“I can’t spare this man – he fights!” (President Abraham Lincoln, when told he should get rid of General Grant because Grant had a drink problem)
Trump fights. (If the woke of today were eager to make each feature of Trump’s character an urgently-needed virtue, they could hardly act differently. 🙂 ) Trump hates being a ‘loser’ – really hates it, not just the way some do.
Most people in politics are, whether they know it or not, much more comfortable with failing conventionally than risking the social stigma of behaving unconventionally. They did not mind losing so much as being embarrassed, as standing out from the crowd.” (Dominic Cummings, ‘How the Brexit Referendum Was Won’)
For an example of that approach, consider Prime Minister of Prussia Otto Braun on 20th July 1932.
“We are yielding only to force!”
is how Otto proudly declared his belief that the emergency decree replacing him with direct rule from Berlin was unconstitutional. Many historians of the next German transfer of power (the one that occurred in January 1933) sadly explain that “We are yielding only to force!” sounded like “Sure, we’ll yield to force” to a certain eager listener – and to the German public. I’d agree with almost everything this article says, except that the writer sounds like he is preparing to yield only to mass voter fraud – and thinks Trump should too.
They told us weeks ago they would do this – and I’m not talking about Biden’s gaffe-boast two weeks ago of having
“the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organisation in the history of US politics”
but about Zuckerberg’s declaration two months ago that
“We need to prepare the public for days and weeks counting mail-in ballots … what we and the other media need to start doing is preparing the american people that there is nothing illegitimate about this election taking additional days or weeks to make sure all the votes are counted.”
It’s a standard propaganda technique to predict the crime you plan to perform. Afterwards, the prophecy is an alibi – hey, nothing happened but what was predicted.
Jack Dorsey, Mark’s partner in preparing the US people to see nothing illegitimate in current events, was on the case two-and-a-half years earlier.
“there’s no bipartisan way forward at this juncture in our history — one side must win. … The way forward is on the path California blazed about 15 years ago. … reconfigure the political landscape and shift a supermajority of citizens — and by extension their elected officials — under the Democratic Party’s big tent. The natural continuum of more progressive to more moderate solutions then got worked out within the context of the only remaining functioning party. … Make no mistake: A reckoning with not just Trump, but conservatism, is coming. … This is a civil war that can be won without firing a shot.” (my bolding)
– to which a US commenter explained that the victory Jack predicted
depends upon no shots being fired.
(If you want to know what I predicted, click the link above.)
Two-and-a-half months, and one Supreme Court (and, I hope, some Trump rallies), stand between now and a direct confrontation with mass voter fraud (but only half as long till the state electors cast their votes). Having some time is good. Firstly, the court may do good. Secondly, we will know in less time than that about some things we now sensibly suspect. A recent commenter who knows Chicago told us that, in Chicago, whatever doesn’t look corrupt may or may not be corrupt but whatever looks like corruption most certainly is. I am confident the same rule holds in Detroit (and Pennsylvania seems already open and shut). In other cases, US citizens should verify what the truth is, as far as they can, to know what the right way to act is. When the truth is known, the question may be: Will you yield only to mass voter fraud?
I advise US readers to think about it now. The next two-and-a-half months will pass swiftly. As you think, remember – the task of the woke media is now to demoralise you (to de-moralise you – to take your morale from you). And don’t assume that they cannot also fool you just because you saw through them long ago.
[UPDATE: he still is. “This may be the most important speech I’ve ever made.”. For once, I will not allege even mild overstatement in a sentence of the Donald’s – though some speeches yet to come may be more important still.]
I posted this as a comment in another thread, but I want to post it again in the latest post because I think it needs to get high visibility, if that’s alright please.
Also, I do think it is on topic. Because Trump does fight. And what happens as a result?
Lists. Lists of Trump’s supporters, employees, associates, etc. Who is building & supporting these lists? AOC – a congresswoman in the House of Representatives. Also potentially google.
https://twitter.com/susanferrechio/status/1324887156125470720
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324807776510595078
https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1324816391522848768
https://twitter.com/smarsilia/status/1324886670236397570
https://twitter.com/jaas666/status/1324897864158482434
https://twitter.com/McAdooGordon/status/1324886628859588611
‘Trump fights.’
No, Trump pretends to fight.
The Fake News Media has just called the race for Joe Biden.
NYC – all over the city there are cheers, parades, clanging of metal pots, screams of ecstasy.
The Fake News Media is not mentioning any of the evidence of potential voter fraud, malfeasance, incompetence, systematic “glitches”, etc. Nobody who supports Biden is even aware of any potential issue with the vote – except a few who know these issues to entirely be “conspiracy theories”, just as the Fake News Media portrays and characterizes them.
Very scary times.
I predict that – even if Trump side is right about the evidence and the legal issues involved in sufficient states to overturn the outcome of the Electoral Vote – SCOTUS will NEVER reverse this reality: Joe Biden will be the next POTUS.
Also this is an excellent post, Niall. Thank you.
Can anyone in the know explain what power a president has to declassify sensitive documents? If it’s what I think it is, if I were Trump I’d be looking through the Obama-Biden admin archives and looking for as much shit on Biden(and Obama and Hilary Clinton for good measure) that’s not been published before. Release it on the day before Biden’s inauguration.
Also, give Assange a full pardon and give him a pass to someplace that won’t ever extradite to the US. I know he’s a leftist but he clearly hates the democrats and might prove to be a thorn in their side.
Martin:
It is my understanding that the president has the absolute right to declassify anything he wants. The problem is that when he tells the CIA to declassify something, they basically tell him to fuck himself.
If the coup succeeds, then the deep state just has a couple of months to wait out the Trump presidency. They know they have nothing to fear from President Chauncey Gardiner.
