After the 2010 election, I mentioned to someone that I was probably done with voting, at least in national elections. The reason was that voting had ceased to mean much to me, other than as a ritual. I know men who continue to go to mass for the same reason, even though they are no longer believers. In 2012 I got in line to vote, but standing there for a while, I realized I was wasting my time, so I skipped and went home. On the issues that mattered to me, Romney and Obama were the same guy.
It was an oddly liberating thing. I had voted in every election in which I was eligible up until that point. I considered it my patriotic duty, even though the options were rarely worth the effort. In most cases, I did the old Buckley thing and voted for the most rightward viable candidate on the ballot. As a result, I found myself rooting for the GOP, simply because they were not as awful as the Democrats. I never appreciated how much that sucked until I skipped voting in 2012. That was a good day.
The thing is, we are all men of our age, which means our opinions and inclinations are, to a great degree, formed by the prevailing opinions of our age. Just as progressives control our moral framework, the two parties control our political framework. All of us are forced to pick sides and root for them. Consequently, conservatives have invested in the GOP, despite the fact the Republicans never do what they say they will do, even when they have large working majorities, like in the Bush years.
This inability or unwillingness of voters to walk away from this paradigm is how we ended up with Trump. It is, to a lesser extent, what kept a laughable squirrel like Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primary. Within the very narrow construct of the post-Cold War political framework, Sanders and Trump were the only way to send the message. That is promising, but it also means that people, particularly people on our side, are unwilling to walk away from the game, at least just yet. They still have hope.
Strangely, this may be setting up the Republicans for collapse. They are looking at the special elections and thinking that Trump’s antics are not hurting them. Then there is the health care debacle, which they think they can blame on Trump. The GOP is acting like they have the voters boxed in so they can disrupt and oppose Trump on everything theit handlers oppose. So much so that Senator Caitlyn Graham is out promising to sink the Trump immigration proposal.
This is incredible, given where the voters are on immigration. Graham is not just opposing this bill. He wants to flood the country with foreigners. There is no constituency for open borders. In fact, 60% of voters would shut down all immigration, not just the illegal immigration. That remaining 40% is probably distributed between those who favor greater enforcement and those who support limits. You just do not see numbers like that on any issue.
In fairness to the GOP, their model has worked for a long time. Going back to 1994, they have controlled Congress for all but four years. They blame that short interlude on the Iraq war and Bush. Otherwise, their game of lying to the voters on the campaign trail and then voting like Democrats in Washington has worked, but this may be different. Trump is the warning shot to the party and Washington. Those millions of GOP voters who have stuck it out, may just throw in the towel.
Of course, what has worked in the past will be used again. “Who are you going to vote for if not the Republicans?” We are all men of our age and that means we have been trained to respond to that question one way. Old habits are hard to break, but they eventually do get broken. How likely is it that a soured electorate stays home in 2018 and lets the Republicans take a beating? It is hard to know and there is the fact that Democrat voters are not exactly thrilled with their options either.
The point of all this is that what is happening now is not an isolated event. Trump is part of a larger trend and a sign of a weakening in the political arrangements. The old gag about bankruptcy comes to mind. Slowly then all of a sudden. The Democrats are well on their way to being the anti-white party. They will be the home of homosexuals, blacks, foreigners and the mentally disturbed. There will be a party for the rest, a white party, but maybe not the GOP.
It is too early to think about new parties or even co-opting existing parties, but it is not too soon to think about what comes next. If you are alt-right, does it matter if the Democrats win Congress next year? Probably not. In fact, it may help. If the GOP is no longer viewed as a plausible middle-ground between the alt-right and the Left, then people are forced to choose. If principled surrender is no longer a credible option for white voters, then maybe they begin to look at aggressive and assertive alternatives.
So, basically the democrats will be the party of America and Americans and the other party will be the party of racist white men? Got it
The German Army used to have a saying: “better no officer than a bad officer.”
I’ve long held that “None of The Above” should be on all ballots for all positions, from president to local dogcatcher. If NOTA garners a majority, or perhaps even a plurality, that position goes vacant until the next election cycle. No recess or interim appoints allowed.
This could be a tool to unseat those incumbents with war chests so large that opposition can’t get any traction — like McCain. You don’t need an opponent to lose your seat; just piss off your base enough, and you’re toast.
The Cartel’s Hand To The Face
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8iFFmmELFd8
The only way that big government will be put back in its’ proper place is with fundamental reforms like term limits and no gerrymandering. The two parties have cooperated to make a third party pretty hard to establish. There are just too many big government members of both parties.
“On the issues that mattered to me, Romney and Obama were the same guy.”
Wow. How wrong. How much better off we’d be had Romney had won instead.
I think you nailed it here. I have been a republican voter my whole adult life. After years of promises to repeal the Obama care take over of the health care insurance industry only to fail on the half-hearted attempt to replace it with Obama care light I may never vote again in a national election. Fug them. Hard. They asked for it. Begged for it. Earned it. Ben Franklin called it. We have failed the Republic.
The problem conservative voters face is that conservatives don’t run for office, so with rare exceptions, progressives are the only option on the ballot. There are, admittedly, progressives who pretend to be conservative and make conservative noises, but they never seem to have enough votes to pass conservative legislation.
Currently, the Republicans are acting as if they won the 2018 elections and that Trump rode their coat tails into office. Conservatives can’t win voting for Republicans but they may have better luck disrupting Democrat primaries. After all, Democrats will vote for any Democrat; they’ve yet to encounter Democrats in name only.
I have already washed my hands of the Republican Party, did so before the election when I witnessed their disgustingly shabby treatment of Trump (their party’s candidate! The choice of their supporters!) and realized that he was taking it on the chin for me. Jesus with a comb-over.
