is no exaggeration. It's the way things operated on a daily basis in the Soviet Union, and in Mao's China.)

Now – one could ask – if the Democrats are sure-fire winners in 2024, why bother to intimidate the Republicans into... maybe even giving up and not running at all? If the Republicans managed to bring Abraham Lincoln back to life and put him up as a candidate, might they not stand a chance? Well, let's just call it “insurance”. The fact that the Democrats have an iron grip on the voting process (polls, machines, ballots, counts, novel voting procedures, and so on) in many states and in all major cities might have swung an election, or more than one, in the past. Nowadays it would be seen as redundant – a case of “overkill”, if you will. But the mechanisms are in place, and they have to be kept up to snuff – after all, there are state and local elections to think about, not to mention elections for Congressional seats. Besides, the intimidation factor trickles down to the state and local level; political correctness is now the law of the land, and there is no elective office so trivial or obscure that it will escape the attention of the PC police if anyone tries wandering off the reservation. (And, lest we forget, the sacred duty of any true believer in totalitarianism is not just to defeat those who disagree, but to exterminate the disagreement. This is right out of “1984” and is as true today as it ever was.)

So, bottom line-wise, who in their right mind would want to put themselves and their family through all that? The mainstream media have tasted blood, and they're unlikely to cover their fangs for any future Republican – not even for the ilk of Liz Cheney, a sheep in wolves' clothing who is more anti-Trump than most Democrats.

So basically, you can count anyone who proposes running on the Republican ticket in 2024 as (1) delusional, (2) masochistic, and (3) ready for the funny farm. But this doesn't mean plenty won't try, since those qualities seem to typify Republican politicians these days.

So now we know what's really behind the new, improved witch hunt being staged against Trump and anyone who had even the slightest, most trivial connection with him. (Note that not only his lawyers are being called up before Congressional committees, but their lawyers, and their lawyers. Before long half the legal profession will be headed for federal prison (and come to think of it, that might actually be regarded as a good thing).)

Then, given all of the above, why is the conservative commentariat insisting that it's all about keeping Trump from running in 2024? I think it's basically about denial. In their world, the following propositions actually have some truth value:

1. Trump could win if he ran in 2024.

2. Some other Republican could win in 2024 if Trump chose not to run or was prevented from running.

3. The Republican Party represents the majority opinion among the American citizenry.

4. Biden's record will count against him in 2024.

5. Trump is still, in some mysterious way, the leader of the Republican Party (in this, at least, they agree with the mainstream media).

6. The Republican Party has a future on the national level.

Did I say “denial”? “Delusional” is more like it. Also “smoking their socks”. And so on. My expectation for 2024 is very simple: If Biden should choose not to run, what are the Democrats going to do about Kamala Harris? (Who? – you ask. Precisely my point. This should be TV worth watching; the rest is drearily predictable.)

The Politics of Revolution (Part 2 of “How Destroyed Does America Have to Be?”)

Right off the bat, you might say “But wait, that doesn't make sense – isn't revolution what happens when politics don't work?” And that's true in a sense, but you could also say that revolution is just politics on fast forward – eliminating the fine points and the details and getting right to the heart of the matter (and breaking a few eggs along the way). And in fact, that's what seems to be happening in our time. How many times have you heard, or read, a comment like “history is speeding up”, or “the news cycle can barely keep up”? It seems that we wake up to a different world each day – and yet that is how prior revolutions were described as well. And to some extent, this disorientation is intentional – keep the citizenry off-balance and confused, and especially no longer sure who the “good guys” or the “bad guys” are, and you're halfway to the goal. All will be made clear once the revolution is complete and all the stragglers have been rounded up. Then there will be no more doubt or ambiguity, only certainty and the iron hand.

But that doesn't mean revolutions are apolitical – far from it. There has to be a, let's say, critical mass of dissatisfaction among the populace for revolutions to work – not that the isolated revolt, mutiny, whatever, can't happen, because they do and have, many times down through the ages. But for it to stick, there has to be a certain level of – even if tacit – agreement. And yes, this is true even if the result of the revolution is the oppression and exploitation of the very people on whose behalf it was supposedly staged – usually the “common man”, or “the workers”, or “labor”. The cannon fodder of every revolution over the past 200+ years has been the aggrieved – the underprivileged – the exploited – the shat-upon. And yet find me a revolution which, once successful in throwing out the Ancien Regime, does not, on some level, exploit and take advantage of the very same groups. More often than not, for all of their effort they have merely traded one form of oppression and slavery for another.

Another factor is the propaganda. Prior to the revolution, it's all about “rights”, and grievances, and getting even, and sticking it to the ruling class (royalty being especially good as targets). Post-revolution, it's more about absolute conformity for the good of the state, and stop griping because Rome wasn't built in a day, and you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and there's a camp just down the road for any naysayers and cranks.

What would a revolution be, in fact, without a vast army of the dissatisfied, the alienated, and the underprivileged? And what would a modern revolution be without providing them with voting rights, regardless of citizenship status? Imagine if the Roman Empire had not only welcomed the barbarians – opened the gates for them – but also instantly made them full-fledged Roman citizens with voting rights? The empire would have fallen much sooner than it did. (Now one might say, if it was inevitable it's just as well it happened sooner than later. Yeah – it's good being an armchair historian, but just try living through it.)

Which brings us to the present day, and the situation in the U.S.A. As I've observed on a number of occasions, we are a revolutionary society. We started out with a revolution, and then – never satisfied with the status quo – staged a number of mini-revolutions from that point on, right up to the present day. We had, for example, Jacksonian democracy... Reconstruction... Progressivism... the New Deal... The Great Society, along with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts... the cultural revolution of the 1960s... the short-lived populist “revolutions” under Reagan and Trump... and now the full-blown Revolution of 2020, which not only consolidated all previous gains (those trending leftwards, of course) but set even more firmly in place all of the governmental structures, agencies, laws, and regulations required in order to make the revolution permanent – and, by the way – and most importantly of all, perhaps – secured the full cooperation and “buy-in” of the military.

