Rush Limbaugh sounds ominous warning about future of America
'We can't be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere'
PALM BEACH, Florida – With the political divide in America continuing
to increase, radio star Rush Limbaugh believes the nation is moving
toward secession.
"I actually think that we're trending toward secession," the broadcaster said on his Wednesday broadcast.
"There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different
theories of life, theories of government, theories of how we manage our
affairs. We can't be in this dire a conflict without something giving
somewhere along the way."
"I know that there's a sizable and growing sentiment for people who
believe that that is where we're headed whether we want to or not.
Whether we want to go there or not."
Limbaugh stressed that he himself had not made up his mind on the issue.
"I still haven't given up the idea that we are the majority and that
all we have to do is find a way to unite and win," he explained.
"Our problem is the fact that there are just so many RINOs, so many
Republicans in the Washington establishment who will do anything to
maintain their membership in the establishment because of the perks and
the opportunities that are presented for their kids and so forth."
"I see more and more people asking what in the world do we have in
common with the people who live in, say, New York? What is there that
makes us believe that there is enough of us there to even have a chance
at winning New York, especially if you're talking about votes.
"I see a lot of bloggers – I can't think of names right now – a lot
of bloggers have written extensively about how distant and separated and
how much more separated our culture is becoming politically and that it
can't go on this way."
Limbaugh was responding to a caller named Jamie from Shelbyville,
Kentucky, who was looking to brainstorm ideas on how to push back
against the division and unite Americans again.
"We know it's a globalist, communist, technocrat, Democrat takeover.
It's treason," Jamie said. "And they've been able to take us over by
marketing, distracting, entertaining, and a huge propaganda machine. The
extent of their evil is really unimaginable. I believe this is a
'plandemic,' and I'm afraid it's too late.
"But I think it's time we mobilize. It's past time. We have sought
the truth, and we know it's clear what's going on. We need a way,
though. And my idea for that is to fight the lies and to take action, is
to look at the Democrats, how they handled all this, how this all came
about. They implemented community organizers, think tanks, special
interest groups."
Limbaugh noted that his popularity and that of so-called conservative
media is the result of the national mainstream media abandoning its
objective reporting of the news.
"And that's when the left began to lose their monopoly on
everything," he said. "And when they lost the monopoly, that's when they
became partisan participants. That's actually when ABC, CBS, NBC,
Washington Post, New York Times decided that playing at being objective
and fair was not going to do it anymore. They had to take out this new
conservative media. They had to destroy it. So they began this instant
course of character ruination, character assassination of all of us on
the so-called right who they deem to be effective."
"So now we're in this situation where there isn't any media anymore.
We don't have journalism anymore. There's no news. And if that's the
case, where do you go? Where do you go to get news? If you're on our
side of the aisle and you know that the mainstream media is nothing but
the Democrat Party, nothing but the American left, it's nothing but the
cattle call leadership of socialism, then where do you go to get news?
"It used to be not that long ago you'd read the New York Times or your
local newspaper, maybe USA Today. Maybe you read the Washington Post, I
don't know. You'd turn on ABC, CBS, NBC. But now where do you go? 'Cause
I guarantee you, turn on the New York Times, or read it, read the
Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, it's all gonna be the same stuff. They
may present it in a different order. It's all gonna be the same stories
with the same take and the same commentary. Where do you go to find the
news? But there still is news being made out there. It's just nobody's
covering it."
Article by Rod Dreher in The American Conservative
The Stark Reality Of Post-Christian America
One big reason that I am frustrated with Trump’s attempts to hold on
to office by any means necessary is that it impedes, and maybe even
discredits, the urgent and necessary cause of building a credible,
competent, and effective opposition to the cultural revolution that the
Left is leading throughout the institutions of our society. I believe
there are plenty of commonsense people who are more towards the left in
their economic thinking, but who are sick and tired of the ideological
insanity that has conquered leftist elites. Edie Wyatt is one such person in Australia;
there are bound to be more than a few people like her in America. But
if opposing the crazies on the Left means signing up for a tour of duty
in Trump Army, they won’t do it.
And in response to my item yesterday about
the cuts starting to happen to tenured faculty in the liberal arts at
several universities, another reader passes along two current job ads in
political science from Butler University that make the rot explicit:
The
Butler University Department of Political Science invites applications
for a tenure-track assistant professor with expertise in contemporary
political theory. The candidate should have a strong commitment to
excellent, inclusive undergraduate teaching and an active scholarly
agenda. We are particularly interested in candidates whose
scholarship and teaching engages critical, transnational, or global
political theory beyond the conventional Western canon such as
indigenous, decolonial, modernity/coloniality, Black, or Latin American
political thought, and who can offer one or more courses suitable for
Core Curriculum Social Justice and Diversity designation.