I think this is accurate. I hope that Trump & Team document and record Trump requesting declassification of documents and being told to fuck off, and then ordering declassification of documents and being told to fuck off, and then demanding the declassification of documents and being told yet again to fuck off.
And then disseminate these communications to the public. Full transparency.
Martin.
Trump loves his family and will not risk the threats which were so infamously made against Michael Flynn’s son – ironically a completely innocent man unlike the teflon Hunter Biden. That assumes he personally is willing to risk a “Roger Stone” 4am arrest (covered live by CNN) within days of leaving the White House.
We are back to a subject discussed in many recent threads, the absence of equal and impartial justice.
Disseminating communications to the public with full transparency will be difficult when social media companies censor your posts along with those of anyone linking to the disclosures while the media, including “fair and balanced” Fox and the taxpayer funded NPR, either ignore the story or cover it with the deepest of deep state spin. Don’t even think about making a speech, they will just stop filming.
We have to separate ourselves from these people on the Left first and foremost peacefully & legally and also: financially, physically, socially, and digitally.
We need to be able to communicate among each other freely. We need to be able to educate our children freely. We need to be able to speak our mind at work and at home and on the internet freely without fear of losing our livelihoods or our access to jobs, housing, food, transportation, loans, entertainment, etc.
We need to own our own private businesses, which includes first and foremost businesses that educate our children. We cannot continue sending our children to public schools or publicly-subsidized Universities or Colleges. We need to own our own universities, primary schools, high schools, manufacturing companies, farming companies, shipping companies, internet companies, telecommunications companies, software companies, production companies, housing companies, and banks. None of these companies can be public – they all must be privately owned and privately run.
The rot has been exposed. The Left is the State and the Left is Naked Force, Hatred, Deceit, and Destruction. Anything that touches the government is tainted and can be infiltrated. We need to find a way to legally and peacefully be allowed to live our lives freely without having to deal with these people.
It’s very difficult to find a way to organize ourselves. But the name “Trump” is a Schelling Point.
Saw a video suggesting that Trumpism may split the GOP, wonder if four years of Biden/Harris will also split the Democrats?
Are you joking?
The GOP is already split, the popular Trumpist wing – the wing that wins elections ( when they haven’t been stolen by gerrymandering ) and the RINOs the group that exports American jobs to China. Those are the jobs of the former group, by the way.
I dare say Mich McConell is sitting in his study chuckling to himself. He certainly isn’t out there supporting PotUS.
Some of the comments here are bordering on “Biden derangement syndrome”. The Democrats won the presidency. Yes, they may have cheated. So what’s new? I was given to understand the dead have been voting for the Democratic Party candidate for decades.
Talk of civil war, separate schools, etc are worse than the leftist threats to emigrate when Trump won. I remember such comments being treated with the contempt they deserved 4 years ago. Sleepy Joe wins and you all lose your… composure?
The Constitution states, in Article II:
Declassification is an executive act, all those who work for the United States executive branch ultimately derive their powers from the devolved authority of the President. If a statute provides for a particular classification without discretion, I suppose that would trump the Presidential discretion to declassify, but otherwise, it’s his call.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has not been absolutely silent recently, check his Twitter (whilst you can). Ted was involved in the 2000 Florida Electoral College vote litigation, check what his new book about the US Supreme Court, One Vote Away, published before this election says of the Bush-Gore Florida dispute in 2000, page 166
Sleepy Joe did not win a fair and free election yet.
But you are right, of course that Joe Biden will definitely be the next POTUS no matter what.
Joe Biden will put a left wing agenda, but he will not implement the super left wing agenda AOC wants. But he will move the needle a little bit to the left, just not too quickly. And he will be replaced by either a RINO or a another Democrat. Who will do slightly more left wing stuff. And a little more and a little more. Rinse. Repeat.
A frog is in water. The temperate of the water is gradually raised to boiling and the frog dies. He never sees death coming.
For hundreds of years this is how leftism has proceeded in the western democracies. Little by little by little, with a few big pushes here and there, but mostly gradually. This has been enabled by the Leftist Rot of State – deep state, bureaucracy, media, universities, courts, hollywood, wall street, etc. Trump has never been a part of the System, which is why the System is terrified of Trump. He is the first POTUS they cannot control… probably since Andrew Jackson. Trumnp owes nothing to the Leftist Rot Of State. Nothing. Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Ben Sasse, Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey all do. They are all part of it. Trump is alone.
Trump has just pulled back the curtain for those willing to see – to see the ROT, the LEFTIST ROT of our disgusting media, universities, deep state, federal bureaucracy, spooks, etc. For one glorious, magnificent, terrifying moment.
A frog slowly boiled has no idea that death is coming.
You are in boiling water. We all are.
Remember the new mantra of The Woke Left: “Silence is Violence”. They are coming for us all.
Democracy eventually ends in mob rule.
And it’s “reasonable” people who oppose the Left that will doom us. They do not understand how the Left wins. Slowly.
They manufacture consent, they dull our aversion to leftist brainwashing, the propagandize our children and ourselves in the media, hollywood, schools, universities, they prosecute dissent, they change the law to protect themselves, and they slowly implement increasingly left wing policies with the force of the government. Slowly. Very very slowly.
And we are unable to stop them. Why? Because even when we win they steal the election. In front of our eyes. And the media covers it up. So they deny us the reigns of power the ONE time we actually get a non-RINO Republican in a position of real power.
You are so blind.
So blind.
None are so blind as those who will not see.
When an election is close (that close) the looser always yells “fraud!”, “stolen election”. There is little doubt that fraud was committed in this case – so what? That’s normal. Maybe Republicans should have organized better to do more fraud in their favor, or monitor better vote counting.
Seems the Democrats got better organized, every student located all his sick or demented grandpas or relatives and got mail votes for them (including some deceased).
After all – Biden won the popular vote by some 3.5% percent points. A sizable difference.