And, in a sense, it matters little whether we refer to a revolution as "just starting", "under way", or "successful", since to the revolutionary mind there is no such thing as completion, i.e. satisfaction with the new status quo.  If dissatisfaction is a state of mind of a certain portion of the citizenry, then so is the desire -- the need -- for any given revolution to go on indefinitely, since there is always room for improvement, and perfection is always tantalizingly out of reach.  But isn't “permanent revolution” a contradiction in terms? Chairman Mao didn't think so. And his heirs (both in China and elsewhere on the globe) are pretty much calling the shots these days. “Permanent revolution” is no more improbable than “permanent dissatisfaction”, which is, arguably, a part of fallen human nature.

So yes, revolution is nothing new. It isn't alien to the American experience – the American “experiment” -- but is part and parcel of it. If there was ever a society that was, in its heart of hearts, anti-conservative, anti-status quo, it is our own. There is an unwritten rule, or assumption, that change is good – change for its own sake, actual results being a minor consideration. “Progress” has been an icon and a fetish almost from the start – and that has morphed into something called “change”. This was, of course, the theme of Barack Obama's campaigns in 2008 and 2012 – change! Hope and change! The great icon, the great golden calf! And simply believing in it was enough; not only do actual results not matter, but it's considered downright impolite to even bring the subject up.

But let's not get too judgmental on this point, because it should be obvious that the appeal of “change” has to be based on dissatisfaction with things as they are. Obama did not win two presidential elections because people were satisfied and content. He won because people were angry – frustrated – alienated. They felt that they had lost control of their lives, and therefore of their fate. And his campaigns were designed to verify, reinforce, and perpetuate all of that anger and frustration – and to promise that things would get better, because – well – “because change”.

Now, one could argue, what's the big deal? Most people feel this way most of the time, and Obama was just capitalizing on it. OK... but then why do people feel this way? What is it about America that seems to yield up this attitude, seemingly out of nowhere, whereas in other countries it takes a lot more effort (and in some cases, is virtually impossible – think about places like Switzerland, for example)? What it is is what I call The Promise – and that is that the Founding Fathers not only established a republic that was designed as well as it was, given their relative sophistication about human nature, but that republic held out hope for perpetual progress... perpetual improvement in the standard of living... unhindered freedoms... and that the voice of the people would always and everywhere we heard, and honored. Quite a wish list! And it actually seemed to work for a while, at least as long as people were content to allow the landed gentry to run things. But then along came populism (version 1.0) and concern for “rights” (beyond those already specified in the Constitution), and the gap between the ruling elite and the common folk was exposed, and that got the ball rolling. (And yes, Southern Secession and the establishment of the Confederacy was a high water mark of sorts.) Post-Civil War, our revolutions were a bit less violent, but no less significant. And that brings us up to the present day, when a new variation on an old theme is found, namely that the revolution is being led by the government itself – the “establishment” -- and it is aimed at the people – or at least a substantial portion thereof.

Now, one might say, but haven't all of our revolutions been, basically, at the instigation of whoever's in charge, and haven't they all been opposed by a certain percentage of the populace? Instigation, yes – in the case of the Progressive Era, the New Deal, civil rights measures of the 1960s, etc. Revolution from the top – which was, in fact, turned into an art form by Chairman Mao. But as for opposition – not so much. The Progressive Era and the New Deal were, if you will, heavy on carrot and light on stick. They promised, and they delivered – up to a point. (And what they were unable to deliver, they filled in by means of propaganda.) They were represented, at the time, and are in the history books, as being “for the people”. I'm not sure the same can be said of what's going on at present. Yes, there is plenty of carrot (entitlements, creation of new “rights” and catering to newly-discovered victim/grievance groups) but also a whole lot of stick (taxes, regulations, inflation, violation of traditional rights, and intentional alienation and persecution of large segments of the populace by means of slander, “canceling”, discrimination, etc.).

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You may have noticed that in my previous post I seemed to be expressing some degree of disapproval of current events and trends. (And I was trying so hard to be objective and “value free”!) Does that make me a “conservative”? Well... if one defines conservatism as “preferring to stick with what works, or at least with what is stable and predictable, as opposed to experimenting with the lives and fates of the citizenry based on some theories or 'models' cooked up in Ivy League faculty lounges”, then yes, I'm a conservative. But if it means “regarding the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as sacrosanct holy writ that must be set in granite and which cannot be improved upon, and America as permanently occupying the moral high ground, and being nigh unto infallible in its foreign and domestic policies” then no. In that case, I'll join the “dirty hippies” in the next protest march.

When you boil it all down, the ultimate question becomes, quite simply, “Is the world a better place because America, i.e. the United States, existed?” Or, would everyone have been better off if we had just stuck with Britain and become part of Canada, or whatever? To put it another way – has America been part of the solution all these many years, or part of the problem? Has our experiment with democracy metastasized into oppression, both on the domestic front and world-wide? Or has it at least been preferable to the alternatives, whatever they may have been? When you put it this way, you soon realize that the question is impossible to answer. History is not full of dress rehearsals and trial runs – it's always the real thing, for better or worse. No rewinds, no replay, no Plan B, no “what-ifs”, no “woulda, coulda, shoulda”.

Now, one “nuanced”, if you will, answer might be that we were a good influence for a while, but then “broke bad”, went rogue, whatever. Human nature and the hunger for power took over. OK... then what was the point at which the balance shifted? The Mexican War? The Civil War? The Spanish-American War? World War I? World War II? Korea? Vietnam? Iraq/Afghanistan? Everybody has a theory as to when we “lost our innocence” – and the simplest answer is that we never had it to begin with. The Founding Fathers knew more about human nature than all the present-day Ivy League “scholars” and think-tankers combined, and yet they had hope. They figured, give flawed human nature a chance to better itself through a rationally designed form of government. Perhaps reason will conquer passion – or at least keep it at bay. And, better to fail than to despair of even trying, right? And in fact, that effort does seem to have at least altered the conversation over the years. Democracy has become, for many people in many places, something that is worth a try, or at least given lip service. (Even the most tyrannical governments on the planet pay tribute by calling themselves the “people's democratic republic of....”.) What it runs into, more often than not, is not only human nature, but national character. Contrary to our State Department's perennial delusion, there are people out there who are simply not ready for democracy, in any form. And this is not being judgmental; it's simply a fact, and is based on any number of things – tradition, custom, religion, language, world view, and so on. And it doesn't mean those cultures are “inferior”; they may have worked out a quite satisfactory system of governance – one that works better than ours, in fact (not that high a bar any longer). And then there is the natural aversion to some foreigners (especially “infidels”) trying to tell you how to run your country and live your life. (And – how many times have we put lipstick on a pig called “fledgling democracy” when it was, in fact, nothing of the sort, but just a show put on for the sake of staying on our foreign aid payroll? “Color revolutions”, ink-stained thumbs... just a side show, basically – and a cruel hoax for the people who actually fell for it.)

