Saturday, November 19, 2016
Trump and America's Anti-Democracy Movement
So far, the effects of electing Donald Trump to the presidency seem quite promising. Jeff Sessions is an excellent choice for Attorney General -- for the first time in years we'll have an Attorney General who actually is interested in enforcing the law, instead of ignoring it and pursuing the left's culture war. By all evidence, Sessions is an honest, principled man, and not a crooked ideologue like Loretta Lynch or the Eric Holder.
So far as I can tell, Representative Pompeo is also a good man and a good choice for CIA director, and likewise General Flynn for National Security Advisor. New York Time is upset about this last pick -- after all, Flynn openly criticizes Islamism and warns that Islamist groups are dangerous...can't get any more disturbing than that! (The NYT editorial is funny -- they are entirely disturbed that Republicans chanted "lock her up" at the GOP convention, concerning a candidate who is still under criminal investigation, much more disturbing to them than said candidates supporters rioting, attacking Trump supporters, and threatening assassination of the President-Elect and those who voted for him.)
If Trump keeps picking cabinet and staff like this, there's a chance he could be a really great president. He needs sound-minded, principled people who understand the philosophy on which the United States were founded -- that of individual rights and strictly limited government -- and will fight to preserve and advance these principles. I certainly hope he's successful. "We" at Unforeseen Contingencies have always given a new president the benefit of the doubt, even when he's not our guy, and wished him well. This is a concept beyond the grasp of today's malevolent left, which cannot tolerate and must destroy anyone so "deplorable" as to dissent from leftist dogma.
That's one of the other useful effects of electing Donald Trump and a Republican Congress and Republican governors and state legislatures across the land. The Democrats and those left of them are revealing themselves to everyone as scarily mad. The rioting and the venom from the Democrats' mainstream media and the hysteria on college campuses are confirming to everyone outside the club that progressives and those left of them are America's anti-democracy movement. This will not help the left.
The Saturday after the election Julie and I stopped at a Gander Mountain sporting goods store; the firearm section was doing very brisk business. They had put extra staff on expecting Hillary to have won and sales to boom, and nearly cancelled the extra staff. Yet sales were booming. I spoke with one of the salesmen who told me buyers say they are worried about the left... rioters, violence against Trump voters, and the like. No fooling. And Democrats aren't disassociating themselves from all this. They are, then, the anti-democratic party of hate and violence? Yes, it appears so.
So far as I can tell, Representative Pompeo is also a good man and a good choice for CIA director, and likewise General Flynn for National Security Advisor. New York Time is upset about this last pick -- after all, Flynn openly criticizes Islamism and warns that Islamist groups are dangerous...can't get any more disturbing than that! (The NYT editorial is funny -- they are entirely disturbed that Republicans chanted "lock her up" at the GOP convention, concerning a candidate who is still under criminal investigation, much more disturbing to them than said candidates supporters rioting, attacking Trump supporters, and threatening assassination of the President-Elect and those who voted for him.)
If Trump keeps picking cabinet and staff like this, there's a chance he could be a really great president. He needs sound-minded, principled people who understand the philosophy on which the United States were founded -- that of individual rights and strictly limited government -- and will fight to preserve and advance these principles. I certainly hope he's successful. "We" at Unforeseen Contingencies have always given a new president the benefit of the doubt, even when he's not our guy, and wished him well. This is a concept beyond the grasp of today's malevolent left, which cannot tolerate and must destroy anyone so "deplorable" as to dissent from leftist dogma.
That's one of the other useful effects of electing Donald Trump and a Republican Congress and Republican governors and state legislatures across the land. The Democrats and those left of them are revealing themselves to everyone as scarily mad. The rioting and the venom from the Democrats' mainstream media and the hysteria on college campuses are confirming to everyone outside the club that progressives and those left of them are America's anti-democracy movement. This will not help the left.
The Saturday after the election Julie and I stopped at a Gander Mountain sporting goods store; the firearm section was doing very brisk business. They had put extra staff on expecting Hillary to have won and sales to boom, and nearly cancelled the extra staff. Yet sales were booming. I spoke with one of the salesmen who told me buyers say they are worried about the left... rioters, violence against Trump voters, and the like. No fooling. And Democrats aren't disassociating themselves from all this. They are, then, the anti-democratic party of hate and violence? Yes, it appears so.
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First, to your question: I see your blog from Sofia, in fact I regularly read it.
