The Party is Over

After an election, there are two things that almost always happen. One is the winning side draws the wrong lesson from their victory. The lesson they usually draw is that that they are on the right side of history or that the gods are on their side. Same idea, different magic. One of the anomalies of the recent US Presidential election is that Trump is not prone to magical thinking and his own party hates him, so he seems fairly level headed about his win. His party is acting like they lost so no gloating there.

The losing side, on the other hand, draws any number of wrong conclusions. Republicans generally assume they lost because they were too far to the Right, so they immediately start adopting the positions of the Left. The Democrats will often conjure up some sort of conspiracy theory, thus the ridiculous recount efforts now under way. The point is the losers never learn from their mistakes and therefore just rely on the other side burning itself out or screwing up so they can be the default option in the next election.

The way the Democrats lost and their wobbly condition, suggests they may be in for a much longer winter than typical. There is a British Labour Party vibe to them these days. You see that in this piece from Time Magazine on the state of the party.

The narrowness of Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss to Donald Trump — especially given the fact that she actually won the popular vote by 2.5 million and rising — has led many liberals to conclude that the Democratic Party only needs a slight adjustment to win future presidential elections. A better candidate, a more competent campaign, or a more credible message on economic issues — any one of them might have kept the presidency in Democratic hands.

On one level, this is true. A large football stadium’s worth of additional votes distributed correctly across three states, and Clinton would be president-elect today. But it also obscures the fact that the Democratic Party has basically collapsed at the state level.

There are many things the party must do to rebuild. Here’s one more to add to the growing list: The Democrats need a better breed of operative.

The article then goes onto to describe a few top operatives as soulless, corrupt incompetents. What’s interesting here is you very rarely see anyone on the Left question anything about the Cult, including its political arm. Self-awareness is not their thing. That and doubt on the Left is always assumed to be a gateway drug for apostasy, so it is fanatically discouraged. Losing and losing badly may be forcing some soul searching. The party is now a regional party, for all practical purposes.

What I think we may be seeing is the the end of the normal life cycle for an ideological party. The Democrats, like British Labour, were always a coalition party that adopted an ideology as a theme song, more than a political philosophy. Political parties are practical things. They organize to win elections so the party can us the power of the government to reward friends and punish enemies. In order to win they must make compromises and they often have to get ideological opposites to temporarily agree.

Ideological parties, on the other hand, are impractical, which is why they tend not to last long. They cannot compromise and instead go through purifying rituals in which the doubters and questioners are boiled off. Eventually they become so narrow they no longer have any practical benefit, if they were ever able to have any at all. The Libertarian Party is a good example. It is useless as a party because it spends all of its time wrangling over theory and doctrine. That and figuring out how to keep fat naked guys from showing up.

Like Labour, Democrats went through a period where they jettisoned many of the people who were willing to challenge the Cult over political strategy. In the 1990’s, moderate Democrats were voted out in favor of moderate Republicans. The elected officials that remained after the ’94 election were a bunch of pols from the New Left, who took up leadership positions. They went about turning the party into an ideological movement, that had some early success, but has been burning itself out over the last decade.

Take a look at the Democrat Party and it looks a lot like the CP-USA after World War II. The people in charge like being in charge and use ideology to maintain their grip. The foot soldiers with any talent are heading to other things, leaving an increasingly incompetent core. The Democrats have become the party of “Kill the Honky” because Progressives have become a suicide cult that thinks salvation can only come after the last white guy is hunted down. Outside of Zimbabwe, that is not a winning formula for electoral success.

The Democrats are not going away and Labour is not going away in the UK. Something will replace them. In the UK, it appears the new political alignment will be SNP versus the Tories, with the foreign traitors in London often siding with the Scots. In the US, we will probably see the neo-cons waddle back over to the Democrat side to form a more centrist coalition. There will be the identity political Left and the hyper violent, lose wars of choice, Right in one party. The Republicans will be the honkies from flyover country.

Regardless, progressivism cannot be the core of a majority coalition, at least not in anything resembling a liberal democracy. At best, it can be an influential part of a  coalition, but never the dominant part. In the fullness of time, it may be understood that the worst thing to happen to American Progressives was their final victory over one of the parties. They may have discredited themselves to the point where their thing is never the same again. Robespierre lost his head learning this lesson so Nancy Pelosi should count her blessings.

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Deplorable Black Man
Deplorable Black Man
7 years ago

The impact the Global Warming cult has had on the Democrat party can’t be underestimated. Before GW they were a death cult, but there were enough people in the party to keep it within bounds. Hence, you got Bill Clinton’s line about “safe, legal, and rare” – provided a fig leaf to the urban, working class Catholics. But the GW folks have added the element of a Doomsday cult to things, which has just about detached them from reality, and most normal Americans.

