Ideas Whose Time Has Come. Part I: The Middle Kingdom, Democracy, Globalism, and Islam

“May you live in interesting times.” Thus, an ancient Chinese curse. Yes, a curse – the idea being that life is better without wars and strife and contention, and that the alternative is much less desirable. Of course, the “Middle Kingdom” prided itself – as it continues to do to this day – on being a center of stability and predictability, especially where government is concerned. This is, of course, a long-term goal, and the occasional punctuation of revolutions, the Red Guard, the Great Leap Forward, and “continuous revolution” are the exceptions rather than the rule. One might say that the Chinese are better at consolidation than they are at revolution. Add to this the fact that China has been – perhaps uniquely among large and developed societies – less than enthusiastic about establishing and maintaining overseas empires. That particular virus has only infected them to the extent of supporting North Korea and North Vietnam, which, after all, do border on China; contrast that with the European empires of old, and the American empire of the present day, for which no place on the planet is too remote, or too lacking in value, to be a candidate for imperialism and empire-building. Aside from North Korea, the focus of China at this point seems to be limited to the South China Sea – a non-trivial matter but still no match for our own lust for the Near East, Latin America, and other regions – and, once again, at least on its own border.

Imagine, if you will, a large and wealthy country stable enough, and content enough, to mind its own business. Unheard of! And yet China has been pulling it off for millennia – once again with occasional exceptions. The concept of empire, which, in our time, means an overseas empire, seems almost universal by comparison. The European powers tried it, and succeeded – for quite a long time, but eventually gave up on the idea, through sheer fatigue and through finally getting real about the true economic and social costs. We have not yet reached that stage, and Russia is giving it another shot, although quite modest compared to the Iron Curtain and international communism of the 20^th Century.

Of course it can be argued that the empire urge is no longer characterized mainly by military attack, conquest, and occupation, but is now more along economic lines. And by this criterion, the Chinese have, in fact, established, and are vigorously pursuing, an economic empire, which has crossed our doorstep and is firmly ensconced in our own economy. And the American Empire is, likewise, much more than military, and is also largely economic – and yet, there is a military aspect to it as well. When economic activity doesn't suffice, then we have the military as a kind of Plan B. But what is at least as common is that the military is Plan A, and economic consolidation is Plan B, with diplomacy constantly running to catch up with the status quo. Diplomacy is, if you will, in charge of rationalization of actions already taken and having succeeded up to a point. Diplomacy is, in other words, a tool of the consolidation stage, where the big battles (if not the war) have already been won. And yet there is always a residual military aspect to things, which, I guess, amounts to a reminder of what can happen if diplomacy fails. Why else would we still have troops stationed in all of the defeated nations we fought against in World War II – Germany, Japan, and Italy?

So yes, these can be considered “interesting times”, and no time in American history has been as interesting as the very present, i.e. the Trump administration. Search all you like through books on American history, and you'll fail to find a case where an elected, sitting president was accused of treason. Not acting in the best interests of the Republic (as defined by whoever is trying to make the case), fine – that's nothing new. But actual treason – being on the side of the enemy (real or alleged) – this is something truly new under the sun. And yet, not only has this been the theme of mainstream media coverage for more than two years, it seems to be believed by a goodly portion of the American public. And the fact that it's outrageous – that it's straight out of La-La Land – doesn't seem to deter those who promote the idea.

But the real question is not so much about the facts of the matter, but about why this idea has been widely accepted. Or, to put it another way, why it has been promoted by people who may or may not actually believe it, and then widely accepted by people who really do believe it (the classic model of propaganda, by the way). There are many reasons to consider this as a milestone of sorts, and the most compelling one is that it may well signal the end of democracy as we have come to know it, and the beginning of contention (that word again) among nothing more than warring parties, interest groups, victim groups, people with a “cause”, and people with a vested interest in totalitarianism. Because the strategy and tactics of the “opposition” do not differ, in any significant way, from the strategy and tactics of totalitarian movements of the 20^th Century, to include communism, fascism (the real kind), and Nazism. It has become the dream of Friedrich Nietzsche, who – having despaired of all alternatives – declared that power, and the lust for power, were the only real, and genuine, and desirable, characteristics of the human condition, everything else being illusion, misguided idealism, weakness, and plain foolishness. We are, in a sense, at the portal of a Nietzschean world, where it's all about power and nothing else, and that all of the pretenses and cloaks (e.g. of “democracy” and “freedom”) are only that – food for fools, for the duped and the ignorant, who prefer their illusions to reality.

And this argument is easy to make! We venture overseas in order to spread, or defend, “democracy”, and the result is, more often than not, death and destruction, and nothing even remotely resembling democracy as we have known or understand it. But what does this mean? That democracy is an illusion after all? That it's just a cover for some other kind of tyranny? That it is, to steal a phrase from Karl Marx, the true “opiate of the people” (given that pure communism was too strong a dose – a fatal one, in many cases)? But this would be to oversimplify, since it can be shown that, in fact, pretty much any form of government works, up to a point, for someone, and that no form of government works for everyone at all times and in all places. But why is this? It gets back to – as I've pointed out before – national character – you know, that elusive thing that makes some political systems succeed and others fail depending on where, and how, and when, they are implemented. There are places in the world where any form of democracy is doomed from the start, and it may have something to do with economics in the abstract sense, but is much more dependent on culture – on people's world view, on their concept of government and of authority, on their willingness to negotiate and compromise, but most of all on loyalty. Loyalty not to political ideas imported from elsewhere, but to family, tribe, ethnic group, religion – you know, all those annoying things that the globalists abhor and are trying their best to wipe out.

But globalism is a belief system as well, every bit as much as other materialistic belief systems were and are. Communism was originally meant, in theory, to be applicable to any country, any culture, anywhere on the planet – and it has certainly, over time, made inroads pretty much everywhere, with varying degrees of success. But even communism, as monolithic as it seems (or would like to be), has taken on a multitude of characteristics depending on where it crops up and where it is implemented (or imposed). There is not just one “flavor” of communism – it is far more dependent on those “eternal verities” (family, ethnicity, religion) than its promoters would like to admit. But the same thing is true of democracy. So the “world war of ideas”, if you will, is forever being fought on one level, while the substrate of culture remains (either openly or underground).

The globalists would like to claim that, when it comes to government, one size fits all – and that anyone who objects, or resists, is simply not with the program – is ignorant, is not enlightened, is too stuck in the past, is “clinging” (to use the word of a famous globalist) to old and ancient forms of human society and organization. And this is our misconception as well. If “democracy” worked so well in the United States, there is no reason why it should not work equally well anywhere else on the planet.  (And even if democracy in America had, and continues to have, its flaws, it's still preferable to any of the known alternatives -- you know, things like monarchy and theocracy, etc.)

But this would be to miss something that is seldom pointed out. In a sense, America as a society started out as a kind of tabula rasa – a blank slate – a platform, if you will, upon which any form of governance could be tried, because the populace was, to a considerable extent, deracinated – i.e. deprived (either voluntarily or by accident) of any sort of roots, or connections, to enduring cultures. It has been said (and mostly in a tone of approval) that America was, and is, an “experiment” – that's it's something new under the sun, and a golden opportunity to establish, and maintain, a government that is based on principles and ideals rather than old ways, traditions, habits, and superstitions. We cherish our self-image as a free people, gifted with a new continent upon which to make our mark, and in which anything that occurs to the mind of man is not only possible, but desirable, and (by logical extension) worth fighting for, and (by further logical extension) worth “spreading”, through whatever means necessary, to the relatively benighted regions of the planet which have not been so blessed.

All of which would be highly commendable, except for that pesky thing called human nature. It followed the Pilgrims to Massachusetts Bay, and continues to beset us 400 years (as of next year) later. It's the very imperfectibility of man that dictates that human societies will, likewise, be imperfectible – and that any attempt to do otherwise will inevitably result in tyranny. And this is not to say that “Utopias”, on a limited scale, cannot exist, because they can exist, and have, and continue to exist, but only in a very limited and specialized way. Any ideal can be realized, at least for a time, on a small enough scale. It's when we try to convert an entire nation, or continent, that we run into trouble – and regardless of the nobility of intent, these attempts are doomed to failure, if not totally then at least to a significant degree. Thus, we cannot, without pulling up the plant by its roots, “democratize” foreign cultures, and we are having an increasingly hard time democratizing our own culture (such as it is – “culture” implying something that is uniform and stable, which ours most definitely is not).

