$30 million dollars spent against Judge Roy Moore in Alabama, against his 2 and one-half million

Steve Bannon says it was a victory for Trump. After Alabama, Bannon flew to Colorado to interview populist candidates. Who would that be? Anyone know?

"A righteous populist revolt against the out-of-touch elites in both the U.S. and Europe"

At American Power, Donald Douglas writes,

Democracy's not under threat. There is no wave of "xenophobia" and "racism." And the so-called "nativist" tide is a righteous populist revolt against the out-of-touch elites in both the U.S. and Europe, who've brought on an unprecedented crisis of jihad terror and political correctness. It's these scourges, and the neo-communist economic policies that go with them --- that threaten world order and the survival of democracy.

Spread the word. Keep fighting for freedom. Make America Great Again!

Read more here.

"That’s populism: Doing what you know is wrong, heedless of harmful consequences — some unintended, others easily foreseeable — because the masses will perceive it as empathy."

Andrew McCarthy writes at National Review,

...conservatives are quite good at perceiving problems — especially problems demagogically manufactured into crises for the purpose of rationalizing populist solutions of the statist variety. In reality, the chief political weakness of conservatism is that modern Americans are conditioned to expect that government can — or must at least try to — solve all our problems. It is the lot of conservatives to resist ill-conceived solutions. Populism cannot change the fact that government is incapable of solving problems upstream of government — problems of culture and complexity that government amelioration efforts, however well-intentioned, often make worse.

...Stephen Moore, by contrast, is telling conservatives to abandon their principles entirely: Surrender to the zeitgeist, deep-six the GOP’s image as the (highly imperfect) vehicle of Reagan conservatism, and become “Trump’s populist working-class party.”

He reportedly told some fairly aghast congressional Republicans that it means helping Trump deliver on his campaign promises . . . even if lawmakers think some of them are dumb ideas — just as Moore does. Trump, for example, wants an Obama-like stimulus of a trillion dollars for roads, bridges, etc. Moore’s response? “I don’t want to spend all that money on infrastructure. I think it’s mostly a waste of money. But if voters want it, they should get it.”

That’s populism: Doing what you know is wrong, heedless of harmful consequences — some unintended, others easily foreseeable — because the masses will perceive it as empathy.

In the United States, it is the states, not the public at large, that elect the president. Absent that arrangement, the Constitution would not have been adopted, and the nation would not have been founded. Our republic has become more democratic, but honoring the original understanding ensures that elections remain national in the sense that candidates must court all the states and be responsive to their varying concerns.

Read more here.

"Just an actor"

Bookworm writes,

Those of us around in 1980 vividly remember the media attack on Reagan. The funniest one, in retrospect, was the charge that Reagan was “just an actor” — this from the same political party that can’t get enough of actors spouting their political opinions about candidates, national security, climate change, etc. We were warned about other things, though: that he was crazy, unstable, stupid, untried, a loose cannon, just a talking head, a decadent man who had divorced his first wife, etc.

Reading that list, does any of it sound familiar to you? We live in a sleazier, bigger, bolder, more degraded internet age, and Trump is a less polished man than Reagan so the attack is more savage and biased, but it’s still the same old, same old.

Reagan also caused a schism in the Republican party, not as severe as the one now, but still pretty darn good. Because he was a populist, he lost the elite Republicans but gained those Democrats who didn’t think Carter’s internationalist policies and lack of faith in America served them well economically or kept them safe.

Hey, it was populist agitation that went into making this wreckage!

Mark A. Signorelli writes at The Federalist,

As the accumulating crises confronting the Western world stuff our newsfeeds more and more each day, a certain broad narrative about what is happening seems to have gained near-universal acceptance. It says the populations of Western nations are presently ruled by an incompetent and out-of-touch “elite,” who evince no regard for, or even knowledge of, the people’s will on a variety of issues, ranging from immigration to free trade to education.

In response, the citizens of these nations have demonstrated their contempt for these elites in fairly dramatic ways, from the Brexit to the rise of the Front National to the Donald Trump campaign. It is a contest between populism and elitism, we are told, that defines our political moment.

...Populism is a spirit, an attitude, informed by varying degrees of pride, self-sufficiency, frustration, resentment, and wrath.

...This attitude of permanent disaffection has been the primary psychological note of modern progressivism ever since the uprisings of the 1960s. Over the last half-century, even as the Left has conquered one institution after another—the university, the media, the federal bureaucracy—this disposition to revolt has remained the chief feature of the progressive mind.

It is why the people running our civilization have never developed the virtues necessary to carry out their duties adequately. Determined to always think of themselves as persons out of power, they never learned to regard themselves as persons with power, and all the responsibilities power entails. They never learned to imagine the kinds of moral formation that would fit a person for rule, rather than for protest.