So Biden is the President elect, nothing will change that. Trump is powerless no matter what fighting spirit he has or lacks.
So, there… when the vote is that close you cannot really count votes to such accuracy. A more just outcome would have been to toss a coin….
Biden is the President elect, Republicans better get organized for 2022 and 2024. They are not very good at it. Being right isn’t enough.
And, no doubt – the US voting system is broken and not secure. As a highly developed and experienced nation it could do better.
I am not scared of Biden at all. He is quite literally an empty suit.
You have no idea what is happening. You think Republicans better get organized for 2022 and 2024? Why? To have another George W. Bush in office? Fuck off.
I would rather a President Ilhan Omar or AOC with 65 Democrats in the Senate and a super majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives instead of a Preident Mitt Romney (or insert generic Republican here).
When I voted for Trump on Election Day (we still have those in America, allegedly) I took a picture of my ballot, in anticipation of POSSIBLY never voting in another American election again. And I speak for a lot of Trump voters when I say that.
I forgot to add above another way that Leftism advances in the western democracies: demonization. They demonize anyone who opposes them. Viciously. This is because they have weak minds and are brainwashed by the media, big tech, universities, and government very easily. But it is sad. And scary. And the demonization is in plain sight in the USA especially with a Republican as POTUS who actually disagrees with the Left (instead of pretending to do so, which is what 99% of Republican politicians do).
The media has been demonizing Trump & his supporters for years. Viciously. Claiming and insinuating and characterizing us as violent thugs, racists, bigots, hateful and dangerous. When basically all of the hatred, all of the violence, and all of the bigotry is from the Left. 99% of it. So now we are in a situation where people are terrified of being OUTED as Trump supporters. Was anyone terrified of being OUTED as George W. Bush supporters??? NO. And there’s a good reason for that (hint: it’s not that Trump is racist or incites racism, it’s that George Bush was part of the ESTABLISHMENT, part of the RULING CLASS so the Powers of the De Facto Permanent Government trusted him and controlled him).
Polls said Biden was up 12% nationally and 17% in Wisconsin, also to suppress dissent against the Blue Wave coming. All the polling outfits except Trafalgar and Insider Advantage, but all the rest (DOZENS of them – ABC, NYT, CNN, Gallup, Quinnipiac etc etc etc) all had Biden winning this in a huge landslide. Either these polls are fabricated like the Russian Collusion Hoax or 20% of Trump supporters will not admit they are Trump supporters. Something is VERY VERY wrong here.
Well, guess what the polls were more off than in 2016!
I saw a post on Facebook last week from someone I once knew. She said (I am paraphrasing):
“If Donald J. Trump wins the election it will lead to very bad things happening to poor people, African American people, Hispanic people, gay people, and other oppressed groups. It will be a very sad day for our whole entire country. But it’s four years. We can survive that. But telling a friend you are voting for this homophobic, hateful, xenophobic, racist bigot is forever. You cannot take that back.”
If you think that this post on Facebook did not receive HUNDREDS of “Likes” and “Hearts” then you are very much mistaken. And of course among the dozens of comments underneath was NOT A SINGLE that offered any kind of disagreement at all.
And if you think this was the only post on Facebook like this that I saw among my ~300 Facebook friends, then you are very much mistaken.
I’m not sure how this is different than an Inquisition…..
Remember the phrase of the Left from several months ago during the BLM protests/antifa riots?? “Silence is violence”.
They are coming for us all.
No Schlomo I am not blind, I have been watching the decline of Western civilization for decades. I didn’t need the curtain pulling back.
I campaigned for 12 years straight, leafleting, canvassing, just talking to people; even alone in the quiet years between elections trying to get my countrymen to wake up here in the UK and trying to get my fellow campaigners to wake up from the delusion that the Conservative party could be trusted to deliver. Yes, I am talking about what has latterly been absurdly termed “Brexit” and which is normally known as national self-determination. No, I am not interested in a discussion on the divine right of Kings, the fallacy of democracy, etc.
What you are doing at present, talking as though civil war is inevitable because a RINO from New York lost the election, is emotional masturbation. You are taking about doing things that are frankly incredibly unlikely even if you could find and persuade others to join you in them. Separate schools, universities of the republican right? Ridiculous. Your conservative movement doesn’t even have a paper genuinely on your side.
If you’re serious about building a genuine conservative movement you should start with things actually plausible and practical. A censorship resistant social media platform that is competitive with Twitter and Facebook for instance.
Drop the hyperbole and the fatalistic attitude, it does you no favours, and learn from the mistakes of others. Political movements all around the world have failed from too much idealogical purism, sectarianism and in-fighting. Making yourself ridiculous to the majority of people is also a really, really bad way to build a movement.
There was once a movie done about Idi Amin Dada, of Uganda. Idi Amin served in his youth in the British Army and was a boxing champ. He had this advise for boxers: “Go for a knock-out. Umpires who assign points are not always impartial and they might rob you of your rightful win. The best thing is to win by KO.”
Trump failed to win by KO…
The claim that the election was stolen is nonsense. It WAS stolen – but so what? In such a close count that is irrelevant.
As to the US – yes, it is disintegrating and becoming more and more like Mexico or Argentina or Bolivia. Same as most of Europe. Sad.
Stop lionizing Trump. He is not such a big Libertarian, or Conservative or Republican, or great person or genius. The fact that this shallow person was the best that “we” could find is also very sad.
Alex,
I think you misunderstand the gravity of the situation (even putting my own personal political philosophy aside).
There are too many examples to list them all now, but suffice it to say that this election did NOT ONLY feature the normal corruption of Democrat City Machines. This is not just a few thousand dead people/illegal immigrants voting in Philadelphia. I will follow the evidence, but this smells like something potentially much bigger – especially because of how the Fake News Media is not even PRETENDING to investigate or cover any of the credible allegations.
