Victor Davis Hanson has a way with words and an uncanny ability to read the tea leaves.

https://spectator.us/trump-appearance-2016-election/

Few critics ever analyzed why Trump’s appearance and comportment resonated with his base and intrigued neutrals who otherwise might have been repelled by his agenda and personal history. American men in their sixties and seventies often do strange things to retain their youth and vibrancy. They can dye their hair, tan their skin, remove their wrinkles, or substitute loud clothes for a declining physique. Trump did all that and more. He appeared loutish to the Beltway establishment. But unlike aging Hollywood celebrities, he became more rather than less resonant and empathetic to the middle class for the strained effort, as if proof that even aging billionaires were patched together creaky everymen and insecure humans after all. Trump did not put on Beltway politicians’ customary flannel shirts and jeans at state fairs or farm shows, but showed up out of place but nonetheless unadulterated and authentic with his trademark baggy suit and loud, long tie.

Most Americans in 2015–16 also did not quite know, and did not care, where Trump’s odd accent came from. But they grasped that it was certainly not Washingtonian.

Trump’s grammar and diction were also not schizophrenic like those of suburban politicians of the Clinton or Obama sort. Trump never faked a black patois when speaking to minorities or tried on corny homespun drawls when campaigning in bowling alleys or state fairs. Trump sounded lowbrow all the time to all the people. Thereby, he came across as transparent and regular, as if a Georgia farmer would rather hear a Queens accent than Hillary Clinton struggle with ‘y’all.’

It is difficult to tell to what degree some of Trump’s outrageousness was scripted. As a student of popular culture, he might have known that viewers of the 1980 comedy hit film Caddyshack overwhelmingly rooted for the obnoxious and crude — and transparent — party crasher Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield). In the now cult movie, Czervik was far more empathetic than his well-groomed archnemesis and habitually outraged Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight), the smarmy keeper of country club protocols and standards. In some sense, Trump and Clinton replayed those respective roles in the 2016 election.

Trump’s appearance and diction played some part in his appeal to red-state and purple-state middle-class voters. Both empowered Trump’s message, at least as calibrated by his base supporters. By nature, they were contrarians and again enjoyed the outrage of the perceived establishment that Trump ignited. And of course, Trump did not exist in a vacuum, but offered a choice between someone and something else…

How strange that Democrats during the primary were worried that Hillary Clinton was the only candidate who could win the presidency, while Republicans were equally convinced that Donald Trump was the only one of their own who could lose the general election. More likely, any major Democratic figure other than Clinton might have won, and all other Republicans other than Trump might have likely lost.

Yet if the Republicans were to nominate Donald Trump, then the sins of Hillary Clinton uniquely would cancel out his own. And if Trump were to run as the fresh outsider sent in to drain the swamp, then Clinton was the most likely among Democrats to represent the tired landlord of the miasma.

If Trump seemed too old and unfit, then Clinton all the more so. And if rumors of Russians tainted Trump’s campaign, then they were predated by Russian operatives angling with the Clintons throughout Hillary’s government service. In some sense, Hillary Clinton created the Trump presidency.

So aside from Trump’s contentions that the United States was in decline and that only if Americans elected him could this regression be arrested, there was the matter of Hillary Clinton, his 2016 campaign opponent — and by July the only impediment between Trump and the presidency.

Trump certainly campaigned on issues. We have seen that he embraced existential themes and concrete wedge issues. And he had a divided and volatile electorate to leverage further. But Trump also had the controversial opponent Hillary Clinton, or rather the explicit argument that whatever Trump was, he certainly was not Hillary Clinton. The two were certainly a pair of contradictions in almost every aspect.

Physically, Trump’s bulk fueled a monstrous energy; Hillary’s girth sapped her strength. The reckless Trump did not drink; the careful Hillary freely did so. Hillary’s ‘good-taste’ carefully tailored suits and tastefully coiffed hair did not seem natural. Trump’s ‘bad-taste’ mile-long tie, orange tan, and combed-over yellow mane appeared paradoxically authentic.

Clinton was a creature of government, he often at war with it. Her misdeeds were far worse than her reputation; his reputation far worse than his misdeeds. He could be authentically gross, she inauthentically prim. And his low cunning was usually prescient, her sober assessments usually erroneous. Trump could certainly be cruel to individuals, but he was kind to the public. Clinton was kind to her particular friends, but cruel to people.

