The Idiot

The Idiot is a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Like most Russian literature, it is a big book full of complicated characters, with funny names. The central character of the novel, Prince Myshkin, is a young man whose good intentions and decency are taken to be stupidity by the worldly characters of the novel. The title is intended to be ironic. His naivete is assumed to be due to stupidity. The novel is a study of what happens when such a person is put in a world populated by people lacking basic decency and morality.

Our cultural elites use something similar to promote the values of the ruling classes through movies and television. The movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is the classic example. The twist our betters put on it is the innocent adventurer taking on the corrupt system holds all of the values cherished by our actual ruling class. Meanwhile, the fictional villains are always people who sound like the critics of managerial state democracy. Even so, the basic theme is the same. We have the naïf versus the cabal of the cynical.

Whether as propaganda or psychological study, the central question is whether a corrupt and malignant system can be changed or defeated by a morally good person. The Hollywood version will on occasion have the white hat defeated, for the purpose of reinforcing some element of the one true faith. Usually though, the good guy triumphs over the system. This propaganda has been so effective, most American honestly think that by assiduously obeying every rule they will one day have their country back.

One of those Americans seems to be President Trump. The back story to his run is that he was motivated to run, after being disrespected by various on-line propagandists like Jonah Goldberg. Trump could not understand why a billionaire like him was mocked, by guys like Goldberg, who are nothing more than servants to rich men like Trump. To Trump, this made no sense. He was motivated to run in order to prove to these people that he could do anything they can do, but even better. There is nothing bigger than President.

Since his victory, Trump has been searching around for some way to be accepted by the political class. He assumed that winning the election would also win him the respect of official Washington. Instead, they locked shields to oppose him, even installing a special prosecutor to dig around in his life for a way to impeach him. Unable to figure out why he is treated like a skunk at the picnic, he has flailed around looking for something to give away in order to get the respect he craves.

Now, he is willing to fink on his voters by breaking every promise he made during the campaign. That is why he is dealing with Chuck Schumer. The sole reason for Schumer to exist in Washington is to guide troublesome Republicans through the process of committing political suicide. In the case of Trump, that means going for amnesty, abandoning the wall and supporting candidates who hate him. It is not enough that Trump fink on his voters. He must humiliate himself in front of them as well.

This is not to say that Trump is just a craven liar. He is one of the few people in the financial elite who embraces those old ideas of civic responsibility and fair play that used to define the American elite. Trump is from an age when it was your duty to uphold the rules and be a good example to others. He naively thinks that is how things still work. They do not, which is why the ruling elite looks at him as odious interloper. They do not hate him as much as they hate what he represents. They also think he is an idiot because of it.

One of the main critiques, from the Dissident Right, of Buckley Conservatives, is that they naively cling to ideas that are no longer applicable. Waving around the Constitution, for example, when the document is now interpreted to mean the opposite of what the Founders intended, is idiotic. The foolish embrace of principal, when it means sure defeat, is proof that the alleged opposition to the managerial state is either composed of fools, or traitors sent to subvert any real opposition to the status quo.

Now, much of what comes from the alt-right is ignorant chanting that is not based in anything but frustration with their fringe status. Even so, they are not wrong to point out that the Civic Nationalists and the alt-lite are naive and foolish to think they can talk the other side into turning away from their suicidal course. Every attempt to affect change within the system, is bound to fail, as the rules of the system are designed to protect and perpetuate the status quo. The people in charge are not going to quit on their stool.

“We’re not voting our way out of this” is a popular way of making this point. That is not entirely true, but it is a useful way to put it. Simply electing people who say the right things is not changing a system that has been corrupted to defend the interests of the two percent. The system, as it stands, must be subverted and destabilized. That does not happen at the ballot box. That is what we are seeing with Trump. He is being swallowed up by a system designed for that purpose. You do not beat it by playing by the rules.

It is hard to know if Trump will pull out of his death spiral. He has shown a willingness to reverse course if he feels he has made an error. It is also possible that he fears Mueller has something on him or his kids and he is hoping to trade away your future for his dignity and freedom. Maybe it all just part of the chaos that Trump seems to enjoy. Regardless, it is another reminder that the people putting their trust in the system are idiots. The system is not the solution to out problems as a society. The system is the problem.

93 thoughts on “The Idiot

  1. Went to a ” Boston Breakers ” USFL game many moons ago. Cablevision was giving away tickets every time somebody got a new cable box.

    We sat in the 90-degree heat on aluminum bleachers at BU’s Nickerson Field. We left at the half . The blazing sun and heat was too much. Went back home and watch the rest of the game in the air-conditioned house.

    Back then the New England Patriots were known as the patsies, but even that couldn’t have helped the Boston Breakers. Not a big football fan but from what i rememberd people simply hated the idea of a summer league.

