I honestly thought that once the election was done and Donald Trump duly sworn into the highest office in the land that those whose favored candidate lost would calm the heck down. You know, sort of the way that those of us whose chosen candidate lost in 2012… you know, disappointed but sporting about it. We went home, sniffled a little as we communed via the internet with equally disappointed friends, assumed the fetal position and turned the electric blanket onto “high” and got over it in a week or so. That’s the way the constitutionally-mandated cookie crumbles. The day after the election, I assumed that Hillary and Bernie voters would have had the maturity to do the same; morn a little, snivel a little, write editorials in the national media-of-record rationalizing their unfortunate reversals, perhaps throwing a little blame against whomever, and then pull themselves together and put as good a face on it as they could muster, promising to do better in 2020.
Nope; the march of the disappointed pussy-hatters the very next day, riots and protests in deep blue cities, the absolute frothing at the mouth Trump-hate at the Oscars and on the national news broadcasts, the impassioned print editorials, the ranting, raving, stompy-footing, the mass-defriending and insanely hateful rants on Facebook: Trump is a Nazi-fascist-anti-Semitic-racist-who-pulls-tags-off-mattresses and trips old ladies hobbling along on canes, and so is everyone who voted for him. Yes, over the last few years, we have kind of gotten the idea that the Ruling Class; the bi-coastal comfortable and well-connected (including the intelligentsia, the national media and bureaucracy) were contemptuous of the ordinary working and middle class residents of Flyoverlandia. Now we know for a certainty that those who form the coalition of the Ruling Class and many who aspire to be a member of that Class in good standing despise us. They despise us with a passion and fury that renders them incoherent, and unashamed of displaying that hatred.
The present-day proxy American or trans-national Ruling Class, no matter how they may define themselves, feel no sympathy for, or connection and loyalty to the Americans of Flyoverlandia. There is no common ground, no mutual respect, no feeling of shared nationality. For a long time, there must have been; I am pretty certain there was when I was growing up, but that’s been a long time gone. They would just as soon that we all die screaming in a fire after having cast a vote for an anointed and approved Ruling Class candidate, and paid our taxes and fines so that the Ruling Class may continue their good work without any unseemly objections.
I suspect that the last month of irrational fury is because we did not do as we were bidden by the Ruling Class. They became accustomed to being obeyed, having their way in most things. And now they don’t have that way anymore and they are furious. And possibly very, very, very frightened. Discuss.
Last month? Heck, it’s close to three months of irrational fury now. And it is irrational. In a recent essay Angelo Codevilla pointed out that bright political manipulators know better than to insult an opponent who is not yet totally powerless. These losers appear to be operating on the toddler level: if I kick and scream and hold my breath until I turn blue, Mommy will give in just for the sake of peace.
The frothing-at-the-mouth protestors annoy but don’t worry me. I am somewhat more concerned about the members of Congress and political appointees who are using every tactic from leaking to slow-walking nominations to impede the Trump administration. How much damage do you think they can do?
“How much damage do you think they can do?” They can bring him down, I suspect. Trump gives the impression of a man without subtlety, without power of reflection. But maybe that’s partly an act. Maybe he’ll outwit them. After all, these are the chumps who thought Hellary electable.
Actually Sarge, I’ve come to realize the cooperative attitude from the Left over the last 40 years or so was really condescension, and the promise of “just wait till I get control of things” while they nod and smile.
Think of them as used ideology salesmen, and the behavior becomes predictable.
I suspect that the fury is much greater than if a conventional Republican had been elected.There is real fear that Trump might just keep his campaign promises,
The “donor class” which is a big part of the “Ruling Class” of Codevilla has no leverage on him,
Democrats often get excited about the Koch brothers, for example. This time they are trying to say the Russians are the Koch brothers this time.
It won’t work and the hysteria may go on for quite a while. The EPA is probably the most hysterical bureaucracy at the moment.
“They can bring him down, I suspect.”
The GOP Congress could bring him down at the cost of their own careers.
Is such a suicide mission possible ? Never attribute to Malice what can be explained by incompetence
I wrote about this this week, from an historical perspective just after elections: http://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2017/02/approval-ratings.html
It got a bit testy in the comments, and one of my commenters made the case that few if any actual Republicans bury the hatchet after the election – the softening position comes more from the Independents. But the numbers over decades show that the Democrats bury the hatchet in only the rarest of conditions: under Eisenhower and when Ford assumed office. So Trump was never going to have _good_ approval numbers. What has happened this time is most of the Independents and even some of the Republicans haven’t buried the hatchet either. This really was a lesser-of-two-evils election for a lot of people.
Maybe Trump has triggered the final collapse of the media. I can’t tell how much of the histrionics is real or if it is just the over representation of the finge by the media, because bizarre equals “click bait”.
The Left always abided before because, no matter which Republican was elected, the Left could always count on him oozing over to the left and giving them something they desired. Nixon, both Bushes, the Left’s causes advanced, even when they didn’t hold the White House. But Trump offers them nothing and they no longer dominate in the House or Senate so they can’t hold him hostage. Yeah, they’re irate now.