The
Department of Political Science at Butler University invites
applications for a full-time non-tenure-track lecturer for a two-year
appointment with possibility of renewal. Applicants should have a strong
commitment to excellent, inclusive undergraduate teaching. We are
particularly interested in candidates whose teaching and
scholarship engages intersectional, abolitionist, or critical historical
institutional perspectives on race/ethnicity/indigeneity,
gender/sexuality, and politics in the United States and potentially
beyond it. The successful candidate will teach lower-level and
upper-level undergraduate political science courses (including an
introductory American politics survey), will contribute to the Core
Curriculum, and will help build an inclusive learning environment for
our increasingly diverse student population. This faculty member
could choose to affiliate with the International Studies; Peace and
Conflict Studies; Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and/or Science,
Technology, and Environmental Studies interdisciplinary programs.
Like
the news media, large parts of academia have chosen sides and don’t
even pretend to be neutral any more. And the side they’ve chosen is not
one that wishes the country well.
Memo to parents of high school
students interested possibly in studying political science in college:
Scratch Butler University off your list of prospective colleges.
Truth.
Why would you pay money to have your child indoctrinated by militant
wokeness? If you were a student, why would you go into debt to learn how
to hate your culture and your people (or other people with whom you
share this country)? These ideological maniacs are trying to destroy
what we have been given. Universities used to be repositories of
culture; now, like the laborers of Saruman’s smithy, they produce the
anti-culture.
The
2021 Rhodes class, announced in late November, is such an orgy of
left-wing identity politics it would be impossible to parody.
“This
year’s American Rhodes Scholars—independently elected by 16 committees
around the country meeting simultaneously—reflect the remarkable
diversity that characterizes and strengthens the United States. Twenty-one of the 32 are students of color; ten are Black, equal to the greatest number ever elected in one year in the United States. Fifteen are first-generation Americans or immigrants; and one is a Dreamer with active DACA status. Seventeen of the winners are women, 14 are men, and one is nonbinary. These
young Americans will go to Oxford next October to study in fields
broadly across the social, biological and physical sciences, the
humanities, and public policy. They are leaders already, and we are
confident that their contributions to public welfare globally will
expand exponentially over the course of their careers.” [Rhodes Trust]
Of
course, the scholarship winners don’t reflect the diversity of America
in the slightest. What they reflect is the political obsessions of those
running the Rhodes Scholarship.
Maybe so, and if
true, this is a forecast of the coming elites in US society. Always,
always, always pay attention to the elites, because they are going to be
controlling the institutions of our country in the future. And you
know, if our universities surrender a commitment to real scholarship to
embrace leftist ideology, then they should not be supported. Let them
die; their deaths will be ruled a suicide. The corruption of the elites
is a reason why there will continue to be a populist movement in
America.
I totally get voting for Trump as a middle finger to these people. But let’s be serious: that’s not the same thing as effectively fighting them. Ask
yourself: are the woke and their ideology more in control of American
institutions in 2020 than they were in 2016? If so, why? Might the
answer tell us something about the importance of having conservative
political leaders who understand how to use power effectively, instead
of performatively? And might the answer tell us something about the
relative value of politics?
In
the end, though, conservatives have to understand that we are playing a
weak hand, because the culture has moved away from us. Ross Douthat has a good piece in National Review about this,
in which he mentions why the Ahmari-French debate offers false (or at
least only partial) solutions to the crisis, because both are political,
when the core of the crisis is cultural — which is to say, religious.
Douthat:
You can see the great intra-Christian debate
on the right during the Trump era, the famous Sohrab Ahmari–David French
battle, as an attempt to figure out how to deal with this reality —
with Ahmari counseling a renewed attempt to use government’s power over
culture to seize the ground that the prior iterations of
Catholic-Evangelical-Jew failed to claim and hold, and French offering
the alternative hope of pluralism and peaceful coexistence in a country
without any clear religious center, any culturally established faith.
The
problem with French’s prescription is that pluralism depends on
decentralized institutions, and the centralizing forces in American
institutional life right now — in media, education, politics — are
extremely difficult to resist. Meanwhile American social life is
atomizing in many ways, and local life especially — and that pull and
push means that structurally the country almost seems to want a
new religious center, a magnet to pull our lonely individual selves
back together, to forge community and a sense of the common good in the
only smithies still in operation.
But the difficulty with Ahmari’s
prescription is that most of the people who work in those national
smithies simply prefer woke ideas to traditional religious ones, or at
least still tilt away from anything resembling cultural conservatism
when pressed to choose a side. I find traditional Christianity
more coherent and plausible and belief-inspiring than secular liberalism
or woke-progressive zeal. But I have also seen enough in my career as a
professional arguer to doubt that the more-effective use of judicial or
administrative power will induce a critical mass of culture-workers
and culture-shapers to see the world my way.
Douthat
says things won’t turn around until the elites begin to return to
Christianity in large numbers. Maybe, says Douthat, we aren’t awaiting a
new, and doubtless very different, Saint Benedict, or a new
Constantine, but instead a Saint Paul.
