trump

Trump’s Crafty Flag Conflagration

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My precious!

People wondered if Trump would tone down his belligerent declarations and tweets upon becoming President-elect.

Well, he hasn’t.

He’s still the Donald.

Last night yath00m and I puzzled over his most recent twitter storm: revoking citizenship for those who burn flags. It’s well-established that Trump makes bold opening offers to expand the realm of negotiation before ratcheting back his proposals to get what he wanted all along. If you’ve ever been to the souks of Jerusalem you know the game. Arab: “Oh, sir, that carpet is very special to me, my mother made it, I’m not sure I even want to sell it!” Smart Tourist: “How much?” Arab: “$1,000!” Smart Tourist: “I’ll give you $100.” Arab, looking insulted: “Oh, sir, do not insult me! $900!” Smart Tourist: “$200.” Arab: “$800.” Smart Tourist: “$250.” And so the game goes. Thing is, if the Arab had started at the actual price he wanted, say $400, he would have had no room to negotiate. That’s Trump to a T. He demanded mass deportations and a wall. Now when he moderates he looks reasonable and he still gets what he wanted all along: the wall.  Continue reading →

Corporations: Just Like You And Me, Except When They’re Not

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I’m no expert on international business.

But there seems to be an inherent illogical in the left’s approach to taxation and corporations.

“Big business does not paying its fair share!” “Income inequality!” “The wealth gap has grown massively!” “Occupy Wall Street!”

Crony capitalism is certainly a problem and oddly enough Donald Trump of all people rode the populist wave of discontent into the White House (his opponent, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to convince people that she wasn’t still in bed with America’s kleptocracy). As the WSJ pointed out the other day, Trump’s enemy is not globalism, but mercantilism in which corporations lobby government acquire subsidies, trigger bailouts, and increase regulations that only their army of lawyers can comply with and subsequently hamstring competitors (the little and middle guy), thereby increasing their coffers, and only then doling out the incidental sops to the rest of us.

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“Wait, You Voted For Trump?!”: The Left Begins To Listen

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Enemies share a smoke

The Left really did a number on themselves. This was not supposed to happen.

The thing is, as I’ve written elsewhere, while conservatives at their best tend to view their liberal foes sympathetically (healthcare for all isn’t a bad idea, but you can’t implement it that way), the Left at its best views the right as either stupid or sinister. The Left’s contempt was there before the election. Their terror is here now that Stupid has won.

As the dust settles, Trumpians begin to raise their hands to be counted and conversations have begun. The Left is still mad, but they’re beginning to listen, a bit, I think. Still, as one liberal coworker put it to me after I gave a rousing defense Trump: “How are we friends?” Amazing what being stuck in a carpool with someone ten hours a week will do to a person.

But that’s not a flippant aside. It’s the point: as a conservative, I’m friends with numerous liberal colleagues and on social media I interact with even more folks from the Left. These friendships and acquaintances have a way of breaking down stereotypes and making people listen to the other side. My coworkers and I laugh in the car and over beers about work, students, school administration, and culture. I’m conversant in their lingo and know their concerns and political passions. We talk about politics, but I’m also diplomatic. Part of this is self-preservation (no need to rock the boat too much). Part of it is my desire give them a window into the other side. Part of it is that I can’t help myself (you know, before going off on Trump’s deportation schemes, Obama has deported more people than any other president?). And they listen, sort of. Either way, at the end of the day, we know how to put those differences aside and laugh about that obnoxious kid from Brazil that plagues us all. Continue reading →

Build That Wall: America v. Castro

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Freedom

 

Ding, dong, the witch is dead!

Keeping Things in Perspective

I’ve read a number of editorials reflecting on the life and times of Fidel Castro. They’ve fallen into two camps: moral euphoria at the death of a dictator and a recitation of his crimes; or, the mealy-mouthed moral equivalency game played by those on the left (see Obama, Trudeau, Junker, Corbyn et al.).

To be clear, Castro was a bad guy and any attempt to cover over his crimes by appealing to his good intentions is the sort of deplorable, high-minded elitism that average Joe sees for what it is: baloney.