James LePore
Member
Reply to  Deplorable Black Man
7 years ago

Thank God Donald named Pruitt head of EPA. I thought he might be going soft on the issue. GW is very high on my list of progressive lies. It’s a sub-cult that must be destroyed. Also thank God for Harry Ried and the nuclear option. Now all of Donald’s picks go through. On that score, I think his strategy is to make picks who will most infuriate the Cult, on the theory that their inane reaction will guaranty that normal people will not forget how repulsive the Cult is.

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Deplorable Black Man
7 years ago

Ya, “Death Cult”, got that right. They ain’t called The Human Extinction Movement for nothing. Without exception they destroy everything they get their greasy meathooks on. Nothing is sacred or beyond the pale in those respects.

thor47
thor47
Reply to  Deplorable Black Man
7 years ago

If only Global Warming was safe, legal, and rare. ( satirical irony )

Severian
7 years ago

The result that should really have the Left soiling their underwear is: Trump won (white) women. Women are herd animals and since there is a considerable social penalty for being a Trump supporter, something major is going down if women deserted the Women’s Party and voted against the Woman. Hilariously, but predictably, they’re already publishing catty blog posts with titles like “white feminism cost us the election.” Yes, that’s it… you’re just not “intersectional” enough. Did you appeal hard enough to transsexual Bronies of Colouyr? Work on that. I think it was Ted “Theodore” Logan who said, “never interrupt an… Read more »

chiefIlliniCake
chiefIlliniCake
Reply to  Severian
7 years ago

Look at what Trumpism has already done in the last month for the mental health of ALL Americans, with the huge exception of the mentally deranged left. Have you seen the stock market? The holiday retail sales? America is BACK, and the man isn’t even sworn in yet. Out here in Realsville, every normal person I know can’t stop smiling. America was and always has been a beautiful idea and state of mind; to me it feels like a national demon has been exorcised already. With his peddle to the metal style, he’ll rack up more real change for real… Read more »

Dr. Mabuse
Reply to  chiefIlliniCake
7 years ago

I don’t know how to “read” the stock market anymore; for years now, it’s been disconnected from reality, so I don’t take that alone as a sign that Happy Days Are Here Again! But you’re right about Black Friday sales being up, and I’m sure Christmas sales are going to be up as well. It’s purely psychological; as you say, Trump hasn’t even taken office yet, so he hasn’t been able to DO anything. But it felt as if, on November 9, America came out of the defensive crouch it’s been curled into for the last 8 years. People are… Read more »

LetsPlay
LetsPlay
Member
Reply to  chiefIlliniCake
7 years ago

It really is amazing the change in attitude that I have noticed. The blinds have been lifted, the light has been let in and the rats and roaches are running for the corners. But while I view this as but a shot of EPI from one of those expensive epinephrine pens from Manchin’s daughter, and we have a high from that, we still have a cancer that must be eradicated. So it feels good but there is a big fight still to come and one that must be fought and will be harder because our so-called leaders shirked their duties… Read more »

LetsPlay
LetsPlay
Member
Reply to  Severian
7 years ago

I believe the quote “Never Interfere With an Enemy While He’s in the Process of Destroying Himself” is generally attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. And of course, the people who created everything before everyone else, the Chinese attribute the saying to none other than Sun Tsu thousands of years before Napoleon was a gleam in his father’s eye.

bilejones
Member
Reply to  LetsPlay
7 years ago

Ah yes, I well remember the Chinese steam engines, their spinning looms, the railways, the blast-furnaces and electrolytic aluminum smelters.
Oh, then there were the Chinese creators of heavier than air flying machines, the Chinese chap called Diesel and his pal Benz who put together self moving machinery, the inventors of the vacuum tubes, electric light telephone’s, refrigeration then frozen foods, telegraph radio, telephones, transistors microchips, PC ……………………. the phrase FUS springs to mind.

bilejones
Member
Reply to  Severian
7 years ago

And the natural result is for them to run a black woman.

Guest
Guest
7 years ago

You are obviously wrong. Trump lost the popular vote and his margin of victory in the electoral college was razor thin. The Democrats just needed to move a little farther to the left and they would have won handily. Surely keeping Pelosi at the head of the party and posting Keith Ellison at the DNC will lead to victory. /sarc Regarding the recount, I have to admit I have been astounded by the lengths to which the Democrats are going to try to steal this election. The discrepancies in Detroit between the ballot counts and the actual ballots suggests significant… Read more »

BillH
BillH
Reply to  Guest
7 years ago

Who or what agency would administer a National Voter Registry? I can’t think of a single federal agency I would trust to administer it, except perhaps some U.S. Army combat division or brigade, nothing above that. I wouldn’t even let the Air Force or Navy near it.