Trump not being Hillary proved to be a reassurance to half the country, in a way it might not have if another Democrat (a Joe Biden perhaps) had won the nomination. Indeed, Trump was clairvoyant about how the power of Hillary’s negatives would empower his own candidacy (and later his presidency), and how the classical fallacy of tu quoque (‘you do it too!’) would help to nullify his own shortcomings and scandals.

Finally, Hillary, as a Clinton, fed into the growing bipartisan consensus that the American presidency was not supposed to be a hereditary or dynastic office. Just as the implosion of the Jeb Bush candidacy had been an expression that two Bush presidencies were enough, so too Hillary’s failure, both in 2008 and 2016, marked a similar popular pushback against a third-term Clinton presidency. In Hillary Clinton’s case, in lieu of an agenda the candidate herself had remained the chief issue — a flawed messenger without a compensating message, and thus an unforeseen endowment to both candidate and president Trump.

This is an excerpt from The Case for Trump, out now. Another part can be read here.

I just sent Hanson’s new book to a friend who has slowly morphed into a conservative but is holding out on Trump support. I hope the book will help him see the light.

? another sign Mueller is winding down ?


https://www.fbi.gov/news/press...ichmond-field-office


FBI Director Christopher Wray has named David W. Archey as special agent in charge of the Richmond Field Office. Mr. Archey most recently served as a deputy assistant director in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters and was assigned as the FBI senior lead at the Special Counsel’s Office.

Mr. Archey reported to the Richmond Field Office on March 4, 2019.

quote:

Victor Davis Hanson has a way with words and an uncanny ability to read the tea leaves.

Good read. Any author that can work a Caddy Shack reference in their piece is A-OK with me.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
“The problem with socialism is: You can vote your way into it, ... but you’ll have to shoot your way out of it!”
~ Anon

And then you won’t have any guns.

Who exactly is coming to get my guns? This is often quoted, fear driven, and not reality centric.

And I'll go as far as saying if this is a real fear to you where you live, it is partially your fault.

Back to the question at hand? State and Local police aren't going to confiscate or assist in this state. So who then? The Feds? Are they going to import feds from California? Cause the local feds won't do it. They know better. They know the lay of the land and know that in Kentucky it is a suicide mission. So, what happens then? They call in the military? Well, there is civil war so then it's not going to matter much. It'll be over quick, or I'll be dead. They going to call in the UN? The firefights will be epic.

So, who exactly is going to take my guns? Answer- NO ONE. If they make a run at them, it will be through the hopes that I'll comply and turn them all in. I won't. (well, well, well you'll be a felon then and won't be able to own guns). Nice try. They still have to convict me in federal court if they take me alive. NEWSFLASH- Federal Prosecutors here can only win jury trials where guns involved when there are large amounts of crystal meth, or other obvious things outside of the societal norm. Guns around here are in that norm. The pesky juries keep getting in the way of world domination.

The culture here in state will take several generations to change. The left has thrown billions in PAC money into the state in the last few elections to attempt to buy votes and sway elections and it hasn't worked. Matter of fact, it has caused people to get pissed off at the meddlers. That outfit "Kentucky Family Values" is a Soros backed bunch and they ran ads against everyone they could. It was hilarious because they got monkey stomped in primary and general.

I don't really want to piss off other forum members because everyone has their own living situation and makes their own choices. But, this idea that you can "save" an occupied state is ridiculous. All you are doing is financing lefty goals with your local and state tax dollars. If your state is being over run with lefties and you can't depend on the legal system to protect you, perhaps it is time for you to exit the internet and start making real plans to leave the state for a free state. Guess what happens when you move to a place like Kentucky? Yeah, you ensure a Republican governor, a super majority in the state house, and that no federal law is really going to be enforced due to the fact that the state is filled with people just like you and won't find you guilty, so why try? If people would get the hell out of the known communist shit holes, some of the purple states would right themselves.