So yes, it's imponderable. Go back to 1776 but squelch those minor uprisings in Massachusetts, and put those treasonous wackos on house arrest before they can gather at Independence Hall, and assert that “Hail, Britannia” will remain our national anthem, and let people of good common sense remain in charge, and long live King George! Would the world have profited more by that than by what actually happened? Who knows?

But just because this issue is imponderable doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people out there who have the answer. Start with the “1619 Project” which asserts that America was founded on slavery and was therefore evil, immoral, and flawed from the beginning – and that nothing that has happened since can ever make up for that, therefore the country has to be brought to ruin and then rebuilt from scratch, with not only equal rights but also radical redistribution of property and other resources. And of course this idea has international implications as well, since any nation with such a fatal flaw cannot possibly have legitimately represented itself as an exemplar of democracy, human rights, and freedom for all these years – and certainly should never have imposed its flawed ideas on any other nation or culture, either through diplomacy or by means of physical force. So if America is suspect, so are all of its works, and the rest of world has been deceived all this time. (But they are “woke” now, and America has been "outed" as a total fraud.)

But the 1619 Project aside, many people have come to the opinion that it's high time America paid the price for its hubris and presumption – way past time, in fact. No one wants to have to live with the karma of America's past sins, in other words – and if committing political, cultural, and economic suicide is a sufficient form of reparation, it's certainly worth doing.

So yes, collective guilt is an overriding theme when it comes to both domestic and foreign policy, the only question being how to expiate that guilt. On the domestic side, when it comes to slavery, the preferred option is to nullify all economic gains that can be traced to slavery – which, in the “woke” playbook, means pretty much all. Make us not only poverty-stricken, but helpless before our enemies, because we were – as everyone knows (because that's what we're taught in public school and college) – the only nation on earth to allow slavery to persist for so long, and this in the face of all of our pretenses – oh, the hypocrisy! So we can only repay our debt to the rest of humanity be ceasing to exist as a nation, and as a culture. And if we're ever assaulted in any way – economically, militarily, culturally – by any other nation taking advantage of our sorry state, well, we've got it coming.

Plus, domestic guilt mongers aside, there are plenty of people elsewhere on the globe who totally agree with this point of view. They may not say much about slavery – that would be too blatantly hypocritical even for them! – but when it comes to America throwing its weight around, and our own hypocrisy, they are remarkably unified: It's about time for a comeuppance! We're sick of America being “the” superpower, and the world's policeman -- who do they think they are? And this is at the very same time they cheerfully accept our “foreign aid” and military assistance (and pay us occasional and grudging respect for having bailed them out in World Wars I and II, and for having held off the “Russian bear” throughout the Cold War). Only a fool wouldn't take advantage of Uncle Stupid while they have the opportunity (recalling the “beached whale” analogy...). And what they marvel at more than anything else is our naivete. They may have laughed behind Trump's back at NATO get-togethers, but do you really think they aren't laughing behind Biden's back as well – maybe more? (At least Trump scared them a bit; Biden is about as scary as a frayed sock puppet.)

Make no mistake, the “America and the world” issue is a prominent subtext of the current revolution, but it's far from the only issue, and not even the most important (although it may be to watchers beyond our borders). In view of our history, the current revolution is far from exceptional. One might almost say that it's an American tradition – that we would be all out of sorts without a revolution of some sort every few decades. Now, this doesn't mean that it's right, or desirable, or even that it won't have catastrophic consequences – only that, in the broad historical scheme of things, there's an air of inevitability about it. One could object, of course, that all of our previous revolutions have at least not meant the end of the Republic – that it has survived, in some form, through much storm and strife. And who knows, it may survive the current revolution as well – at least in superficial terms, like the form of government (even if the character of elections undergoes permanent change, including eliminating them for all intents and purposes). Will we still have a functioning system of currency, or will we be spending “Zimbabwe bucks” or trading potatoes for shoes? How about property rights? (They are under assault as it is.) How about all the other rights listed in the Bill of Rights, as well as rights that have been defined or “discovered” since? Will they exist in name only – or not at all? (Or – more likely – will all the old, traditional rights be declared null and void, and the new “rights” be declared paramount? This topsy-turvy act is also a hallmark of many prior revolutions elsewhere on the planet. What better way to remake society than to declare that what once was right, and therefore legal, is now wrong, and therefore illegal – and vice versa?)

That's on the historical side. But then we have the political side, and once again a revolution, in a sort of paradoxical way, depends on a certain modicum of support from the populace even if its ultimate goal is to suppress, or eliminate, most of the rights of said populace. Yes, people can vote themselves into tyranny – the most notable historic example being the naming of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany in 1933, based on the election results in 1932. But we also have numerous other examples of the popular vote going to a communist candidate, who immediately turns around and eliminates elections. (So in that case, did the people vote, in an election, to eliminate elections? File this under either “paradox” or “irony”, your choice.)

See, people don't vote for a “system” nearly as often as they vote for an idea (right or wrong) and, even more often, for what they perceive to be in their best and most immediate interests – economically and socially.  This is human nature, and is the very thing that the Founding Fathers were attempting to rise above with their emphasis on certain ideas – rights, proper governance, etc. What resulted in the long run was a kind of hybrid – “pocketbook” issues, regional loyalties, etc. often disguised as ideas, or ideals, with ample iconography to match. “America” is a concept that suffices on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July, but when people walk into the voting booth, their jobs and bank accounts seem to carry the day. (This is assuming that they are not among the “woke” minority who take pride in voting against their own economic interests. In their case it's intentional, but most of the time it's the result of propaganda and blatant lies by politicians.)

And I often wonder how many people actually vote for “America”, as opposed to their state/county/village/farm/etc. It seems that most people can only “think big” up to a point, but in the long run they will make decisions – including those about their governance – based on what is more immediate, visible, and essential to their livelihood. The trick, of course – and it's one that works a remarkable portion of the time – is convincing people that their immediate concerns are synonymous with the good of the Republic, however defined – and that on some mystical, other-worldly level, fighting goatherds in Afghanistan has something to do with preserving the family farm in Iowa. Get enough people to believe this, and you can do anything you like foreign policy-wise, including starting and pursuing endless wars with no discernible relationship to the actual welfare or prosperity of any actual American citizen.