If placed under a federal agency, a National Voter Registry would be the first thing the Donna Brazile’s and Debbie’ Wasserman Schultz’ of this world would try to infiltrate and corrupt

Rich Whiteman
Rich Whiteman
Reply to  BillH
7 years ago

Keep it at state level. Show your gov issued ID at the polls, no same-day registration. Maybe limit absentee ballots, require hardship/proof of being out of state, or requirement for early voters to physically hand over their vote AFTER presenting identification. Prioritize overseas military ballots (do they ever get counted?). Or, purple fingers!

Guest
Guest
Reply to  Rich Whiteman
7 years ago

Rich, with all due respect, this problem can’t be solved at the state level because the blue states *want* to enable fraudulent voting. Here’s a link to register to vote in CA. http://registertovote.ca.gov/ No need to provide an ID, an address, proof of citizenship, proof of residence or other eligibility to vote in CA. Just populate the fields, make the attestations, and you are registered to vote in CA. No cross-check to determine if you might vote elsewhere. It’s not much different my state of Colorado or other blue states with motor voter laws. Democrats and the MSM (I’m being… Read more »

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Guest
7 years ago

It is exactly the problem, it can only be fundamentally solved at the States rights level. The rule and idea of republican form of government demands sovereignty of the states to self determine through will of the governed and the protection of that will above and before anything else, something that was purposefully usurped with the intent to limit States rights in the creation of the XVII Amendment and give the federal government almost unrestricted administrative powers.

Guest
Guest
Reply to  BillH
7 years ago

It’s a good question, Bill. I think it would have to be modeled on the Social Security Administration, i.e., a non-partisan board of governors on rotating terms appointed by the President to terms greater than 4 years and subject to Senate confirmation. The Agency would report to Congress, not the President. For all its faults, the SSA has been remarkably non-partisan. From an information technology perspective this is a relatively trivial task. The SSA has birth records of 99.9% of all eligible voters. Death records too. Mirror the SSA database, add in the records of the few eligible voters who… Read more »

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Guest
7 years ago

Your kidding right? Tell me, exactly how that idea has worked out?: “a non-partisan” board of governor’s? More unelected unaccountable political elites? Does “Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” strike a note with you? There is a pretty serious document that was written regarding your ideas of more unaccountable government, it specifically stated something about “non-partisan” agents of the state, as a rather important reason for a war of independence: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” From The Declaration… Read more »

Member
Reply to  BillH
7 years ago

repeal the motor-voter law..

MSO
MSO
Reply to  Guest
7 years ago

“A National Voter Registry should be a top priority of the Trump administration.”

The Beasts of Washington would be known as the ‘Wet Legs’, from drool on the front to pee on the rear, over gaining that sort of power. Talk about a carefully tailored and controlled electorate.

james wilson
james wilson
Reply to  MSO
7 years ago

Yep. I suspect that the only path open to Trump, with the Justice Department opened for business again, is to turn the screws on the crews that rig elections around the country, make it something more than a victimless crime. Between discouraging that and dealing at some level with the illegals you should see a few million Democrat votes disappear. It’s now or never I would think.

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Guest
7 years ago

Your “obviously wrong” my arse. If I didn’t know any better your a sneaky little statist troll. What a line of carefully constructed cognitive BS. There is some thing your saying here that just isn’t kosher.
What your saying here has the odor of double think and spreading doubt disguised as discourse.

freddie_mac
freddie_mac
Reply to  Guest
7 years ago

Given what we’ve seen in Detroit, I’d support a random audit of x number counties in x number states (divide the country into 4-6 regions, and select one state per region).

Recusant
Recusant
7 years ago

Speaking from the British side of the pond, I think what we are seeing here, in the US and across Europe, is the end of the ideological century. Ever since the Russian revolution we have seen politics played as a titanic struggle between opposing ideological forces. The Cold War ended twenty five years ago, but we are only now seeing the result. Communism/Socialism lost any credibility as an effective ideology for government and, without opposition to it as a their self-defining feature, the West’s own ideological structure has been hollowed out to a state of irrelevance. Which leaves us, after… Read more »