If Trump were just some kind of generic Republican it would be a very different situation:
1. I would not have voted
2. Millions of other Americans would not have voted
3. Biden would have won the Blue Wall States and Georgia without cheating
What is glorious about this moment is that it is teaching the American People in real time that Republicans are allowed to win elections only if the Republicans they elect are complicit with the Democrats. Now, maybe these are things some of us already know. But this is now being learned by TENS OF MILLIONS of low information Trump voters (many of whom have not been interested in politics until Trump).
So for you to chalk this up as just another loss of a Republican to a Democrat (which is what the media wants you to think) then you have completely misunderstood the situation and you have no idea what is happening.
There are reasons the media is not covering or investigating the allegations of widespread and significant voter fraud. And those reasons are very dangerous. This is NOT a normal election on any level.
No.
Agree and couldn’t give less of a fuck.
Disagree. He is a Great Man in every sense. And he definitely has certain qualities of a genius.
We didn’t find him. He just swooped in and spoke. He SPOKE. See the speech when he came down the elevator. He spoke like a real fucking American, not like the carefully curated, poll tested, and deep-state approved speeches of “conservatives” “Republicans” or “Libertarians” (who gives a fuck). And he pulled the curtain up for everyone to see the Left Wing Rot Of State for all to see. He is a Hero.
“I’ve got a little list” for Schlomo:
https://youtu.be/1NLV24qTnlg
I’m guessing you don’t have youngish kids here in the US.
For many of us past some certain age, we’re where we are and where we’re going to be. The main result of this election here will affect us around the fringes of our lives, but we’re basically established at some level and switching to a progressive admin isn’t going to affect us much beyond the philosophical and egotistical. (We’re mad because “they” beat us.)
It’s the under-40’s (arbitrary choice, I know) who will feel the actual effects. Depending on what affinity groups they inhabit, their lives will become noticeably less free, less affluent, less enriching.
We oldsters – over-40’s, in my reckoning – are going to suffer mainly in the blow to our egos that this election represents. We can cushion and insulate from the coming changes. We can shelter whatever measure of wealth we might have, and ride out anything until we die. Our lives won’t really change.
My kids can’t do that, and on their account the fight can’t be abdicated. A President Omar would signal a drastic reduction of their possibilities in the world. Giving up now and saying, basically, “I’m spending your inheritance” is just so . . . Boomer.
Maybe the difference is that I want to win within this system and you want a different system and see a way there. But to do that, we have to travel through the omelette analogy, and my kids are the eggs.
Hmm..sadly I think the CIA has turned the rather dubious arts it has developed in fomenting ‘colour revolutions’ abroad on its own country. Even when they were targeting assholes like Gaddafi, I opposed these kind of regime changes because (not the only reason though) I always thought the American elite would use these tactics against their own people eventually if they could.
One man can not fight successfully ALONE.
President Trump should have cleared out the leftists who control the “Justice” Department and the FBI (and basically everything in the government) on January 20th 2017.
With hindsight (admittedly 20-20 vision) his Presidency, and the Western World (for which, in spite of all his faults, he was the last hope) was doomed by his decision (pushed by very-bad-advice from establishment Republicans) to try and “work with the system” – rather that use his legal powers to SMASH THE SYSTEM on day one (when it is the chance a President has – “you are fired – here is a list of people I can actually trust to fill these KEY POSITIONS”).
It is no good “tweeting” (when the President was allowed to) about the crimes of the Bidens – if the corrupt scum who control the FBI will not arrest the Bidens.
And it is no good “tweeting” about the insanity of sending out MILLIONS of mail-in ballots to people who did NOT ask for then, and whose identities can not be really be checked. Not if the “Justice” Department is run by an establishment Republican whose loyalty is to “the system” – the totally corrupt and evil “system”, the degenerate “institutions”.
Yes indeed there has been massive ELECTION FRAUD in very many ways – but the media and the “Justice” system DO NOT CARE (in fact they laugh) – because they were corrupted long ago.
Yes freedom is NOT dead – men in the deep forests and the back hill country will keep on making knives and firearms with their own hands, and expressing their opinions without fear.
But, make no mistake, this is an EVIL day – the anniversary of the squalid Marxist coup that is called (due to the old calendar) the “October Revolution” – which led to so many TENS OF MILLIONS of murders around the world.
Anyone who is engaged in political celebration on this day, knowns (knows) deep in their heart – that they are celebrating EVIL.
@bobby b
For many of us past some certain age, we’re where we are and where we’re going to be. The main result of this election here will affect us around the fringes of our lives, but we’re basically established at some level and switching to a progressive admin isn’t going to affect us much beyond the philosophical and egotistical.
I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I think the main deleterious effects of Biden will really be related to China, and the loss of American hegemony. So that means the economy will contract (though Biden will get credit for the rebound that Trump initiated from Covid) the stock market will be strangled (meaning older folks living off their savings will get their butts kicked), there will be a continued growth of censorship, wokeness, and generally speaking we will become more and more like fish out of water.
My kids are still in school, so they will be affected both because of being fed garbage, and from the massive decrease in opportunities they will suffer in the future. My recommendation for young people (and what I would do if I could) is to get out of America and move somewhere where there is still a possibility of success (which means Southeast Asia, AusNZ — which floats on south east asia — or South America. Four years of Biden and the taking over the world by China which inevitably follows, just means that the US will be a dud of a place to live. We older folks are probably stuck here, and probably have to suffer the loss of liberty and finances that will come. But if I were in my twenties I’d probably consider dropping my American citizenship (because American citizens are slaves to the US where-ever they live) and move to Costa Rica or Panama. I think the lifestyle and opportunities there are going to be great and I’m not sure I want to live in a place that would actually elect someone as terrible as Joe Biden as President. But the realities are that I am old enough and resource wise committed enough that it is impractical at my stage of life.
