The great historian Carrol Quigley identified the birth of the Establishment as occurring in 1891 in England, and initially consisted of a quasi-secret conspiracy led by Cecil Rhodes, Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, with the purpose of re-integrating the various part of the British Empire, including especially the United States of America and South Africa.
Initially this core group, whom Quigley documents thoroughly, were mostly Oxford graduates and were heavy with politicians within the Cape Colony itself. The quasi-secret is used here because although the existence, membership and minutes of the society were secret, its goals, as well as the fellowship of its members were not concealed but were open.
In the view of these of the followers of Rhodes, the new British-led cooperative group of nations would be ruled in benevolent wisdom for humanity by an elite educated and skilled class centered in England which had the prerequisite access to the refined background and training to be to lead and manage such an enterprise in a beneficial way.
After World War I, in which the British Empire was preserved but greatly damaged in many ways, this Rhodes-influenced group moved increasingly to the center of British politics, wielding great influence upon policy. They did this without holding office directly by the creation of extra-political "round table" groups were pitched as composed of wise insiders who could offer counsel to governments of both parties without the disruptions of party politics itself.
By the time of World War II, the Establishment had accomplished a great deal towards achievement of its program of reintegrating the spheres of influence among the powerful people in Britain and America. By the end of the war, the Anglo-American cooperative would accepted by people on both sides of the Atlantic as a matter of faith in foreign policy.
Because of the result of the Second World War, in which British Empire was further greatly damaged, and the resources of the home islands greatly exhausted, the original group of British Establishment insiders had largely gotten what they wanted (integration of the British and Army military and political structures) and was superseded by the group of American insiders who brought a new vision of the purpose of the Establishment itself,
These new insiders came largely from members of the upper class of Americans who acted as diplomats and envoys between the Anglo- and American- sides of the Atlantic. This group enjoyed great initial political stability because of the war and the long duration of the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.
Around this new group of American insiders would form the nucleus of the new Post-War Establishment, with new expanded goals for America and the world at large.
During the War, starting in 1943, this new group of American "wise" insiders came together in most unlikely place---Moscow.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Friday, December 30, 2016
How World War II Might Never Have Happened
It is taken as article of certainty among historians that World War II began on September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland.
But in the first couple weeks of September 1939 after that event, it was not yet certain that this conflict would become Great War resembling the one of 1914.
Because of treaties the Poles had signed with the French and British, committing those nations to defend Polish independence, the German invasion of Poland caused Germany to be at war immediately with France and Britain as well.
Because of treaties the Poles had signed with the French and British, committing those nations to defend Polish independence, the German invasion of Poland caused Germany to be at war immediately with France and Britain as well.
But Britain and France didn't want a war with Germany. Britain had no motive for a continental war and its policy was to avoid it as completely as possible, while retaining its leverage as master of the High Seas.
Meanwhile, although in 1914 France (at least the French leadership in the Defense Ministry) had desperately wanted a war with Germany in order to regain Alsace and Lorraine (this is Clarke's thesis in The Sleepwalkers), now France had no stomach or desire for a real war with Germany.
Meanwhile, although in 1914 France (at least the French leadership in the Defense Ministry) had desperately wanted a war with Germany in order to regain Alsace and Lorraine (this is Clarke's thesis in The Sleepwalkers), now France had no stomach or desire for a real war with Germany.
France had all the territory in wanted in Europe itself. So when the French were forced into war with Germany after the invasion of Poland, nominally coming to Poland's aid by invading Germany from the west, their invasion was lackluster, almost a formality to show the Poles that they were fulfilling their obligation. They got about ten miles into the Saarland and decided that was far enough. The British press called it The Phoney War.
Poland, meanwhile, even without a French invasion on the other side of Germany, was not at all a pushover for the Germans,
It is true that many forward units were overrun by the initial blitzkrieg, but the Germans had not perfected this technique, and the Poles put up fierce and stubborn resistance in complexes of hill-top bunkers that had built, inside Poland, as resistance to invasion. These were more than a little successful, and slowed the advance of the German Army in no small way, even when vastly outnumbered.
It is true that many forward units were overrun by the initial blitzkrieg, but the Germans had not perfected this technique, and the Poles put up fierce and stubborn resistance in complexes of hill-top bunkers that had built, inside Poland, as resistance to invasion. These were more than a little successful, and slowed the advance of the German Army in no small way, even when vastly outnumbered.
In short, the myth that the Germans overran Poland in September 1939 is completely wrong. For one thing, the Polish Army was one of the largest in Europe. It would be no picnic for any army to beat them. Moreover, the Poles had a pretty good strategy for a long-term war against Germany.