Look
around you at our universities: they are falling into intellectual
ruin. The post-Christian culture is freefalling into decadence. If we
await a new St. Paul, then he will have to be formed by disciplined
communities of study and practice. The Benedict Option
is in part for building and maintaining the enclosed gardens in which
the St. Pauls of tomorrow can be nurtured. (If you don’t like the
monastery analogy, then think of what we have to build as akin to the church forests of Ethiopia.) And, Live Not By Liesis
about something more immediate: grasping that a new form of
totalitarianism is coming fast upon us, and that we have to take certain
actions right now if we want to get through it without capitulating on
our integrity.
I guess the thing that winds me up, and why I
always bang on about items about, for example, the rot in academic
culture, is because so little attention is paid to it on the Right. At
the present time, one of the most important movements for defending
cultural memory are classical Christian schools. These are schools where
they teach the Romans, the Greeks, the medievals, and the treasures of
our civilization. My kids either attend or have attended one. This
movement is growing, and it’s usually doing what it does on a shoestring
budget, because rich conservatives — and not-so-rich conservatives —
don’t give money to it. Donald Trump’s PAC has raised over $200 million
since Election Day. It is breathtaking to contemplate what classical Christian schools could do with that money!
From The Benedict Option:
“Education
has to be at the core of Christian survival—as it always was,” says
Michael Hanby, a professor of religion and philosophy of science at
Washington’s Pontifical John Paul II Institute. “The point of
monasticism was not simply to retreat from a corrupt world to survive,
though in various iterations that might have been a dimension of it,” he
continues. “But at the heart of it was a quest for God. It was that
quest that mandated the preservation of classical learning and the pagan
tradition by the monks, because they loved what was true and what was
beautiful wherever they found it.”
As crucial as cultural survival
is, Hanby warns that Christians cannot content themselves with merely
keeping their heads above water within liquid modernity. We have to
search passionately for the truth, reflect rigorously on reality, and in
so doing, come to terms with what it means to live as authentic
Christians in the disenchanted world created by modernity. Education is
the most important means for accomplishing this.
“Retaining the
imagination necessary to see or to search for God is going to be an
indispensable element in the preservation of true freedom and Christian
freedom when our freedom under law becomes more and more limited,” Hanby
says.
It is important to vote for wise and capable
political leaders. But that’s not the answer to this crisis. If I were
on the cultural Left, I would be thrilled to watch all the passion and
resources from the cultural Right go into propping up Donald Trump. In
the end, it makes the Left’s triumph more likely. Wanting to fight
intelligently, and for the long run, is not the same as defeatism, no
matter what the cranks and hotheads tell you. What does it serve a man
to win the White House and the Congress, but to lose the souls of his
children to the faith? That is the question every conservative Christian
ought to be asking right now.
Let me offer you something interesting that I found on Twitter:
Compare this Chinese military recruitment video with the American one below. This probably says something about regimes and ruling classes. The identifiable themes in the Chinese video are duty, honor, patriotism, sacrifice, family, fatherland, identity 1/ https://t.co/q98DQ1FTpn
LONDON (Reuters)
-Britain’s medicine regulator has advised that people with a history of
significant allergies do not get Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine
after two people reported adverse reactions on the first day of rollout.
Starting
with the elderly and frontline workers, Britain began mass vaccinating
its population on Tuesday, part of a global drive that poses one of the
biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history.
National
Health Service medical director Stephen Powis said the advice had been
changed after two NHS workers reported anaphylactoid reactions
associated with receiving the vaccine. They were among the thousands who
received the shot on Tuesday.
“As is common with new vaccines the
MHRA (regulator) have advised on a precautionary basis that people with
a significant history of allergic reactions do not receive this
vaccination, after two people with a history of significant allergic
reactions responded adversely yesterday,” Powis said.
“Both are recovering well.”
The
MHRA said it would seek further information and was investigating as a
matter of priority, and Pfizer and BioNTech said they were supporting
the MHRA’s investigation.
Last week Britain’s Medicines and
Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) became the first in the
world to approve the vaccine, developed by Germany’s BioNTech and
Pfizer, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European
Medicines Agency (EMA) continue to assess the data.
“Last evening, we were looking at two case reports of allergic
reactions. We know from the very extensive clinical trials that this
wasn’t a feature,” MHRA Chief Executive June Raine told lawmakers.
ALLERGIC REACTION
Pfizer
has said people with a history of severe adverse allergic reactions to
vaccines or the candidate’s ingredients were excluded from their late
stage trials, which is reflected in the MHRA’s emergency approval
protocol.
The new MHRA guidance, sent out to health professionals, said a much broader segment should not take the vaccine.
“Any
person with a history of a significant allergic reaction to a vaccine,
medicine or food (such as previous history of anaphylactoid reaction or
those who have been advised to carry an adrenaline autoinjector) should
not receive the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine,” it said.
It also said resuscitation facilities should be available for all vaccinations.
Britain
is first rolling out the vaccine to the over-80s, those in care homes,
carers and health staff. Food allergies are less common in older people,
and both reactions happened in health workers rather than the elderly.
