Evaluating most things in real time is a difficult process, because you do not have the benefit of seeing how things end. It is why hot-takes in the middle of a news event always sound stupid in retrospect. Those evaluations are more about the mood of the moment and the desire for attention than sensible analysis. It is only after the thing ends and the dust has settled that you can get a grip on what happened. This is the case with the Trump phenomenon, which ended months ago.
Now, we do not know if Trump will run again. He says he will start doing rallies this fall, but so far, no news on that front. For now, he has been commenting about old enemies and endorsing candidates who have said nice things about him. Elise Stefanik, for example, has gotten the Trump endorsement to replace Liz Cheney. The fact that Stefanik is one of the most liberal Republicans in the House and is nothing but a sock puppet for the establishment makes no difference.
That is a good jumping off point to think about why the Trump years never amounted to more than lots of noise. The Stefanik example is part of a pattern with Trump with regards to how he does politics. He tended to endorse candidates on whether they would win, rather than if they were on his side politically. He endorsed Mitt Romney, for example, who has been a life-long fink. He also endorsed the two Georgia senators, who were everything he allegedly opposed.
Trump’s politics were always an extension of Trump’s business approach, which was just an advanced form of personal brand management. He wanted the Trump brand to carry weight in politics in the same way it worked in real estate. For most of his life, the game was to promote the brand, while others found deals where the brand could be the difference between success and failure. The Trump brand would push the deal over the top and thus earn Trump a lion’s share of the profits.
This started way back in the 1980’s when Trump figured out that the way for him into the world of big-time real estate was to create a media image for himself as the big time deal maker. He was the real life Gordon Gecko, the character from the 1980’s hit movie Wall Street. This got him on television chat shows where he perfected the style that has become synonymous with Trump. The pop culture icon became the brand that would make Trump the real estate mogul.
From the late-80’s forward, the Trump business model was simple. He would swap some of his brand prestige for shares in a deal, like a casino. The people on the other end needed the brand to promote the project to investors and politicians, so they were willing to cut Trump in on the deal. Genuinely smart real estate people from the Trump organization would then swoop in a maximize the profit for Trump Inc. They got their money first and often at the expense of the resulting project.
The genius of this approach is every new casino or resort property with his name on it enhanced the brand, thus opening up new deals. Trump Inc. became a frog in a pond full of lily pads. They just hopped from one to the next. Unlike other real estate developers, they did not have to find new deals and cultivate the political relationships required to make the deal a possibility. Others did that and brought these opportunities to the Trump people, hoping to get the Trump endorsement.
This worked amazingly well in real estate, but not in politics. The Trump brand never counted for much in Washington, where the voters are looked upon as ants at the picnic, rather than a source of strength. Trump’s miracle win in 2016 meant nothing in a world where 95% of incumbents win reelection. Compounding it, the only deals that happen in Washington are the deals that benefit the insiders. The only thing Trump could swap his brand value for were deals his voters hated.
That was the story of his four years. One side of the uniparty was focused only on destroying the Trump brand. Trump never experienced that sort of conflict in the business world, so he was ill-equipped to counter it. The other side of the uniparty was willing to bring him deals so he could attach his name to them, but those deals did nothing for his brand or his voters. Throwing open the jails and giving the store away to rich people was the equivalent of a Trump casino in Tehran.
Where the Trump style failed the most was in the organization. In the 1980’s, Trump attracted a group of very savvy people into his organization. They were the ones who did the deal making and profit extraction from those deals. This allowed Trump to be the head of brand management. Trump’s people knew their job was to make sure the final deal boosted the Trump brand, because that meant more deals. Trump’s role was to use his brand to endorse the deal and take the credit.
It was a good system that was never replicated in Washington. His team was ignorant of how things were done in Washington. His son-in-law was actually working for interests outside the Trump administration. Official Washington was happy to send a stream of their people to fill posts and undermine Team Trump. His organization never had a chance to turn the Trump brand into anything, because they did not know how to do it, even if the brand had real value to official Washington.
That is why the Trump years were lots of promises, but no delivery. Team Trump would bring out the brand hoping someone would come forward with a deal. Either the deal on offer was garbage or there was no deal to be had. Trump’s DACA moves are a great example of the no deal. He was sure he could trade that for his wall. Instead, they ignored him entirely. Trump was begging them to do a deal on DACA and they just ignored him harder. The art of the deal had no market in DC.
The Trump phenomenon is a good example of why democratic reform is impossible in a liberal democratic system. The only way to reform the system is to understand its internal workings and have people willing to make the changes inside the system to create the desired reforms. The reformer has no choice but to engage the system through the rules of the system. There is no way to reform the system from the outside, as the outsider has no access to the system.
For generations now, the political system has been selecting for people who defend the interests of he system and the people in it. You cannot get a job at any level of politics unless you are useful to the people in the system. The entry points of the system, primaries, elections, staffing jobs, are all designed to filter out people who could be unhealthy for the system and select for those who will defend the system. Even if a reformer sneaks in, they are surrounded by antibodies of the system.
This is something the paleoconservative thinker Sam Francis recognized with the conservative movement a million years ago. As soon as they decided to engage in democratic politics, they would be forced to trade their conservative principles for access to the system. Otherwise, they would be shut off from the system. Over the years conservatism has traded everything away. They are now a shuffling husk that staggers long behind the Left living on scraps.
This is the inevitable crisis of liberal democracy. Those “liberal principles” that are supposed to constrain the excesses of democracy end up becoming obstacles to democratic reform. On the other hand, a genuine effort to reform the system from outside is framed as a threat to liberal principles. Trump immediately became Hitler, the great bogeyman of liberalism, solely on the grounds that he was a creature that existed outside the liberal democratic system.
That is the real lesson of the Trump years. There is no way to reform liberal democracy from the inside, as it has evolved to prevent reform. It is impossible to reform from the outside as liberal democracy is defined by opposition to outside pressure. That means the only reform possible is replacement, which requires a rejection of both liberalism and democracy as anything more than expedients. Real reform begins with the rejection of the system and its moral framework.
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You failed to mention in your blog that from the moment he announced his candidacy the entire swamp declared war on him. His 4 years were nothing short of amazing and he’s likely the last chance we have to take back our once free nation.
Good post, now get ready for all the down votes and attacks by all the armchair politicians who are either shut-ins or living in another country.
I think the Z Man’s analysis is correct regarding the Trump phenomenon versus the empire. I might add that Trump unwittingly did provide one invaluable service not mentioned in the piece. Before Trump, millions of people walked around thinking that true reform is just one election away, even though decades of evidence point to the contrary. Now the blinders are ripped off, millions have taken the red pill if you will, there is no going back. In destroying Trump, we have seen the use of extreme illegal measures, the institutional corruption, and finally, the stolen election, the criminal conspiracy we have masquerading as liberal democracy has been exposed to the world. There are no free and fair elections, the rule of law is a farce, and only the state with the dictates of the ruling elite matter. We have the distinction of being the largest Banana Republic in history.
He fucked over a lot of dirt people when he bankrupted in AC. His whole grift is Wrestlemania, big gut full of shit hairpiece strutting up on stage to bloviate. He played a good game getting there. Once he’s in, what’s he do? Suck jew cock, like the guy before him and the guy before him. It’s sad and predictable.
Two minute hate anyone? Dang!
Well, I’ll always be grateful to Trump for awakening so many normies to the fact the system they’d believed in actually hates them.
Did he need to wake up more of them? Sure. But he woke up 10X the number Jen or some other loser would have.
OT: Columbus — the home of Mak’ the Knife as you might remember — is interviewing for a new police chief. They just announced that they have narrowed it down to nine candidates. In a nation that is still about 2/3 White and 13% black, in a city that’s 60% White and about 30% black, the demographics of the finalists are exactly what you would expect:
6 black men
1 black woman
1 White woman
1 White man
I joked to the wife and daughter “Guess what guy is definitely not getting that job.”
This attitude sucks and is not the way. Start expecting what should be and being pissed if and every time it does not go the right way.
Make noise. Being a snarky b is for losers.
Did I ask for your lecture? No. Piss off.
“That is why the Trump years were lots of promises,” for a dissident who oppposes democracy, sure. To the evangelicals who elected him, he accomplished almost everything he promised. He’s a new age evangelical like joel osteen. They love israel, tax cuts, and minorities with guns.
David;
Re evangelicals: Trump promised to take the odious Obama regime’s boot off their throat. This he did.