It was called the Romanian Bridgehead. It took advantage of the fact that Poland, at that time, stretched southeastward from its current boundaries and included a small common border with the nation of Romania. The two then-bordering nations had in fact signed a defense pact in 1921, right after World War I.
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| The Second Polish Republic (1918-1939). Poland and its ally Romania shared a common border. This was the chokepoint of the entire Polish strategy to survive and repel a German invasion. |
Poland's strategy was to use this common border, and the fact that Romania had a port on the Black Sea, to provide a means to resupply the Polish Army in the event of an invasion from Germany. They would be able to do this with the support of the British and French fleets in the Mediterranean.
The strategy looked especially good since the terrain of then-southeastern Poland near the Romanian border, to which the Polish Army would retreat as a last redoubt, was rather easily defensible. The Poles planted many ammunition dumps in the rough country there, in the marshes around the Dniper River, to keep them shooting at the Germans until supply lines could be activated.
As part of the plan the Poles had decided to send their entire navy out of port, so as not to be captured by the German in the first wave of the invasion. They actually did this step, right at the end of August 1939, in the days leading up to the Germany invasion. The Polish Navy ships were sent to British and French ports, so they could be used in the resupply effort to the Polish Army (in Southeastern Poland) through the Romanian port of Constanta on the Black Sea.
But the Poles failed at one element in this plan, and it is the reason that the war became a Great War. The waited too long. They fought hard for two weeks until their commander gave the order to retreat toward Lwow, the city in southeastern Poland amidst the rough country near the Romanian border.
The order was given on September 14. Then three days later, something happened that would change everything, and the Poles never got to activate the Romanian Bridgehead, and never got o make a long stand against Germany. Instead Poland would be completely overrun, and would cease to exist as nation within a month.
The Poland Army barely even resisted this last wave. They didn't see it coming. When the Soviet Red Army crossed the border, many Poles even thought that the Soviets were coming to their aid, to fight alongside them as ally.
It is foolish to think that Stalin would have done anything else than he had done, by invading along the entire border, and quickly grabbing the area along the Romanian border before the Poles had a chance to retreat there.
Stalin had basically tipped his hand to his intentions on August 23, with the shocking treaty he had signed with Hitler. The Americans even knew about the secret protocol to divide Poland between them. Even if the Poles weren't tipped off to this (they may have been), they would have foolish not to see it coming. It was certainly not because they trusted Stalin, but perhaps they quaintly believed that it would be Stalin's interest to do things the old fashioned way, by coming to Poland's aid.
In the poignancy of this moment is the flash of the loss of twenty million lives in the coming war. Perhaps the Poles were doomed by a Russian invasion in any scenario, but perhaps if the Polish Army had been able to retreat towards the Romanian border, and activate the resupply line through the Black Sea in such a way as to compel the French and British to protect it, it would have been much more difficult for the Soviets to wipe out the Polish Army in a still-existing "Free Poland," even as it dwindled to a small corner of the country in the southeastern marshes.
Just having a still-fighting Polish presence there would have made the entire concept of "giant-front" war between Germany and Russia, along their (later) common border, would have been much more problematic for both sides. Moreover the French and British would have been involved in Polish resupply effort, and their (probable) direct active presence would have essentially acted as power buffer between Germany and Russia in a way that a mere treaty obligation. There is no way that Britain could have refused to aid the Poles in this scenario without a loss of honor unacceptable at the time, because it involved operations on the sea. Britain would have forfeited its status as a Great Power by such an abdication.
Stalin would have instead enjoyed seeing Germany grind its Army down fighting a war of increasingly diminishing returns against the Rump Polish State in southeastern Poland. It would have been useful to see the ways the Poles effectively neutralized aspects of the blitzkrieg, and found weaknesses in the German Army.
Moreover, he could not have attacked the Polish Army directly (which he would have needed to do in this scenario), without directly looking like the bad guy to the western powers (instead they looked the other way. There were many supporters of the Soviet regime in the western government and the western press, so the fact that the Soviets snuck their way into conquest of Poland could be easily overlooked compared German atrocities.
Of course there still could have been a Great War by other means, but without the direct German invasion of the Soviet Union, it is hard to imagine it playing out in as horrifically destructive a way as possible.* In the end the rapid fall of Poland (which was caused by the failure of the Polish Army to retreat swiftly enough towards the Romanian Bridgehead, and left their southeastern flank exposed to easy Soviet conquest) that made this catastrophe almost inevitable.
In this alternate reality, perhaps the Warner Brothers release of Constanta wins the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1942.
