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Blaming David Frum
I am in rural Pennsylvania on vacation. The sole general retail store in the largest town (one stoplight, 1,500 – 2,000 residents) within 15-20 miles has a wide selection of Trump hats, stickers and banners for sale. Selena Zito would not be surprised, but a similar retail offering in my home county in the DC suburbs would likely result in some pretext for removing a business license after the police were called multiple times.
Assuming that free academic inquiry will be permitted in the not-so-distant future, a major question should be why it was left to the “extreme right” in Europe and the USA to address obvious ongoing defects in governance. The performance of the “expert” class during the COVID-19 outbreak was appallingly bad. The institutional self-interest of government entities is out of control. Lois Lerner was a symptom, not an exception. Clapper and Brennan presided over (personified?) an era of incompetence, dishonesty and raw unlawful partisanship. The bizarre horror show of students and faculty at our most elite schools cheering Hamas on behalf of sexual libertinisms leaves only the issue as to whether the intellectual or the moral deficiency is greater. We cater to the alarmist nonsense of grifters and the ignoratti while substantive men of the scientific method (Bjorn Lomborg, Roger Pilke Jr., Roy Spencer) are labeled fringe “deniers.” The historical distortions and statistical denials underpinning the tendency to label the American project as a uniquely immoral, racist phenomenon permeate all levels of education and gut the impulse to protect our borders against an onslaught.
Why is it up to the typical Sam’s Club customer to mobilize to oppose this rot with the very limited means of the voting booth? Where the hell are the privileged, the elite? Why do they not perform the diagnosis and use their superior access to public platforms to address real issues?
Our Democracy™ was never opposed to the Mueller attempted coup, the suspension of rights and liberties by overtly bogus “expert” opinion during COVID, the ongoing destruction of urban jurisdictions where law enforcement has been suspended, the collapse of our borders or the weaponization of federal law enforcement.
Preventing a “takeover” (i.e., winning an election) by the Far/Extreme/MAGA Right could be done easily. Fairly and honestly acknowledge the existing moral and intellectual rot, purge grifters and ideologues, preserve the borders and offer better, more competent leaders who respect the values, traditions and legal heritage of the people, and the anger of the “extreme” right will dissipate faster than Facebook can block centrist views.
There ought to be an opening in major media for an American Cicero or Cato the Elder, but our elite is dominated by unoriginal, zeitgeist-surfing zombies, like David Frum (another symptom rather than an exception).
About an hour north of my current location is French Azilum, the site of an abortive attempt to build a refuge for French victims of the Terror in France and of slave uprisings in Saint-Domingue. Some had even suggested that Marie Antoinette be smuggled out and brought there before it was too late. I wonder if Her Majesty had been given the choice between a log cabin on the Susquehanna in Bradford County or the guillotine, she would have opted for the latter. Similarly, our elite chattering class would rather risk the supposed apocalyptic rise of The Right than sober up ideologically, find some humility and discover common cause with their working-class fellow Americans, and thus dissolve the righteous resentment driving so many of us.
Published in General
What do you think Nikki Haley is going to do? I don’t have any confidence in her. Ron DeSantis didn’t fire anybody up, for reasons I don’t understand. People just aren’t in the weeds like that or something. Nobody else came even close to winning the primary.
Rubio would be the perfect vice president to appeal to the RINOs etc. etc. but that’s not going to work out because of the 12th amendment. It’s too much of a headache.
Help Trump win and let him govern.
I will agree that Trump is both sound and predictable ( a good thing) on the border. My questions were both genuine curiosity, and illustrations that there are unpredictable unknowns about where Trump falls on some major issues.
Rufus, there is a difference between not knowing Trump’s positions and attacking his positions. What would you do different than “ordinary”. conservatism or libertarianism, and why would that work better?