Al from da Nort
Al from da Nort
Reply to  Recusant
7 years ago

Ah but our esteemed proprietor and a number of commenters have several times made the case that Marxism/Socialism IS a religion: Arguably a Christian heresy. Pretending that it’s not has been its ‘stealth technology’ for 200 years. Religion is not going away any more than history. So I’d expect a rebranding effort first, much as Feminism was a rebranding of Economic Marxism (aka ‘scientific socialism’). The real ‘beauty’ of Cultural Marxism vs. Economic/Technocratic Marxism is that it can never be falsified via real-world results since its promised utopia is ethereal and emotional (aka spiritual) and not economic and tangible. Why… Read more »

james wilson
james wilson
Reply to  Al from da Nort
7 years ago

It is exactly as Burke wrote–Tell me what the prevailing sentiments are that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.–Anyone who has regular contact with a cross section of high school students, much less college students, knows that the future has not been altered, it has been delayed.

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Recusant
7 years ago

I think your very correct Recusant. Their power over people is reliant on usurpation of power of the State to impose it through threat of force and use of violence ultimately if you resist or defy. If you have an ideology or agenda, something so distasteful and abhorrent you need the government to impose it, it’s pretty simple it is evil. And everything associated with it, from the politics to the State is illegitimate. But it is the people who act to impose such things that are the most illegitimate component, because the power of the state and it’s character… Read more »

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Doug
7 years ago

The Founding Fathers understood that prosperity and domestic tranquility are founded on the concept of voluntary association and commerce. When the government is one of the active players in any of these associations and transactions, then the relationship is no longer voluntary, it is coercive. There is no way to directly involve the government in these associations and transactions and have it be anything other than coercion.

Member
7 years ago

The Democrats are still in shock. If they have committed to a direction after the election, I have yet to see it. I have a feeling they’ll end up taking some variation of the Corbyn route, but they have not taken any dramatic steps yet. After 2012, the Republicans made a few clear decisions on the way forward. That “Tea Party extremism” needed to be rolled back, that latinos needed to be pandered to more(a nice bit of confirmation bias by the open borders globalists), and that the Republicans should stop being the party of “no” and instead show they… Read more »

Dr. Mabuse
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

I’m still watching the election night TV coverage by the networks, courtesy of YouTube. Whatever the network, the evening’s coverage always started the same way: several times in the first 2 hours, the “conservative” spokesman raises the flag Republicans were supposed to rally around: The Autopsy! The Great Autopsy of 2012! That was the way forward, especially pandering to the Hispanic vote. To hear them, Hispanics were a tsunami washing over the US, and the only hope was to skillfully steer the Republican surfboard to the top to ride it to victory, or else be crushed underneath forever. After Hour… Read more »

Rurik
Member
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

During the 1860s the young Russian socialists decided to educate and propagandize the newly freed ex-serfs to stimulate revolution. The intellectuals participating in this movement of “going down to the people” were called Narodniki, or Populists in English. When they were dramatically rejected by the common people, the Narodniki decided the necessary alternative was to form vanguard movements such as Peoples’ Will to conduct terror instead. I suggest we may see the core of the Democrat radicals, particularly among BLM and SEIU following a similar path, while a few politicians publicly disassociate themselves and “deplore” while urging “understanding”.

Member
Reply to  Rurik
7 years ago

The left’s terror infrastructure is far too undermined by feminism and/or ghettoism to be any real threat to armed rednecks.

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

TT, how can they commit to anything but the bullshit they been foisting for decades? What else do they have? Organic grass roots movement Trumps Astroturf any day. What can you say about astroturf really? I think when you have to use Soro’s bucks and laundered federal tax dollars to fund a cabal of alynski-ite red diaper radical chic brats, pay useful dupes to do their Maoist cultural revolution dirty work, and stir up false class warfare, riots and financially prop up a 5th column legacy media, it goes without saying there isn’t any substance to it beyond burned out… Read more »

Member
Reply to  Rurik
7 years ago

I grew up speaking a Slavic language as a child, so I love it when I see words in print that I still understand, like “narod” (meaning the public, the “people”). My Slavic skills are rusty these days and the version I know is the colloquial version instead of the formal language.