It can be argued – counterintuitively – that “democracy” and “diversity” are profoundly incompatible, and we see evidence for this on a daily basis. How can we “spread democracy” if we can't figure out how to make it work here? The answer is, we can't. So what we wind up spreading is not a political ideal, but an empire of hypocrisy and pretense. We can talk or coerce people in foreign lands into going through the motions – into putting on a show – but the result is something that we would never tolerate here... except even that is no longer the case. If democracy never “took hold” in any meaningful way in most of the world, despite our best efforts, the real tragedy is that if it ever took hold here, it's been sufficiently compromised and corrupted that it, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. An ideal which had its day in the sun has become an illusion, and yet we cling (that word again!) to the language, and the rituals, and the structures, as if it still functions in any sort of meaningful way. (Perhaps living with illusions is preferable to facing reality. Certainly most people have already chosen which way to go, even if unconsciously.)

And this is the true tragedy of America. We were, and are, an “ideational” nation, but those ideas have become compromised, co-opted, and shopworn over time almost to the point where they may as well never have existed at all, except as faded writing on brittle parchment in dusty libraries. And one reason – the main one, perhaps – is that ideas and culture have very little to do with each other. Ideas are abstractions, whereas culture is real. Culture persists even in the worst of times, whereas ideas can come and go, and can ultimately be blown away like chaff, not that they might never reappear in a new and often distorted and inferior form. This is what we are facing now, in these times – when power, that age-old fact of life in the affairs of men, has become so predominant and so overwhelming that ideas, and ideals, wilt under a scorching sun.

You may have noticed that nowhere in this discussion have I dwelt at any length on the subject of politics, political parties, or Donald Trump and his administration and its opponents. That's because these are all superficial, symptomatic, and epiphemonenal. Our current crop of politicians and “leaders”, as well as their facilitators and opponents in the larger culture, may feel that they're making history, but the fact is that they are history, and a relatively trivial part of it at that. They are like a man riding a raging bull or a large whale, imagining that they are in charge, whereas they are, if anything, victims of historical forces that are totally out of their control. Even the people who really are in charge – whoever they are and wherever they may be – are part of history. It can be said that, for the last century at least, America has been in the driver's seat – but the same can just as readily be said of Russia (at least in the Soviet era). It's all in the point of view. In the global pecking order, it seems that the E.U., despite all of its problems, has an edge over the U.S. But in the meantime, China is on the move and Russia (post-Soviet) is watching and waiting. And then you have the rise of Muslim militancy, and mass migrations from the “third world” into the “first world”. So there are “top-down” factors in play, and “bottom-up” factors in play as well. And make no mistake, the “first world” is trying its best to cope with grass-roots uprisings elsewhere on the planet, but it may turn out, after all, that demographics really is destiny... that sheer numbers of humanity can conquer the global elites, at least in some respects. Empires have fallen over the course of millennia, but human migration seems to be a constant, and to be pretty much irresistible.

And if the American Empire, and the E.U., are a force for globalism and deracination, the mass movement of people is the opposite – it's a movement for, once again, identity – race, ethnicity, religion. The leading edge of all this in our time is, of course, Islam – and nothing can be less deracinated than a mass movement of people who share one religion (despite the conflicts within the Islamic world) which serves as a unifying factor for ethnic, linguistic, and even racial groups. The empires of our time have no answer for this – not us, not the E.U., not Russia, not even China (although they are doing their best).

Historical ironies abound, of course. The Ottoman Empire came to a bitter end as a result of World War I, and much of its territory was turned into colonies by the European powers. So Islam became a sleeping giant for a time, until much of it threw off the colonial powers, and in short order it was even more fully awakened by the establishment of the State of Israel (a creation of those same colonial powers). Everything we now see happening in the Islamic world (and its extensions into Europe and the U.S.) can be traced to either a reaction against colonialism (or its extension, namely economic colonialism) or a reaction against Israel. Islam has a new lease on life – a new energy – a new determination – a new mission. And by comparison, our shopworn democracy cannot compete in the marketplace of ideas, but is driven to brute force... and the E.U. simply dithers. They fume and bluster about resurgent “nationalism” in Eastern Europe (and in the U.S.) but what do they have to offer as an alternative? Submission to a bunch of boring guys in horn-rimmed glasses and baggy suits with bad haircuts in Brussels? Please. And what energizes Islam is not only religion per se, but that it's an international movement – not unlike, guess what, communism. So if there's a new Cold War being fought, it's between, as before, two international movements – “democracy”, which means globalism, and Islam. And, by the way, between secularism and religion. And the history of secularism is relatively short – I'll trace it to the French Revolution – whereas the history of religion, basically, goes back to pre-history. So which one has proven to be more durable? This is something that should worry the globalists (both here and elsewhere).

20+ for 2020 (and still counting)

Why are there so many declared Democratic candidates for president, with a year and a half until the 2020 election? One obvious answer is the generation gap – the Democratic establishment or old guard, AKA old white guys, vs. the wildly diverse Young Turks, who are, besides not being senior citizens, also arguably somewhat to the left of the old timers (though not enough to make a difference for any genuinely conservative voter). But that doesn't explain the sheer numbers, and the number of them who are not just grass-roots, but, basically, unknown, having either never having held elective office or having, at best, been at one time a member of some small-town water and sewage board.

In any country where, as it used to be said, “any boy born in a log cabin can grow up to be president of the United States” – and one has to substitute “girl or someone of indeterminate or undeclared gender” for “boy”, even if we leave the log cabin part in just for old times' sake – although “trailer” might be more apropos to the present day... it seems that people are starting to really take it seriously, as in: “If anyone can be president, then that includes me!” The impossible dream is no longer impossible, nor is it a dream – although, to look at some of these candidates, it might turn out to be a nightmare for everyone else.

But that's not enough to explain the 20+. It has to be based on the premise – held by everyone in the Democratic party, candidate or not – that anyone can beat Trump. Anyone! You wouldn't even have to be human! A yellow dog could do it! A cockroach! An amoeba! An inanimate object like Jeb Bush! So... with this premise, that being nominated by the Democratic Party is equivalent to being elected president, everyone with time on their hands is jumping into the race, because, well, what have they got to lose? Even if some other Democrat is nominated, at least a Democrat will still win... and maybe the sheer force of all those candidates will, in some way, help to insure success (image of countless sperm cells besieging an egg cell – one of them has to succeed, and the others ought to be glad to help out, and if they aren't, well, they just have a bad attitude, that's all).

But oh boy, here we go again with the “inevitability” thing. Can memories possibly be so short? A mere three years ago, Hillary was already picking out water-repellent wallpaper for Bill's White House playroom, not only assured of the nomination but also assured of victory in November. Bernie Sanders thought he was a contender, but the fix was in. And meanwhile, Donald Trump was already starting to knock off other Republican hopefuls like tenpins (except that tenpins generally have more sense).

The great thing about our political system is... no, it's not what you think, or what most people think. It's the White House. I mean, when leaders in many foreign countries take office, it's still kind of ambiguous, like, what do they really do (the term “ceremonial” comes up quite often)? And how much power do they really have, where do they live, how readily can they be thrown out of office, how do your pronounce their name, etc. It all seems so tentative, in a sense... so fragile... so ephemeral. But in our country the winner gets to move into the White House! They, and no one else save spouse and minor children. Everyone else has to come begging “around the back”. The president gets the limo, and the helicopter, and Air Force One, and “Hail to the Chief”, and all the things fit for a king – because he is, in many ways, a king – elected, yes, but the beneficiary of an immediate windfall of power and privilege that monarchs of old could only have dreamed of. European royalty are mere birds in gilded cages by comparison. Why, the president of the United States can start a war single-handedly, at any time and in any place! It happens all the time. I call that real power. (The main reason European countries no longer start wars is they've forgotten how. It has nothing to do with the E.U., NATO, or the U.N.)

But if the White House is more than symbolic, it can also become a prison, as it clearly did in Tricky Dick's case toward the end... and as it keeps promising to do in Trump's case, except that he's no Tricky Dick. He doesn't make mealy-mouthed excuses while hunkered down behind his desk in the Oval Office; he stands up in broad daylight and shouts defiance at the opposition on a regular basis. And this, of course, just drives them to new heights of hysteria – as intended. He plays them like a Stradivarius, as the saying goes, and they fall for it every time. It's a beautiful thing.

Which is, of course, still another reason why everyone from the assistant dogcatcher in Ash Flat, Arkansas on up thinks they're more qualified to be president than Trump, and why they're all running, or intending to, or seriously thinking about it. It could get to the point where there are so many Democratic candidates that they each wind up with one vote, which is the one they cast for themselves. (Try that out on the Electoral College!)

