A Skin Suit, Demanding Respect

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You know, the most disgusting aspect of the most recent Trump hit is the fact that it appeared to have been engineered by the management and apparently the current ownership of the Atlantic. This whole skeevy story was rather obviously intended to be the October Surprise, something like the 60 Minutes-Rathergate-Bush/ANG story, calculated to catastrophically hit in time for Election Day 2004. Frankly, I never cared much for CBS 60 Minutes, after a certain point in my development as an adult with a passing interest in public matters. It was all a rather contrived and scripted business, all carefully edited in the furtherance of the “gotcha” narrative o’ the moment. After Rathergate and the faked ANG memo, though, one did rather wonder exactly how many other previous 60 Minutes exposés had been based on fraudulent and/or sketchy documents, which no outside CBS ever got a chance to examine with a gimlet eye.

But the degradation of the Atlantic from a once-respected venerable literary and cultural publication with 160+ years of solid worth … into a purveyor of partisan sleaze is something that hits me rather personally. It demonstrates Iowahawk’s oft-quoted tweet about identifying a notable and influential institution, slaughtering it … and then wearing the pelt as a skin suit, while demanding respect.

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The Election, 2024

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Personally, I’m voting for Trump and for Republicans generally.  My issues include:

The overwhelming importance of free speech, which is under pervasive and increasing Democrat attack (the censorship pressures during Covid and the 2020 election were only the tip of the iceberg)…the strange Democrat affinity for the Iranian regime, the failure to stop Houthi depredations on shipping, and the undercutting of Israel’s self-defense (had Harris had her way about Rafah, Sinwar would still be alive)…the spread of anti-Semitism on ‘elite’ college campuses, including interference with Jewish students attending class, and the Administration’s failure to do anything substantive to address this…the chaos resulting from deliberate failure to enforce the border laws (done obviously for electoral reasons)…Democrat failure to take seriously the Chinese challenge and supply-chain dependency…Harris blaming inflation on ‘price-gouging’ and ‘greed’ while ignoring the effects of spending and money supply.

The dismal performance of much of the public education system, which is condemning millions to virtual innumeracy and illiteracy, while being protected from competition and challenge by the Democrat-affiliated teachers unions…A threat to innovation in the form of economic policies centered around subsidies toward favored industries and companies rather than addressing structural problems; also, the proposal to tax unrealized gains. Energy policies which are unrealistically and harmfully anti-fossil-fuel. Overall, the increasing Democrat orientation toward reengineering the entire society from the top down, which is entirely contrary to the spirit that has made America successful and free.

I think Trump is a problem-solver and a creative thinker, he has a lot of what Michael Gibson of 1517 fund refers to as Polytropos, a Greek word that was used to describe Odysseus and which means, basically ‘will get it done somehow.’ There are obviously plenty of things about the man that I wish were different, but as Bill Ackman pointed out, an election is not like a marriage or a business partnership where you have a whole universe of people to choose from–in this election, you choose from two. In my own view, Trump is the better choice by a wide margin.

We’re Talking Baseball….

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Something different than the high-stakes times we are living in.

Last night was Game One of the World Series. As a kid and for all my mates, this was important viewing.

This year? Los Angeles vs. Yankees. I have already written about my feelings regarding LA and the Yankees are well, New York; normally I would wish a pox on the both of them. Unfortunately this year there doesn’t seem to be any proper villains on either team, they all seem likable guys. Darn.

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Random Thoughts (4)

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First:

As I was going through my notes, I came across this quote from John Marini who writes:

“If Trump has recognized a real political crisis, it must be understood as a crisis of the sovereignty of the American nation and its people. It was the authority of the people, established politically as a social compact, that was institutionalized as a constitutional order. Is that order still defensible?”

Note that Marini wrote this in 2018 and yet it remains as relevant today as it was back then.

Marini wrote in Unmasking the Administrative State that what makes Trump unique is that he addresses the American as a citizen and Americans collectively as a nation.

I will also add that Trump addresses Americans as citizens whose interests he is responsible for representing and not as pawns to be used in some ideological joy-ride.

Second:

Godwin’s Law was meant less about a genocidal dictator than as a swipe about the inadequacies of the Internet as a playground of the unwashed masses.

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

Hardy har har.

Then I see articles like this in the Atlantic, or media firestorms about single-sourced accusations regarding comments made more than four years ago, or comments by the White House Press secretary, so that we need to update Godwin’s Law to:

“The more the Left and the media discuss Trump, the more the probability of a comparison involving fascism or Hitler approaches 1.”

Third:

The Left has been daring itself to answer that old question of “If you could go back in time and stop Hitler from taking power, what would you be prepared to do?”

Or to put it another way…

One does not call his opponent the second coming of Hitler and simply concede an election.

With Dread and Foreboding

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So, how do I regard Election Day, looming up in two weeks? With dread and foreboding, to be absolutely frank – no matter who is declared victorious. It’s absolutely guaranteed that all flaming hell will break out in either case; either within hours/minutes, or in days/weeks.

If the Trump/Vance ticket sweeps to an unmistakable, unarguable landslide well beyond any means of the Democrat Party to fraud – the anti-Trumpists will be insane with baffled fury. The national media establishment will look like Wily Coyote after one of his Acme gadgets explodes – and the entrenched bureaucracy crusted like layers and barnacles all over the various federal government departments … they will see the end of their comfortable gravy train. Ruin, disgrace, impoverishment, possibly criminal charges. The Deity knoweth and the various conservative-sympathetic bloggers and commenters, to include many fellow Chicagoboyz essayists and frequent commenters, remember very well how blatantly they played dirty pool the last time around. What would they venture this time against the Great Orange One, the avatar of their doom … Political assassination? Of him, or any of his allies? At the height of what some commenters have termed a second civil war? Like Lincoln, at the hands of an angry partisan of the losing side? Sadly. I wouldn’t put it beyond the realm of possibility. This will be bad. Very bad.

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