The only possible redemption for the GOP is a wholesale wiping out of the current roster. To that end, as long as Trump is president, I will vote against the Republican incumbent in the primaries and against the Democrat in the generals. After Trump I will not vote for either party.
I would be so happy to see Trump run in 2020 under the banner of a new party, say the “Conservative American” party. With the passion of his supporters and the energy and $$$ of a presidential election, that new party could actually become viable and render the GOP a minor player, like the Greens.
The GOP must die.
The democrat and republican parties are both dying on the vine. President Trump is a consequence of this vacuum. It will be game over for democrats when Wikileaks rips the brakes out of their propaganda machine and exposes the criminal underside of the cartel. When the avalanche hits the swamp the ugliness will be hard to bear. The mutant survivors will be our new political party.
People are very self-centered. When they really understand that the criminal establishment political order is doing nothing for them (does the average person think that unfettered immigration or old men in dresses in the girls restroom is any good for anyone?), and the reformers are making things better here and there, it will be game over for the establishment.
Sadly, the criminality will largely be ignored. Happily, the stupid inability to do anything right, combined with the economic stripping of most of the rest of us, for their personal benefit, will not go unnoticed or unpunished.
It’s all in how one frames things. Trump is really good at frames. Such as “fake news”. It’s part of the landscape now, no going back for the mainstream media. Ha-ha!
“The thing is, we’re all men of our age, which means our opinions and inclinations are, to a great degree, formed by the prevailing opinions of our age. Just as Progressives control our moral framework, the two parties control our political framework.”
If by “all” you mean “most” or “almost all” then I can agree with you. However, those of us who became Rothbardian market anarchists are certainly not fooled by the con game that is politics in this country.
I have not voted for president since 1980 until I voted this time against the evil Clinton. That vote was purely defensive. I believe that she would have worked hard to destroy the country and my family if full of young kids who deserve a chance at life.
I did vote for Ron Paul in the primary here in Florida but there was no chance in hell he was ever going to be on the ballot for President.
As I see it, until we dismantle the empire we have little chance. And the elites play divide and conquer so very well.
I was making comments at a place called the conservative tree-house or something like that (run by someone called “sundance”). I was getting all sorts of “likes” and responses over the course of several months when I posted a comment that was slightly negative about Trump’s bombing Syria. Bam! I was banned without so much as an explanation. Weird thing was that that comment kept getting “likes” for a couple of weeks after I could no longer respond. (notifications came in e-mail)
The alt-right, “conservatives”, libertarians, hard core market anarchists, and others don’t seem to be able to cooperate towards the goal of ending the present tyranny.
May God have mercy on us; we are doing the children a real disservice by not fighting the empire now.
~ Mark
“The reason was that voting had ceased to mean much to me, other than as a ritual.”
Gosh, whenever I go to the polls, and wear my “I voted” sticker, and NRA lapel/tie tack, young college grad vixen virgins THROW themselves at me, and try to shower me with gifts and cash, despite my advance age.
It’s a shame, really……
the demoncrats are being yanked apart to the Left, the Republiscams to the Right. So the Center will not hold. There will be, instead,
War.
and, yes, I stopped voting in 2012. A liberating moment.
I think Trump plans on purging and reforming Rep party. It is the only way to truly MAGA, as everything he does can be reversed within months of his leaving office if the same old crew is still in charge. If he puts out a beautiful tax plan that makes common taxpayers weep w/ joy, but which is so good the Reps can’t vote for it, it will confirm my hypothesis
Of course, even if he does he will still need to get the nation to the point that Reps are willing to pass legislation stripping citizenship from people for the color of their skin in order to save Western culture/ right wing values.
the GOP brand was toxic before Trump. I don’t think that many people voted for him because he was the GOP candidate; they voted for him per se. he is exposing them as the complicit scum they are; he is destroying the GOP and taking their base. Look for Trump to make huge inroads from the middle-middle on down; i.e. pick up big chunks of the urban vote. those folks love a spectacle, and Trump will have them hooting joyously 😀
I stayed registered Republican for years and years only so I could vote for the most “F-you” conservatives I could find. People who would not only turn over the apple cart but set the pieces on fire. Finally getting to vote for a Trump made me very happy, no matter how things go from here.
The urban vote is up for grabs next time around, and I suspect many urbanites hate the gay, feminine, emotional stuff.
Explain how he would do this. In the past, people have referred to the President as the Head of his Party. The Party has already shown that they do not believe this. How would Trump purge the Republican Party? Unless those most entrenched in the Republican Party refuse to accept his actions, what legal right does he have to purge the Republican Party?
My one-word rebuttal for the jaded position that it doesn’t matter who we vote for: Neil.
And the Paris Climate Accord. Okay, four words.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
“They will be the home of homosexuals, blacks, foreigners and the mentally disturbed.”. Well that is what the leadership of the dems is already, often in the same body.
Off topic, Zman. I watch the Red Sox on mlb.com. Well and good. They flashed me a survey to better understand how they are doing. The first question was to check a box for my sex–in this order–Trans, Other, Male, Female. I do not make this up. That’s as far as I went.
“The Democrats are well on their way to being the anti-white party. They will be the home of homosexuals, blacks, foreigners and the mentally disturbed. ”
You left out the Jews. They voted 78% for Obama in 2008, and 71% for Clinton. Only the blacks are a more rigidly aligned voting block.
Jews also provided most of the money and a lot of the brains behind the Obama moonshot. Obama’s first two hires were Rahm and Axlerod. Axlerod was the brains behind the campaign.
The biggest contributors for Obama, overwhelmingly, were bankers and lawyers. Go look at the list of his top bundlers: https://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/bundlers.php?id=N00009638
Jeffrey Katzenberg tops it, at $500,000..