But getting back to inevitability – in 2016 it was Trump, and his campaign promises, vs. Hillary, and her promise to have the third Obama term. And Trump had no help – not from the Republicans, and certainly not from the mainstream media, who were all working for Hillary along with Hollywood, late-night TV, social media, and Obama's Department of Justice, FBI, and CIA. I mean... you'd think with that sort of playing field Trump would have made out about as well as George McGovern did in 1972. And yet, the “deplorables” turned out in numbers much greater than anyone (maybe even Trump himself) could have imagined, and the Electoral College did its usual quaint thing by awarding the victory to Trump even though he fell short in the popular vote (still another energizing factor behind today's Democratic candidate frenzy). (One theory is that the Democratic strategists only counted residents of trailer parks, figuring that anyone who actually lived in a house would never vote for Trump.)

But here we are confronted with an enduring mystery. Let's assume, for the moment, that the Mueller investigation didn't find any Russia “collusion” because there wasn't any, and that Russian “interference” can't be proven to have changed a single vote. Of course, the shadow of suspicion has now fallen on the formerly-sainted Robert Mueller & Co. now that they've failed to live up to expectations; “Say it ain't so, Bob!” But in any case, when you consider... and, by the way, even if the Russians decided that hacking our election in 2016 was too much trouble, the 2018 election showed that elections can, in fact, be hacked, despite protestations from the likes of Barack Obama (that was before the 2016 election, note) – at least at the grass-roots level. Can you say “Orange County, California”, or “Broward County, Florida”?  All it takes is a handful of operatives in key election precincts; who was it who said, “The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” Oh, right – Joseph Stalin. But the key is to have “boots on the ground”; if it can't be done via the Internet, it has to be a labor-intensive local operation. This tends to favor what we might call “professional political operatives” (formerly known as ward heelers)... and guess which party can claim the bulk of these. Enough said!

And yet... and yet!... Trump won. And this is what has the opposition in a state of continuing meltdown; it's like a nightmare from which one cannot awaken. Because, when one considers all of the above, it's impossible. Not improbable, but impossible... unless! Unless, for some deep, darkly mysterious reason, “somebody” didn't want Hillary to win, and/or did want Trump to win. And that “somebody” (or those “somebodies”) had the ability to make it happen. And no, “Russia” is not the answer, because they were helping, or attempting to help, both sides in 2016, supposedly to sow chaos and disorder (and if that was their aim, then “mission accomplished”!).

But wait! Maybe that is the answer. Because who would benefit the most from the utter political and social chaos which has overtaken the U.S. since Trump declared his candidacy, and which has only gotten worse since he took office? To put it another way, who benefits when Americans are distracted, demoralized, bogged down with politics, fighting the culture war full-time, and – in many cases – subject to hysteria and near-psychosis? Why, our enemies, of course – which, in our time, means economic rivals most of all, but also political (on the global level) and military rivals.

Here's where it gets a bit more complicated. If we're talking about military rivals, it's pretty clear that the main contenders are Russia and China, with North Korea as a sidebar (because without China they are nothing). Economic rivals? China, of course... but we also have an uneasy relationship with Canada and Mexico (still NAFTA partners) as well as the European Union and other countries that are, in most other contexts, considered allies. (We're unlikely to run into a trade deficit problem with the Central African Republic very soon.) The thing is, with the massive economic interlinkages that characterize the world economy, it can be argued that “no country is an island”, and that what hurts one hurts all to some extent. (Prime example – a serious economic crisis in the U.S. is going to make China and some other countries wonder if holding on to more than one-third of our national debt is a good idea. Of course, dumping it all at once could be considered an act of war – and it would be, in a way. So they're stuck holding our debt, and we're stuck with them holding it, since it's never going to be “paid”, nor was it ever intended to be.)

Then how about political rivals? The most obvious are globalists of every stripe, but this includes plenty of entities right here in the U.S., not the least of which is much of Congress and the “deep state”, not to mention multi-national corporations. So am I saying that a large chunk of the government and other economic players are actually opposed to our national interest as a sovereign nation, in the long run? Yes. This is not to say they are “anti-American” exactly (at least they don't consciously think of themselves that way), but that they don't value the U.S. as a sovereign nation with the right to make its own economic and diplomatic decisions without having to grovel and beg permission from one or more international organizations. (Wouldn't you love to know who members of Congress have on speed dial – other than D.C. call girls, of course.) And if you don't think that uncontrolled “immigration” is an economic/political attack by the globalists, you haven't been paying attention. (This is the case in Europe as well.)

Those with globalist inclinations would much rather we be just one of many – nothing special, no big deal. Kumbaya and all that. And the more radical elements firmly believe that it's time for America to get its comeuppance – and whatever form this takes is OK, and they will be glad to help the process. Please note that this is the present-day version of the wreck of the European colonial powers after World War II (or World War I in Germany's case). But they were replaced by economic colonialists, and the result has been much worse for the victims than old-fashioned colonialism ever was (with the possible exception of the Belgian Congo).

And the current debate over “nationalism” exemplifies this – is “nationalism” the same as “fascism”, for example? The opposition says it is. Which means, by simple logical inference, that it's the same as “hate”, and racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc. – you know the litany by now. The point being, while nationalism may be considered good for the country (although I would argue that old-fashioned patriotism is preferable), it is bad for the “world community” – which is why some formerly Iron Curtain countries are coming under so much criticism for reasserting their national (ethnic, religious) identity. (The fact that their captivity by the Soviet Empire is still so fresh in their minds might have something to do with it. Why trade one form of servitude for another? Is George Soros really preferable to Joseph Stalin? I suspect not.)

So the strategy, if you're a globalist puppeteer, is a delicate one – preserve the U.S. sufficiently to maintain us as the world's policeman (on behalf of the global elite) but suppress national pride and loyalty in all other respects, even if it saps morale. Which, I guess, is the modern version of the way the colonies of the European powers used to be tapped for “troops” who were sent to do the bidding of the colonials, not for any sort of benefit of their own country. And any sorts of stirrings (“the natives are getting restless”) were ruthlessly suppressed, the way stirrings of nationalism in the U.S. are instantly condemned by the opposition and its lackeys. One thing for certain – since Trump declared himself a nationalist, that term has fallen to the same level of disrepute as “fascist” or “Nazi”. So no matter what the term means (and it means many things to many people), it is suddenly forbidden to be used favorably in polite company (which, obviously, includes any E.U. confab).

It's like some sort of global cat-and-mouse game – keep America sick (but not on life support – more like a low-grade infection), demoralized, dependent, on the defensive, and subjugated on the one hand, but strong enough to provide a market based on consumer “needs”, and military muscle, on the other hand. Which means, by the way, that our so-called “world dominance” – our post-Cold War status as “the” superpower – is an illusion. We are much more like a dim-witted, stumbling giant controlled by unseen powers... and may, much sooner than anyone would like, become not much more than a beached whale, which is harvested for consumables while the skeleton is left to bleach in the sun. Of course, the global elite don't think much about sustainability, i.e. how long this situation can be maintained; that's someone else's problem, the way whoever let the Roman Empire slip away figured, well, how bad can it get in my own lifetime?

Imagine, if you will, a world without America. Poof, overnight, no USA at all, just a big vacant lot where we now stand – or, better still, a new sea caused by rising water levels due to global warming. The anti-America crowd would celebrate, no doubt – but Europe, and even China, might not be so sure. Israel would shit a brick. Russia, on the other hand, would consider it a golden opportunity. And for the global elite, well... they've been there before, and they always have another plan. But that's way down the road, if ever; how often do these “think tank” scenarios ever actually come to pass? Very seldom, thankfully. (Every day that goes by when most of us are still alive disproves the theories of another gaggle of “experts”. We have avoided utter annihilation at least a half dozen times since the 1960s.)

But – what about the Muslims? Have I forgotten about them? And if they are truly enemies and not just boogeymen, in what sense is this true? They have to be considered military enemies, since we find ourselves fighting them all across Africa and Asia, including in countries no American citizen has ever heard of (but even in those places, we're still fighting for “the American way of life”, don't forget that). But military rivals? A true threat in the military sense? Not so much. Our wars against Islam tend to be medium-tech for us and low-tech for them. If they fought the way we do, they wouldn't have a prayer – but when they fight their way (shades of the Viet Cong) they can do considerable damage.

So... is the Islamic world an economic rival? Hardly, unless you include the antics of the “oil-rich sheikhs”, and even their power is threatened by our increased domestic production of natural gas and oil.