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| Instead, in reality, the bridgehead had to be established on the west coast of Africa. |
*Would Stalin have invaded Finland just six weeks after the fall of Poland in this scenario? This was naked aggression on his part, as much as Hitler's invasion of Poland, but it was not awarded the status of a war crime on the same status, for all the various same reasons that the west excused Soviet actions as reasonable and justifiable on some level. Would Stalin have taken such a step, at that time, without the cover of Germany already the designated villain of a continental conflict?
The Long Tail End of the Golden Age
Watched the tribute to the late Debbie Reynolds on ABC's 20/20 this evening. Among the interviewees was Robert Osbourne, long the host of Turner Classic Movies. Osbourne said something that I could have said word for word, namely that Reynolds was essentially the last big star from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
For the last decade, as the last of the great names died off, the ones who had come up through the studio systems of the 1930s and 1940s, I would always remember: "Debbie Reynolds is still alive."
The Golden Age of Hollywood was terminated was several factors, among them was the 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision that all-but dismantled the existing studio production chain.
It's not a coincidence that the Golden Age of Hollywood ended around the time that the Establishment began, namely in the late 1940s. The biggest factor was the advent of broadcast television networks in the United States. This destroyed movie studios, but it created the Establishment as much as anything else.
What an odd twist, among all the celebrity deaths this year, that the ultimate one would be one the last surviving members of old Hollywood. What a turning of the ages we are experiencing.
Note we still have Doris Day, who had her first #1 hit two weeks before FDR died, while the Battle of Okinawa was raging in the Pacific.
For the last decade, as the last of the great names died off, the ones who had come up through the studio systems of the 1930s and 1940s, I would always remember: "Debbie Reynolds is still alive."
The Golden Age of Hollywood was terminated was several factors, among them was the 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision that all-but dismantled the existing studio production chain.
It's not a coincidence that the Golden Age of Hollywood ended around the time that the Establishment began, namely in the late 1940s. The biggest factor was the advent of broadcast television networks in the United States. This destroyed movie studios, but it created the Establishment as much as anything else.
What an odd twist, among all the celebrity deaths this year, that the ultimate one would be one the last surviving members of old Hollywood. What a turning of the ages we are experiencing.
Note we still have Doris Day, who had her first #1 hit two weeks before FDR died, while the Battle of Okinawa was raging in the Pacific.
 |
| Doris Day at the Aquarium Jazz Club, New York (1946) (source) |
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Thinking Like Grant
Ulysses Grant is one of the singularly interesting figures in United States history. Renowned as the victorious commanding general of the Union Army at the end the Civil War, and also as a President, his fascinating story is in his memoirs, which I've been reading lately, thanks to a tip from my friend Adam.
It is easy to see him only in his glory, as the conqueror over the slaveholding states of the South. But his memoirs show a more nuanced story. I'm particularly fascinated by the campaign he waged through Kentucky down through Tennessee and into Mississippi, initially inland (having taken Memphis), but then creeping from the west side of the river through the bayous, bypassing Vicksburg, and making a daring live-off-the-land raid inland to seize Jackson, the capital, outflanking all of the Confederate defenses along the river itself.
The more fascinating part for me has been in the role that railroads of those aforementioned states played in Grant's strategy to storm through the South. The movement of his troops, keeping together supply lines inland from Memphis is wartime and violent echo of the way through varied railroads were originally planned, chartered, financed and built. The same kind of thinking went into both processes somehow.
Friday, December 23, 2016
The Fleeting Dream of a World Without White People
The election is finally over. Now begins the Season of Hate.
Everything about Donald Trump, and what he represents, must be confronted in the starkest and strongest of terms with condemnation.
Meanwhile overseas in Europe, after the Berlin attack, the Christmas markets are suddenly in the crosshairs. Anyone who has been to Europe recently with open eyes could see this coming. Two years ago Red and I delighted in the autumn markets in Basel, Barcelona, and small towns in France. One could see the conflict coming. Since then, a million immigrants from Africa and the Middle East have entered Germany.
In London, on Christmas eve, I strolled through Hyde Park. I saw more women completed covered, Saudi Arabian style, than with their faces uncovered. That evening I went to the Christmas market in Leicester Square, humming with lights and joyful activity. Something had to give.
My observation is that when Muslims come into a country, they tend to clump in communities, where they can essentially re-create a situation as close as possible to their homelands. But beyond that, they tend to take over and dominate the public squares especially after dark. I saw this in Gothenburg, Sweden. During the day, the downtown mall near the train station was filled mostly with groups of white young women. During the evening, they were replaced by groups of Arab young men.
