There is lots of talk about a new nationalist populist worker movement.
Supposedly, something quite new would institutionalize, define, and solidify the Trump base of aging Reagan Democrats, old Ross Perot independents, Tea Party remnants, newly disaffected Democratic workers, and a few returning libertarians and paleocons. Certainly, together they helped to swung the election in 2016.
But what exactly would be the formal agenda of the proverbial deplorables and irredeemables? And how would it differ all that much from conservative Republicanism of generations past?
After all, despite a much-hyped conservative civil war, a bitter primary, and a NeverTrump movement that won’t quiet, 90 percent of the Republicans in 2016 still voted for Trump. These voters assumed, like deplorable and irredeemable Democrats and Independents, that Trump would push conservative agendas. And they were largely proved correct.
After 10 months of governance, Trump’s deregulations, a foreign policy of principled realism, energy agendas, judicial appointments, efforts at tax reform and health care recalibration, cabinet appointments, and reformulation at the Departments of Education, the EPA, and Interior seem so far conservative to the core.
Illegal Immigration, Trade, and Realism
In the few areas where Trump conceivably differed from his 16 primary Republican rivals—immigration, trade, and foreign policy—the 20th-century Republican/conservative orthodoxy was actually closer to Trump’s positions than to those of recent Republican nominees, John McCain or Mitt Romney.
Vast majorities of conservatives always favored enforcement of federal immigration law rather than tolerance of sanctuary cities. They wanted to preserve legal, meritocratic, diverse, and measured immigration, not sanction open borders. And they championed the melting pot over the identity politics of the salad bowl.
In sum, voters did not believe the United States could continue with open borders, or the idea that foreign nationals could cross the border illegally and at will, and then dictate to their hosts the circumstances of their continued residence—much less accuse their magnanimous hosts of racism and nativism for not accepting the demands of their advocates.
All Trump did was return prior orthodoxy on border enforcement to the fore, albeit often with blunter rhetoric. He called out a loud but minority corporate interest on the Right that wanted cheap labor. And he questioned the wisdom of Republican officials who apparently saw appeasement of illegal immigration as a way to compete for the eventual votes of inevitable and huge annual influxes of illegal aliens.
But again, the rise of the deplorables was not evidence of some new strain of xenophobia and nativism. Rather their views marked a return not just to Republican values, but also the majority position held by most Americans.
On trade, every Republican knew that China, as well other developing and mercantile exporting countries cheated and, in effect, ignored agreements on trademarks, copyrights, and safety regulations.
Trump riled up his base by demanding the government do what Republicans in the past had once assumed to be the commonplace view of things—although in a fashion less radical than the former tariff-policies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Trump further opposed some of the policies of trade blocs like NAFTA. But as in the case of NATO, it is just as likely that in Art of the Deal style, Trump feigned much of his furor to give his subordinates greater leverage to renegotiate a fairer commercial and financial status quo.
On foreign policy, Trumpism is a return to, or a refinement of, Reagan’s and the elder Bush’s principled realism: the acceptance that the United States has to protect its friends and deter its enemies, maintain the postwar order, avoid optional wars, and force allies in the West to shoulder the collective burden. A nation does not have to be perfect, but being better than the alternative, occasionally, should help it to earn American support
Trump’s break from doctrinaire neoconservatism came not over punishing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein (despite Trump’s denials of his initial support for removing Saddam Hussein), but in seeking to rebuild both nations in the image of a Western constitutional state—a task often considered too costly in blood and treasure in the people’s strict cost/benefit analysis.
Reactionary or Revolutionary?
In this regard, Trumpism was again a sort of return to the Republican Party of the 1990s when the Republican-led Congress almost cut off funding for the Clinton Administration’s bombing efforts to remove Slobodan Milosevic—even as American jets were in the air over Kosovo. Certainly, in that aspect, late 20th-century Republicans were more isolationist than a 21st-century Trump.
Again, the Trump foreign policy agenda is far closer to Ronald Reagan’s policies than past Republican nominees. Reagan in 1968, 1976, and 1980 was similarly demonized as an America First threat to Rockefeller Republicanism—whether renouncing the Panama Canal Treaty or opposing détente with the Soviet Union.
So what drives deplorablism?
It is not so much an ideological or even political movement as it is a spiritual and psychological frame of mind that is fed up with hypocrisies of the proverbial establishment, bicoastal cultural elites, and the deep administrative state.
Deplorablism, Rightly Understood
Deplorables grew furious as amnesty Democrats and especially corporate Republicans preached about the values of open borders and unchecked illegal immigration—but never quite experienced first-hand the effects their policies had on distant others. Influential advocates of lax border security tended to put their kids in private schools, lived in mostly apartheid communities, saw illegal aliens largely as cheap labor and personal servants, did not have any personal desire to live among, befriend, tutor or mentor those they championed—and assuaged their guilt by blasting their own fellow conservative with charges of xenophobia and nativism.
I once experienced a lot of Republican orthodox disdain when I wrote Mexifornia in 2003 and discovered how unabashedly some elites believed that cheap labor should trump worries over routine lawbreaking, static wages of entry-level American laborers, and the impediments that that mass illegal immigration posed to the melting pot of assimilation and integration. In some sense, in 2003 the editorial position on illegal immigration of La Voz de Aztlan and the Wall Street Journal were almost indistinguishable.
The deplorables were further enraged about national security that was never defined as predicated first on American interests abroad and at home. Nothing was more surreal than to read Vanity Fair in 2006 and learn that many of the architects of the Iraq War had bailed on the war in mediis rebus. Yet some of such critics had called for a preemptive strike against Iraq as early as the mid-1990s, during the Clinton Administration, as part of the Project for the New American Century agenda of preemptive war.
But rather than to adhere to the old adage that the only thing worse than waging a bad war was to lose it, some who had sought optional wars were now perceived to have disclaimed the very ordeal that followed from the decisions they had once welcomed—even as more than 100,000 Americans were stuck fighting with vanishing elite support. “My perfect three-week invasion, your botched up occupation,” is not a legitimate fallback position once Americans are dying in the field.
The point of calling for “fair” rather than “free” trade was to end the idea that commercial violations by rising powers were considered tolerable because they were better off in the family of nations than outside as renegades.
In truth, the consequences of asymmetrical trade practices fell mostly on Americans who unfortunately were mired in industries considered passé, and therefore they were supposed to pass on with them. As one of “globalism’s sore losers,” I once wrote another book, Fields Without Dreams, chronicling the mass bankruptcies of farmers in a new globalized, vertically integrated world. Foreign subsidies, especially those of the European Union, had helped to crash some American commodity prices. Yet that fact was ignored, by the apology that such foreign cost-cutting at least drove down consumer prices. Foreign subsidies also supposedly forced farmers to “improve” their own domestic “productivity” to compete—and thus made us “leaner.” And ultimately we were assured that foreign subsidies would boomerang on their creators and prove self-defeating for cheating trade partners.
All such arguments were, in theory, logical and were fine and noble thoughts. But again, they were applicable to a distant future—and to an “Other,” rather than immediately relevant to those who embraced such creative destruction agendas. These were also economic rationales that by needs ignored the cultural reality of agrarian annihilation—analogous to Hillary Clinton’s nostrums for the coal industry.
Finally, the deplorables grew weary with sober and judicious Marquis of Queensberry campaigning rules. Republicans had been losing nobly on the national level with presidential candidates who had not achieved 51 percent of the vote since 1988 and had lost the popular votes in five out of the last six elections—even as Republicans made substantial gains in Congressional, state, and local offices.
Trump may have done no better in the popular vote and may have won ugly, but he won nonetheless against the odds and for now, showed that past political appeasement had done no better than fiery deterrence.
In sum, “deplorablism” is mostly a style. The Trump agenda so far is mostly mainstream 20th-century Republicanism. To the degree it is not seen as such on trade, immigration, and foreign policy, it may be that it is far more traditionally conservative than what had become the de facto position of the 21st-century Republican Party.
The departure from conservatism is not what the once liberal Democrat Trump has done since January, but what those who oppose him might likely do in his place.
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Another home-run by Professor Davis Hanson. Perhaps one aspect that he underemphasized is culture. We Deplorables think that there is a distinctly-American culture, and that this culture is worth defending and passing on to the next generation. We believe that this culture is based on fairness, hospitality, scientific curiosity, entrepreneurship, self-reliance, optimism and a love for the Beautiful. It is a variant of the European culture that created the modern world and its wonders–only bereft of the socially-static rules of the old continent.
We believe that this culture is being threatened on three sides: from PC rot, from mass immigration (legal and illegal) and from the vulgar mercantilism of the Chamber of Commerce and crass loudmouths like Kevin Williamson. We believe that yes, it is better to preserve an ancient cathedral than to turn it into a lucrative strip-mall.
American Anglo-Saxons have allowed Congress to declare war on them.
The acceptance of mandated “diversity” will prove to be the death of the Conservative American heritage and America as a whole, if not significantly thwarted and repealed.
America did not become America by way of international committee.
nice flag. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers lost their lives fighting it.
100s of 1,000s also lost their lives defending their way of life
Slavery.
wrong-pay attention in your next life in history class
Federal encroachment on the authority of the several States, and the use
of Federal power to ensure the economic dominion of the North. Slavery was just an excuse.
making people work for you as slaves is not “a way of life”.
wrong-pay attention next time in history class
The average white southerner was dirt poor and worked like a slave. Very few owned the plantations where you are getting your impression of history from.
Hint: Try reading the actual history in books, rather than watching a bunch of movies.
You could say almost the same thing about German soldiers in WWII. Most were not Nazis. That doesn’t mean that the cause that they fought for was not pure evil.
A war pursued by the north, and an unnecessary war. Slavery was about to fall through the trap door of history, and had it died a natural death there would not have been 150 years of resentment after it, with divisions now exploited and exacerbated by the Democratic Party and tomorrow probably exploited by some other group.
Lord an educated man, where did you drop in from?
Then why did the South start the war? Lincoln and the other Republicans would have been more than happy to let slavery fall through the trap door of history. The Confederacy fought the Civil War to prevent that.
Let me add something here. The vast majority of southerners that lost their lives were not slave owners. It was the officer corp that held slaves. Further, many southerners were conscripts, whether they agreed with slavery or not. Many also understood the war as a fight for their states to determine their own destiny.
From the mouths of the Traitors who flew that battle flag:
“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic” -https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states
Yawrate and other hypocrites twist history however you want the fact remains the only Southern way of life was Satantic Slavery of innocent Africans at the hands of murderous slavers in the South, who chose to turn against the Union rather than live out the true creed of our Declaration of the Independence and our United States Constitution. White people especially so-called conservatives don’t get to have it both ways either you are a patriot and lover of the constitution or you side with the Confederate Traitors our Stars and Stripes will always be superior to the traitor rag. God Bless the Union and her fallen soldiers who freed the millions of enslaved saints !!!!