It’s quite a telling omission, you are not calling out the man behind the curtain pulling the levers, but talking about the Great and Powerful Oz instead. (The blacks, tho homosexuals…)
More red pills, please.
To the extent the alt-right has any political organization to go off of, the immediately available tactic is to run ideologically proper candidates in primaries against the Caitliyn Grahams of the party.
Alt-right isn’t a political organization, I highly doubt we will ever openly run candidates
OT: Jew Among You’s report on the AmRen conference, with pics of Antifa protesters: https://jewamongyou.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/just-got-back-from-the-2017-amren-conference/
The parties are 2 cheeks of the same arse.
Both parties have no interest in the voters and are only in power to enact legislation for their paymasters and hangers on.
We have the same crap in the UK. Tory or Labour or some wasted votes for the Greens & Liberals. Choice for change is non existent.
Voters are tribal and usually return to their party when the scare stories are aired.
I’d like to see a party that represents my views but there are none in the UK that are prepared to stand on a platform supporting the white working class.
How and wht did the white working class become so reviled by its own?
Hi Z. I know so many of “white” America seem to hate the Jews and push them out as if we are diseased. I believe that is a mistake. I am a conservative Jew and there are many more than you may realize. Crazy liberal Jews have had a hand at the current destruction of our country, and sensible conservative Jews would like to help correct that wrong. But talk of exclusion will only embolden crazy people to the detriment of all Americans. Remember that ML King was a life-long Republican.
Here’s my view of the topic: http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=10704
Thanks for the link. I remember that article when you first posted it and have no objections to what you said there.
As a voting bloc conservative Jews are irrelevant. As a means of stopping or even slowing the leftist radicals of their tribe they are ineffective. That many of them are neocons renders them harmful and counterproductive. When we think of nationalist Jews we think of Israel. In that over 50% of Jews now consider themselves to be non-believers, yet still Jewish, we are led more and more to think that Jewishness connotes a race rather than a religion.
Given that the left has decided that identity politics is the wave of the future, and we know that trying the DR3 thing was a big joke, we are doing the necessary thing to survive, and that is to beat them at their own game. When some 90% of a racial group declares for the other side in a contest of identity politics they pretty much have spoken for the group as a whole.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the conservative Jew, and I hope that in the days to come a peaceful means of settling this question can be arrived at. However, their fate is not an existential problem for us at this juncture. We want to survive as a people and a nation, and if warring against the “Jew” is a necessary part of that fight, then that is a step we have to take. I don’t think sitting back and pretending the problem doesn’t exist is an answer.
In NYC, the City Council is comprised of 51 seats; 48 of them are Dems, only 3 are Repubs. So, it’s a losing battle no matter what.
I am working with a Repub candidate who hopes to win the nomination against two other Repub contenders, before going to the general elections in Nov.
I would like to hear from any of you in southwest Brooklyn; either respond here, or by email: bobs.your.uncle@safe-mail.net
ZMan, you tend to fluctuate between writing that the GOP is an independent group that looks at politics in terms of how it benefits the GOP and not just the other side of the Demopublican coin. It doesn’t look at things as Democrats vs. Republicans and hasn’t for years. The elected stooges may have joined the GOP early in their career believing in the fundamental differences in the Democratic platform and the Republican platform, but they were Michael Corleoned at some point and look at politics now strictly as how it benefits them personally. They are now belong to the Haves and their opponents are the Have Nots. In other words, us.
It has amazed me for over two decades how difficult it is to gain control of county and State GOP’s. It should be simply a matter of showing up with more people than the others and taking control locally, then taking control of the State group. But, the parasites in control have barriers in place to prevent this and the Have Nots either have to work or don’t have the funds to compete with the entrenched power structure. Retired Whites might have the time and the money to do this, but they also receive so many gimmes from the government that they have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. I think human nature is lazy so, short of the cartridge box, I don’t know what we could do to peacefully take back our country.
I’m sure you’re familiar with Hegelian dialectics. This is the system that enables our enslavement. Hegel was a kraut so he used as many words as possible to say as little as possible. But, ((((Someone)))) actually read through his work without falling asleep and saw a way to retain and extend financial control over the people of the world. This is just conjecture, but I believe that mathematicians actually took Hegel’s work to the next level and were able to enable physical control mechanisms over large populations using the institutions already in place. Have you ever read Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars? It is interesting in that it postulates that introducing stress into a country can be done and can be implemented and measured using equations that resemble electrical circuitry. Like The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, it may or may not be true, but it certainly explains more than official reasons. Plus, the opponents label The Protocols a forgery, which can mean a copy of an original document, not a false misrepresentation.
In 2005 here in NJ, we had the major choices for Governor, John Corzine and Doug Forrester. Both of them promising to outdo each other to lower the state income tax by double digit amounts. AKA – Both of them were lying out their ass. Any fool could see that. When it came time to vote, I voted for a guy calling himself “NJ Weedman”. His only campaign issue was legalizing marijuana in NJ. I voted for him because he was the only guy running (out of all the parties and non-parites) that was actually telling the truth on what he wanted to do.
If the last election had come down to Hillary & Yeb, I would have stayed home, not that a GOP vote would have mattered in NJ. I voted for Trump because I was tired of the establishment. As for the so called GOP, I’m done with them. Crying we don’t have the house, then we don’t have the Senate, then we don’t have the White House to McConnell not long ago saying we don’t have 60 votes. Paul Ryan deliciously ambushed by a disgruntled voter telling him the same thing. Listening to Ryan’s response is a clear indicator that he spends more time working on making polished excuses than working on the promises he and other RINOs have made the past 7 years. Today’s GOP reminds me of one of those old WWII stories. We have a couple of Democrats, exhausted, out of ammunition but feigning with their empty rifles. Along comes a company of heavily armed GOP and rather than rolling over what should be token resistance, they give ground and surrender. No stomach for a fight.