Doug
Doug
7 years ago

I’m not worried, I’m exstatic! I think we are going to see things happen in this country we haven’t seen in better than a century, and some things take place we have never seen. It has been a long time coming. The destruction of cultural marxism has taken place, it is become totally irrelevant, it will be totally destroyed by the dirt people of the Traditional Right and Alt-Right before spring gets here if not sooner. It is already begun. It isn’t difficult either. The dirt people have had enough of this multiculturalism crap and political correctness, that is a… Read more »

Old Surfer
Reply to  Doug
7 years ago

This is what frightens me if they manage to derail Trump somehow- I don’t think the sore losers have a clue- This came out a while back but seems pretty relevant. Money quote: “These people are playing with matches… I don’t think they understand the scope and scale of the wildfire they are flirting with. They are fucking around with a civil war that could last a decade and cause millions of deaths… and the sad truth is that 95% of the problems we have in this country could be solved tomorrow, by noon… simply by dragging 100 people out… Read more »

Member
7 years ago

Good column, to me this is more about the Republicans than the Democrats. The Democrats are in some ways better. They’re anti-American Marxists who worship multiculturalism and Gaia. They don’t like me. They want people like me to be punished. I know where I stand with them. In a way, I respect that even if I know I better not show them my back. The Republicans, on the other hand, are really in a pickle. The GOP didn’t really win in November. Trump won. Trump also had coat-tails. I haven’t read a credible analyst who thinks the GOP retains the… Read more »

Drake
Drake
Reply to  hokkoda
7 years ago

Even worse, the idiot they insist on retaining as Speaker of the House is trying his best to make the tax system worse instead of better.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442550/ryan-brady-tax-reform-bill-protectionism-vat

Trump has to slap him down hard or else he’ll lose all momentum.

Member
Reply to  Drake
7 years ago

I suspect that tax provision will remain if it crosses Trump’s desk. The mood of the country right now is not with the free-traders.

RedFred
RedFred
Reply to  hokkoda
7 years ago

Well it certainly seems that the unprincipled DC Republican leadership is as “pickled” as you say. Do you think that all the state legislatures and governerships are in the same situation? Or do we have some hope out in the hinterlands?

Member
Reply to  RedFred
7 years ago

The States are much closer to the People, and they have to balance their budgets. That kind of discipline is not required in D.C. It ain’t their money, and so at the end of the day, they don’t really care. That’s how you get a $4B Air Force One for a President who could legitimately fly commercial.

thor47
thor47
Reply to  hokkoda
7 years ago

Obama or Hillary on a plane with the LOTGU. ( Legions of the Great Unwashed, for those of you who never read Road & Track writer Henry Manney. )

Now that’s funny right there.

Chiron
Chiron
7 years ago

“we will probably see the neo-cons waddle back over to the Democrat side to form a more centrist coalition.”

This would only happen if the Clintons remain in charge of the Democrats, the Leftist-Neocon alliance is extremely unattractive for a majority of Americans.

Member
7 years ago

The Democrats are in trouble. They were in trouble in the 80s when searching for an answer to Reagan. They ]oved Teddy Kennedy, but he had no appeal outside of the Bluest of the NE Seaboard . Then out of nowhere came Billy Jeff Clinton from the Center-Left and he played his saxophone and bam, in he and Hill went. So the can was kicked down the road for 8 years, but nothing really changed to show a vision. There were no coattails. The Dems continued to track sideways or lose traction as a national party , concentrated on it’s… Read more »

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Uncle_Max
7 years ago

There will always be someone new showing up on the Democrat scene, just as BJC did. The trick is for our side to exhibit confidence and success, and not screw it up. Reagan did, but then handed the helm to Poppa Bush and it all went downhill from there. There is a lesson in that.

James LePore
Member
7 years ago

I did an undergraduate paper on this subject in 1967. My premise was that middle America wants government that works pragmatically, is made uncomfortable by ideology, and would therefore always reject a pure ideology party. My appendix included a piece, including the cartoons, from MAD magazine on the 1964 Goldwater/Johnson election, in which as I recall, Goldwater was depicted as Hitler. The wheel has turned. Obama is now Stalin and the Democrats CP-USA. (P.S. My professor called the MAD attachment shoddy corroboration, or words to that effect, but I think I goat a B).

Member
Reply to  James LePore
7 years ago

I think what happened with Trump and the Tea Party this past election bears you’re theory out. Everybody was wrong about the Tea Party. Its so called champions and real enemies branded it as a movement of pure ideological conservatism. This was disproven as that Tea Party all but vanished in the wake of Trump. The real motivating factor for the Tea Party wasn’t pure conservativism, but “F*** Washington”. Trump took up the banner of “F*** Washington” and ran with it, the Tea Party largely followed right behind him.m, a rejection of ideology just like you describe. Also it fits… Read more »

Member
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

Republicans have spent the last 35 years looking for the right “conservative” as the second coming of Reagan. But Reagan was a populist, a conservative and libertarian lite. Maybe what people found so appealing about Reagan was his populism/libertarianism which was mislabeled as conservatism.

I know with myself that Trump has me questioning whether I was ever a conservative or not. Or maybe we are just going through the same thing the left went through when they changed their self identification from Liberal to Progressive.