Mike K: “Is such a suicide mission possible ? Never attribute to Malice what can be explained by incompetence.”
Or sheer stupidity, combined with ignoring reality.
3 days at a conference of jr college faculty/administrators.
I don’t think I heard a single session that didn’t include a slighting (and gratuitous) dig at Trump; a soc textbook was proud of its podcasts inserted in the midst of the on-line text. One was titled “Is Trump a racist?” The point of the panel was to show how a historian, a sociologist, and a government teacher would prove this. I wouldn’t say that any of them “proved” it – that is, had any facts, etc.: the govt guy kept referring to dog whistles from Trump and the historian acknowledged he might not be a racist but certainly racists were attracted to him. This was, I guess, what passes for critical thinking in the social sciences. I can’t imagine they take themselves seriously, but they sure act like they do. (The faculty in the pod cast were ones I knew – even though I’m not in any of those fields.) A history faculty giving another talk (the talks were mostly by 4-year research faculty) described Codevilla’s book but couldn’t remember his name or the title – I thought about shouting it out but figured the people around me would truly stop speaking to me then. That speaker teaches a course on Darwin/Democracy; he is clearly not a believer in the wisdom of crowds and was drawn into the field by Gould. (He remarked that he was impressed that Gould could think on two levels – the political and the anthro/evolutionary. He has been teaching govt for over 40 years and hasn’t yet realized that those of Gould’s persuasion always think of politics – then whatever else there is to think of.) At least he found that opening discussion and assigning creationist writers as well as evolutionary ones (this is in a govt class, not a biology one) ended up with more accepting evolution than in the biology classes that only had had evolutionary readings (though the students mastered the biology, they were less likely to alter their religious interpretations). The old wise guys – Madison, Hamilton, etc. – again proven right about the market place of ideas.
This is off the subject, but that unrelenting force on the average student must wear many down, though they may be like the biology students – answer the tests but remain resistant at another level. And don’ get me started on the English teacher who was complaining that the stem classes were dominated by white males and they wouldn’t be creative until they had more minorities and women – this from someone in a discipline that has done its best to discourage, insult, and in general get rid of male students for the last twenty years or more.
My daughter has an Anthropology degree from UCLA and is a Gould enthusiast. About ten years ago, we were on a trip together and I was just finishing Pinker’s “The Blank Slate.” That book is a direct refutation of Gould’s thesis that all behavior is the result of conditioning. I suggested she read it. She told me she would not but that I should read Gould’s “The Mismeasure of Man.” I told her I had read it and had a copy of it in my library.
She still refused to read the Pinker book.
She is very bright but a lefty. She is the one being recruited by Apple. She will fit in very well there.
Gould is very popular with the left and when I say it is because he tells them how to create “The New Soviet Man,” they get angry.
Yes, Mom. We are still locked in a Cold Civil War. They still hate us. They still control the media, the educational system at all levels, and drive an utterly depraved popular culture. They were within grasping distance of total eternal victory and it slipped through their fingers, and their fury is frightening to behold. And they can no more stop than Hitler could when he was halfway through Belgium.
All three Western coastal states are now teaching gender theory and queer sex ed. California just made the latter mandatory, even if you’re an impoverished rural school. State sponsored sodomy training for millions of healthy children. Behold the apparent lack of outrage even in local media. An entire generation of schoolchildren is being groomed by perverts in high places, and the screaming and shouting and lawsuits by infuriated parents is being duly censored. You cannot Google it. Therefore it remains invisible. Not even Mad Dog Mattis seems to want to take on the Gaystapo; men sexually excited by other men — some to the extent they geld themselves and cosplay as women — will continue to serve in the same showers and barracks and trenches as healthy ones. This despite the incidence of same sex rape having trebled since DADT was repealed.
Think about all of that for a minute. Consider it carefully, each in its own perverse part, and as a horrifying whole. Consider well the money and time and attention that was lavished on each step to get us here. They are not finished, not by any means.
Keven DeLeon, a California state senator infamous for his anti-gun crusading, has openly told us half his family is here illegally and uses forged documents… and nothing has happened. Nothing will. No charges brought, no one deported. No rule of law. No justice. The corrupt filthy bastard knows it, and so does his corrupt filthy constituency of ethnocentric Latinos and rich sneering liberals. They all know it. They have gotten their way, and they have disenfranchised my entire family, and they will continue to do their best to make me into an armed felon and murder me in my own home for the crime of owning the wrong kind of inanimate object. This in a state that offers subsidies to parents who geld medically healthy children and hands out free driver’s licenses to illegal aliens on welfare and registers them to vote on the same day. Everyone let your freak flag fly except gun owning rural white Christians. Think about that all of that too.
These are two isolated examples of how entrenched and powerful and merciless and unscrupulous our enemies are, whole swathes of our nation and our population, and how they voluntarily league together and coordinate with and cover for each other, and how successful they are in ratcheting their perverse ideas about sex and sexuality and family and gender and nationhood and citizenship in one direction, only one direction, and keeping it there, and gaslighting you and me and our children and making these evil memes so much part of The New Normal that not even the most robust actors from the conservative ranks will dare touch them.