Bloomberg dumped millions into the state chapter of Moms Demand Action to try to cultivate a bigger foot hold of sympathizers in the state. The local chapter gets their asses handed to them when they attempt to speak in public, or hold public rallies. The attempt to claim they aren't a gun control group, rather a gun safety group. I asked a former city council member last year about her "gun safety" organization and asked how many safety classes they had taught at elementary schools. The look I got was priceless. They might as well be all wearing viking helmets and Groucho glasses for all the good that they do. Bless their hearts.....

Each time the left tries to get a foothold here, they get bitch slapped back to Illinois. We have our ups and downs, good runs at the state house and bad, but even the state democrats here are right of national republicans.

In this nation, despite what the media and politicians tell us, "we" outnumber "them". We just need to start acting like it. Everyone keeps quoting how "half" the nation votes, but I can tell you that number is much, much lower when you take out the voter fraud. All this stuff is linked together. If the left could win elections on their own, why would they need to put the effort into fighting this stuff? They can't win is the problem. I would be willing to bet they hold a third of vote tops that are true believers.

The left can pass any law that they choose on the national level. If you can't get it by a jury, it doesn't matter. For some reason, when the hoopla of gun control, and confiscation comes up, people either don't understand this fact, or they live in a place that they can't take advantage. My advice as outlined here is to take a serious look at your priorities, and make a decision if you want to be free, or sorta free and complain on the internet about the current state. Someone will surely say that it is a "dangerous attitude I have" and I reply that you bet it is. Obviously, I have already bet my life on it.

So, I ask with great curiosity who is coming to get my guns?

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
So, I ask with great curiosity who is coming to get my guns?

Not me.

You're too good a shot.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
So, I ask with great curiosity who is coming to get my guns?

Not me, either. I'm too busy investigating boring white-collar violations that nobody gives a crap about, occasionally finding Felons In Possession that oddly enough, nobody give a crap about either. In other words, I'm busy not enforcing the existing Federal gun laws.

Also, I might be your neighbor in a few years and that'd just be awkward.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DennisM,

quote:

So, who exactly is going to take my guns? Answer- NO ONE.

You mean like in New Orleans after Katrina?
I guess that was just a bad dream, eh?

Katrina also crossed my mind...

It’s fascinating to me that some people have evidently already forgotten the lesson of the “bump stock” ruling—assuming they paid enough attention to things that didn’t affect them directly to have even noticed it in the first place.

That ruling was a perfect example of how something can be legislated (or in that case, ruled) out of existence with no confiscation, confrontations, or blood in the streets. The “taking” clause of the Constitution is utterly irrelevant because nothing was “taken” from anyone: It was enough to say, “After X date, they are illegal to own.” No requirement to turn them in someplace, and certainly no provision to be reimbursed for their cost, just they’re illegal to own, and it’s the possessor’s responsibility to figure out what to do with them. The same was true of many guns and weapons at the time of the National Firearms Act. The fact that they were legal to own before the act was immaterial; they still had to be registered and exorbitant tax paid, or possession of them was suddenly a crime.

“Well, if no one takes them, then I’ll still have them, so what?”
Okay, just exactly what will you do with them? Are you going to risk going to prison and having your life ruined so that you can sneak into the deep woods to fire off a few rounds when no one else can hear? How many classes or competitions will you participate in if owning a gun is illegal? How will you hunt with them?

There are many reasons why a complete ban of all guns is extremely unlikely in my lifetime, not least because I saw 70 several years ago, but “It can’t happen ever”?
Yeah, keep refusing to vote for the likes of Donald Trump because you don’t like the length of his tie.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
It’s fascinating to me that some people have evidently already forgotten the lesson of the “bump stock” ruling—assuming they paid enough attention to things that didn’t affect them directly to have even noticed it in the first place.

That ruling was a perfect example of how something can be legislated (or in that case, ruled) out of existence with no confiscation, confrontations, or blood in the streets. The “taking” clause of the Constitution is utterly irrelevant because nothing was “taken” from anyone: It was enough to say, “After X date, they are illegal to own.” No requirement to turn them in someplace, and certainly no provision to be reimbursed for their cost, just they’re illegal to own, and it’s the possessor’s responsibility to figure out what to do with them. The same was true of many guns and weapons at the time of the National Firearms Act. The fact that they were legal to own before the act was immaterial; they still had to be registered and exorbitant tax paid, or possession of them was suddenly a crime.