Dr. Mabuse
Reply to  TempoNick
7 years ago

One thing about Trump that I noticed immediately, and it was very obvious at the Convention, was that he was very unique in NOT talking about Reagan. Mainstream Republican candidates and pundits seem to have fallen into a habit of treating Reagan as a sort of superhuman figure, before whose shrine they’d genuflect when they wanted to underline their own virtue. Trump never did that, and I found it very stimulating, even though I loved Reagan and still do. But 1980 was 36 years ago. When Reagan ran for president in 1980, he didn’t pepper his speeches with praise of… Read more »

James LePore
Member
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

I agree. The Big Media/DNC power center concentrated on the crazy Trump persona and not his pragmatic and often pro-government message. They had a lot of fun doing it–he definitely gave them a lot to work with–and surely thought it was a winning play. If they had paid attention to his message, however, they might have easily argued that Hillary could do it better. Was this a deliberate strategy on Trump’s part? A great fake out? I kind of hope so as it would reveal not only his genius but the blind arrogance and stupidity of his adversaries. I predict… Read more »

Doug
Doug
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

This ain’t about the politics of cultural marxism or cuckservatism and who is right or wrong, or Right or Left, it isn’t even about the power of the government any longer, that itself got left in the dust of the great fuck you, it is far more fundamental, thus it has a legitimacy all it’s own nothing can deny, this is about who and what we are as dirt people our consent and our existence.
It’s not about “them” and their power and arrogance and having the choices of submitting or shut the fuck up.
This is war and revolution.

Anon
Anon
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

“Trump. The real motivating factor for the Tea Party wasn’t pure conservativism, but “F*** Washington”.” That’s exactly right I think, except for “the Tea Party” part. To the degree there was a “Tea Party” (as in an organized political organization) it was hijacked by the GOPe (Dick Armey’s arrival on that scene was the clue) and steered away from that. The real, grassroots, tea party movement people realized they were successfully hijacked, went underground to regroup, and returned as a base of the Trumpists (some making a stop as Cruzists along the way). I’d love to know Trump’s thinking, and… Read more »

Anon
Anon
Reply to  Anon
7 years ago

“organized political organization”? Jeez. I hate writing on iPads.

Member
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

Anyone recall the conservative commentator who said, a few days before the election, that a Trump win, at that point still officially pronounced to be unlikely, would be the biggest middle finger ever raised in history? Brilliant.

Dr. Mabuse
Reply to  Ray_Van_Dune
7 years ago

Actually, I think Michael Moore said that, and others picked up on it too.

Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams
Reply to  James LePore
7 years ago

Funny thing about MAD magazine was it (Gaines) got far more right than wrong…

Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams
7 years ago

The Hive Mind can’t have individual self awareness. That is a feature, not a bug.

MSO
MSO
7 years ago

Labels are difficult things, often resulting in confusion and hopelessness. The Ctrl-Left and the Alt-Right ((Mitch McConnell, Graham, Ryan and friends) have combined, using terms such as compromise, unity, diversity, strength and comity as cover for their machinations.

Americans, on the other hand, frequently and repeatedly labeled as racists, phobists, ignorant, deplorable, bitter clingers and so forth struggle to regain control of the language while our children are being raised and educated suitably for lives lived as rodents kept in fish tanks.

Like Franco, nobody is really certain if we are truly dead.

thor47
thor47
7 years ago

” . . . describe a few top operatives as soulless, corrupt incompetents. ”
All demo party operatives are soulless and corrupt. Incompetent depends on your definition.

Drug for Apostasy is a good title for an album by The Apocalypse Messengers. Now if I could find a lead guitarist . . .

” That and figuring out how to keep fat naked guys from showing up. ”
I want a political party where the just barely this side of decently dressed large women show up.

Drake
Drake
7 years ago

The Democrats used to be anchored to the center by the Blue-Dogs like Sam Nunn and the JFK Cold Warrior types. Bill Clinton used a firm hand to keep them close to the center. If they were sane, Jim Webb would have the candidate to beat in their primaries but the Blue-Dogs are now officially extinct.

Once Bill left town, they expelled the moderates and cut all ties with the center. Now they are rocketing leftward and away from any relevance.

Solomon Honeypickle IV
Solomon Honeypickle IV
7 years ago

If Trump can get 60+% of the electorate on his side, and keep the remaining votes split 2 or 3 ways, then he will be able to genuinely move the political system into a new equilibrium point. One where results and cost and benefits all matter.