”It is, to a lesser extent, what kept a laughable squirrel like Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primary.”
He also demonstrated just how weak a candidate the Lizard Queen was. Blown away by 0bama in ’08, and even with the deck so obviously stacked in her favor, Sanders still managed to give her challenge. And, of course, she’s writing a book: https://www.wwtdd.com/2017/07/what-happened
Actual book title, no joke.
Yes. I see no evidence that Trump is creating a new party to replace the Republocrats. His appearance is invaluable in shining light on a long standing political scam, but organizing is a very different kettle of cockroaches.
He is probably going to purge the current one. If he pushes for a wild tax plan that is very simple and common-sense, you’ll know I’m right.
I don’t think this essay is wrong or premature at all. The Republicans are going to get crushed in 2018 at the rate they are going, and it has nothing to do with Trump either outside the fact they are literally stabbing him in the back. I will make my prediction right now- Democrats win the House in 2018 outright, and the Senate ends up divided 50-50 and McCain switches parties to make it 51-49.
The Republicans that run against Trump in the 18 primaries will go down in defeat. That’s because they believe the fake press that tells them they will lose if they support Trump. Flake in AZ right is a prime example of this happening.
I can imagine your above scenario in which the R’s get crushed; I can also imagine a scenario in which the established/McCain/Ryan wing of the GOP is replaced by populists. What I CAN’T imagine is establishment GOPers replacing establishment Democrats — there seems to be no passion behind either of the established parties and thus the stasis will remain.
The country seems to be bifurcating into the Sanders/socialists on one side and Trump/populists on the other.
Frankly, I see civil war.
Considering the established parties have the coercive apparatus and listening ability of the old Soviets, I’m not at all sure that the people (populists) can prevail. The odds are against ordinary Americans, sadly, as they attempt to regain their power over the so-called deep state.
What are our weapons? Where is our army?
1. We aren’t organized in any meaningful manner. Trump may be a leader, but he has no second tier of deputies, or state-level organizations. I do think organizations qua organizations are overrated, but leaders usually emerge within localities, and we need this to happen to prevail against the fed government — I don’t see this happening. I hope I’m wrong.
2. We don’t have the capacity to bypass their communication channels (witness how easily FB and Twitter block populist voices from their platforms, and there’s nothing that can be done about it.) Without the capacity to communicate with each other, secretly and covertly, all efforts will be stymied. Yes, I know about GAB and other wonderful sites, but quickly they will shut them down when threatened. Perhaps, we need to go back to phone trees and written messages, but this presumes we know each other, which we don’t because we’re not organized! Let them use the Internet (which we can decode and decipher to our advantage.)
3. We, as a large cohort, don’t quite grok the significance of the moment — we’re at the tipping point RIGHT NOW. It’s not mere lethargy, but ignorance as well — people just don’t grasp they’re mortally threatened. Until ordinary people see the government for what it is, they won’t fight. And a half-hearted fight is one surely we’ll lose. This, I think, is our biggest problem.
So … yes, though many of us recognize that our votes are a joke and the system is dangerously fraudulent, we don’t have the will or capacity to do anything about it.
By the way, I do like the idea of going off grid, becoming as independent as possible, forming coalitions of like-minded neighbors (harder than I thought), and meeting surreptitiously on sites such as this. This is purely defensive, though.
We need an offense.
McCain will be lucky to make it to September, much less 2018. go get some dry panties and calm yourself, woman.
You really think McCain has that long to live given *brain cancer* ?
Teddy Kennedy made it 15-18 months with the same diagnosis. So McCain could still do damage for a good year.
Teddy was using alchotherapy on his brain cancer. Almost worked…
A bunch of democratic voters vote dead, why not a senator.
If Clinton had won, we would be well on our way now to full social fracturing and economic collapse, followed by a real grassroots rebellion and eventual resurrection. As it stands, Trump is fanning the dying embers of hopefulness while the Deep State is executing a coup d’etat. We are witnessing the dawn of an oligarchical tyranny hidden behind the facade of democracy. The illusion that voting matters is what buys the time necessary to make this transition.
except the deep state skull duggery has been exposed, and the people behind it are clumsy and incompetent.
People not as tuned into politics as we, are discovering the attempt of the uniparty to reverse the election. President Trump is going to make this very clear with a campaign like tour through the country. We will see if this causes them and Mueller to back off. I doubt that they could start the impeachment process without a rebellion.
Trump surely understands the power he has in going directly to the people and bypassing Washington DC and the mainstream media. I suspect he is saving that strategy for when he really needs it to call out the bad guys, rather than dissipating it on matters of the here and now.
His near term game is to make his enemies both reveal themselves and act insanely in doing so. So far, so good on that front. I sense that his true inner circle is taking down a lot of names, and just waiting for an indication of some big move by his enemies, some civilian version of Seven Days in May, perhaps, and then a lot of heads will roll.
No way to run a government, but you go with what you’ve got.
Am interested in our own ‘Seven Days in May’ scenario. Which generals would be on our side and which have to be rounded up? Or course the planning would be difficult until the leak problem is handled. Let the President Trump be the one to launch the 2nd American Republic. Two hundred and forty one years was not bad. Outlasted the French.
I am constantly amazed that a state that could produce men like John C. Calhoun and Strom Thurmond could tolerate a man like Lindsey Graham. The only explanation that comes to mind is that an influx of outsiders has made this possible. Please tell that native South Carolinians don’t like this twink.
I sure wish there was an edit button. “Please tell ME that native…”
Linda Graham wins with demonrat votes. There is never a viable demonrat candidate to vote for so the progressives vote for the progressive republican.