I have a different (from yours) view on the US elections. Part of me is gloating that the arrogant Democrats who hate the American people met their nemesis. But I fear that things will not develop well, at least not in the Old World. Shortly before the elections, reading at "Why Evolution is True" numerous comments how Clinton's victory was in the bag, I got nervous. It sounded almost like they were trying to talk the desired outcome into happening. I urged every US voter to make the effort to vote for Clinton; I even cited the 1941 Russian song "Stand up, giant country!" (Vstavay strana ogromnaya).
To me, Trump's election comes as an early birthday present for Putin, and also for the Islamists. He has promised isolationism; if history is a lesson, this means the world going underwater and the USA soon attacked on its soil, as in 1941 and in 2001. Indeed, Trump has also promised to stop Muslim immigration. If done, this could save the United States, but I do not hold my breath. The president elect is a habitual liar. I read somewhere that he has already replaced the promised full stop with "extreme vetting" rhetoric. This is nonsense, and quite likely means that the USA will go down soon after Europe and Canada.
All sources agree that Trump was elected mostly by working-class Americans, angry at the loss of their jobs. To begin with, I do not quite understand why they lost their jobs in the first place. I understand that some industries were outsourced, but I do not understand why they have not been replaced by other industries (I cannot grasp the very term "postindustrial society"). It seems that working-class Americans blame for their plight not only massive and illegal immigration but also free trade; and Trump has promised to bring back their jobs by abolishing free trade agreements, which is likely impossible to do and would bring little good even if it were possible. (To be brutally honest, I also wonder why so many Americans cannot find jobs while every single immigrant I know, even if with poor English, has found one within weeks.)
To sum up, Trump came to power with an anti-libertarian (anti-free trade and anti-abortion) platform; he is an appeaser of Putin, anti-science (against vaccines and evolution) and, to boot, looks mentally unstable. I only hope I am wrong.
I have a different (from yours) view on the US elections. Part of me is gloating that the arrogant Democrats who hate the American people met their nemesis. But I fear that things will not develop well, at least not in the Old World. Shortly before the elections, reading at "Why Evolution is True" numerous comments how Clinton's victory was in the bag, I got nervous. It sounded almost like they were trying to talk the desired outcome into happening. I urged every US voter to make the effort to vote for Clinton; I even cited the 1941 Russian song "Stand up, giant country!" (Vstavay strana ogromnaya).
To me, Trump's election comes as an early birthday present for Putin, and also for the Islamists. He has promised isolationism; if history is a lesson, this means the world going underwater and the USA soon attacked on its soil, as in 1941 and in 2001. Indeed, Trump has also promised to stop Muslim immigration. If done, this could save the United States, but I do not hold my breath. The president elect is a habitual liar. I read somewhere that he has already replaced the promised full stop with "extreme vetting" rhetoric. This is nonsense, and quite likely means that the USA will go down soon after Europe and Canada.
All sources agree that Trump was elected mostly by working-class Americans, angry at the loss of their jobs. To begin with, I do not quite understand why they lost their jobs in the first place. I understand that some industries were outsourced, but I do not understand why they have not been replaced by other industries (I cannot grasp the very term "postindustrial society"). It seems that working-class Americans blame for their plight not only massive and illegal immigration but also free trade; and Trump has promised to bring back their jobs by abolishing free trade agreements, which is likely impossible to do and would bring little good even if it were possible. (To be brutally honest, I also wonder why so many Americans cannot find jobs while every single immigrant I know, even if with poor English, has found one within weeks.)
To sum up, Trump came to power with an anti-libertarian (anti-free trade and anti-abortion) platform; he is an appeaser of Putin, anti-science (against vaccines and evolution) and, to boot, looks mentally unstable. I only hope I am wrong.
Hi Maya
Thanks for your comment. I had seen something from Blogspot that made me wonder if access to my blog was being blocked outside of the U.S.
I will respond carefully to your comment soon, when I have time. I have similar worries about Trump, but at least so far his actions are quite different from his rhetoric -- e.g. considering Romney for State (Romney defined Russia as America's #1 enemy) and Mattis for Defense is not consistent with isolationism and turning Europe over to Russia.
Thanks for your comment. I had seen something from Blogspot that made me wonder if access to my blog was being blocked outside of the U.S.
I will respond carefully to your comment soon, when I have time. I have similar worries about Trump, but at least so far his actions are quite different from his rhetoric -- e.g. considering Romney for State (Romney defined Russia as America's #1 enemy) and Mattis for Defense is not consistent with isolationism and turning Europe over to Russia.
Here's the longer reply I promised.
First, if your concerns prove true, then Trump will be a bad president. We aren't in disagreement about that. However, I think there's reason to be more optimistic.