Looks like your first paragraph defends my assertion that many in the confederate army were fighting for their state and not necessarily for the right to own slaves.
This link addresses my assertion that many
confederate soldiers did not, in fact, own slaves.
http://civilwarcauses.org/stat.htm
The great majority of southerners who fought owned next to nothing never mind slaves.
Your link still doesn’t account for the fact that the leaders of the revolt, the masters of treachery to this union started the Civil War to protect the doomed institution of Slavery. Capitalism was the way of the North and the way of the GOP, which you apparently argue against as your defend the traitors. Much like today, most sane Americans embrace Capitalism, yet own no real capital ie means of production, factory, equipment etc . So to did the average poor white traitor in the confederacy pick up arms against our great nation, in hopes that he too would one day amass enough wealth to one day own a fellow human being- one of darker skin tone of course. So again read the declarations made by the traitors themselves then try to argue the war southern succession was anything but a war to own and torture flesh and blood Christian human beings, in the face of Capitalism.
The slaves owned by the South were originally sold to them by the North.
And the great Union army from the North paid a blood atonement of over 500k men, the innocent humans in bondage were freed and traitors who fly the rag flag where defeated. Even the ring leader in drag Robert Lee denounced the confederacy, yet these modern idiots continue to fly the traitor rag. Hows that for not being Politically Correct? Its PC on the right to claim that flag is about pride or heritage the truth in the traitors own words say otherwise. At any rate you confederate wannabes have every right to move to moscow and live in your white paradise police state.
You do realize it was the Republican Party that won the civil war and passed the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, don’t you?
Which is the same the Republican Party that I left as it embraced the disgraced traitors with Nixon’s Southern Strategy and now with Trumpism excusing neo nazi terrorists. No tax cut or supreme court justice is worth my integrity as a true conservative. Abortion isn’t the only moral issue. The GOP under trump has fully embraced the lost confederate cause (white supremacy) at all costs, including embracing the Alabama pedophile! Also at least half of the responses to my post were honest in acknowledging that the civil war and the traitor flag are about slavery, ie tarring the founders in an attempt to justify slavery. As a citizen of this republic I refuse to “leave the imperfect nation” instead I choose to fight to make this Country live up its constitution. Only a coward would suggest otherwise. Once again proving that today’s GOP followers are nothing but mindless sheep being lead around by your corporate masters.
Such hatred from someone so full of anger and spite yet with such poor writing and communication skills.
“White people especially so-called conservatives don’t get to have it both ways…”
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You poor, pathetic, self-important troll. You don’t get to decide or dictate to anyone except to those voices in your head.
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Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were “satanic slave owners” by your account, as were many of those who built this great nation. Do you support the exploitation of foreign workers that is illegal immigration? If so, you’re a “satanic slave owner” just by different terminology– so join the club because you’re Just As Bad!!
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You should leave this imperfect nation and move somewhere where there’s never been slavery, even if you have to live in the ocean alone. Bon voyage.
What a coward reply and hypocritical at that, as I am sure you walk around with your made in China “Make America Great again” hat. A true patriot fights to make this “imperfect nation” live up to its constitutional promises of Life Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness. Perhaps you should pack up and move to your white supremacist paradise of Russia along with your commie president who follows orders from the KGB Hitman Putin. Just imagine if Obama whored himself out like Trump does how you in the GOP would have reacted. Its shameful that we fought a long hard cold war against Russian Commies and yet the so-called conservatives look the other way as the Russians finally win, So much for not being PC, your traitor in chief and can’t even look Putin in the eye and hold him accountable for the cyber war his country launched against our great nation. Instead trump chooses to turn his back on Us Law enforcement and intelligence agencies (CIA,FBI,NSA) so much for Blue Lives matters hahaa, instead to lick the boots of Putin and wikileaks- the same wiki leaks we conservatives hated as traitors during the Bush era…. Its apparent the majority of the so-called conservatives are more concerned about the white race than they are the United States of America and our constitution. A day of reckoning is coming.
I don’t have a MAGA hat. It was on my birthday list but I got a lifetime NRA membership instead. Maybe for Christmas.
Stuff is made in China now because BJ Clinton made China a global manufacturing power, on purpose. Clinton did more to offshore American jobs than all Repub presidents put together.
The rest of the damage is Dem over-regulation and Dem tax burden (much of which was accomplished by Obama). Dems shove American business out of the USA with their retarded, anti-worker policies and then plan to replace middle class factory and industry jobs with minimum wage service McJobs. They’re so stupid that they and their useful idiot voters don’t know the difference, then wonder why their “green shoots” manure doesn’t win elections. Slow growth is NOT the new normal once we kick corrupt, evil Dem politicians to the curb.
People who do know the difference and who care about good jobs for Americans voted for President Trump, and are being rewarded. It’s morning again in America and the long national nightmare that was Obama is over.
I didn’t read the rest of the hooey you spewed because Dems aren’t human enough to pay attention to anymore.
Well, ok. I guess you can say that about anyone who fights in any war. The people who do the fighting and dying are often lower income, non-stake holders. Officers don’t tend to get killed in battle. I don’t have the impression that many southerners, particularly those fighting for the Confederacy, were abolitionists.
If you read the ‘Articles of Succession’ of South Carolina, the first state to secede, they specifically cite the Federal Government’s antipathy of slavery and intention to ban same.
Who on this board or anywhere can defend the institution of slavery, the Confederacies actions in defending slavery, or the flag they fought under.
The Confederate Battle flag is an insult to any and every black person and rightfully so.
Thanks for your civil response.
I’m not defending slavery or people that ‘owned’ slaves. And I don’t doubt that many fought for the right to own slaves.
I was responding with facts to someone who has an agenda.
For me the confederate flag is historical…for others it is symbol of either repression or southern pride.
You sound like a Democrat. And what “destiny” where they fighting for exactly? You also fail to mention that in many southern states the majority population were innocent enslaved Africans, who wanted the freedom promised in the Declaration of Independence : “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
My fellow conservatives- keep making rationalizations for the slavery at your own peril. Its no wonder the blacks don’t vote GOP anymore, its apparent most of you don’t even view black citizens of this republic as human let alone potential political allies. What a shame.
I understand now.
Helluva mistake wasn’t it?
It was for your side. If you start a war with the United States of America YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE.
And for it which they and the South paid dearly for. We need to respect and honor the dead on both sides.
It ought to be noted that the flag you refer to was not the national flag of the Confederacy but the battle flag of a few individual states.
I knew there were multiple confederate flags so I went to look. A quick search revealed none with the ‘Gadsden’ coiled snake in the center.
Of course, you’d never lie like that to take a brazenly stupid shot at someone online you disagree with. So, please enlighten us and explain what years that specific flag avatar was carried in battle by Confederate soldiers, and which units of Union soldiers lost hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to those carrying the specific flag in his avatar.
Thanks.
Ah, the village idiot is here
Thank you Charles Ross. Its refreshing to see a real patriot in this sea of brain dead traitors who side with ever PC argument is being made by the corporate masters on the Right. Our GOP founders would be rolling over in their graves to think we have a so-called republican president who excuses wanna be confederate terrorists ie Virginia, just to keep a measly 35% approval rating. A man willing to spit on the graves of the Union soldiers who fought and died to make this Republic one free nation. Only cowards fly the traitor slavery loving flag. Hows this for not being PC, screw what hannity and rush say, the confederate flag is a traitor rag, I don’t care if I piss off southern white snowflakes, wake up and face history losers!
Especially an international committee composed of proportional representation of all the others on the earth because “they’re the ones who will have to live with us.”
Diversity is enemy of merit. Affirmative Action demeans the achievements of all minority group members who are capable on their own by folding them in with those who would otherwise be failures.
I would say “diversity” as defined by Leftists and Democrats is the enemy. Their faux definition relies on diversity by arbitrary group membership as defined by them, whereas true diversity recognizes that each of us is an individual, and so each brings a viewpoint from life experience different from everyone else. This diversity is important because it truly enables different viewpoints and ideas combined with different abilities to contribute. The Leftists’ faux-diversity leads to quotas and dismissiveness towards individuals, relegating them to lower status in favor of arbitrary descriptions of arbitrary groups, e.g., “We have enough white men, any more would just be redundant and wouldn’t add new ideas or new viewpoints.”
Very well said. My contribution: Political correctness is intellectual poison; identity politics is its malignant first cousin. Diversity based on shallow, native-born characteristics such as skin color and sex is not only meaningless, it is harmful.
Harmful among other things because it demeans the very minorities it purports to help.
If you are so big on “Culture” how do you justify the all out attacks on science, the overt anti-intellectualism, and the daily assault on facts (We had the biggest inaugural crowd!) perpetrated by Trump and his minions every day. And let’s think about “America’s European Funding Stock” Doesn’t that sound just a little hinky to you? The last time loony positions like this were allow to go unchecked led directly to camps and ovens!
Attacks on science? You mean gloBULL WARMING? Your side is distinctly anti science with its claims that gender is a personal decision. Anti-intellectualism? Such as the stuff you just spouted? Daily assault on facts? Yep you display that as well. Your anti-intellectualism is proven by your resorting to camps and ovens nonsense. Thanks for holding up the mirror to yourself – it’s called projection,
Politics is usually arrayed against science, because science doesn’t bend of the fashion of the day and (usually) doesn’t except campaign contributions. Neither political party is based in science nor should they be, our Politics is about translating the wisdom and foolishness of the people into laws they will endure and live under.
What you call “Globull warming” theory has been in development for over 200 years. If you have a smashing new development in radioactive physics which explains that there is no greenhouse effect then there is great fame and fortune waiting for you. You can start by refuting 18th century science and then work up from there. Great fame and fortune oh wait you once you show that the past 200 years of science is all wrong, and wondrous new things can be done now that you’ve corrected it.
Global warming as a theory has been in process for 200 years? The problem with liberal theory of GloBULL warming is that they treat it like Schroedinger’s Cat. The theory is in the box and it is both warming and not warming at the same time. (Warming based on computer models and not warming based on historical and contemporary evidence). Liberals don’t want to let the cat out of the box and actually do what science is supposed to do – submit to the scientific principle of critical examination. To do so would prove the cat and the theory are dead. Perhaps if you critically examined the evidence, you might invent cold fusion? I wouldn’t quit my day job if I were you.
“Ovens” @ drink! LOL Zero tolerance for that hackneyed slippery slope. Blocked.
Oh Richard. You slay me.
We aren’t attacking any one of those things except the abuse of them by an obvious, agenda driven left that is more smuggly assure of itself than the medieval Catholic church of old.
Does Eurpoean funding stock refer directly to genetics or the ancient basis for western culture? But, of course you had to jump in the mud in order to sling it.
“Minions.” Nazi allusion #1,561,901,478. “hinky” Still triggered over Inauguration crowd numbers from nearly a year ago.
Yes, your blinding intellectual arguments dazzle us all.