OK then, what about politics, which means world politics in the case of Islam? As always, it's a matter not only of power and influence, but of “winning hearts and minds” (you know, that thing that we so spectacularly failed at in Vietnam). Islam is, at this point in world history, pretty much the only thing that can be described as “inspiring”, in the sense that it gets people excited, wins converts, and causes people to do radical and drastic things in the name of jihad – up to and including suicide bombing. Can anything comparable be said of Christianity, or of Judaism? Or of political systems like communism, fascism, capitalism, socialism, etc.? Yes, those have adherents, but many of these have ulterior motives, and just try and find a “true believer” who is willing to lay it all on the line as did the Bolsheviks and Maoists of old. Most of the world, and especially the “Western world”, is largely populated by jaded cynics who are content with eating, drinking, and making merry. And this, as much as anything, helps to explain the Islamic tidal wave that is taking over much of Europe (and making inroads here and there in the U.S.). It turns out that faith and demographics can win out over any amount of technology, sophistication, and even tradition if it's not defended properly. Power centers in Europe at this point are either the fortresses of the ruling elite or the Islamic neighborhoods operating under sharia law; everyone else is caught in the middle and feeling helpless because they are, in fact, helpless.

But, as with solving a crime, you need to define means, motive, and opportunity. Our enemies have a complex mixture of motives, best exemplified by the globalist dilemma described above. The means are primarily military at this point, in the sense of threats and of the renewed arms race, which can also be seen as a technology race. But economic and diplomatic means are another matter, and they are being applied with due diligence, along with a steady stream of propaganda directed at the American public in order to convince them that “nationalism” is bad and Trump is worse, and that their only hope is to get rid of both and return to the open arms of the “international community” (in order to be exploited all the more). Consider that Hillary, and all of Trump's rivals for the 2016 nomination with the exception of Rand Paul, were, and remain, hard-core globalists, and you can see how uneven the power relationship is. And Trump himself seems ambivalent about globalism; he opposes it in some ways but embraces it in others, but clearly not enough to satisfy the hard core.

But again, how to define the threat Islam represents? If not military in the sense of absolute power, then what? Diplomatically, the world seems pretty much divided between Islam and non-Islam, with us and our so-called allies all on the non-Islam side. That should make things simple – as simple as the comfortably black-and-white world of the Cold War. And yet, we find ourselves “engaging”, to a greater or lesser degree, with much of the Islamic world, for military reasons above all, but also for diplomatic reasons, and economic as well (if you include oil). The only Islamic country that is considered a hard-core enemy is Iran (thanks largely to Jimmy Carter's titanic blundering), and yet every time we approach the brink of going in and teaching them a damn good lesson, we shrink back for some reason. Could it be that we really did learn a lesson of our own in Afghanistan and Iraq? One can only hope. (Of course, a standoff is a good way to keep the pot bubbling; a back burner is better than no burner at all. And if perpetual war is our goal, it makes sense to be at knife points with as many other countries or other entities as possible.)

The main impact of our ongoing struggles with Islam are, clearly, economic – and, to be more precise, economic in the sense of transferring wealth from the productive sector to the non-productive sector, i.e. war. But while that sector is non-productive, it is certainly not unprofitable, and this is a key factor in explaining why we persist in what appears to be a fool's mission. We forget that while the Cold War, for example, could be defended as a stand against communism, it also provided a rich source of funding for the war industries – not as much as an actual “hot” war, but enough to sustain them at a high level for many decades. The end of the Cold War may have been considered, by the average citizen, to be a good thing, but to the great “military-industrial complex” it was a disaster, and something had to be done, and fast! Enter the War on Islam (not an official term, but a better descriptor than all the official ones combined – especially the ones that include the word “freedom”).

In any case, the War on Islam is a major hemorrhage – a sucking chest wound – on our economy in general. Even if it does benefit the few, it harms the many. (This is true both domestically and at the global level.) And it is, in fact, impacting our economy severely enough to hasten our demise. So, it is shortsightedness, or part of an actual plan? Get us involved in endless wars which will only end when we are no longer able to wage them? Hard to say, and I think both factors are in play. And Congress, and the vast bulk of politicians, are mere tools in all of this; they aren't in on the plan, and there is no reason to let them in on it. So they have to be won over by a combination of threats and bribery, and probably some measure of pathetic and delusional “patriotism” (as opposed to the real thing, which, unlike most members of Congress, has red blood and functioning reproductive organs).

So... to finally get back to Trump vs. the Peanut Gallery – or, not quite yet. We should think a bit about what all of this meant, or may have meant, when it came to the 2016 election. The impossible candidate won, and the inevitable candidate lost – and no, it wasn't just about that silly old Electoral College. But was it only about the 63 million “deplorables”? (And that, by the way, is a lot of people – not quite a fifth of the total population at the time, but still quite a few for the Democrats to completely write off, not only in 2016 but potentially for a generation.) True enough, they came out of the woodwork to vote for Trump, and they came out in the right places to swing the electoral vote, but... again, with the forces arrayed against Trump, I still can't imagine how he won – or how he expects to win in 2020 by hanging on – oops, I mean “clinging” – to those same 63 million.

One way of summarizing the perennial “conspiracy” issue is this: Either you believe that there are unseen forces at work, or you don't. And as I've pointed out before, everyone is, on some level and perhaps only in the most trivial of cases, a “conspiracy theorist” (when people talk about socks that never reappear once they're put into the dryer, they're only half joking). And on the opposite end (psychologically at least) there are people who believe that everything is a conspiracy, and that the CIA spends every waking moment keeping track of their dull, boring lives. (This is also known as grandiose thinking, but is far from the only way it can come about.)

Thus, the natural response to Trump's not only unlikely but impossible victory in 2016 was that over half the citizenry turned, overnight, into conspiracy theorists, including those who had, up to that point, been perfectly satisfied with outward appearances and with the establishment's “narrative” about pretty much everything. So they began groping around, desperately, seeking an explanation, the way law enforcement officials are always looking for a “motive” when it comes to shootings. And sometimes there isn't one – sometimes things really do just happen. But this cannot possibly be in the case for 2016 – surely randomness is far too weak an explanation... no explanation at all, in fact, although it seems to satisfy those very same people whenever they are talking about evolution, which is a much bigger and more important phenomenon than American elections.

But if 2016 cannot be explained in any sort of reasonable way, what does this say about 2020 and everyone's expectations? Will it be a “normal” election (in which case Trump should lose in a landslide), or will it be another spectacular anomaly, the way 2016 was? This is what is, or should be, keeping the 20-plus new-and-old kids on the block awake at night. And if the sum total of our enemies, for any reason, want to continue to assault us – culturally, diplomatically, economically – what outcome will they prefer? What feeds more readily and efficiently into their agenda? The American public, once the very image of naive optimism and confidence, has had its dreams and delusions shattered, maybe once and for all, by the results of the 2016 election and by ensuing events, regardless of what “side” any given individual was on. Everyone is scandalized... everyone is disillusioned... everyone is dismayed, for many reasons... and everyone is “out on the street”, either literally or in spirit, gearing up for still another “mother of all battles” next year. So if the ruling elite at one time felt that an anesthetized American public was their best strategy, that has obviously been discarded in favor of something much more violent and stress-prone... which may mean that we have come to a moment of truth for our nation and society, the way so many other societies have come to a moment of truth, almost always unexpectedly (which makes it even more traumatic). It may be time to be either openly enslaved or equally openly discarded – and quite frankly, whoever winds up running in 2020, and however the citizens vote, is not going to make a bit of difference if the die is already cast. Trump, and the 20+ (or whatever the final figure is) may as well just be chaff in the wind if America's fate is sealed.

Rope-a-Dope 2.0

I've speculated in the past that, when it came to the Mueller investigation, Donald Trump was playing “rope-a-dope”, by which I meant that, by not firing Mueller (which he could have done quite readily -- and legally) and by allowing the investigation to continue he was giving the opposition time to lay all of their cards out on the table. He was allowing the Deep State to slither out from under all of the rocks which are their usual hiding places and pursue their agenda in plain sight. He was allowing the FBI and the Department of Justice to, basically, stand down for two-plus years and engage in a witch hunt (or what, in a more charitable vein, is called a “snipe hunt”, to recall a favorite ruse from my Boy Scout days). He was allowing the opposition, in its many and variegated forms – including, but not limited to, the mainstream media, the “entertainment” industry, late-night TV, the Democrats/liberals/progressives, the hard-core globalists – to stand up and be counted, and to expose themselves with little fear of ever being called out or held accountable (or so they assumed).