Now Obama’s working to put it back using his cat’s paw, Sleepy Joe of the spiteful executive orders..
Re Joel Osteen: Grifting revival preachers have been part of the American scene for at least 250 years. He is neither indicative or unique in any way.
One thing that real hardcore Trump supporters, the ones who joined the bandwagon before he won the Republican primary, would like everyone on our side to forget is how hard they tried to sell his dealmaking reputation as an asset, while Trump skeptics recongized it as what would be his downfall.
They also seemed to lack any self-awareness when talking about how Trump was going to be the great dealmaker making deals for the ordinary people in Washingon, while in the same breath talking about how he was going to take a wrecking ball to the whole establishment system. It could only be one or the other.
My prediction back then and the reason I was into the Never Trump thing at the time was that I assumed Democrats bring out a Plan B if he beat Hillary and try to coopt Trump and basically turn him into a Democrat president using his own deal cutting instincts. The fact that this did not happen is due entirely to the Dems utter spastic rage and determination to not work with him even when refusing to do so went against their own interests, which I did not anticipate. The only thing he really had to offer us of any substance during his campaign was the wall, and if they got him to blink on that, as they did, it should have been easy to use him to pass the rest of their agenda. In fact, in some ways it may have been more advantageous than doing it under Hillary because they could do it more covertly.
If Dems had been willing to turn Trump into an asset, we would not be discussing the would-be reformer sabotaged by his own ego right now, but the outright traitor up there with Mitt Romney or possibly worse. Because even though I gave up the Never Trump thing I still don’t believe there’s any way he would have resisted if used in that way.
The fact that he was more pro-gay at the beginning of his one term than Barack Obama was at the end of his two terms should have been a sign to the hardcore MAGA cultists.
“They also seemed to lack any self-awareness when talking about how Trump was going to be the great dealmaker making deals for the ordinary people in Washingon, while in the same breath talking about how he was going to take a wrecking ball to the whole establishment system. It could only be one or the other.”
@ Post Con. 1st. The “lack of self-awareness” crap has to go. People using it like they’re leading a therapy session. Grabbing unearned authority. i.e. Since I said “self-awareness” it means I have it and you all don’t. Just say “they were wrong”. Speak like normal people used to.
2nd. It wouldn’t be contradictory for a voter to expect his guy to make major changes to the system and also have to negotiate.
1. Meh
2. Yes it would be. If there’s anything Trump’s Presidency taught us it’s that.
Your disdain of Trump is par for the course and has become so tiresome it is almost like reading The Intercept. Hopefully in the future a candidate will come forward that will meet your standards as we seem not to have a clue with this politic thingy. Nosireebob!
Well, I agree with the last part.
Nosireebob!, right?
The dissidents here dont care about trade deal restructuring, military upgrades, tax cuts, or europe paying their share of nato. They believe all that just fillls the pockets of israelites. They were hoping he’d deport abraham’s descendants give reparations to whites.
Long shot, but the 2d Anon French military letter from those serving has 145,000 signatures. Be simply awesome if Macron steps on his crank. Firing dangerous people a bad idea. Reeks of orders from DC.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210427-french-generals-cause-backlash-with-civil-war-warning
To be honest, I don’t have any faith in the French. Sometimes they just do something outrageous just to do something outrageous, but they have no idea what to do after that. They gave us the French Revolution, guilty until proven innocent, they admired Jerry Lewis, pretentious and boring cinema, plus, they still believe in liberty, equality, fraternity even with Muslims in their country. Something wrong with those frogs.
Yeah, wasn’t there some kind of “yellow vest” rebellion going on there several months ago? Haven’t heard a thing about it lately.
Are you British?
Joking aside, the French also gave us the French foreign legion, most of the crusades and the Napoleonic empire. Prior to WWI, they were one of the two major powers of Europe, the other being England. The essential of balance of power was that France had the best army and England had the best navy. The failings of the political class in WWII aside, France has a very long history of being a great military power, competently administered.
The French came to our aid in the War of Independence. It was very important to our success that they did this.
LibDem, instead of IngSoc?
But, the past century of global liberal democracy is dead, everywhere, killed in one fell swoop by Covid.
By design, as if it were ‘prophecy’?
That is, was the whole movement just a setup, the promise of a False Peace?
The most damaging aspect of the Trump phenomenon is that it continues to provide a venue of false hope for the Normie masses who remain convinced that voting harder will eventually prevail and win the day. No matter how many times the Deep State wins in destroying their opponents (see the new Rudy Giuliani persecution), they desperately cling to a belief that the sun will come out tomorrow, tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar on voting harder, harder. And as long as Trump can keep the marks showing up to his rallies and creating an illusion that voting works, nothing will change. The beat goes on.
Only hitting bottom can wake them up to reality. And the sooner the better.
Trump’s only real usefulness is if (and it is by no means certain) his failures from the day he was inaugurated to now destroys the Republican Party.
The Uniparty, and even Trump, CivNat that he is, makes the great mistake of believing that the current party system and alignments which have endured since 1876 are permanent. Right now, the Republican Party is about as relevant as the Whig Party, and we all know what happened to them, and what happened after they imploded.
Wyoming is 93% white and has only one major city (Cheyenne), so most of its population is small town/rural with a strong pioneer heritage. And yet, they voted for Liz Cheney 3 times for Congress. She is the epitome of a Carpetbagger politician who shares absolutely nothing in common with the inhabitants of the state she represents and is also an in-your-face backstabbing RINO to boot. If we can’t elect a responsible & sane normal citizen to Congress in Wyoming, what hope is there for future voting success anywhere else? The voting canard is a fools errand that only serves to pacify the civnats between elections and diffuses the anger that would otherwise motivate them into real action. It’s an easier alternative than getting the fat ass off the couch and into the fight.
“If we can’t elect a responsible & sane normal citizen to Congress in Wyoming, what hope is there for future voting success anywhere else?”
There isn’t, and that’s exactly what Trump’s failure should drive into Normie’s thick skulls. I gave it one last shot, probably like a lot of voters in 1860, but I knew it would, at best, slow the inevitable. After, I made sure that I told my Republican collaborator in Congress that he, and his party, can take their clown show and stick it up their ass.
Right?
A few months ago a Wyoming sheriff arrested a guy at an anti-mask/lockdown protest for disturbing the peace for telling the local mayor to, “Eff off.”
Real bunch of badass cowboys out there.
This is because it requires millions of dollars to win elections, and conservatives by nature are not interested in power anyway.
We would be better off spending the next couple decades trying to become billlliinaire donors.
Giuliani must be off his game. I would have figured that, following the FBI raid of late, a lot of, er, “interesting” documents would have been released via WikiLeaks or a similar venue.
Trump’s main contribution of exposing our enemies can only be weighed against the level of intensity he inspired them to reveal. The former will only exceed the importance of the latter if, despite the additional beatings we’re taking now, they burn themselves out prematurely. It remains to be seen.
Excellent analysis of the Trump MO. The sort of thing one had a sense of, but reading it makes it clear.
I read a headline about the coming rise in gas prices this morning, and it made me wonder if we aren’t in a movie sequel.
Trump playing Nixon with his appeal to the silent majority, a rust belt strategy instead of a southern one, his concessions to a resurgent leftist tide, the impeachment defeated this time, and the landslide re-election being undone by shenanigans this time. Biden as ineffectual Carter with Iran and inflation, interest rates not being allowed to rise. Makes me wonder who will play Reagan.
History doesn’t repeat, but the rhyming sticks out.
And at the end of the day Mookie from the alphabet agency gets to put the arm on the rest of us for “a little discount”.
Evil’s Signal ratio was greatly boosted by Trump’s noise. We were better off without Trump. As far as rejection of the system…lol. It wants you dead.
The system is rejecting YOUR EXISTENCE and wins by default.
Reject away. Live not by lies as you vanish from history LOLZ. 3 cups of Tea, or Chagra… hearts and minds..
Jesus saves…
WRD to Duke University Gab Diversity snippet; what is power “Hording”?
That word, I do not think it means..
anything.
“Real reform begins with the rejection of the system and its moral framework.”
A couple weeks ago Oregon’s shitbag governor, Kate Brown, decided it was time once again to jerk around small business owners and set lockdown levels back to DefCon5 in 20 counties because “new cases”. Having just gotten used to operating in the idiotic way proscribed by these demons, the business owners finally, FINALLY, had enough. All the details of the ensuing pushback will probably never be known, but I did find an article (that has since disappeared) which suggested the restaurant owners accused her of intentionally and maliciously trying to force them out of business. Ya think? Two days later she decided things really weren’t so bad and set things back to basic tyranny status.