Excellent. Besides. For every Nazi allusion to 80 years ago, I can point to a Zimbabwe and a South Africa of today, as well as a Haiti of a not-too-distant past. Not to mention Islam and their ethnic cleansing of Christians… In other words, for every allusion to one time in one place, I can point to a pattern–especially given the institutionalized hatred for Whites and Christians that is not only tolerated but outright fostered in certain Liberal circles. Boom.
The ‘biggest inaugural crowd” includes online viewers of the inaugural as well as those who watched television coverage and it was the biggest if you include all watchers not only those physically present. Science says the crowd watching Trump’s inaugural was the largest. Go look at the Neilson ratings and online numbers.
Science says there are two genders and that you live and die the gender you are born because DNA is permanent and exists in every cell of the body. There are two genders and no one can change genders either on a whim by “identifying” as the other or by surgery and hormone treatment. The idea of three (or More!!?!) genders is pure fantasy and flies directly in the face of basic science.
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As for the Daily Assault on the Facts, you’re talking about the #FakeNews right? Because they didn’t call out “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan period” until AFTER the damage was done.
They not only didn’t do their jobs when Obama was telling brazen lie after brazen lie after brazen lie, they lied plenty on their own.
Remember when the big story was that Comey would refute Trump’s claim that Comey had told him three times he wasn’t under investigation, but Comey confirmed to Congress that he’d told Trump that: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/06/politics/comey-testimony-refute-trump-russian-investigation/index.html
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Remember when CNN fired three propagandists because their lies were so brazen that CNN was open to a massive lawsuit: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2017/06/26/cnn-resign-russia-scaramucci-239975
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Remember when WaPo said Russia had hacked the Vermont power grid and it was entirely false and the grid was never hacked by anyone: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-hackers-penetrated-us-electricity-grid-through-a-utility-in-vermont/2016/12/30/8fc90cc4-ceec-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html
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Remember when Fake News claimed the Comey requested more funding for the Russia investigation (right before he was fired for good reasons) and was denied the money, and that was totally false too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/10/comey-sought-more-money-for-russia-probe-days-before-he-was-fired-officials-say/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/us/politics/comey-russia-investigation-fbi.html
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/05/10/comey-sought-more-funds-for-russia-probe-before-trump-fired-him/22080160/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-comey-funding/fbi-chief-sought-more-funds-for-russia-probe-days-before-he-was-fired-nyt-idUSKBN186296
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/10/comey-reportedly-asked-for-more-money-for-russia-probe-doj-calls-reports-totally-false.html
That was just another Fake News pack of lies: “The Justice Department has flatly denied that Comey met with Rosenstein to ask for more resources. Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday, said the FBI has “adequate resources” for the Russia probe.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dems-ask-deputy-ag-rosenstein-about-comeys-request-for-more-russia-probe-funding/
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There are more examples, by the dozens.
The reason that the Fake News tag sticks is because it’s an entirely accurate description. They LIE and LIE and LIE and that’s the Daily Assault on the Facts.
Nicely stated. I have similarly been thinking about the values that define one as being distinctly American and in any sane world that would bind us all together as a people. Your list is an excellent start and I wish those who think “conservatism’s theoretical framework” is so enviable would also think about that.
Likewise, I agree 100% that Williamson, and I would include Kristol, Goldberg, and several others, are the ones that are more deserving of that deplorable tag. The idea that conservative ideas could result in advocating voting for Hillary because our candidate is too crass clearly demonstrates the failure of this “intellectual foundation.”
One other thing I would throw into the mix is the idea that public officials should be held to a higher ethical standard and that it is the duty of the media in our society to enforce those standards. Instead, ethical standards seem to have evaporated and the media sees itself as a force for promoting progressive cultural change, or a replacement for the role that religious institutions used to play.
I think Prof Hansen is hoping to be a bit more ecumenical in his work these days in not raising these issues. I would like to find common ground also, but I am relatively stuck on the idea that the election of Hillary would have doomed the country and it’s very hard for me to see the other side of that issue.
You think that public officials should be held to a higher standard? And then you support Trump who has NO ethical standards? But you call the complete and total lack of ethical standards simply being “crass” which means that you have no ethical standards of your own.
The Democrats set the rules in the 1990’s Dave. Personal behavior is personal. Personal ethics were personal (its only sex, doesn’t affect Clinton’s job.) So, it is now the job performance of the individual in question which is important. We heard you all loud and clear. (Can we talk Ted Kennedy?) You miss one point in the article. Queensbury Rules were proven irrelevant in the 90s. We got the message. And now you want these Queensbury Rules you said were not important then. Nope.
John Kennedy was the first sexual predator in the WH. He was the beginning, not Ted.
Based on what Democrats say… Thomas Jefferson was. So..they are just following in his tradition.
Shenanigans started long before JFK although Kennedy did bring them down to a new level.
The press covered up everything about JFK. All there was were rumors. If you want to talk first, that would be FDR and his long-term girlfriend. JFK wasn’t a predator, plenty of women will very willing indeed. My reference to Ted was not concerning the White House,(Ted never got there except as a guest) it was his known waitress-sandwich behavior which never caused a peep for it’s immorality.
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Not by a long shot… for one source, see “List of federal political sex scandals in the United States” at en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ List_of_federal_political_sex_scandals_in_the_United_States.
I said ethics and you immediately think of sex. Your mind is in the gutter.
david….can you get any more ignorant? I don’t think so. I think you have achieved ground zero for stupidity.
We tried making the argument for standards and you used those against us. We’re playing by your rules until the civil war is over and you’re gone.
When did I ever use an argument for standards against you? And who is this “we” that you refer to?
McCain has ethics? If so, they’re extremely flexible ones that change according to his need for personal publicity.
Keating5 McCain who ditched his sick wife for a beer heiress is a lying pile of horse manure who brazenly lies to voters about his policies and who puts illegals ahead of injured and disabled veterans who desperately need care.
You’d have to be as corrupt as Mayor Daley and as evil as Stalin to think Amnesty McCain has any ethics or integrity.
Boy you are one ignorant arrogant fool. Bush and his family connections to the Muzzies and their oil money; McCain a war traitor who should have been court martialed and was taking bribes during the S&L debacle…Keating Five; Romney a nice guy but who really wanted to be a democrat. Please Just STFU.
You do make an excellent point, debatable, I’m sure. However, ethics in politics takes a backseat to accomplishment that the majority celebrate up to a point. See also: JFK, LBJ, DDE, WJC. We may bemoan ethical lapses and moral ambiguity after the fact when we realized genuine or felt benefit when they were in office. We’re as gray as they come.
Trump was the candidate the Clinton campaign of wanted to run against. They let their friends in the mass media know that and the broadcast media provided Trump with an early boost in campaign coverage by covering his rallies live, sometimes interrupting their own star programming to do so.
Those rallies are where Trump look less like a bumbling buffoon and more like a regular man of the people. Seen your broadcast exact who were veterans of covering many political campaigns knew that very well.
can you please tell us why you think trump has no ethical standards? please omit innuendo, rumor, russian collusion, etc.
He can’t; he’s been lapping up the propaganda fed to useful idiots for well over 18 months. He’s just the Maxine Waters of the comment boards now.
Odd that you think of Trump as having no ethical standards when there seems to be essentially nobody able to pin anything meaningful on him, he has an exemplary family, and is highly respected among business and other associates.
“Instead, ethical standards seem to have evaporated and the media sees
itself as [snip] a
replacement for the role that religious institutions used to play.”
Very astute–I had never thought of it that way.
The ‘high priest’ of the ‘resistance’ from the left resides at Conde Nast’s The New Yorker (TNY). Editor David Remnick started Nov. 9, 2016, with “An American Tragedy”. TNY has powerful echo, from it’s legacy before Remnick, from before Tina Brown. The news media uses his words as new deplorable labels. It has been painful to watch the echo at work in the past year – and it does have a religious slant, odd for such secularists. I consider it the legacy of the Massachusetts NE Puritans, from the Salem Witch Trials to Radical Republicans to Wilsonian Progressives to No Fracked Gas ‘greens’ (that high priest is Bill McKibben, who started his career as a writer for TNY) – the righteous fury always goes back to the Puritans. TNY’s new target is Taylor Swift, the “secret ‘alt-right’ princess’.
I can not explain the NeverTrumpers, except that mass hysteria IS contagious. Might have something to do with who gets invited to which dinner parties.
The dilemma is that this IS a mass hysteria that has not yet broken. VDH is one lonely voice who does not get serious echo.
Google is paying 97$ per hour,with weekly payouts.You can also avail this.
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They went insane when he said he’d open a real 911 investigation. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/586e3d92735801fd27e35722d0c53dbd80c2b72b9a6ff2af55e8f3cfdd3919fd.png
http://www.abeldanger.org/christopher-bollyn-the-man-who-solved-911/
As your namesake noted in 18th century France, “The comforts of the rich rest on an abundance of the poor.” History is proving Monsieur Voltaire’s observations true. We know how the arrogance of the French aristocracy eventually led to their demise – it seems history is repeating itself.
The Let us look to CA which mimics 18th Century France. We have a state with the most wealthy and poorest citizens. Seems similar to me.
Trump would tear down the ruins of a cathedral to build a strip mall. I wouldn’t be surprised if he already has.
Citation needed.
That was as good as the main article.
Good post, but one point of contention. We need to focus on the real enemy like the three sides you listed. Yes, 37 genders is silly, but recognize it as a deliberate distraction. If someone wants to identify as a gender fluid shooting attack helicopter, I honestly don’t care at this point. That’s something we address when the big problems are fixed, and to be honest, I think it’s going to run its course and wither like every past weird social fashion.
Identity politics is designed to reduce us to squabbling serfs, fighting over race and gender issues when the real conflict is a class based one as it has been for millennia. And, no, you don’t have to be a Marxist or even a Liberal to think that. I’ve even known Libertarians who admit this. Look at the whole array of people pushing the Progressive agenda. It’s either the very wealthy or people with very wealthy patrons both seen and unseen. The rest are the useful idiot foot soldiers.
It’s no longer Left vs Right- its nationalist vs globalist. People need to explode what they know and reformat their world views. That’s what the red pill is about. The GOPe (think McCain, McConnell, Ryan) may have been revealed as just another enemy, but I suspect we can gain allies from places we never expected.
While the Buckley era Conservatives claimed to be above it all and insisted on punching Right, the Left nourished the Alinskyites and took over every institution involved in the propagation of our culture and values. The Conservatives got stomped harder then Custer at Little Big Horn, and now their grandchildren are being taught by State run schools to want them dead.
The need here is to fight back hard. The Left started the cultural civil war, so they set the rules of engagement. Use those rules, and smash them. Fight the Dems. Fight the GOP cucks. Never give up. Trump proved it can work when he basically looked the media in the eye and told them he didn’t give a blue f— what they thought or said. Watch the election night video of him as the winner became clear. Totally calm. He *knew* he was going to win.