Then again, we ought to keep Castro’s crimes in perspective: he was a two-bit thug who caused a great deal of trouble for his people and sparked fires in South America and Africa for decades. Given the chance, he may have been a monster on the scale of Mao and Stalin, but even in his own country his tyranny never reached such diabolical heights. He only brushed with global significance on the occasion of the Cuban Missile Crisis—a scheme driven by his boss in Moscow and not even of his own making.

Further, it should be added that Castro’s death is not “the end of an era.” Castro had long been out of circulation, a ghost of a man, and Cuba still labors and suffers under an entrenched, kleptocratic dictatorship created by the late Fidel. We will have more of business as usual.  Continue reading →

Unconstrained Crusaders of the Left v. Trumpian Conservatives

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The Left plotting annihilation.

 

Thomas Sowell in his book  A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggle identifies two approaches to the world: constrained and unconstrained. The liberal, Sowell argues, tends towards the later while the conservative tends towards the former.

The unconstrained vision argues that reality is malleable and that “experts” can “fix” social, political, and economic problems through policy. Human nature is perfectible provided the environment he lives in his properly constructed. The constrained vision argues that reality is fixed and that man by nature is flawed. There are no permanent solutions only prudent trade-offs to mitigate conflict in the evolved system we live.

Which brings us to this election.

It’s gotten around my place of work that I was at the very least sympathetic to Trump and his supporters. I defended the reasons why people supported him on a number of occasions. Now, of course, I supported him, but for rhetorical purposes I removed myself as much as possible from the conversation and approached the Trump phenomenon clinically. Perhaps it was cowardly, but the Left was throwing around terms like “misogynist” and “racist” so it was best to keep them off with a nine-foot pole. Sometimes they got too close (“You’re not going to vote Trump ARE YOU?!) and I would just remind them that my vote doesn’t matter anyway (“New York is going for Hillary. Darned electoral college.”) and then they would grin and agree. A little obfuscation buys you an audience. Continue reading →

Trump’s Tribalism

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

A friend and I have been discussing what presently holds America together. It’s a grandiose question full of dire import (the end of the Republic, the death of America) and the potential for overwrought hand-wringing and silly wishful thinking (if only we had a George Washington!).

Both Left and Right and had staked out their territory on their respective positions and demographics. As of 2016 we seemed heading towards a turning point: would the Left finally triumph in a definitive sense? Was this the Flight 93 election? The tribes were well-established, the battle lines drawn, but then along came Trump who not only rewrote the political playbook, but re-framed American politics and national identity. What has he done?

Whither Have We Come? Whither Shall We Go? 

From the start, America was a pragmatic and propositional nation. The early colonies didn’t exactly get along with each other. The constitutional convention was called for out of necessity, and the resulting constitution bears the marks of compromise. To call the American founding purely pragmatic, though, would be to miss the significance the Founders and their compatriots placed on ideals (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) and the importance of sound character (Never tell a lie. Early to bed, early to rise…etc.). Bereft of these propositions,  Americans feared a descent into tyranny.  The Founders were optimistic, though wary of human failings.  The Constitution itself was designed to keep human ambitions and passions in check but was not sufficient to curb abuse. Men must be self-governing. As Lincoln put it some years later, “If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher.” The American experiment could work if Americans remained good citizens. Continue reading →

Breathing Easy: The Morning After the Election

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They’re dancing now.

 

The fever pitch of this election has only started to abate. As people realize that Trump isn’t the second coming of Hitler, tempers and passions will cool. The pessimist in me thinks it will be, in the end, a return to business as usual. The optimist in me expects the economy to roar and the conservatives to lock down the Supreme Court for a generation. If we can avoid stupid wars, that would be nice too.

I’m not that old. This is the first presidential campaign I’ve really paid any attention to (the last one I was happily removed overseas). But that’s where reading books and talking to older people provides perspective.

Older people.

There’s this couple I’m close to. They’re educated conservatives. They’re good people, and as long as I’ve known them, they’ve been peaceable folk. The last eight years of Obama, though, knocked the stuffing out of them. They didn’t like his policies or his condescending, arrogant tone. Hillary was as bad or worse. The last eight years plus the prospect of another four put them on edge like I’ve never seen.

