Well, Trump did what he needed to do last night.
I wasn't as overwhelmed as Van Jones, but his take on it is very valuable. Trump needed to satisfy the Republicans that his poll numbers wouldn't sink any lower. If they kept falling, then Ryan and McConnell would have had to allow the Russian espionage investigations to proceed. Now, I think they're dead. Maybe -- and this just occurred to me -- they told him to go out and put on a good show or they were going to allow the investigations to proceed, so they have, in effect, something to hold over his head (as the Intelligence Committee and FBI continue to investigate in secret). But the larger problem is that pie piece of the electorate that he cannot seem to lose.
And something has changed. The racism, Anti-Semitism and hate countenanced (if not implicitly) supported by Trump would have done him in. The new chapter in America he talked about last night is this: for a large swath, it is okay for the President of the U.S. to get supportive tweets from David Duke after the State of the Union speech. And there are also the millions who have been swindled by Trump into thinking that he was going to make their wages rise, despite the inevitable calculus of globalization. Alas, they slumber on. Because some must sleep.
And some must watch. In 1984, it wasn't Big Brother that was Winston Smith and the intelligentsia's greatest enemy. It was the proles. He even talks about this. Nothing he could do would persuade them to get away from believing what was on the telescreens. And how you get through to our modern day proles is something that everyone on the Left is struggling with.
The real time polling shows that the divide is still there. And Trump still scored very low with independents. I think that the main problem will be with attrition and fatigue. But if the media and others continue to campaign for truth against Trump, hopefully, the support he receives will begin to erode again. But make no mistake about it, last night he had at least a temporary victory, especially with the Republicans in showing that he still has the proles supporting him.
Right now, the House is so hopelessly gerrymandered, that the Republicans will have a permanent majority. The districting is done at the State level, and the Republicans and Rove have spent a decade and a half rigging it. I think Obama, of all people, and others with his team are working on how to reverse that. But it is a decades-long process.
The most important issue right now is the Constitutional challenge to gerrymandering. (As an aside, notice that Sessions withdrew the DoJ's opposition to Texas' racist voter suppresion law now being litigated). There is a case soon to be before the Supreme Court that would make it unconstitutional to hopelessly gerrymander districts so that the votes are distorted and no longer representative. But as a matter of jursprudence, some say the case is a long shot. With a 5-4 Republican majority and Goresuch installed, it is a hopeless long shot.
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Monday, February 13, 2017
Don't Call it a Comeback
We have been here before. Nationalist movements in Europe have coalesced around Le Pen, Wilders, and others. They seek a return to a past where the populations which one ruled them are again in power. They seek to cast out those that have immigrated in the past half-century. And that time frame is no accident. It has spread across the Atlantic to America. And its greatest benefactor and sponsor is Vladimir Putin.
Putin, and his ideological allies in Europe, operating under the pseudonym as "populist" movements, represent a throwback. Theirs is a desire not just to oppose globalism, but to attack and undermine the underpinnings of globalism. Their biggest benefactor and underworld patron is Vladimir Putin.
The attack on globalism is obscuring a more fundamental attack on this world view. It is the world view and world order launched after World War II by President Harry S. Truman and ensconced in the United Nations and NATO. That these two institutions are now under direct attack is no accident.
The formation of the UN and NATO was a reaction to two massively destructive world wars. It was conceived and crafted, led by the United States, weary of being drawn into two European wars. It allowed the U.S. a say in European relations before having to send its young men and women to die first.
However, it was much more than that. It sought to spread the notions of the Enlightenment, human rights, universal recognition of suffrage, and international comity, to the rest of the world. It provided in New York a venue to have representatives meet and address not just issues of war and peace, but of international disputes, and a world court. It brought all of the nations of the world to the same table, and gave each a say in the course of world events.
The globalist/universalist attack seeks to undo all of that. The anti-globalists/universalists seek to return to the era before the World Wars, when the most powerful nations were ruled largely by autocrats and worked among one another to divide up the economic spoils of the rest, the lesser, less powerful nations. It is a movement away from ideological divisions of the world, for example, along the lines of the Cold War ideologies, and a movement towards the reign of powerful, autocratic states having near-free reign to do as they please.
This also means the undoing of human rights, universal recognition of suffrage, and international comity, Concomitantly, it also means the lurch back to power by the racial stereotypes populating those of the original big powers. Think the World War I powers of Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria, and Turkey. It is an attempt to reverse the immigration of others over the last half-century and return power to the populations then in large majorities.
The creation of that now-80 year world order was no coincidence. It was a world order conceived and created in response to two massively destructive world wars. And it held the peace through the nuclear age. Now, however, it is under attack in Europe and, more recently, the U.S. It is clear that undoing that world order opens up the Pandora's box that it had kept tightly lidded. It runs the risk of creating chaos and wars of economic gain unchecked by the UN and the World Court.
It is a throwback to a much more divisive and dangerous time for the people of the world. The reign of autocrats has returned. The adage, "if you set out to kill the king, you better kill the king" has newfound meaning. And don't call it a comeback.
Putin, and his ideological allies in Europe, operating under the pseudonym as "populist" movements, represent a throwback. Theirs is a desire not just to oppose globalism, but to attack and undermine the underpinnings of globalism. Their biggest benefactor and underworld patron is Vladimir Putin.
The attack on globalism is obscuring a more fundamental attack on this world view. It is the world view and world order launched after World War II by President Harry S. Truman and ensconced in the United Nations and NATO. That these two institutions are now under direct attack is no accident.
The formation of the UN and NATO was a reaction to two massively destructive world wars. It was conceived and crafted, led by the United States, weary of being drawn into two European wars. It allowed the U.S. a say in European relations before having to send its young men and women to die first.
However, it was much more than that. It sought to spread the notions of the Enlightenment, human rights, universal recognition of suffrage, and international comity, to the rest of the world. It provided in New York a venue to have representatives meet and address not just issues of war and peace, but of international disputes, and a world court. It brought all of the nations of the world to the same table, and gave each a say in the course of world events.
The globalist/universalist attack seeks to undo all of that. The anti-globalists/universalists seek to return to the era before the World Wars, when the most powerful nations were ruled largely by autocrats and worked among one another to divide up the economic spoils of the rest, the lesser, less powerful nations. It is a movement away from ideological divisions of the world, for example, along the lines of the Cold War ideologies, and a movement towards the reign of powerful, autocratic states having near-free reign to do as they please.
This also means the undoing of human rights, universal recognition of suffrage, and international comity, Concomitantly, it also means the lurch back to power by the racial stereotypes populating those of the original big powers. Think the World War I powers of Russia, Great Britain, France, Austria, and Turkey. It is an attempt to reverse the immigration of others over the last half-century and return power to the populations then in large majorities.
The creation of that now-80 year world order was no coincidence. It was a world order conceived and created in response to two massively destructive world wars. And it held the peace through the nuclear age. Now, however, it is under attack in Europe and, more recently, the U.S. It is clear that undoing that world order opens up the Pandora's box that it had kept tightly lidded. It runs the risk of creating chaos and wars of economic gain unchecked by the UN and the World Court.
It is a throwback to a much more divisive and dangerous time for the people of the world. The reign of autocrats has returned. The adage, "if you set out to kill the king, you better kill the king" has newfound meaning. And don't call it a comeback.
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