So what has been going on all this time? Well, it's about changing – through relentless propaganda, derision, and shaming -- people's natural regard for home and hearth – for family, village and town – for race, ethnicity, and religion – into a regard – nay, a prioritization – of ideas. Now, this is nothing new, since we've been an ideational society since the start. But even our most iconic idea, or image, that of “America”, is an abstraction, really, when you come to think about it. Is the “America” of a New England fisherman the same “America” as that of a Nebraska farmer, or a California fruit grower, or a Detroit factory worker? They may use the word, but what they really mean is much more here and now – my family, my home, my street, my neighborhood. (Let the rootless cosmopolitans – the globalists – play their games. We know what they've given up (or never had), and we know what really counts in life.)

But the idea of “America” has outlived its usefulness, according to the globalists (including our home-grown kind). It's... well... not just old-fashioned and out of style, but it's also “reactionary”, “isolationist” (try that out on the guys who fought in World War II and Korea), “paternalistic”, “xenophobic”, and, ultimately, “racist”, as well as the dozen or so (and counting) other kind of “isms” that could be called up. So the tables have been turned on the citizenry, who thought they had a reliable set of standards, principles, and images to rely on, and now they're all expected to embrace “globalism” with all of its myriad components, implications, and alleged blessings. They are expected to become world citizens – loyal to the planet, and nothing less.

And they are the people who have the most to lose in the current revolution. All that they value is being devalued, if not outright derided and laughed at, by the ruling elite and their street-wise acolytes. And yet – and here is the ultimate irony – they continue to vote for the people who are out to destroy them and their culture. And I attribute this not so much to their ignorance as to the utter treachery of the ruling elite and of the public officials who are their obedient servants (not to mention their facilitators in the media and on the Internet). If our previous revolutions were, in a sense, about government dragging some of the populace, kicking and screaming, into a new era (think of civil rights legislation), then the current revolution is about completely ignoring large segments of the populace – having decided that they don't count and should have no rights, and are, basically, non-persons.

When the ruling elite simply writes off a substantial portion of the population, you know that the revolution is well under way, and nearing completion. When it declares that portion of the population to be “deplorable”, and liable to engage in “conspiracy theories” and “insurrections”, you know that the revolution is over with, and all that remains is a mopping-up operation (going on right now with the January 6 hearings). Our previous revolutions at least had the merit of allowing the losers to live, if in a state of second-class citizenship (see the South, from the Civil War right up to the present day). The current attitude seems to be one of total war – defeat is not sufficient – only total subjugation will do, and, lacking that, extermination.

So yes, it is different this time, and yet – and here's the point at which all “conservatives” should engage in a rare exercise in humility – it's apparently what most people want, as evidenced by their voting patterns, which include not voting, which is the same as going along with whatever the results happen to be. (Ever wonder why “opinion polls” have such a low correlation with election results when the polls are conducted by conservative organizations, but a much higher one when the polls are conducted by liberal organizations? Think about that for a while.)

To be just a bit simplistic about it, anyone who voted for Biden in 2020 – well, OK, there were certainly plenty of anti-Trump, as opposed to pro-Biden, votes – but basically, anyone who voted for Biden voted for exactly what we have now – inflation, shortages, open borders, Critical Race Theory, racial paranoia, gender paranoia, “climate change” being Job One, globalism, “green” (no oil, no gas, no nukes), chaotic foreign policy – and so on. They voted for all of these things because they were either explicitly part of the Democratic platform, or they were completely predictable in the event Biden became president. (Or, they were things Trump was against, so they had to be for.) So... basically, they can't complain, and in fact they aren't complaining. If you look at or listen to the mainstream media and their facilitators in the “social media” and “entertainment”, you'd think everything was groovy – that we had entered an entirely new phase en route to Utopia. (And as for the White House press office, whose talent for propaganda and doublespeak ranks up there with Izvestia and Pravda, “never is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day”, like the words of the old cowboy song.)

And the point is (again, memo to any and all conservatives) that the people who are with, or at least not against, the revolutionary program are, in fact, in the majority. So... if you're really a dedicated fan of “democracy”, i.e. “majority rule” regardless, you should be completely satisfied with all of this. And of course I know what the objections will be – “But it's wrong! It's un-American! It's globalism, tyranny, totalitarianism, Marxism, etc.” All true – but it's also “the will of the people”, by definition. So... how's that “democracy” thing working out for you? Is it really the best system yet devised for self-governance? The conservatives need to do some serious soul-searching on this issue.

But one can argue that this isn't the real thing – that it's degenerate, chaotic, the product of brainwashing and propaganda, etc. Very likely! But then we have to at least re-think what we mean by “democracy”, and what we want... what we expect it to produce. Because it turns out (and the Founding Fathers knew this very well) that a democracy is only as good as the citizens who make it up, and if those citizens are the demoralized product of a long – generations-long – campaign of propaganda and demoralization and guilt-tripping, starting in the universities and filtering down through the political class and the media to the ordinary citizen, then we can expect what we have now – not democracy in the classical sense, but a kind of Bizarro-democracy – a disfigured mockery of the real thing, which would scandalize the Founding Fathers and their political descendants, but which – at least as things stand – appears to be a natural, inevitable stage of devolution of America as an idea, and thus as an empire as well. The question of whose fault it is – the people's or their enemies – may not even be relevant, since if the people have allowed this state of affairs to develop, they're their own worse enemies.

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Lest I end this post on a completely negative note, let me point out that, historically, every empire eventually falls, disappears, or at least shrinks. And empires built on a delusional Utopian vision have a much lower half life than those built on plain old conquest. Do you find this ironic? Because old-style conquest, i.e. war, is supposedly out of fashion these days, which is why Russia's invasion of Ukraine is such a scandal. War is, well... unseemly... in poor taste... hurtful... and all the rest of it. And yet I will contend that it's more universal, and natural to the human condition, than Utopianism (which often involves war anyway). It's not that I'm saying “Give War a Chance” (priceless title of one of P. J. O'Rourke's hilarious books), it's just that it's so common, and so nearly universal, that it should give one pause when entertaining Rousseau-esque fancies about the nature of man and of what is possible, i.e. to what extent the human race, or any portion thereof, can pull itself up by its bootstraps.

