The Warning Shot

One of the more irritating things about the current election is the obtuseness of the media, particularly the so-called conservative media. They insist on assigning motives to Trump voters that are at odds with observable reality. For months now the official narrative has been that Trump is powered by toothless hillbillies, high on meth and anger at the dusky fellows. Voting Trump is how these losers are lashing out in anger, always in anger. Never mind that the data says the opposite.

The narrative, coincidentally, always speaks to the wonderfulness of conservative media. Similarly, they tar Trump with every offense to decency, even though he is often saying the things these same conservatives used to say a decade or two ago. According to the modern conservative, anyone holding the opinions common a few decades ago is a monster. Hilariously, Trump’s lack of a political ambition is held against him by conservatives. Again, the critique is always about the critic in these cases.

That’s the cynical interpretation. These people know better, but choose to lie in order to flatter themselves and their owners. Another way to look at it though, and part of why Trump exists, is that these people and the entirely of the ruling class are divorced from reality. They live in their bunkered communities, work with other managerial types and spend their days agreeing with one another about their wonderfulness. To them, the status quo is fabulous. Why would anyone want to change it?

This story from the Imperial Capital is a good example of the blinkered nature of our elites.

Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol are quietly launching a new effort to expand visas for low-skilled foreign workers in government funding bills — a push that could drive a deep ideological rift through both parties later this year.

Republicans and Democrats whose home states rely on immigrant labor are lobbying top appropriators to include language in this year’s funding bills to renew controversial provisions from last year’s omnibus spending measure that effectively quadrupled the number of low-skilled worker visas.

Nine House lawmakers, led by Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), sent a letter last week urging the Appropriations Committee to keep those higher numbers intact. And key senators have already begun to discuss the issue.

“Many businesses will be severely impacted, and some may be unable to operate, without this cap relief,” said the House letter, obtained by POLITICO and addressed to Reps. John Carter (R-Texas) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), who head the panel that oversees funding for the Department of Homeland Security. “Failure to enact this exemption will hurt seasonal businesses across the country.”

The program in question is the H-2B visa, which covers immigrants who work as landscapers, housekeepers and seafood processors. Those visas are legally capped at 66,000 per year, which pro-business advocates say is an artificially low number that could harm key U.S. industries.

We have two primaries going on in which immigration is the defining issues. On the one side, the guy promising to build a wall and bar Muslims from entry crushed the field, despite being outspent a million-to-one. On the other side, the old-time socialist, who preaches worker’s rights and obliquely opposes the immigration lobbies, is making life hell for the party candidate. If Sanders went back to his old anti-immigration ways, he would run the table on Crooked Hillary.

Despite this year long news story, the politicians and their backers in both parties want to increase immigration! Obama is violating Federal law so he can import hundreds of thousands of Islamic terrorists. You could be forgiven if you started to wonder if these people actually hate you. How is it possible to be this blind to daily reality in America? It’s as if these people live on another planet and pop in every once in a while to stage a political show.

I’m fond of pointing out that all you have to do is spend a little time with grad students at an elite university to understand why Mao sent these people off the rice paddies. They manage to combine wrongheadedness with smug condescension to the point where you want to smash them in the face. I suspect a corollary here is that you can understand the French Revolution by spending a few minutes following American politics. A normal man wants “to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

This is why Trump exists. It’s never been about Trump, what he says or what he promises to do. That’s just the glitter on the stripper. The Trumpening is about the people in charge and their callous disregard for their duties and the country they allegedly serve. It’s as if the voting public went out and found the one guy who most offends the ruling class. Trump is a more polished version of Chuck Tingle and the voters are the Rabid Puppies. It’s not about voting for something as much as it is voting against something.

Trump is the warning shot. He’s the food riots before the revolution. He’s the stack of letters to the editor in protest over some issue. People do not go from happy to bloody revolt overnight. It’s a process and the early stages are warnings, at least they should be viewed as warnings. If the people in Washington insist on flooding the country with helot labor, despite what’s happening in the election, the people are going to insist on building scaffolds in Washington. The Trump phenomenon is the warning.

