Happy New Year to all. And it promises to be at least an interesting one.
I found this fascinating post from a series of links starting at Instapundit and it made me want to gel some thoughts that have been swimming in my head about our clown-genius, Donald Trump.
Trump is no dummy, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. He appears the way he does because that’s the way he wants to appear. He groomed that appearance for 14 years on the Apprentice show. Sort of the way Reagan groomed his appearance in 8 years of speaking to factory and community audiences about the virtues of the free enterprise system on behalf of General Electric. A lot of people like Trump. The show lasted 14 seasons even though I never watched a second. But a lot of people did. As a result, people see Trump as the reality candidate as opposed to all the other inside the beltway political candidates. Even the outside the beltway governors are seen as inside politicians. People want a genuine leader and not an artificial politician fabricated by political consultants. Warts are part of reality.
Starting in 2011 Trump began appearing on Fox and Friends every Monday morning, practicing his pitch and getting feedback, just as Reagan did on his daily radio broadcasts from 1975 to 1979. This routine communication with the people gave them greater insight into the concerns of regular people. You can’t get that by spending all your time talking to other politicians about the political minutiae of the moment. On air you have to talk about what people care about or they won’t listen. Both started early on their soft campaigns to reach the people directly. Each was dismissed as an airhead actor (Bedtime for Bonzo?) or a billionaire buffoon. Neither was.
The difference between them is that Reagan was an ideological communicator whereas Trump is a pragmatic entertainer. Each was appropriate to his time. The vast majority of the electorate was literate in 1980. Not so much any more. Little of our information is gathered from print. Reading is rational, viewing is emotional. Clinton and especially Obama have governed as entertainer in chief as opposed to commander because of their desire to dispense goodies to the people so they will be loved as they weren’t by the fathers who abandoned them, their unrealistic view of our enemies and disdain for the military, and their desire to distract the populace from the serious matters they ignore. Heck, No Drama Obama ran as a blank slate. Or was it an empty chair? So the people are prepared for an entertainer in chief. And Trump would be entertaining. But I am beginning to believe there is much more to him than “You’re fired!” We’ll know much more about that when he selects his running mate.
Remember who Reagan chose in 1976 when he was running against Ford. A leftie in hopes it would dilute his reputation as a hard right ideologue. He chose Bush in 1980, who had attacked his economic ideas as “Voodoo economics” and who proved, once he was president himself, that he did not agree with Reagan. Reagan said that he did not know how someone who had NOT been an actor could be elected and be president. Now we have the second act.
I did not take Trump seriously at first and still wonder if he can overcome his negatives. The Establishment is in a panic now and the stupid Rose Bowl sky writing yesterday shows how dumb they are. The more they try to stop him, the more voters will join his side. The rage in the country against the establishment is white hot. There are three foci, the right, the white left and the black left.
The right is the Trump support. The white left is Sanders and the Occupy Movement. The black left is the Black Lives Matter group which seems to be pretty small and may be subsidized by Soros or someone else with what motive we don’t know yet. De Blasio is one example of the white left and the possible successor as Mayor of Chicago, Chuy Garcia, may be the BLM attempt at fusion with the white left.
It will certainly be an interesting year. Rahm Emmanuel may be the first ten pin to fall.
The basis of the concept fo assessment centres is that hardly anyone can hide his/her true self for long.
I doubt Trump meely played an act for 14 years or so. Most of it is no doubt himself.
But I am beginning to believe there is much more to him than “You’re fired!”
From The Donald’s website:
The VA health care program is a disaster. Some candidates want to get rid of it, but our veterans need the VA to be there for them and their families. That’s why the Trump plan will:
Fire the corrupt and incompetent VA executives that let our veterans down. Under a Trump Administration, there will be no job security for VA executives that enabled or overlooked corruption and incompetence. They’re fired.
:-P
I see nothing in Trump’s policy positions which bother me. I am bothered by what’s not there, especially any attempt to reduce the debt or the size of government. At best, Trump will offer a respite.
Donald Trump vs. The Establishment – Michelle Malkin
I came up with one word about this that I have heard no others mention.
Does anyone else wonder if a Trump presidency would be ……. exhausting?
I think it would be.
It was Evelyn Waugh who said that the trouble with conservatives is that they never turn the clock back.
“Does anyone else wonder if a Trump presidency would be ……. exhausting?
