Here is a brief explanation of why 2020 has brought historic changes and a description of their nature. Shorter version: how and why the Left is winning, sweeping across America like Rommel did France in 1940. Perhaps like the incoming tide.
There are decades where nothing happens. There are weeks where decades happen.
— Paraphrase of a sentence from Marx’s letter to Engels, 9 April 1863.
2020 has seen the arrival of things I have long predicted. It seemed unnecessary and pointless to do more than document these events, which I have done daily on Facebook and Twitter. The comments to these and off-line conversations have shown my belief to be false. This should not have surprised me. Most of my successful predictions have been regarded as daft even as they were coming true.
So this post gives a summary of our situation, which further posts will develop in detail. What you will not get are forecasts. We have sailed off my map. Every week’s news surprises me.
Why the Left is winning
“Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.”
– True if exaggerated (7 is probably too young). About the Jesuits, attributed to Voltaire.
Beginning in roughly 1970, the Left and Right adopted opposite long-term strategies.
The Right planned wisely, using their wealth and power to build a political machine – gaining the power to reverse much of the New Deal. They cut taxes for the rich, slashed regulations (e.g., regulating labor, the environment, anti-trust), attacked unions, expanded corporate subsidies (extending patents and copyrights, more defense spending, etc.). This looked brilliant for a while, as short-term plans often do. Even the side-effects were often beneficial. They sent the Federal deficit skyrocketing (Bill Clinton’s reforms would have eventually paid off the debt) – which gave them an excuse to cut spending on the peons.
The Left adopted the opposite strategy (I kick myself for not seeing this). They strengthened their hold on institutions they largely controlled, such as universities and the press.
A common rebuttal: what about Fox News and Breitbart! Fox speaks mostly to old white conservatives (the Right’s faithful). Per Pew Research, 70% of its audience is over 50, 37% is over 65 – vs. 37% and 20% for the New York Times. As for Breitbart, ask your neighbors and co-workers who are not conservatives if they rely on it – or have even heard of it.
This became a winning strategy, as they successfully indoctrinated much of the educated young in Leftist dogma (they will run this nation) – doubly so those from the elite universities (who will lead America), and especially those with advanced degrees (who will control America). This seems likely to become the classic example of winning the Long Game: when the clash begins, they have already won. I cannot imagine a successful counter to this over any useful time horizon.
Sweeping across America
The Left has swept across America’s institutions – public, private, and non-profit – like Rommel did France in 1940. Their march to winning began with the rise of transgender rights from obscurity to among the highest in a few years (without any intervention by democratic institutions).
In 2020 the Left reached critical momentum. Institutions bow before them, contributing accolades, money, and obedience (e.g., indoctrination of employees, discriminatory hiring by race and gender). Each month brings new rules for proper speech. I have been documenting this daily in Tweets and Facebook posts. A thousand small steps, with no slowing in sight. Or opposition.
A common rebuttal: the Left is not winning because they do not control Congress and the Presidency. As objections go, that is absurd. America has many power centers, from local to national and public to private. The Founders’ designed the federal government to resist mass movements. It will be the last to fall.
Much like France in 1940, the lack of opposition is a key factor. The Right has been unable to formulate an effective response, short- or long-term. The most common reactions are fantasy or resignation. The former takes many forms. Dreams of a Trump landslide. Dreams of the conservatives minorities joining the GOP. Dreams of the rapidly shrinking white Christian minority regaining control of America. Dreams of the Armed Revolt on the Great Day When The Patriots Rise Up and Use Their Guns to Do Something Or Other.
A common rebuttal: the riots are not a big deal. Or that they are hurting the Left. Both are true. They are a distraction from the Left’s important gains. This is the tried and proven combination of a violent extremist group and larger political movement. As with the IRA and Sinn Féin.
What happens after the election?
From a long-term perspective, it does not matter much if we get President Trump, President Biden, or President Harris. All help the Left over various timeframes. Biden (for as long as he lasts) would advance the Left’s agenda at a slow to moderate rate. Harris would do so at a moderate or rapid rate. Trump would continue to discredit conservatives with his clownish and ignorant speeches and decisions. These are different paths to the same Leftist-run future (see See America’s dark revolutionary future).