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Fuel Filter
Fuel Filter
8 years ago

Z, you have, in the last two paragraphs, seemingly demoted Trump to a mere figurehead for the betrayal and anger that the dirt people feel.  This is falling into the narrative and trap that the Left has been (and will be) pounding on until November. Did you not see (or read the transcript of) his foreign policy speech a couple of weeks ago? Is that the speech of a mere figurehead of the “revolt of the masses”? Let’s look at what Trump has NOT done and, by implication, what he has promised to reverse: Donald Trump did not steal your… Read more »

Severian
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

Funny, too, how that was common knowledge just a few decades ago — the age and the man exist in (ahem) a dialectical relationship. But for the Civil War, US Grant would’ve been just another failed leather goods dealer. But for Grant, the Civil War would’ve ended in a negotiated peace. It takes a uniquely modern flavor of dumb to argue — as our intellectuals do — that a) everything that happens is the inevitable outcome of patriarchy, capitalism, etc. and b) Obama is such a uniquely effective individual that His mere presence will lower the seas.

Kathleen
Kathleen
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

I think you and Fuel Filter are both correct. Trump hasn’t done any of the things FF lists, (although BHO has), and the Movement, if it can even be called that at this juncture, is not a Cult of Personality (like BHO). Trump is a galvanizing force; he is our Lightning Rod. He doesn’t need to be anything else, but it’s icing on the cake if he can deliver more.

Doug
Doug
Reply to  thezman
8 years ago

Zman there is something here we are all not reckoning with, and that is our motive power as not slaves. Look at what is going down, here in short order the balance of power between the oligarchy and the dirt people has been turned on it’s head, and almost no one is seeing it for what it is. Granted we are not accustomed to our will as a plurality having such an effect on politics and The Narrative, but that is exactly what is happening. I’m saying so many people can’t grok what is hitting them upside the head, that… Read more »

PavePusher
Reply to  Fuel Filter
8 years ago

“Donald Trump did not steal your money.”

The hell you say…?!

As for all the rest, he directly supported all the politicians who DID those things.

Ken
Ken
Reply to  PavePusher
8 years ago

Oh so you’re not voting for anyone then? Because by your logic they’re all culpable

A Texan
A Texan
Reply to  Fuel Filter
8 years ago

Spot on, Fuel Filter! I don’t worship Trump – he is, after all, just a man. But I believe that I do understand him and his motivations. He (like I) had immigrant grandparents, people who were certainly not rich and powerful when they came to our shores. He (like I) had parents who did well in this country, which gave them the freedom and opportunity to make the best of themselves (by working their asses off). He (like I) grew up in a nation where traditional Western values, the ones (like honesty, hard work, thrift, freedom of expression, etc.) that… Read more »

Saml Adams
Saml Adams
8 years ago

PS. Did not realize how strategically important landscapers, housekeepers and seafood processors were to our national interest and security. I’ll sleep better at night knowing Congress is really putting the wood to solving this problem.

Doug
Doug
8 years ago

The “conservative media” are the oxymoron’s of our time. And I do mean moron’s. It’s cuckserfdom, a product of cultural marxist social engineering, and the fools don’t even know they are the most useful of useless dupes. Cuckservatives, limp dick dupes who for all their diarrhea of the mouth and keyboard, might as well sport strap-on’s and march down Main St. in high heels holding ready for hillary placards. It’s cuck-nitive dissonance writ large across the dead elephant branch of the marxist media. Nobody could be so utterly blind to how box of rock stupid that it is unintentional that… Read more »

Strelnikov
Member
8 years ago

Or, to put it succinctly, “Winter Is Coming”.

Christopher S. Johns
Christopher S. Johns
8 years ago

“One of the more irritating things about the current election is the obtuseness of the media, particularly the so-called conservative media. They insist on assigning motives to Trump voters that are at odds with observable reality.” Exhibit A (but by no means the worst of the lot): Victor Davis Hanson. Hanson is a smart and interesting guy: he’s a professor of classics at a non-moonbat university, and still runs a family farm, against increasing odds and obstacles, in central California. He writes often and sometimes perceptively for PJ Media and NR. He’s most perceptive when writing about the transformation of… Read more »

Hades
Hades
Reply to  Christopher S. Johns
8 years ago

Hanson, Charles Murray and others like them had to accept Neocon dogmas to have a voice in the national “conservative” media and think tanks.

fodderwing
fodderwing
Reply to  Christopher S. Johns
8 years ago

Getting a little tired of the “angry” thing, actually. I’m a Trump supporter, but am not angry. Gave up anger long, long ago. Many of us have simply had enough of sighing.