One area needed badly is to build new media platforms. Google and Facebook and Twitter can hide behind “muh private company” defense when they censor no matter how ridiculous it is to consider gigantic, publically traded corporations providing public accommodations trying to sway elections and global business patterns as “private.” Twitter is having problems. FFS, google works with the intelligence community to god know what end. Private company, my a$$. They’re becoming tentacles of the State. Don’t expect Dems or GOPe cucks to make any moves on that front.
This is the future the cyberpunk genre warned us about. All public communications across the globe filtered and censored by a small cadre of unelected corporate executives. I know many Conservatives get the knee jerk reaction of “buy muh free markets”, but just stop it. This situation is the textbook example of the old saying “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” It was made a living document for a reason. The Founder likely could not imagine a media platform, much less on channeling the collective psyche of billions of people, but they knew SOMETHING would come along they couldn’t imagine think of.
“Yes, 37 genders is silly, but recognize it as a deliberate distraction.”
Agreed–it was my symbolic example of abstruse identity politics.
“It’s no longer Left vs Right–it’s nationalist vs globalist.”
Yep. Absolutely, as the unjustly-maligned Marine LePen has also been saying for over 10 years.
“While the Buckley era Conservatives claimed to be above it all and
insisted on punching Right, the Left nourished the Alinskyites and took
over every institution involved in the propagation of our culture and
values. The Conservatives got stomped harder then Custer at Little Big
Horn.”
Other yep. Pussyhat conservatism has become little more than virtue-signaling for insiders, with a fetish for shooting its own.
“Google and Facebook and Twitter can hide behind ‘muh private company’ defense when they censor no matter how ridiculous it is to consider gigantic, publically traded corporations providing public accommodations trying to sway elections and global business patterns as ‘private.'”
Nor are media companies all labeled as such. Just before starting to read this article I answered an email from Amazon — the main source of Jeff Bezos wealth and thus a major reason he can afford to operate an agitprop operation like the Washington Post. I cut my monthly buying volume there probably 10-fold this past summer and cancelled Amazon Prime and they evidently noticed because they wrote to ask “Have we done something you don’t like?” Well … yes they have:
“Yeah, actually there IS something I dislike about Amazon. Jeff Bezos
using the Washington Post for — basically — anti-American propaganda.
“You and he will only prosper in the country that he is helping to destroy
through the lies and agitprop spread by the Post. Certainly he has the
same free speech rights as the rest of us but my rights include not
helping him pay for shredding those freedoms.
“If you want my support convince your boss to turn the Post into real journalism — the carefully researched, factual stories and separate opinions that some of us still remember from our youth …”
There are lots of ways to fight this evil rich guy syndrome and you might even find that you save money doing so.
Thank you.
I’m going to defect to Canada and demand they provide me with food, housing, education, medical, and employment benefits.
If it doesn’t work there, I’m going to try Germany.
The U.S. can’t be the only country on this planet to be so ready, willing, and able, to provide me with a sanctuary from the horrible conditions prevalent in America.
Not Conservatism thats dying we are just seeing conservatives cutting off the rotten fish head of the Republican
Party.
Funny how it keeps growing back.
But that smell just won’t go away no matter how much you cut off!
“Deplorablism” is best exemplified by this comment, posted on this very website just hours ago under a different article:
“Landslide Hillary
an hour ago
Great article. We have to do more than run through a hole in a wall.
The only good sh!tlib is a dead sh!tlib.
Shoot’em, bomb’em, gas’em … whatever it takes to quickly kill tens of millions of them.”
I am very proud to be called deplorable by anyone who would vote for Hillary. Hillary voters are best exemplified by James Hodgkinson, the shooter of Congressman Scalise. Progressives are all borderline psychotics.
Half the country voted for Hillary and about half the country if not slightly more hold what you would define as “progressive” opinions. You are therefore basically calling about half the country “borderline psychotic”.
The bottom line is that you’re just as bad as Hillary.
Just wishful thinking & a vivid imagination running amuk AGAIN!
I see you’ve done the math
no hilary said,half of Trump supporters are the deplorables not all. so deplorables are at most one quarter of the country.
You really are a nut case. Liberalism is a mental disorder, as you prove. I just used the same type of exaggeration you did in your first comment. Unfortunately you continue with the same silliness.
I didn’t use any exaggeration – that was an actual post, one of many that I’ve come across and hence not an anomaly.
And I’ll stick with my assessment that it’s a good example of “deplorablism”, at least until I see folks who want to proudly wear the badge start calling out the increasing number of posters who make these kinds of despicable comments.
Understood, you stick to your assessment and I will stick with mine. We despicables express our frustration in words, while Progressives attack and kill opponents.
Except that I didn’t call you “despicable” – I referred to the particular comment made by that poster as despicable. Do you disagree?
I did not mean to imply you called me despicable. I proudly claim to be a despicable as defined by Hillary and the media.
I do not just get frustrated. I get sickened by what progressives have already inflicted upon us and very angry at what they want to do now. They truly are mentally disturbed. The Democrat platform in 2016 proves it. From supporting the butchering of some poor slob who thinks sex is a matter of choice to be handled by a surgeon and free drugs for life, to thinking the solution to the poor is to steal from those who work for a living. The left has made it clear that you have no right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You submit to their insanity or lose everything. They set the rules and you do as told.
The shooter is typical of the political left and a special case only in actualizing his fantasy. The left marinates in fantasying about killing Trump and Conservatives in general. What passes for comedy is hate. What passes for news is hate. Hillary is still out there trying to become President and the left still listens to her. The left has gone insane.
I’ve rarely seen such overt irony in anyone’s postings. You claim that “the left marinates” in fantasies about killing Trump and conservatives in general in response to a thread which I started with a direct citation of a post from a right wing poster who was plainly fantasizing about killing liberals en masse. From there, you go on to rant about how the left “hates” after having just posted how you yourself think half the country is “borderline psychotic” and “insane”.
Let’s be clear here, you’re pretty plainly marinating in hatred yourself, and I frankly have little doubt personally at this point that your own private fantasies correspond to those of the poster whom I cited earlier. We can only hope you remain a little too afraid of the consequences to ever “actualize” them.
If you are right then some of the 65,000,000 Hillary voters would have been out shooting or assaulting GOP elected officials by the score. But so far only one, if in fact he shot the congressman specifically because he was Republican. What happned to the rest of the ‘bloodthirsty’ Hillary voters? Are they waiting in ambush for the likes of you and your bunch? Maybe you should just get back under your beds till we go away.
To vote for Hillary shows either a corrupt soul or a mental illness. Her corruption has been clear to any who bother to look for years. As for physical violence, you forgot Anti fa and BLM goon squads and their dead police officers. You should also count the Islamist killers since they almost certainly were voting Democrat. It is also probable the Vegas shooter will turn out to be another Hillary voter.
As for cowering under a bed, I don’t worry about the deranged, I carry and keep in practice.
To vote for Donald Trump demonstrates an IQ lower than a very cool room temperature. It also demonstrates a complete lack of patriotism and love of this country given that you are complicit in a Russian takeover of the Oval Office.
Thank you for validating everything I said about Hillary voters.
Yes, we can see YOUR patriotism and love of country with your elitist, snobbish, ignorant and ludicrous commentary on half of the country. Not only that, but your lemming-like following of the “Russiagate” nonsense. Perhaps if you actually embraced facts and not fiction, your IQ might exceed that of an amoeba.
Please remember that it was your hero who publically ruminated about gun owners assassinating Hillary. Deplorable is too kind a term for your thinking.
Trump never “ruminated” about killing Hillary. It is called CONTEXT. Liberals love to take one phrase and omit context. Shall I remind you that Obama told his followers to take a knife to Republicans in a fight.
You know what I’m most thankful for this year?
McCuck will be dead by this time next year.
But your revealing statement will live forever to your great shame. Your only solace is that you are anonymous to everyone but yourself. Live with it till YOU die!
Hey, I said it too. Don’t I also have to live with my statement (etc.)?
I wholeheartedly agree.
did you really say you will be thankful that someone will die? I have not liked a host of people for a host of reasons, but cant say ive ever wished anyone dead, wow.
That’s good! I hope you’re equally disappointed by the mock assassination of our President being played out in the park in New York City and the mock beheading of our President by an ex-pat comedian and the death wishes expressed by various musicians in video.
There is no mock assassination of “our” president in Central Park. It is a reenactment of an actual historical event – the assassination of Julius Caesar. “Caesar” was made to resemble the current POTUS to show that the assassination of Caesar was equivalent to killing the US president. They did the same thing to BHO and you didn’t complain then.
You have no link to your claims they used BHO first. Prove it or be labeled for what you are. The used POTUS for the first time this year, and they use DJT to normalize people taking pot shots and ‘wink wink’ at those that would do so in this Presidency. Their symbolism is craftily done so people, sorry ignorant tools, can spout this same tripe. Try again we aren’t buying.
Calling you a stinking piece of pig excrement would be too nice a term to describe you!
I agree, but only in the sense that I think it is the only way for him to be removed from office, and allowing his personal vendetta against Trump to further damage the country. I just want him to go away, one way or the other.
This idea is not a value I share with you. I hope you are actually a Russian or Progressive troll and not some professing to actually be a conservative.
That tumor is doing the lords work truly. It is like Darth Bannon says, the GOPe can go easy or they can go hard, but they have to go.
I’ll join you in that wish.
I hope Professor Hanson gets this or similar article published in National Review, to tell the Jeb! fans at NR to their face how wrong they are–and how THEY, not the deplorables, have hijacked conservatism.
Why is anyone going to decide that everything they believe is wrong just because a hack like Victor Davis Hanson says so?
Ever consider that your hacks have told you that everything relating to morality is a personal decision? Who are we to judge – that is what we have been told for decades. Having 5 kids all with different fathers (none in the home) is personal and woe to anyone who says it is not right.
When did they ever say that at the National Review?
A hack? LOL
Because they have a brain.
Ah yes. Witness the personal attack on others when there is no further rebuttal to make. Seen that work elsewhere have we? Well it won’t here. VDH the SCHOLAR and accomplished AUTHOR is by anyones definition anything but a ‘hack’. And you have driven your own credibility below the noise floor of any conversation you appear in.
Sorry, but I am not as impressed by academic credentials as you are. If VDH keeps turning out drivel like this for American Greatness then he is a hack.
I much prefer to call Trump a running yellow dog. Or who ever. It’s chief advantage is that it means absolutely nothing, except what I want it to mean. Trump is a master at this, labeling his opponents, he might call them a galloping pink giraffe and garner millions of votes.
My favorite is clean coal. It means nothing but everybody knows what it means. It changes with every speech and zillions of bureaucrats laboriously track its meaning today. Until tomorrow.
I think we should deport deplorables, who ever they are. They are bad. Not like us.
This is the stock and trade of all politicians. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, except I get power.
Come and get me. I dare you, I really do.
Why not publish your name & address if you do,if you really do?
In the event you missed it, Griswold v. Connecticut determined there is a right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution.