Now, from the opposition's point of view, this was a good thing. Apparently Trump was so culpable, so guilty of countless enormities, that the best he could to was to hunker down and hope it all went away, the way people will take shelter when a tornado bears down. The problem is that after two-plus years of painstaking investigation, subpoenas, rumor, innuendo, leaks, threats, intimidation, arrests, testimony, mountains of documents, and being aided and abetted by pretty much everyone on the planet who had any sort of helpful information (its veracity being of no concern), the Mueller investigation has laid a giant goose egg when it comes to the issue of “collusion” – not Russian “interference”, which seems to be fairly well established, but actual cooperation between Trump's 2016 campaign and those ever-fearsome Russkies. (And by the way, the House Democrats think they can succeed where Mueller failed; that shows you the extent and severity of their delusional system.)

And now – or so it seems – that glowing halo has been rudely knocked off the head of the estimable Robert Mueller III (now there's a ruling elite name for you!) and he is suspected of having... well, not chickened out or sold out exactly, but of, in some mysterious way, decided that Trump – while not “exonerated”, no-no-no, surely we can't have that – cannot be proven, beyond the shadow of a doubt (another way of saying “non-impeachable”), to have won the 2016 election with the help of the left's newfound arch enemies, namely the Russians, who committed the cardinal sin of dissolving their very own empire, i.e. the Soviet, in an unforced error, and becoming, for lack of a better word, just another “fascist” country since, in the liberal world view, there are only two possible forms of government, namely socialism (good) and “fascism” (which covers everything else). For them, Russia can never be forgiven for having given up on communism, after a meager trial run of only 70+ years. After having won World War II (and I've always held that they were the only real victor in that war) and taken over half of Europe, they got cold feet. Where is Uncle Joe Stalin, who inspired so many American liberals from the New Deal on, when we really need him? From being on the right side of history for so long, Russia is suddenly declared to be on the wrong side of history, and no example is so compelling at that of having colluded with Donald Trump in 2016. So yes, there is definitely an element of “payback” in all of this – an aspect that, as far as I know, has totally escaped the attention of the commentariat all across the political spectrum. If this “collusion” had been attributed to any other country – Botswana, for example – it would have been laughed out of the Department of Justice and any other government agency populated with even half-sane people. But the “fact” that it was Russia – the new enemy of the left and a traitor to the cause of human freedom, fairness, and justice – gave it not only credibility but an air of near-certainty. The verdict was in, in other words – and it was Mueller & Co.'s job to simply build up the case to the point where impeachment was not only called for, but demanded, for the good of the Republic. (Impeachment is always possible, but it's not always politically advisable. A favorable finding by Mueller & Co. would have been a political gold mine.)

But as it happens, the collusion issue turned into a nothingburger, as the saying goes, which left the opposition, basically, naked as jaybirds, with no place to hide. Except! They have – and in fact had, all along – a Plan B, which was to pretty much say, to quote Emily Litella, “never mind” when it came to collusion, but to turn on a dime and declare that their campaign, all along, was focused on “obstruction of justice” – which is another term for “a president exercising his Constitutionally-granted privileges”.

So now we are seeing a full court press for obstruction of justice, which will inevitably (once again) create fertile grounds for impeachment – although, as I've said previously, since impeachment is a political, not legal, exercise, no particular “grounds” are required – “high crimes and misdemeanors” meaning, basically, whatever the opposition says they mean (another of many examples where the Constitution left things ambiguous in order to force people to exercise reason and common sense – a fond hope on the part of the Founding Fathers, which has turned out, in our day, to have been naive at best).

So if “collusion” was Plan A, and it didn't bear fruit, then surely Plan B (obstruction of justice) will save the day! But, how do we know that Trump, who succeeded so admirably with his strategy vis-a-vis the Mueller investigation into collusion, isn't playing another game of rope-a-dope when it comes to obstruction of justice? Let's say the entire Mueller report is unredacted, and the opposition descends on its every minute detail like flies on you-know-what. And let's say they try to make a case (although, as I said, they don't really need to make any sort of “case” in order to proceed with impeachment). And let's say that it winds up in court this time. They might lose again! Which would, basically, reduce the rationale for impeachment down to the level of Trump's hair, his complexion, his speaking style, his wife's outfits, his business dealings (which seemed to work perfectly well in New York), his time spent playing golf (that most deadly of deadly sins on the part of any Republican president), and so on. If the collapse of the collusion myth has left the opposition exposed as schemers, plotters, and subversives, what would the collapse of an obstruction of justice myth do? Cause them damage when it comes to the 2020 election, perhaps? But they aren't thinking about that, because hope springs eternal (you know, “hope and change” and all that). This time it has to work. It just has to! Because the alternative is simply too dreadful to contemplate – not just Trump surviving the balance of his first term (which Nancy Pelosi seems more or less resigned to permitting), but – gasp! – running for a second term, and maybe even – gasp! – winning!

But while it can be said that the Democrats and their facilitators have not yet learned a lesson, the same may not be true of the Republicans. I described their discontent in a previous post (“Tired... So Very Tired...”, Dec. 8), and I don't see that much has changed. They are old, tired, and worn out; they are sick of living at ground zero and having to fight trench warfare (or at least put up with it); they have been forced to either defend Trump or oppose him in a half-hearted way ever since he took office, and it goes totally against the grain. It's just not the way they're used to doing business. They never asked for Trump, they never really supported him in the 2016 election, they were rendered extremely uncomfortable when he won, and they've been that way ever since. When one of Trump's core supporters asks (on the Internet or elsewhere), “Tired of winning yet?” their answer is “Yes! We are tired of winning, and we want things to go back to the way they used to be before this... this 'thing' rose up out of the Hudson River and descended on Washington.”

So now is when it gets interesting. We have two converging vectors – impeachment (or not, but don't depend on Old Nancy to get her way, not in the face of all the young radicals straight out of the ranks of the Red Guard) on the one hand, and Trump's optimism vis-a-vis the 2020 election on the other hand. Or – maybe that too is just a ruse. Trump could very well get on TV, in the best LBJ tradition, sometime early in 2020, and say that he's had it – that he tried, he did his best, but the opposition was just too intense, and why waste four more years of his life trying to get anything done in Washington when no one would allow him to move a muscle in his first term. (If a president isn't permitted to defend our national borders, everything else is detail.) He could do this, and it would be saving face in a sense – not being forced out of office but leaving voluntarily. (He may already be planning to do this, but lots of luck finding out, despite the notoriously leaky White House. He has to keep up, for the time being and for all sorts of reasons, his image of being determined to run again.)

Or, the obstruction of justice witch hunt could bear no more fruit than the collusion witch hunt has done, and Trump could emerge triumphant, re-energized along with his base. But will his 2020 base be as formidable as his 2016 base? Hillary Clinton was surprised, as were her supporters, at just how many “deplorables” were out there in flyover country – and that they were actually willing and able to knuckle-drag to the polls and vote. Will they be as numerous, and as willing, in 2020? And how about support from the Republican Party? They are old and tired, remember. They might prefer to have a less controversial candidate, albeit one who is guaranteed to lose, in 2020 – in which case they will have to pull off their own coup, taking a page from Hillary's play book when it came to Bernie Sanders, to keep Trump from being nominated for a second term, regardless of how the primaries turn out (assuming there even are Republican primaries – this is not a legal requirement, remember).

So really – if you thought the last two-plus years have been interesting, that was just Act One – the preliminaries. Right now, in the most basic terms, it's a race to the 2020 elections between Trump and the opposition – but the opposition has developed fault lines, and who knows how Trump is going to feel after another year of trench warfare? Hang on, it's gonna be a ride.

Donald Trump's Excellent Adventure

I think I'm on to something – finally! I've been puzzling for a long time now – really since the 2016 campaign – as to possible reasons for the absolute, unremitting, fanatical hostility and hatred directed toward Donald Trump. I mean, add up all of his real and alleged offenses, from “colluding” with Russia right down to his ever-changing hair color, and they still don't add up to what would, in normal times, be considered ample reason for the never-ending campaign on the part of pretty much everyone to force him from office – which, when it involves the Justice Department, FBI, and intelligence apparatus, amounts to a coup (or coup attempt – at least so far). Not to mention, most if not all of his alleged character flaws, gaffes, offenses, illegal activities, etc. have been characteristics of, or indulged in by, any number of previous presidents as well as countless members of Congress over the years (decades, centuries). And yet they've never gotten a reaction of this magnitude, which borders on psychosis (or maybe “borders” is too mild a term). In fact, most have sailed through the political waters with nary a hair on their head getting mussed. And yes, Trump is an outsider, which is considered a major liability, if not an outright sin, among the Beltway crowd and the ruling elite – but is he really that much more of an outsider than, say, Carter was? Or Clinton? Or Obama? Far from working their way up the ladder rung by rung, each of these appeared pretty much out of nowhere and wound up on top of the heap. (And if they were mere figureheads, empty suits, and scapegoats, well... that's the way the presidency has evolved over the years, isn't it? You take office and are handed the script, and woe unto you if you ignore it.)

