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Why Trump? Why Ultra-MAGA?
Recently there has been more interest in why Trump is being decried, persecuted and potentially prosecuted. And recently a member who identified himself and perhaps a Trump supporter but one who doesn’t want to see Trump run for re-election looked at the past and present behaviors of the three-letter agencies and concluded that something wasn’t right, something didn’t add up. And I think he was a little disturbed at a pattern he saw. Something did not make sense to him, regarding the Mar-a-Lago raid. Somewhere in his comment, I thought I saw an amazement that they would do this, and wonderment at what they hoped to accomplish. And it got me thinking of all the various reasons why the decision-makers in the Biden Administration might have done this. Why kill, capture, or disable this one man, Donald Trump? The following is an attempt to broadly answer this question.
To the government writ large, Trump is either a threat or an opportunity.
Let’s look at the threat first.
If the election is honest and fair, Trump could win the election, and with his ego and confidence, his drive and determination, his intellect and his experience, his entrepreneurial business style, his (yes, I’d call it) charming personality, with his grudges or displeasures at seeing the undermining of legal authority and what we call the flouting of the Constitution, he would work to end the present (and arguably, irrevocably corrupt) political order. And he could do it. This would end the careers and alter the lives of thousands of people within the government and many thousands outside of government. But would he win the election? No, the election will not be honest and fair. (But elections have consequences — even rigged ones.)
So, what is wrong with letting Trump run? Perhaps, Trump’s losing the election would be seen as Democratic corruption, and he could lead the armed half of the country in a rebellion against the corrupt powers. In this case, elections have consequences.
Or his rigged losing could be an incidental catalyst for a mass armed uprising. This would explain both preemptively barring him from office and the barbed wire around Congress. In this case, too, elections have consequences.
Or more mildly, even if Trump doesn’t run for election, Trump would remain a political mover and shaker and lead public sentiment, and by his endorsements affect the results of down-ballot elections. So, not all elections have consequences.
Or, Trump may represent or embody the spirit of discontent in the populace and invigorate their desire to change the political order which would remain as a dormant fear for those in power. Elections don’t have consequences.
Or more fundamentally, Trump may find himself in a position like Ceausescu or Chavez who were both sentenced to prison before rising up again and taking dictatorial control of their countries. This seems highly unlikely due to his advanced age after a prison term, and because he does not fit the mold of a fascist leader; certainly not a man whose wife has sought and achieved a questionable and vainglorious “doctorate” in order to rise within the shadow of her husband’s stature (like Elena Ceausescu and Jill Biden). So, too, does prison have consequences.
So long as Trump is alive, if Trump doesn’t submit, he remains a threat.
***
Now let’s look at the opportunities.
Trump is the brains and the will and the symbol of all those who are simmering under increasing oppression, retraction of rights, energy depletion, infrastructure destruction, economic impoverishment, and famine, as well as cultural upheaval, loss of national identity, loss of mobility, the mental and physical sexual mutilation of their children.
The symbol must be struck down in order to strike down the simmering discontent of the populace.
Trump presents an opportunity to strike at these people, by defaming him, calling him a criminal, treating him as a criminal and arresting him, impoverishing and imprisoning him.
Trump represents an opportunity to indirectly threaten those who see Trump as a focus point for their anger and their hopes.
The extreme persecution of Trump demonstrates the ability and willingness to do the same to everyone no matter how high or low.
Blaming Trump not only completely refocuses the masses attention on Trump but it takes it off of the dire effects of the Biden Administration’s policies.
And blaming Trump for the country’s ills is at least for some a functional excuse for the destructive effects of economic and social policies that they are carrying out.
(As an aside, does anyone really think that covid is an imminent existential threat to humanity when those mandating the mass containment policies happily violate their own life-saving rules? Does anyone think that those mandating Green policies actually see Global Warming as an imminent existential threat if they continue to drive SUVs and fly in private jets? Does anyone really think that Black lives matter to the leaders of Black Lives Matter when the leaders of the movement took all the donated money and bought luxurious mansions?)