The big picture
This is the culmination of interrelated long trends I have written about since 2003.
(1) The death of the Republic – The Consitution is dead in our hearts, an archaic relic that few believe in (details here and here). The Republic stumbles forward like a zombie while powerful elites contend over its ruins. America isn’t falling like the Roman Empire; it’s falling like the Roman Republic and for the same reason. We find the burden of self-government too great to bear.
(2) As Robert Heinlein predicted long ago, we are in the Crazy Years “Considerable technical advance during this period, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of mores, orientation, and social institutions, terminating in mass psychoses in the sixth decade, and the interregnum.” That is from his timeline of his future history stories; first published in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1940, later published as The Past through Tomorrow
(3) Our institutions are falling like a row of dominoes. Our military can’t win wars. Our police wage a mad war on drugs, looting citizens through civil asset forfeiture. Many of our schools can’t teach their students the three R’s. Science is gripped by the replication crisis, a rot whose dimensions are far larger than most believe. Professional associations abandon their standards and obligation to protect us. Our major corporations are dying (Boeing is a typical example). Congress will do anything except govern. Etc.
What comes next, and after that?
Accurate forecasting is always difficult. Now it is probably impossible because it depends on us. There are no linear trends in society. What will we do as America’s post-WWII liberal values vanish like moths in a flame? Perhaps more extreme values will take the stage, as new values emerge from the Void. But such things are unpredictable. But we know one eternal truth …
“Every nation has the government it deserves.”
— By Joseph de Maistre (lawyer, diplomat, philosopher). From Letter 76 dated 13 August 1811, published in Lettres et Opuscules.
A Contest
I will send a copy of Rome’s Last Citizen
A copy also goes to whoever suggests a new mission for this website. “Helping to reignite the spirit of a nation grown cold” shows a hopeful spirit I no longer have.
For More Information
Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon. For something different, see “The Swallow – a story of the WWII Night Witches.”
I highly recommend Martin van Creveld’s new book, Seeing into the Future: A Short History of Prediction
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information about this vital issue see my posts about fear, about the Constitution, and especially these posts …
- The danger facing America, the names of the guilty, and our best hope for reform.
- Our institutions are hollow because we don’t love them.
- We have become cowards. We can become brave again.
- We gave our rulers the greatest gift that we can give.
- The Founders’ error dooms our Republic, but not the next.
- This post changed everything: A new, dark picture of America’s future.
- Asking what caused our decline and how to fix it.
- A new beginning for America and this website.
Look to the past to see our future
The Founders looked to the Roman Republic for ideas and inspiration. In this time of peril, we too can do so. See two books about the people who were the poles of the forces that could have saved the Republic, but instead destroyed it.
Caesar – a biography by Christian Meier
Rome’s Last Citizen
As the “leadership” and the wealthy among the current oldsters looted the country, so too shall the smarter of those who rise to the top in coming years. It’s simply the nature of government. The youngsters won’t be stepping up fast enough, and those old enough now to run things are a “hybrid” of the past & the future.
Mexico continues to look better and better to me all the time.
Dano,
Youth is not a political category.
The passing of generations is an ever-present process, day by day, and not something new.
“Mexico continues to look better and better to me all the time.”
The border is open to you. America must be fought for, every generation. Those unwilling to do so are passengers. We shouldn’t have to listen to their complaints, like diners who find the restaurant’s food unworthy of their awesomeness.
Edit needed? I kick myself for not seeing this how this.
7Zander,
Thanks! Fixed!
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I don’t think “woke corporations,” or tech oligarchs doing censorship have anything to do with the left, which certainly isn’t winning, unless by left you mean the democratic party and neoliberals. The corps are simply folding “wokeness” into capitalism; more transgender riot police, replace white male millionaires with latin women until they are equally represented per capita.