We don’t have a better option than Trump. We never did. There are a shocking number of people that are really ignorant about public policy in this country. Why in the hell would Michelle Obama change the race so much? It makes zero sense, unless you realize that people just aren’t that into public policy. Democrats like government force, and it takes one sentence to explain it. It takes us six sentences to counter argue that or explain anything positive. I am sick of so much centralized power, and so much government force. It obviously doesn’t work.
That’s a good question that doesn’t get asked nearly enough. We really blew it in the last 40 years and particularly since Greenspan started printing so much money. George Bush #1 never should have gotten rid of Paul Volker.
Specifically, when the Soviet union fell, we should have gotten serious about the unfunded liabilities. Starting Medicare and Social Security at gunpoint is fine if you run them right. We don’t. It’s a disaster.
We never should have traded with the militant Chinese mafia. We could have imported deflation from anywhere. If you’re going to import all of this deflation, the Fed needs to stop inflating. Deflation is good. That’s what trading in normal economic activity produces. Inflation is bad. They lie about the inflation numbers. Now they are lying about the job numbers.
The government should never produce anything but actual public goods. It has a definition. Look it up. Nobody talks about it, but they should.
Unwinding this is going to be a real regressive bitch. I was listening to a podcast I pay for about it and I’m going to clip some quotes from it on another thread and I will post it here.
I think we had better options than Trump in the primaries; I agree we don’t have better options now. However, stating that we should support Trump in response to any question about his policies sounds suspiciously like “We have to elect Trump to find out what is in Trump”.
Nothing anyone has said here said that.
Of course, you should realize by now that anything a politician SAYS about their positions, doesn’t prove they actually mean it. Sure, you can say that’s also true about Trump. But it’s true about everyone BUT Trump, as well. And Trump actually DID many things that other politicians – including Republicans – only talked about, for years or decades.
Look above.
I thought Ron DeSantis was going to do a lot better.
I don’t trust Nikki Haley.
Like I said, Rubio would be the perfect vice president, but it’s too complicated, legally.
I realize nobody cares, but this is the best summary of the way the world actually works. They should have interdicted it the second the Soviet Union fell.
They lie about inflation, and you can’t get elected, unless you lie about unfunded liabilities. The government has been taken over by Wall Street.
I’m going to clip some comments from a podcast I listen to this weekend. Guess what’s going to keep going up? Stocks, gold, and bitcoin. Why in God name would stocks keep going up? Inflation, that’s why. 60% of the country is dying from inflation. Great system.
I am not an economist. I often see them as hocus pocus story tellers. I believe it was just after the DotCom bubble burst. I was working with the local Morgan Stanley office. They put together a large meeting, inviting several hundred of their local customers. They fed us and boozed us a little, then presented us with a very select panel of their supposed East Coast brainiacs to explain what was going on with the economy. Their main concern was a push of deflationary pressures beginning to develop. I raised my hand and asked why they were so enamored with inflation and what was so bad about a little deflation. I was thinking that if prices came down my cash could buy more. The panel was somewhat annoyed by my question.
You know he’s not going to come out as “pro choice.” He stated his position better than any Republican in a debate I can think of. Dobbs returned the issue to the states — the people. And Democrats support abortion through all 9 months. I think Republicans can go farther on the issue (at least pushing for limits favored by the European countries the Left is so intoxicated with), but Trump is operating within the parameters of federalism in what he says and does (nominations to the SCOTUS are really the only legitimate presidential powers on the issue anyway).
The generic response to the issues you raise is as follows: Trump will have better policies than ANY Democrat. And we don’t have another choice, so we might as well stop whinging and get on with it.
People who dislike Trump seem to focus more on what he says in his hyperbolic manner than what he does, the latter of which tends to benefit America and Americans. I focus on the opposite, and will take 10 Trumps to any 1 Democrat every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Would you rather have Kamala dealing with Chinese aggression? Heaven forbid!
Or, in meme form:
Exactly. People are so stupid about this. It makes me crazy.