“Severe
allergic reactions to vaccines are unusual but staff administering
vaccines are always trained and equipped to deal with them in the event
they occur,” Adam Finn, professor of paediatrics at the University of
Bristol, said, adding the advice was a “sensible” precaution until more
experience with the vaccine was gathered.
In the United States, the FDA released documents on Tuesday in
preparation for an advisory committee meeting on Thursday, saying the
Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy and safety data met its expectations for
authorization.
The briefing documents said 0.63% of people in the
vaccine group and 0.51% in the placebo group reported possible allergic
reactions in trials, which Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental
Medicine at Imperial College London, said was a very small number.
“The
fact that we know so soon about these two allergic reactions and that
the regulator has acted on this to issue precautionary advice shows that
this monitoring system is working well,” he said.
Article by Dylan Stevenson in The American Conservative
Populist Uprisings and the Inversion of Inflation
Today's populism echoes that of the 1890's, but changes to the economy have muddied the waters.
Hotly contested elections are nothing new in this country, nor are
elections fought around themes of populism. These battles have been
fought as far back as the first iteration of American populism with
James Weaver and his protégé William Jennings Bryan in the 1890s, and as
recently as 2012 with Ron Paul and 2016 with Donald Trump. What is
interesting, however, is the paradoxical situation in which the
socioeconomic circumstances in these two periods are vastly
different—quite literally opposite—but the rage generated is almost
identical.
It’s worth outlining the key concepts to make sure they
are understood first, and to clarify that the unifying theme here is
the way economics interplay with issues of political power, specifically
as they pertain to monetary issues. The importance of this monetary
connection cannot be understated, particularly with ever new rounds of
printed stimulus being injected into our economy.
When
reading about the 1890s, the terms “bimetallism” and “free silver”
often get thrown around. These were terms widely used and understood
that argued for a shift in American monetary policy. From 1873 on, the
United States had a hard gold standard for the dollar, removing the
silver dollar from circulation. The effect of this decision was massive
deflationary pressure designed to protect the value of the currency. As
Iowa Republican Hiram Price said in 1880,
because of this “a day’s labor will buy more of anything that a man
eats or wears than it ever would at any time in… the history of the
country.”
While this effect did materialize, the vast majority of rural Americans could not take advantage due to one factor: debt. The 19th
century was the time of America’s ongoing westward expansion, and many
poor Americans took cheap loans to pay for cheap land on the frontier.
Rather, the loans were cheap before 1873. Silver was extremely
abundant and its presence in the currency had an inflationary effect. An
inflated currency is a bad thing for those with savings, who see the
value of these savings made worthless, but a very good thing for those
with large debts. As the value of each dollar decreases, the number of
dollars owed to the bank doesn’t change. Acquiring more dollars becomes
easier, thus facilitating easier debt repayment.
By
removing inflationary silver, the gold standard led to the inverse.
Prices fell, meaning that farmers couldn’t grow and sell enough to repay
their debts. This was a good move for the value of the currency, but
disastrous for rural Americans, who dubbed the betrayal of “King Silver”
as the “crime of ‘73.”
Many populists and rural Americans
believed that the gold standard that came in was a monetary system
designed to help the powerful: those with Gilded Age assets who wanted
to protect the value thereof. State banks could print their own money
without oversight from the Federal government, leading many populists to
believe that this was a corrupt system designed to favor wealthy elites
with no democratic legitimacy. Weaver himself in 1880 decried this
as a system set up for “bankers… who are not chosen by the people… [but
are] trusted with this great power involving the welfare and happiness
of fifty million.” In fact Weaver would argue
in that same Congress something almost Trumpian, railing against an
“international conspiracy, inaugurated by men who had fixed incomes
[rent-seeking].” In modern parlance: globalism.
Leading
the populists in 1892, Weaver campaigned vigorously on the issue of
free silver against the gold standard and banking systems that were
supported by both the Democrats and Republicans. He won 22 electoral
votes, 5 states, and over one million votes as the most successful third
party run since the Civil War. In 1896, Bryan ran a “fusion” ticket
with the Democrats on the same issues, winning the nomination with what
is arguably one of the most famous speeches in American history (the
“Cross of Gold”). Though he lost the election, he would eventually
become Secretary of State and influence policy there.
Bryan’s
influence on Woodrow Wilson would result in the creation of the Federal
Reserve and the removal of printing powers from state banks to the
federal government. The gradual abolition of the gold standard did
occur, ending finally in 1971 under Richard Nixon. Federal control over
interest rates made it easier to set the price of debt, and the
abandonment of the gold standard meant there was really no external
limit to leverage capabilities. Large American companies borrowed and
borrowed, while rural and working Americans paid off those debts their
families had taken on in the early 1800s and accrued hard-earned family
assets.