Same scam with Paul Ryan in WI
You are obviously only remotely acquainted with WI politics. It took a decade’s efforts by many people to turn that state purple from deep blue. Paul Ryan effectively participated. Just not perfectly from a nationalist party point of view that suddenly emerged this year. His effective comfort zone is suddenly no longer strategically important, largely due to enemy action.
Enthusiasm is good if it motivates focused effort in potentially positive directions. Demanding instant perfection to a new, untried, poorly defined concept is counter-productive: Makes one look like a lightweight dilettante. Don’t be that guy.
To me, some of the biggest issues rest with the political class in DC in BOTH parties that are 70+ years old and have been in their seats for many, many years. Within 10 years, even 8, a LOT of the old guard on both sides will be out. There is a LOT of rot. Change is coming. Power is rearranging and there is enormous pressure on the status quo in DC.
I am disgusted and angry about the Mueller thing as anyone, but in one way, this witch hunt is clarifying .. if it’s not clear to the folks yet just how busted DC is/was… it will be very clear in short order. In tearing into Trump and his family and finances and past, and the inaction or collusion of the GOPe and the media’s obvious role in partisan politics, there will be no going back to the way things were pre 2008.
Really, the Democrats started all of this in 2000 with Gore. It’s been ratcheted up ever since. They have torn at the fabric of the legitimacy of our system ever since and now most of DC is in on it. Historic and painful to live through in real time, but I have to wonder where we’ll be in 10 years … when all the flower-children of the 60’s and early 70’s are finally out of leadership.
Since it appears that the establishment Repub’s have lost their fear of the voters, the first step right now needs to be re-creating some of that fear amongst the GOPe swamp dwellers. Remember how all the Gang of 8 donor signaling on ‘immigration reform’ suddenly went quiet when the House #3 got primaried out in VA in 2014_?
So, we need to pick a _few_ targets and nationalize their primaries like Dave Brat did in VA. Paul Ryan in WI would be ideal_! While winning is ideal, it would almost be enough to make them burn all their slush/campaign funds just to keep their nominations.
Here’s a better written, broader gauge exposition: https://amgreatness.com/2017/07/31/republicans-lost-art-deterrence/
Losing an election isn’t their greatest fear. Their greatest fear is being cut off from the donor $$. Their salary is chickenfeed comparatively, so winning an election by pissing off donors is worse than losing an election while keeping the donors happy. For example, Eric Cantor is now making $3.4 million, and was the highest paid board member in 2015…
Not disputing your statement of facts re Cantor’s money, but so what_? To those people loss of power and status matters at least as much as money.
The big thing is that amnesty died in 2014. The seemingly pre-ordained ‘Gang of 8’ bill never was even brought to the floor for a vote after he was cut off. Killing that particular chicken _did_ frighten the watching monkeys in the swamp/jungle. Results matter.
Empirically, Congress cares more about donors than voters. Cantor isn’t the only one that did the donors bidding and then lost an election. Obamacare lead to a bunch of Dem losses.
If what you say is true, your example of the Go8 bill would be the norm, rather than a rare exception in extreme circumstances.
Why the norm_? Don’t see your logic at all. Look at it from the individual Rep’s point of view. We should be looking for points of leverage in the process rather than just throwing up dust
In order to access the big money you talk about, any Rep first needs to be in office. To be in office they need to be elected. To be elected they need votes, volunteers and money. Also, depending on their relative strength in the above, they normally need party endorsement.
At the minimum, party endorsement brings access to that party’s ballot line. Else they have to run a write-in campaign, which is very expensive and uncertain but can succeed (e.g. the execrable Lisa Murkowsky). Ballot lines cost money and some staff to maintain. Vote fraud minimization also requires money, volunteers and some organized staff. Hence the benefit to an established party.
Ad buys and content can be organized by anyone with money, hence consultants. Parties have networks of (semi) reliable consultants. But people can win despite not having consultants network access, e.g. US Rep David Brat, as mentioned above. But then they need volunteers plus outside money.
Donor money can be ideological or transactional (the classic access buying). Ordinarily, big donor money is transactional (favor for favor) and both parties are historically fine with that. However, as a counter-example, the homosexual agenda has been successfully advanced by big ideological donors, mostly from NY and CA. The Prog shrieking about the Koch Bros is all the evidence you need to posit that they see ideological big donors as their preserve and intend to keep it that way.
So a nationalist party needs to either take over an existing party or ideological big donors (and they’re out there) to create the required parallel infrastructure plus volunteers, not to mention candidates with big balls. So who’s working on any of this_?
If in fact the wizard behind the curtain is the deep state uni party globalist conspiracy, an economic collapse will probably signal door no.3 …the cartridge box.
Heh, Co-opting the Dem party by various flavors of Right would make heads explode.
Hmpffff.
Politics can be done by any three means: the ballot box, the soap box, and the cartridge box. It is my contention, Z, that any man worth his room on this earth- be ready and willing to use all three.
The people arrayed against us certainly are.
The real divide is between Trump Nationalists and Sanders Socialists. (I put all Democrats and about half of the Republicans in Congress in the latter group). The Alt-Right is not going to win on ideas. There is a gut thing going on in the Nationalist movement, a hard mix of realism, patriotism and bedrock principle, that to me is what the the Alt-Right, and the country, should be measuring itself by. Primaries and general elections are where change will happen. Candidates that we resonate with will appear. Unless we can change the system (a very tall order), we have to vote. Rest assured the Socialists will be voting.
Nonsense. There weren’t even enough Sanders Socialists to win the primary, and their number as a % of the dems is decreasing due to increasing numbers of non-whites who don’t care about ideology, only free shit.
