“Publius Decius Mus”
Mousey is back, responding with feigned humility to the widespread attention his Grand Trumpkin Manifesto in the Claremont Review received, and making essentially lame efforts to respond to criticism.
In the first place, I did not notice a lot of people calling Mousey “cowardly” for using that pen-name out of Livy. I think most people agreed with me in simply finding it extravagantly pretentious and downright incongruous in combining the highfalutin’ display of Classical erudition in service to the sloping-simian-forehead preference for Know-Nothing-ism redivivus which is the ideological foundation of the Trump Movement.
Secondly, the problem with Mousey’s “Flight 93” analogy is its hysterical hyperbole. Yes, Hillary becoming president would be bad, but it would not really be quite as bad a Obama being elected. Obama was a red-diaper-baby from a no-kidding Communist family straight out of the extreme radical left-wing fringe with a personal background as professional agitator and close pal of Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama was elected with the wind at his back, successfully promoted by the partisan media and entertainment industry into a Pop Culture phenomenon roughly as popular as the Beatles in 1964.
Hillary, by comparison, is just a greasy, greedy, cynical democrat pol, now old and wrinkled and with all the charisma of a Metropolitan Museum mummy. Obama walked into office with a revolutionary mandate. Hillary, if she wins, will really be a lame-duck, seat-filling an Obama Third Term that should never have occurred. The likelihood of her winning a second term is poor.
It’s always bad seeing a democrat elected, but consider the alternative.
Mousy is a delusional Trumpkin, who thinks that the Trump candidacy is actually about something political. He is obviously an idiot.
Donald Trump is not conservative. Donald Trump is not political. Donald Trump doesn’t love you or the other numbnuts and yobbos supporting him. Donald Trump knows from nothing about policy, political theory, the Constitution, the Administrative State, and he could care less.
Donald Trump is only about Donald Trump. He is the complete pragmatist. The Administrative State? Trump has been working in cahoots with the Administrative State all his life. Trump’s real estate projects were all built via special permits. concessions, and tax breaks from and political bargains with the Administrative State, and Donald has been paying off the politicians running it throughout his career. Donald Trump is an operator, not a revolutionary.
Yesterday, Trump announced a great big shiny new $159 billion unfunded Child Care entitlement, suggested by his daughter(!). There’s your revolutionary reformer of the Administrative State in action.
Does Mousey even really care about entitlements, deficits, and the Administrative State? I wonder.
He sums up his defense of Trump being not dangerous, prone to tyranny, or insane, thusly:
Trump by contrast promises not to launch misguided wars, to protect our borders, and to focus immigration policy on the well-being of the currently-constituted American people. Who is truly more moderate: the colorful loudmouth with the sensible agenda or the corrupt, icy careerist with the radical agenda?
So, the sensible agenda consists of Nativism and Isolationism?
I don’t disagree with the batrachian inhabitants of the Buchananite fever swamp about the absence of American responsibility and general undesirability of admitting Muslim “refugees.” But, I think myself that the hubbub about Hispanic laborers is foolish and misguided, and the notion of the same country that owns the Statue of Liberty building a thousand-mile anti-immigrant wall is self-contradictory.
The United States inherited from Britain, after WWII, the role of guarantor of Freedom of the Seas and Policeman of the World. It is not some kind of happy accident that the US has the dominant voice in international financial treaties, that the US dollar is the world reserve currency, and that US culture is the world standard. American economic prosperity is directly linked to America’s role of world leadership. Doubtless, White House Administrations could do a lot better job of devising coherent policies and defending them against foreign and domestic critics, but retreat and Isolationism would be a cowardly and lousy option.
And so, we arrive at the real crux of the matter. Donald Trump is not a conservative or really a Republican at all. Our ill-designed primary system misfired, our lamentable culture clocked in, the failures of our educational system were felt, and the crooked timber of humanity did it again. It should have been a landslide Republican year. There were plenty of worthy candidates, but demos gave away the nomination to a charlatan and a buffoon.