We have our limits and we can organize, and for a brief shining moment it was on display in one of the least likely places in AINO. Keep the faith brothers.
In my mind Trump played his role. He exposed our system for the fraud it has become. This stalwart has become a practical nazzi. What comes next? That is the important question. I would be happy if a significant portion of whites and sane citizens would simple begin to advocate unabashedly for their own interests. Currently the GOP pimping for caitlan jenner; a demonstrably insane man. A little push back against the J-left and teh blacks would be enormously salubrious. What about the NJP, Z? Perhaps one should shift to practical matters.
Peabody: How many of those restaurants employ nothing but Mestizos in their kitchens?
Probably all of them. And they’re mostly shitlibs. And mostly White. Although I can only speak for the Portland area. I get your point, but it was still deeply satisfying that even these people finally found some balls.
Trump is finished politically. It will take all of his energy to save his flagging real estate business. His future, if he has one, is in media/entertainment. The Progs are going to go all out to destroy him, “pour encourager les autres”.
If anything, third-world style government imposed by Prog oligarchs in the US will be the lasting impact of the Trump era. Obviously it’s not his fault. But like Peru’ or Brazil, we now see US political conflicts played out in the judiciary system, not just with grifter asshats like Manafort and Stone, but with serious, mostly legit guys like Gen. Flynn and Giuliani. I needn’t mention the Chauvin debacle.
Locking up dissidents (Jan 6 folks) is now acceptable and even mainstream. It’s a pretty easy jump from there to dropping them from helicopters into the Potomac, “Argentina style”. Elections are openly fixed Africa-style. Federal “civil rights” charges make local jury nullification nearly impossible too. This time, there will be no equivalent of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to free our dissidents.
Junta-style press censorship has arrived here also. (The amusing aspect of the US now is that the press reportage of current events in Brazil and Peru’ is much freer than it is here!) Combined with social media censorship and self-censorship, we already have “dictatorship” conditions, wherein only the bravest (or most foolish) can openly dissent. And you all know about the “Patriot Act”.
As Zman has observed so eloquently on many occasions, we now have an actual unknown Junta in charge of the US Government. Biden might as well be an old, confused mustachioed Argentinian general trotted out in front of the “press” by the Junta. Instead of the Presidential sash, absurd medals and a kepi, he wears the ceremonial chin diaper. Like Argentina, we print reams of paper money with pictures of our dead heroes to pay current freeloaders not to work.
In the end, Trump will have provided only temporary amusement. I suppose this moment was always coming, but Trump strangely and unwittingly may have accelerated its arrival.
At least Galtieri looked manly rather than an animated corpse.
“Brezhnev took Afghanistan,
Begin took Beirut,
Galtieri took the Union Jack,
And Maggie, over lunch one day,
Took a cruiser with all hands,
Apparently to make him give it back.”
— Pink Floyd, in reference to the 1982 Falklands “war.”
“…we now have an actual unknown junta in charge of the US Government…”
As in previous administrations, most of the key players on the “Biden team” are members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) including the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Commerce, Homeland Security and CIA — plus dozens more.
The CFR and its interlocking network of corporations, foundations, think tanks, etc. is only “unknown” because the media is an integral part of the network. See chart: https://swprs.org/the-american-empire-and-its-media/
Top-tier CFR members include billionaires Larry Fink (BlackRock), David Rubenstein (Carlyle), Marc Benioff (Salesforce), Eric Schmidt (Google), Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, etc.
I’ll always be thankful to Trump for showing us just how fast the USA turned into the USSR. “Communism” and “liberal democracy” are flipsides of the same coin — useful fictions for societal organization in multi-ethnic empires, nothing more. They eliminate the fundamental problem of e.g. the Austro-Hungarian Empire — though “loyalty to the House of Hapsburg” works great for building consensus so long as the ruler is decent, it’s too easy to blame the Empire’s obvious structural flaws on the person of the emperor. But blaming them on “forces of history” or “market forces,” while providing the illusion that change of “leadership” is not just possible, but formal and frequent? Genius.
Since this is Postmodern America, though, and we’re moving at Ludicrous Speed, we’ve skipped the heart of the Cold War and gone straight ahead to the Gorbachev years, where the formerly self-aware apparat has been in control for so long, they’ve forgotten what the apparat is FOR. They’re like dandelions in your yard, or Richard Dawkins’s selfish gene — they just propagate, for no other reason but propagation.
It’s all but impossible for most people not to know this now, even as they try so hard to forget it with sportsball and backyard barbecue. We can thank Trump, at least, for that.
I think Trump might have made more headway if he’d learned to preach to the unconverted – explain the macro picture re globalisation and foreign relations in a persuasive way. He seems to like the emotional charge of confrontation plus backing from his partisans.
Exactly right. Trump was just the guy who could have done this, instead of just lashing out at the “fake news” frontmen. He teased at it during the 2016 campaign, but never went all the way. One of his CFR “advisors” probably told him just how far he could push it and still enjoy a nice retirement.
Yep, Trump seemed to think he could run the Fed government like his Trump organization. I knew that would be problematic at best. There had been a couple of well-known governors before him, who ran as alternatives to the uniparty and after election were simply ignored by the entrenched swamp. The one strategy never tried was to go straight to the people and ignore the swamp. Of the outsiders, Reagan did this best.
At first, I thought Trump was using Twitter to go straight to the people. It quickly become clear that was just a tool to troll his opposition, and act as a vent for his ego. At least it was good for a few laughs.
Trump never used his greatest asset which were his supporters. He could have easily have leveraged them into pressuring globalist douche bags like McConnell and Ryan to get his way. Instead he tweeted and whined.
One thing about D.C. they do respond to leverage. Hence giving the Muslims free reign and rolling over for the Blacks every time they throw a fit and threaten to burn down Democratic strongholds(cities)
The thing IMO that really hurt Trump is that he had no idea how much the GOP hated him and actively tried to sabotage him. Then he let them select his staff and cabinet picks which were a total disaster.
Lastly Trump did not posses the innate ruthlessness needed to truly navigate the political arena and crush his enemies where he found them. Hell he couldn’t even bring himself to fire all the Obama and Bush appointees at State, DOJ , Pentagon and DHS.
Seeing as how Kentucky reelected McConnell, I’m curious as to how you think Trump’s supporters could have pressured McConnell.
McConnell is massively unpopular in that state. He was re-elected, like Liz Cheney in Wyoming, because 1) there wasn’t a viable alternative 2) the locals were consumed with national politics at the time. Trump could have endorsed the idea of a primary challenge. Eric Cantor was removed the same way.
Probably the best way to purge the Republican Party’s national leadership is to work through state parties — primary challenges and censure resolutions to bring attention to them. That tactic has proved successful so far. Liz Cheney is history. Even Mittens has been silenced, despite his previous — absurd — proclamation of being in charge of the Republican Party. Apparently, the locals disagree.
Outside of Louisville, McConnell is liked or tolerated. Most of my (non-Amish) neighbors had McConnell signs under their Trump flags. He fights for coal and brings home pork, and that matters more to his constituency than principles.
Trump is a bullsh1tter, not a teacher. His appeal was that he was rude to the ruling class while on campaign and paid lip service to the things that mattered to undecided voters in swing states. If you read the art of the deal, it becomes obvious that his main interest is in making deals. Once a deal is made, he moves on to the next one instead of assuming a professorship. Trump is not and never was president material, so there’s no sense in conjecturing theories of what he could have done better because all the theories can basically sum up to: don’t be Donald Trump.
“Trump is not and never was president material”
So, the $64,000 question is: What is presidential material in this day and age? Getting along with the opposition or nuking the entire structure to the ground? A well-spoken, well-dressed negro homo? Let’s be honest: what determines what is presidential material is what the media and historians say it is. And whatever presidential material is now, we need the opposite of it. I’d rather have Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho as president than any we’ve had since Andrew Jackson.
You nailed the Obama description.
I wonder if it’s accurate to say that what drove Trump was simply a desire for fame, for celebrity, to be known?
That he wanted to be known and remembered as a great President, and would have said and done anything he thought would accomplish that.