That is one problem with Leftists/Progressives/Democrats/Socialists/Communists – they have no facts or core beliefs, all they have are their dictated groupthoughts and precious feelings.
That only restricts the govt from infringing on your privacy. If you really, really want want someone to ‘come and get you”, you have every right to give that someone directions to your location. Maybe you really are just a blowhard, bully, just like little don john.
If you think clean coal means nothing you need a mental enema to clean out the blockage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_coal_technology
Clean coal has enormous meaning. It has meant the destruction of millions of jobs and livelihoods, over generations. It off shored entire industries. And it has engendered pure hatred of fellow Americans as you clearly note.
I was referring to clean coal’s technical meanings, its evolution. People who tried to comply, spent their careers running up a mountain of sand, getting no where. They would install multi million dollar systems, which became illegal, no good on day one, due to today’s edition of truth.
Perhaps we will redefine “deplorables” over the next generation. You and the other irrational hot head, the “Come and get me..” guy may wish to ponder what that means, in a nation filled with hate. Trump thrives on hate, as do others. I can assure you that your electricity bill will climb so high, that your kids will live in a dark cold house. Each of them owes somebody else over $60,000, their share of our national debt, in part due to clean coal. Was it worth it?
No.
Reading your comment wasn’t worth it.
In short, deplorablism is anti-elitism, standing in firm opposition to the notion there are two Americas, one for the elitists and their cronies and hangers-on and one for the rest of us.
The only saving grace is that the responsible wings of the two parties don’t have to contend with the Populist Nationalists on the right figuring out they’re two peas in a pod with the POpulist Nationalist on the left. As long as Twitter exists, these two sides will take pot shots at each other; overlooking the 4-5 key tenets that could easily unite them and bring them national, state and local political power.
As it is, they’re arrogant with all the noise being given to them about those violently for and violently against Trump, and ignorant that this Populist Nationalist phase will pass when there is nobody left to take the helm from Trump and carry on this message. The Establishment types will try to coopt these ideas, and because the AntiTrump and ProTrump forces have both tried to ingratiate themselves with America by camping out within the Democrat and Republican tents….their ideas are easily coopted by the other candidates.
Once Trump and Sanders are gone, people (at least the 60% of the people who live in the middle of the bell curve ideologically) will want sanity and calm restored.
I personally ignore Trump’s Tweets. I wish he’d stop. I wish people would ignore them because he’s doing ot D’s what Obama did to R’s for 8 years; gaslighting.
We’ve lived through this before in MN with a Populist Governor. He accomplished quite a bit for the People in just 4 years, but most of the people who weren’t political junkies got tired of the daily fighting with the media. Trump will do the same in 3 years, concluding his work here is done…having sent a strong message to both parties that this nation belongs to the PEople…not the lobbyists and bureacrats.
If you are going to write a diatribe against “Populist Nationalists” you should first define them in a credible and intellectual way.
Reading a great book by VDH now called “Who Killed Homer,” and he points out that classical Greece was where this anti-elitism came into Western culture. I’d never heard that before, but it makes sense that he would get it in the current context. So much to learn . . . .
Speaking of elitism… how many millionaires in the White House again? Hah!
Of course elitism is more about privileged access to the levers of power and influence; not necessarily an amount of money one has.
I’d rather have a billionaire than an academic who has theories rather than experience in the real world of dog eat dog.
If that were so you wouldn’t be swinging off the nuts of American multinationals that want a tax break, while undercutting the American market and labor force.
Amusing to read the good professor’s claims of oppression by the “elite Republicans” when there was no louder blovatior in favor of the Yankee Empire’s wars of conquest, from the invasion of the South through the Iraq disaster. His “Savior Generals,” with its sloppy blowjob of the war criminal William Tecumseh Sherman is certainly the most disgusting thing this side of Stalin hagiographies. And who has expended more pompous verbiage in favor of Jaffaite gnosticism than V.D. Hanson? This clown has zero credibility.
Anyone who uses the substandard “verbiage” has less than zero credibility.
Davis is just another professor who can say less in more words than a fundamentalist preacher. The psychobabble printed above will be disproven when the deplorables find out what’s in the Republican tax bill. The deplorables will pay for a massive tax cuts for the elites. Then the deplorables will really be angry.
Most of the ‘deplorables’ just won’t care. They are much more enamored of the ‘idea’ of Trump that any policies or comments he puts forward. Like those American banks that kept giving loans to Trump even after they were burned by several bankruptcies, he’s got them conned by his charismatic personality and their wishful thinking ‘trumps’ reality. SAD!
reality check: The “deplorables” are far smarter than Trump and the Republicans give them credit for being. They understand arithmetic because they have to practice it every day to make sure they have enough money to live. They’ll know who’s cheating them when they do their taxes under the Republicans.
Smart & gullible are 2 different traits. The bankers that made loans to Trump were very smart as were the investors in Donald’s AC casinos as well as the smart people that ‘graduated’ from Trump. But they all proved to be gullible as they fell for Donald’s cons. Those who voted for Trump will find out just how badly they were conned for voting for him when they see how their income taxes go up & up. Unless of course they are in the top 1%. Those will be happy. I guess you guys are also relieved you won’t have to pay estate taxes on the $11,000,000 plus you leave to your family when you die. Donald just made $1 billion. What a relief!
Reality Check: Completely true. I come from Trump country and I told all he folks who voted for him that he’d cheat them.
You might want to read the recent tax proposal. The middle class are big beneficiaries. The top 1% are paying a 46% tax on earnings over 1,200,000. The corporate tax is going down to 20%. That will create more jobs, higher salary and more taxable income.
basically deplorables are racists who want to preserve their white privilege and economic supremacy at the expense of other ethnic groups. Read the comments here, and what I say you will know to be true. Deplorables are just too PC to admit it. Because they know America fundamentally rejects their racism.
This is exactly why Trump won and exactly why I am proud to be called deplorable by such arrogant self-labeled and self declared (non)”enlightened” liberals.
Racist is as Racist votes. Thank God the Oxy, H. Meth and guns are killing you all off.
My point, verified again.
Thank God there will be less of you in 2018 and 2020
Yes, some of us are getting pretty old, but it’s bad form for you to celebrate death.
Deplorable here. Racist, huh. So how do you define my “racism”? Can Blacks or Asians be racist, too?
It’s so easy to parrot what one hears from the elites as truth. MrTrump is called a “racist” without any evidence or proof of racist attitudes or actions.
Trump was born to a racist who participated in KKK riots in NYC. Trump was convicted of red lining blacks in NYC. Trump called for the death penalty for 5 black teens…. who were innocent. Trump got his start HIS START in politics with the RACIST BIRTHER load of crap. Racist is as Racist does. Racist is as Racist VOTES.
Still pining for Gay Barry?
There is a line of thought that Democrats of the past have become the Republicans of today. There is some truth to that since the communists of the past have become the Democrats of today. Both parties seem to have shifted significantly to the left. Trump, it seems, has realized the the voting American people have remained center-right, as always.
“So what drives deplorablism?”
Above all, attachment to the 2nd Amendment, specifically the keep and bear part.
I think it is patriotism. And the 2A is a part of that. But it extends to the simply fact that Deplorables believe in the USA and the rest don’t. They see the USA as one indistinct piece of a global machine. When those folks are done., USA will only mean the land mass in the middle of the North American continent and Americans will simply be whomever is on that landmass at any given time. No more than that.
That’s their goal, alright.
I’m “in” 1000%.
The republican senate RINOs don’t really want to change anything or be held responsible for making a decision. For the RINOs it’s all about “kicking the can down the road” while hanging onto their power and big money supporters.
Thank God for VDH, who clarifies our thinking on why we Trump supporters are determined to remain irredeemably deplorable.
Remember when politics was the democrats vs the republicans. Now it’s the democrats along with the “Fake News” media, the activist judges and the RINOs vs the republicans.
Because Trump is the one and only true Republican and everyone else is a RINO. Actually Trump is a RINO. You Trumpkins should stop using that term.
Great Point!
Nationalistm: A European concept.
I am glad that the whole world is based on scientific, technological and philosophical ideals, theories and inventions that were created by the almighty 4.000 years old European nations!
Victor Hanson needs to let NeverTrumpers know what he really thinks of them. I’m serious. He has been so inordinately polite to them, never calling them out by name, never breathing dragon-fire on their hypocrisies . Yes, he torches the edges of their paper protests, but it’s time for some James Carville-style, twitching, seething, boiling fury to be laid at the feet of Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, that Boot guy I never really heard of till he became a NeverTrumper, Kevin Williamson, and on and on. These people need to be lit and burned up once and for all.
Victor, you are the man who can do it. LET THEM HAVE IT! STOP BEING SO NICE!
Like anyone would care what this partisan hack thinks of them.
I am one who cares, and I second MaxMBJ.
VDH is a highly noted Classicist with a Ph.D. from UC – Santa Cruz. He knows more about Greek history than nearly anybody alive. He both more educated and more credentialed than NeverTrumpers like Kristol and Boot. But he is first and foremost a California raisin farmer, living on and working his grandfather’s vineyard. He has a humility sorely lacking in today’s political elites.
You do know what PhD stands for don’t you? This article is a perfect example.
VDH makes a living recycling an old classical theme, which is that people living in the country are inherently more virtuous than people living in the cities; not surprisingly, he finds a receptive audience in flyover country repetitively bashing “coastal elites” in one column after another.
It is a classical theme because it is true. It is a theme repeated across time and across culture. What you refer to as “bashing” is merely speaking age-old truth to clueless, ignorant power.
There’s really no objective evidence you can present that it’s true but I have a feeling I know why you and so many others like to believe it. Vanity is one of mankind’s most durable character flaws.
The objective evidence is that people across cultures have held it to be true for millenia. If it was false it would have been proven so long ago. Why do you deny the truth of history? Why do you consider yourself so much more enlightened than your forebearers? That is is hubris, to deny the wisdom of tradition. Do you need to learn the lesson of Chesterton’s Gate?
Sorry, my friend, but many other writers and thinkers have for millennia also considered folks living out in the country to be generally less clever and creative than people living in cities, and there’s really no good evidence that I can see to support that either. Both of these viewpoints seem to be an outgrowth of people conflating what happens as a consequence of living in a certain social environment with innate ability / intelligence / moral fiber.
We’ll just agree to disagree. And I’ll stick with my assessment that in general, people living in urban environments are just as good, morally speaking, as people living out in the heartland.
You’re not kidding, are you?
Projection is so very ugly.
Normally I agree with VDH, but in this case I don’t. I was/am not a strong Trump supporter, but I am a Deplorable.
We rightly sent a skunk to Washington to deliver a message. We’re sick and tired of elites who have no answers, say only the most politically expedient nostrums, have no regard for the rule of law or Constitutional limits, and regard the citizens outside the Beltway as pawns in their globalist agenda.
Our attitude is not Republican or Democrat in orthodoxy.
We keep telling the political class that we’re dissatisfied. We turned both parties out of power in turn. But the politicians just want to continue with their faux jousting matches, get theirs, and screw the citizenry.