So what can I point to as the source of my enlightenment – on this one issue at least? It's the film “BlacKkKlansman” by Spike Lee. Unlikely? Bear with me for a moment. When I saw that film I have to admit I was utterly baffled. As social history it was crude and ham-handed. As a political commentary on race relations, it was pretty pathetic – brimming with ridiculous stereotypes like the perfectly matching afros of the young black activists, and the Klansmen, who made those guys in “Deliverance” look like Rhodes scholars. And then you have the stilted dialogue that kept sucking the life out of scenes that might otherwise have been halfway decent. And as some sort of “thriller” it fell totally flat, except for the only halfway decent part of the film, the action scene toward the end, which at least can be credited with good timing and camera work.

That's what I thought, and that's what I continued to think. But then I realized my mistake. I had been judging the film based on the premise that it was a serious piece of work. Then – shazam! – I realized it was a comedy! And that all the stereotypes and wild exaggerations contributed to the overall comic effect... and that, based on this new perspective, the film was actually a success.

But wait! – you'll say -- Spike Lee was not trying to make a comedy. This was a Serious Film with a Social Message. Well, maybe it was intended to be, but sometimes films wind up succeeding in ways that the writer and director never intended, and which they would find upsetting – as witness any number of films over the decades that used to be described as “so bad it's good”. These have provided a fertile resource for MST3K RiffTrax and its imitators, spoofing, and “ironic” film festivals and “creature features”. (I guess the moral is, if you can't make a good movie, make one so bad that it's memorable for that reason at least. Ed Wood owes his claim to fame to some people's urge to bathe in badness.)

Now, declaring “BlackKkKlansman” a comedy doesn't detract from the intent of the people who made it, only from the execution – or, if that is not to be questioned either, from the ignorance of the audience. (I prefer the execution theory.) The point is that intent can run aground on other people's expectations. The creator expects their world to be recognized by the audience, but the audience has a world too – a diversity of worlds, in fact. We are used to this phenomenon in art, but it's also true in politics, and the result can be startling at times.

So now let us turn to our much-beleaguered and besieged president. It is no exaggeration to say that he is holed up in the White House in a state of complete isolation from the rest of Washington, except for his staff (or at least the loyal portion thereof, however many that may be). His domestic initiatives have been thwarted by Congress, and the few that have passed that hurdle have been stopped dead in their tracks by the judiciary... and foreign policy is, as far as I can tell, in someone else's hands. So really, he doesn't have that much to do... and yet everyone criticizes him for taking time off to play golf. Well, what would you do if you'd been living a hyperactive lifestyle for decades and then found yourself a prisoner in the White House? Watch daytime TV? Learn a new language? Try macrame? I mean, really, the guy must feel like a caged jungle cat in the National Zoo.

And yet, he seems to be enjoying himself – immensely at times. He gets up at CPAC and goes “off script” for over 2 hours. He's working the crowd like an evangelist – or a borscht circuit comedian.  He's just as feisty as the guy who took that fabled ride down the escalator what seem like ages ago. He's not hunkered down like Nixon, roaming the halls late at night talking to the portraits on the walls. And he's not zoning out like Bush II, or “retiring in place” like so many of his predecessors once they ran out of steam. He's having a good time, and this is cause for deep suspicion. What's his game?

Or, what was his game, and has it morphed in some way over the last 3+ years? Some have theorized that he never actually wanted to be president – that it was just some kind of massive stunt – and that he was just as surprised as anyone when he actually won (or appeared to, or... well, whatever). (He is in the White House, folks, so suck it up! He's not being controlled like some puppet by Hillary and Bill hiding in the basement.)

I've never been very impressed by the “not serious” argument. Given the guy's life history, I don't think he ever got anywhere near a game he didn't think he could win – and yet, being a master of the “deal”, he always has a backup plan – and not only a Plan B, but a Plan C, D, E, etc. as he recently said. Yes, on some level I'm sure he was perfectly able to imagine losing the 2016 election, and prepared to go back to New York and settle back into his gold-plated mansion in the sky. But he did win, and as far as I can tell had a plan all ready to go in that event – unlike certain other presidents who could be named. So, on Inauguration Day 2017 a new day dawned in American politics – something truly new under the sun. Not just an outsider, but a radical outsider – different in every way from what everyone had come to expect, and demand, from a president. Personality-wise, there is zero overlap between him and any of his predecessors. Style-wise, ditto. Management style, ditto. You name it, whatever it is, he is as different as he would be if he were a Martian beamed down from a hovering spacecraft, and, believe it or not, some people find this upsetting – not least members of the Washington establishment, who have played just one game one way for as long as anyone can remember. But their set of expectations seems to have percolated, over time, to the general populace – and a large portion of the latter are even more visibly upset than those in Congress and elsewhere in the government, who have at least learned to put on a poker face, or an approximation of one, when times get tough.  (It's pretty much a truism that rioters are always way more upset than the people planning, and supervising, the riot.  The latter tend to be cool-headed schemers by comparison, and their histrionics are at least partly a calculated act.)  

But as I said before, even this is not enough to explain the rage, hostility, and open warfare being directed against this one person – and he is, after all, just one person, and yet he has riveted the attention of the media and the entire entertainment industry. He is the lead story on every newscast on every network, nation-wide, every day. He is the main subject of every late-night talk show, and even of all “awards” programs (save of the country-western music type). He has, as the saying goes, sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and continues to do so on a daily basis, and his opponents won't have it any other way. He fills their field of vision; he is Godzilla rising up out of Tokyo Bay. He has come to dominate their lives... their thinking... their emotions... even their physical health. (He has apparently caused a boom in the psychotherapy business, especially on the East and West Coasts.) And every day he remains in office just rubs more salt into their festering and suppurating wounds. What power! What total dominance!

And here's the real kicker – he likes it. Just as someone once said there is no such thing as bad publicity, Trump rides every wave that comes along – high, low, good, bad, it matters not. His enemies feed him bile and poison, and he just grows fatter (figuratively, at least). Sure, he'd prefer it if people respected him and valued his programs and initiatives, and were willing to help him get things done, but if not, hey... (insert video of the famous Trump shrug). He believes in what he is doing, but he also believes in himself – and you can say, well, that's just, you know, narcissism and egomania, etc. Well, excuse me, but how many presidents can you name who weren't narcissists on some level, and who didn't have overly-developed egos? (insert sound of chirping crickets) The difference is that Trump never flinches, or ducks, or hesitates, or – especially this – apologizes. And compared to his predecessors he spends a minimum amount of time “walking back” and “clarifying”. Self-doubt is simply not in his repertoire, on any level. And so he sails on, delighting his loyal core supporters and enraging his opponents more each day.

Now, one could ask – and it wouldn't be a bad question – is this any way to conduct a presidency? Aesthetic considerations aside, don't we have a, let's say, slight credibility problem here, not to mention an efficiency problem? Doesn't Trump create feedback loops that only aggravate things unnecessarily? Hasn't this turned into less an administration than a shtick? Well, it's possible, but you also have to remember that Trump didn't just pop up out of nowhere – outsider status notwithstanding.  He is a product of his time and place just as we all are.  The pathologies in our political system have been growing and metastasizing for decades now, and have contaminated all other aspects of our life as a nation. So what was supposed to come out of all of this in 2016? Another no-face, same-old same-old, empty suit who would just keep us slouching down that same dreary road? Frankly, I prefer a troublemaker – a bull in the china shop – someone who skillfully absorbs all shocks from his opponents then gives them back even more. And Trump fills that bill. No one else could have, or would have. The Republicans will not, under any circumstances, give Trump credit for bailing them out in 2016; in fact, they're resentful and hostile (and not a little bit mortified). And they're digging in their heels at every opportunity – warming up for 2020, at which point, if you thought the DNC played a dirty trick on Bernie Sanders in 2016, wait until you catch the RNC's act when it comes to Trump in 2020. (This, of course, assumes that he is still in office at that point, and I haven't checked with the odds makers yet on that score.)