He embraced a set of beliefs and principles in order to get himself elected the first time. But seeing how quickly he abandoned them— what little effort he put into trying to achieve them— makes it seem as if those principles he pretended to espouse were simply a means to an end; the end being, to put himself in the White House: the perfect platform from which to accomplish his real goal: Lasting Fame.
My own suspicion is that Trump originally began running for president back in 2015 in an effort to enhance his personal brand. Even he didn’t believe that he could win, so he was free to speak off-the-cuff and violate political correctness. Voters found that extremely refreshing. The GOP hacks competing against Trump in the primaries had no clue how to handle such a wild card. Establishment stiffs such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio were caught totally off guard by the exuberant outsider. Trump ran away with the Republican nomination and then benefited greatly from drawing a gift of an opponent, the thoroughly unlikeable Hillary Clinton, in the general election. He scored a huge upset and took the Oval Office, to the hysterical chagrin of millions and especially the media.
Unfortunately, candidate Trump proved light years more competent than president Trump. The man seemed to never fully grasp his own platform. He exhibited impressive instincts, but without philosophic grounding. He had that odd quirk of always agreeing with whoever in the room had spoken last. He’s a showman and a world-class bullshitter, which appears to be the extent of his substance. His primary value is that his very existence sends the anti-White crowd into fits of insanity. Aside from that, Trump is hollow. In a few years, no one will remember much about his administration — except that it incited unimaginable fury. His policies will be forgotten.
“He had that odd quirk of always agreeing with whoever in the room had spoken last.”
FDR historians say that ‘appearing to agree’ with the last person in the room was Roosevelt’s main strength. They left the room, apparently, thinking FDR agreed with them.
Despite a couple of fumbles, Trump protected our gun rights, which is something. That allowed gun ownership to grow sharply.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/more-guns-than-people-why-tighter-us-firearms-laws-are-unlikely-2021-04-14/
Not really.
Recall what he said during the discussions on red flag laws (paraphrased): “We’ll take their guns first, let the Courts sort it out later.”
Those are hardly the words of a gun rights advocate, or a lover of liberty.
What allowed gun ownership to grow sharply in recent months was nothing Trump did.
Barack Obama held the distinction of being the greatest gun salesman in history: voicing his intentions to make private gun ownership illegal spurred the largest gun sales ever seen.
And it was Biden’s election, and announced intention to appoint Beto (“Yes, we’re coming for your ARs”) O’Rourke as his gun czar that prompted the current surge in gun sales.
Factually untrue. In addition to open support of red flag laws already mentioned by another commenter (which violates the 2nd and 4th amendments) Trump empowered the BAFTE to regulate “bump stocks” into illegal status on par with fully automatic machine guns.
By contrast, despite his constant anti-gun rhetoric Barack Obama actually opened up federal parks and transportation to concealed carriers. He was by action a more pro-gun president than Trump.
Say what you will of Trump, he inadvertently showed tens of millions of people exactly how the country is run, who’s in the ruling class and how corrupt they are. He made more people aware of the immigration threat than five hundred Derbyshires and Taylors could have done.
He blundered into getting 70,000,000 people pissed off at the system and that’s 70,000,000 possible converts to dissident politics. The DR should get busy exploiting that potential.
2 days after Obama won re-election, the GOP and cons were talking amnesty. Hannity was literally talking about the need for amnesty the Thursday after the election. These days, very few, if any of these types are talking amnesty. You can give Trump credit for that. He was a blowhard and didn’t follow through with much but he did “remain in Mexico” and other minor things.
Trump barely scratched the surface of showing “how the country is run” but he pulled back the curtain. The real eye-opener was the 2020 virus scare, the Antifa/BLM riots, and the election fraud. Now the question is how to turn awareness into effective action.
There is no “DR”. There are some dissident content creators who, for the most part, once they get to a certain level of success in terms of building an audience, immediately lose access to banking and payment processing and hence end up completely emasculated every time. Sure, I like listening to podcasts, reading blogs, and watching videos as much as anyone but the collective influence/power of all of these combined efforts isn’t even enough to spring a single Jan 6 insurrectionist from jail. By comparison, if a high level drug lord from Mexico is arrested or one of his lackeys is killed, a hundred people in northern Mexico get beheaded and they end up having a roiling firefight with the Federales that lasts a week. If only we had a DR half as influential as a small Mexican drug cartel. For the most part we are a bunch of over the hill guys venting on the internet. That’s about it.
Not convinced anywhere near all 70 million are anything but ‘vote harder’ peeps.
There are 70,000,000 people who saw that voting doesn’t matter.. It is stupid to write them all off so casually.
The 70 million were already pissed. Trump was simply the only political candidate to tap into it.
Smart leaders will try to keep that pissedoffitude alive.
And wise leaders will implement the policies that pacify them.
Trump was merely part of the dialectic. He took part in the professional wrestling world and came to understand the white hat and the heel. In his time in office, he was both. White hat for his fans, the heel for the left. There have been so many people that have predicted he would be killed or financially ruined once he left office. But, the lawsuits have been dropped, he is still highly visible, and his preparing his offspring for continuing the Trump political dynasty. Having rallies will bring in political donations, which, the law being what it is, he can use for whatever. He told his followers what they wanted to hear the entire time he was in office. While the economy was relatively good while he was president, he accomplished none of his stated goals. At first, he pooh poohed the Covid virus, but then he reversed himself, began warp speed vaccine production, removed legal consequences for the manufacturers, and now he criticizes people that diss the vaccines. Of course, though, he’s not making money from Big Pharma, right? His coup de grace was his performance after the election. “Stealing the election was shameful!”, he mouthed. Shameful? I thought it was more like high treason, but, that’s just me. He had opportunities to stand up for the people of this country several times in November, December, and January, but did nothing. And you want to tell me he wasn’t in on the scam? I didn’t vote for him in 2016 because I knew that the electoral process was a farce and the rulers would control both him and Cankles. However, after he was elected, it looked like he was trying to reverse things and the enmity of the media and the Swamp made me think he was somehow an outsider that slipped through the cracks. Now, I once again believe that the electoral process is a useless farce, except for our rulers. He was in on the con. And we are just slaves, even more than we were before 2016. Keep your powder dry.
Trump still did a good job of smashing some of the furniture before he left the stage. It’s up to us to take advantage of the opening he created to finish exposing the farce, and the scriptwriters.
He’s a bit like the character in the movie “Network” who talks straight to the audience, telling them to get up and yell “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
https://www.tcm.com/video/294074/network-1976-im-mad-as-hell
This post today I believe opens an issue that needs to be addressed. I, for my part, had slowly become disillusioned with Trump. I am an octogenarian, and I had never seen a president behave like this man. I was initially entranced with his victory, as well as his demeanor in the primaries. Jeb Bush, for instance, looked like a bird that had flown into a plate glass window. I actually felt sorry for him. The professional politicians on the stage with Trump were unable to handle someone who didn’t play by the rules of political discourse. Only a neophyte like Cruz, and an idiot and buffoon like Kasich held on to the last!
Then began his administration, I became aware of his lack of ability to choose individuals to proceed with his announced agenda. The only place he did choose with care was in the case of the economic agenda, with trade negotiators, sec. of Commerce, treasury sec. I had expected him to expose Hillary Clinton and her treasonous activities as soon as possible and not let her escape from true justice. It didn’t happen. There was a lot of talk and bluster from him about the obvious attempted coup and Russian collusion hoax, with huge amounts of evidence being built up on the internet to the authenticity of this attempted coup. He allowed the DOJ and its obvious corruption to continue unabated. He should have removed Sessions immediately when he recused himself! And when Sessions did resign, he allowed this corrupt bureaucracy to continue apace! It became obvious to me he did not possess the “gut responses of a political fighter with immense power” to perform his agenda for which the people had elected him.
Cutting myself some slack, I was fooled by some of the things that he did….reduction of the tsunami of federal regulations, moving the country toward energy independence, letting the world know that the U.S. was not going to be the world’s piggy bank anymore, embassy in Jerusalem, his assault on our relationship with China, and his frequent statements as to the purpose of national governments, etc.
But the crowning blow for me has been that we are in the unbelievable chaos at present, because he was totally incapable of “going to the mat” so to speak to use his immense power as the president to attack what he knew was occurring for at a least a year before the election. The Zman is correct in describing it as “all noise”. The possible destruction to “his brand” and his reputation was more than he was capable of overcoming!
The final stroke was this! I am a retired physician, and his activity with regards to the coronavirus plandemic, most particularly the vaccine , where he continues to brag about his so-called “warp speed” of it’s production and the need for everyone to get it, removed all doubt of my feelings toward him. He turns out to not have been up to the task of being President!!