Aside from style, it is pretty lame the criticism coming out against the President. After all, his basic platform is about securing our borders, getting ordinary Americans back to work and having a strong defense so we don’t need to fight so many wars.
I think he runs into so much resistance because those formerly in power had bet the farm on the elimination of the US as a distinct entity and Trump’s policies are turning that on it’s head. Trumpism is seen as as an existential threat to the new globalism.
MAGA is inherently countersemitic. In time, it will become explicitly so.
If VDH wants to ride this train he needs to cut ties and disavow all the neocon Jews that were responsible for both his career as a commentator and the disaster their rabid Zionism has produced in the Middle East.
This is a very poorly thought out statement. “Rabid Zionism” has very little to do with the problems of the Middle East. Israel is the most functional democracy in the region, bringing the highest standard of living to its residence, including the 20% of the Arab population. It takes a particular kind of blindness not to see that the dysfunction of the Arab states is caused by internal, not external factors.
I was not a Trump fan but warmed to him when he heaved Jorge Ramos out of his press conference. Ramos was playing the race card even though he has pale white skin, blue eyes and what I assume is an affected Mexican accent. VDH hit the nail on the head with his line “Finally, the deplorables grew weary with sober and judicious Marquis of Queensberry campaigning rules.” So many of our party suck up to media and do not release they play by a different set of rules. Trump put the horseshoe in the glove too.
All I know is: 1) I am glad Obama is gone, 2) That Hillary isn’t POTUS and 3) That we have a POTUS who puts America first and isn’t intimidated by the losers on the Left.
Hanson writes, “The Trump agenda so far is mostly mainstream 20th-century Republicanism”.
Even though I have been alive 7 decades and paying attention to politics, I am not at all sure anyone can accurately define or identify “20th-century Republicanism”. In the main I believe that Hanson was seriously stretching the current political situation to fit his mental concept of what is happening politically in the USA. Like the comment below, I believe “one aspect that he under emphasized is culture.” I also believed he stayed away from the rather obvious move much of the USA has made toward nationalism and away from a multicultural/multiethnic society. In terms of the political unity of the USA, the populace of America — the part that cares — has been growing apart for 5 decades now and basically that divide centers around the fact that citizens are deeply divided about who should get the benefits and who should pay for them.
Our society’s multiethnic and diverse admixture has taken away what we once had in the way of commonality of purpose. Absent the commonality of purpose, political compromise is impossible. Compromise in American politics requires unity of purpose, and as such is a virtue that is distinctly American. Compromise is only possible among competing interests when they can agree on an overarching goal. That has been, and will continue to be, impossible in the USA.
A number of eminent political scientists have seen diverse societies as disadvantaged when it comes to democratization. According to many analysts, ethnic and religious differences can divide societies and make compromise and consensus extraordinarily difficult. Heterogeneity poses the risk of intercommunal violence, which can quickly undermine open politics. What is more, political parties and other organizations coalesce more readily around ethnic than other identities. Writing in the wake of the Soviet demise, Donald Horowitz observed: “Democracy has progressed furthest in those East European countries that have the fewest serious ethnic cleavages and progressed more slowly or not at all in those that are deeply divided. In Asia, the relative smoothness of democratization in mono-ethnic South Korea contrasts with the rocky course of regime change in ethnically mixed Indonesia.
Citizens in the USA better buckle up their seat belts… it’s liable to be a very rough ride.
Too much political science gobbledygook here.
Read a book…
I do not agree with your analysis. It is quite possible to have a multi-ethnic, pluralistic, liberal democracy built upon constitutional principles which separate loci of power and provide the protections of the rule of law and protect personal liberties. The rockiness of democratization in the examples you mentioned are due more to the authoritarian nature of prior regimes, not homogeneity. Canada is a very diverse society, and a highly functioning democracy. Egypt is a homogeneous society which is full of anti-democratic tendencies. These are just a few examples which contradict your assertions. The bigger problem in forming liberal democratic ethos in democratizing countries is the corruption of the authoritarian elites.
I agree. Most of the people I work with in Chicago are foreign immigrants from places like Vietnam, Mexico and Iraq ( Assyrians ). I have vastly more in common with them than with white leftists born and raised here as I was. I don’t believe things like race, religion or ethnicity are the bottom line for having a functional society although they certainly can be. I think the bottom line is simply how people think or perceive reality. This is where I feel great commonality with my coworkers and none at all with white leftists who seem utterly alien and incomprehensible to me.
You failed to recognize that the focus on the failure of societies that have serious ethnic cleavages and that are deeply divided in terms of their beliefs in essential social qualities such as morality. Yes, Canada has a an element of diversity that includes Chinese immigrants who contribute to Canadian society. So does the USA. But Canada also has a prime example of a Balkanized society in the existence of Quebec and the history of near secession because of the conflict with other parts of Canada.
And Egypt? Egypt is not a functioning multi-ethnic democracy, despite the big potential of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that swept away Egypt’s long-standing leader, Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled the country from 1980. General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces has launched a sweeping crackdown on civil society. Citing the need to restore security and stability, the regime banned protests, passed antiterrorism laws that mandated long prison terms for acts of civil disobedience, gave prosecutors broad powers to extend pretrial detention periods, purged liberal and pro-Islamist judges, and froze the bank accounts of NGOs and law firms that defend democracy activists. Human rights groups in Egypt estimate that between 40,000 and 60,000 political prisoners, including both Muslim Brotherhood members and secular pro-democracy activists, now languish in the country’s jails. Twenty prisons have been built since Sisi took power. Egypt a functioning multiethnic democracy? Get serious.
You are confused because you are not a very good reader. Thanks for making my point that a homogeneous society like Egypt is not a well functioning democracy, and that Canada, with all its various ethnic diversity (I live in Vancouver, which is the second largest Sikh city in the world) is able to operate as a serious and established democracy. Your comment is a refutation of your earlier post. I accept your capitulation.
It would appear that you don’t know the definition of homogeneous. Egypt is an example of a heterogeneous society. adjective
adjective: heterogeneous
diverse in character or content.
I know Vancouver well as my daughter-in-law completed her degree at UBS a few years ago.
Trudeau came to power after a divisive 2015 election campaign during which the Conservatives raised the possibility of banning the niqab among federal civil servants, and establishing a tip line to report “barbaric cultural practices.” A new survey also examined Canadians’ attitudes toward immigration. It found that a significant number of respondents (38 per cent) say that the country has too many immigrants. You may want to think that Canada doesn’t have a problem but the facts belie that belief.
Do you mean your daughter was at UBC? Good school! Anyway, your assertion was not ‘does democratic society have problems’ (of course Canada has problems, like every nation), but rather that the homogeneous nature of society, or lack thereof, is the main driver of democratic function/dysfunction. You are prone to characterizations. The conservatives, and the provincial Quebec government (where it is the law), wanted to insist that niqab wearing woman show their faces when accessing public services. This is not a ban, only a limited prohibition. This was a very marginal issue in the last election. Taking your recent survey at face value, 62% of the public approves of the rate of immigration. But that is not the issue either. Canadian refutes your assertions that mono-cultural societies do better at democracy. Egypt is 99% Arab. This is not homogeneous? Am I using a different dictionary?
I think you may have a reading problem. I did not write that my “daughter” went to UBC. And your tap dancing and parsing the actual situation with Canada and Quebec is tedious and boring.
Minorities in Egypt include the Copts who represent around 10% of the entire population and live all over the country, the Berber-speaking community of the Siwa Oasis (Siwis) and the Nubian people clustered along the Nile in the southernmost part of Egypt. There are also sizable minorities of Beja and Dom. The ISIS bombing attacks against Coptic churches is testing a fault line in Egyptian society. The Christian minority has faced Muslim mob violence before, but not a full-scale sectarian campaign. Egypt’s heartland is now squarely in ISIS’s crosshairs as the group attempts to inflame long-simmering tensions between Muslims and the Copts, the largest Christian population in the region. It is widely known that most wars among humans revolve around religion and ethnicity. In Egypt, it is religion because the Muslims cannot stand for religions contrary to their belief. It is in this factor of religion where Egypt seriously lacks homogeneity.
Daughter-in-law. Apologies. So you are saying that religious extremism can loosen the cords of democracy. I agree, and your sentiment concurs with my initial statement that authoritarianism (including religious authoritarianism) is more determent in establishing the social milieu for liberal democracy than cultural diversity per se. Signing off now….
BTW, Quebec separatism is no longer on the table.
Maybe in your mind it “isn’t on the table” but basically Quebec is another country withing the boundary of Canada. They have their own language and culture and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has faced increasing pressure to clarify under what circumstances Quebec could separate from Canada following the UK’s decision to secede from the European Union. For a majority of Quebec politicians, whether sovereigntist or not, the problem of Quebec’s political status is considered unresolved to this day. Although Quebec independence is a political question, cultural concerns are also at the root of the desire for independence. The central cultural argument of the sovereigntists is that only sovereignty can adequately ensure the survival of the French language in North America, allowing Quebecers to establish their nationality, preserve their cultural identity, and keep their collective memory alive.
Honestly, out of respect for an elderly gentleman, I am going to stop responding to you. You dig yourself into a deeper hole with each post- it is somewhat embarrassing. Re Quebec, last year:
A full 82 per cent of Quebec respondents to a survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute in partnership with CBC agreed with the statement, “Ultimately, Quebec should stay in Canada.”
When broken down by language group, 73 per cent of francophone respondents said Quebec should remain in Canada.
In addition, 64 per cent of francophone Quebecers surveyed agreed with the statement that “issue of Quebec sovereignty is settled, and Quebec will remain in Canada.”
Across Canada, 84 per cent of respondents said Quebec should stay in Canada, while 69 per cent agreed that the issue of sovereignty is settled.
Superb article!! The greatest B.S. being propagated by the NRO, the Weekly Standard, and other RINO bastions in the media is that Trump and Trump supporters are not conservatives. The neocons think they have hijacked that label and transmogrified it to mean open borders and middle east wars. They are the scum-sucking turncoats.
What does VDH mean by Marques of Queensberry rules? I think that what he really means is that it is OK to lie, cheat and steal. He believes John McCain and Mitt Romney should have lied like Trump and raised the birther issue against Obama. Does he really believe that Trump would have beaten Obama by telling lies?
VDH thinks that it was OK for Trump to say that Ted Cruz’s father killed JFK and he himself is more than willing to tell lies about uranium.
George W Bush won two elections playing by the rules, and he did much better than Trump did in winning votes. Republicans have been very successful in winning state elections and the House and Senate in DC by playing by the rules. Almost any Republican would have beaten HRC in 2016. The claim that the only way to win is by cheating is nonsense.