Something had to give.
Christmas Markets are a direct challenge to the takeover of nighttime public spaces by the immigrants. Christmas is an "in-your-face" affront to the religious sensibilities of many of them. In their homelands, such displays would not be tolerated, where Christians live in subservience to the majority culture of Islam. European Christians must learn to live in this way as well. Immigrants are outright encouraged to feel outrage by many native Germans, Britons, and Swedes, whose attitude is that "it is we who have to change our behavior, not the immigrants."
The can of worms is now open. Whether there is another attack on the markets this season, we are surely facing the same thing next year and beyond. This will be on-going. It will be the new normal for a while. Christmas displays will be guarded by armed policemen. After each attack, Europeans will be reminded by their governments and by the press that any backlash against Muslims will not be tolerated.
Please welcome the replacement citizens of your country. You are now outdated because you are white, and that makes you scum.
White people need to die off. White people are what is wrong with the world. White people have caused the majority of the world's ills. Without white people, the world can finally experience true social justice, peace, and universal prosperity.
That statement I wrote in the last paragraph is pretty much the gospel of most state universities in America lately. You can get your degree without learning any science, math, or foreign languages, but by gum, you are going to learn that white people need to go. To utter a phrase such as "I think white culture is fine, and I think white people have an inherent right to live and exist" is considered tantamount to cross-burning by many college administrators at this point. Such sentiments must be extinguished with extreme prejudice, and anyone uttering such things must be put through diversity training and to rid themselves of their thought crimes. Anything less is "doing violence against other races."
Having said all of that, I actually believe we have reach Peak Anti-White Hate. The hatred for white people, white culture, and white civilization is, to my mind, a core philosophic tenet of what I label as the Establishment as it has existed since World War II. That we are at Peak Anti-White Hate, with the open declaration that any defense of white people is tantamount to a desire of genocide of the other races, is a sign that the Establishment is in its death throes, and that the tide is turning in a massive way.
We MUST become a brown nation. WE ARE GOING TO BECOME A BROWN NATION WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. Darker skinned people are simply culturally and morally superior to white people. We will all benefit as the population shifts to darker hues of skin over time.
One is likely to hear this quite loud and insistently from Establishment supporters over the next year, as they attempt a rear guard action to stop the great turning of the tide that is underway. They can sense that they have lost the mandate of history in the fight against Whiteness, one they have held since the Second World War, the lesson of which (we are now told) is that all white people, including all white Americans, are responsible for all of Hitler's crimes.
I love the Communist-style doublethink that goes into this line of reasoning. One of my favorites is that it is impossible to be against white culture, because white culture doesn't exist. Likewise one cannot be against White People because whiteness is a pure social construct (this is best articulated with a trendy sophisticated accent). These people have no idea how stupid and bigoted they are going to look in the eyes of later generations.
It has been long time that we have lived under this ideological regime. But nothing lasts forever. The change will be traumatic for many, especially those who have bought hard-core into the tenets of Communism and the idea that they can always take a easy morally superior stance by condemning White people and Whiteness. This stance will continue to work among their fellow travelers, but in the arena of the culture at large, it has lost its reign in the bully pulpit. No longer will they have the public sphere to themselves. From now on, there will be pushback, no matter how much they disclaim it as "White Supremacy."
But they will not go down without a fight. It's going to be frenzied and very loud. Ideologies that have been in place for the better part of a century will not go down easily. But there is no going back. Never again will we have unchallenged Anti-White Hate as we have had over the recent decades, especially since the 1990s.
This is my main prediction for 2017, I think, everything I just wrote above. It's the main point of my trend analysis. I didn't see this coming at all. We'll see if I'm right.
Everything about Donald Trump, and what he represents, must be confronted in the starkest and strongest of terms with condemnation.
Meanwhile overseas in Europe, after the Berlin attack, the Christmas markets are suddenly in the crosshairs. Anyone who has been to Europe recently with open eyes could see this coming. Two years ago Red and I delighted in the autumn markets in Basel, Barcelona, and small towns in France. One could see the conflict coming. Since then, a million immigrants from Africa and the Middle East have entered Germany.
In London, on Christmas eve, I strolled through Hyde Park. I saw more women completed covered, Saudi Arabian style, than with their faces uncovered. That evening I went to the Christmas market in Leicester Square, humming with lights and joyful activity. Something had to give.