    However now with the NFL’s declining viewing audience and the millionaire thugs protesting perhaps it might be a good time to float the idea of another football league ? 😉

  2. A week or two ago when news leaked out that Trump was meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, I reminded friends that Trump said he would do exactly this if the GOP could not get its act together and put legislation on his desk.

    And this week, just today, we get word that there is a GOP Obamacare bill that is something like one vote short in the Senate. It’s basically a block-grant bill, which is what most sane observers think Obama and the Democrats could have done in 2010 which would not have turned 2/3rds of their elected offices over to GOP control. It’s also the most logical way to repeal and replace Obamacare in steps. Yes, it still means some of the Medicaid expansion stays, but the mandates go, and a lot of the taxes will go. At that point, “Obamacare” is an empty shell, and can be repealed later on without much of a wimper from Democrats.

    Those two events (Trump’s meetings and the re-emergence of an Obamacare repeal bill) are not a coincidence. As I said on this very site back in Jan/Feb/Mar, the way you beat the system is to use its own rules against it. By going out there and making nice with the Democrats, Trump is throwing a decade of GOP incompetence right back in their faces. His actions are a clear indication to Republicans that they will either wield their power, or Trump will wield it for them (while putting other people in charge…namely Pelosi/Schumer). He also did something pretty shrewd by making the debt ceiling only a 3-month extension. The GOP Leadership wanted it extended out through the next election because the debt ceiling has been proven to be the single most effective brake on government expansion ever discovered by man.

    Hence the DACA stuff.

    The wall is getting built. Enforcement is happening in a way that has not happened in years. At some point, people may have to accept the DACA “children”, which I think will make some people pretty mad. But the idea that we cannot build a wall or enforce the laws is dead, and dead forever.

    In this, illegal immigration and mass immigration is dying in much the same way “gun control” has died. Nobody seriously plans any major gun control legislation in this country, not anybody who faces any significant electoral challenge. It’s mainly a fundraising concern at this point. That’s the path Trump has set the country on with respect to immigration as well.

    It’s not all bad. People need to stop reading “the news” and just think a bit.

  3. Especially this time of year the crash-and-burn of the USFL comes to mind: https://priceonomics.com/donald-trumps-misadventures-in-professional/
    Which yes, was Trump’s fault. Before he came on the scene the USFL was gaining credibility, buoyed by the rise of ESPN (back when it was still Entertainment and SPorts) hungry for content, and baby boom demographics in their prime which pulled Crysler, Disney and Harley out of their late 70’s-early 80’s doldrums.
    Trump’s goal was to force an NFL/USFL merger in the same fashion as the NBA/ABA merger a few years prior.
    It failed miserably.
    IMHO, had Trump left it alone, it’s quite possible that the USFL would have survived and the WLAF/NFL Europe, disastrous CFL US expansion and the joke that was the XFL would have been unnecessary.

  4. FYI…Facebook is blocking your site from sharing.

    I did enjoy sharing your posts.

    When do you think someone will start up a competing site?

    Thanks for your continued efforts

  5. In 2016 what I wanted was an egotistical billionaire headquartered in Manhattan to be President. My view was that such a person best represented the country.

    Imagine my joy when I found DJT on the ballot.

    So here we are, enjoying the fruits of republic that Mark Levin writes books about.

  6. Uh…. I think you’re misreading this whole thing. Dealing with the Dems has the Dem-rabid-base furious! Trump has pivoted to ” getting stuff done” or appearing to try.. A majority of citizens are unhappy with what DC has become. The more DC hates on Trump, the more is seen as an authentic, non-partisan patriot… trying to knock the table over.

    There is no deal on DACA. It’s just BS talk. The press HAVE to put a wedge in somewhere between Trump and his voters. You mentioned Mr. Smith Goes to Washington… Remember the pols deciding the way to stop young Senator Smith was to make allegations and lie about him, to his boy scouts helpers… There you go. It’s as old as dirt. And they are trying it with Trump and his voters… by hook or by crook… a wedge MUST be formed…. or all them swamp critters are doomed. Hang on… it’s gonna get rough soon.

    • In 1970 I watched ‘MSGTW’ on tv and thought it maudlin and dated (I was 9 at the time). A couple of years ago my wife and I watched it again on YouTube, when it was up for a day or so, and I was stunned by how dark, and hopeless, and true it all was. Kudos to Frank Capra, a man who loved this country intensely but who also saw how the system is stacked against everyday people.

      As a GOP voter, I can revel in all the “victories” we’ve enjoyed. The elimination of funding for Planned Parenthood and NPR, the elimination of the Obamacare penalty at tax-time (for those of us unable to buy insurance under the very conditions precipitated by the new law), the removal of forces from Afghanistan, the negation of ‘DACA’, the re-imposition of law enforcement on the border, the vigorous protection of freedom of speech and association in our pubic spaces.