But wait (as they say). There’s more.
Blaming Trump gives those in the country who are not obstinate, or patriotic, or productive, or clear thinkers something to think about and something to do.
They are taught to shun the obstinate ones.
They are told to scorn the obstinate ones, the bitter clingers.
They are told to harass the obstinate ones, the deplorables.
They are told to be afraid of the right-wing Ultra MAGA Trump supporters.
They are told to verbally and physically attack the irredeemable.
They are they are told that others do not deserve their businesses, their jobs, their food, their homes, their trucks, even their children.
They are told that the others are dangerous.
And common dangers unite the endangered.
They are told Trump is an imminent existential threat.
And this is what is being sold to the timid and easily led.
They are also told that they are intrinsically bad, immoral, and in the Green Scheme of things expendable, worthless, ruinous, and the cause of their own suffering.
They are counseled to make do with less, to be satisfied with less.
They are told to be judgmental, vindictive, and punishing.
They are told to conform, and hate others rather than themselves.
And then they are taught to hate themselves.
***
I can’t read Trump’s mind, and I may have gotten things all wrong, but I think Trump stands against what they are being told. And he is inclusive, and lawful, and optimistic, generous and perhaps even kind. And, though flawed, he represents this American ideal, which so many Americans hold, and hold out this exceptional American ideal of individual worth, truth, rule of law, justice and the American Way to all Americans, apart from his at times sandpaper personality.
Trump is an avuncular and perhaps carbuncular old man, with a touch of carborundum, but he represents most everything that is diametrically opposed to what the Biden administration is promoting, and I think he is determined to reverse the political order.
Because of what Trump can do and because of what he represents, those who direct the Biden Administration’s policies are making Trump the third imminent existential threat.
They hate him, because they hate you. And he is willing to stand on the way.
Name one other politician who is willing to do that. Name one other politician who presents an existential threat to the current political powers.
Published in General
I’ll take your word for it! ;-)
Except Ron DeSantis. But at the presidential level, ever, no one has been like Trump. It’s that courage that has kept me engaged. I really don’t want him to run again, but who will finish the job?
Thanks for your trust. Yeah, and I think DeSantis has the skills to take on the 3-Letter agencies, but I doubt he has the experience or the determination. My guess is that every president is pretty much lost or bewildered when he gets into the White House and has to learn how to do executive federal governance pretty much from scratch.
Trump certainly was a fish out of water more than most, and that’s why he brought in people like Reince Priebus. But even they were no help — when the CIA targeted his Nat’l Security Advisor first thing I suspect even Priebus knew there was a war on that he didn’t care to take on.
Also, in this sentence “Or more fundamentally, Trump may find himself in a position like Ceausescu or Chavez who were both sentenced to prison before rising up again and taking dictatorial control of their countries…” I didn’t mean that Trump would do this, but that others had done this, and that Trump could be perceived as potentially able to do this, and the left might see this possibility as a grave threat as well.
Trump is the avatar. If freedom is to be restored in this generation, it will be his massive rally crowds and sheer ferocity that leads the way. There is no other.
But Trump would have, if president, a legal course that could (if he’s allowed to live) change things dramatically. Having been through it now, I strongly think that he knows this and knows the course.
So maybe he’s an avatar with a sword.
Trump is a marketer. He or his team came up with a great, and I mean truly great, campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
The slogan is so good, that Joe Bonehead has to try to twist it into extremism. Really. Want America to be great again is extreme?
I never hear leftist criticisms of Trump’s actual policies, except the open-borders zealots.
My goodness. What could possible be wrong with wanting America to be great again?
He has too much to lose. Trump is under attack now. He has nothing to lose.
If you’re a Democrat you believe America never was great and doesn’t deserve to be great.