Then
comes 2008. While farmers might have held debt in the late 1800s, it’s
important to remember that the debts were relative: large for the farmer
in question. The debts by 2008, however, were large in absolute terms,
and now instead of individuals being indebted to corporate America, it
was corporate America that found itself indebted. In 2008
large-corporate debt accounted to $6.6 trillion, roughly half of 2008
GDP (thanks in part to COVID, today’s corporate debt load is almost $10
trillion). What happened in 2008 when these companies couldn’t pay this
money back proved correct John Maynard Keynes’s famous quip: “If you owe
your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a
million, it has.”
In September of 2008, Hank Paulson dropped to
one knee and begged Nancy Pelosi to approve a $700 billion stimulus
package to provide immediate liquidity to the American economy. She
agreed. It’s hard to see what other option she had. But in that singular
moment, the seeds of modern economic populism were sown. If the removal
of silver was the crime of ‘73, for many rural and working Americans,
this could be considered the crime of ‘08.
Why? Easy money is an
indirect tax. If free silver and bimetallism would have placed this tax
on those with assets to help those indebted, then the stimulus of 2008
(and continued iterations thereafter) did the same. Stimulus after all
is just a fancy way of saying “printing money”. Only this time the
“asset holders” and “indebted” had flipped. Now the rural and working
American paid this tax, found that his savings account covered less than
it used to, his paycheck did not go as far, and his small business
couldn’t bring in enough money to keep going. The beneficiaries of this
inverted Robin Hood transfer of wealth were large American
multinationals, who were able to push off the looming debt disaster and
keep their cash flowing.
What happened next is well known. The
same accusations as were leveled in the 1890s emerged in the 2010s. Both
Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party (populist prototypes akin to the
Greenbacks or the Knights of Labor) raged against a system set up for
the benefit of elites in major financial centers to the detriment of
those at the bottom. Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign caught fire not because of
his stance on marijuana, but rather for his contempt for the Federal
Reserve, with son Rand winning election to the Senate on a campaign
pledge to ‘Audit the Fed.’ Similarly, by 2016, Trump adopted the stance
of the populists: railing against the swamp and the DC acolytes who
defended it. Probably unknowingly, The Donald wound up pegged to a
movement with deep monetarist history.
The monetary proposals
supported by modern populists are the opposite of the 1890s. Weaver and
Bryan wanted easy money, as opposed to the Pauls and Trump who want to
protect the value of the American dollar. The framework, however, is the
same: a cabal in our nation’s wealthy power centers will construct a
political and economic system aimed at entrenching wealth and power in
those centers, and the Americans on the edges, those who toil in field
and factory to build the country, be damned.
Whether the populists
have, or had, a point, is to be determined by the reader. Perhaps the
reader will conclude that the populists don’t know anything about
economics. But one thing is undeniable: no matter how much American life
may transform; some dynamics will never change. Perhaps we can say,
then, that Weaver was correct when he lamented
Congress’s seeming inability to set up any economic system that did not
somehow create “a system of permanent national banks, a system of
permanent national debt, and banks resting upon that debt.” Perhaps he
knew that any such system was bound to lead to a reaction that he would
be proud to champion.
In another pretense at journalism, POLITICO has gone full-on expose with this piece about Trump’s damage to the GOP and what it means for the future of the party.
“As his presidency comes to a close, Trump has not only imprinted his smash-mouth style on the GOP, he has wrenched open the schism between the activist class and the elected class, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republican Party officials and strategists in the states.”
The “Republican Party officials are all “former” somethings, or GOP “consultants” which can range all forms of grifters and not a lot of true believers. They all weighed in on the piece, in an effort to stay relevant and get attention—mostly to get attention.
What I find most interesting is how POLITICO rushes to examine the GOP post-Trump, but made only half-hearted efforts to do the same to the Democrats post-Obama. I guess they think Obama didn’t blow up the Democrat Party. They are dead wrong.
POLITICO wrote a piece post-2016 that talked about “tensions” at the Democrat retreat between the moderate and progressive wings of the party, and how they needed to regroup and redirect under a unified message of an economy that works for all Americans.
Fast forward four years, and we can see that they’ve learned nothing and the rift between the so-called moderate and progressive wings is still a great divide.
As is their desired method on how exactly to help Americans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi apparently had no problem playing politics with pandemic funds as businesses died, people starved, and children committed suicide.
Madam Speaker also oversaw the loss of 9 House seats, and there are still a few more hanging in the balance. Mostly because of her full-on disregard of the Socialist wing of the party and their promotion of dead-end causes like Defund the Police. But in Pelosi’s warped brain, she considered this a mandate.
POLITICO Playbook at least got this right that the divide will dominate the party in 2021, but they seem to fail to delve deeper.
“THIS KIND OF rift should not be overlooked, because it will come to dominate governance should Washington turn all blue. AOC is seen as one of SCHUMER’S top potential primary challengers. The simplicity and bare-knuckled nature of her message could resonate among a Democratic base that’s looking for knife fights, not senatorial process arguments.”
And other than to praise them for their moxie, no one is pushing back on the free-range Socialist “Squad”, who gained a few new members despite the 2020 Democrat down-ballot flubbing.