In the beginning it seemed like Steve Bannon would use the Trump Presidency to unite Nationalist movements worldwide and finally crush globalism. That’s one of the big reasons I liked him. The media saw this clearly and smothered it in the crib by accusing them of being White Nationalists and White Supremacists. I think Brexit really shocked the globalists too. The problems with all that are twofold. 1) In destroying Trump they basically had to destroy America since the majority of people very clearly expressed their agreement with what he was saying overall about America’s role in global politics in the same way England expressed huge doubts about the European Union. 2) As usual, Israel was the only beneficiary of the hard-right Nationalist bent in the Trump administration. If only we had 1/10th of the nationalistic tools the Israelis deploy against the Palestinians. Trump was probably the best President Israel ever had. I think he was very badly advised after Bannon left and the GOP/Neocon swamp creatures started manipulating him.
“If only we had 1/10th of the nationalistic tools the Israelis deploy against the Palestinians.”
Except, we’re the Palestinians… hold on you, not so fast!
I’m not talking about the current crop of former migrant farm workers and foreign Arab UNWRA puppets.
I mean the “real” Palestinians, the hellenic Syrian Christians, the First Christians, the ones Paul talked to.
In 1924, France, as part of Sykes-Picot, split Syria Palestina into 2 nations. Southern Syria became “Palestine”, a name formerly used in place of the yet unformed Israel.
Simply, ‘Palestinian’ meant ‘Jewish’, ‘Palestine’ was the former Biblical region of lost Israel.
*Political re-organization and balkanization by conquering powers.
*Delegation of near-slave status migrant workers into an ‘autonomous’ province.
*The suppression and re-writing of recent history.
*Introduction of a foreign-born tyrant, say, an Egyptian or a Kenyan
*Co-dependence on a UN NGO and the hostile neighbor.
Any of this pattern sound familiar, Mexifornia?
My apologies, ridiculously off topic.
I should have Trump on the brain too, because Trump’s secret army was all CNN and the Progress channel could talk about last night. Surprised me, because I’d completely forgotten him already.
ps- Viva la Insurreccion, culos
” In destroying Trump they basically had to destroy America…”
As the globalists yawned…and got about their business of ‘creative destruction.’
“…his lack of ability to choose individuals to proceed with his announced agenda. The only place he did choose with care was in the case of the economic agenda…”
Not so!
Trump’s Trade Representative, corporate lawyer Robert Lighthizer, is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Trump’s Commerce secretary, financier Wilbur Ross, is a long-time Democrat operative, who “converted” to the Republican party in 2016. He is former chairman of the Rockefeller’s Japan Society, a CFR affiliate.
Trump’s Treasury secretary, financier Steve Mnuchin, was a Goldman Sachs officer and a business partner with George Soros. Goldman and Soros are major CFR sponsors.
Trump’s political super power was getting his enemies to expose their own incompetence, duplicity and corruption.
Very few people realized just how corrupt and self destructive the federal governing elite were before he came along. And just how thoroughly incompetent the entire edifice had become.
Every governing elite adopts hostility to outsiders. A functional one would have either co opted Trump (which could have been easily achieved) or eliminated him. Ours couldn’t do either. I large part because they are so thoroughly feminized.
The real trick for the next iteration of outsider will be figuring out how to use Trump’s magic to drive the establishment nuts again, and then the discipline to use their passive aggressive theatrics to split them apart and eliminate one by one.
They aren’t incompetent. They are getting everything they want.
They were competent up to the point they went nuts and gave their game away a little too early.
You hit on the exact point on the Trump/deal team interplay. He had no deal team at the outset and was playing defense the entire time. Years ago at a board dinner was seated next to one of the members who hailed from one of NY money centers, where he was the “big fuck up” workout guy. Dealt with a bunch of Trump’s casino debt when it went bad. The other side of his negotiating style was to let his deal team do page turn markup work, then if they reported things weren’t going their way, Trump would fly in, flip the tables, call the CEO and raise a ruckus. Throw everyone on the other side off their game (and if you know commercial bankers, pretty easy) Then his guys would go back to work eviscerating the covenants. Lather, rinse, repeat. When Larry was handed the deal after it went bad, he found the bank had nearly zero of the control and preference covenants normal to debt priced at a small margin over prime. But when your “deal guys” are McConnell and Ryan….they are watching out for the own interests not yours.
Z: 5.10.21: “This happens with other things like pithy phrases. Back in the Obama years, someone used the term “crony-capitalism” to describe the tightening bonds between global corporations and the government. The phrase caught on and was in the mouth of every right-wing pundit. In time it sounded like some of them had a form of Tourette’s, in which they burped out that phrase uncontrollably. Today we have “deep state” and “globalist” getting the same treatment from the same crowd.”
Not sure what the point of this paragraph was except maybe to swipe at Right pundits for getting woke and helping to wake others.
Good phrases become cliche and eventually fall away. Great phrases stick around and become just what you call something. Their use in quick discourse means they’ll never and *should* never be dispensed with. Chad & Stacy haven’t the mind or time to conceptualize their random intuitions. Serve them a simple plate of “deep state” and “globo-homo” and suddenly they get it. They’ve got a lens now. If one gets sick of Rush & Tucker repeating “crony-capitalism”, too bad. It’s perfection and it works.
Besides, let’s face it. Unless you’re an oratorically gifted Jon Bowden type, most of us rely on cliche to express any idea more complex than “I like it”.
Sadly, as we know, we’ve nearly lost one of the best words ever. Gay. (I’m not 97 so I’m not lamenting the loss of happy “gay”). But the other Gay. A brilliant blend of “stupid ass, fake, corny, and punchable”. Besides its blunt efficacy, it’s got a certain descriptive essence that will never allow it to die. They may as well try and kill off the word Love.
My guess is that the mean Gay roars back with a vengeance around 2052. When the cool kids rebel against their parents’ and grandparents’ pussified speech codes.
It’s the minor cliches that annoy and could use updating. A cliche such as, “Threw him under the bus.” With a few tweaks it could be switched up. On a per-use basis even. Granted, from a cinematic angle there will never be a better replacement for the bus under which I’ve thrown you. But we’ve got to move forward as individuals.
Other cliches are forever repeated and technically stupid, yet forgivable. One such is when sportscasters yell “Unbelievable!” after a great play. We should all learn to live with it. Don’t be the guy at the bar who gripes about it. “Monkey caught a football with one hand. What’s not to believe?” (That’ll get you thrown out of your favorite establishment. Trust me.) Just lay low and let it go. “Unbelievable!” has passed from cliché into tradition. It is what it is…
Z set himself up for it so…with respect. There’s GOT to a replacement for your threadbare “men in sundresses”. It cannot be topped for fluidity and image. But it’s time to move on. You’re the freakin’ phrase wizard. Give it a shot.
Trump could have been the Reagan he himself wanted to be and the system could have prospered under him but we are too far gone now. The harpy feminists, sexual perverts and butt hurt blacks all guided by the neurotic usual suspects has given us a “ democracy “ that will no longer tolerate white males with any self respect and testosterone.
Men like Desantis of Florida could get the system back on track for another short period of looting but I just don’t see Desantis or Hawley types saving the day.
Another election cycle or two of open borders and low birth rates for whites and it’s over anyway.
We have to look for answers outside this system.
I don’t see any evidence that Trump wanted to follow in Reagan’s footsteps; or that Trump shared any of the conservative principles that Reagan espoused.
If Trump had tried and failed to keep his campaign promises— to build the wall, bring our troops home, drain the DC swamp, protect our 2nd Amendment rights, send back the illegals and the ‘dreamers’, end the great replacement of legacy Americans by ‘minorities of color’— then we could blame his failures on his opposition. But how much did he really try?
I see no evidence that Trump really holds the beliefs and principles he pretended to when he ran for President. I think he just knew what he needed to say in order to get elected.
I think Trump did look at Reagan as an example of a popular President that he himself admired in his youth. As for policy No Trump was not Reaganesque. Trump just wanted to succeed using whatever policy or deal he could get done.
Trump doesn’t hate us.
That’s why he had to go.
Remember The first two years the gop had supermajority and blocked everything regarding the wall, and the supreme court blocked his DACA order.