My observation is that when Muslims come into a country, they tend to clump in communities, where they can essentially re-create a situation as close as possible to their homelands. But beyond that, they tend to take over and dominate the public squares especially after dark. I saw this in Gothenburg, Sweden. During the day, the downtown mall near the train station was filled mostly with groups of white young women. During the evening, they were replaced by groups of Arab young men.
Something had to give.
Christmas Markets are a direct challenge to the takeover of nighttime public spaces by the immigrants. Christmas is an "in-your-face" affront to the religious sensibilities of many of them. In their homelands, such displays would not be tolerated, where Christians live in subservience to the majority culture of Islam. European Christians must learn to live in this way as well. Immigrants are outright encouraged to feel outrage by many native Germans, Britons, and Swedes, whose attitude is that "it is we who have to change our behavior, not the immigrants."
The can of worms is now open. Whether there is another attack on the markets this season, we are surely facing the same thing next year and beyond. This will be on-going. It will be the new normal for a while. Christmas displays will be guarded by armed policemen. After each attack, Europeans will be reminded by their governments and by the press that any backlash against Muslims will not be tolerated.
Please welcome the replacement citizens of your country. You are now outdated because you are white, and that makes you scum.
White people need to die off. White people are what is wrong with the world. White people have caused the majority of the world's ills. Without white people, the world can finally experience true social justice, peace, and universal prosperity.
That statement I wrote in the last paragraph is pretty much the gospel of most state universities in America lately. You can get your degree without learning any science, math, or foreign languages, but by gum, you are going to learn that white people need to go. To utter a phrase such as "I think white culture is fine, and I think white people have an inherent right to live and exist" is considered tantamount to cross-burning by many college administrators at this point. Such sentiments must be extinguished with extreme prejudice, and anyone uttering such things must be put through diversity training and to rid themselves of their thought crimes. Anything less is "doing violence against other races."
Having said all of that, I actually believe we have reach Peak Anti-White Hate. The hatred for white people, white culture, and white civilization is, to my mind, a core philosophic tenet of what I label as the Establishment as it has existed since World War II. That we are at Peak Anti-White Hate, with the open declaration that any defense of white people is tantamount to a desire of genocide of the other races, is a sign that the Establishment is in its death throes, and that the tide is turning in a massive way.
We MUST become a brown nation. WE ARE GOING TO BECOME A BROWN NATION WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. Darker skinned people are simply culturally and morally superior to white people. We will all benefit as the population shifts to darker hues of skin over time.
One is likely to hear this quite loud and insistently from Establishment supporters over the next year, as they attempt a rear guard action to stop the great turning of the tide that is underway. They can sense that they have lost the mandate of history in the fight against Whiteness, one they have held since the Second World War, the lesson of which (we are now told) is that all white people, including all white Americans, are responsible for all of Hitler's crimes.
I love the Communist-style doublethink that goes into this line of reasoning. One of my favorites is that it is impossible to be against white culture, because white culture doesn't exist. Likewise one cannot be against White People because whiteness is a pure social construct (this is best articulated with a trendy sophisticated accent). These people have no idea how stupid and bigoted they are going to look in the eyes of later generations.
It has been long time that we have lived under this ideological regime. But nothing lasts forever. The change will be traumatic for many, especially those who have bought hard-core into the tenets of Communism and the idea that they can always take a easy morally superior stance by condemning White people and Whiteness. This stance will continue to work among their fellow travelers, but in the arena of the culture at large, it has lost its reign in the bully pulpit. No longer will they have the public sphere to themselves. From now on, there will be pushback, no matter how much they disclaim it as "White Supremacy."
But they will not go down without a fight. It's going to be frenzied and very loud. Ideologies that have been in place for the better part of a century will not go down easily. But there is no going back. Never again will we have unchallenged Anti-White Hate as we have had over the recent decades, especially since the 1990s.
This is my main prediction for 2017, I think, everything I just wrote above. It's the main point of my trend analysis. I didn't see this coming at all. We'll see if I'm right.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Diagnosis: Collective Schizoid Russophobia
Despite, or perhaps because of, the implications it has for ginning up an impeding catastrophic military confrontation between the U.S. and Russia---something the two nations managed to avoid all during the Cold War---I find myself absolutely fascinated by the "Russia did it" madness now sweeping through liberals and the mainstream media regarding the absurd and easily debunkable claim that somehow Putin and his henchmen interfered in the recent U.S. presidential election in a way that tipped the balance of the Electoral College to Donald Trump.
Throughout much of my recent life, I've been as fascinated by conspiracy theories as anyone, and but without exception, such claims must at least pass a basic smell test of being with the realms of feasibility on some level, and must have, if not proof, at least some kernel of rudimentary evidence to begin an investigation towards the truth.