      Oh, wait…

  7. The first step on the road to redemption is to see reality with clarity. A few can see it from miles away, but most will only take notice when the proverbial 2 x 4 hits them upside the head. And we are still a long way from that awakening. In the mean time, work to improve your resilience, self-reliance, basic skills, and keep the powder dry. Trump is neither Messiah nor traitor. At best, he will become a catalyst that hastens the day of reckoning.

  8. What you said is EXACTLY what I think. The people that run our country are looting it into the ground, I believe it’s very likely that they have at least half the legislature blackmailed with at the minimum sex with prostitutes and likely in a large number of cases sex with under-aged girls and boys. They use the financial system to financialize all aspects of life and their closeness to the FED to print themselves unlimited amount of money, remember the junk bonds of the 80’s, means they own most ALL productive parts of the economy. It’s going to take a ruthless attack upon them to break free. He will have to jail them. I suspect if he was ruthless enough that the quickest way to get to them would be 9-11 (building 7), catching them having sex with children and then ruthlessly torturing them until they spill the beans on the rest. He should find where they have stored all the blackmail tapes and steal them with special forces washed through the Marshall service.

    I don’t think he has the guts. They’ve surrounded him with deep State actors. This will not end well.

    • I agree with you that blackmail based on sex with underage girls and boys is a huge, hidden factor in our politics. I’ve read about the Franklin scandal, and other things over the years have convinced me that part or all of the Pizzagate mess is real. Podestas are sickos for sure. Ann Barnhardt claims that homosexuality and pederasty and the associated blackmail and extortion extend far beyond Washington, DC, and are factors in Vatican politics and amongst the globalist financiers as well.

      There’s no doubt that people at the highest levels of power, political and financial, are involved with some bizarre and wicked stuff:
      http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/opening-ceremony-worlds-largest-tunnel-bizarre-occult-ritual/

  9. No one man is going to un-F the mess that is Washington DC. I think going to the Democrats was a beautiful move. It puts all the Rhinos out there on Front Street for their constituents to see.

    At the end of the day it’s “We the People ” that are responsible for getting those traitors out of office. Unfortunately half the country will still vote for Chucky and Nancy, but now their constituents are angry for having the audacity to cut a deal with President Trump.

    The Donald is a Wily coyote I say we give him more time 🙂

    • Even if incumbents are voted out of office, the entire political/government apparatus has been set up around the donors and their money. The donors control who runs and wins office with their money. Once in office, the donors control the legislation in Congress with their money. You cannot improve our system without limiting the donors and money. But Americans have been convinced through more beautiful propaganda from the very-best-consultants-money-can-buy that money in politics is free speech.

  10. Concur with most of this, but I have a feeling that “he caved on immigration” might go down with “he’ll never be president.”

    • He has no path. He doesn’t have the organization! He is behind on spending! … This is the best time ever… all the masks are dropping… Trump is blessed by his detractors. They all keep doubling down…. authenticating him and defining him as a true apostate of Big Government Get-a-long… The more crap he takes, the clearer it is that he is in fact an enemy of the swamp and the PC media/Universities. More please

  11. Z-Man said: “the Civic Nationalists and the alt-lite are naive and foolish to think they can talk the other side into turning away from their suicidal course. Every attempt to affect change within the system, is bound to fail, as the rules of the system are designed to protect and perpetuate the status quo.

    Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy writ very large, in letters of fire over the road. That’s why I think his best course of action is to reduce the federal bureaucracy by wholesale personnel reductions. Simply carve off large chunks of the individual Departments by redefining their missions, then doing the vision-mission-goals thrash that many businesses go through when they get refocused via take-over or merger. I imagine that would be right up his alley.

    One thing I think he ought to do is disestablish the Department of Education entirely. This would remove a lot of the federal leadership — and more importantly, the funding — that’s behind the radicalization of our education system.

    • I don’t see most of the people having a taste for the full dissolution of the country and abandonment of the structure/system we have in place, and believe we will see most of the federal bureaucracy implode as the money dries up for one simple reason : The primary earners who pay most of the taxes aren’t getting the stability it was supposed to provide, and the number of people who depend on the system have demanded benefits/payoffs far larger than can be sustained. At some point the cost of shooting the peasants will be lower than paying the protection rackets.

      The major cities will continue to implode, but the states will trod on, and the suburbs will keep pushing back on attempts to make them take the trash the urban elites want to unload – and the ‘burbs will get a lot of support from the ethnic dons who need their serfs to stay put.

