Instapundit reminds readers of the anniversary of the hit job on the Covington kids. In the wake of the debacle I had composed this song.
Politics
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
One of the many benefits of growing older is that when people tell you a self-serving lie about the past, you can call them on it by reminding them that you lived through that part of history.
A case in point was the recent death and state funeral for Jimmy Carter. I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, especially when their coffin is still settling into the earth, but I’m the type of a guy at a funeral who would raise their hand during the eulogy and ask for equal time.
Carter was a man who while given a state funeral for his public life as president, was largely eulogized for his post-presidential life. The man was a disaster as a president and not just because of the condition of the country after he left office. The man did not understand at a fundamental level the job he held. Instead of being the chief executive and leader of a great republic and nation, he thought his job was to act as a puritanical scold. Instead of seeing his office as a public trust of leadership, he saw the moral authority of the office as a private possession.
While I wish the current occupant of the White House a long and healthy life, the past week reminds us that some day Joe Biden will also be given a state funeral, and that more than likely his many faults (let alone his evil) will be interred with his bones.
I was also reminded this week of the final days of the Clinton presidency, when outgoing Clinton White House staff engaged in “damage, theft, vandalism and pranks” designed to troll the incoming Bush administration.
Given the vandalism the outgoing Biden administration has been doing during its final days, those acts of 24 years ago seem almost cute.
Random Thoughts (7): Trump, Canada, and the Monroe Doctrine
One: A Politician’s DNA
A long time ago, I was told that you can trace a politician’s MO back to their formative years. Joe Biden was a senator for 36 years, since he was 30, and that left an indelible mark on his soul. He thinks that talk and spending money equal results. Also don’t try to hold him personally accountable or he’ll treat you like he treated his legislative staff for all those years.
Obama? He’s a con man, telling you what you wanted to hear. You can tell me that just makes him a politician, but he was doing it long before he became one. Everybody keeps talking how awesome that speech was at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that launched his national career; I’m still waiting for that guy to be president.
Donald Trump? He’s still at heart the real estate developer, the man who wrote “The Art of the Deal” and who is willing to negotiate with just about anyone. When you negotiate you look to persuade, you look for leverage, and you look to expand your options by forcing things onto the table.
You might think Trump’s stated desire to buy Greenland is ludicrous, but it seems people (including Greenlanders) are open to talk about changing things up. For someone looking to cut a deal, the best answer to a proposal is “yes” and the second best answer is “no” because then they are listening. The worst answer is to be ignored. Trump is not the type of man to be ignored.
For the past five years, since the last time Trump brought up Greenland, our political betters have spent very little time talking about that very strategic piece of real estate. Now everyone is talking about it and what its future is. Go ahead and mock him, but he knows how to cut deals and right now he’s got people talking about what he wants. That’s winning. Dial me up some more.
Maybe he knows something the DC establishment doesn’t.
My prediction? Greenland independence and a Compact of Free Association with the US.
Two: The Return of the Monroe Doctrine
Trump’s (arguably) three most “outrageous” comments since his re-election have to do with Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. What do they all have in common? They are all in the Western Hemisphere, they are all strategically vital, and they are all under some form of foreign influence that’s inimical to American interests. The Chinese are nosing around Greenland and making offers, the Chinese are acquiring and building port facilities around the Canal, and Canada has done diddly about protecting its Arctic coastline from the Russians.
The Persistence of the Left
”The American public has clearly rejected the RGA’s (Red-Green Alliance) barbarous rhetoric and violence; universities have cracked down on illegal protests on their campuses, albeit unwillingly; Congressional investigations and hearings have savaged the Alliance’s claims to moral authority; and the election of Donald Trump is seen, rightly, as a total repudiation of the progressive left’s ideology and agenda….
“…As of yet, the RGA has very much not been stopped completely. It continues to fester in its totalitarian citadels of academia, the NGO industry, and the fringes of the American political establishment like the Democratic Socialists of America. Racist hate groups like Students for Justice in Palestine are still very active. The Democratic party politicians the RGA owns are planning their next move. In short, the RGA is regrouping and reassessing its situation, contemplating its next steps and perhaps a new strategy. It will be back.”
Kerstein states that part of that strategy is to run a favored candidate in the 2028 presidential cycle, a successor to Bernie Sanders if you will, in the form of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Now I don’t think very highly of Sandy “Squeaky” Cortez. We’re at the claw-machine part of the 2028 cycle where seemingly attractive names are bandied about and grasped for, without any idea if they are viable candidates in terms of exposure or fund-raising. I have a feeling that AOC will wear as well on the campaign trail as Kamala did in 2019. Most people forget that Kamala pulled in a lot of money and hype when she started in 2019 and never got a delegate.
However, Kerstein brings out two key points.
The first is that the totalitarian Left still lives. It may have been routed in 2024, but it was able to retreat in good order into its redoubts in higher ed and NGOs. More importantly it still possesses the key elements of mass and cohesion. Given those two attributes, it will continue to play a role in Democratic politics. Its defeat was telling, but not decisive. It will be back. In fact there is nothing in American social and political history from the past 50 years that would lead anyone to believe that they won’t play a role in 2028 and for years to come.
The second is something that is a bit more chilling:
People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump
On May 30, 2024, Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsified business records that allegedly abetted crime(s) unstated in the March 30, 2023 indictment. The jury was instructed to choose between three candidates for the other crime; their choices were not disclosed in the conviction. During the course of the trial, legal experts have struggled to deduce the nature of the underlying crime. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg played his cards close to the vest; as CNN analyst and Bragg’s former colleague Elie Honig stated:
Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial. (This, folks, is what indictments are for.)
Pieces to this puzzle are scattered about the Internet address in bits and pieces. This is my attempt to pull those sources together to adequately outline the main issues of the case.