Im glad we got 400 miles of wall and we saw multiple impeachments, a russia investigation, the media tarnish their reputation, a stolen election and blacks expose their low IQs in real time. It woke me up to leave california and start working on european citizenship. Id rather live in high tax white country than a free market black country
That’s another lesson of the Trump time. The party could have gotten just about anything from Trump in exchange for some small tokens like the wall. They were too dysfunctional to take yes for an answer. It will only get worse once the geezers drop dead. The next group of party leaders are a blend of diversity and stupidity.
Yep: the Republican party’s response to Trump made it clear that real reform is NOT on their agenda: another good result of the Trump presidency.
They like it where they are, and their one goal is to do whatever’s it takes to stay there.
That’s when I, personally, had my road-to-Damascus moment. I never could figure out why The Media and the Democrats (they are, of course, the same thing) didn’t do the obvious with Trump: Smear him when he jukes right, and praise him for “growing in office” when he jukes left. The guy is nothing BUT ego; they could get him to do whatever the hell they wanted, if they just treated him like any other freshman Congressman or Supreme Court justice (quick, what’s the fastest way to get a flaming liberal into Congress? Elect a Republican and wait six months).
But they chose not to, because they are a) True Believers, and b) incredibly stupid, so they blew their whole world up.
Or they crushed our world, no?
COVID is Crackdown on the Commons.
Yes: despite Trump’s many flaws and failures, his overall effect on the political system turned out to be a good one. Seeing him as an outsider made it easier for American voters to see themselves that way, and to imagine an alternative to the current corrupt and inbred system; even if Trump ultimately failed to provide that alternative.
I suspect that prior to Trump’s declaring his candidacy, many of us had only a vague idea of the Trump brand; I know that was the case with me. If you’re not familiar with the NYC real estate market, and don’t watch ‘reality TV’, the Trump brand seen from afar just looked like a successful form of self-aggrandizement, but with little actual content except “look at me!” Celebrity as the ultimate sign of value: “I’m famous, so I must be important”.
Running for President, Trump’s ‘genius’ was in realizing what non-lefty American voters wanted to hear; realizing the extent to which those people felt that no one on the current political scene was representing them; and successfully pretending to share those beliefs and values.
Trump fooled a lot of people into believing that he actually was a strong 2nd Amendment advocate, a foe of current immigration policy, the man who would bring our troops home and clean up the DC swamp. Only after he was elected did he say and do things that made his erstwhile supporters realize that he was just saying what he needed to say to get himself elected; that the only principle he truly embraced was that of keeping his brand in the public eye. And he was really good at that: as soon as his current controversy started to fade, he’d say something else so outrageous that the Media would have no choice but to cover it; putting Trump back in the spotlight.
But false as he turned out to be, he did energize the populist base that got him elected. That much we can thank him for.
And seeing his opponents steal the recent election has hopefully clued a lot of folks in to the fact that ‘working through the system’ to effect change is no longer possible; since the system itself is rigged to produce the result our overlords want.
I criticize Trump harshly for all the usual reasons and then some. But there is something to be said about his confidence, charisma etc. All the insults in the world simply bounced off him, he hardly ever even had to swat at them. If you could bottle that up and sell it, I’m sure Trump would have slapped the Trump logo on it and done it years ago (and no, what he had was much more than just sniffing a few lines of coke).
I think the DR shared that brashness and braggadocio for about a yearlong window. It was a great feeling. I never had much faith in the guy, but I remember the morning when he won, I went to the coffee shop before work. As stupid as it seems now, I must have had a spring in my step. I noticed it in my peers too. You could sense it, like a change in the air. A guy was waving a giant American flag on the overpass on the way to work, and guys were beeping their horns as they drove by.
Of course all of that has vanished, and we’re still suffering from the comedown. If nothing else Trump gave us that experience, that feeling, that mode of being– we know what it is, and perhaps at some point we can get it back more concentrated and purposeful this time.
I agree: his confidence and unapologetic self-assurance was infectious. I suspect we’d all like to be a little more like that.
Also refreshing: his speaking without the usual filters politicians use to parse their words and make sure nothing they said offended anyone. By contrast, Trump speaking out what was on his mind without filtering it was refreshing.
Even when what he said didn’t make a lot of sense, or contradicted what he’d said the week before, or was outright false; it was nice to see a politician saying what was on his mind without censoring himself.
Bill:
Re Trump and the media: While there can be no doubt that he truly enjoyed the spotlight, I also think that he was constantly at work to keep them off balance. They’d no sooner get their new talking points issued to them and start hooting those new points back and forth to each other, trying to build the usually effective howler monkey chorus of noise, than he’d put out something else ‘outrageous’, throwing them off their game. Previous GOPe, (GWB = best example) would respond as though the media’s script actually deserved an answer. Usually they ended up caving in to it.
It was really amusing to watch their outraged flouncing around. And, it seemed that, though they thought themselves the smart ones, they never broke the code. So the Cloud had to bring the Tech Titans out into the daylight at the end. Ripped off yet another mask, it did.
Agreed! He was a master at manipulating the media. And it was fun to watch their heads explode at his latest statement.
I also found it interesting how right after he was elected, so many commentators just couldn’t for the life of them figure out why so many people had voted for him. Their puzzlement proved more than anything else how out of touch they were/are with the American people.
I concur. And the March to degeneracy is accelerating, which necessitates the immediate destruction LD.
“the only reform possible is replacement, which requires a rejection of both liberalism and democracy as anything more than expedients. Real reform begins with the rejection of the system and its moral framework.”
The expedient nature of democracy is that it allowed the plebians a say (real or pretend) in the system. Between the Wuahn Flu tyranny and the elimination of free and open elections, this formerly mild mannered plebian has no choice but to reject the system.
My sons are slaves, forced to wear submission sacks in order to a attend their private school. If they do not, men with guns will come and forcibly close their school.
Chicago and Cook county “elections” brook no dissent. Goodfellas quote, “$#@! you, pay me.”
The problem is, the appearance of free elections kept this wage slave passive. Chilling and grilling.
No more.
New church, new real life networks, range time, buying bulk ammo… the Moe Nonmame from three years ago is like a totally different person.
I’ve said it before: this stinks. I liked living in a 1st world country where my children had a future to look forward to.
Well you can kiss that dream goodbye. If you aren’t already superwealthy, your kids are going to be competing with illegals for gig work delivering food or giving people rides for tips with Lyft and Uber. The educational system has all but decided that if black people can’t or won’t do math and science then nobody’s children will learn math and science. Kids growing up now have no future other than to fight the war with Iran, Russia, and China that is being created for them. All they need to know is how to have fun together and who the enemy is. The equity agenda is designed to impoverish white people. The government is literally punishing your progeny for the sin of redlining decades ago.
Already happened in Toronto. There are hordes of non-white (mostly Punjabi) Uber drivers and community college “students”. Despite being in an economic crisis the government just announced its giving away 90,000 “green cards” to foreign students and nonwhite immigrants. Canadian grads can’t find jobs. They’re living 20 to a house and insurance is skyrocketing. No end in sight.
I also hate the shit libs who can’t even be bothered to walk to McDonald’s for a coffee. At my local McD there’s always 5 indian or African Uber eats people picking up burgers or coffee. Think how much this helps the drug trade too, so easy to slip an extra kilo into your “delivery”…
In the vibrant megacity where I live you can get an Uber to deliver a person to person package. You just order the uber and put whatever you want in the trunk and the driver takes to the destination you indicate. They don’t look in the trunk. You can literally deliver anything that way. The cops wouldn’t stop an uber in a million years. I know all kinds of people getting drugs delivered that way here. But luckily, almost everything has been decriminalized so it’s not like the cops are going to lose their minds if you put an ounce of weed in the trunk of a car. Even if you did get arrested for some bizarre reason there is no bail here anymore so you would be booked, photographed, and released. Only a very small percentage of felonies are actually ever prosecuted anyway now. I don’t think most Americans realize that in reality there is practically no law enforcement anymore. Certainly no “pro-active” law enforcement the way there used to be.
I’m personally shocked at how many people I know are doing gig work delivering food — and believe me, where I live is nothing like the GTA. What surprises me is that there are that many people ordering food for delivery, especially when in my neck of the woods it would only take you 10-20 minutes round trip to pick it up yourself. Why would you cough up the fees and tips to have someone bring it to you? This is not an affluent area, I would think every dollar counts for most of these people, but I also understand that they have only the faintest grasp of the concept of deferred gratification.