Their are a number of divides, the 2 biggest divides are nationalist/globalist and racial. They are closely related, and many other divides can largely be subsumed within those headings but not perfectly (rich/poor, urban/rural, etc.)
Change isn’t happening in elections, change is happening in our demographics which drive elections. In 15-20 years Texas will turn blue, and along w/ similar demographic changes in the rest of the nation Republicans will become unable to win elections. The only way this can be stopped is to strip citizenship from people which would likely be unconstitutional.
https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1481/07/1481070473009.png
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SOC2016report.pdf
What worries me, is now that the curtain has been draw away, more and more people will realize what a sham it all is, and will clamor for a dictator to make the metaphoric trains run on time. Worked for Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler. Too many people get weary of the burdens of citizenship, like thinking about the implications of what is going on. They prefer to let someone else do it all, so they can go back to their TV reality shows and barbecues.
did Caesar make the chariots run on time? I am asking for a friend…
No but he did give them lots of spectacles in the coliseum and bread allowances.
socialism 1.0
If you value right-wing ideology and Western culture, the least violent method of preserving them is a dictator using his power to deport or exterminate liberals/ non-whites. You can whine about how that’s EVIL all you want, but it is a demographic certainty none-the-less.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SOC2016report.pdf
All sorts of things I wish Trump would do. Such as eliminating OPM’s Obamacare exemption for Congress and its employees. That’s how you drain the swamp. McCain plans to revive his immigration reform…thinks his brain tumor will give him a Ted Kennedy sympathy vote.
Like I said yesterday, the shift in this country is between a nationalist American party, and a borderless Globalist party.
Neither party reflects this new dynamic.
From what I’ve seen McStain voting against the Obamacare thing has made even more people wish that he dies a really painful death from his brain cancer.
Speaking as a MA resident: I know plenty of people who were of the same opinion of Ted Kennedy when his diseased brain finally went cancerous.
He voted against the Obamacare repeal because Trump banned trannies from military service. That was one of McCain’s bizarro left-wing causes that got him invited onto all the right talk shows to trash Republicans as bigots.
It was pure political revenge.
McCain did a little prison camp theater. Here he is in a production of the “Madame Butterfly” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIxHb7cA6tg
My read on the Democrats right now is they are still locked in Nancy Pelosi’s basement. They are the people under the stairs. Once she croaks, it will be a spasm of multi-culti lunacy and then it blinks out of existence. Just look around at the people in charge and waiting in the wings.
The GOP, oddly enough, benefits by not actually being a coherent party. It’s just a dumping ground. My hunch though is within it will grow a new nationalist party, but only after a period of chaos. I think it starts this summer with a lot of primary challengers flying the nationalist flag.
I think you may be right. Some (D) governor just joined the GOP. I wish Collins, McCain, Graham, and a few others would just go join Chuck Schumer and the Democrats. That’s about how useful they are for us. It’s like having a 5th Column inside the party staffed by Leftists.
It’s just going to take a few people to jump ship from the Dems and Repubs to get the ball rolling. You know I’ve been a fan for a long time of the HFC and the most right-wing senators to just abandon the GOP and caucus independently from either party. Neither party would be able to attain a majority in either house, throwing the Congress into chaos, and forcing big time concessions to win the gavel.
Conservative voters in shit head states (you know who you are!) atone for the sins of your representatives by voting Dem!! get the old turds out that way instead of primarying them. Then get your boy ready for the next cycle. That is all.
Or….OR…exacty NOT!
Of course, that’s just In My Humble Opinion.
how’s voting gop worked out for you?
There’s going to have to be enough turmoil and party jumpers to gain enough political clout to go in and change the laws that have favored the Democrat and Republican parties over any others for so long – before we will see any sort of real change.
Trump is an imperfect leader, but the insurgent candidates on the right can have only one stated policy option–whatever Trump wants. It’s the only way to clearly separate the insurgent wheat from the establishment chaff. Dithering around and hair splitting on policy points only muddies the waters.
Who knows how McCain’s brain tumor is affecting his behavior?
That wouldn’t explain the last few decades.
I look at McCain the way I used to look at John Glenn…a great American hero who threw it all away by becoming a Leftist in government fighting the very ideals that made them heroes in the first place. They both remind me of that great exchange from the moving “Heartbreak Ridge”:
Lieutenant M.R. Ring: Sir, I gave the order to take this hill.
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Ring, this is going to ruin your career.
Colonel Meyers: Are you new to the infantry, Major?
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Yes, sir. Just came over from supply.
Colonel Meyers: Were you good at that?
Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Yes, sir!
Colonel Meyers: Well then, stick to it because you’re a walking cluster fuck as an infantry officer. My men are hard chargers, Major! Leutenant Ring and Gunny Highway took a handfull of young fire pissers, exercised some personal initiative and kicked ass!
McCain and Glenn were walking cluster f**ks as US Senators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gme1h1IfJZA
McCain was always a hero only on paper. Toilet paper.
used
In what way was insane McCain ever a “great American Hero”?
As I understand it, after being shot down over Hanoi, and nearly crippled (the Viet Cong tortured him anyway), he was discovered to be the son of a flag officer. Offered early release as a propaganda tool, he refused.
From his book:
“The date was Oct. 26, 1967. I was on my 23rd mission, flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up—the sky was full of them—and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomber. It went into an inverted, almost straight-down spin.”
Read the rest here:
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account
He spent 5.5 years in the Hanoi Hilton. If you’re not familiar with that, i recommend “The Passing of the Night” by prison camp commander, Robbie Risner.
I don’t care much for his Senate career, but that is fucking bad ass.
While I hate McCain I don’t believe that you can fault his military career. He wasn’t the best aviator but…well the worst is far above the rest of us. I also don’t fault him for reading scripts, if he dis so, that they made him read after torture. People can only stand so much. It took a lot of guts to stay in prison when he could have been released.