The actual policies and direction of America is still right wing; still attempting coups in south america, bailed out corps and stock holders while workers get laid off, hundreds of federal judges trained in the ways of the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society appointed, a precarious life for many where the slightest health scare or car trouble can leave their future in shambles… working weekends, no time for family, study, recreation, health, these are the actual problems in america.
some hysterical 20 y/o morons getting professors canceled and fired, or corporate snitches releasing emails with off color jokes, stupid corporate privilege training courses where you watch a move then do multiple choice questions about how Steve was mansplaining underwriting tables to Sarah, or whatever they’re up to today, isn’t the roll-up isolated pockets phase of blitzkrieg. The right just wants their cultural views to be mainstream acceptable again, but they’re abhorrent to many in the mob.
Joe Biden and the Democrats have more in common with the right than the actual left, disagreeing on what is polite and socially acceptable is a distraction. The crime bill drafting, bulldoze the drug dealers’ houses, Corn Pop fighter “is no socialist.” If the left was winning we’d see real wage growth, child birth rates up, public healthcare, public education actually funded, effective taxes on wealth and the rich, support for the vast majority that have to get up and go to work every day, real support to our inner cities, etc…
KD,
It’s not a point I’m interested in debating. I document the power of the Left every day. You can close your eyes and chant “nothing happening” until the changes become impossible – and irreversible.
Which is the point, after all.
“ If the left was winning we’d see real wage growth, child birth rates up, public healthcare, public education actually funded, effective taxes on wealth and the rich,”
What a wonderful demonstration of the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
Just in: we have the Left in the real world, not the one you dream of.
Perhaps you don’t understand the term. The Left – Right spectrum has been used since 1789 to describe politics – because it is a simple and clear way to describe the teams. Their policies change by time and location, but (like porn) everyone recognizes Left and Right when they see them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_political_spectrum
FM,
Do you understand the term? That’s more to the point, do you understand? Even that wikipedia entry says left and right has been used more, and more recently, to be associated with actual positions, policies and beliefs vs an arbitrary side of an issue or a team.
Just In: this is the common usage of the term, only a fool would describe themselves as a centrist by taking the average of the political opinions of those around him. The teams are republicans and democrats, the positions on a political spectrum are fairly defined for our time. Center right neo liberals don’t become left wing just because the US is shifted so far to the right as a whole. Far from a no true scotsman, it just accurately shows the current makeup of the democratic party leadership; they are comprised of and pursue policies that purposefully benefit the elite, the aristocracy, the oligarchy, etc, they are not “the left” as the term is known.
But you’re not interested in debating; why even blog or think about the subject then? You can’t find answers if you can’t even identify what’s going on or categorize it in a useful way. Ignore my main point that our policy decisions are clearly from the right, our judiciary as well, everyone recognizes Left and Right when they see them, and think that the left is in power because of culture war points.
You are both right.
In the 1950s, America had fiscal leftism and social conservativism.
Now, it has the reverse.
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Do you think stories of great courage risk becoming tired platitudes, especially seeing so many respond to our current situation with a “go along to get along and all will pass” attitude? I often feel as though surrounded by cowards unwilling to consider the very real mission in front of us. Most people admittedly wear a worthless face mask because they don’t want to deal with the social stigma of being called out for not wearing one. Think about that for a moment. Social stigma is all it takes for most to willingly put on their own chains.
As a result I’m reduced to armchair strategies, guilty of analysis paralysis, and constantly looking in the mirror asking “what more can I do?”.
It’s too easy to forget how great the riches of our founding fathers really were… how much they truly gave up for the cause of freedom… far more than most upper middle-class Americans have to give. Dark days ahead, and leaving our own minuscule riches will soon no longer be an option of exercising courage, but rather required by the state.
M regarding,
That’s a brilliant question – easy winner for a copy of the Book.
I’ll think about it and reply later.
mrearden,
“Do you think stories of great courage risk becoming tired platitudes, especially seeing so many respond to our current situation with a ‘go along to get along and all will pass’ attitude?”