I think it would be.”
It might be the way to avoid the revolution and that is usually exhausting.. I keep thinking of the Girondin Ministry who wanted the Revolution but lost control of it.
The Girondins campaigned for the end of the monarchy but then resisted the spiraling momentum of the Revolution. They came into conflict with The Mountain (Montagnards), a radical faction within the Jacobin Club. This conflict eventually led to the fall of the Girondins and their mass execution, the beginning of the Reign of Terror. The Girondins comprised a group of loosely affiliated individuals rather than an organized political party, and the name was at first informally applied because the most prominent exponents of their point of view were deputies to the Legislative Assembly from the department of Gironde in southwest France. The term became standard with Lamartine’s history in 1847.
The Montagnards were led by Robespierre.
Girondins did not share the ferocious fanaticism or the ruthless opportunism of the future Montagnard organisers of the Reign of Terror. As the Revolution developed, the Girondins often found themselves opposing its results; the overthrow of the monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the September Massacres of 1792 occurred while they still nominally controlled the government, but the Girondins tried to distance themselves from the results of the September massacre.
There is no exact analogy in American politics. Democrats elected Obama and are trying to elect Hillary but they are leaving America open to radical and destructive forces like Muslim immigration and Black Live Matter terrorists. There is a real risk of anarchy, which is what The Terror really represented.
The American right has a large segment of armed people who will not surrender to the left. It is a dangerous time. Maybe Trump can control it.
It is a dangerous time. I was at a large breakfast gathering this morning where the subject of Obama’s promised extra-legal decrees against the Second Amendment came up. There is absolutely no confidence that any of our institutions or politicians will resist him. It is expected that the Whigs [nee Republicans] will go along with whatever he decrees and will only whine about it in fundraising letters. It may be pertinent that present at that breakfast were several members of the County Republican Central Committee, who were in agreement.
Being well past middle age, that is the circle I mostly travel in. Several of our group expressed relief that they themselves are old enough that they will not have to go through all of what is to come, and that they do not have children or grandchildren who will have to live with what is to come.
Trump is not a savior, despite the Nomenklatura trying to make out that to his supporters, he is. He is the only public figure that is loudly saying what the mass of the people who are not TWANLOC are feeling. When you have been betrayed by every institution in society, when the government has abolished the rule of law, when the ruling party has used the Constitution for toilet paper and the supposed “opposition” party has gladly helped them flush it down the toilet; maybe that is all that a lot of people have left.
I frequently say that you can judge a person in large part by the quality of their enemies. By that criteria, Trump [and to a lesser extent Cruz] has all the right enemies.
The next few months [3-4] are going to be key. The Democrats and their allies to the Left are pressing for a functional dictatorship. Their Whig allies to the right seek to become the kept formal “opposition” [not comprehending the usual fate of such]. Both are intent on the subjugation of the mass of the population. And they are getting on the last nerve of a significant portion of that population.
If Obama’s Decrees are not opposed politically, and more are issued, I expect the pace to pick up, ending in a declaration of a “state of emergency”. Followed shortly by a “temporary Government of National Unity” consisting of the current incumbents “only for the duration of the emergency”. At which point, a whole bunch of dance cards are going to be full.
At least that seems to be the pattern as governments and societies move from whatever system they have had in the past that they consented to, to a dictatorship.
Historical footnote: In the American Revolution, the common saying is that 1/3 were Tory, 1/3 were Patriot, and 1/3 just wanted to be left alone. Even granting the horrendous logistical handicaps the Brits operated under, only about 3% of Colonials actually took the field to fight the Brits. And in the end, kicked their a**es.
I would note an advantage for the STATE in that they have no aversion to killing civilians, nor the Left to genocide. And an advantage to the population in that the STATE has no intention of “leaving anybody alone”, which in the long run will mobilize the uncommitted and those who have family and friends killed by the STATE, against the STATE.
What was once unthinkable is now a not unlikely possibility.
The Democrats and their allies to the Left are pressing for a functional dictatorship.
That is what Hillary is signaling to them. She promises to completely ignore Congress, ostensibly the elected representatives of the people. She wants to take the next step, consequences be dammed. The vision of the anointed. The really scary part is that ~1/2 population is on board with the idea.