But the GOP’s future? It must be fully investigated, like a gastroenterologist does a colonoscopy. POLITICO ended with deep “concern” about what Trump’s influence could bode for the Party’s future.
“In a measure of how deeply Trump’s influencepenetrates in the states, Michael Burke, chair of the Republican Party in Pinal County, Arizona, sent Ducey a letter last month on behalf of 13 of the 15 Republican county chairs across Arizona that called for the governor to reconvene the legislature to address GOP concerns about the vote in that state.
“Burke said the ‘chances are getting slimmer every day’ that Trump will prevail in his challenges to the election. But regardless, Burke said, ‘it’s still Donald Trump’s party. He’s probably, I believe, going to be the most consequential former president in our lifetime.’
“Of tension in the party, he said, ‘I think it will be long-lasting.’ ”
I say, “Good!” Despite the efforts of the NeverTrumpers and so-called GOP Elite, the Grand Old Party is never coming back. The fact that we are looking at a Biden-Harris administration is a clear indication that the Democrat Left will be the prominent voice of their Party.
We are going to need a robust GOP that is more Trumpist and knows how to actually fight and stand their ground, rather than roll over and play dead.
The Old GOPe is dead. Long live the Republican Party.
This year has been extraordinary. Americans have been ordered to lockdown, mask up, stay at home, avoid their loved ones, and otherwise suffer in the vain hope of controlling the coronavirus.
The fruit of these efforts has been mostly needless suffering. When core freedoms were infringed, millions thrown out of work, and government power multiplied, things remained orderly. Other than a few mask protests in Michigan earlier in the year, and a few symbolic efforts by business owners, almost nothing happened.
The capstone of 2020 was an election that half the country thinks was marred by fraud. We were warned Republicans would take to the streets and start a civil war if they lost, but instead we have had a few ineffectual lawsuits and a stream of grifting texts, imploring donations to the Republican Party, as if that will solve the problem.
A Massive Power Grab
One would like to believe these restrictions will soon end and things will return to normal, but consider that we’re still taking our shoes off in airports, and it’s been almost 20 years since the 9/11 attacks. The government doesn’t give up power easily.
The coronavirus has been an incredible boon to the ruling class. This includes government at all levels, where busybody mayors and governors have shown enthusiasm that rivaled slippery federal government frauds like Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Government now has almost unrestricted power to pick and choose the winners. Amazon, Wall Street, Zoom, and various virtual industries are booming. Meanwhile, the working class—made up of waiters and bartenders—finds its employers shuttered. These establishments’ entrepreneurial owners and their dreams are now broken. Many will never recover.
In addition to spreading pain to millions, the coronavirus has allowed the government to get involved in the most intimate parts of our lives. Privacy used to be a bipartisan concern. The right to such privacy is the ostensible foundation of a constitutional right to abortion. According to the courts, any restrictions would interfere with intimate relations and the sacred relationship of patient and her doctor. Yet now the government is glibly commanding how many people can come into your homeover the holidays and what you must wear, and no one seems terribly embarrassed by the contradiction.
Although there is a lot of passive resistance to these measures, there is very little active opposition and outrage. We’ve become a rather tame people.
Liberty Demands an Independent People
At home, as elsewhere, liberty is more endangered by gradual diminution than when it is taken all at once. People are rather adaptable.
Part of the American people’s recent quiescence comes from their lack of economic independence. Over the last 100 years or so, we went from a nation of small farmers and shopkeepers to a nation of employees. The higher-paid employees are the managers. But all of their jobs depend upon the system—that is, on others.
Both groups are dependent on their jobs because there is little wealth, but much consumption: of healthcare, housing, education, cars, and a few small luxuries. All of this consumption is financed by debt that must be paid, rain or shine. A debt-saturated economy makes one’s job a lifeline.
Our apparent prosperity is mostly an illusion. Job loss shows rather quickly the distinction between wealth and income.
The old system produced a different kind of man. America’s Founders spoke of “republican virtue,” which they saw demonstrated in the ancient Roman republic, as well as in their own War of Independence. The American system was not just about freedom or an elaborate hydraulic system that brilliantly channeled competing ambitions, though these were important aspects of it. It also strove to cultivate a certain kind of person, one interested in and capable of self-government. This required property and independence. Early America’s numerous small proprietors, farmers, and tradesmen were people who did not want to be ruled by anyone other than themselves and their laws.
It turns out the new American system and the people it has produced are not terribly attached to these principles. They instead value predictability, safety, and status.
The Managerial System Requires Conformity and Dependence
Since the 1960s, at least, this new system’s economic foundations have been under stress. Home ownership plateaued. Wages stagnated. Credit filled in the gaps of stagnant wages, and products like the “reverse mortgage” became popular. Globalization rendered manufacturing vulnerable to the efficiencies of global labor markets. After the 2008 economic crisis, economic insecurity has been particularly manifest: a whole generation found itself many steps behind its predecessors, in spite of a long recovery.