Many Trump supporters aren’t huge fans of his style, but also don’t take it seriously, and/or recognize it can be effective, even though it isn’t always. What matters is the policy promises he made, and whether he keeps them. And so far he has, much more reliably than previous politicians. He made a deal with voters, and he’s done his best to keep it. On judges, he may be the best conservatives have ever seen. He faces enormous opposition in DC and in the media, and sometimes his style may work against him. In those areas, one hopes he will learn and grow into the job. There are tweets that didn’t need to be made, and maybe over time he’ll back off from that part of his game. But it’s not the meat of policy. On that score, it is entirely Congress that is to blame. It is clear that Trump would sign whatever they put on his desk, and they can’t/won’t do it. That’s the biggest problem Republicans face.
So; How can you believe PRESIDENT TRUMP “would sign whatever they put on his desk”?
You contradict your own argument.
Indeed. And it is almost repetitive to state at this point that VDH “gets it”, because he’s been on point throughout.
If you want to go back even further, look at the policies of Calvin Coolidge, Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton. The problem is a confluence of purist “John Galt” libertarians and interventionist neoconservatives among the Republican elite, and donors who push those agendas, despite the fact that those agendas have no constituency among voters.
“What is ‘Deplorablism’?
That’s an easy question to answer. ‘Deplorablism’ is a state of mind among conservative republicans that restrict incoming information to a stable of lies coming from the pulpit, talk radio, and the insipid email chains being passed around.
I’ve long ago realized three things about conservatives:
1. In their communications they are being lied to.
2. They KNOW they are being lied to.
3. They LIKE being lied to.
I think it would be useful and economical to wrap all the lies and fake scandals into a single word.
How about: BenghazisolyndraborninKenyavincefostermurderwhitewatermissingemails.
You deplorables could save so much time and really say the same thing! Which is to say ‘nothing’.
You may think something is accomplished by being a smug smear merchant, spewing hate and insults at anyone who dares disagree with you. I would suggest to you that your style is hurting you more than it’s helping. Ask Hillary, who coined the “deplorables” term to start with.
Conservatives rarely provide anything to argue with. What can I say to the substantial percentage of republicans who believed and still believe that President Obama “is not a citizen” “not born in the United States” “is a secret Muslim”. In a survey taken in August, 2016 72% of republicans doubt that President Obama was born in the United States.
There’s really nothing in the way of rational argument that I can provide to that level of willful stupidity.
Maybe if Obama were lighter in color conservatives wouldn’t consider him to be “the other”.
You do know that until he decided to run for president he claimed to be foreign-born, right?
Thanks for making my point, dougloss.
Perfect
If your point was that you don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m happy to help you understand that.
i think a more accurate point would be that when I don’t know what I’m talking about, I keep my mouth shut.
You, on the other hand.
P.s any proof that Obama considered himself to be foreign born or are you just babbling you-know-what?
I thought so.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/18/article-2146034-1325C215000005DC-456_306x675.jpg
The biography for Mr Obama published in a literary agency’s promotional pamphlet says he was born in Kenya.
What you think you know is false, and provably so. Of course, logic, evidence, and truth mean nothing to you leftists. But to normal people, they do.
“published in “a” literary agency’s promotional pamphlet”
Which one? Or are words on a page enough for you?
I see that the info is via breitbart. Do you consider this fascist rag to be a reliable source?
Typical leftist. You have evidence right in front of you and since it doesn’t support your narrative you immediately grasp at everything you can to discredit it. The publishing agency was Acton & Dystel, which first published this in 1991 and which still listed it that way until 2007, when after Obama declared his candidacy it was changed (in their archives, indicating an edit of the original material) to say he was born in Hawaii. So until then, yes, the claim that he was foreign-born wasn’t disputed. Such biographical information is routinely presented to the object of the biography for review before being published. It’s very unlikely that Obama didn’t know about this claim, and so would have agreed to its being published.
But since Breitbart noticed it, it’s automatically suspect, eh? Again, typical leftist. It doesn’t agree with the narrative, so it must be discredited.
So you think that Brietbart is a “leftist” publication?
So you have a reading disability, eh? There’s absolutely no way anyone who understands simple English could have gotten that from what I wrote. I think we may have discovered yet another of your undoubtedly numerous shortcomings.
Charles Ross quoted Brietbart and you said that made him a “typical leftist.” In this instance Brietbart was absolutely right – Obama was born in Hawaii.
And again, you can’t read for content. I did not say that, and I didn’t refer to Breitbart at all. You can pretend all you want that I said what you wish I did, but that only makes you look even more foolish than usual. Really, learn to read and understand what is being said–it’ll stand you well in the future. And who knows, if you actually learn to do it maybe you won’t be so taken in by the leftist foolishness you currently espouse.
You did refer to ‘breitbart’. It says ‘via Breitbart.com’ right at the bottom of the page you posted
Have you seen this?
http://theamericanreport.org/2015/08/19/clues-unlock-obama-id/
freddie has some issues
You like that huh? Sure I knew you would;-)
There you did it again. Commented even though you were proven wrong already.
Perhaps you just don’t understand the basis of critical thinking.
“the substantial percentage of republicans who believed and still believe that President Obama “is not a citizen” “not born in the United States” “is a secret Muslim”.
The post by CR, part of which is quoted above, is what is called SOPHISTRY: Sophistry is the deliberate use of a false argument with the intent to trick someone or a false or untrue argument.
It is a commonly used by libs/dems/progs who have very little actual understanding but resort to groundless assertions and straw man arguments/claims. However, in the case of CR, he DOES make one statement that DOES ring true: ther
Straw men are easy to destroy, and that’s the tack that Leftists take to avoid arguing with conservatives.
As a conservative, I’ve kinda cooled on the idea that a Leftist can be educated so what’s the sense in arguing with them?
This should sooth your mind some;-) https://nypost.com/2017/01/14/its-time-to-face-facts-obamas-presidency-was-a-failure/
What a grand opportunity obama had to prove the birthers wrong by simply allowing the birth certificate to be analyzed by independent forensic experts. No, he had to take the cowardly way out by allowing one leftwing reporter take one photograph of a color photocopy to declare it legit. That was an odd way to prove innocence in such a litigious society as we have now. Especially for the alleged law scholar, obama.
As for his Muslim roots, well, according to the Koran (the book he often stated as sacred), a male child of a Muslim father, is a Muslim, period. He knows that tidbit. He himself changed his name to Barack Hussein Obama. And as we all witnessed, he never argued against Islamic tradition. I don’t recall him ever denying being Muslim publicly, but I digress. I remember when his followers claimed he was a scholar and professor of law. When that turned out to be a bloviation then it no longer became a topic for discussion.
The funny thing about willful stupidity is that it can go both ways. I myself prefer to have things proven without a doubt and if there were something obama did was leave lots of doubt. No wonder he golfed so much. The Messiah myth became a common charlatan.
I have something to say!!
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/obama-a-hollow-man-filled-with-ruling-class-ideas/
then say it freddie
“maintain the postwar order”
My a**. He’s continually threatened the postwar order. He is a genuine threat to the postwar order and has pulled America back from its leadership role and left the world asking if they can trust or believe us because he is so untruthful and unstable. He’s trashed our allies while never once speaking poorly of strongmen like Putin, Erdogan, or Duterte.
Can you point to some of these instances of Trump “trashing our allies”?
No? I didn’t think so.
Trump is a threat to the Obama style-post world order, for sure. He speaks directly to American interests, which are often aligned with global interests, while maintaining a cordial relationship with world leaders, if possible. He is righting the ship, which after 8 years of Obama, was seriously over on its keel.
He’s a threat to the postwar order. Not just Obama and globalism. Our allies no longer feel like they can depend on us to be a leader. We have lost and moral authority. The rest of the world doesn’t respect him, and rightfully so.
As someone who has lived, worked and traveled much (including the past year in the Middle East), I say that you are flat out wrong. I would recommend that you broaden your reading beyond the NYT.
You should like this;-)
https://nypost.com/2017/01/14/its-time-to-face-facts-obamas-presidency-was-a-failure/
More great stuff;-)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/obama-a-hollow-man-filled-with-ruling-class-ideas/
HUH? They sure demonstrated a lot of love for him on the recent Asia Tour.
I seem to remember Germany telling obama to butt out and mind his own business while France and the UK tried to dodge him at every opportunity. The only foreign dictator that respected BO was Chavez and he’s in hell now.
That Asia trip was hilarious. They rolled out the red carpet for him, stroked his ego and then they will bend him right over in any deals because it’s only about him and his ego for him and he could not care less about the country. Xi is gonna make a fool of him.
Germany, one of the allies Trump has s*** On recently, isn’t even really talking to him. Our intelligence agencies told mossad to not share info with us if it was sensitive because Putin had leverage on Trump. What’s great is it looks like Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller and his attorneys are no longer sharing information with Trump’s.
Thanks for clarifying oblunders position.
Bravo, Mr. Hanson. I am a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, yet have for years felt a sickening disdain for my party’s Presidential nominees standing still and taking the sh*t thrown at them by the plankton-level strategies and strategists of the Party of Progressive Annihilation.
VDH is describing what Nixon once called “The Silent Majority.” And, as usual, he’s done it accurately and elegantly.
The reason Dr. Hansen always hits rhetorical home runs is simple: he is an historian, not one of the currently-stylish indoctrinators of the majority of American campuses. His logic and arguments are backed with common sense, a realistic view to actual results and their meanings, and an iron-willed voice of reason, instead of the pretzel-bending of history and logic, to fit a predetermined script.
You know, the way it USED to be in education, before the Maoists, Leninists, Stalinists, and Trotskyites had only the fine points of communist history as points of argument to pass on to their students.
Clean communism from the halls of higher education, and American education will soar into a position of world leadership once more.
And education is the key, isn’t it? Great thinking and writing find no purchase on minds that have been in the clutches of progressive teachers since primary school. There is hope, but if we cannot get govt out of the schools, the American experiment is likely doomed.
The spread of progressive ideology in schools is the most insidious form of destructive immigration. Rooting it out should be our number one priority. We are in this current mess precisely because we failed to man the gates and defend a classical liberal education.
Yes, it is the bedrock of the life of our nation; any nation, for that matter. It will take another 40 years to reverse the current status, but we must begin NOW, or it will be longer still.
Remember when Kevin Williamson wrote his piece on who we deplorables were? Yes – I think he said we were all crack/meth heads and white trash. They published that #()#)@#, unapologetically in National Review. Any decent person should have disassociated themselves from that publication by now.
The deplorables are the biggest losers in the US from globalization and automation. Trump whips their frustration into a racist frenzy and they eat it up as he reams them economically.
I’m a “deplorable” who has seen absolutely NO “racist frenzy.” This only occurs in colleges, public schools, the leftists in congress and in the frenzied minds of people who have to resort to name-calling to win an argument.
In other words, the Leftists are the racists!
Isn’t calling someone a “leftist” or “prog” intended to be derogatory and therefore “name calling”?
Just asking.
Democrats own racism. Slavery, segregation, lynching,Jim Crow, the KKK, voting against the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments are all Democrat legacy. They try to spin it around but the record is carved in granite.