Maybe when I retire and my kids are all out of school, I’ll do just that. There really are marvelous ex-pat communities down there. In four years time there won’t be any America left to save.
Jacob, are you aware that Glenn Reynolds (age about 60) claims that Trump is probably the most libertarian AND conservative President in his lifetime?
Who should i trust? you, Glenn Reynolds, or my own lying eyes?
Fraser Orr:
I’m reminded of this map from the 2016 election, which I think still mostly holds true today:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/countymaprb1024.png
There’s an awful lot of red on this map, and from my travels I can attest to the fact that the ethos of Trumpism still holds sway there. I’m not happy with my neighbors here in blue Minnesota, but there’s still a lot of places I can go in the US to be surrounded by people I don’t despise.
When you live in blue, you forget that it’s a small geographic portion of the country.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps our difference is that I think the current system is a leaky faucet.
Everyone in our society feels the dampness of the carpet, its mildew and its rot. That carpet was once dry and crisp and pure. But moisture has accumulated on it over many, many years – initially just at the corners. Then a dampness set in and crept across the carpet, little by little. And now much of the carpet is a bit damp and parts of it are even starting to feel rather WET. Everyone feels this happening. Everyone. Even MOST people who vote for Democrats (because most people who vote for Democrats are good people who are simply brainwashed) know that something is WRONG.
The water will get through eventually in my opinion so I’d like… no, I NEED for people SEE the water with their own eyes. People like you. Everyone needs to see it. Why? So that we (the good people – and most of us ARE good people, even in America) can understand and recognize what we are facing and find the courage, fortitude, and determination to act in a way that INSULATES ourselves and our children from the Woke Left.
We need to protect ourselves. We need to provide our children with NOT ONLY the knowledge but the TOOLS and the STRUCTURES and the BUSINESSES and the LEGAL POWERS to protect themselves from the Woke Left and to enable them to give their children and their childrens children the same. We need a system within the current system to be BUILT. We need to construct a legal and peaceful defense against the onslaught, slaughter, chaos, lies, and deceit coming.
Ask yourself. Whose agenda is more likely to be considered moderate or even just mainstream in 50 years: AOC or Rand Paul? Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz? Elizabeth Warren or Mike Pence? How much more likely?
Before answering these questions please I BEG YOU: ignore what you have been taught in Left Wing Schools and by the Left Wing Media, forget everything you know and look at history. Read history CAREFULLY. History is our teacher. Read history with an open mind from EVERY point of view, including the losers. History is our proof of what must be done peacefully and legally. For our children. Literally.
‘He just swooped in and spoke.’
Some people sweep in and speak. Others sweep in and do.
‘Glenn Reynolds claims that Trump is probably the most libertarian AND conservative President in his lifetime.’
That is a logical impossibility.
“Everyone in our society feels the dampness of the carpet, its mildew and its rot. That carpet was once dry and crisp and pure.”
That may be one of the problems. Some people would dispute that it was ever dry and crisp and pure. It was always like this. Oh, the specifics of what they were fighting about differed, but the authoritarianism and the corruption and the partisan division have always been the same.
Such people have heard promises of reform, of fixing society and returning it to its Golden Age before, and nothing has ever changed. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. People suffer, they endure, but mostly they survive.
And they will look at current events and see more of the same. The same corruption. The same revolutionaries promising to fix things. The same broken promises. And they’ll do nothing, because there is nothing to be done. You can’t fix human nature. It’s how humans have always behaved, and always will.
They, too, will point to History to support their argument. The history of every Utopian revolution, the history of religious persecution, of racial segregation, of the fight for votes for women, of prohibition, of tolerance for homosexuality and pornography, of McCarthyism; the history of the Catholic/Protestant wars, the Inquisition, the stake, of kings and popes, the aristocracy and priests and peasants; the history of every age. People like the Woke have always been with us.
To such people, the argument you need to make is not that things are currently corrupt and authoritarian. They know that. The argument you have to present is what you can do to end the cycle, to stop it simply shifting target once again. In 50 years time, Wokeness will be dead and gone, as old-fashioned as racism and eugenics are today, but it will have been replaced by some new authoritarianism. What are you proposing to do to stop it? How will you be any different?
“In 50 years time, Wokeness will be dead and gone,”
If Critical Race Theory is followed through on, in 50 years the USA will look like South Africa because they will have killed most of the whites.
AOC is making lists; if the Republicans can never win another election again because the Dems will just cheat in every upcoming election, how long before those lists are for kulaks to be liquidated?
NIV, I cant work out how someone so stupid needs to use so many words to say such moronic things.
Just to put an example to the question of Who Decides What’s Classified, I was working at Livermore, and we were keeping the phrase “bomb pumped X-ray laser” classified… until the SecDef showed up at the lab, gave a PUBLIC talk that pumped up that phrase, and we all looked at each other: the Administration had just de facto declassified that phrase (if not the details behind it). That’s how it works.
@SteveD: Trump is/was a monkey sitting at a typewriter much of the time. For some of his output, he must have been sitting at a data expander, because he nom’d Gorsuch, who appears to be about as libertarian a Justice as the Republic has ever seen. That’s better than a stopped clock, by a BUNCH. Trump’s War on Regulations and his nom of the other two Justices, puts him at the top of conservative Presidents. His nom of Betsy has resulted in a (albeit temporary) correction of the injustices of collegiate kangaroo courts. I can understand why Glenn Reynolds made his claim.
This thread about the Premature Celebration by the Biden Campaign, has a discouraging comment stream.
Yes, the road to victory by Trump will not be an easy one.
I do not think it was ever going to be.
If Ruth Bader Ginsberg did one Good & Useful thing in her life it was finally dying when she did.
Between nominees already approved (thanks to the GOPers being shocked into action by the Kavanaugh Hearings) and Amy Coney Barrett …
… and Donald Trump being a combative sort who who has a long history of knowing how to use the sort of lawyers you might confuse with junk yard dogs …
… Trump was ready and probably aware of what was coming.