If you’re a Bush-Republican globalist, you think greatness and patriotism are just words you use to convince the dumb hicks in flyover country to vote for you.
And if you’re in the pocket of the CCP you don’t want American greatness to stand between you and Chinese lucre.
I think you are correct, but I hope you are wrong.
In the collectivist mindset, greatness is offset by diminishment. In their worldview, everyone succeeds at someone else’s expense. So if America becomes great (again assumes we were once great, a greatness which those collectivists would deny was ever achieved) then the rest of the world would be reciprocally impoverished. But the exact opposite is actually true. If America becomes great again, it will lead the countries who follow its example into an economic expansion and inner focus that will raise the prospects of every citizen. Even China is dependent on a great America, perhaps more dependent than any other nation, for food and as a trading partner. A free, prosperous and independent America is required for a stable world economy and stage. A dependent and declining America creates instability, corrupting world markets, incenting and enriching bad actors with leverage who have resources; China, cheap labor; Ukraine, food and natural resources; Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Saudis Arabia, fossil fuels.
I think there’s another way.
Humankind doesn’t have a great track record pushing back communism. It is the tool of evil and we are in a classic struggle between good and evil. Good doesn’t always win. Evil knows our weaknesses. Too many of us don’t know our vulnerabilities to the temptations of evil.
That’s really the root of hatred for Trump from both Democrats and globalist Bush-Republicans. They want mass immigration, tons of it, unrestricted. The globalists want cheap labor and Democrats want third-world socialist voters. I am convinced that Trump’s stands on border control and resistance to the export of American industry to China is the engine of the Never-Trump/Anti-MAGA movements.
I wish I were wrong. I wish that Dwight David Eisenhower would step from the TARDIS and accept the Republican nomination. It’s a multiverse thing, this version hasn’t used up his eligibility yet. Reagan would also know what to do. Not Nixon and certainly not Bushes. DeSantis is doing a brilliant job for his state and I still believe he has the know-how Trump didn’t to not hire an Attorney General whose father was CIA, for one example.
There’s no mystery here. Although Trump is popular with Republicans, he is not popular with independents, moderates, and conservatives like me who would rather a younger and more disciplined candidate. And there aren’t enough Trump fans to get past the math. This is his fault as he has done nothing but energize his base – oh yeah wow, he gets so many people at his rallies! – when it is the votes of independents that will tip the scale.
What mystery are you referring to? People were asking all over the place why the raid on Mar a Lago? I was saying that here are the things that the 3-Letter agencies (and I suppose I’d include the DNC and the MSM in that) might be thinking that would cause them to defame, criminalize, search, steal from, (and a la the Jan 6 protesters) arrest, imprison and torture Trump and his supporters. Are you saying that this is all just that Trump’s got bad optics and bad polling numbers?
Pick your poison. Pick wisely. Need help? Read this:
It amazes me that people think Trump’s tweets were really mean. Just look at What Biden says and what the swamp actually does.
I did read it, on your recommendation. A fine read!
I think the part about needing a disruptor was interesting. Think of what he could have done had so many of our so-called elites were as smart as Hassett and VDH.
Were there any surprises about Trump that you read?
Not that I recall. We’ve seen so many sides to Trump that there probably isn’t anything that would surprise me.
Bill Barr turned on the light when he was first appointed. About a year later he just reached up and turned off the switch.
I’m not so sure Eisenhower or Reagan would know what to do in 2024. And I have a fundamental (but perhaps not insuperable) objection to De Santis: he’s a politician.
This here is excellent writing.
DING DING DING
I can tell you from personal experience, this is a real problem. They just want to keep trying more government force and more non-public goods with a good attitude. If it doesn’t work, then just do more. It’s madness.
Iwalton and mises.org are right about everything.
Personally, I think Reagan would know how to explain really well how things got to this place. That’s where you have to start.
Have you bought into the line Conservative Treehouse is spinning?