      My continued question for Z and the rest is ‘what do you want to happen next.’ ‘Things will be ugly’ is not a rallying cry. It’s not even a call to arms – it’s more on the level of a call to stay out of the fray, let the darkies thin their herds while we spit on each other for kicks.

  12. The “Bourne” movies are an excellent example of the propaganda you mention: “Yes, the intelligence agencies serve corporate organized crime cartels and are packed with dillusional sociopathic warmongers, but a few God-fearing, American-value warriors remain, are fighting the good fight, and they’re winning!, so worry not — it’s all going to be okay.”

  13. “Since his victory, Trump has been searching around for some way to be accepted by the political class. He assumed that winning the election would also win him the respect of official Washington. Instead, they locked shields to oppose him”

    Thank you for describing Trump in a couple sentences. A great line.
    People get wrapped around the axle trying to figure him out as if he has a grand plan. You nailed it very simply.

  14. The problem is that Trump voters are fake Americans

    Let me explain-America is fast becoming a country of freedom, of equality, of justice, of COLOR

    It is becoming a good country in fact not only in theory and myth

    Trump voters are fighting against that. To them those who aren’t white christians are not real people. To trump voters America coming to terms with its land theft and slavery is a bad thing. As the country takes down racist monuments starts to teach the truth about history and holds whites accountable for their evil ways Trump voters are fighting tooth and nail to preserve unearned privilege

    I would like to think that Trump is learning from real new future Americans that his base is evil and fake and that he must abandon them to fully embrace what freedom and the country is truly about

    • So, then, a good country can only be one which isn’t white? That’s good to know. You’ve made a choice based on skin color. Pardon me for laughing when that bites you on the a**.

    • You have interesting views . . .

      Fallacious as hell, but interesting. So – whose bucket of tar and brush are you using with that fine bit of sociological and political philosophy?

      You should have stopped above with “I would like to think…”

      Perhaps you skipped a lot of Civics classes, or your school(s) never had one, but this country was founded on principles that permit us to ignore those like you, who purport to tell the rest of us what we should think.

    • I see Tiny Duck has decided to pay us another visit.
      I’ll be OK with America “coming to terms with it’s land theft and slavery” when the Turks pick up their greasy asses and vacate Anatolia, move back to Central Asia and we re-brand Istanbul Constantinople. And they pay reparations for hundreds of years of slavery and land theft and cultural appropriation.
      When Arabs vacate their colonial holdings in North Africa and the Levant and relocate to the Arabian peninsula, and apologize incessantly for hundreds of years of slavery and land theft and cultural appropriation, then we can talk about America doing the same.
      Until then, F*ck Off !!!

  15. Due to our decadence, we are entering the post-nation-state era. The elites are tearing up the rulebook and what comes afterward will be a combination of vague, meddlesome, and useless global governance by corporations and perhaps the UN and anarchy at the street level for those outside the Cloud. We see this in most Latin-American nation-states today, though it will intensify as the stable examples of nationhood are eroded. It could start to look like the collapse of the late Bronze age circa 1177 BC when there were large numbers of people – such as the Sea Peoples – on the move due to famines, wars, plagues, and death. The Four Horsemen follow in succession. We sea much of this already with Hatians in Chile, Syrians and Somalis in Germany and Sweden, and the resulting breakdown.

    Trump is a man from the apotheosis of the nation-state. He still believes in it even though it doesn’t believe in its own rules. The rulers we have are an accurate reflection of us and our voting patterns, as painful as it is to admit.

    The only solution I see is for municipal and state governments to push back against some of the disastrous policies at the national level. For example, red states of consequence should inform Washington DC of the consequences if Trump is impeached and the borders aren’t enforced. Unfortunately, too many are addicted to federal money to raise any objections.

    I don’t think we can vote our way out of this at a national level, but local leaders can make national leaders do their jobs because local leaders derive their right to rule from the people while national leaders now seem to derive it from the Swamp itself. We are in this ‘in-between’ stage where no leaders feel obligated to follow the law, but only local leaders and possibly state leaders can be made to and enforce this up the chain. I am making a classic argument from the pre-nation-state era, by the way.

    • Excellent comment. I think we are closing in on the end of a larger civilizational cycle, not just the end of America as it was known in the 50’s.
      The West is in a terminal phase, everyone who reads sites like this knows it.
      How fast, in the age of the internet, this all unravels is arguable, but it is coming to a head. It won’t happen next week or even next year, but a larger systems breakdown is approaching, and the collapse of the late Bronze Age is a fine example.
      A great bifurcation is coming, and the fate of Western peoples is at stake. I don’t think Western peoples, white folks, are going to disappear, in fact the pressure will create some new diamonds. The Western peoples who stick to their guns through these upheavals will be stronger and better for it. A lot of the dross in our own populations will get boiled off, and as unfortunate as that sounds I don’t see any way around that.
      I think Central and Eastern Europe will hold fast. The Anglosphere, deeply tied to and essentially run by globalists, is headed for a brick wall at high speed, and whoever makes it out of the wreckage will plant the seeds for the next epoch to unfold.

