Curious about election result changes in one of the swing states, once Wikipedia had the final vote counts of the 2016 election (allowing a relatively simple copy to an Excel spreadsheet), I took a look at stats for Wisconsin’s two most recent presidential elections to see if I could spot signs of any trends. The exercise confirmed what I already knew about the divides in both parties – better than expected.
Tea Party
Best Eaten Cold
Revenge, as the old saying has it, is a dish best served cold. And revenge may not be the only – or the most dangerous – platter best dished up chilled. That would be the dish of anger – that ice-cold, sullen reservoir of fury in the hearts of every right-of-center, non-elite, law-abiding flyover-country middle American with Tea Partyish inclinations … a dish of anger ready to serve up in the wake of a just-barely unsuccessful political assassination attempt this last weekend.
You see, there is a considerable difference between hot fury and cold. Hot fury is impulsive, immediately violent, reactive and more often misplaced. It’s the unthinking destructive fury of the mob, lashing out indiscriminately. Cold fury, on the other hand, does not manifest itself in such spectacular fashion. Cold fury is focused, calculated, unspectacular; it takes its time, waiting for the optimum moment. Cold fury usually can’t be appeased, once unleashed. As I wrote some time ago, regarding the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance –
“The image of a “vigilante” most usually implies a disorganized mob; lawless, mindlessly violent, easily steered but ultimately uncontrollable. The Vigilance Committee was something much, much worse than that. They were organized, they were in earnest, they would not compromise – and they would not back down.”
“A Disease of the Public Mind”
That is the title of a book about the first US Civil War that resulted in the assassination of President Lincoln. The soldiers in the South hated those in the North and vice versa. Northern soldiers have since been credited with undeserved virtue while Southern rebels were labeled racist enemies of the state, a moniker that still survives in the present day. But neither side was fighting over the abolition of slavery.
Trump’s opponents claim he will re-institute Jim Crow oppression, put black people back in chains, end democracy and put people in Hitler’s concentration camps. The continuous character assassinations, legal persecutions, numerous impeachments, unfounded accusations and insinuation caused what has been called Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), a disease of the public mind resulting in a recent assassination attempt.
Follow the Money
The Constitution the North and South agreed upon in 1788 enshrined the economic principles of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, fostering equality under the law, individual sovereignty and limited government. Slavery was still too contentious an issue to settle. Starting in the next century the British led a moral crusade to eliminate slavery globally. While politically virtuous, Britain could afford to pay off slave owners and generally didn’t face the the vexing question for US plantation owners of whether freed slaves could support themselves and, if not, whether this would lead to murderous riots as had happened elsewhere. Abolition was a contentious issue everywhere slavery was practiced, typically with long drawn out steps to complete. But the long simmering political dispute that came to a head in 1860 wasn’t about abolition, but money. The federal government relied almost exclusively on tariffs raised in Southern ports – most of which went to northern states – on imports financed with the fruits of slavery, cotton exports.
Since the Civil War, limited government has given way to big government. The Democratic Party has created many dependent constituencies whose continued prosperity depends upon continuing Democratic power and largess: the bureaucracy, the government at all levels, teachers, labor leaders, academic educators and administrators, trial lawyers, government contractors, social security recipients and what are still euphemistically called journalists, among many others. The current Civil War is also about money. Trump has been in both political parties, fits in neither. But ”you are fired” represents an existential threat to Party members.
For contemporary Democratic politicians, almost all trained as lawyers, money beyond what is available by taxing the rich exists in banks, especially the Federal Reserve Banks, to be distributed according to the spoils system. For Republican politicians (but not RINOs), mostly former businessmen, prosperity comes from productive work and from savings productively invested. For those businesses and workers who are not on the receiving end of the spoils system, whose taxes pay for political largess, limited government is the only solution. There is very little middle ground.
Too Many, Not Enough
I have to confess to feeling a positively unholy degree of amusement, watching the Establishment Mainstream Media publicly coming to grips with Joe Biden’s senility … this after pretty much papering over his decaying mental condition over the past three years. That President Biden’s remaining brain cells have been melting into a slightly greenish and glowing puddle of goo has been screamingly obvious to everyone on the center-to-right quadrant of the blogosphere with any sense and worldly knowledge since his installation in the Oval Office. That the major national media minions are now having to wrap their tiny minds around that realization, and not just acknowledge but explain how it is now urgent that he be replaced on the Dem party ticket this year, as well as how they managed to escape noticing the freaking obvious for the past two or three years … well, all sorts of fun for those of us with a freakish sense of humor. It’s like watching a hapless stage magician try and gingerly handle a turd by the clean end.
Close To The Edge
I’ve felt over the last couple of years, that there is a steep precipice in our path, up to which our current Ruling Class is staggering blindly. Not just our American path, but in the developed world generally, and in that of western Europe. Things just can’t continue as they are. There is a breaking point coming. Really, no one might accurately predict exactly what small spark will kick off the explosion or the fall from a great height, or exactly where it might occur. The precipitating powers move in the shadows, veiled by a news media which deliberately veils them anyway. Too many national and international elites are pursuing policies which benefit them, rather than the countries they are supposed to govern. Too many of the transnational ruling class, indeed, seem to be in competition to pour contempt and derision on their less-fortunate, relatively powerless fellow citizens … and that’s a situation which can’t continue indefinitely. People are too stressed, made angry by things which they can’t control. Road rage incidents, riots that flame up like a prairie fire, unprovoked beatings, mass brawls in fast food restaurants and on commercial airliners; people are snapping over the slightest provocation, a misheard word, a momentary inconvenience…