Re "habitual liar..." yes. I don't think things he says are a reliable indicator of anything he'll do. It appears that to him, everything is a negotiation, and much of what he says is staking out negotiating positions, testing others to see how they'll respond, or trying to manipulate their behavior. I don't like this, but it means we need to pay attention to his actions, not his words. (And frankly, he's only stylistically different from Barack "red line" Obama in this regard.)
In terms of actions, so far Trump is a great improvement on Obama. One of the worst things Obama did was completely politicize the Department of Justice and the IRS. DoJ under Holder and Lynch has promoted radical left causes, while IRS has cracked down on political dissent. This is extremely dangerous. By nominating Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Trump has picked a man who appears to be quite honest and devoted to upholding the Constitution and actually enforcing the law. It's hard to underestimate how important this is.
Similarly, Trump's other cabinet picks seem to be normal people -- that is, not radicals who are dead set on getting rid of the division of powers and federalism, and replacing with what's effectively a national dictatorship run by the president & bureaucracy. We are likely to have a presidential administration that is relatively normal, i.e. not hell-bent on unConstitutionally changing the system with regulation, social experimentation, and oppression of all of us who oppose this.
I can understand t=your concerns about Trump, Maya, because I have voiced them all myself. What I can't understand is why you would think Hillary Clinton was a better choice. Hillary Clinton was the "mastermind" behind the idiotic "Reset" with Russia, it was the president whose legacy she promised to promote who reassured Medvedev he'd be friendlier once the election was out of the way, and who later effectively invited Russia to Syria and pushed an agreement with Russia's ally Iran, one which the Russians have been exploiting with massive weapons sales. Even worse, Hillary Clinton used her position as Secretary of State to protect the deal her husband helped arrange by which Russia gained control of most of the world supply of uranium. This is far, far worse than anything Trump ever did with respect to Putin.
Hillary also promised to expand the importation of Syrian refugees by the tens of thousands, and arguably hundreds of thousands. Will Trump be worse? That's hard to imagine, especially if he has reasonable people heading DoJ, DHS, etc.
I am sure Trump will not be perfect and in many ways might be bad, but we narrowly avoided a catastrophe with Hillary Clinton. And with Trump there are things about which we can be optimistic, including the fact that this gives us breathing room to promote liberty, instead of fighting the desperate battles to prevent its elimination we'd have had under Hillary Clinton.
Thanks for your comment.
First, if your concerns prove true, then Trump will be a bad president. We aren't in disagreement about that. However, I think there's reason to be more optimistic.
Re "habitual liar..." yes. I don't think things he says are a reliable indicator of anything he'll do. It appears that to him, everything is a negotiation, and much of what he says is staking out negotiating positions, testing others to see how they'll respond, or trying to manipulate their behavior. I don't like this, but it means we need to pay attention to his actions, not his words. (And frankly, he's only stylistically different from Barack "red line" Obama in this regard.)
In terms of actions, so far Trump is a great improvement on Obama. One of the worst things Obama did was completely politicize the Department of Justice and the IRS. DoJ under Holder and Lynch has promoted radical left causes, while IRS has cracked down on political dissent. This is extremely dangerous. By nominating Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Trump has picked a man who appears to be quite honest and devoted to upholding the Constitution and actually enforcing the law. It's hard to underestimate how important this is.
Similarly, Trump's other cabinet picks seem to be normal people -- that is, not radicals who are dead set on getting rid of the division of powers and federalism, and replacing with what's effectively a national dictatorship run by the president & bureaucracy. We are likely to have a presidential administration that is relatively normal, i.e. not hell-bent on unConstitutionally changing the system with regulation, social experimentation, and oppression of all of us who oppose this.
I can understand t=your concerns about Trump, Maya, because I have voiced them all myself. What I can't understand is why you would think Hillary Clinton was a better choice. Hillary Clinton was the "mastermind" behind the idiotic "Reset" with Russia, it was the president whose legacy she promised to promote who reassured Medvedev he'd be friendlier once the election was out of the way, and who later effectively invited Russia to Syria and pushed an agreement with Russia's ally Iran, one which the Russians have been exploiting with massive weapons sales. Even worse, Hillary Clinton used her position as Secretary of State to protect the deal her husband helped arrange by which Russia gained control of most of the world supply of uranium. This is far, far worse than anything Trump ever did with respect to Putin.
Hillary also promised to expand the importation of Syrian refugees by the tens of thousands, and arguably hundreds of thousands. Will Trump be worse? That's hard to imagine, especially if he has reasonable people heading DoJ, DHS, etc.
I am sure Trump will not be perfect and in many ways might be bad, but we narrowly avoided a catastrophe with Hillary Clinton. And with Trump there are things about which we can be optimistic, including the fact that this gives us breathing room to promote liberty, instead of fighting the desperate battles to prevent its elimination we'd have had under Hillary Clinton.