His wife — the ever delightful Cindy “mud sharkin’ USA” McCain — reports that John is “more alert” and “less of an a-hole” since his cancer. She also mentioned he’s a much better dancer, and has improved “sexual focus” whatever that means?!
When I was younger and somewhat unaware of many of the “social” issues – taxation was my big pet peeve, since it was the screw job that I could see plainly every time I got a paycheck.
If somebody asked me why I voted for Republicans I would say : ” because the Republicans tell me that they’re going to lower my taxes”. After getting screwed over a few times on those promises, I changed that to be :
” I know they’re probably lying , but at least they say they’re going to lower taxes. How stupid would I be if I voted Democrat when they tell me right to my face that they’re going to raise my taxes? At least when a Republican says he’ll lower taxes – and he doesn’t – I have something to screw him with. With a Democrat the screw job is on me and it’s entirely my own fault”
If anybody is paying attention – they’ll notice that the Republicans stopped saying they’ll lower taxes quite some time ago. Once that happened that made them pretty much the equivalent of the Dems in my eyes – except that the Dems seem to have take a turn into outright Communism, which the Republicans haven’t explicitly done (yet).
Republicans *did* lower taxes. Reagan lowered taxes dramatically. Bush the Senior raised taxes and paid the price. Clinton raised them even more. Bush the Junior lowered taxes.
With the ObamaCare surtaxes my top marginal tax rate is nearly 50%, and I live in a low-tax state. In California it’s well over 50%.
Tax reform has soured as a wedge issue because our tax system has become so progressive that very few people pay any meaningful amount of taxes anymore. When nearly 50% of Americans pay no tax and another 30% pay very little, tax reform just doesn’t have the legs it used to have.
Don’t be under any illusions. If Republicans had not held the line on taxes in the 80s, 90s, and 00s the Dems would have driven top marginal tax rates well into the 60%-70% range. Your votes were not wasted.
Barring a major insurgency, coup or catastrophic disaster, I don’t see any real change coming. It surely won’t come via the voting booth.
Economic collapse is another avenue but who knows how that will shake out the country.
A change is coming when the government runs out of money.
They’re damn close to it already.
No, USG is not out of money. The best thing that could happen is for USG to run out of money. Venezuela is out of money. USG is the money. We proles are permitted with certain restrictions to use their money and even get into the habit of thinking it is our money. When exactly this happened it is hard to say.
Unfortunately no. The US is the global reserve currency and between extractions from the worlds largest army and the vast global production surplus somebody has to buy , it can keep borrowing or minting without a true catastrophe for a long time
For regular folks its like being nibbled to death by ducks, a little smaller package for the same price, wages that never go up , a bit more taxes and so on.
Its irrational but as the old saying goes, the economy can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent
Grahams defection from logic puts me over the edge. Add to that the grand jury for the Russia meme, and I see D.C. spiraling out of control. ..where this stops nobody knows.
A young man I know goes to DC occasionally to visit friends and check out the political atmosphere. In the year or two leading up to the 2016 election he was at a party where a bunch of top GOP congressional aides were gathered. He asked one what issue they received the most mail and phone calls about. The dude said “immigration”. Then he asked what they were going to do about it. The reply was a sort of sneering grunt followed by “Nothin'”.
This is the attitude of your GOP.
If it doesn’t change fast, I’m not just going to sit out the next election, but vote for the most communist nigger-loving queer Democrat I can find.
you won’t have to look far
And you think this will upset the GOPe? Surely, you jest.
I don’t think they’ll care, but they can do it from home rather than from office. Read up on Madison’s definition of an aristocrat.
this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rrXR6n0RTY
TPD, you are my second favorite “doc” after https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8OWNspU_yE&t=1s
would love to hear Zman interview you, like a Chihuahua loves a German Shepard (which is a lot)!
Wait until 2024. Trump needs the gop control of congress to avoid a national crisis.
It feels to me that many of the Repubs in office will turn on Trump anyway, if the Dems throw down a strong move. Complete with crocodile tears, as they give the McCain thumbs down to our President.
It will be tough to select a winner from such a talented field of contestants!
I’ve been noticing how the GOP is opposing Trump, compared to Obama. For the last 8 years, it was as if they could barely drag themselves out of bed to trudge wearily to the Hill and take their castor oil treatment. Now, they’re positively crackling with zest for battle. Every day brings a new challenge to Trump, an innovative new angle for sticking the knife into him.
And it’s odd, but they seem to think they’re engaged in single combat with him. The seem to consider the American people as some colossal whale that breached on November 8, then sank back beneath the surface of the ocean and disappeared. It’s like the populace just doesn’t exist, even as spectators. Senators treat this contest as a sort of ceremonial joust; they’re not sneaking around surreptitiously, they’re sallying forth with banners and pennants for each noisy attack. They want the glory as well as the felicity of slaying the upstart Trump.
What are they counting on for after they’ve erased the November 8, 2016 election? Do they imagine they can just saunter up to the voters and say, “Oh, hi! It’s us again! All ready for another round of applauding our speeches and voting for us? Remember those good old times before last year? It’s been too long. Can’t wait to get started.”
i hate the gop with a white hot passion, while the dems just disgust me like dog shit on the carpet.
Karl: well stated, extremely well stated.
thank you, it was straight from the Id 😛
I hope Trump will have a white house team that funnels campaign support to challenge all the gop senators up in 2018. If the 8 or 9 incumbents face Trump supported challengers that will really get their attention.
The dog shit did not betray you when it hit the carpet. Your dog did, when he hunched up and let go.
They were always going to oppose Trump. That’s the main reason I voted for him. To prove once and for all that the GOP is 100% full of shit.