And this is the odd thing about America, in a way. We are an ideational society, which should mean that reason prevails in most if not all circumstances. And yet we are, arguably, one of the most warlike nations, and cultures, on the planet – both now and historically. (Our “defense” budget exceeds that of most other nations combined – and yet only about 1% of it is dedicated to actual defense, i.e. of the homeland.) And what gets us into wars is, more often than not, ideas. Ideas based on the founding documents for certain, but also on the many and varied interpretations of said documents, right up to the present day – the most overriding idea being that simply being “enlightened” is not enough – staying home and sitting under our own vine and fig tree, and minding our own damn business, is way too boring, and selfish to boot. We owe it to the world to spread the gospel of “democracy” – by example, persuasion, or by force if need be (were our Founding Fathers actually students of Muhammad? Makes you wonder... ). And by the same token, we can excuse any foreign escapades – invasions, occupations, whatever – regardless of cost in “blood and treasure” – on the basis that ideas are, and should be, paramount, and that no sacrifice in their service is too great.

And this is what the rest of the world, and especially the globalists – Utopians all – are having to cope with when dealing with the United States. We have trouble falling into line behind the E.U. or the World Economic Forum because we have long since written off Europe, and especially Western Europe, as a hotbed of world-weary cynicism – a place not of ideas but of lukewarmness and decadence. And yet here we are faced with the prospect of, basically, submitting to their world view and their wishes, and leaving traditional American values (whether honorable or wrong-headed) behind.

And is this because we've run out of ideas – our most cherished possession as a society, in a way? Or have we grown world-weary as well? Or has our pursuit of ideas been rebuffed, brought low, and humiliated with increasing frequency (one only has to consider Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan)? Or is it as simple as demographic change (the replacement of traditionally-minded Americans with people who simply don't share our ideas and our vision, and who show no interest in “assimilating”)? In other words, does the America that conservatives are trying “save” even exist any longer (especially if one clings to the notion of “majority rule” at all costs)?

And this may, in fact, be why the globalists and Utopians – especially of the European variety – have found it so easy to infiltrate into our culture, economics, politics, and even values. If nature abhors a vacuum, so do political and social activists; they see a weakness – a gap – and waste no time filling it. And it matters little what they fill it with – what counts is that they've replaced nothing with something. And when conservatives object, and protest – it's foreign, decadent, un-American, etc. – one response (call it mean-spirited triumphalism) might be “Well, then why didn't you defend your traditions and values more energetically, rather than acting like sheep before the shearer?” A valid point, I'm afraid. But it doesn't matter how energetically a minority group defends its values and way of life, a sufficiently determined majority will roll over them with ease – as is happening now, and the popular culture is, if you will, the vanguard, followed closely by public education and the rest of the armies of “agents of change”. Another way of putting it is that when the long march through the institutions was taking place, the “average American” was fixated on 9-to-5 jobs, car payments, TV, and sports. Now we wake up to a different world, and the cry goes out “What happened? And who betrayed us? Who opened the gates and let the Trojan Horse in?” Well, um... how about the people you've been voting into office all this time? Bet you thought they were on your side; sorry about that. They were, in fact, enemy agents – every bit as despicable as the “atomic spies” of old, but much less picturesque.

But this is the way of things in human history – and it's, ultimately, always about power – not necessarily overt power, i.e. armies, wealth, territory, etc. – but about, once again, the power of ideas, and by that I don't mean good vs. bad ideas, but ideas that are backed by sheer force and determination. A true believer in just about anything is what is called, in the military, a “force multiplier”. History is brimming over with examples of small but determined groups emerging victorious after a struggle with a (supposedly) “great” power; our own Revolution (the first one) is an example. And one reason ideas have such power is that the other side has no answers. We were confronted with fundamentalist Islam in Afghanistan (as were the Russians), and could not answer in kind, or anything close to it. So a “primitive” society with “crude” weapons, a fanatical religious outlook, and – gasp! – no uniforms succeeded, after 20 long years, in forcing us to give up and go home. (See also Vietnam, for both us and the French.)

What America is confronted with now is, in a way, new and different. We're used to revolutions, as I've said, but those are basically internal matters, at least for us. Our revolutions have always been home-grown and tailored to our tastes, in a sense. And we've always had the oceans protecting us from traditional military attacks and invasions from overseas. But our Achilles heel, as it turns out, was in being apathetic and naive about foreign influences in other areas -- economics being prime, but also politics/diplomacy, values, culture, and even philosophy and “political science” (areas in which “invaders” from Europe have done some of the most severe damage). We (OK, some of us) take great pride in our European “heritage” – problem is, that heritage is pretty much extinct in the Old Country, and what replaced it is at our doorstep (or maybe a “home invasion” is a better metaphor). America is, in many ways, the last holdout for many of the traditions our ancestors brought with them across the ocean. The Old World has moved far beyond all of that and considers our “clinging” behavior to be somewhat laughable and pathetic – especially when it comes to religion. (Note the similarity to the attitudes of our home-grown elites.) Western Europe in particular takes great, and quite explicit, pride in being religion-free – in being completely secular and materialistic, and they find this quite satisfying and wonder what's wrong with us that we don't follow suit (but they have ways of dealing with this and are doing so).

So the “good news”, in a way, is that empires do eventually end, in some manner or other. The American Empire is on its last legs – not because of conclusive defeats overseas or economic meltdown on the home front, but because of lack of political will – not lack of ideas per se, but lack of any way of implementing those ideas that does not immediately turn into a catastrophe. As a nation and as a society, we're falling apart in nearly every way. But we're not alone, as it turns out! The “international community” is here to help us – and to absorb us into a global, or near-global, empire, albeit in a subordinate role, since we still have to pay for our sins, which are great and many. So – again, like the beached whale – we will be “mined”, if you will, for any usable resources, and assigned a kind of bizarre “emeritus” status on the world stage, but someone else will be calling the shots. (And don't think our own elites aren't polishing their resumes, hoping that they will be welcomed into (or allowed to remain in) the inner circle once we're over the hump. No one wants to be like those Russian officials who thought all was well until they were photoshopped out of the May Day parade photos – the first step to either the gulag or an unmarked grave.)

And yet – and yet! – this empire – this new, squeaky-clean, humanistic, “diverse”, you-name-it, empire will also pass, eventually – and it may take decades, or even centuries. No one now alive will be around to see it. But in the scheme of things, it's inevitable – and that very flaw, or weakness, means that a revival of the human spirit is possible.