    • …local leaders can make national leaders do their jobs because local leaders derive their right to rule from the people…

      This is why I think one avenue of attack is to repeal the 17 Amendment and get the senators back to responding to their states’ governments. Keep yapping at Congress to do it, and/or push for an Article V Convention of the States to get it done. Don’t let up on this issue.

      If a future senator votes to make the US Chamber of Commerce happy and his vote runs counter to his state’s sentiments, his state government call reel him in, maybe even replace him.

      • The solution is a kind of “Minority Report” scenario where the precogs find anyone who ever, in any future timeline, utters the words “vote for me” or “elect me”, and then those people are all immediately rounded up and shot.

    • I live in a Latin American nation state and I strongly disagree with your observation. Europe (where I lived previously) yes, but South America, no. Unless you’ve spent considerable time here and are fluent in the language spoken, these countries are very difficult for an outsider to attempt to analyze.

        • Outside of the principal cities (megalopoli, really), “globalism” is a concept entirely lacking. “Anarchy” is confined to cities as well, by and large. Chile (under Bachelet) is allowing Haitian (!) refugees in, but countries like Argentina, Colombia, Perú have turned away from the left and are attempting to strengthen their national identities, not dilute them. I live in the interior of Argentina and even federal gov presence is nearly non-existent.

          • This is largely true in the US also. The cities are where non-whites are given handouts and the countrysides are full of whites. This is why they hate the countrysides. I’ve been reading books on rural economic development and am planning to move to such an area.

            Argentina and Peru have had their fill of Leftism. I’m surprised Argentina didn’t turn into a dictatorship under Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. ARgentine missionaries report that crime is still very high in ARgentina and FerFAL reports that it’s high in the countryside. I don’t know if I believe FerFAL. Peru, of course, dealt with El Sendero Luminoso for 10 years. Most Peruvians I’ve met have been pretty right wing. Colombia dealt with the Cartels. Perhaps these are the emerging powers of the Southern hemisphere in the future.

            We’re ignorant of Latin America because our press never reports on the messes our Left helped create down there.

            This can only mean blow-back on the US.

  16. Donald Trump is a New York Democrat. At least, virtually all of his social and business partners were. He bought himself a Republican nomination, for reasons that still aren’t clear to me, and ran against the Wicked Witch, who was formerly one of his compadres.

    Masses of yellow-dog Democrate held their noses and used their secret ballots to vote against the Wicked Witch, et voila, El Presidente Trump.

    Did I expect Trump to fulfill his campaign promises? Since I first voted in 1980, I’m not sure any of the incumbents even *tried.* Did I expect him to put up even token opposition to the Deep State? It never crossed my mind. Did I expect them to lead him around by the nose? Certainly.

    I’m mean-spirited enough to maintain that Trump could be doing better… but I’m still flabbergasted that he had even made an effort to do what he promised.

  17. Voting for a hero to reform Washington is akin to sending fresh virgins to a brothel in a vain attempt to reform it. Few can work in Babylon before succumbing to its’ tempting fleshpots. Well-intentioned crusaders soon become part of the problem instead of the solution, suborned by the likes of Schumer, devoted servant of Mephistopheles.

  18. Everyone needs to consider things not by appearance until that is unavoidable. We are nowhere near than with Donald. His goal was to “draining the swamp” – to dismantle the PTB in DC.

    He is doing so – all the while not letting the real “idiots: know what he is doing. We so often are superficial in our judgments of things. Here are several differing point of view that ought to be considered:

    Conservativetreehouse.com. Sundance has been spot on.

    https://www.spartareport.com/2017/09/scott-adams-explains-trumps-daca-ploy-get-wall-built/ Scott Adams, likewise.

    And this jewel: https://www.spartareport.com/2017/09/daca-panic-backstabbing-politics-and-betrayal-hysteria/

    We’re but 8 months in, Trump has taken so much flak that would have destroyed any of us and our opinions, and he is still standing while some are taking down their tents. We elected him for a 4-year term. Let us judge him after his first term, rather than nitpick every time we hear of some :press” report that says otherwise. He has made the media look the fools they are since day one – let his long game play out. Impatience serves no one!

    Jes’ saying – jb

    • I would much rather look at his history of ploys… so far he has been playing everyone and forcing them to show their hands and true allegiances. This whole Daca situation just…feels exactly like the previous ploys.

      I voted for Trump. I never assumed he was the alt-right choice, but the alt-right choice could never have gotten elected. So far he is still doing the Job we hired him for, setting in place the mechanisms for breaking the power structure, and maybe giving a REAL choice a chance. I am pleased with his performance so far.