I need at least a wee bit of traction if something is going to sit on my radar screen of interest. In this case, I'm not even sure what the claim is supposed to be, and yet the cable airwaves and Twitter is filled with pundits screaming for vengeance and justice based on absolutely conviction of what supposedly happened. What did happen, exactly? Do tell!
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Over the last two years, I have after all, kept repeating that "many will lose their minds" in the days ahead. But each new level of the madness still catches me off guard, and this one certainly is a type I did not foresee, although it makes perfect sense in retrospect.
The Establishment must do anything to hold onto power, and moreover Hillary and the Left must do anything possible to avoid accepting any sort of responsibility for losing the election, and (most importantly) any sort of self-examination that may lead them question their underlying assumptions about the world. Together these add up to recipe for just about any scale of delusion, it seems, even one that might lead to nuclear war.
To wit:
Watching the above rant from an old failed sports pundit whom I hadn't heard from in years (does he still throw he papers up in the air at the end of each segment in that hip ironic way?), I feel like a psychiatric researcher, clad in a white lab coat, taking notes about a new form of mental disease while observing a patient behind a two-way mirror. If I didn't think the guy was serious, I was consider it brilliant self-promotion as a career revival. Stephen Colbert by contrast is rather hamstrung from going to this level of emotion, given the format of his show.
Only two weeks ago, as the Recount Phase was petering out, I had almost convinced myself that my prediction of widespread madness had been a tad hyperbolic. Now I'm releasing I was more correct that I could have realized. I just could not see what forms this madness would take, and the time frame over which it played out. Madness is always breathtaking in the arrogant way its shocks the senses. One must remember this. Moreover, it seems to be able to come pretty much out of nowhere to destroy all vestiges of sanity within a matter of days on a collective level, as this example shows.
I have now come to see that the road ahead will be one of a slowly, unfolding train-wreck of emotionally-charged collective delusions and denials of reality, each stage probably more weird and outrageous than the last.
Mimicking the Trump movement itself (because imitation is what liberals do well), the Lefties (serving as the shock troops for a shattered Establishment) will consider this all to be a form of a resistance against tyranny. But in fact it will make things easier for Trump.
As of two weeks ago, many of his hard core supporters were slightly de-energized by the horrifying thought that maybe Trump would pick Mitt Romney as Secretary of State and confirm their worst fears that he was selling out to the Establishment, and would be just another "mainstream Republican" in the end.
This latest round of weirdness has wiped that all away, and pretty much everyone is back to the mindset that if Trump's victory is causing this much insanity and this much chaos, he must surely be the real deal after all. Those who had begun to harbor doubts about him are with him 100% again.
Throughout much of my recent life, I've been as fascinated by conspiracy theories as anyone, and but without exception, such claims must at least pass a basic smell test of being with the realms of feasibility on some level, and must have, if not proof, at least some kernel of rudimentary evidence to begin an investigation towards the truth.
I need at least a wee bit of traction if something is going to sit on my radar screen of interest. In this case, I'm not even sure what the claim is supposed to be, and yet the cable airwaves and Twitter is filled with pundits screaming for vengeance and justice based on absolutely conviction of what supposedly happened. What did happen, exactly? Do tell!
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Over the last two years, I have after all, kept repeating that "many will lose their minds" in the days ahead. But each new level of the madness still catches me off guard, and this one certainly is a type I did not foresee, although it makes perfect sense in retrospect.
The Establishment must do anything to hold onto power, and moreover Hillary and the Left must do anything possible to avoid accepting any sort of responsibility for losing the election, and (most importantly) any sort of self-examination that may lead them question their underlying assumptions about the world. Together these add up to recipe for just about any scale of delusion, it seems, even one that might lead to nuclear war.
To wit:
Watching the above rant from an old failed sports pundit whom I hadn't heard from in years (does he still throw he papers up in the air at the end of each segment in that hip ironic way?), I feel like a psychiatric researcher, clad in a white lab coat, taking notes about a new form of mental disease while observing a patient behind a two-way mirror. If I didn't think the guy was serious, I was consider it brilliant self-promotion as a career revival. Stephen Colbert by contrast is rather hamstrung from going to this level of emotion, given the format of his show.
Only two weeks ago, as the Recount Phase was petering out, I had almost convinced myself that my prediction of widespread madness had been a tad hyperbolic. Now I'm releasing I was more correct that I could have realized. I just could not see what forms this madness would take, and the time frame over which it played out. Madness is always breathtaking in the arrogant way its shocks the senses. One must remember this. Moreover, it seems to be able to come pretty much out of nowhere to destroy all vestiges of sanity within a matter of days on a collective level, as this example shows.