A well-designed language would not allow such statements. Stories don’t “become” platitudes. Stories appeal to aspects of our minds, hearts, and souls. Stories of courage don’t appeal to cowards.
” I often feel as though surrounded by cowards …”
This is one of the greatest fears. I have written many posts about our signs of cowardice.
“I’m reduced to armchair strategies, guilty of analysis paralysis, and constantly looking in the mirror asking “what more can I do?”.”
Me too. My years of political activism have had zero effectiveness. So I run this website, hoping to perhaps become a dime-store Thomas Paine or Samuel Adams.
“how much they truly gave up for the cause of freedom… far more than most upper middle-class Americans have to give. Dark days ahead, and leaving our own minuscule riches will soon no longer be an option of exercising courage, but rather required by the state.”
Well said. If only your words appealed to more Americans…
“Most people admittedly wear a worthless face mask”
That is probably not true. Even crude masks probably limit the wearer’s capacity to spread diseases that are communicated by airborne droplets, to some extent.
A wonderful example of the Left’s growing power – gaining followers, employing violence, and smiting their foes. Best of all, Leftists deny all this. If the NYT doesn’t report something, does it happen?
.
.
https://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/politics-current-affairs/2020/10/the-trouble-at-northwestern/
I agree that the Right has been outmaneuvered by the Left’s long march through our institutions, but the Left’s apparent victory assumes the perpetuation of at least a modicum of ongoing civility, public order & rule obedience. This is a largely unsubstantiated assumption belied by game theory.
As it stands now, our elected public officials appear increasingly unwilling to govern, to act in accordance with their assigned function, take decisive action, or make any decision whatsoever, probably out of fear of the potential negative effects of cancel culture upon their interests, careers, incomes & social standing.
Unfortunately, cancel culture presupposes a much crueler rule set (linked below), and this new rule set promises to transform the Left’s apparent victory into tragedy, as the Left forgets that the game of civility, public order & rule obedience only continues for as long as the game remains enjoyable to its many participants:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5632895/
Recidivist,
I suspect you are thinking too short-term. Remember the revolutionary’s maxim: “the worse, the better.”
You appear to believe the Leftists powering their movement are reformers, and are kidding about America being fundamentally corrupt and illegitimate. I believe they are speaking from the heart.
A clear explanation of how racism stripped of any objective meaning to become a weaponized concept, deployed by the Left against its foes (which comprise much of America). That there has been so little opposition shows their power.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/looking-for-racism/
That’s an excellent article. Today’s turmoil pales in comparison to the time of the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation (1863).
The film “Lincoln” by Stephen Spielberg is a must watch by everyone:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/
A “disaffected staff member at Smith College complains about its obsession with race, makes a video that will doom her « Why Evolution Is True” (1)- Years ago A. Schlesinger highlighted Smith college during a talk on his Disuniting America work (2).
The courage of Jodie Shaw is a start in pushing back against the disuniting that seems to have been fostered/enabled at her university decades ago.
(1) https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/10/30/a-disaffected-staff-member-at-smith-college-complains-about-its-obsession-with-race-makes-a-video-that-will-doom-her/
2) https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4731702/user-clip-disuniting-america-arthur-schlesinger-deniers-fatwahs
Imagine that you are playing a board game in which you have secured definitive advantage & from which you derive enjoyment. What is your next logical move?
A. Do you attempt to protect & preserve said rule set in an attempt to extend beneficial game play, or
B. Do you disregard the rule set & overturn the game board in an attempt to preserve your advantage & guarantee your ultimate victory ?
I put it to you that the most logical move is the first one, option A, which by coincidence is also most conservative one, and I ask you why any sane game player would choose option B, the most disruptive option, when this action would sacrifice advantage, terminate game play & eliminate even the possibility of victory for any player.
I also put it to you that the Mad Left has deliberately chosen option B, perhaps in the mistaken but heartfelt belief that they “are reformers” who are battling the very cancel culture “corruptions” that they have introduced into game play.