So yes, the gripe against Trump – that which puts the Resistance over the top – is that he just keeps on truckin', like the Energizer Bunny. They will argue that he is highly – outrageously – flawed as a president, and as a human being. But that's not what has them gnashing their teeth; it's just an easily-recognizable talking point. Nor is it that he is some kind of alien life form, as far as the D.C. crowd and the elite establishment are concerned. It's the fact that his campaign, election, and administration have all the earmarks of a gigantic hoax – and yet they actually happened, and continue to happen. It's more than just annoying, or scandalizing; it's disorienting, and devastating. “Shattering”, to adapt the title of a book on the Hillary campaign. To put it another way, the surreal has become real.

And I use the term “hoax” as opposed to fraud. Many of his opponents will claim that he won the election in a fraudulent manner; I'm perfectly willing to accept that his election was authentic. I'm talking about a deeper issue – a psychological issue, if you will. His opponents don't reject the results of the election simply based on suspicions of fraud, or “collusion”, or “meddling”, or because he shouldn't have won simply because of who, or what, he is, but because a high degree of unreality has been introduced into their lives. The antics of Antifa, and the self-pitying writhings of the “snowflakes” on college campuses are just the tip of this iceberg.

Deep-seated expectations create deep-seated reactions. The most surprising thing, perhaps, is the extent to which people have, over the years, developed a hard-and-fast set of implicit “rules” for the way things ought to be when it comes to the presidency. This is not about etiquette or diplomacy, which are the common points of reference; it goes far beyond that. Trump – in all innocence, perhaps – may have assumed that people would be willing to accept him on the same terms that they've accepted his predecessors – pro or con, friendly or hostile, but not as the equivalent of the Golden Horde riding across the Asian steppe in order to lay siege to Vienna.

And while Trump doesn't exactly have a good “bedside manner”, politically-speaking, the situation is far from being his fault. The fault, I believe, lies in the fact that we, as a people, have developed the thinnest of thin skins. We are like eggs without shells, scared of our own shadows. And this phenomenon has been developing for quite a long time – certainly since the 1960s. So the political game has been a delicate balancing act all this time – make enemies as need be, but don't push them to the brink. And then along comes Trunk – the “trigger” to end all triggers – and people can't decide which is more frightening, the idea that he's putting on an act or the idea that he might be serious. So they do what people have done down through the ages when they are presented with an avalanche of unfamiliar stimuli but have no way of imposing order on them – they panic. And this is what we're seeing now – anger and hostility for certain, but also rage, hostility, and panic. And the question should not be where did Trump come from, and what is to be done, but why we have become so vulnerable and helpless.

The Spike Lee movie may or may not have been a hoax, or a shtick, or a trick – but it happened. Maybe Spike Lee was serious, and maybe Donald Trump was, and is, serious. But that's less important than how things are perceived, and that, in turn, is based on a lifetime of conditioning, expectations, imagery, education (both good and bad), propaganda... that entire array of influences that determine what we are willing, and able, to call “reality”, and what we are unwilling, and unable, to accept or even perceive because it violates not only our picture of the world but our picture of ourselves. An “existential threat” doesn't have to be physical danger, something threatening death. It can also be – and can be more threatening as – danger to our world view. To the Resistance, Trump and his administration are a nightmare from which they can never awake until he's gone, and it is this that determines their every thought, word, and deed. The problem is that the nightmare is of their own making.

P.S. (for the Resistance) – The fact that Trump pulled off a wildly improbable win in 2016 may indicate that “they” didn't want Hillary to be president under any circumstances. Your homework assignment is to quit bellyaching about Trump and try to figure out who “they” are. (Hint: It's not the Russians. Hillary is a much better friend to them than Trump will ever be.)

Tired... So Very Tired...

Fatigue is setting in. No, not on the part of Donald Trump, who continues to display the kind of manic energy that was classically displayed by terminal tuberculosis patients in 19^th Century opera... and certainly not on the part of the Mueller team, who are determined to see this thing through to the bitter end. (I understand they take energy drinks intravenously.) And not by the opposition, or Resistance, either, who continually tap into new energy reserves (not to mention funding from various anonymous donors with globalist tendencies) in order to fuel their crusade against Trump. And not on the part of Trump's hard-core supporters, who continue to wait in long lines and show up at rallies, knowing – on some level – that he is their last, best hope to be heard amidst the din of liberalism and globalism. (Trump could, if he were a student of history, expropriate Louis XV's line, “Apres moi, le deluge”, and he would be accurately describing the reaction of his supporters to his – at this point inevitable – impeachment.)

No, the fatigue is clearly showing in the faces, body language, and actions (or the lack thereof) of the mainstream Republicans – not just the “never Trumpers” but pretty much all of them. They never accepted this quaint notion that an elected president automatically becomes the head of whichever party nominated him; the Republicans are perfectly satisfied being, and remaining, headless. (And lacking certain other body parts has never bothered them either.) And so many of them campaigned against him when he was running – being quite explicit about their preference for Hillary over Trump – that we can't expect them to have changed their minds in the meantime. In fact, they are the prime candidates for the great desertion that will accompany the impeachment, and which – if it turns sufficient members of the Senate – could actually make it a success.

There are other aspects to this. To the extent that Trump is winning anything – succeeding in implementing even the slightest tidbit of the platform on which he ran – they are shying away from jumping on the bandwagon and sharing any credit. The image they want to project is that Trump's very few achievements were accomplished in spite of, and not because of, them – and that they would have been perfectly happy with a third Obama term. In other words, he is the lone gun who rode into town in the best Clint Eastwood tradition, challenged the corrupt and overweight sheriff, and started cleaning out the bad guys, while the polite citizens retreated into their homes and pulled down the shades. The problem is that Washington, D.C. is a big town, and the bad guys, AKA the Deep State, are everywhere. A single gunfight at the O.K. Corral might be on people's minds as the ideal, but it's not going to happen. I imagine that the last time a Deep State of any sort was thoroughly liquidated was when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia – but do we really want that? (Some might – but they can dream on.)

Then there's the fact that the Republicans are much more comfortable being in the minority, as they are about to be in the House of Representatives, where they can sit in leather chairs and collect their pay but not be held responsible for anything that happens. It's been said about the recently-deceased George H. W. Bush that he was “a good loser” – referring to the election of 1992 and his gracious and gentlemanly response to having lost (which could be a lesson for certain characters in Florida and Georgia). And it's true – Republicans in general are good losers because they tend to adhere to traditional notions of manliness and gentility, and they have a sense of proportion, whereas Democrats are lousy losers because they are revolutionaries, for whom there is no place in their theory for losing. For a Republican, losing an election is a humbling experience, but no more; the Republic will survive, and the people have spoken. Whereas for a Democrat, losing an election means that some crime has been committed, and an immediate investigation is in order, along with any number of lawsuits and court orders, and an unlimited number of recounts (during which additional ballots will turn up in the darndest places, and turn out to be – amazing! – overwhelmingly Democratic votes). Their metaphysics will simply not allow the possibility that they could legitimately lose – as witness Hillary's reaction to losing in 2016, and the reaction of many lesser lights to losing in 2018. After all, aren't they the voice of “the people” (the real people, that is, as opposed to the “deplorables” who are nothing more than haters and therefore don't count)? Don't they care? Haven't they shown their compassion in the way they govern cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis, etc.? (Paradoxically, these are the people who constantly cry “Count every vote!” and yet they are the first to fly into courtrooms when the count doesn't go their way. Democracy is only a good idea when you win, apparently.)

But if the Republicans are good at losing, and are more comfortable being in a perpetual minority, then they are acutely troubled by winning, and – as has been shown by Congress over the last two years – constitutionally incapable of taking advantage of it. I have often marveled, in the case of either house of Congress, that when the Democrats are in the majority they act like it, and run roughshod over the Republicans, whereas when the Republicans are in the majority the Democrats are still in charge, and still run roughshod over the Republicans. Sometimes gentlemanliness can be carried too far. Not only do the Republicans get cold feet and go belly-up, they start apologizing for being so reactionary, stuffy, and mean-spirited. It's actually a miracle they ever get elected to anything any more.

So... now that the 2018 election is in the history books, more or less, we see that, far from fretting over their loss of the House, the Republicans actually seem relieved. Finally they can relax a bit, and they won't have to pretend to support Donald Trump's agenda because it won't make any difference. Of course, they still have the Senate, but that's not going to mean much when the Democrats unsheathe their long knives in the House next month. We are in for a marathon of investigations, hearings, indictments, and prosecutions that will make the Mueller bunch look like the J. V. team. (The good news if you're a libertarian is that this will bring all other Congressional activities to a screeching halt – great if you subscribe to the idea that pretty much any governmental activity or program means a further loss of citizens' freedom.)