I have now come to see that the road ahead will be one of a slowly, unfolding train-wreck of emotionally-charged collective delusions and denials of reality, each stage probably more weird and outrageous than the last.
Mimicking the Trump movement itself (because imitation is what liberals do well), the Lefties (serving as the shock troops for a shattered Establishment) will consider this all to be a form of a resistance against tyranny. But in fact it will make things easier for Trump.
As of two weeks ago, many of his hard core supporters were slightly de-energized by the horrifying thought that maybe Trump would pick Mitt Romney as Secretary of State and confirm their worst fears that he was selling out to the Establishment, and would be just another "mainstream Republican" in the end.
This latest round of weirdness has wiped that all away, and pretty much everyone is back to the mindset that if Trump's victory is causing this much insanity and this much chaos, he must surely be the real deal after all. Those who had begun to harbor doubts about him are with him 100% again.
The Weeks of Haze Behind and Ahead
The last month since the election has found yours truly seeking some level of normalcy in life, and draw-down from the height of the emotions from the end of the campaign. This has been largely thwarted by the fact that the campaign did not in fact end on November 8, but it is fact ongoing, as many Democrats and liberals are still determined to prevent Trump from taking office on January 20.
In effect, the most interesting things to follow have not been what Trump will do, but what others are trying to do to stop him. These have been highly fascinating to someone like myself who is a long-time student of elections. Nothing like this has ever happened, so I am forced by my nature to pay close attention to it.
There have been three phases so far:
1. The Riots (first week after the election). Concentrated in cities such as Portland, Oakland, and New York (the usual suspects). Some of it possibly organized and promoted with funding by Soros (to create an American "color revolution"), and some of it no doubt spontaneous. These petered out when it was evident that they would serve no other purpose that the immolation of random vehicles.
2. The Big Recount (mid-November to late November). Remember how I predicted last March that you would be hearing a lot more about the obscure person known as Jill Stein (see Young Sanders-Stein)? You didn't believe me then, did you? Now, after all the ballots were cast, she was finally in her glory, again possibly with Soros backing and Hillary's tacit approval, trying to erase her image among liberals as election spoiler and become the stalking horse for a Hillary victory after the fact. The liberal media shunned her before November 8 but now they couldn't give her enough attention. Of course, it didn't work, as Bill Clinton seems to have warned his wife, amidst her tantrum. This second phase came to a climax over the weekend after Thanksgiving, as the Democrats in Pennsylvania unloaded their last salvo of absentee votes, in an attempt to convince a federal judge to overrule the state law regarding recounts. The attempt failed and even backfired, as most things do that try to take down Trump. The Wisconsin recount buttressed the existing result, and the partial one in Michigan served only to uncover what is most likely widespread vote fraud among the heavily Democratic precincts of Detroit (where it seems it is common practice to run the votes through the optical scanners multiple times).
3. The Electoral College Coup. The current phase is to try to convince enough Republican electors of the Electoral College (which votes on December 19) to "vote their conscience" and cast their ballots for someone other than Trump. This would ideally have the effect of lowering his count below 270, thus throwing the election to the House of Representatives. The rules there favor the Republicans, but perhaps they can choose John Kasich (amazing we are still talking about that guy). This concept is being promoted by the sudden emergence of a claim of the election being hacked by the Russians somehow (something the mainstream media assured us was impossible just six weeks ago). The way that the liberals are losing their minds over this issue is one of the most pitiful sights I have ever beheld in all of my years following American elections since 1972.
As I said, all of this is very fascinating from an electoral point of view. By its sheer novelty, it is forcing me to pay attention. Of course it's not going to stop Trump, but the point of it, as many have suggested, is to create the basis for a stance among liberals that he is not a legitimate president. This will likely serve them about as well as the stance that he was not a legitimate candidate in 2015. But it will allow them to feel righteous, which to liberals is the most important thing, even as they set themselves up for another round of electoral disaster. So be it.
The biggest thing that concerns me is Step 4, which we will enter after December 19 when Trump wins the Electoral College vote and officially becomes "President Elect." What will the Establishment, and their liberal and conservative shock troops, do then?