Ben H
Member
7 years ago

I run into state-level dem activists on occasion. The black ladies seem alright, but they are totally interested in “black” things and no other topics, though of course they will go along with the program. Half the white ladies are the ‘angry all the time’ sort and the other half are crazy all the time. The white guys are either juvenile-behavng or the hard edge cynical guys who make money from being on that side. Its lucky there are so many people with mental illnesses and personality problems or these guys would be in worse shape than they are.

Member
Reply to  Ben H
7 years ago

What you describe is cause for hope. Nothing remotely resembling competence will come out of what you describe.

james wilson
james wilson
Reply to  Taco_Town
7 years ago

“The article then goes onto to describe a few top operatives as soulless, corrupt incompetents.” It does not occur to them that they are actually well represented in the soulless and corrupt departments, yet they wish for someone who is also competent in this arrangement. This leaves them to be seeking the Magic Mulatto for thirty years in the same way that conservatives we were seeking Reagan. Reagan’s legacy was two Bush’s, almost two Cliinton’s, and one Obama. We can hope Obama’s legacy is as deep.

el_baboso
Member
7 years ago

We’ll see what the progs can get away with on December 19th. I think that this Jill Stein stuff has been smoke and mirrors to distract from what they are going to try to do in the electoral college.

I’m not saying they’ll be successful. I’m just saying they’re going to try to swing it back their way.

el_baboso
Member
Reply to  thezman
7 years ago

If I’m a prog strategist, I’m going to try to do whatever I can to damage Trump. I’m going to slice this into three outcomes, with #1 the highest probability of success and #3 the lowest. I’m going to work through the NR Republicans and try to find those electors who identify with the ruling class (probably managerial class types who know what side their bread is buttered on) and suborn them. Like the article said, they just need better operatives. 1. Dems are able to wrest a few EC votes from Trump but he still gets enough EC votes… Read more »

BillH
BillH
Reply to  el_baboso
7 years ago

#1 will only degrade his media image. Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his media image, and knows how to neuter it.

#2 also will only degrade his media image. See #1.

#3 I suspect Trump and his inner circle anticipate this and have a plan to derail it. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t deserve to win.

el_baboso
Member
Reply to  BillH
7 years ago

#1 and #2 are to shore up the base and keep the party from disintegrating as Zman outlines above. Every entity needs a sustaining myth after is defeated. The South had its (the Cause) as did post WW1 Germany (stab in the back). For Conservatives it was, “At least we have our honor.” This self-defeating narrative has been enormously harmful to us and drives a lot of what we have observed and debated here. The progs have fetishized democracy. Their sustaining myth will be built around winning the popular vote and the racism of Middle America. I hope that it… Read more »

Rich Whiteman
Rich Whiteman
Reply to  el_baboso
7 years ago

#4: The Faithful Electors give wedgies to the Faithless Electors, take their lunch money, and knock their glasses off.
Maybe that’ll happen.

Severian
Reply to  thezman
7 years ago

That’s what total institutional control does to you. The great thing about being a “conservative” (or whatever we are) is: If I’m wrong, or anywhere close to wrong, or have one single typo anywhere in anything, I have the entire herd of independent minds elbowing each other out of the way to hoot at me. It’s annoying, but it keeps one sharp. The Left has the entire media telling them their losses are a messaging problem, backed up by all of academia telling them that changing words actually changes Reality. Thus, any failures are failures not of theology, but of… Read more »

james wilson
james wilson
Reply to  Severian
7 years ago

One cannot have a herd of independent minds. Hopefully, it is a hoard which awaits you. The herd are the other guys.

jay dee
Reply to  Severian
7 years ago

Severian…….your comments are right up there with Z’s original posts. Usually awesome and always entertaining. Another keeper. =)

Severian
Reply to  jay dee
7 years ago

Thanks! I have no idea how Z Man does it – I can sometimes riff off his stuff, but I have no idea how he keeps up the consistent quality output. @ James Wilson: “herd of independent minds” isn’t original to me, but I love it, as it’s the best description I know of Leftist behavior — they’re all convinced they’re badass freethinking intellectual rebels, but they’re actually herd animals who have to be instructed on how to think about stuff (Mother Jones or somebody really did publish an article titled “How Progressives Should Talk about [one of Obama’s scandals]”… Read more »

Ted Bell
Ted Bell
Reply to  Severian
7 years ago

I always liked the way Dennis Miller describes it:
They sound like their deepest held personal beliefs are memorized.