This is why we can listen to a close advisor to the president—a woman with access to the most effective levers of power in the world—declare her intention to “speak truth to power.” But as for speaking truth as power, as for directing their policies with the wisdom and prudence requisite to their offices, the populist elite in control of the Western world have never learned how to do this, because their own modes of juvenile self-fashioning have precluded them from ever admitting that they do indeed occupy such offices.

This is the dimension missing from most analyses of our present political circumstances—the historical dimension. We find ourselves saddled with a teetering institutional structure without considering the decades of populist agitation that went into making this wreckage. Coates’ own biography is uncannily symbolic in this regard. The son of a Black Panther, he continues to spout his father’s revolutionary creed, even as his society grants him an unrivaled authority to speak and to write. It is why a man heaped with accolades and honors can still think himself the victim of a “cosmic injustice;” why a writer privileged with a platform in one of his country’s most prominent organs can think of no other use for this platform than to cultivate deeply uncharitable sentiments in his own child. He is incapable of recognizing himself as the establishment figure he has unquestionably become.

Read more here.

Populism, authoritarianism, extraconstitutional government and the cult of personality

Have you read anything anywhere that explains the populism expressed in the popularity of Trump with Republicans and Sanders with Democrats? Neither have I. Their popularity may be rooted in a desire to speak the truth instead of the manufactured progressive truth about every subject that touches Americans. Politically correct speech and concepts are overwhelmingly false narratives. We are not all racist and sexist. We do want the U.S. to stand up for itself when being constantly taken advantage of, such as defending Europe and Asia when they won't spend the money to defend themselves. Majority rules used to be the case, but now America is governed by false moralistic narratives about the victims du jure.

Perhaps some of the populist anger is directed at the incredible amount of attention given to the social ills experienced by very small minority populations. The liberal elite have become authoritarians, who indenture bakers, florists, and photographers to create works of art for homosexual culture events. Authoritarian elites let grown males into the bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers of our daughters. Authoritarians elites issue unconstitutional executive orders when they don't get their way. Ever higher taxes, over regulation and a nanny state infringe on our freedoms more than ever. Couple that what we see on university grounds where free speech, if not in agreement with politically correct thought, is being shut down at an alarming rate.

Many writers correctly warn against the authoritarianism of Donald Trump, but few warn about the authoritarianism of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. One who does issue such a warning is David Harsanyi at the Federalist. He writes about his own family's experience with the Holocaust.

Certainly, anti-Semitism — and Marx was a heavyweight — is often a precursor of authoritarianism. Yet not once have I heard or read Sanders push back against the rising of anti-Semitism within the progressive movement — which is flourishing, not on the Twitter fringe, but in the heart of American college campuses. For that matter, neither has “progressive” Clinton, who was part of an administration that coddled the BDS movement and helped create a nuclear Iran.

Both of these Democrats traveled to Harlem to have a sit down with anti-Semitic mob-inciter (and Trump pal) Al Sharpton. To me, and I suspect many others, he’s no better than David Duke.

So Bill Maher, Louis C.K., or “Saturday Night Live” can all equate today’s political environment to the German 1930s — a ridiculous overstatement — because they’re comedians using rhetorical excesses. (Oh, how brave they are, right?) But if Trump’s rise deserves this kind of sort of ominous warning, others do as well.

At Vox the other day, Amanda Taub took an entire chilling deep dive into the rise of “authoritarianism” without once mentioning the socialist Left. Yet, using the benchmarks of authoritarianis — strong centralized power and limited political freedoms — we can just as easily describe the modern Democratic Party’s agenda as we can Trumpism. Almost every policy position of the contemporary Left relies on some form of state coercion, mostly through Washington. It’s only relativism that blinds people to this fact.

...Liberals have spent years decimating norms of discourse. Pushing through a generational reform bill without half the country participating degrades the norms of democracy. When they lost Congress over this abuse, not only did they accuse Republicans of standing against the American people (even though the GOP kept expanding its majority) but said their position comprised nothing more than racism. Conservatives were no longer political opposition, they’re people who hate decency, democracy, the poor, the black, the infirm, America, and the system. As this thinking coagulated on the mainstream Left, Democrats had the moral justification to do what they liked.

Nearly the entire Obama presidency has been an exercise in figuring out ways to work around checks and balances. Unilaterally changing the status of millions of illegal immigrants because you can’t achieve your political goals may strike you as morally sound, but it oversteps any conception of executive power found in the Constitution. If you’re a fan of that executive action, you aren’t nervous about authoritarianism, you’re worried about how Trump would use it.

If you support a candidate like Hillary, who pushed the administration to get involved in the Libyan war without congressional approval, you’ll have little moral standing to be upset when Trump bombs people to “take their oil.” If you believe Obama has the right to assassinate suspected terrorists abroad without a trial, you have less authority to be upset when Trump threatens those associated with terrorists.