Things are so weird that I've temporarily lost my ability to see down the road very far. We are living in the haze of novel battlefield, and few of us can see the terrain very far. I can only go by what the Tweets are saying, and the one that seems to come up over and over, as far as the next step, is
4. War with Russia (late December, early January, during the waning weeks of the Obama Administration). This seems preposterous, but the groundwork has certainly been laid for this to happen, in public opinion among the media, and even among Establishment Republicans in the Senate (or "traitors", as the Trump supporters call them). If one assumes that the Establishment will do anything to stop Trump, whom they see as the living apocalypse of their control, then one can easily conclude that this option is not off the table. In the minds of many Trump-supporting analysts, this is exactly what Hillary was going to deliver during her presidency, and now they must have it, as soon as possible. They have until January 20 to start it. They will have, apparently, the means, motive and opportunity to achieve it.
I really hope this doesn't happen. I really hope that by January 20 this semi-prediction will appear to have been foolishly alarmist.
But the only thing that doesn't surprise me lately is normalcy.
In effect, the most interesting things to follow have not been what Trump will do, but what others are trying to do to stop him. These have been highly fascinating to someone like myself who is a long-time student of elections. Nothing like this has ever happened, so I am forced by my nature to pay close attention to it.
There have been three phases so far:
1. The Riots (first week after the election). Concentrated in cities such as Portland, Oakland, and New York (the usual suspects). Some of it possibly organized and promoted with funding by Soros (to create an American "color revolution"), and some of it no doubt spontaneous. These petered out when it was evident that they would serve no other purpose that the immolation of random vehicles.
2. The Big Recount (mid-November to late November). Remember how I predicted last March that you would be hearing a lot more about the obscure person known as Jill Stein (see Young Sanders-Stein)? You didn't believe me then, did you? Now, after all the ballots were cast, she was finally in her glory, again possibly with Soros backing and Hillary's tacit approval, trying to erase her image among liberals as election spoiler and become the stalking horse for a Hillary victory after the fact. The liberal media shunned her before November 8 but now they couldn't give her enough attention. Of course, it didn't work, as Bill Clinton seems to have warned his wife, amidst her tantrum. This second phase came to a climax over the weekend after Thanksgiving, as the Democrats in Pennsylvania unloaded their last salvo of absentee votes, in an attempt to convince a federal judge to overrule the state law regarding recounts. The attempt failed and even backfired, as most things do that try to take down Trump. The Wisconsin recount buttressed the existing result, and the partial one in Michigan served only to uncover what is most likely widespread vote fraud among the heavily Democratic precincts of Detroit (where it seems it is common practice to run the votes through the optical scanners multiple times).
3. The Electoral College Coup. The current phase is to try to convince enough Republican electors of the Electoral College (which votes on December 19) to "vote their conscience" and cast their ballots for someone other than Trump. This would ideally have the effect of lowering his count below 270, thus throwing the election to the House of Representatives. The rules there favor the Republicans, but perhaps they can choose John Kasich (amazing we are still talking about that guy). This concept is being promoted by the sudden emergence of a claim of the election being hacked by the Russians somehow (something the mainstream media assured us was impossible just six weeks ago). The way that the liberals are losing their minds over this issue is one of the most pitiful sights I have ever beheld in all of my years following American elections since 1972.
As I said, all of this is very fascinating from an electoral point of view. By its sheer novelty, it is forcing me to pay attention. Of course it's not going to stop Trump, but the point of it, as many have suggested, is to create the basis for a stance among liberals that he is not a legitimate president. This will likely serve them about as well as the stance that he was not a legitimate candidate in 2015. But it will allow them to feel righteous, which to liberals is the most important thing, even as they set themselves up for another round of electoral disaster. So be it.
The biggest thing that concerns me is Step 4, which we will enter after December 19 when Trump wins the Electoral College vote and officially becomes "President Elect." What will the Establishment, and their liberal and conservative shock troops, do then?
Things are so weird that I've temporarily lost my ability to see down the road very far. We are living in the haze of novel battlefield, and few of us can see the terrain very far. I can only go by what the Tweets are saying, and the one that seems to come up over and over, as far as the next step, is
4. War with Russia (late December, early January, during the waning weeks of the Obama Administration). This seems preposterous, but the groundwork has certainly been laid for this to happen, in public opinion among the media, and even among Establishment Republicans in the Senate (or "traitors", as the Trump supporters call them). If one assumes that the Establishment will do anything to stop Trump, whom they see as the living apocalypse of their control, then one can easily conclude that this option is not off the table. In the minds of many Trump-supporting analysts, this is exactly what Hillary was going to deliver during her presidency, and now they must have it, as soon as possible. They have until January 20 to start it. They will have, apparently, the means, motive and opportunity to achieve it.
I really hope this doesn't happen. I really hope that by January 20 this semi-prediction will appear to have been foolishly alarmist.
But the only thing that doesn't surprise me lately is normalcy.
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