Demos prefers noise and excitement to gravity and substance every time. And, like Mousey there, a portion of demos has become infected with some ancient strains of American political pathologies, making them sick and mad.
We obviously lose whatever happens this year, but I think we probably have more to lose via the election of Donald Trump. There is the issue of Trump’s instability, irrationality, and unpredictability. You really ought not to give supreme power to a limitlessly spoiled narcissist. Rome did it a few times, and the results were not pretty.
But it’s even simpler than that. Both candidates are dishonest and gravely flawed. Either one of them, I think it is easy to predict, will preside over scandals and sensational disasters. Either one of them will soon become an albastross around that candidate’s respective party’s neck. I’d rather have the political corpse of Hillary around the democrat party’s neck. (Though I won’t vote for her.)
There is finally the danger that Trump’s election could empower within the Republican Party the stupid, primitive, grotesque Alt-Right elements which reject all real conservative principles in favor of fundamentally un-American, discredited, and reprehensible ideas. Rejecting the wise-ass morons of the Alt-Right is reason enough not to vote for Donald Trump all by itself.
Steve Gregg
Well said, Brother JDZ.
The cornerstone of Trump’s candidacy, a Great Wall across our southern border is a cartoon idea. As Patton said, fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man. A Great Mexican Wall would be a monument to the stupidity of Trump.
Walls don’t work. They are too easy to defeat. You can go over, under, around, and through them. With a wall stretching 2000 miles, there will be plenty of places to do that.
The Great Wall of China was built with colossal cost in blood and treasure, but the Mongols simply bribed a corrupt gate keeper to get through. Walls are as strong as your most corrupt guard.
The Maginot Line was built at stupendous cost. The Germans simply ran around the end of it in Belgium.
As long as the average worker south of the border making an average of $3000 per year can earn ten times that by infiltrating America, it will continue to happen, if by no other means, simply swarming Trump’s wall.
And, really, why do we want to stop connecting American jobs with Hispanic workers? I don’t see a clamor from our underclass to work their asses off as maids, landscapers, poultry processors, and crop pickers. They’d rather do nothing and collect welfare. The Mexicans, by contrast, WORK. Why should we stop them from creating wealth in our country?
Most of these illegal aliens are good people who want to improve their circumstances. Some are the salt of the Earth.
The problem is that illegal immigration is a chaotic process which allows a fair amount of human trash to enter along with the good people. We should make legal entry easier than illegal entry and cull out the bad guys. We should issue guest worker visas for people south of the border to come work, complete with a guest worker ID so that they pay taxes. We should make this much easier and cheaper to do than pay a coyote to smuggle Hispanics over the border.
If we make it easier for aliens to enter legally and work legitimately, we can control the quality of immigrants, stopping criminals at the border and kicking out those who commit crimes, after serving some time at some desert prison in tents. Illegal aliens don’t mind getting kicked out of the country but they really hate being locked up.
neal
I think we definitly need a new underclass.
The poor Celts that built the early Colonies died off or ran off to breed with the natives.
Bad for business.
Why do all these underlings start getting uppity, without so much as a “by your leave”?
They actually want to row well, and live, but still keep some self determination. Very disconcerting.
Maybe just keep the borders porous, and let the underclass deal with it. If they kill each other, that is OK. If they try to reach up and touch the “real classes” there is always eugenics.
Seems to work with or without walls.
Of course, there is no biology without cellular walls. I do not understand why pathogenic ideologies would have a problem with borders.
Scullman
The establishment Republican Class sucked ass this cycle. Bush, Cruz, Marco, etc. It’s on them that they suck, not on me.
Do what you’re fucking paid to do next time, after you beg for our votes in two different elections, promising with all the sincerity a professionally trained bullshit artist can summon, to stem the tide of that Marxist faggot in the White House, and maybe you’ll get the brass ring next time around.
But for now? Fuck you. Go vote for the lesbian stroke victim, who gives a shit.
margot darby
The Statue of Liberty, oh dear. Here we go again…
‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ was presented by the French Republic as centennial birthday present (only partially completed in 1876) to America. Modeled loosely upon the goddess Hestia, it celebrates ‘liberty’ and has nothing to do with ‘immigrants’ or immigration & naturalization policy.