Thanks for your comment.
I also thank you for the comprehensive and well-written comment!
I admit that I know little about internal US affairs, so I judge US presidents and presidential candidates mainly based on their foreign policy.
To me, the bad trend in US foreign policy in the 21st century is bipartisan. I regard G.W. Bush and Obama not as antipodes but as two steps of the same process. Both praised Islam, stated that it has nothing to do with terror, allowed massive Muslim immigration, appeased Russia in a Chamberlain-like fashion (remember how Bush said to have looked inside Putin's eyes, and how he let Putin get away with the invasion and land grab in Georgia). Also, both caused a devastating war in Europe's backyard - Bush by directly starting the second Iraq war based on an unfounded casus belli, and Obama by his non-intervention in Syria. Let's hope that Trump presidency will turn out better than my fears. For the moment, all I wish is NATO to survive.
I admit, however, that I although I did not want to see a psychopath at the helm of the free world, maybe this was needed now. The Khan affair drove me to such thoughts. I do not understand the zeal of the Democrats and other Western elites to import legions of Muslims at all costs and regardless of the harm already caused by such immigration, but parading the Khans at the DNC hit a new law. They needed to be countered, and only a psychopath could do this to a Gold Star family. Any nicer person would cave in and let Khizr Khan hide behind the back of his fallen hero son to promote Islamization and Sharia. So I reluctantly felt some respect to Trump.
I admit that I know little about internal US affairs, so I judge US presidents and presidential candidates mainly based on their foreign policy.
To me, the bad trend in US foreign policy in the 21st century is bipartisan. I regard G.W. Bush and Obama not as antipodes but as two steps of the same process. Both praised Islam, stated that it has nothing to do with terror, allowed massive Muslim immigration, appeased Russia in a Chamberlain-like fashion (remember how Bush said to have looked inside Putin's eyes, and how he let Putin get away with the invasion and land grab in Georgia). Also, both caused a devastating war in Europe's backyard - Bush by directly starting the second Iraq war based on an unfounded casus belli, and Obama by his non-intervention in Syria. Let's hope that Trump presidency will turn out better than my fears. For the moment, all I wish is NATO to survive.
I admit, however, that I although I did not want to see a psychopath at the helm of the free world, maybe this was needed now. The Khan affair drove me to such thoughts. I do not understand the zeal of the Democrats and other Western elites to import legions of Muslims at all costs and regardless of the harm already caused by such immigration, but parading the Khans at the DNC hit a new law. They needed to be countered, and only a psychopath could do this to a Gold Star family. Any nicer person would cave in and let Khizr Khan hide behind the back of his fallen hero son to promote Islamization and Sharia. So I reluctantly felt some respect to Trump.
Thanks, Maya. I already had the impression your primary concerns are foreign policy & international relations -- this would be natural for someone living in Europe.
I am no fan of Bush, and certainly not of his invasion of Iraq. But with respect to Russia he was still superior to Obama. Bush planned to position anti-ballistic missiles in Central Europe to guard against Iranian threats (and if I lived in Warsaw, I would hope these could have additional uses); Obama immediately cancelled this as part of his "reset" appeasement. In general, Obama seemed to be a master at giving America's enemies what they wanted, and getting nothing in return.
I hope that Trump will prove different from Obama in this, and I think there's reason to be somewhat hopeful.
I am amused by your characterization of Trump and the Khan affair (a despicable thing by the Dems); if psychopathy means absence of empathy (which I think is the technical definition, if there is such a thing), yes, maybe that is Trump...although from some things I've heard, that may be a public persona he projects, and in private he's different. I am unlikely ever to know.
I am no fan of Bush, and certainly not of his invasion of Iraq. But with respect to Russia he was still superior to Obama. Bush planned to position anti-ballistic missiles in Central Europe to guard against Iranian threats (and if I lived in Warsaw, I would hope these could have additional uses); Obama immediately cancelled this as part of his "reset" appeasement. In general, Obama seemed to be a master at giving America's enemies what they wanted, and getting nothing in return.
I hope that Trump will prove different from Obama in this, and I think there's reason to be somewhat hopeful.
I am amused by your characterization of Trump and the Khan affair (a despicable thing by the Dems); if psychopathy means absence of empathy (which I think is the technical definition, if there is such a thing), yes, maybe that is Trump...although from some things I've heard, that may be a public persona he projects, and in private he's different. I am unlikely ever to know.
"In general, Obama seemed to be a master at giving America's enemies what they wanted, and getting nothing in return."
Very well said!
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Very well said!
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