I saw the announcement on even Fox News and was taken aback.
Election Day and the day the Electoral College convenes are the days that count.
No one ever won on Election Day. They only and always won when the Electors meet and make their decision.
I read the comments there and ask myself,
… and ask you to ask yourself …
Would you have backed Churchill’s play when he evacuated Dunkirk?
Would you have subjected Britain to the Battle of Britain knowing how much was on that roll of the dice?
I think of you as Rational. I try to be Rational.
But are we cowards?
There is too much at stake to yield to Despair, especially when one has not yet lost.
This Shock & Awe Floor Show by the Biden Campaign is just that: Shock & Awe.
It is The Blitz, only a variant of it, played out in an arena where you drop different kinds of bombs.
Who should i trust? you, Glenn Reynolds, or my own lying eyes?
Always your lying eyes.
Instapundit tells me Facebook prevents anyone posting this link about Joe Biden’s votes in certain key districts violating Benford’s Law. I therefore post it here, partly from natural contrariness, but also because I haven’t looked at Benford’s Law in a long time, so was interested.
I was all ready to write that ‘of course’ Benford’s Law was a law of mathematics and the US Supreme Court would not be ruling on it – until search informed me that, for example,
I have quoted the wikipedia text above at length because I anticipate the possibility that its page on Benford’s law might change in coming days. 🙂
‘May you live in interesting times’ just acquired a slightly pleasanter meaning than usual – at least to Niall mathematician Kilmartin. 🙂
—
(Link above now correct; thanks to Duncan S below)
Niall – I clicked on the wikipedia link to Benford’s law and went “OMG they’ve deleted it already”, then realised that your link has missed off the last “w” in the URL.
It’s not about Trump; it never was about Trump. It’s a rejection of the Prog world view; China appeasing globalism, the creepy, perverse SJWs, and the malevolent cancel culture. It was ramping up well before Trump came down the elevator. In the USA, Trump is the only national public figure to stand up to the globalist cabal. The only president to bring Working America and Main Street to the table. The uniparty, the multinationals, the deep state sold the republic and Middle America out 2 decades or more ago. I don’t blame you for believing that this battle is about Trump personally. The media pushes this very shallow view. It is deflection meant to take your eyes off the existential threat. As you must have realized, half of the American electorate voted based on a priggish personal dislike of Trump’s persona and style. Inadvertently, by voting for Joe, they reject American values in favor of globalist values, which oddly enough, is more in sync with Chinese values. It’s “Der Stat uber alles” or government from the top down by regulation, implemented by unaccountable and remote self serving bureaucrats to the benefit of crony capitalists and multinationals. These bureaucrats are all about protecting their own sinecures and do not wish Middle America well, in any way. The lesson here is that many millions were willing to commit economic suicide, as well as put the two dimmest bulbs evah into the presidency for childish, trivial reasons. In other words we traded American liberty, real jobs and prosperity for cheap Chinese goods and hegemony.
I’m not on Facebook or Twitter and I’ve stopped watching professional sports. I still use Chrome but I’m willing to move to a browser that protects privacy. I often use DuckDuckGo, is that the best bet? I try to buy local and avoid imports when possible. The problem is that there is so much deception in determining the origin of consumer goods. I was in Purchasing so I am cognizant of how difficult this prospect is, so I am not a purist. Before, I was put out to pasture, I did materials compliance and I worry about the degree of coerced labor “wink,wink, nod, nod” that exists in the 3rd world supply chains. I’d like to patronize businesses that support American values and avoid businesses that don’t, but I’m not sure where to start. I already boycott Nike and patronize Home Depot. Is there a list somewhere that is fair, accurate and consistently maintained. It would be fun wouldn’t it if real Americans quit Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Google en masse, if the Progs go after Trump with show trials. But, I don’t think that this kind of thing has ever gotten off the ground. My news comes from blogs and the Daily Mail. I had been watching Fox but now I just watch Tucker.
Use Brave browser, Exasperated, a degooglised Chrome fork designed around privacy.
Thank you.
Maybe this will make someone’s day.
The good news, you got an avalanche of fatuous platitudes, trite cliches, and bleary geezer narratives coming your way. The bad news, OMG, you are stuck in a life boat with gashags and morons.
[…] — So much for satire. Anyone who would rather have had a serious discussion of Benford’s law can start with this intuitive example, then look at this application of it to huge amounts of data. The really keen can download these Excel-oriented DIY instructions. FWIW, my earlier comment on the story that prompted this is here. […]
How’s this for obsequious fawning:
“Biden lifted some — not all, but some — of the sadness and anger that hovered over the Black community, immigrants, Jews and others…”
“… as they’d watched the current administration allow white supremacy to grow freely and thrive. Biden was willing to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism not in theory, but in reality….. Black voters raised up Biden because he was the tonic they believed a divided and exasperated nation could accept and he was the reliable partner they could trust. He was a pragmatic choice, but that doesn’t lesson his value…. He didn’t come to this race with revolutionary goals that would fundamentally remodel this country. Perhaps there will be time for that. Biden promised to focus on the urgent need to right this country’s course. And in doing so, to give everyone the space not just to breathe — but to safely, thankfully and blessedly exhale.” Robin Givhan
This was even embarrassing to read. I know what you are thinking, could there by that many mopes out there?
In the mean time where is Titiana McGrath? Where are the satirists? This calls out for mockery and ridicule. There will be tsunamis of this vacuous tripe, in addition to the fatuous platitudes, trite cliches, and useless geezer narratives.