So what we are seeing, and will see, is some relief of the fatigue factor when it comes to the Republicans, and they can settle back into their usual leisurely life style. After all, politics should not be a job, or a career – what sort of parasitic thinking is that? It should be a gentlemanly affair, take it or leave it, etc. – and leave the bomb-throwing to the radicals within the Democratic Party (of whom there is a new bumper crop as the result of the recent election, Alexandria O-C only being the most high-profile example). Of course, a party that so readily gives up power and is so addicted to the good life is unlikely to do well in future elections; expect the Senate to flip in 2020, for example. (And if Trump is still in office at that point he would be very well advised to cut his losses and go back home. Plus, c'mon dude, if half the American public thinks you're a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, that's gotta be a tough row to hoe.)

And besides, what will the Republicans have to offer in 2020? A recycle/retread of the same sorry no-faces that Trump managed to squash in 2016? Good luck with that. The Democrats, on the other hand, have a veritable army of young radicals and unapologetic socialists, who will be marching behind one of two banners, either that of the Queen of the Night (AKA Hillary) or that of Lenin's brother by another mother (AKA Bernie). Collectivism/totalitarianism only seems to be an idea whose time has come and gone; it keeps coming back to life like Frankenstein's monster, to mesmerize a new generation of believers. If prostitution is the world's oldest profession, then socialism is the world's oldest political delusion; it is at once the very embodiment of concupiscence and the antithesis to Natural Law.

But in the meantime, Trump will continue to cause some fatigue and distress among Republicans as long as he remains in office (because, after all, it's their party and he was never invited), and will continue to energize the opposition to a level of hysteria and paranoia formerly confined to mental institutions (before the blessings of Thorazine and Prozac). And as such he will be doing us all a favor in that he will be preventing the opposition from pursuing more “constructive” endeavors. But they never tire, and neither does he, apparently. So starting in January we're going to be treated to the spectacle of one man against what will appear to be the world, with the Republicans snoozing on the sidelines. And of course the world will win, sooner or later, and the Republicans will be back to the sort of lifestyle they know best – permanent minority status and permanent powerlessness. It is only their delusional system that protects them from humiliation and shame.

The Two-Year Presidency (Sad)

Trump seems to have upped his game since the election. No longer satisfied with saying, or doing, something offensive/outrageous/treasonous/impeachable (per the mainstream media's criteria) every week or so, he's now committing some sort of outrage not just daily, or hourly, but every five minutes! CNN can hardly keep up, even with 24 hours per day to work with. He's accused, tried, and convicted before even getting out of bed in the morning. (No word yet on whether he “tweets” from bed or from some other venue.) He is, in short, acting like someone who has nothing to lose – and that may well be. He is already fated to acquire lame-duck status the minute the next Congress is sworn in... but the easy impeachment that the Democrats have dreamed of for two years – their version of “visions of sugarplums” – may be out of reach. Not that he couldn't be impeached, but would the impeachment succeed? And that all hinges on whether certain Republican members of the Senate are willing to follow in Susan Collins' footsteps – and who's going to bet one way or the other on that?  Or they might feel that they are serving their party by betraying Trump, that being a better bet politically than serving Trump by betraying their party. There's no doubt about it; Trump has become a “long national nightmare” for the Republicans, who are never quite sure, on any given day, who to side with – Trump or the Republican mainstream (including the “never Trumpers”, who are holding their cards close to their chest these days).

So yes, the second half of Trump's administration, if it's even a half, promises to be a snooze fest in terms of legislation (and executive orders not immediately struck down by the judiciary – the 9^th Circuit being on 24-hour alert these days). And that may not be enough to satisfy a guy who brought his up-all-night, hyperactive, aggressive style down from New York City to sleepy, complacent, ossified Washington. Never has a man so blatantly “northeastern” had to deal with a vast array of opponents who are so “southern” – if not in the literal sense then in the sense of being satisfied with zero performance and maximum pay and benefits. The incompatibility has been there from the start, and it has only gotten worse over time. And make no mistake, the Republicans who have “come around” and grudgingly support Trump's initiatives have only done so for purely political reasons; they will turn on him in a New York minute (OK, a DC minute) if they think it's in their interests to do so.

No, Trump has been an alien life form in Washington from the beginning – they don't understand him, and I suspect he doesn't understand them either, at least not fully, although he's pretty good at making them jump. But the fact remains that he's not going to get a lot done between January 2019 and January 2021, and I suspect he knows it, and I also suspect he's thinking about what to do to fill up his time during those two years. (How much golf can you play in any given day?) And if he's smart (as I believe he is) he's also starting to get real about the chances of being re-nominated in 2020. And if he's already written that off as a possibility, it's less surprising that he's becoming more bare-knuckled than before. He hung in there on behalf of the Republican candidates who were interested in his support for the 2018 mid-terms, but now that those are accomplished (except for a few freakish exceptions in Florida and Georgia) he's able to reset his priorities (with or without Hillary's “reset” button). (And BTW, didn't I see that for sale on eBay the other day?)

So what to do? Well, he can continue to bait the mainstream media, the way one baits a cat with a laser pointer (that's Rush Limbaugh's metaphor). And he can – not a trivial consideration – allow the Mueller investigation to drag on, right up to January 2021, and thus continue to expose the utter moral bankruptcy and corruption of the opposition. This could, in fact, be his greatest long-term gift to the electorate. Long after the waters have converged and settled over all memory of his economic and diplomatic accomplishments, the abomination that is the Mueller investigation will remain a blotch on our history as a nation – and rightly so. At least there was a grain of truth – and perhaps more than a grain – to the Nixon (as senator) and McCarthy investigations, despite insurmountable stylistic difficulties; the Mueller farce will, in all probability, be remembered as the time when sheer fantasy, hysteria, and political interest took over large portions of the executive branch, particularly the FBI, the Justice Department, and the CIA. It would be hard to imagine anything more noteworthy from a historical point of view, and one can only hope that that the madness indeed comes to an end in January of 2021, and does not persist, as a chronic and fatal ailment, unto the end, for all intents and purposes, of the Republic.

To add a side note, based on one of the current Internet memes – namely the notion that Trump is using his position to enrich himself and his family. I've always said that the best person to elect to the presidency is someone who is already so rich that they can't be bribed – and I think Trump fits that description. If he had wanted to continue to make the big bucks, he would have stayed in New York, and ditto the rest of his family. They're probably giving up millions, if not billions, by mucking about in the fetid swamps of the Potomac – and yet there they are. And no, I can't figure it out either. Of course, if they were Democrats the answer would be that they merely want to serve their country, and selfish considerations don't come into play. (Right – tell it to the Clinton Family Foundation.)

So... where does this leave us? There are subtle signs that Trump may have already given up on 2020, despite all overt activities and claims otherwise. And yet I don't see him bailing out at any time prior to that; totally not his style. Even if he drops out in 2020, he'll no doubt declare victory – kind of like what we did when we left Korea in a stalemate.

But who knows, maybe he thinks he can get something done over the next two years after all; judicial appointments come to mind, as do military ventures which don't require the approval of Congress (which means pretty much all of them). If he bailed now it would leave the presidency in the hands of the saintly, white-haired Mike Pence, which would certainly give the Evangelicals cause for rejoicing (Israel is already perfectly happy with Trump). And Pence might well get nominated in 2020 – and he might well lose, for the same reason Ford, Mondale, and Gore lost; they were still infested with too many “cooties” from their previous bosses.

It's hard to imagine American politics being any more bizarre or grotesque than it is right now – but, as I said, we have 2 more years of Trump to go, and I suspect he has weapons he hasn't tried out yet. In any case, fatigue is setting in (for the citizenry, not him), and the question in 2020 will be, do we vote for one of the seemingly endless parade of colorless, boring Republican candidates – you know, the ones Trump managed to knock off, one by one, in 2016 -- or do we take a walk on the other wild side and vote for the likes of Bernie again, or maybe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? She is at least the voice of youth, whereas Bernie is stuck somewhere back in the 1960s with the rest of the Birkenstock/NPR/New Yorker crowd. Sometimes I think that the best way to deal with the fear of what the younger generation will “do to the country” is to just turn it over to them and see what happens. I mean, why wait until they're old enough to have sold out?