If you’re nervous about Trump’s plans to “open up” U.S. libel laws to punish journalists who unfairly attack him, I definitely join you. Unlike some people, I’ve never supported Fairness Doctrines. It’s unlikely this effort could get past the Supreme Court. Then again, consider how the First Amendment has being degraded—at every campaign stop and every speech, in fact—by Democrats who promise to undo a Supreme Court decision that bars government from dictating what people can hear, see, and read during elections.

Overturning Citizens United would allow the state in certain instances to control political books and movies—like the one that was critical of Hillary. Democrats believe Americans can be bought off with an ad buy and some flyers. The progressive Left, once home of free-speech absolutism, is now home to safe spaces, microaggressions, IRS oversight of speech, and Justice Councils ferreting out thought crimes.

Democrats would be a lot more believable on Trump’s rise if they hadn’t succumbed to the cult of personality in 2008, which was no less creepy. The attacks on dissent, the chilling of speech (remember the White House’s efforts to collect “fishy” comments from dissenters; one could easily imagine Trump setting up the same kind of system), and the accusation of unpatriotic behavior were all unhealthy for a free society. Yes, Americans are increasingly willing to accept extraconstitutional government if it accomplishes the things they desire. That includes Democrats.

Read more here.







People do not choose to take personal responsibility to become well informed and involved in our republican form of government.

Who is looking out for us?

Mark Steyn writes,

On Wednesday's show Rush Limbaugh discussed the Trump phenomenon through the lens of a 20-year-old Sam Francis article:

"Imagine giving this advice to a Republican presidential candidate: What if you stopped calling yourself a conservative and instead just promised to make America great again?" What do you think might happen in the current climate, where the middle class in the country feels totally left out of everything going on?

They feel like they've been targeted by every liberal Democrat policy that has not been stopped by the Republican Party. What if you dropped [talking] about the free market," stop all of that, "and promised to fight the elites who were selling out American jobs? What if you just stopped talking about reforming Medicare and Social Security and instead said that the elites were failing to deliver better health care at a reasonable price? What if, instead of vainly talking about restoring the place of religion in society ... you simply promised to restore the Middle American core," and everything it stands for?

Rush's view is that "nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal" - ie, that there are insufficient takers for conservatism. It comes to something when the nation's Number One conservative talk-show host is putting it that way, but you can see what he's getting at.

In contrast to the ebb and flow of eternally shifting multiparty systems, America has a rigid, inflexible two-party choice:

One party is supposed to be the party of big government, the other the party of small government. When the Big Government Party is in power, the government gets bigger, and, when the Small Government Party is in power, the government gets bigger.

One party is supposed to be the party of social liberalism, the other the party of social conservatism. When the Socially Liberal Party is in power, the country gets more liberal, and, when the Socially Conservative Party is in power, the country gets more liberal.

One party is supposed to be the party of foreign-policy doves, the other the party of foreign-policy hawks. When the doves are in power, America loses wars, and, when the hawks are in power, America loses wars.

So much for American conservatism's three-legged stool. "Mainstream" Republican candidates are essentially reduced to the argument: This time it'll be different, I promise.

Democrats' principal appeal isn't to philosophical coherence: They tell their coalition that they'll take care of their own - the gays, the blacks, the feminists, the transitioning, the environmentalists, the Hispanics, the educators... This time round, a big chunk of the Republican base has figured it'd like someone who's looking out for them, too.

If the present polls hold up through Iowa and New Hampshire, it'd be the reconfiguration of Mr and Mrs Main Street America as just another interest group. So a philosophical commitment to free trade means less to them than the degeneration of mill and factory towns into wastelands of fast-food service jobs and heroin addiction. An abstract respect for religious pluralism means less to them than reducing the number of crazies running around whose last words before opening fire are "Allahu akbar!" A theoretical belief in private-sector health care means less to them than not getting stiffed by crappy five-figure health "insurance" that can be yanked out from under you at any moment under Byzantine rules and regulations that change 30 times a day. And bipartisan myth-making about "a nation of immigrants" means a whole lot less than another decade of Press One For English, flatlined wages, sanctuary cities and remorseless cultural transformation...

The corrupting of conservatives

Goldberg writes at National Review,

...If you want a really good sense of the damage Donald Trump is doing to conservatism, consider the fact that for the last five years no issue has united the Right more than opposition to Obamacare. Opposition to socialized medicine in general has been a core tenet of American conservatism from Day One. Yet, when Republicans were told that Donald Trump favors single-payer health care, support for single-payer health care jumped from 16 percent to 44 percent.