I actually used that description on an SJW I know, and she didn’t bat an eye. She literally couldn’t understand how someone memorizing her core feelings could be seen as insincere. She called me stupid for not doing it myself. The idea that my moral convictions are my own, and not borrowed from others, remains completely foreign to her.

curri
curri
Reply to  thezman
7 years ago

“the Democrats are all crazy liberals”

But also military adventurists in the ME and against Russia and aligned with culturally liberal Wall Street. How stupid and/or blind do you have to be to vote for such a “worst-of-all-worlds” party? I’m surprised that Noam Chomsky was such an ardent Hillary partisan. It must be that a non-leftist Goy with a big mouth always spells H-I-T-L-E-R to prog Jews and SWPL’s.

War Pig
War Pig
Reply to  thezman
7 years ago

The odds of the military stepping in are as close to zero as you can get before nothing happens. As a retired soldier of long service I can say with some authority that the odds of the US military stepping in even if Hillary’s tools manage to foul up the electoral college are way higher than a million to one. The US solved the civilian control over the military during the War of 1812. Of all military forces on earth, the US military is the least likely to do so. That is why the average American loves and trusts their… Read more »

Solomon Honeypickle IV
Solomon Honeypickle IV
Reply to  el_baboso
7 years ago

you have to remember that Trump has an army of followers. any electoral shenanigans and there would be millions of people marching on Washington. the Dems have no idea how much they are hated, and how many people would love to string them up en masse.

Rurik
Member
Reply to  Solomon Honeypickle IV
7 years ago

The problem is, has always been, those millions of enraged, ordinary, productive, conservative people are – ordinary, productive and conservative. They are orderly, have jobs to do, and property to maintain. As such they tend not to participate in civil disobedience or insurrection.And it is a long, long journey from Flyoverburg to Washington. This is what happened to Michelle Bachman’s giant Tea Party rally eight years ago. It was energizing, but then everyone went home without lynching anyone on the Mall. Granted it did produce seeds, one of which just sprouted a month ago. But that takes time and nurturing.… Read more »

Member
Reply to  Solomon Honeypickle IV
7 years ago

There is nothing that gets more personal than when you steal money from someone. Obamacare premiums and the mortgage crisis were both massive frauds, which was tantamount to stealing money. Add to that the zero interest rates which have been eating away at people’s savings through inflation. That is also theft. Wait until people find out that the stimulus in year one of Obama’s presidency was incorporated in the budget baseline and spent in each of the seven following years of his presidency. In other words, there have been eight stimuluses. (Why do you think they haven’t passed a budget… Read more »

LetsPlay
LetsPlay
Member
Reply to  TempoNick
7 years ago

Heh, sure. I’m still waiting for the big news about Pizzagate and more leaks from Assange. He went dark after the election didn’t he? And Comey, Lynch, et al. pretty quiet all around. All quiet on the Red front.

“I’m out old man. I’m just a pecker-wood who lives in the woods with too many guns. Ya happy?” – Bob Lee Swagger, Shooter

Member
Reply to  LetsPlay
7 years ago

That may be, but the fact that they spent eight stimuluses by not passing a budget should outrage everybody.

R Daneel
R Daneel
Reply to  TempoNick
7 years ago

It has been out there Nick. I am not sure anyone cares.

LetsPlay
LetsPlay
Member
Reply to  Solomon Honeypickle IV
7 years ago

The Nanc, while escaping the blade this time, should keep in mind that, in my mind at least, the blade is more akin to a pendulum and will swing back for one more swipe at her nasty throat. Go ahead Nasty Nancy, get on poking the Deplorables and see what you get.

Member
Reply to  Solomon Honeypickle IV
7 years ago

Amen… if the leaders of that organized criminal enterprise known as the Democratic Party were ever justly punished for the crimes they have perpetrated on America (and the world), it would resemble the French Revolution more than the American one. Best of all would be to see what would happen should the scales fall from the eyes of their millions of zombie acolytes, but that is highly unlikely: they are followers because they cannot lead even themselves. Best we can hope for is that they die off early as a result of their poor decisions, and continue to breed ineffectually.

LetsPlay
LetsPlay
Member
Reply to  Ray_Van_Dune
7 years ago

Life is so weird. So many good people die so young and yet really evil people just keep on going and going and going doing their evil shit when you wish they would just give up the ghost.

Member
7 years ago

” That and doubt on the Left is always assumed to be a gateway drug for apostasy, so it is fanatically discouraged. ”

Excellent

bilejones
Member
7 years ago

We saw the collapse of the the Conservatives with the emergence of the Neocon filth. It took the overreach of the progressives and the rise of independent media for the traditional Conservatives to be able to make their case.

One assumes that the neocons would have slithered back to their socialist roots had Hillary won.

One can only hope that Oh Donny Boy just throws them out into the wilderness.

trackback
7 years ago

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