Phelan Kell
Phelan Kell
Reply to  fodderwing
8 years ago

I’m with fodderwing, but I do occasionally go into the basement and look at my pitchfork, torch and rope collection with anticipation…

R Daneel
R Daneel
Reply to  Phelan Kell
8 years ago

Agreed. Though I go into the garage often to fondle my coil of hemp rope and ream of lamp posts for a while.

Hades
Hades
8 years ago

I sorta predicted some eight years ago that would be a backlash of regular conservative voters against the own “conservative” prestige media, the Neocons purged anyone who not agree with them from the “conservative” press and think tanks, they’re able to make this because they have a lot of money behind them.

Trump main advantage is that he owns himself, a self-made billionaire that can’t be bought.

Karl Horst (Germany)
Karl Horst (Germany)
8 years ago

I wonder if Trump isn’t the American version of our AfD. He says many of the things the AfD proposes and like the AfD touches on what people believe or fear at a base level. Fortunately in America saying anti-Muslim or what might be perceived as hard core pro-Nazi ideas won’t get your arrested, fined or jailed as it will here. The threat of the AfD has triggered a coalition government between the left and center parties specifically against the AfD which is unprecedented. With the backlash after the recent bombings, the political elites are having a hard time trying… Read more »

Severian
8 years ago

“You could be forgiven if you started to wonder if these people actually hate you.” Yup. As I like to ask, what would they be doing differently if they were trying to start a civil war? And you’re spot on about Mao — say what you will about the old murderer, he had some good ideas vis a vis the intellectuals. They simply have no idea that allegiance must be earned. It makes one wonder what their private lives are like. Do they all run around selling each other out, stabbing each other in the back, and powering through it… Read more »

el_baboso
Member
Reply to  Severian
8 years ago

Short answer: yes.

I would tell you about my experiences as the research assistant for the dean of a professional school at a major university, but no one would believe me.

Severian
Reply to  el_baboso
8 years ago

I did my time in grad school, too. I was really hoping my experience was atypical. Guess not. 🙂

Steve
Steve
Reply to  el_baboso
8 years ago

Retired econ professor here. Actually, I probably would believe you.

Doug
Doug
Reply to  el_baboso
8 years ago

You owe it to yourself to find the courage to tell the truth about what experienced. I for one would like to hear what you have to say. The truth doesn’t scare or turn me away. The truth has a sanitizing effect. Reach down within and release your inner defiance, “truth in a time of universal deceit is a revolutionary idea” after all.

Saml Adams
Saml Adams
8 years ago

A big slug of the electorate has finally figured out (and this includes Sanders voters–they just come at this from a different perspective) that the political elite has been peeing on their leg for years and claiming it is raining. And I think the pundits would be surprised how far up the income scale support for Trump goes. But living “behind enemy lines” we have to carefully suss out who may be a supporter or not. Suspect there are more out there than polling picks up. In the upper middle class cohort around here–people are seriously concerned about their kid’s… Read more »

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
Reply to  Saml Adams
8 years ago

I’m sure all the shit about gallows and hitlists and burning it all down and getting rid of the fuckheads who wear eyeglasses will work out better *in this revolution* than in the other ones. Carry on…

Art Starr
Art Starr
Reply to  Joe Blow
8 years ago

Joe – Americans are the only people in all of history with a record of successful revolution. You know, *that revolution*.

PavePusher
Reply to  Art Starr
8 years ago

“Americans are the only people in all of history with a record of successful revolution.”

You don’t read much, do you?

Ken
Ken
Reply to  PavePusher
8 years ago

I think by successful he means did not spin out of control into a bloodbath, you pedant

Casius Lucius
Casius Lucius
Reply to  Ken
8 years ago

you misspelled “pisant”

Ken
Ken
Reply to  Casius Lucius
8 years ago

That was hilarious

Buckaroo Banzai
Buckaroo Banzai
8 years ago

ZMan, check out Nate Silver’s latest. The guy who made his name being right about Obama can’t seem to stop being wrong about Trump. 53eig.ht/24pwiYY

Buckaroo Banzai
Buckaroo Banzai
Reply to  Buckaroo Banzai
8 years ago
Karl Horst (Germany)
Karl Horst (Germany)
Reply to  Buckaroo Banzai
8 years ago