I’ve written a lot about my problems with populism. One of my favorite illustrations of why the populist mindset is dangerous and anti-intellectual comes from William Jennings Bryan. “The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver,” Bryan announced. “I will look up the arguments later.” My view of conservatism holds that if free silver is a bad idea, it’s still a bad idea even if the people of Nebraska are for it. But Trumpism flips this on its head. The conservatives of Nebraska and elsewhere should be against single-payer health care, even if Donald Trump is for it. What we are seeing is the corrupting of conservatives.

Read more here.

Is the GOP field really all that talented?

Daniel Greenfield writes at Sultan Knish,

Conservative punditry is mourning a field in which talented and promising Republican leaders are being ground under. And they have a point, but if those Republicans were really so talented and promising they wouldn't be falling behind to a man whose big talent is brash self-confidence.

Brash self-confidence, an outsized personality, a willingness to take great personal risks are what is absent from the Republican field. And those define Trump's brand. They may be fake, but in an age where the camera defines truth, your messaging is only as good as your acting and your sales skills.

Donald Trump is a great salesman. His Republican rivals aren't. Some are talented lawyers. They understand policy and political tactics. But they couldn't sell a discounted heater to Eskimos.

...Trump has changed the race from a huddle of politicians trying to lock down distinct blocs and lines of appeal in the party, Evangelicals, libertarians, candidates who can appeal to minorities, youth votes, to blatant populism. Trump doesn't appeal to any blocs. He has the FOX News sensibility of shouting the right sorts of things at the right time with a fake working class edge.

In short, he's Bill O'Reilly.

...The Republican field is filled with candidates who offer workshopped solutions. Even the best of them don't quite channel the public outrage, the sense of persecution that so many people feel.

They're sensible, reasonably personable, somewhat articulate, possessed of a measured sense of humor and all those things that Mitt Romney couldn't figure out how to be in front of a camera.

By 2012 standards, they're a vast improvement. By 2016 standards, that may not be enough.

...People need someone to fight for them. They need more from a politician than a great story. They need the feeling that the politician will do everything he can to fight for their way of life.

If they want to win, they are going to have to silence their inner lawyer, shut down some of the skills they learned as politicians, and learn to project what their audience is feeling. A good politician knows what you want to hear. A good salesman knows what you want to feel.

Trump isn't fighting this as a battle of ideas or policies. He's talking about what people feel.

Read more here.

Can we nominate Victor Davis Hanson for President?

Victor Davis Hanson wonders

So how hard is it for a Republican simply to say, “I oppose illegal immigration because (1) it is illegal. It undermines the sanctity of the law and discriminates against the law-abiding waiting in line to enter the U.S. legally. (2) It benefits corporate grandees at the expense of working people. (3) It is driven by self-serving elites of the ethnic-grievance industry to enhance their own advantage, rather than to help poor folks struggling to find decent wages and schools.

Cannot a Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union simply say, “Mr. President, you are shamelessly taking credit for gas and oil production that you did all in your power to thwart. The middle class is enjoying a temporary cut in gas prices, despite, not because of, you.”

How hard it is for Republicans to say to liberals, “I accuse! The wealthy have their security details, most of them armed. The underclass has access to illegal weaponry as the armed crime sprees in a Detroit or Chicago attest. Why then go after the middle class, who neither outsource their security nor break the law? Before we issue sweeping edicts aimed at the law-abiding, let us disarm all the security guards of Hollywood and Washington, D.C., and put away for good the criminals who use illegal firearms to hurt the innocent.”

Hanson goes on to show how Obama's policies are hurting the middle class and young people. On fairness:

At some point cannot a conservative make the case that liberalism, as preached by its elites, is a psychological mechanism to shield wealthy progressives from the ramifications of their own ideology?

Cannot a Republican ask Obama at least to forgo Martha’s Vineyard next summer or the next zillionaire golfing outing if he wants to rant about the perks of the 1%?

How liberal was it that a few hundred Bay Area elites went to court over the last few years to divert about 20 million acre-feet of precious irrigation water to flow out to the sea, in vain pursuit of their fantasies about expanding bait fish populations in the delta or in hopes of seeing a salmon jump out of the river by Fresno? Tens of thousands of poor people will lose their jobs this summer, as irrigation water reserves are exhausted and acreage goes out of production.

He includes the green and diversity categories:

Are the heads of Hollywood studios reflective of the rich diversity of California? And if we are going down the diversity and fairness routes, then surely Al Gore needs a sermon — after he unloaded a failed network to an anti-Semitic, carbon-burning medieval sheikdom, in failed efforts to beat the new capital gains tax that he so strenuously supported. How fair, how egalitarian, how diverse is all that? What is the ethnic profile of Sierra Club membership?

Surely there is a populist case to be made — or is the Republican establishment to manage a permanent, sober, and judicious out-party, as it is demagogued to death by the privileged?