Exactly right, death by a thousand cuts is more likely.

The reason I am against the outlawing of the bump stock (a useless, inaccurate, ineffective item I would never use) is simply the slippery slope syndrome. Also it sets a precedence of how easily the 2nd Amendment can be back-door regulated.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

So, who exactly is going to take my guns? Answer- NO ONE.

You mean like in New Orleans after Katrina?
I guess that was just a bad dream, eh?

Sweet, Katrina is that holy grail of that incessant “they’re gonna git yur guns”

So are those guys coming to my house? Are the Katrina commandos coming to my house? Yeah, well nice try and whatnot. Still doesn’t change anything I said.

I guesss it is not only a grail but also a defense mechanism. I know that people love to live a fantasy, and claim shortcomings of others, all the while living in a Anti-gun state. They are Paying state and local taxes in communist states is far worse than any bump
Stick legislation. A state that has already taken away Rights, but the tax money continues to flow and finance the oppression of others. Financing the enemy is far worse. And then try to claim the high road to deflect and claim that others don’t get it.

I ll ask again, who is coming to my house?

1000 or 10,000 cuts doesn’t matter if there is no one in free states to enforce it. So, we have figured out who isn’t coming to my house and my neighbors houses, with no real answer of who it will be. I guess it’s just easier to claim the Katrina guys are coming to my house or something. Will the next predictable argument be Animal Farm quotes about animals being equal? The “got a badge” when the only bearing that has is I know what goes on in the state and feenderal court houses. And that along with the political climate here allows me make educated statements instead of Katrina boogeymen fears.

trump thread

Trump Thread

TRUMP THREAD

while I appreciate the solid and welcome comments of jljones and the rationality of his arguments,

I've been reading the various bills pending legislative action here in this very session in Oregon. Our state DNC pals are working to come up with a different answer of 'who is coming'.

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:
Two things about Trump's presidency are indisputably great:

He kept Hillary out of the Oval Office forever...

Keeping Hillary and "Can't keep it in his pants Slick Willie" out of the white house in itself is good enough for me.

John Hinderaker of Powerlineblog.com reports that Andrew Roberts, author of recent Churchill biography, had a private dinner with George W Bush. Roberts reports that Bush said he might be “the last Republican president”....

quote:

Churchill, Trump, and George W. Bush
I am currently reading Andrew Roberts’ biography of Winston Churchill. So I followed, with interest, the link that someone (probably Scott) put up as a Power Line Pick to this piece by Roberts in the Spectator about his book tour in America. His theme is that Americans, in general, esteem Churchill now more than ever. Which is a good thing. I want to comment on a single paragraph in Roberts’ article:

The livid scar down the center of his forehead that Churchill received in that accident is visibly to the fore in George W. Bush’s excellent portrait of him that hangs in the Dallas Country Club. At dinner à trois with the former president and Laura Bush there, ‘43’ — as everyone in Texas seems to call him — pondered whether he might turn out to be the last Republican president in American history, because clearly Trump doesn’t count. We discussed the Whig-Democrat struggles of the 1830s and 1840s, and the way that no political party has an inherent right to exist.

Having no reason to doubt Roberts’ account, I take it that at a private dinner at the Dallas Country Club, former President George W. Bush suggested that he might have been the last Republican President ever, on the ground that Donald Trump doesn’t count. And maybe after Trump there will be no more Republicans.

I have never thought of W as an arrogant man–on the contrary–but this attitude reeks of the ignorant contempt with which the establishment, in all its many branches, views President Trump. In what way is Trump not a “real” Republican? I can think of one: he is not a budget hawk. But then, I don’t recall either of the Bushes being much of a budget hawk, either, when in office. At least Trump didn’t run as one.

Trump has governed considerably more as a traditional Republican than I expected. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a classic Republican measure, has been a smashing success, as I testified before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Lots of Republicans talk about cutting needless regulations, but Trump has actually done it to an extraordinary and praiseworthy degree.

Some years ago I was invited to attend an event at SMU sponsored by the George W. Bush Presidential Library. (I wrote about it on Power Line, but I can’t readily find that post in our archives.) The theme of the event was the need to increase our rate of economic growth. Various economists and President Bush himself explained that we should be striving for 4% annual GDP growth, something that used to be considered routine in the U.S., but during the Obama years was said to be a thing of the past. Strong economic growth solves a lot of problems.