We sometimes look at the history of oppressive regimes and wonder why people didn’t revolt. Now we know. They had mortgages and rent payments and jobs and kids. They didn’t want to jeopardize their own or their family’s comfort and status.
Oppressive regimes don’t have to throw people in jail for the most part—taking away their livelihoods is enough to keep them in line. In this sense, the recent coronavirus restrictions are a more severe form of the unwritten rules we have become used to that go by the umbrella term “political correctness.”
America’s founding generation really did risk their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.” They weren’t poor or put upon. They were lawyers, importers, brewers, and large plantation owners; they likely would have continued to flourish under the British crown. But they perceived that King George’s policies consisted of “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”
In other words, the Founders could see the consequences of a policy that deprived them of their liberty and their historic rights of self-government. They could plan for the future. And they had a spirit of independence and courage.
Today, the mass of people in charge are both incompetent and selfish. Their failures include a 40-year pattern of huge deficits, which substitute plenty today for pain tomorrow. More subtle failures include the neglect of corroding infrastructure, increasingly useless schools, and a business climate that does not account for the good of workers and the nation. The ruling class’ combination of selfishness and incompetence is more visible today, as government and privileged professionals have shown themselves indifferent to the fates of those who are bound up in small private enterprises.
Without being cruel, and while recognizing many exceptions, there is a whiff of “Boomerism” about much of this. As with large deficits and cheap imported goods, it is one more example of sacrificing the well-being of their children and grandchildren to eke out a few more years of the high life. Missing is any demonstrable principle of stewardship or proportion.
If the rulers are incompetent and selfish, those ruled over are cowed, dependent, and lacking in energy. The long habits of accommodation fostered by economic insecurity and compliance with arbitrary edicts have siphoned off most of the spirit of resistance.
The Election Was Stolen Long Before 2020
Over the past month, we’ve heard a lot of talk about a stolen election. The story certainly seems to have some legs. But, regardless of the particulars of this contest, the election was stolen long before 2020.
It was stolen in 1965, when millions of foreigners began to be imported to enrich corporate balance sheets and increase the ranks of Democratic voters. No one would think it democracy to make China or Mexico the 51st state, with these new “citizens’” votes overwhelming those of Daughters of the American Revolution or former members of Patton’s Army. But importing 60 million people over 50 years, a population equivalent to the nation of Italy, is treated as a perfectly normal thing. America only had 180 million or so people when this radical social engineering began.
In other words, our country and the ability of the American people to pick its leaders was taken away long before 2020. The swift “bluing” of conservative strongholds such as Texas, Georgia, and Arizona is all part of the plan. The end result will be the one-party governance that we see in places like California.
California was once the quintessential symbol of the American dream—a state where Ronald Reagan twice won the governorship. It is now a place with habits and customs more reminiscent of Chinese oligarchy or Mexican corruption than anything recognizably American. Its coronavirus restrictions are some of the most severe in the country. Its foreign-born population is the highest in the nation.
A lot of people have reacted to the ideological straightjacket and economic consequences of the blue states by moving to places like Florida and Arizona. It’s one of the abiding copes of traditional Americans: to find a little place and get away from all the craziness.
But Texas and Georgia are turning blue for a reason. There is nowhere left to move. The army of newcomers and the indoctrinated young people from our schools are everywhere. Even if we wanted to depart en masse, and even if there were somewhere to go, one doubts we would be allowed to leave.
Whether democratic or not, a country’s laws, customs, and leaders reflect and embody its character. If Trump was the last gasp of the old America, Biden is the embodiment of the new America and its managerial ruling class. Biden will leave little personal mark upon things, and not only because he is senile and lacks independence. He is not really in charge. No one person is.
In this new nation, which has slowly emerged from the social revolution of the 1960s and the managerial revolution of a generation before, the elected leader—like the old Soviet party secretaries—is simply a figurehead for a vast, complex, consensus-oriented party apparatus. And that class does not want an independent people, capable of self-government or resistance. They’ve locked nearly everyone into a system that makes any such gestures a fast track to poverty and powerlessness.
The new America doesn’t need bread and circuses, it has credit scores and Netflix and human resource departments to keep its people in line. People don’t even need to leave the house. And it’s all quite a bit easier for them that way.
The widespread propaganda, rules, and restrictions of 2020 provide a glimmer of hope. Those attached to this new order know that in mingling with one’s fellows at the pub, the water cooler, and in church, we would quickly realize we’re not alone in our anger and frustration. Real-life connections and organizing are the key to an authentic right-wing political movement.
It’s not a coincidence that the Founders met in taverns, nor one that our current ruling class is closing them down.
Article by Colonel Donald N. Finley, Retired USAF, in The American Thinker
How to Steal an Entire Country
It's
been over a month since the election, and all is not well in
Mudville. The home team fights round the clock to prove that the
challenger cheated, and the challenger makes no effort to calm fears or
address concerns — just continues naming cronies and planning not just
to take over the ballpark, but to change the rules for the entire sport.