My only addition to the excellent column is the role of Trump’s family in the administration. Trump faced the inevitable dilemmas of any outsider achieving office: who do you trust and who can you rely on to implement your agenda, assuming you have one? (Jessie Ventura had similar problems when he became governor of Minnesota.) Trump clearly relied heavily on his family for advice, which I think backfired badly in the case of Jared and Ivanka Kushner. I was less than heartbroken when Trump “lost” because I feared that he would spend his second administration promoting the political ambitions of the Kushners, Don, Jr. and Eric. We’ve had enough recent family dynasties in American politics.
Yep, one can use Trump’s reliance on family as a “good example of a bad example”. On one hand, I’m all for a strong family united in support of one another. On the other hand, loyalty does not overcome incompetence—or in the case of Kushner, Jewish heritage.
Agree on the need to end dynastic politics in America, but looking at Europe, where a ridiculous number of leaders are childless, doesn’t offer much hope that barrenness is a better alternative. With no genetic ties to the next generation, rulers like Macron and Markel simply find different ways to say “FU” to their subjects.
Prolly a good reason to hope DJT runs again and somehow get back as POTUS. If nothing else, he is an agent of change and four more years of his mulish regime will hasten along the dissolution of the Uniparty.
By touting his ‘disruptive’ influence, perhaps Trump should curry favor with the legion of Fembots in the gender bender studies and boost his chances in 2024, lol.
The Trump Show was a one-season special, and a sequel would only be a disappointment. He should rally his “base” to promote younger, more effective fighters to go up against the progressives and the globalists.
There is no political solution. Trump showed us that. Not sure there is any solution, tbh, most dissidents are over 60 years old. But we’ll see.
“There is no political solution. Trump showed us that.” Maybe. Maybe not. Trump and Pence could have precipitated a political solution by refusing to count or validate the fraudulent electoral votes from the compromised swing states. Pence failed, and Trump refused to cross the Rubicon (perhaps wisely, for lack of troops). But that would have been a political solution. Perhaps the chance will present itself again.
Pence didn’t “fail”. Did you see one of the legislators palm a “challenge coin” to Pence immediately after he rubber stamped the electoral vote? Then his chummy elbow bump with queen Pelosi?
https://ugetube.com/watch/mike-pence-receives-his-039-judas-039-coin_EMnSESHxD4RdAWg.html
“The other side of the uniparty was willing to bring him deals so he could attach his name to them, but those deals did nothing for his brand or his voters.”
McConnell reportedly bragged that Trump would sign any deal they put in front of him. I wondered if it was because he got to keep the pen but Z’s observation is probably more likely the reason.
Taking all the pitfalls and required changes to his habits the presidency represented, I wonder if a lot of his failure to adapt to the political world stems from age.
Trump is an egomaniac who has been wildly successful as a real estate mogul, author, television personality, reality show host and social media star. Given all that success it is hard to tell yourself you are in over your head after one of the most improbable wins in the history of elected politics. Add age in a successful transition was probably impossible.
Trump was clearly at a stage in life where he was bored with details and long term planning (which made all the claims of 4D chess and Q darkly humorous). I am in my 60s and while I have a lot of energy I no longer have any desire to spend it on things that don’t captivate me. It was clear that Trump was having a great time hosting rallies and dancing to YMCA. Doing boring things like figuring out how to counter Democrats’ efforts to sabotage the wall or steal the election simply didn’t engage him.
McConnell is married to long-time CFR member Elaine Chao, who served in Trump’s cabinet. Liz Cheney is the daughter of former CFR director Dick Cheney. It’s hard to score when your own team is playing for the other side.
In some ways there is no other side, just one side. Trump was an outsider who crashed the party then wanted to be the guest of honor
That’s actually a perfect analogy.
Fascism, anyone? It seems to be the only game in town. Though we may need to call it something else.
No deal: What we have now is merely a variant of fascism. Old style fascism allied the state with corporate power, with the state being the senior partner. “Liberal democracy” is the same alliance, but with the corporations being the senior partner and wielding the real power. So dump the idea of “fascism” being any kind of an answer.
If not fascism, then what? My guess is that many Z readers favor limited government. I like limited government a lot, but it is easily subverted, as USA history shows.
Limited government can work in a white country but how do you get to that without a period of fascism to expel the non-whites and instate the limited government?
I’m all ears.
Zman has saod it before, Line: The answer is the solution to “the large society problem,” i.e. “a passive ethno-nationalism organized around group identity and rights.” Doesn’t matter if it’s fast or gradual; its implementation solves the problems you note.
Facism was the logical next step in Western development. Its no coincidence that China has just stumbled into something eerily like Nazi domestic policy despite starting from Mao and Lenin. Fascism drank deep from our civilization where it gets the fasces bundle, the Roman salute, or the eagle (things that were/are used in American symbolism). Or that attempts to fight fascism just end up destroying Western civilization (the colonial empires, the statues, the architectural styles, Western demographics, the philosophy and religion).
America, a product of the old Enlightenment, just happened to still command the resources of the old world. Thus, Pax Americana was just History grounding to a stop. As it recedes, history is returning. Europe is asserting its independence again as it tried to do in the interwar years. China and Persia are growing powerful again, the Red Indians (reinforced from South of the Rio Grande) are recovering North America. The last 500 years of White Ascendancy are over and even Charles Martels victory over Islam is being repelled.
Fascism, really highly-centralized, undemocratic, nationalism, is the answer but its one that Western civilization failed to implement. Now the Middle Kingdom will use it to return to prominence.
The classic answer to oligarchy was tyranny. It will be called something that has a little resonance with democracy, but it will be tyranny.
Corporatism is more descriptive, and doesn’t have the negative stigma of “Fascism”. Hard to convince the masses that the left/right circus is just a distraction, and harder still to get them to re-focus on the Corporatist overlords.
“Though we may need to call it something else.” We certainly will.
I really like the term “Social Nationalism”, but for some reason I just don’t think it will fly.
Strike;
Saw what you did there 😉
The Snazzy Party. Just in time for the Instagram and TikTok generations. Instead of Hugo Boss uniforms and Leni Riefenstahl films, we’ll have cool tattoos and rock concerts to promote the next vax jab.
It’s TEOTWAWKI.
Who was it, memory is a bit foggy, but someone back when said that all Trump is a NY bullshitter who got lucky. Hmmm. Seems about right.
Now there is a bit of groundswell for Florida governor DeSantis. Admittedly a far improvement from the normal pozzed leadership we have but you see the future disappointment coming. By the way he is having some type of Florida government conference in Israel in the future, so there is that for ya.
My hope is some type of invading redeemer from the outside. Scatter the roaches here and let us rebuild. That’s all I have because nothing can be done like, I dunno, draining the swamp.
DeSantis could be the Reagan the establishment needs, but I don’t know if he has the skill or that have the smarts for a replay of that scenario.
He will be immediately dependant on wealthy donors.
And the wealthy donors are attached like barnacles to the establishment (or vice versa), which is how the wealthy maintain control of the system against pesky things like the will of the people.
If Trump were to personally bankroll DeSantis, then potentially DeSantis could forge his own path, since he wouldn’t be dependent on said donors; how likely that is won’t be known for some time. One thing I always said about Trump was that he was mostly immune from the influence of the corrupt donor class since he didn’t need their money. Anyone else without the personal fortune of a Trump attempting reforms as Trump said he wanted to do will run slam into the donor wall.
Also re: DeSantis; the establishment is signaling that they’re going to run Charlie Crist against DeSantis and try to eject DeSantis from the scene that way. Crist is nothing more than a political vampire, bereft of anything resembling principles, which makes him a perfect vehicle for the establishment to take out DeSantis. If DeSantis were to lose his own reelection bid against a character such as Crist, he’d be mortally wounded as a potential 24 presidential candidate.
If we had someone truly good, donors be damned. Money is influence, but the state is power. A man at the head of the state can just start arresting and executing donors or even just taking their money. The left has always recognized this in a way the American so-called “right” never could. Our side governs and their side rules.
On the day of Trump’s inauguration, hundreds or even thousands of leftists were arrested in DC. Yeah, not donors, but still illustrative of the point. Over the next 18 months every single person had the charges dropped. Even people who attacked Trump supporters right in front of police had their charges dropped, even when the victim kept in touch with prosecutors and were willing to travel back to DC to testify. All of the Jan 6th arrestees and even people arrested months after the fact are all facing long prison sentences for much lesser crimes and dropped or lesser charges are not in the cards.