60% of the country has its back against the wall every minute because of inflation. It was the same thing even before it got notorious in the news, but people don’t want to accept it. the whole system is based on inflation and you better do something on your own to equalize for it. This usually amounts to buying a house with a lot of debt. It works about 70% of the time. You will also work your (redacted) off forever.
And here’s Trump’s platform:
Not perfect, but I’ll take it.
I’ve been a member of the Ludwig von Mises institute for a million years. They are against inflation. They are against central banking. 99% of all people don’t even think about it.
This is the problem. Why do you need inflation? It’s so you can be militaristic. We keep the trade routes open. You can grow the military almost at will, as long as you are constantly producing inflation. So this is good. The problem is the side effects. How does the average person manage it? They borrow a ton of money and buy a home. Then we have all of this fan and Freddie Mac stuff so interest rate changes don’t affect it. Nothing affects it. Until it does. Then the Fed keeps reducing interest rates no matter what to produce inflation. The federal government would completely collapse without inflation.
There is nothing good about inflation, except for the people that have the intelligence to make money off of it or just get lucky.
People whine about the morals of society, the destruction of the family, the growth of government, and Democrats and blah blah blah. Inflation is the root of it.
Also, Wall Street makes a ton of money off of inflation.
It works until it doesn’t work anymore.
The other thing is, ***inflation is the easy way to keep the fractional reserve banking system together***. You lend money, and it gets depreciated, which makes it easier to pay back. Loans and loans and loans and loans and loans. Everybody is levered up all of the time, except for the 1% or the 10%.
They have bank examiners that are mean to the bankers. In reality what happens is they are mean to everybody except for the big five Banks. It’s criminal elitist BS.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute is only for full reserve banking, which, when you read up on it isn’t that big of a deal.
The thing to remember is, there are geopolitical factors that force us to do things that aren’t in accordance with the Austrian school of economics. I can’t sort it out except to say that a hedge fund guy said that the Austrians will be right about everything in the long run. The problem is it means the really long run. Who knows how it ends. `
Why do people babble about a universal basic income? Because inflationism is stupid.
Why can’t you get a percent over the supposed inflation measurement in a savings account? Because we are ruled by criminals.
Even during the Civil ***War***, Lincoln figured out how to generate inflation with no central bank, which was quite a trick.
Just by Promoting the free and expansive Production of energy, Inflationary pressures will recede even with our horrible debt.
This is perfect. It makes me crazy that I didn’t think of it.
https://x.com/DrEliDavid/status/1810400157193867595
Kamala and Biden being worse is most likely true, but still doesn’t tell me what to expect from him on the questions I asked. Some , such as the foreign policy questions, are not addressed by the platform. Kicking the can down the road on Social Security and Medicare may be necessary to get elected, but it is still dishonest to say the programs can go on unchangxed.
All presidents are handed a bad hand. If the job was easy, anyone could do it.
No. Nobody gets a blank check. Nowhere does our Constitution allow for “let him govern.”
He said it sounds suspiciously like that, which is true.
I happen to think Trump’s unpredictability on foreign policy worked to our advantage during his first term. Democrats constantly show their hand to our enemies (Obama’s “I’ll have more flexibility”) and signal weakness (Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal disaster). I trust Donald Trump to act in America’s interests in our foreign relations much more than our “foreign policy establishment” comprised of deep staters and commie sympathizers. I LoVeD that he scolded our NATO allies as the dependent children they are. And he was right to warn Europeans they were making themselves dependent on Putin’s gas supplies. The fools.
Every single politicians in my lifetime has promised to prop up SS and Medicare. Every one. Do you only expect Trump to be better than the rest, or would you have held DeSantis to the same standard if he’d been the candidate? The best we can hope for is greater economic prosperity to stave off the disaster of our unfunded liabilities. But, it won’t mainly be Trump’s fault when the bill comes due.
What the deep state and the bar associations are doing to him is wrong. It’s evil.
We need nuclear fusion. lol
This has been going on since 1973 at least. We are a bunch of geniuses.