Nothing has changed. There is only a hair’s breadth of difference between the timeline where Hillary was enthroned to complete Saul Alinksy’s foul works and the one we live in. Except that the outcome is now contestable. But only if you fight, and stop being an onlooker. For my unhappy state it is too late. Your job is to perform triage in your own.
Be alert. Be aware. Make fighting the culture wars your full-time part-time hobby. Meet your enemies head-on with righteous anger, and do not let them backpedal you with accusations of bigotry. And keep buying ammo.
A reply to Ginny’s comment: It’s not that racists are drawn to Trump, it’s that the Left has used the accusation ‘RACIST’ to people on such a wide spread that the targets, guilty or not, have come to ignore it. As far as I know , racism isn’t actually illegal anywhere, even if it can be proved. But this has been the Left’s way to shut down debate. The come back in the last election was, “If the Left hates it, sounds like it’s worth looking at”.
In the run up to the election, Michael Moore of all people, said that this election was going to be the big ‘FU’ to the higher ups; evidently he could see it too.
The place of evolutionary thinking stops at the question of race.
I read a very powerful book called The 10,000 year explosion, which poses an argument that evolution has been going on right up to the present.
Some of this is racial and a friend of mine, a black surgeon, bought three copies of it. I had teased him by saying Farrakhan was right about us whites. We are “ice people” because as humans moved out of Africa into colder climates, they began to wear clothing and had less sun exposure. This resulted in vitamin D deficiency and evolution altered skin pigment to allow more UV to stimulate vitamin D production. The same phenomenon occurred in east Asia and Europe. In both ends of the Eurasian land mass, people who occupy southern portions have darker skin and those who are farther north have whiter skin.
Interestingly enough, blue eyes seem to be a single mutation about 10,000 years that occurred in the area that is now Lithuania and there is no evidence about why the mutation survived. It is a related gene to white skin but there are no blue eyed Asians.
The IQ question is the part that is radioactive but the whole topic of evolution and race is off limits.
Sgt Mom – Sorry, I’m pretty offtopic in some ways. But I think the anger you are describing is in part the result of how much cognitive dissonance some have had to suppress. To hold some of these ideas is to feel chained from following ideas to their conclusion – to feel unfree.
One of those issues is evolution: in academia, evolution is generally accepted. However, some such as Gould use it to hammer religion – a belief opposed to their political ones; they think of themselves not as insulting their students but as bravely fighting superstition and a belief in magic. Well, maybe. But there’s a certain chutzpah in expecting students to agree that life is the result of a series of evolutionary changes in which no God acted.
The Christian biology teachers were critical And faced with such a question, it is not surprising that many students stuck to saying they didn’t believe in evolution despite the fact that they were quite willing to master the ideas dependent on it for their tests and experiments. The dissonance increases when the basic assumptions of Marxism – that man is more the result of nurture than nature – are central to a scientist’s thinking (that or just mushy liberalism).
If democracy is at odds with Darwin, it is in part because both the theory and the people with their varied beliefs are more complex than those like Gould (and this government teacher) imply.
These are cheerfully reconciled by Gould (with some diddling with evidence) by arguing that somehow evolution halted with man and any differences in mankind are the result of nurture.
And the problems with a materialist view and the core arguments of inalienable rights came up as well – and were, it seems to me, rather too easily dismissed.
The speaker clearly tries to promote respect and deeper thinking by giving his students assignments both from creationists and biologists (inappropriate in a science class but not in a government one, I would think, that was trying to analyze the role of such arguments in a democracy). He did begin with the throw off criticism of Codevilla’s discussion, but at least he tries to be honest with himself and his audience. But he is so immersed (40 years at UTAustin) in a culture that it is the water through which he swims.
@ Mike K – Greg Cochran’s blog West Hunter is alive and well. https://westhunt.wordpress.com/ It is one of my absolute go-to’s at each new post. Radioactive? You don’t know the half of it. But he (and a number of other radioactive writers who are associated with the HBD crowd) have the significant advantage of being correct. It sound ridiculous to hate data, but I do. They have the numbers, they have the easy skewers of those who cannot accept the reality of ongoing evolution. It has gotten so that even I, who am not an expert, know exactly what to look for in editorials that purport to refute Charles Murray, Nicholas Wade, John Tierney, etc.
AVI, thanks. I had not seen that before. I’ve read the book probably ten times because the info is so dense. I’ve been reading their bibliography.
He seems to share Charles Murray’s concern that low IQ seems to be reproducing at a high rate than high IQ.
I did like this from West Hunter:
“Dumb people don’t originate much, smart people are susceptible to all kinds of ideological craziness. Oh, what a world.”
Intelligence simply gives you the ability to make seriously stupid decisions, that a less intelligent person would not get to.
Well that’s how it looks to me these days.