  19. A hard assessment,but probably valid. It may be too late to restore the USA to what it was;and I can’t think of examples in history when it happened. “We have met the enemy, and they are us”. I fear it could be a very hard fall from grace.

    • Historically, it’s always a hard fall. The termites have eaten away at the foundation, there are too many holes to fill at this point.
      Trump could be a minor restoration, depending on what direction his presidency takes, but I see him as more of an interlude.
      As Zman said above, the Left and the globalists are not going to give up.
      If anything, Trump has forced them to push the peddle to the floor.
      The pendulum will swing back, and seeing as how the Left has been artificially holding it in place for years now, when it swings back in the other direction it’s going to be severe, unless the Left destroys the clock altogether, at which point we start over from scratch.

  20. I’ve always held to the view that presuming to know what makes someone tick is a wasted effort. Whatever he thinks, the proper response is to register displeasure with amnesty to the system via all available channels. If that comes to naught, nobody can be said to have missed an opportunity. For feint or folding, Trump is the last of the civic nationalists.

  21. I went through a full rage-cycle about Trump’s DACA shenanigans last week.

    But now it seems pretty clear: when Trump said the the Legislature should create the amnesty terms & he would sign it, that’s pretty indicative that he doesn’t really want the amnesty.

    Betting on Congressional dysfunction & gridlock & cowardice is about as close as you can get to a sure thing in DC.

    • DACA is a political tarbaby for the GOP – if they reform it and grant amnesty they will be primaried out of existence.. So they won’t mess with it. In a couple of weeks a new story will dominate capitol hill and DACA will be forgotten.

  22. A common financial cliche is “Trees don’t grow to the sky.” When the money go ’round stops, and the markets tank, then I think it will get real and politics will shake out. Trying to predict it is impossible. All that is possible is to try to connect with real people and support sound people. I find commentators like Sailer, Zman and Ramzpaul sensible. I don’t find Trump
    particularly sensible but voted for him as the only alternative to a very evil leftist. What would happen if the economy nosedives and Trump gets saddled with that. Gets real then. Problem is I don’t see any politicians who I would follow in such times. What’s needed is a ground up organization. The tea party could have been such a group but GOPe subverted it. I think a second attempt at something like that will be necessary. Groups like that are sparked at an unexpected time, and having an organized online political group that can coordinate them would be essential. Sadly, I don’t see that developing either. The Altright seems more interested in hosting and tolerating larpers than real people. Tim

    • One way to keep your movement from being subverted is to keep your movement unpalatable to the people who would subvert it by infiltration or by using funding in coercive ways, as was done to the Tea Party. If sharing social space with Nazis is what it takes to do this, it’s worth a shot.

      This is part of the reason why I distrust people who are trying to build a brand while dabbling in alt right politics.

      • Distrusting people who have a private agenda, who are self-aggrandizing, is smart. Sharing social space with Stormers who rant about hook nosed Jews isn’t. They get to rant and rave if they like. I believe in the first amendment, which isn’t the same as telling them they are a vanguard, or serve a useful purpose. Tim

  23. “The system is not the solution to out problems as a society. The system is the problem.”

    What system are you talking about? If it is the political system, then you are saying something like this to someone planning to go on a diet: “The alimentary system is not the solution to your problems as an obese person. The alimentary system is the problem.

  24. So “playing by the rules” is futile under the current conditions, and “not playing by the rules” turns Trump, and us, into those we seek to counter. So what is “door number 3”?

    • There is no door number 3.

      And not following the rules doesn’t make us the mirror image of leftists anymore than the Founding Fathers were Antifa because they decided they were not going to do what they were told.

  25. Trump is either a first step, or simply an interlude.

    If we can’t win by playing by the rules, I’d like to know how we are going to win otherwise. Since we’re on Dostoyevsky, I guess one way is to play the waiting game that the radicals in his novels played. Watching everything go bad and not raising a finger to help, perhaps even pushing things along. A kind of Cloward-Piven right wing.

    I drove through campus today. Half or more of the kids have no business being there, and within ten years probably won’t be. That means the pool of available left wing storm troopers will be that much smaller, and the pool of people who feel alienated from the elites that much larger.

    I’m going to say it again. The 20th century was an aberration where revolution is concerned. Most revolutions in history have been attempts to restore some older order. The pattern is due for a shift back in that direction, simply because the attempts to create some “new man” have been uniformly destructive, and everyone knows this. And they also know that the “new man” people are the ones in charge now. They aren’t going to be leading any revolution. They’re the ones that are going to be defending an ever shrinking piece of turf, and holding on to increasingly impotent powers.