And when's the last time you heard that term – “human spirit”? Just try “Googling” it, as opposed to things like “rights”. I imagine you'll wind up with a 1-to-a million ratio. And yet the human spirit, by which I mean the desire to live free, as opposed to being in a state of slavery – and conscious, as opposed to brainwashed – this cannot be suppressed forever. The urge to live free is always there, perhaps buried deep in the subconscious, but never totally extinguished, because it is, after all, a vital part of human nature. African slaves that were brought to the U.S. considered freedom to be their ultimate vision, and that which they hoped and prayed for (and sang about) for generations. Freedom burst forth from the Baltic States and the Caucasus – basically forgotten parts of the world – when the Soviet Union broke up. People rediscovered their national identities, traditions, and customs – and, in many cases, their faith. And it's not always a matter of “remembering” what freedom is, and what it's like; it's deeper than that. It's what happens when people start comparing their situation to what they instinctively feel is proper and just. (We are seeing the glimmerings of this here in the U.S., even as the forces of totalitarianism gain strength.)

So if there's any hope to be had, it is along these lines. This generation may see nothing other than not only the road to serfdom, but serfdom itself. And yet, there may be pockets of resistance, as there have been in all other revolutions world-wide. If a greater portion of humanity prefers bogus “rights”, and even more bogus “security”, and is willing to give up everything else to obtain them, there will always be a remnant that will prefer independence and freedom of choice, with all of its risks – and they are the people on whom we must rely for a rebirth, no matter how long it takes.

 

Gaffe or Guff?

 

“I have no idea if there will be a Republican Party” (in 2024).

Thus spoke Uncle Joe, in public and in plain sight, in the first press conference of his first term (heh heh).  So… anyone who wasn’t startled by this needs to cut back on the tranquilizers.  It may have been a unique statement by any president, even in these unique times.  So the question is, was he just rambling or did he lift the curtain, just a wee bit, on the plan -- on the machinations of the Deep State of which he is now titular head?  We know that there are already plans afoot to hunt down “domestic terrorists”, AKA Trump supporters… and that the military have expressed their willingness to take part.  And if “Trump supporters”, who apparently wake up every morning with visions of staging a remake of Jan. 6, are in the crosshairs, can Republicans in general be far behind?  What does the Republican hierarchy think of this statement?  (And since we’re speculating, if the Republican Party disappears before 2024, will it be replaced?  And if so, what with?)

The Democratic/progressive/liberal cabal has been scapegoating the mainstream Republicans for the alleged sins, crimes, and offenses of Donald Trump ever since he declared his candidacy, much to the dismay of said Republicans, who wanted nothing less than to wind up with Trump as their standard bearer.  And when he won and took over the White House, they did everything in their power to subvert, sabotage, and defeat his programs and agenda.  (You’d think they’d have been made honorary Democrats as a reward, but I guess they still weren’t considered virtuous enough.)  So they get blamed, for four long years, for things that they didn’t want and didn’t support, and now that Trump is safely back in Florida the Democrats start calling them “domestic terrorists”, and Nancy Pelosi describes Republicans in Congress as “the enemy within”.  (Something just rang a faint bell.  I think it has to do with Joseph McCarthy and/or J. Edgar Hoover.)  

And now here’s Uncle Joe saying, basically, that the Republicans’ days may be numbered.  (I never thought I’d ever agree with anything he said, but I agree on this one.)  The Republicans in Congress have been relegated to the sidelines and are totally ignored, because… well, who needs them?  Their last remaining grip on any power, namely the filibuster, is about to be done away with… more new Democratic members of Congress (representing DC and Puerto Rico, with Guam waiting in the wings) are soon to be minted… the federal government is about to take over the election process from the states via HR-1, thus assuring lifetime tenure for any and all Democrats... and so on.  So really, if the Republican Party still exists in some vestigial form in 2024, it will be as if it doesn’t, for all intents and purposes.  (Maybe the Democrats will keep it alive just to avoid comparisons with the Soviet Union -- but don’t get your hopes up.  None of the other already-relevant comparisons don’t seem to bother them in the least.)  

Frankly, I find it refreshing that Uncle Joe is letting the cat out of the bag.  (Well, maybe not the whole cat, maybe just one whisker, but still…)  It certainly starts bringing things into focus, and if the Republicans don’t declare Condition Red at this point, they will deserve whatever dreary fate awaits them in 2024.

Obama's Fourth Term

 

Regardless of any last-minute official reports that may or may not come out in the next few hours (and it's doubtful there will be any, given that the Trump administration is sinking faster than the Titanic, with people at all levels bailing out like the proverbial rats deserting a sinking ship), there are some things that are now plain to see, and that will define the Trump presidency and this era to a significant degree.

And of these, perhaps the most striking is the role Barack Obama has played in all of this – starting on or about the day Donald Trump took that fabled escalator ride (down rather than up, and that's enough for a metaphor right there). Whether or not Obama was inspired by Hillary Clinton's custom-made Russia hoax is one question, i.e. would he have initiated a full-scale sabotage operation directed at Trump if it hadn't been for the tall tale of Trump's collusion with Russia? What I suspect is that he was already thinking seriously about the matter, and about strategy, but that the Russia hoax story was like unto a gift from above; it was tossed into his lap, and at that point he decided to go full-bore with the operation. And of course Hillary was out of office at that point, and technically a private citizen, so she could not readily call upon, and mobilize, the forces of the Deep State, and in particular the FBI and the Justice Department, the way Obama could.

But really, how badly did Obama want to render the 2016 election of Donald Trump null and void, and thus propel Hillary into her rightful place as Empress of America, of the Known World, and of the Universe in General? Did he really want her to succeed wherever he had failed? (Did he want her to turn Obamacare back into Hillarycare, for example?) What I suspect is that he knew the Russia hoax was, indeed, a hoax and that it would be exposed as such sooner or later – but that in the meantime it would serve to distract and hobble Trump and his administration, and any and all of his initiatives, both domestic and foreign, for, ideally, his entire term or the bulk thereof – which is, in fact, precisely what it did. And the instant the Russia hoax ran out of steam the impeachment (#1) went into high gear – seamlessly, with nary a bump in the road. In other words, turning Trump into an instant lame duck was more important than any sort of considerations for Hillary's health and well-being, so she was reduced to years of book tours and raving and ranting to anyone who would listen about how she'd been cheated (she being an expert in that area, as we know), while Obama proceeded to pursue more important long-range goals.