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Decius’ Flight 93: Trump and the Failure of Conservatism

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On first reading, I fist-pumped my way through Decius’ grand smashing of the sleepy, next-election-we-will-win, post-Reagan conservatism. On second reading, I was a bit more circumspect. Here are my two cents.

Rhetorically, the piece begins with shocking metaphors: charge the cabin of the hijacked plane; Russian roulette with a Hillary semi-automatic as opposed to spinning the cylinder with Trump. It’s Trumpian in its bluster, and anyone who takes it overly seriously has no sense of humor or hyperbole. How long before people begin to get it? He’s New Yorker. That’s how they talk.

That said, the article resonated with me. Continue reading →

The Politics of Victimization: Trump Beats The Left At Their Own Game

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A recent hack from Gucifer 2.0 has revealed that the DNC has intentionally sought to minimize the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the Democratic Party. In an effort to contain the virulence of these activists, the DNC has recommended that its operatives and politicians listen politely to the activists but limit their influence. The memo also instructed candidates to advocate policies that “rebuild the relationship between police and community” by exploring ways to reform police training and limit abuse. The position clearly leans towards the “cops are guilty” mentality, but also demonstrates the DNC’s unwillingness to let their radicals get out of line.

This, of course, prompted a reply from BLM: “We are disappointed at the DCCC’s placating response to our demand to value all Black life. Black communities deserve to be heard, not handled. People are dying.”

No surprise there.

And of course, this underscores Trump’s message: the Democrats don’t care about African Americans, they just care about the votes of African Americans. Consider the fact that for decades the Democrats have controlled some of America’s biggest cities and African Americans still languish in the ghetto. Something isn’t working and Trump’s saying as much. While the liberal media has gone ballistic over this, they refuse to countenance the fact that they, not hick Republicans from the midwest, bear responsibility for the state of the inner cities. African Americans, more than anyone else, have suffered in countless ways over the past decades under Democrat rule and now under the Obama administration (the slow “recovery” has hurt them more than most). If a black Democrat in the Oval Office can’t help his own people out, why not take a shot with the billionaire? Oh, and the alternative? Hillary: a woman whose husband oversaw the slashing of welfare benefits and a dramatic increase in black incarceration. And yet the Democrats still maintain a chokehold on the black vote. The irony: before emancipation the Democrats owned the black vote (3/5s per slave) but now they completely own the black vote (one whole vote per person!).

But Trump actually wants to change that and he’s forcing the Republicans, who have for too long disregarded the black vote as not worth the effort, to actually acknowledge the barriers that confront African Americans. Trump is insisting that the GOP stop talking about abstract freedom, and limited government as the panacea for everything, and actually make a case for how they will make things better for Americans, including minorities. Truth is he has always talked about making America as a whole great again, now he’s just playing the left’s game and emphasizing minorities who are part of that thing called America.*

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Brexit Beer and The Implosion of The Establishment

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Jolly Good 

Last night a group of friends and I quite unintentionally stumbled into the Churchill Tavern and proceeded to drink pints of Fuller’s London Pride while watching the Brexit returns. Contrary to the elites’ counsel and predictions, Leave beat Remain. While there were plenty of Americans at the bar having a bloody good time, oblivious to the going-ons across the pond, one could pick out the Brits tensely watching the TV. When BBC called the referendum for Leave there was no cheering.

Stepping outside, I bummed a cigarette from an unhappy looking fellow. Mid-twenties, well-dressed, he was imperious, defiant, and British. I asked him what he thought, and while we both stole glances through the window at the TV, he declared: “Farage is a twat. This entire campaign is based on a bigoted, xenophobic lie.” Gesturing to his friend, a Frenchman, he declared, “There will be consequences with the EU and especially the French.” I held my tongue. It isn’t my country or my election and if there is one thing that annoys me it is when Europeans pontificate on American politics (John Oliver, go home). I told the man as much so there was no fisticuffs. Plus, there was no need to rub in the victory. Despite what I just said, I am for Brexit.

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