A Trump presidency would be exhausting for the establishment media organs. They might actually have to get up and work, instead of mouthing Dem party press releases with an appropriate degree of snark directed at conservatives of every stripe.
I do have children and grandchildren. One son is a leftist, the other is conservative. My daughters have no children.
Trump has an interesting background and is not a nameless, faceless demagogue like Hitler was, no matter what you read.
Even the NY Times has an honest article about him. Maybe they are starting to think he might really do it. HuffPo is clueless. They are still following Hillary’s prompts.
The angry left will not realize what is coming until very late. Then their reaction will be important. Will they accept reality and stay peaceful ?
I wonder.
Well, I have three children, all married, and all have children of their own. So I worry very much about what sort of social legacy is going to exist for them. This is not academic for me or them.
“This is not academic for me or them.”
I am not optimistic but there are places where the stupid is less powerful. California and Illinois are not among those places.
“Obama’s promised extra-legal decrees against the Second Amendment”
They’re not extra-legal, they’re ordinary.
Besides, he didn’t even make much use of such executive orders compared to Reagan and some others (Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, Taft, both Roosevelts, Truman, Carter, Ford, Nixon …).
Dated graphic, but the relations are still clear:
https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/mehta-datalab-executiveorders1.png
The habit of purporting that the political opposition is lacking legitimacy or legality when neither is true (Birtherism etc) is no good for a political culture. It’s not leading to good policies – it’s merely leading to much fodder for entertainment in the “news”.
____________________________
“A Trump presidency would be exhausting for the establishment media organs. They might actually have to get up and work, instead of mouthing Dem party press releases with an appropriate degree of snark directed at conservatives of every stripe.”
The funny thing is, if you look at what the left wing says about the media, you’ll see that they actually count things such as the visitors of the political Sunday morning TV shows and the result is invariably that much more Republicans got invited to voice the right wing point of view than Democrats (or progressives) to voice the left wing point of view.
You may prefer a media even more in favour of expressing right wing viewpoints, but that’s only because you’re to the right of the media save for maybe Fox News. Meanwhile, progressives invariably are to the left of the media that they don’t feel their viewpoints represented even on MSNBC (see Morning Joe etc.).
Made a quick search, found no 2015 data in first minute:
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/right-and-early/
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/12/chart-day-republicans-rule-sunday-morning
The dysfunction of the media isn’t in its inability to meet the expectation of radicals, but in the widespread inability to ignore bullshit stories and spin. They prefer entertainment over actual information. There ought to be some point between C-SPAN and political satire, with actual information presented in a style that attracts a large audience.
They’re not extra-legal, they’re ordinary.
The President can’t simply make law at his discretion. Executive orders are subject to the law and have been overturned by the courts.
Brief googling yields this informative column. I’m sure you can find additional information easily.
Obama’s proposed executive orders on guns are plainly unconstitutional and aren’t likely to go anywhere. However, they have been very useful politically as a distraction from the Obama administration’s profound failures in foreign affairs.
The dysfunction of the media isn’t in its inability to meet the expectation of radicals, but in the widespread inability to ignore bullshit stories and spin. They prefer entertainment over actual information.
These things aren’t mutually exclusive. There is obvious partisan bias as well as a preference for entertaining stories.
Show me what exactly would be illegal about an executive order that’s not even published yet.
What I saw is obviously all about using the tiny freedom of action he has.
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/4/10708324/obama-gun-control-executive-order
“Obama administration’s profound failures in foreign affairs”
Actually, since Kerry is in State Dept. the track record looks pretty good compared to GWB…
Arabs messing their home region up is not Obama’s fault.
I’ll roll out the GWB comparison on the topic if you disagree…
“There is obvious partisan bias”
… and this partisan bias is pro-establishment GOP more often than not.
The national media tends to favour the Democrats’ side usually only if a popular majority does so as well or recent events gave particular weight to the Democrats’ point of view.
“Actually, since Kerry is in State Dept. the track record looks pretty good compared to GWB…
Arabs messing their home region up is not Obama’s fault.
I’ll roll out the GWB comparison on the topic if you disagree…”
I doubt you are informed enough to bother with a debate. I’m sure your “GWB comparison” is as shallow as the rest of your comments.
There has been considerable discussion of these subjects here.
About Sunday Morning shows again; this Sunday: 8 Republicans, 1 Democrat
“liberal media”