For
those who care, the internet still exists, and there are more sites
than Twitter, Facebook and news services out there where the truth
actually matters. So why does anyone have to search for the
truth? Investigations and impeachments have been blasted forcefully
into our faces for years, thanks to the author of the MSM's Standard
Operating Procedures (SOPs), Joseph Goebbels,
of Third Reich fame, who said, "The most brilliant propagandist
technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is
borne in mind constantly — it must confine itself to a few points and
repeat them over and over. ... A lie told once remains a lie but a lie
told a thousand times becomes the truth." It appears he also wrote the
SOPs for Facebook, one of which is clearly "propaganda works best when
those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their
own free will."
Now, all across the MSM, Biden's "victory" consequences are given the fait accompli treatment. We
should all just behave and accept reality. It sounds and reads like
this: "Trump is baselessly contesting the results." "Trump campaign
court cases have been thrown out due to baseless claims." All the
"doing" is from the Trump side, and it's wasting everyone's time. The
Democrats haven't done a thing, obviously. They are the innocent
victims, once again, of Trump's craziness. "Meanwhile, President-Elect
Biden saw his shadow again today."
There
is nothing baseless about what happened. It's clear the Democrats
planned this for quite some time, focusing on the battleground states,
and centrally synchronizing and executing their Transition Integrity Project war-gamed
plan. They prepped the battlefield with lawsuits all across the
country to remove any teeth in election laws, thus making the commission
of fraud much easier and its discovery much harder. And here is what they did. And here. And here. And here. More here. Just
check it out. I recommend getting a head start and caring now;
otherwise, it will be a big shock when you care later, and you will
certainly care later.
So
there's a growing mountain of evidence that President Trump was
re-elected. If the election had been conducted according to existing
laws, there would be no question. If only legal ballots were counted,
there would be no question. If the Democrats hadn't fabricated so many
illegal votes, there would be no question. But there is a question, and
it's this: how are we going to make this right? This is no conspiracy
theory; it's a real conspiracy, across many states, involving the
highest levels of Democrat elected officials, down to hapless election
volunteers just following directions. It was a conspiracy to steal the
federal election for Joe Biden or, in other words, to remove Donald
Trump from office, something Democrats have been openly trying to do for
at least four years.
All
the guilty Democrats believe that if they act the propaganda out, it
will actually happen. Why don't they call for transparency? Because
they don't want it. It will expose them for what they are. Don't they
want to eliminate the cloud of illegitimacy in the election? No,
because they built it; it's about power, not legitimacy. What about
their reputations in being associated with a fraudulent election? They
don't care what we think of them; they want their shot at wielding power
and getting rich from taxpayer dollars, book deals, and speaking
fees. There is no MAGA in what the Democrats did, nor in what they plan
to do. If they are allowed to do it, there will be no America left to
make great.
Like
the home title theft commercials, this is entire country and cultural
theft. Every MAGA policy will be reversed if Biden is allowed to take
the Oval Office. He will make America weak again, dependent upon others
again, full of Made in China again, and friends to jihadists again —
it'll be Obama II, the narcissistic pronoun president again. "I," "Me,"
and "My" will dominate every speech again, which will repeatedly
lecture to us, "That's not who we are," as something we absolutely are
is insulted in favor of some more egalitarian socialist-globalist
replacement. Under a Democrat administration, "we" real Americans who
love "our" nation and don't want "our" prosperity given to China so
Hunter Biden can get rich again will slowly watch "our" Constitution,
freedom, history, democracy, tradition, and independence chip away.
Because
the Democrats are so self-centered, they have framed the governance of
the U.S. as them versus Donald Trump. They have fought everything Trump
because he has fought their corruption with his promise to "Drain the
Swamp." But this is much bigger than Donald Trump, and he has openly
said so. It's not whether he wins or loses this election; it's whether
the U.S. ever again holds a free and fair election. To the Democrats,
it's "Donald Trump's investigations can destroy many of us in the next
four years and we'll never win another election" versus "Donald Trump
goes away, and so do his investigations of Democrat crimes (and as a
bonus, Joe Biden will let us do whatever we want and we'll ensure we
never again lose an election)." In framing it in such a way, the
Democrats' thirst for power at all costs created the circumstances
whereby they couldn't succeed without doing grave damage to the
country. That's where we are, with our election system shattered, void
of the electorate's trust, and those who did the damage potentially and
ironically poised as the only ones who can fix it. The epitome of "the
fix is in."
In
the end, it comes down to this: what does it mean to have right versus
wrong, corrupt versus honest, truth versus lies, fair versus stolen all
work out backwards? The last place on Earth the rest of the world would
have thought that possible is right here. "Our" America. Abraham
Lincoln said, "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope
of earth." He was talking about slavery, an evil that needed to be
purged from our nation, lest we lose our nation altogether.
There
are many evils, but today the foremost evil we must address is the
Democrat party's corruption of our national election. We all know what
happened, and what the right thing is. We need to fix it. Now. The
details and the prison terms can be figured out later.