Remember bike-lock guy? He got probation. Cantwell is sitting in federal prison for an insult. This was repeated all over the country. Leftists attacked anyone not a leftist, even kids and women. If they are even arrested the charges are dropped. Anyone attempting to defend themselves end up in prison. Ditto BLM. BLM can stop cars and beat drivers, but anyone trying to get away gets arrested and prosecuted.
After the J45 event in Jan 2017, Trump should have sicked the feds on all those anti-Trump rioters and sent a message that this was not going to be accepted. But he surrounded himself with cucks and traitors.
Trump was never in control of the DOJ or any other government department. Short of a Stalinesque purge (and I don’t mean just firing) it is simply not possible for a POTUS to have that control.
You think Biden is calling any shots? Not even for his own medication.
So what.
Every government throughout history, with few Rey exceptions, has been been dependent on or heavily influenced by their wealthy components.
The only question a dissident should ask himself regarding a right-wing politician is “Can he become a Caesar?”. If not, he’s irrelevant.
He’s better than most, but I don’t see DeSantis being that person.
I guess this just shows we’re getting closer to the time where we’ll be having to spit on our hands, raise the black flag and start slitting throats. When the time comes, that chicken s*** fence around the capital area won’t do the trick.
““And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.””
Outside a massive outside catalyst, such as an embarrassing military defeat or economic collapse, a ‘soft’ totalitarian version of this will be our world in 30 years.
It won’t be “soft”. It’s never soft.
I would argue that the scenario described in Brave New World is that “soft” totalitarianism. And depending on which day of the week I ponder this, I can’t decide if we’re trending “hard” (1984) or “soft” (BNW).
Perhaps it will start off “hard”, with dissidents “disappeared” or having their faces chewed off by rats, and then gradually devolve into “soft” where we’re all being drugged by “soma” in our water and avocado dip.
Or maybe we just drift off into the Age of Aquarius, and everything degenerates into a gray colored mush.
No more nasty distinctions, and no more painful Truth.
I don’t see it taking that long. I’m almost 70 so I do not expect to see it but my son is 52 and I expect him to do so. The rabid zeal I see daily in the Left’s attacks on any/all dissent/departure from the orthodoxy of the moment – even within their own ranks – coupled with (what I perceive to be) increasing calls for “reeducation” of heterodoxy tells me they will not be so patient as to wait 3 decades. Hell’s bells! The level of hatred and vituperation exhibited HERE against my generation (newsflash: if we’re reading the ZMan and commenting here then we’re probably NOT typical boomers 😉) suggests to me that the folks of the same generations as those who so eagerly attack me and my generation who are not on the DR will not be so patient. 30 years? Nah. More like 2030 – if they wait that long. I truly suspect that wokism is just getting warmed/wound up. Given the utter cravenness of the current iteration of the SCOTUS, I see nothing to stop the leftists from doing whatever the hell they damned well please.
(One (old) man’s opinion and you know what those are like.)
In 30 years? Is it the 1990’s again?
Does this quote never get old?
Its like people want the camps to be authentic.
Trump was useful as a way of lifting the curtain and letting us see things.
He did a lot of damage to Conservative Inc. That was the real value of Trump. They still gave oligarch support and there are plenty of MAGA hat wearing types singing the old civic nationalist tunes, but it is no longer a unified entity. Those MAGA people are antiwar, anti-globalism and increasingly anti-immigration. The ground is better for us after Trump in many ways, despite the crackdowns and pogroms.
He showed that the rulers of the country hate white men. And they are willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of us. For Trump, they had to expose the deep state and fake FBI warrants. They would go much further if necessary.
People say “Trump made the left hate us” – but they already hated you this much, they just didn’t need to ramp it up.
Trump didn’t make the Left hate us – Trump made the Left fess up that they hate us.
He also put Hilary Clinton’s office-holding career to an end, for which he can’t be thanked enough. She probably isn’t the bogeyman a lot normies cons make her out to be, but the gratuitous media fawning during her campaigns was revolting, and now we don’t have to work about it anymore.
Ah but the prog left is a multi headed hydra. When the Hillary head was cut off, AOC and Talib sprouted up. It’s worse than whack a mole. I once thought Trump deserved two Nobel prizes for keeping the Clinton and Bush families out of the white house. Now, I subscribe more to Zman’s lucky bullshitter thinking.
Anti-war, anti-globalization, and anti-immigration, and America First is the message that resonates with the MAGA crowd. Pat Buchanan tried with that years ago, but perhaps it took a guy with a bigger name and brand to successfully sell that message. I don’t know how sincere Trump is about it, but it’s here and not going away.
Trump also did a lot of helpful damage to the corporate media hacks at CNN etc. Too bad he never focused attention on the New York CFR that coordinates the media on behalf of the oligarchy.
Yup. Trump was bad in a lot of ways but I ask you this. What was the PRACTICAL alternative? Bad as Trump was, would not Hildabeast been worse – far, Far, FAR WORSE!?!? I’ve been around the block a time or two and in my experience the universe seldom – damned near NEVER! – offers us a simple choice between “good” and “bad”. Hell! The choice is almost never even between ” bad” and “awful”. Usually the choice is between “terrible” and “OMFG!”!!! I hoped that Trump would do at least some of what he promised but I did not actually expect him to do so. I really only voted for him in the hopes of staving off what is happening now for another 4 (possibly 8 or even longer if Pence succeeded him) years. Trump as POTUS was not great. But can anyboody honestly say that Hildemort as POTUS would have produced results more to our liking?
(And if you do say that then I want to know how to get in contact with your dealer. Whatever you’re toking is PRIMO!)
That’s more like it. Your comment that “Trump’s miracle win in 2016 meant nothing in a world where 95% of incumbents win reelection” doesn’t make sense. The reality (as I see it) is that Trump was the preparer of the ground.
Trump was the first and last “white” president, which means he is the first person to have been explicitly, unapologetically “white” while presidenting. What neither he nor most of the rest of America realized at the time was that the combined forces of the Media, the political establishment, academia, the military and intelligence agencies and practically every NGO on the planet are intentionally goading white men into responding to the most racially provocative attacks I have ever seen in my life. Pure insults beamed over the airwaves toward any and all white men. Trump was a magnet for it because he didn’t seem to realize that he was being subjected to a ritualized, intentional process of public humiliation for the enjoyment of the ruling elite. He was the heel. The stooge. The mark. He was so confident in himself that he made himself ridiculous… Because ultimately all white men will be made to seem ridiculous as a kind of retribution for historical crimes that the entire planet wants to see us pay for. Until you realize that you will struggle to understand such things as opioid crisis or the pandemic response. The whole point is to make you suffer and look stupid because they want to create the narrative that white men are stupid, violent, racists. There is nothing at all in our current times that is a beacon of hope for white men except maybe Elon Musk launching Spaceships. The last thing on earth feminists, Jews, black nationalists, Communists etc wanted was for white men to feel inspired by Trump’s successes.
The left’s “double standards” are just anti white. That’s really what it comes down to.
Not exactly. Trump made a special emphasis to let thousands of violent black criminals out of prison. His pardons were pathetic, especially Kwame Kilpatrick and Lil’ Wayne. Trump wasn’t a white President he just doesn’t hate us and thinks it is acceptable for us to group interests, which is an improvement over 99% of the politicians in Washington.
He got played by the media and the establishment with that whole Lil Wayne thing. So embarrassing. I think he did genuinely want to do outreach to “the blacks” as he called them. He just didn’t realize that he was getting punk’d every single time.
I missed that one. I do remember “A$AP Rocky” (who made a video of Trump being murdered) which just demonstrates that his closest advisors were hoodwinking him.
While I get what you’re saying, I’m not sure I’d call Trump a ‘White President’. He’s certainly not an unapologetic advocate for Whites on the same level as Jared Taylor or John Derbyshire or Gregory Hood.
He never mentioned the fact that pretty much all the discoveries and advances that together make up civilized life as we know it— in science, exploration, technology, government, philosophy, the arts— were accomplished by Whites.
He only briefly and occasionally alluded to the wave of virulent anti-Whiteness that animates the Media, Academia, Hollywood, and even the Military.
He never pointed out how Whites are the only group not allowed to express ethnic pride: Blacks have BLM, Hispanics have LaRaza, but Whites expressing the same sort of pride in who we are is condemned as “racist White supremacy”.
Trump occasionally flirted around the edges of that awareness, but never really took a stand for it.