Calling Pennsylvania for Biden (and thus passing 270 electoral college votes) just before Trump’s press conference, with its official poll-watcher witnesses testifying about being thrown out of venues to the cheers of counters and etc., was an obvious, standard, “spit in the soup” thing for the MSM to schedule. (As regards Fox News going along, I have for some time been seeing US-based comments claiming that, under its new owners, Fox News has been getting the woke wobbles, and that Chris Wallace’s partisanship was clear. I don’t see much of Fox myself, of course, so pass on the information FWIW.)
I am not a lawyer – nor a goggle-eyed observer of every latest report. IIUC:
– as regards the law, the Pennsylvania case seems to depend sufficiently just on unconstitutionality of the count ignoring the legislature’s law forbidding post-election-received votes, so is the most robust of the cases;
– as regards the likelihood, the vote that delayed hearing the challenge to its override till after the election was 4-4, Justice Robert’s casting the deciding vote. It has been suggested that Roberts hoped the election would make the point moot, and so save his having to decide. The 4 who wanted to hear it seemed clearly to think the overturn unconstitutional.
So I agree with what (I think) you mean that, now Amy is there, the particular state the MSM used to call it for Biden may move out of his column.
Of course, even if so, that may be very far indeed from the end of the story. 🙂
NiV, you are bullshitting.
How could you say that Britain is not less free today than 150 years ago?
How could you say that ex-slave States are not more free today than 160 or even 60 years ago?
How could you say that non-slave States are not less free today than 100 years ago?
Given the universal law that liberty decreases between one revolution* and the next, it is inevitable that not all generations enjoy the same amount of liberty.
* ‘revolution’ sensu lato, including the Thatcher & Reagan revolutions.
“NiV, you are bullshitting.
How could you say that Britain is not less free today than 150 years ago?
How could you say that ex-slave States are not more free today than 160 or even 60 years ago?”
Was that irony?
I thought to look up 1870 in the history books, in case you was referring to something specific, and found the ‘Elementary Education Act 1870’ passed that year, about which Wikipedia had this to say:
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
Niall,
The story is indeed and in fact very far from over.
Pennsylvania alone going back to where it was at Midnight of 3 November is just a good start.
And this could happen – Associate Supreme Court Justice Alito has ordered all ballots received in Pennsylvania after 3 November to be set aside pending review.
Pennsylvania then a few other Nasty Fights need to happen.
Elsewhere in another comment stream I pointed out that the second ruling by a Pennsylvania judge blocking the ballots received between 9 November and 12 November to be set aside and not counted was a good sign. The way when if you are a real estate broker and your client refuses to pay you the commission that Lien you can get can be useful. But only if your and your lawyers follow up and show up and the closing of that client’s next piece of property and hold that up until you get your back due money.
The first ruling requiring that Trump’s people be present for the counting was useless – you needed the (corrupt) sheriff to enforce it. That ruling and your tool in your hand will instead get you arrested for Indecent Exposure by that same corrupt law enforcement official.
My concern is that Conservatives and Republicans do not DESERVE to see Trump win enough of his court cases to get what will be an Embattled 2nd Term. They give up too easily. They wanted to Win but not to Fight, and still do.
I find such people to be Weak, Loathsome, Disgusting, and so Morally Degenerate that Satan himself would just as soon create a new Circle in Hell so far away from him he does not have to hear, see, or smell what kind of Excrescence they are.
Biden & the Media proclaiming him President are Shock & Awe, another type of Blitz.
If those advisors of Churchill who wanted to surrender because, well, it did make sense to do so if you’ve given over so much to Despair that you cannot see that you have not yet actually lost, and Churchill had listened to him, Britain would have deserved to be not just defeated but raped by the Nazis.
So to with Conservatives and the GOP, and America.
And if Trump wins, and the next four years are not pleasant, what of it? Does anyone have the right to expect better after having settled for so long with the scraps of a very big pie that those content to be No. 2 get?
Having been one of those Idiots for too long, I have abandoned all hope of getting to that Happy Place any time soon. I will get through to something like that Happy Place, through a Storm composed entirely of Fecal Matter and occasionally slightly less worse airborne matter.
And be happy to have been allowed a path through a storm created by my own Cowardice and Sloth that I never deserved to be Blessed with.
NIV,
You should not rely on Marxist entries on Wikipedia – “class consciousness” – LOL.
The reason people opposed state education in Britain was because they had correctly identified it as a Prussian racket incompatible with traditional English notions of justice and freedom.
E.G.West’s “Education and the State” is an oft-quote favourite in these parts but Auberon Herbert is highly recommended too – Herbert even opposed examinations, see “The sacrifice of education to examination” and “State Education: a Help or Hindrance?”
Today, all primary school teachers in England take their cues from the Soviet Marxist psychologist Lev Vygotsky who taught that property rights are baseless because values, knowledge and language are collective.
The Tories currently fund this Marxist propaganda to the tune of £52.2 billion per annum.
NiV: as JohnW correctly points out, wikipedia is not authoritative.
Still, it is of interest fisking it.
Stupid people. People ‘educated’ by the State are never educated in such a way as to increase the likelihood of a revolt against the State.
Although, nowadays people are insane enough to think that they are revolting against the State, when in fact they are revolting against the middle class.
Mentally healthy people.
With some modifications, the same could be said of schools today. It would be even more appropriate for universities and the BBC.
Snorri & JohnW:
Thank you for taking on that irresponsible insertion of Wikipedia content that is not a synopsis of a movie I would not want to see anyhow or the strictly factual biographical information about an entertainer I am curious about.
The very choice of that paragraph by Nihilism In Verbia (did I get the name wrong?) strains my patience. And I am rather annoyed a lot of the time just now.
Fortunately my 12 year old toothless cat who still catches mice when they get in from behind the radiator (although we have to kill the mice for him) and chased a younger cat out of his back yard – and finding new ways to cook that Duck Breast & those Duck Legs I have stored up for Christmas Dinner – provide me with more pleasant things to contemplate.