    I probably won’t live to see it, but it sure would be nice to see the looks on the faces of the lefty professor types when the right wing cultural revolution happens.

    • College is part of the USA debt bubble. When the debt bubble pops, or when the currency pops, enrollment collapses. This is yet another reason to wish for it to happen.

      Kids go to college and major in debt and activism, then graduate with a useless degree and want to recruit help voting for debt forgiveness. Fedgov is now directly in the student loan business, to the tune of over $1 Trillion.

      Moar free shit please.

      • The leftists running the culture never honestly state that the reason they want young people to go to college is to recruit them as future moles or stormtroopers. When times are good, the selling point is “the experience”: exposure to a bigger world, widening horizons, meeting people of different backgrounds, exposure to different ideas, etc.

        When times are hard, it’s a ticket to employment: “Competition for jobs is stiff! You’ve got to distinguish yourself from everyone else! Employers will only choose the best, and a degree will give you a leg up on the competition!”

        But now that practical advice is turning out to be worthless. Young people go to college and still can’t get jobs. The stories about the debts incurred are getting around, and will scare young people off. They might as well save the 4 years and all the money if they’re going to be unemployed anyway. The left will be losing its shock troops soon.

  26. Trump was the best could have hoped for. Hopefully he will see the foolishness of trading away his credibility with 60 million voters for a handful of foreigners. Unfortunately Sessions is really to blame. If not for Mueller Trump could have booted the deep state holdovers. Now he has to bend the knee. We are screwed.

  27. I think you’re wrong on Trump. I see him using the good ol’ “bait and switch” and “move the goalposts” sorts of shenanigans that the Left have used over and over against the hapless Republicans to trip them up. It’s a relief seeing someone on “our side” use it against the Left!

    Trump is *not* looking for “affirmation,” but I’m pretty sure he (as he has most of his life) wants to go down in the books as a “winner” President. He’s smart enough to realize that granting some sort of amnesty to the DACA scum would be *instant* political suicide…and that’s something I certainly *don’t* see Trump taking lightly.

  28. No talk about subversion and rebuilding a legitimate system can be had without settling the Debt Question. How many Americans, the smart and the conservative included, are in financial debt? How many have structured their lives on top of promises on top of promises?

    • This morning over at Taki’smag, “Where Are the Vikings” said “You cannot drain concrete.” She’s right. That is going to require a jackhammer and considerable TNT.

  29. I had no high hopes when I voted for this man. I really feared a Hildebeast presidency and was elated for her defeat. To see her rushed out ghost written bs book makes it that much sweeter.

    That said, I figured we get something thrown our way reasonably often. Once in a blue moon more like it. God only knows what this strange man will do.

    • Trump seems to be a reflection of voters’ desires and our fears. Whatever it is that voters are looking for, there he is. It’s fun to root for the underdog. Just don’t bank on it.

    • I have no regrets voting for Trump, but I had no illusions about him either. At best, he is a wrecker. There’s more to this DACA deal than is being reported. The point may be to get the troops motivated to start screaming at their representatives. Trump could simply be shaking things ups to see what happens. He is at war with Ryan and maybe this is part of it.

      We’ll see.

      • I’ll say what I’ve maintained from the start of his election – he’s the 2nd coming of Reagan and that means primarily GRIDLOCK. People put on rose colored glasses when they remember him and the 80s, but what I remember was him constantly bitching over and over and over and over about how he couldn’t get anything done because of Congress. Oh, and making deals with the “other” party, man that brings back memories of Reagan too.

        I guess we can look forward to Pence giving his best impression of “Read mah lips” in 2024? One can only hope. Or something.

        • Reagan took down Soviet communism, so he did a world of good. Maybe all Trump gets is one good thing done, be it a takedown of the Norks or Iran, or maybe something real on immigration. One is better than none.

          • Cynically, it happened to happen on his watch, they were going to collapse no matter what. Low oil prices is what did them in, just like it’s doing in Venezuela.

          • Uh, I disagree Owen. Just no. It took Reagan, Thatcher, the Pope and Walesa. Remove any of those and no, the Soviet Union does not collapse. Also, to be fair, Gorby.

          • Reagan basically had the good sense to listen to his advisors (Jerry Pournelle was one) who told him we could overextend the Soviets. We did, and they fell sooner.

          • Yes, there is always someone who comes along to point out that Reagan was president during some of the last years of the USSR and to indicate that correlation is causation in this case.

            The USSR would have collapsed anyway. St. Reagan just had to keep us from collapsing.

          • I was there. The general mood of the country in the last Carter years was one of absolute despair. The Democrat elites were (then as now) trying to manage the eventual surrender to the Soviets.

            Reagan alone was standing against that mood. Read some of Jerry Pournelle’s older books (the non-fiction sections of There Will Be War vols 1-8 are a good intro).