@ BB – Thanks for the link – interesting read. Both there and here, the “average” person has shown they’ve had enough of our political elites forcing their dysfunctional ideological and cultural experiments down our throats. The fact Trump and the AfD can actually get traction should be exactly what the ZMan has called a “warning shot” across the bow of the established ruling class. Both here and in America, the powers that be are being forced to take notice of what they thought once unthinkable – that the likes of Trump and the AfD could even be possible in… Read more »

R Daneel
R Daneel
8 years ago

“They manage to combine wrongheadedness with smug condescension to the point where you want to smash them in the face. ……….. A normal man wants “to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

Hemp ropes and lamp posts will do just fine.

Subotai Bahadur who comments a lot at Belmont Club said this:

‘You thought they said “Hope & Change”, they said “Rope & Chains”.’

“Trump is the warning shot. …… The Trump phenomenon is the warning.”

He is the murder weapon to be used on the eGoP after years and years of abuse.

PJ123
PJ123
8 years ago

“The Trumpening is about the people in charge and their callous disregard for their duties and the country they allegedly serve.”

This statement is not cynical enough. Ain’t no serving going on, other than self-serving. The ruling class project is a glorified and pimped-out looting operation.

So yeah, they are disconnected from reality. They think of themselves as necessary for our proper development. Such people tend to end up hanging from lamp posts, when the peons finally get fed up enough.

trackback
8 years ago

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Orabilis
Member
8 years ago

With my hammer, nails, and wood in tow, I ask please: do give me coordinates for the first proposed structure; I’m on my way.

Joe Blow
Joe Blow
Reply to  Orabilis
8 years ago

Sure. If you’re going to come over and hang me, I can shoot you an address but you may want to give the GPS a starting point. What’s the lat/long of your mom’s basement, tough guy?

BrianE
BrianE
8 years ago

The dilemma is we need temporary workers for certain segments of the economy- notably agriculture. Parts of agriculture, such as the fruit industry are labor intensive, seasonal and require a certain amount of skill. Here in my part of the world, there is a shortage of these workers. If we are going to clamp down on the illegal workers, then we need to increase the H2B visas– which is preferable. And no, these jobs are not going to be filled by Americans. And saying that these industries should die if they can’t pay workers enough to find locals just mean… Read more »

Anglo-American
Anglo-American
Reply to  BrianE
8 years ago

Well the folks that had banked on a plantation model can sell their land to family farmers, I’m pretty damn sure if it becomes a necessity they would find a way to mechanize fruit picking they did for the tomatoe. I hear technology has improved since then. If not cut the orchards down and use the land as pasture. At this point I think it’s safe to say that its cheaper to import fruit than fruitpickers And after Northern Ireland, the American South and southern California one would think plantations maybe aren’t the best idea either. And I live about… Read more »

BrianE
BrianE
Reply to  Anglo-American
8 years ago

I think you’re mistaken that importing seasonal labor through the H2B visa is a net cost to the economy. And you’re also mistaken if you think that using land for pasture will yield anything like the yield of apples. I’m glad you had a chance to work in agriculture and I spent several summers bucking hay and changing hand lines back when that’s how it was done. For the most part immigrant farm laborers follow the harvest seasons beginning in the south and working their way north that ends here. There are plenty of agricultural jobs that are done by… Read more »

GTD
GTD
8 years ago

No, Z, he’s not. He’s a joke, and so are his supporters. And what painful mental contortions you’ve had to perform in order to think otherwise. This is nothing. A mere spasm. The body politic will go on as it always has after this is over. To paraphrase the great Don Draper, “It’ll shock you how much this never happened.”

And yet you’ll still be writing these feverish, grand pronouncements that will, as always, amount to nothing. As the Clown Prince of the Republican Party himself would tweet: “Sad!”

Ken
Ken
Reply to  GTD
8 years ago

those “mental contortions” are only painful to cucks and butthurt Cruz supporters. So which one are you

Casius Lucius
Casius Lucius
Reply to  Ken
8 years ago

he’s both.

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Casius Lucius
8 years ago

he’s a troll

DFCtomm
Member
Reply to  GTD
8 years ago

Fools like you think history is over. History is about to reintroduce itself. All is not well, Chip Diller