There's another nuance to all of this – subtle, I admit – speculative – but “what if?” We've seen how easy it is for an election to be hijacked if people have sufficient determination and the proper infrastructure. So what went wrong in 2016? And yeah, I know, they didn't have mail-in voting then, and maybe the voting machines were less hackable. But still – you'd think with all their resources the Dems could have pulled it off. Unless – and here's Obama playing the long game – he decided to let her get defeated. And why would he do that? Well, he knew who she was running against. Now, if she had won, Donald Trump would have been jettisoned off the political stage once and for all – a real one-hit wonder. Which means that the mainline Republicans would have remained in charge of their party and would have been ready to mount a campaign in 2020 with a “back to normalcy” theme that would have taken advantage of what would likely have been a disastrous four years of Hillary Clinton. And they might have won, and we'd be right back in the Bush era (maybe even with another Bush!). And Obama would have to finally retire from his position of influence in Washington. But! Allow Trump to win and then mount a campaign against him that rivals the Normandy invasion, and you can put the Republican Party in a permanent state of exile, and thus assure the Democrats perpetual rule. And this, course, is precisely what has happened. The good ship Trump is heading for the briny deep, and so is the Republican Party, at least on the national level – whether or not any of its members were on Trump's side. They will all be painted with the same brush. The Trump administration will be the bloody shirt that the Dems will wave in the air every time the Republicans start to show any signs of life; the Republican Party will be about as popular as the Confederacy. Mission accomplished! And if this is how it was played, you would have to admire Obama's political brilliance and insight.

But in any case, do you really think that once Obama helped get this whole Russia collusion process rolling he was going to just walk away and leave it to his minions? Get real. I'll bet he was right on top of this the whole time – overseeing, directing, prioritizing, providing guidance... not unlike the commander of a military operation. He had to make sure it stayed on track and paved the way for not only Trump's fall, but also that of the Republicans – not just in the 2020 election but in perpetuity. (His role came most prominently to the surface during the Democratic primaries, which I'll discuss in a minute. But it's not like he swooped down like a bird of prey that once time, and left things to take their course the rest of the time.)

(At this point you might say, wait a minute, the Mueller investigation was initiated during the Trump administration. Well yes, barely – but the groundwork had already been laid, and the investigation was staffed entirely by what were termed “angry Democrats”, so let's not quibble on that point. It was a Democratic operation from beginning to end.) (I used to think that if Trump ever tried to de-politicize the FBI he'd have to get down to at least the level of the third underassistant toilet paper replacement specialist in the J. Edgar Hoover Building.)

This all has to do with power, of course and as always – with the acquisition thereof and the perpetuation thereof. And Obama did have to leave the White House at a certain point, but that was a minor consideration since it seems very possible that he already, prior to leaving office, had assumed full authority over the Deep State and over its most powerful and influential elements. So, in effect, there would have been no real “transition” between the Obama administration and the Trump administration – the Obama administration hardly giving up a thing but continuing as before, but as a shadow government, and it was actually greater in number by far, in terms of people who were loyal to Obama and willing to follow his directives, than the administration of Donald Trump, where the most he could ever claim were the few appointees at the top of each pyramid. According to this theory, Obama had, all the time Trump was in the White House, his own bureaucracy, his own intelligence apparatus, and his own foreign policy. He certainly had sufficient appointees and friends in all the right departments; we know this from all the characters who came out of the woodwork to testify at the impeachment hearings. (And by the way, if there was no real transition in 2017, there was no need for one this time either, and all of the Democrats' whining about the Trump administration dragging its feet was mere show.)

So what does this all add up to? For starters, consider the possibility that Obama, for the first time in history as an ex-president, didn't give up any real power. In fact, he didn't even leave town! He just moved from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue not even a mile up the hill to a mansion in Kalorama – the new seat of government, in effect, until the Democrats could reclaim what was rightfully theirs. So Trump started out with a White House full of loyalists (but not all, as it turns out) and appointees scattered around D.C. as figureheads of various departments, agencies, and offices, and a handful of supporters in Congress, and his solid base among the citizenry – i.e. those who voted for him – but that was about it. “Draining the Swamp” does not come under the heading of “promises made, promises kept”. It couldn't, and it can't. You might as well try and levitate the Great Pyramid and plunk it down in the middle of Kansas.

So the next four years for Trump were an unending struggle to get the bureaucracy to cooperate – or even to appear to cooperate – or to at least not actively and blatantly resist and refuse to follow orders. And this was on top of unending challenges from Congress and the judiciary. Truly, it's a miracle the slightest thing got done in all that time.

So where do we go from here? Who's going to be in charge as of noon tomorrow? Joe Biden? The very thought is enough to inspire scoffing and derision. Bookmakers have already been taking bets on how long he'll last. Oh, you say that if Old Uncle Joe falters and is “25th'ed” Kamala Harris will take command? Sorry about that, but she's a figurehead too. I mean, think about it for a moment. For starters, who called in all of the Democratic contenders for the presidency at some point in the primaries – i.e. all the ones who had the vaguest hope of coming out on top? We know who, and it might have been a scene right out of Hollywood -- Don Barraco, capo di tuti capi, calling them, one by one, into his dimly-lit office and making them an offer they couldn't refuse. “This ain't your night, kid”, or words to that effect. All, of course, except for Uncle Joe, who, as it turned out, had been anointed all along. If only the rest of them had known, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble (not to mention money, like in Mike Bloomberg's case).

But what about Kamala Harris? She never lost a primary because she never entered one. (Smart move.) Was she promised the VP slot by Mr. Big way back then? Who knows? One thing is clear – she was, at a certain point, chosen, and certainly not by Uncle Joe. But why her, out of all the countless possibilities? Number one, and most obviously – her “diversity” qualifications, which are overwhelming. It's hard to find a minority she doesn't belong to. And she is a hard leftist, just a bit less noisy than The Squad. But most importantly, if Obama made her he can break her, so she has to follow orders. If she is directed to bow to, and play along with, The Squad, she will. If she's directed to tell them to stuff it, she will. Because she can be replaced.