2021 will be what it is, and because it will be a Year Of Our Lord, need not be as dire as I might be inclined to think it will be.
“NiV: as JohnW correctly points out, wikipedia is not authoritative.”
I didn’t say it was. 🙂
Although since this was only a few years after Marx had published the first volume of Das Kapital, I don’t think it’s beyond the bounds of possibility that people at the time were discussing it in Marxist terms. One should treat *every* source with the same distrust one does Wikipedia. They’re *all* somebody’s opinion.
You only notice it when it’s not the same as yours. A variant on the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.
NIV,
Re “somebody’s opinion.” The remarkable thing about Auberon Herbert is that he provides the testimonies of hundreds of academics, professionals and teachers struggling to implement the disaster of state education. This is typical from the first page:
REV. T. J. THORBURN. I have had nearly eight years’ experience in school work, and although my ” results,” as judged by the percentage-of-passes-test, have been satisfactory, I must join with those who condemn the entire present system. It is fast becoming impossible to educate boys, because they have to be prepared for a rapid succession of examinations, which encourage ” cram ” in every way. And, consequently, not only are boys not taught to think, but even what they do learn (which is to a great extent worthless) is forgotten almost as rapidly as it is acquired.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.
Try not to spend too much time talking to people who don’t believe in anything or listen to anyone else.
Spend your time looking up new Punches for the Holidays.
There used to be at least a hundred of them, mostly with Rum but not all.
Just don’t invite said Nihilist Blockheads to the party. They are Tedious.
And use that Smiley Face emoji is utterly inexplicable ways, as though it makes them more clever.
“People ‘educated’ by the State are never educated in such a way as to increase the likelihood of a revolt against the State.”
And children educated by their parents are never intentionally educated in such a way as to increase the likelihood of them rebelling against their parents, but teenagers constantly do. Every generation rebels against the previous generation’s rules. The stricter and more annoying the rules, the more certain is the rebellion.
But the new generation usually doesn’t overthrow the state, it becomes the state. When the new generation grow up and acquire power, they change the rules.
The idea that the ruling class deliberately and cunningly design society’s institutions so as to lock the populace into obedient slavery is precisely the thesis of Critical Theory – the one invented by the actual Frankfurt School. But this draws a picture of the ruling class as smart and competent, and the designs of bureaucrats as efficient and not prone to break downs and foul ups. I believe society is as it is, and does not change in its essentials, not because a Secret Brotherhood of Machiavellian Illuminati secretly running society from the shadows decree it so, but because that is human nature, and human nature does not change.
Our rulers are incompetent. Our rulers are idiots. (And that goes double for the Marxists!) They couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery, let alone properly design a psychologically insidious education system to brainwash the masses and not get caught. The system is as crap as it is because it’s operated by humans, who are stupid a lot of the time. It’s not all part of a subtle plan.
—
“Re “somebody’s opinion.” The remarkable thing about Auberon Herbert is that he provides the testimonies of hundreds of academics, professionals and teachers struggling to implement the disaster of state education.”
So it ever was. Teachers have been complaining about the failings of rote education methods since Plato – certainly long, long before the state took any part in it. I can’t help feeling that it has less to do with the system, and more to do with the teachers.
“It is fast becoming impossible to educate boys, because they have to be prepared for a rapid succession of examinations, which encourage ” cram ” in every way.”
The implication being that teachers would prefer a system where the learning acquired by their students was not constantly being tested by examinations. Isn’t that a surprise?
Why should it be impossible to teach kids to think, *and* pass exams?
I don’t know. The would-be teacher begs that we should read history, to learn the proper way to live, but which history? The heroic narrative of how our wise and competent ancestors progressed through intelligent planning and foresight to build the enlightened Golden Age, which inexplicably has turned into the mess we see around us? Or the one that sounds like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? An endless succession of stupidity and incompetence and nastiness, exactly like today only more so? I see no reason why the history of teaching’s Golden Age should be different to the history of society in this regard. Who writes the history books, anyway? Teachers, that’s who.
History today is written by Marxist academics. (Which only makes it easier to spot what they’re doing.) You should certainly read it, but you should constantly bear in mind that humans wrote it.
This is precisely the situation.
I would add that many voted for Biden so they could behave like children again. They think they are ‘putting the grown ups back in charge’, so they can, as Obama put it, ‘go out to brunch again’. In other words they can tune out and go back to wrecking their brains with Netflix and Prime garbage.
I have it on good authority that some serious fucking bombshells are going to be dropped by Sidney Powell next week. The voter fraud appears to have been worse than even I expected. Holy fuck.
I cannot stress enough how insane this situation is.
The Fake News Media is an enemy of the American People.
Enemy.
https://defendingtherepublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/COMPLAINT-CJ-PEARSON-V.-KEMP-11.25.2020.pdf
I keep finding that the PC force me to evaluate more and more of Trump’s character features simply as virtues, My update to the end of my post above notes that “This may be the most important speech I’ve ever made” is not an exaggeration. 🙂
In other news, I have seen it claimed by an otherwise-not-so-unreasonable web commentator that Venezuela could not possibly be connected to ‘fixable’ voting machines “because they cannot even keep the lights on”. While (AFAICS) this area of vote fraud sits behind e.g. the four weird data points (of which I saw three), that argument against it reminds me some people can be reluctant to think.
– Firstly, by that argument, anyone viewing North Korea from space can see that ‘Rocket Man’ could never have earned his nickname – but he did.
– Secondly, the claim is not that voting machines were made in Venezuela, even years ago, let alone recently when electricity is rare there, but that a voting company whose output was bought by Chavez and Maduro offered a ‘fixable’ configuration (common sense says “of course it did, or they’d never have bought from them”; the claim is that specific proof also exists).
The question of whether that configuration was deployed elsewhere is then simply an empirical one, no wise affected by whether the Venezuelan masses can use electric kettles these days.