Biggest losers? Have you not been paying attention? Economic growth, lower unemployment, factories moving back to the USA, higher workforce participation rates, higher corporate earnings… All good for the working person.
And lower taxation on the way.
You’re a clueless minion.
Cheap cannon fodder for the Democrat Party.
Says the racist trailer trash.
You my neighbor?
eric loves his 20 hour a week job as long as the entitlement checks keep coming.
Really? What did obama do for American workers aside from killing 10 million full time well paying jobs with his bogus obamacare?
You mean besides preventing a second Great Depression almost caused by Republican de-regulatory insanity? Besides that?
Short form, Deplorables believe in actually doing what the Republican Party has been promising for decades. Republicans believe in promising, and then doing exactly what the Democrats want. Which is why Deplorables can never trust Republicans again, because in the last year they have proved what they are and don’t even pretend to be anything else anymore.
Subotai Bahadur
Short form is right on.
There are no deplorables. Also no vulgarians. The people being referred to are Americans who want America to continue to be what she was created to be, a free country. Limited government is important. But it also must function. It must do things that are needed, like repeal Obamacare.The farce of Republicans voting to repeal it when it could not happen with Obama as President, and then with a Republican President who would sign the bill, the Republicans in Congress could not pass the bill they had voted for when they knew it could not pass. That performance underscores the problem. Plus the issue of candidates the Party likes. The idea I had to vote for the total creep, John McCain, when a man hostile to the US ran in the Democrat Party, was beyond the pale. McCain at that time, just before he ran for President, was trying to get NATO to move right up to the Russian border. The man is insane, and he is also a Democrat except for his warmongering. Time and time again the Republicans in Congress show they don’t believe a word of what say when they run for office. McConnell bragged he would crush the Tea Party. Ryan is a failure. Rubio ran saying he was against amnesty, and immediately joined with Democrats to write a bill for amnesty after he won. Rubio gets mentioned because he is Senator from my state. There are others who do not do what they say when they run for office. Rubio went so far as to change sides, and actively betray us. After the bill failed he said it was a mistake, and ran for President. Then we finally had the chance to vote for a decent man. Not a fancypants who would please the likes of DC or National Review, but a real American, Donald J Trump. What do we want? Yes, it is just what Republican, and Conservatives have wanted all along. But the elite Republicans and media like National Review don’t want those things. I know it, we know it, because now that they can do these things, they won’t act.
The 2018 primaries will me a massacre for the GOPe and the #NeverTrump crowd. Deplorables are going to be voting in the primaries and in the general to purge these deep cover traitors to America as she was founded.
I will be forever grateful to Hillary for finally articulating what we all knew the Democrats thought of us.
They still call us stupid.
Meanwhile my portfolio is up 15%.
MAGA
“The departure from conservatism is not what the once liberal Democrat Trump has done since January, but what those who oppose him might likely do in his place.”
Say rather “… what those who oppose him HAVE DONE and would CONTINUE TO do in his place.” Which is why we elected Trump.
This VDH essay should be required reading over at the National Review. They are so far off the rails…
Some of the words may be too big, but surely someone can interpret for them?
Trump was so bad on the campaign trail (so I thought) that I was convinced he was working for Hillary. No way could I vote for Hillary and I voted Trump. Turns out he’s a stealth conservative. I still have low information democrat types lecturing me about how Trump is a “NY liberal” and is going to disappoint me any day now and how I got snookered. . . . . we’re over a year since the election and I ain’t been snookered yet and won’t be. . . . Trump understands this.
He managed to beat out 16 other Republicans. He didn’t do badly, he played them like a Stradivarius. You simply mistook his common exterior as stupidity. He’s crazy like a fox.
“In the few areas where Trump conceivably differed from his 16 primary Republican rivals—immigration, trade, and foreign policy—the 20th-century Republican/conservative orthodoxy was actually closer to Trump’s positions than to those of recent Republican nominees, John McCain or Mitt Romney.”
Actually it was George W. Bush not Romney who was the radical on immigration. Romney argued for enforcing current laws against illegal hiring i.e. “self-deportation”, which was lampooned by the usual suspects as “racist.” The biggest increase in illegal immigration in US history took place under George W Bush (cf. Jeb Bush’s “act of love” ).
When George W. Bush signed the legislation that put the ethanol subsidy on the books, I knew then that white shoe Republicanism had sold-out good old American know-how and common sense. Burning food-corn in automobile gasoline is evil on its face and reeks with the stench of unquenchable corruption. Every person making a living off ethanol should be…
Now that we have all this shale oil perhaps this would be a good time to repeal that ethanol subsidy.
As long as we imagine we can afford the subsidy and the extra cost associated with a total increase of the energy used to move a car a mile, repeal isn’t going to happen because farmers like subsidies.
Visit theconservativetreehouse.com for an education on Trump.
I have great respect for Victor Davis Hanson who certainly knows more about most of the issues discussed here in this article than I do. But I am surprised by his praising President Trump for the ‘principled realism’ of his foreign policy. I do not think the Kurds who fought the ground-fight against ISIS would find much ‘principled’ in the US abandonment of them. I also do not think anyone looking at the success of the Russian- Iranian- Syrian and now perhaps Turkish alliance in dominating Syria Iraq Lebanon will speak of much ‘realism’ in US Middle East policy. There have been strong words against Iran and and also North Korea and this certainly is improvement from the disaster of the Obama Administration but there are no real results on the ground. In fact the Trump Administration can claim as its success achieving the target of the Obama Administration in cutting ISIS out of significant territorial holdings.
But otherwise it is hard to believe there has been much more than words.
The 16 Points of the Alt-Right. Not perfect, but a good start.
http://www.staresattheworld.com/2016/11/3079/
I guess I became deplorable when my own government destroyed my livelihood via NAFTA, GATT and the making of China as our most favored trade nation, thus exporting our stable and thriving manufacturing sector to a communist rival country for reasons that have yet to be explained. Those actions demonstrated that my government was no longer on my side.
It was a surprise, to say the least.
In my opinion, deplorablism arose as a natural reaction to losing control of our government to anti-Americans. For decades, those whom we send to represent us have refused to do so, as Dr. Hanson points out above.
President Donald Trump recognizes this. He is a real-world man as opposed to what we’ve grown accustomed to: “traditional politicians” who speak at length but say nothing of substance, recognize no higher truths and offer up no solutions to the problems that traditional politicians have created.
Great analysis, as usual. I would suggest that another element of ‘Deplorablism’ is the rejection (by many) of the faux culture wars. Speaking for myself, one of the reasons I voted for Trump was because he breaks the mold of only those of ‘purist’ character being ‘eligible’ to run for office. I support 100% Trump’s economic agenda, agree wholeheartedly with him on the failures of ‘free trade’ and even though I’m not religious I support his decision to defend those who are. Frankly, I’m sick of the neo-puritans on the right and the women are just vagina hypocrites on the left. The racial and sexual wars of devolving people down to body parts, skin color, and sexual behaviors is horrendous and focus on those ridiculous issues prevents society and our representatives from focusing on issues that impact all Americans regardless of their biology, genetics, or behavioral choices.
“The Trump agenda so far is mostly mainstream 20th-century Republicanism. “
And not too far from what the Democrats preached in the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s.
Perhaps, but the Democrats of today are now the socialists of tomorrow. This isn’t your fathers Democrat party anymore.
The Nineties Acceptance by The East Coast & West Coast of President Clinton’s sleazy “peccadilloes” is the Suave; Grown-up; Adult World of- Sophisticated European Union -casual attitude to Sex among the Elites of “One-World” culture.
The Elite World which never has to worry about the Chaos of the mass deplorables trying to feed and shelter their Families as Western Society’s millennium of evolution towards a Social Contract for everyone is cast aside.
Cast aside with the casualness of aTen-Year old fat kid waiting at a School Bus stop saying to Eight-Year olds; that’s your Anus; you know Uranus; followed by the Script written descriptive word usage for the Eight to repeat in front of the Eight year old’s Mother–“”Penis Breath”. When? in the Family Genre of the 1982 Movie — E. T.—.
Ronald Reagan understood what the Progressive(s) cult was up too; But first He had to finish the “Cold War”.
Using the meme of Subtereanen Guilt; written by future proponents of LGBTQwerty? “Gosh I am doing it, why don’t we make IT the normal routine for all Tweenies.”
It is not Slick-Willy’s fault, really!—-It is all the supplicant Media wanting to appear Sophisticated as the COOL Europeans.—Slick-Willy should be called Sick-Willy and sheltered from the Need to Make Turmoil in everyone else’s life; because He was Abused or Taught, before changing His last name from HOPE to the most common name for communities in the U.S.A. Clinton.
Fantastic
“Trump may have done no better in the popular vote and may have won ugly…”
Isn’t the jury still out on the 2016 election “popular vote?” Why aren’t Blue States in particular not cooperating with the investigation of voter rolls. California for one most likely turned the popular vote in favor of Clinton. I’m not a betting man but if I were my money would be on large amounts of voter fraud.
It’s really a moot point anyhow. Trump ran a campaign to win the Electoral College. How many conservative Californians and New Yorkers didn’t even bother to vote because they knew their vote wouldn’t count? Had it been a popular vote nobody knows how things would have turned out.
Key words – VOTER FRAUD!!
Synonymous with DEMOCRAT
5 million of those votes voluntarily went back to Mexico after the election.
Hurry up Victor, time to catch up with the Alt Right. You are almost there.
Wow that was a very substantive comment. You must be a college professor or some other type of deep thinker with profound comments like that.
You can come to brown wizard. It is inevitable after all, why fight it.
His columns are becoming repetitive. Over and over again he tells us how morally corrupt all those people are living on the coasts, as compared with the virtuous folks living in the heartland. And all his regular readers know that when he refers to “elites”, he’s really talking not about a small number of government people residing within the Beltway, but rather about all those effete liberal voters living and working in the suburbs of those decaying urban coastal cities – the lawyers and doctors and secretaries and sales people and all those other folks, whether working class or professional, who somehow can’t seem to convince themselves of the obvious truth that Donald Trump is the greatest leader our country has had since Abraham Lincoln, LOL.
It’s become a schtick, but it works great for him because what readers wouldn’t love to be massaged over and over again and told that they’re the most morally upright folks still living on the planet, entirely deserving of their freshly acquired position as the nation’s New Moral Elite?
So VDH “schtick” is to tell the truth?… I like it! Moar! Moar! MOAR!
Since Reagan would be more accurate, just a thought.
GREAT interview with VDH on Chicago’s Morning Answer this morning discussing this piece > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqLbrgzpSjU
Hard Core Democrats still believe nothing has been done by President Trump thus far. I wonder how many years will pass before they have their AWAKENING?
“The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history. We are subject to the processes and trials of evolution, to the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest to survive. Cooperation is real and it expands as technologies evolve, but mostly because it is a form of competition. We cooperate within our group, family, community, and nation in
order to make our group more powerful.” — The Lessons of History by Will and
Ariel Durant.