To support this assertion, I cite the following Atlantic article which chooses option B by invoking a rule breaking coup under the pretense of rule preservation & coup prevention, all under the delusion that these very broken rules will still provide unbroken protections to its breakers.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/election-protests-alone-wont-stop-coup/616895/
The Mad Left makes this same illogical error over & over, most recently in the case of racism, as they promote California Prop 16 in their attempt to combat racism by legalizing & even mandating institutional racism in the name of anti-racism.
Recidivist,
There are many kinds of logic. Your is not that of people who change the world. Not the Protestant revolutionaries nor the Founders nor that of Churchill and the Brits who resisted Hitler.
“Trump would continue to discredit conservatives with his clownish and ignorant speeches and decisions. ”
I’m not sure why discrediting conservatives is a bad thing, or that Trump could deepen the discredit into which conservatism has already fallen. The conservatives are the French General Staff in this tragedy. They made deals and collected donations while the enemy stole march after march on them. If the conservatives had shown the least desire to govern in the interest of their voters instead of their donors, the Trump candidacy in 2016 would by now be reduced to a Daily Double on Jeopardy.
Recidivist’s comments make me think of a friend of mine who, the other day, was ranting on the phone about something or other to do with the budget,and said, for the umptyleventh time, “This can’t go on forever”. well, if you believe the Church, hell does go on forever, and if you believe the physicists, the Universe does not. But it will go on longer than you. Just because the Left is factually wrong doesn’t mean the problem is self correcting. The Left has reduced entire nations to the stone age without ever changing course or showing the least concern about the consequences of what they’ve done. It has seemed to me for a long time that America in general, and the Right in particular, have acted as though they have some sort of bottomless strategic reserve to draw on and they don’t.
The Left doesn’t care about facts, they care about winning, Anyone wishing to oppose them successfully has to care about winning more than abstract principles. Any useful opposition will have to come from someplace other than the GOP, or the professional conservative movement, both of which were beyond salvaging long before Trump showed up.
” Any useful opposition will have to come from someplace other than the GOP, or the professional conservative movement, both of which were beyond salvaging long before Trump showed up.”
Trump saved the Republican party four years ago. Democrats and RINO’s still can’t handle Trump’s hard right turn and isolationist policies.
The Man,
“that Trump could deepen the discredit into which conservatism has already fallen.”
Let’s not retcon history. I doubt that most non-liberals thought that the conservatives had been discredited before Trump. They looked pretty strong, in most respects equal to the Left.
The events of 2020, the Left’s almost unopposed march to power, has astonished me. I don’t recall anybody predicting it (although I’m sure somebody, somewhere, did so). Some thought it inevitable due to demographics (me, too). But not so soon.
“Let’s not retcon history. I doubt that most non-liberals thought that the conservatives had been discredited before Trump. They looked pretty strong, in most respects equal to the Left.”
Retcon is an interesting choice of words, and depends on your point of view. Presumably the non-liberals who voted for Trump in the 2016 primaries were less than happy with the GOP establishment. The other end of it is that a repudiation of Trump at the polls won’t suddenly leave the establishment conservatives looking any better in the eyes of the voters they’ll face in the future.
Trump has done a lot of things I don’t approve of, but one thing he doesn’t do is discredit conservatism. That was always a self licking ice cream cone. Different people came to that realization at different times, and some of them got there before November of 2016. No matter when anyone figured it out, once you take that particular red pill, there’s no going back.
I didn’t see it coming either. Its because what we are witnessing is an outbreak of national hysteria, and they are unpredictable.
Whether its climate, gender, race, energy, foreign policy, finance, even philosophy, its been the rise of hysterical and irrational beliefs, to the point where even the process of rational thought is being denounced by professors at recognized colleges as being illegitimate.
These things pass. They may do immense damage before they pass, but they do. As the poet Yeats wrote, in the introduction to his Oxford Book of Modern Verse. To something like this effect: that suddenly it was 1900. No-one went mad, drank absinthe or converted to Catholicism any more.
One day we will wake up and this will all be over, and people will look back, as today they do about the 1960s, and ask themselves what happened, did we really believe all that stuff? Did we really act that way?