Under President Trump, our rate of economic growth has doubled, although not to 4%–not yet, anyway. George W. Bush should be delighted with this result, but it doesn’t sound as though he expressed such delight to Andrew Roberts.

Then there is foreign policy. President Trump is standing up to Russia and China. He has rejected Barack Obama’s absurd dream of an alliance with Iran’s mullahs. He is completing the destruction of ISIS. He is staunchly pro-Israel. To what, in this litany, does W object? Nothing, I assume.

Then we have the voters. Gallup reports that 90% of Republicans approve of President Trump’s performance. Other surveys have placed the number even higher–higher than W’s own approval among Republican voters through most of his time as president. So, in what sense is Trump not a “real” Republican?

In this sense, I think: George W. Bush was a good president. I gave him a B- rating when his second term ended. But he had one great failing: he didn’t fight back against the Democratic Party’s continuous assaults on his administration. He was BusHitler. We haven’t forgotten. Has he?



“Artists” produced images of W’s brains being blown out by assassins, in what turned out to be a preview of the Trump administration. Liberals absurdly claimed that, contrary to the CIA’s assurances, Bush was the one person who knew all along that Saddam Hussein didn’t have vast stocks of chemical weapons–it turned out that Saddam only had small stocks–and Bush lied his way into Iraq in order to “steal” that country’s oil. Which, of course, didn’t happen. It was all a Democratic Party lie.

George W. Bush was slandered in myriad ways, almost all of them absurd. But instead of fighting back, he just took it. His administration gave little or no aid to those, like us at Power Line, who wanted to defend him. And the Democratic Party press-the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press, and all of the fringe characters whom they empower–destroyed his administration.

Donald Trump isn’t like that. He fights back. He calls out liberal news sources that lie about him as “fake news,” which they are. He may lose in 2020–no one knows what next year’s presidential election might bring–but if so, he will go down fighting against the forces that hate him and that hate America, and want to move our country toward socialism. The same forces that ultimately defeated George W. Bush.

The sad thing, in my view, is that W apparently has joined the establishment. He thinks Trump isn’t a Republican, and the Republican Party likely has no future after the current aberrant office-holder. News flash, W: the cause of freedom didn’t die when you moved back to Texas. The Republican Party stands for liberty, for limited government, for a strong foreign policy, for a better life for ALL Americans, not just app developers and Wall Street wizards. And guess what, George: Donald Trump, for all his faults, has done a better job of advancing these ideals than you did.

Which is why virtually all Republicans approve of what Trump is doing. I don’t know what the future holds, but I think Donald Trump has made it more likely, not less likely, that future presidents will be Republicans.

Link

Worth going to the link to read the many comments of those who, like me, are bitterly disappointed in W’s behavior after leaving office.

drip, drip, drip, ....

https://www.breitbart.com/poli...judges-no-democrats/


Senators confirmed three high-priority Trump judges to the federal appeals courts last week without a single Democrat voting for any of them

The Senate confirmed Allison Jones Rushing on March 6 as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which covers five states in the middle of the Eastern Seaboard. The vote was 53-44. At age 37, Judge Rushing is the youngest appellate judge appointed by President Donald Trump

The other two confirmations were for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. With them, President Trump has appointed six of the 16 seats on that court

First is Chad Readler, who was confirmed 52-47 on March 6.

Second is Eric Murphy, who was confirmed 52-46 on March 7

despite the ABA’s declaring that all these nominees fully qualified for their judgeships, not a single Democrat – not even Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) or the very vulnerable Sen. Doug Jones (AL) – voted for any of them.

Five more appellate nominees, and 37 nominees to the federal trial courts, are on the Senate calendar for a final floor votes in the weeks ahead.

I wonder how this compares to republican votes for/against 0bama's appointees?

quote:

John Hinderaker of Powerlineblog.com reports that Andrew Roberts, author of recent Churchill biography, had a private dinner with George W Bush. Roberts reports that Bush said he might be “the last Republican president”....

If he had his way, he just might be. After all, he did everything in his power to give us Hillary for Prez.