Reps are the Washington Generals to the Dem’s Harlaam Globetrotters.
50% of Dem campaign contributions come from same (((people))) as 25% of Rep contributions. Notice how both parties kiss up to AIPAC, Wall Street
I think it’s much more likely that Trumpian new blood will primary the useless cucks in the GOP and remake it. Without Trump, the GOP had no future. With Trump, it can remake itself. But either way, the old GOPe needs to be swept away.
I have a tough time believing Graham is going to win the SC Republican primary in 2020. Not unless he has too many opponents splitting the vote.
or SC really is a rainbow state “where South is down low” 😀
The problem with guys like McCain and Graham is they are so well entrenched within the local GOP political system that they are nearly impossible to defeat in primaries. They have corporate allies with a lot of money and an army of hired staff to do their dirty work. (http://bit.ly/1vGE4r4)
The only way to defeat these scum is for all the Alt right to vote for the democrat.
6 years of enemy rule is better than 24 years of treasonous rule.
or shoot them through the fukking head?
Gosh, how about voting replacement republicans, or independents, instead?
it comes down to whether or not the voters n those states are “reachable”. if they are, then a primary chalenge will have a strong chance — with outside funding. if the state is full of shit heads, like i suspect with AZ/SC/KY/WI then we are stuck with the turds for awhile. key is to strip them of all perks and committee places.
i think that step#1 is to primary all the “little fish” in 2018, so as to strip cuck1 and cuck2 of their leadership positions.
When McCain retires or dies… who will Ducey appoint to replace him?
Probably another Flake globalist.
Trump is not the kind of guy to lead that effort. The most plausible first step would actually be for the House Freedom Caucus to declare itself an independent party and strip Ryan of the gavel. And for 10-15 GOP Senators to ditch the McCain/McConnell/Graham/Collins wing of the Senate and do the same.
It’s not going to come from Trump.
that’s actually a fukking great idea — keep both shit-parties from majority!
I’ve been saying to anybody who will listen – for quite a long time – that what this country has needed is a legitimate third party.
The reality is that the Democrats and Republicans have manipulated the political process and the laws to make it appear as if they are the only alternatives.
It also bears remembering – that were a number of the Founders thought that political parties should be banned as they would inevitably corrupt the political process.
There’s a HUGE number of people though – who simply cannot imagine American politics with anything more than two big parties controlling everything – as they literally think that the Dems and the Republicans ARE the government. They cannot make the distinction.
That’s how thoroughly the uniparty has corrupted politics in this country.
That’s why it needs to be blown up by any means possible.
3rd party system isn’t viable with the way our Constitution works. Multiple parties only works in a more parliamentary system.
I’ve heard a few people say that – but I’ve never heard any real explanation for why they claim it is true.
The founders wrote the Constitution – and some of them thought there should be NO political parties.
Our legislative system is all about getting a president elected and a majority in both houses of congress. You do this by creating a party that hopefully appeals to 51% of the electorate. Splitting into a 3rd party simply splits up the voters who are the most likely to support the ideology of those 2 smaller parties. Its like how a 3rd party candidate tends to screw whichever party it is most similar to due to drawing off votes, thereby giving an advantage to the monolithic party that didn’t split.
Then how did the Whigs go away and the Republican Party rise?
Not sure what you are arguing, as that is a great example of what I’m talking about.
The Whigs split and the tendency for support to break into a two party system forced them to die. I think the Republican should and will split into a populist, pro-White party and the Republicans will die. It would take a lot of Democrats from the Democrat party if the Republicans stopped supporting any outsourcing of jobs and supported working people more.
A solid pro-White party could do wonders if they didn’t mind being called Racist, Anti-Semites and Nazis.
What the hell is “viable” about what we suffer under today?
(1) Third Party: The commies captured one of the two parties last century, accomplishing one of their long-term goals. They had the good sense not to expect much from a third-party effort.
They also had quite a bit of patience and persistence. They were not deterred by temporary lulls. They were good at ratcheting: gaining ground might be slow, but they rarely lost ground.
(2) Trump: Trump managed to win states that had been given up for lost to the Democrats. He’s the logical person to “realign” the Republican party.
(3) GOPe: I don’t think garden-variety Repubs, especially consultants and infrastructure, are much concerned about whether they win office. Think about their *actual* support for Obama policies, combined with their fighting Trump’s efforts to scuttle those policies. It shows they’re happy to let the Dems do it. Both parties are paid by the same masters. They do OK whether they are in or out of office.
The GOPe is happy to let the Dems own Congress and the Senate, so they can act all Trumpy yet still be part of the establishment and cash those big checks. The GOPe actually being in power in both houses makes the charade a lot tougher for them.
Don’t leave me in suspense-which party did the Commies capture?
From where I’m sitting, I would’ve thought the obvious answer was, “both,” but who knows, maybe I missed something. Neocons *cough* Trotskyites *cough* *cough*
They infiltrated and took over the Dems like in that pod people movie, then they bought the Reps.
They could call themselves independent caucusing with the republicans. Of course the progressive republicans will do the same and caucus with the demonrats.
Prog Republicans leaning to join the Democrats would be healthy. There are Democrats who hate their party too. One of them, a governor, just switched to the GOP. Either the GOP would survive smaller, but with a cleaner identity, or it would implode. I actually prefer implosion because that’s how you shake the public out of their current paradigm.
A lot of Sanders voters are natural Trump voters. Not the pinkos, but the ones who see the country getting pillaged by corporatist and fascists. The ones who felt Clinton was worse than Trump.
I said before the convention last year that the most logical tickets representing the country would be Clinton/Bush vs Trump/Sanders in terms of the economic issues. The pinkos with Sanders would have left to join Clinton/Bush in the Government Party.