Kunstler has a wonderful post about it here:
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/last-round-up-at-the-wokester-corral/
And you can read lots of examples of the insanity here:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/03/shells-climate-poll-on-twitter-backfires-spectacularly
One of many.
I suspect this arrangement lasts as long as food is in people’s bellies.
In short term I am incredibly pessimistic, the republic is in fact gone. Though I seriously doubt the staying power of what is in the process of replacing it. These are people who elevate the most dysfunctional groups in society, at the expense of those who keep the lights on. These are people who don’t even believe in the concept of male and female. Instead of responding to California wildfires with a better forest management program they declare that the gods are angry with us for driving to work.
The continued economic shutdowns combined with the likelihood of a massive wave of immigrants over the next 10 years will likely knock the entire house of cards down. Once the federal government loses the ability to borrow then you can start the countdown timer. Add another 30-50 million African immigrants, shut down most productive capacity, shut down power plants, and you can imagine what will happen.
Our Silicon Valley gods and their academic shamans produce nothing of actual value. This isn’t the PRC with a massive industrial capacity and an elite who’s fate is tied in with the fate of the nation.
Justin Trudeau in Canada is planning to bring 500,000 migrants a year despite unemployment being 15% in Canada, and 20% in the large feminist cities.
First, welcome back. Good to see you again.
I have gradually become more and more pessimistic as the last few years have gone by. I used to think it was a question of the Constitution and associated institutions, that they had survived wars, civil wars, depressions, the industrial revolution, and that they would survive and outlive the present cultural crisis and the country would recover.
I no longer have faith in that, because I think the issue is not so much keeping or restoring the Republic, the question is the future of the country. Once the citizenry is taken over by irrationality and irresponsibility, the question is not the form of government, its about survival and prosperity of the country. The US may remain a a republic, don’t know. But what its headed for if present trends continue is being a third world republic. Its future at the moment looks Latin American, and the path there probably leads through widespread violence and unrest and hyperinflation. It is also losing the global economic pre-eminence which it had through most of the 20th century.
Revolutions usually have a lifecycle of around 100 years, maybe a bit less, the initial phase, then various counter swings and finally a form of stability. In France it took about that. Russia also. The US cultural revolution started in about 1965. So we have a ways to go yet. And the course and the effects of the cultural evolution and its swings are going to happen at the same time as the loss of America’s unique global power position and the large scale immigration of peoples who do not have the attitudes, values and culture which characterized the country in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries.
Two key economic indicators: look at steel production and electricity generation numbers, for China and the US.
Steel, in millions of metric tons 2019, China 996, US 88.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production
Electricity generation, China 11 GWh. US 6.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production
Its a dark picture. I do hope I am wrong and take some comfort from the fact that I am a terrible forecaster. But what I am seeing is economic and social decay on a scale which will make the question of which form of government the country will have seem rather trivial.
Larry, have you read Peter Turchin and Jack Goldstone? The role demographics play in cultural and social upheaval. Some very interesting analyses of development and causes of early modern revolutions.
lol
this is not lefties, they are just radical liberals, none of whom are talking about abolishing capitalism.
they want to abolish racism, sexism, but not capitalism.
One has to look at feminist cities like NYC or Toronto to understand your comment.
Marxist theory views the police as extensions of capitalism, yet feminists use police to break the law and Constitution to persecute men.
US democracy ends with an inherent contradiction and a logical double-bind:
The US election is too close to call, so both sides will invariably resort to SCOTUS & legal action. The left urban ‘Blue’ faction will claim that individual states have the right to accept & count federal ballots in an open-ended non-standardized fashion and the right rural ‘Red’ faction will claim that an open-ended non-standardized federal ballot count represents partisan voter fraud.
If the Trump/Pence Red faction wins the legal appeal that condemns an arbitrary state-specific election timeline rule, then Trump becomes a second term President of a House and Senate divided against itself, the head of a federal government incapable of governing,, the target of a potentially open insurrection and the end of the federal election process that we have come to know as super strict federal election requirements become the new standard.