JDZ
But… the statue’s location in New York harbor, to which so many immigrants were arriving at the time, inevitably and inextricably associated it with immigration. The statue came to be seen as symbolically welcoming immigrants. Emma Lazarus’s poem was written in 1883, and actually affixed to the statue, reaffirming that symbolism, in 1903:
“The New Colossus”
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
JDZ
Baloney! Scott Walker had a hell of a record of budget balancing and of defeating the organized left. Ted Cruz was a highly articulate and intelligent impeccable conservative with a great record in Congress and as Texas Attorney-General. He merely argued and won the Heller case (which affirmed the Second Amendment as recognizing an individual right) at the Supreme Court. Marko Rubio was also an intelligent senator with a strong conservative record. Ben Carson was articulate and a real gentleman. I was not in favor on nominating Jeb Bush, but he was infinitely more qualified and a lot more conservative than Trump. John Kasich ran to the left, but even he is obviously better than Trump. You have to be a sucker to believe anything Donald Trump says, or to buy into that Alt-Right BS about Trump as an agent of change.
Scullman
Scott Walker had all the presidential appeal and charisma of a train wreck. Ditto Kasich. Jeb! dropped 115 million and the vaunted “Bush” name on the voters (those ignorant pukes) and got bupkis.
The Republicans in Congress begged for votes in both off year elections, promising that with the majorities in House and Senate, the shit was really gonna’ fly Obama’s way.
Bullshit.
They pussied out on everything including the last budget, where even Barry couldn’t believed what he got from them for nothing. Obama had a tougher time inhaling the weed off the ceiling of his van with the windows rolled up when he ran the Choom Gang on Oahu.
Guess what Establishment Repubs? Fuck us once shame on us, fuck us twice, Fuck you.
Trump 16′
Burke
I would agree wholeheartedly, if not for the fact that only one of the dishonest and gravely flawed candidates will be indicating certainly two, perhaps three, Justices to the Supreme Court. Since the 60s, SCOTUS is the real power behind every great social change that are ruining USA. And the younger generations get used to the new costumes as if they were traditional. Does anyone doubt that, today, if submited to popular scrutiny, abortion would have much more votes than 20 years ago? And the day when it will achieve majority is not far (if it didn’t already arrived.
And I repeat: at least in the first term (whem two of the indications will problably happen), Trump will be seeking reelection, and WILL HAVE to indicate at least satisfactory nominees.
Hilllary, on the other hand, can chose whoever she wants (she won’t lose votes, unless he is too conservative) — and I have no doubt she will be sure to indicate very young ones.
I would vote for Trump, at least in the first term. He almost certainly will be a lousy President – but so will Hillary, and the evil she can do is much more permanent.
BrianE
“You really ought not to give supreme power to a limitlessly spoiled narcissist. Rome did it a few times, and the results were not pretty.”
Really? We’re supposed to take this diatribe seriously?
A big benefit of a Trump presidency will be the new found interest by Congress of oversight of the executive branch.
Then there’s this supreme court thingy. That will fundamentally transform the republic– the impact will last for decades, unlike the four years of a Trump presidency.
Fred Z
You keep answering a question no one else is asking.
Please tell us which of of the only possible alternatives is best, and why. And yes, my phrasing of the alternatives reflects my opinion.
1. Vote for Hillary, the murderous, corrupt, sick, old, monster who has made only madcap socialist nutjob proposals.
2. Vote for Trump the egomaniac pragmatist who has made some not entirely bad proposals.
3. Get all sulky, stay at home, refuse to vote and claim to be waiting out the next administration plus the 4 supreme court justices and cabinet officials they appoint and the lasting damage they do, which will not all be corrected by your dream candidate when he gets elected, because guess what, he has feet of clay too, being human.
Items 1 and 2 also include the options to get off your arse, join political parties and organizations and become active in an effort to put pressure on the harridan or the
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