            As for the “USSR would have collapsed anyway” – tell that to the various factions in the Bush (Sr.) State Department, who spent the best part of the administration trying to keep the Commies afloat.

      • My sense is that DACA amnesty of sorts is the trade-off for the wall. Trump wants to do two things. One is to stop the conflation of “immigration” and “illegal immigration”. Two is to find a path to citizenship for those who contribute, and block it for those who sponge off the system.

        An actual wall mostly stops illegal immigration, and DACA is the Trojan horse for amnesty for some who are already here. Go back and listen to what Trump has always said. He has never been against amnesty for those who contribute.

        The rest of it is positioning to try to get his preferred outcome. Playing footsie with Chuckie and Nancy suggests to me that he is starting to get a bit desperate for a deal, because those two are not honest brokers.

        • In stopping illegal immigration, the wall is less important than any amnesty because amnesty is the golden ring drawing illegals in the first place. Moreover, forty percent of illegals arrive via airports anyway. Nevertheless, build the wall.

          What the country needs is an end to the immigration epoch period. We have enough people in the country, and it will have to end at some point anyway. On that score, Trump is the only president or presidential candidate in my lifetime to even approach that subject when he advocated a reduction in legal numbers.

          The American Immigration Lawyers Assn (which allows foreign lawyers to be members) devised the DACA effort in the first place to focus the nation’s attention on the most sympathetic of all illegals. Clever and effective and our side has risen to the bait.

      • My smiling suit 2 term congressman, trott just announced he will not run for re-election. The GOP is collapsing . rove and the bushes, who control the PC money and much of the Deep state will not let JEB! be dismissed the way he was. They want revenge on the party base. I don’t think they understand, or care, that we have been their voting base. I voted for bush’s in 4 presidential elections, but I would never vote for another one.
        If it were JEB and Hillary in 2020 , I’m for her.

        I don’t pretend to understand trump any more. Clearly somebody who doesn’t like him is controlling his media access and who he gets information from.

        At this point he had better fire Mueller or his kids, staff, and friends will be law-fared into bankruptcy,prison , or both. maybe the GOP has the guts to impeach him , or maybe not . he better wise up and take that chance.

          • How could he? the republican senate will NOT confirm anyone they don’t suggest to him. the mainstream media didn’t report it but the GOP senate majority leader refused to officially adjourn the senate , thereby preventing trump from making any recess appointments. that is borderline treason , and certainly outright sabotage . they will soon throw him from office.

      • The establishment Republicans seemed to believe they had the President boxed in a corner. The President pivots to the Democrats for support. Like Reagan, Trumps bargains. He wins a few, loses a few. The majority party loses seats in the house because of gross stupidity, hubris, and entitlement. The Mueller thing will implode. The Dems have more to fear than President Trump, in this matter.

      • Z Man;
        The really big get that *might* make some kind of a deal on DACA semi-OK would be to end ‘chain migration’* and ‘birthright citizenship’** for ALL immigration. The diabolical DACA trap is that just as soon as ‘dreamers’ have legal status, they can legally bring in their parents, who brought them here illegally, via ‘chain migration’: Not to mention bringing their elderly relatives to live on social security disability payments and medicare just like the ‘red dot’ (not ‘red feather’) Indians do.

        As evidence: Why would any same parent put their unaccompanied minor child on top of a Mexican freight train to the US in 2015, much less pay for the privilege. Obvious answer: They’d been promised that DACA + chain migration will bring in the whole family via chain migration: Just as soon as Hillary was elected.

        That this is an organized Cloud conspiracy can be show by how ready the Obama administration was to receive those kids. They swooped them up at the border and dispersed them throughout the country as efficiently as I’ve seen the govt. do anything in my many years. Various NGO’s featured prominently in this criminal conspiracy as well.

        Oh, and don’t anybody fall for the ‘legal but non-voting status’ trap either. You know as well as I do that the DNC has already drawn up the legal challenges to file in the 9th circuit on 14th amendment grounds. I can hear Paul Ryan right now, “What kind of people are we, creating second class citizens_?”

        *Chain migration is effected because the relatives of current legal residents are favored for immigrant visas for purposes of family reunification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_migration

        **Birthright citizenship is the peculiar (and unusual) US rule that anybody born here, even to illegal immigrant parents, is automatically a US citizen. The practical result is that chain migration will then bring
        in their parents, sibs, grandparents, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_the_United_States

    • I notice NObody trying to suggest we should have voted for Hillary. Or Bernie Or Goofy Johnson. Or that Stein woman. So that leaves us with a GOP candidate. Which of the GOP candidates running would have been able to A. actually beat the Democrat machine and get elected, and then, B. organize a more acceptable administration?

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