What I'm saying is that she's a younger and flashier sock puppet than Uncle Joe, but is a sock puppet nonetheless. The Anointed One may still be in charge. So what we will be witnessing tomorrow may well be, in effect, the start of Barack Obama's fourth term as president, at which point he will be tied with Franklin Roosevelt, but hey – ties were meant to be broken, right? If the Republicans are permanent dead meat on the federal level, what's to prevent Obama from being president for life? But that would be in the tradition of guys like Stalin, Mao, Putin, Kim, Duvalier, Mugabe, and other sterling characters, so he might want to think again. But perhaps, now that democracy has been tried and found wanting, we are about to enter another age of the Strong Man – or, more accurately, return to it, thoroughly chastened, after a brief hiatus.

Normalcy at All Costs !

 

I call it “the Stop the Madness Vote”, and I think it's real. What it means in the case of the recent – and still disputed -- election is that a certain portion of the populace will cast a vote neither pro nor con a given candidate, but merely in the hope that it will help things to return to normal (however defined). After all, the citizenry has, for four-plus years now, been exposed to a level of political and social warfare that, for sheer viciousness and chaos, rivals anything most of them have experienced in a “real” war. Granted, there haven't been that many fatalities or serious injuries directly attributable to the conflict, but the citizenry are fatigued... exhausted... rubbed raw... and have been forced to live in a world where every conceivable thing (and some inconceivable things) have been totally politicized. We've been living in a crucible for over four years now. Economies on all levels save the very top layer have been shattered using the corona virus as an excuse. Innumerable relationships, even within families, have been strained or even broken... and the degree of mutual suspicion, hostility, and alienation among the citizenry has reached a level comparable to that in totalitarian societies. This was not the way we were meant to live in what is supposedly a free and open society; it's more like the atmosphere of the proverbial banana republic, where there is a coup or revolution every few weeks, and the sounds of marching boots and gunfire are always to be heard.

The forces and entities that have created this dystopian/nightmare world for us are many, and represent many motivations and agendas, which can be debated at another time. What I suspect is that the average voter, being an average citizen who simply wants to be allowed to live a simple, ordinary life without having to put up with a constant drumbeat of politics that he has no choice but to listen to... that person may eventually decide to vote not for a given candidate, or against a given candidate, but simply for whomever they think is most likely to return things to normal. They don't even have to agree with their platform or stated positions! In fact, they might find them distasteful. But the motivation to remove politics from everyday life – from something requiring 24/7 attention, and from which there is no escape – and go back to something that is confined to what used to be termed “election season” before the unending campaign era started has to be strong and compelling.

For example, a vote for Trump in November would have required a commitment, or at least a willingness to put up with, four more years of what has been going on for four-plus years already. (I detailed this in a recent post: https://zarathustrasoldman.blogspot.com/2020/07/4-more-years-really.html) Now, for a certain type of person this sort of thing is the ideal – pure red meat – crack cocaine. It's the way they want to live, and the way they expect others to live as well. Call them political junkies, swamp creatures, Deep State denizens, whatever – they thrive on battle, warfare, intrigue, and double-dealing, and cannot imagine life being any other way if it is to be satisfying and fulfilling. A good example of this personality type is “The Squad” which occupies the very tip of the left wing of the Democratic Party. But other Democrats are energized in a similar fashion, and even some Republicans – although the latter, being conservative by nature if not always by practice, would rather life was more like that depicted in certain classic TV shows like “Mayberry R.F.D.” The Democrats, on the other hand, seem to prefer an environment more akin to “Animal House” – at least the anarchistic part, which eventually leads to tyranny and totalitarianism. And because we are in an age of revolution, the Democratic world view is naturally the dominant one, and the one that appeals to perhaps not the majority of the populace but to enough of them that they are willing to vote for The Squad and their facilitators (and those who are afraid of getting on their wrong side, like a certain president-elect).

But we're talking about large segments of the voting populace here, and the Stop the Madness Vote would apply to a minority – and yet an important one, the way the “swing” or “independent” vote is always much sought after by both parties. These voters would have consisted mainly of people who might have voted for Trump in 2016, or for a third party candidate, or who had just sat out the election. This time around, they did not sit it out, but they didn't vote for Trump either. They might have voted third party, but more likely they would have voted for Biden (with noses firmly held) just to bring America's very own domestic perpetual war to an end.

But in this they would have been mistaken, since once Biden is ensconced and the powers behind his throne take over, the real war begins – or, more accurately, the war on the middle class and on “American values” that has been gaining momentum for decades finally enters the consolidation stage, in which all who resist are hunted down and neutralized. (This process has already been announced, when it comes to members of the Trump administration and its supporters, by various and sundry Democrats and their facilitators in the media. But you can expect it to extend to broader horizons as well.) This will be a bigger war, and have more dire effects on the citizenry, than anything that has occurred over the previous five years, and will almost make them yearn for the “good old days” when all they had to worry about was Trump's collusion with Russia, Trump's racism/sexism/xenophobia, Trump's grounds for impeachment, Trump's hair and necktie and skin, etc. and the reaction of the opposition or resistance to all of these. We have seen what the opposition is capable of – all the masks have been taken off and discarded, and the agenda is completely out in the open for, perhaps, the first time in our history. And once Trump is out of the way will there be “peace in the valley”? Au contraire! The same people who have been waging all-out war on Trump will turn their sights on the citizenry – especially the middle class – especially anyone suspected of having “conservative” or “reactionary” tendencies. And they have plenty of models to choose from, from the Bolshevik revolution in Russia to Maoism in China. The major – and remarkable – difference is that this time the revolution has the full support of the ruling elite... the money class. So it will be both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum against the middle. (Advice: Figure out some way to get either very rich or extremely poor before it's too late.)

But really, hasn't this always been the dream of totalitarians the world over? Create a two-class society with a ruling elite (i.e., them) and a vast horde of faceless serfs (i.e., the rest of us), with no one in between? This is precisely what's happening in the economy right now. It's no coincidence, and no accident. And the corona pandemic is not to blame; it just served to accelerate the process by providing an excuse for totalitarian diktats. And don't expect the dismal history of various attempts to accomplish this to discourage anyone; this is, after all, a war of ideas, and actual material consequences are of little interest.

So yes, the Stop the Madness Vote may have helped take Trump down and set Biden up – but whatever it is they thought they were doing thereby may turn to crushing disappointment. But don't expect them to stand up and apologize in public; that would not be “normal”.