If the Biden/Harris Blue faction wins the legal appeal that supports an arbitrary state-specific federal election timeline rule, then Biden becomes the Last President of a House and Senate divided against itself, the head of a federal government incapable of governing, the target of a potentially open insurrection and the end of the federal election process that we have come to know as many individual states institute highly individualized open-ended non-standardized federal voting protocols that NEVER declare another winner.
The sad truth is that the winning this presidential election is the worst possible outcome for either side, as a House & Senate divided against itself cannot stand and political gridlock is the law of the land.
There’s scant hope that US republic will survive in its current form, but that outcome is unlikely as it would require superhuman compassion, exceptional self-restraint, and an uncomplaining mutual concession from our uncompromising Blue & Red factions.
Our very own Nika Riots follow, and maybe we will come to our senses thereafter.
Larry, when you next return, your thoughts regarding voting fraud in this election would be very welcome. Whether the evidence suggests there has been any, where, and whether if so it has been on a scale to have turned the election.
My own reading has produced some suggestive but inconclusive observations. Also I note a general determination on the part of the media to shut down any discussion of the possibility which is a bit worrying.
I have also however come on quite some allegations where the evidence the writers cited was clearly inadequate to support them. So there clearly are people looking for bad evidence for what they believe on instinct, or wish to persuade others of, and whose agenda is just to throw some against the wall.
If auditing, I would focus on the swing states. The disparity between votes for Democratic Senators and for Biden (the latter being much higher) is one place I would audit. I’d also focus on sampling and verification of districts where turnout was abnormally high in relation to the historical record. And I would, as someone is apparently seeking to get crowd funded, try to do comparisons between death records and voter records in the swing states. But I’m not sure those methods would be sufficiently comprehensive to definitely falsify the idea. There are plenty of possibilities they would miss.
Speaking as one who once lived in a city where the dead voted in large numbers, and always for the same party!
One implication of the allegations does seem clear: that if the idea that this was a stolen election gets widespread traction among Republican voters, which it looks like it is starting to, it will be very bad news indeed for the country.
In Canada, if you file a complaint against a female professional (doctor, teacher, lawyer), the police charge the complainant with criminal harassment. There is no rule of law in Canuck feminist cities like Toronto.
Future healthcare in America:
I Voted for GOD… I have come to believe progress with out a unified moral compass is impossible. As the left tries to unify by ever increasing “progressive” rheteric, which in many cases defies traditional beliefs and values, the right moves futher right which in turn pushes the left futher left. It’s interesting to read statistical data on some of the leftist issues and find that percentages of citizens who live alternative lifestyls is quite low. We are not as divided as media and politicians would like to portray. I think this election is the biggest joke we have as a nation ever seen! Americans need to stand together and demand our leaders act like dignified adults, begin leading by example, and do what is necessary with in the economic structure and enviroment instead of what is most profitable for a very small percent of the population. This wont happen if americans don’t stop being so easily led by their parties nominee, It is what has taken so much power from the people and put it into the hands of a few. I personally have lost hope this nation will survive as it was originally concieved, hopefully what ever follows won’t be worse!
I can’t for the life of me remember why I put Fabius Maximus on my list of preferred opinion sites. Your constant beating of the drums against ‘The Left’, whoever the hell that is, is bizarre and appears paranoid. How anyone can stomach looking at or listening to Mitch McConnell and his ilk is beyond insanity. Was it ‘The Left’ who put us into Iraq and Afghanistan in these senseless, brutal, and illegal wars? Was it The Left who put the current sociopathic f-tard in charge of this country? Was it The Left who put Bill Barr in place to crap all over our sacred constitution? Get an effing grip Fabio! Your dualistic, simplistic, and reductionist scaremongering is as cold as Trump’s assertion that ‘one day it will all just go away’. Goodbye.
Dan,
Reality is so difficult for tribalists of the Left and Right to accept. For example, look at our mad invasion of Afghanistan.
On 14 September 2001, Senate Joint Resolution 23 passed in the Senate by roll call vote. The totals in the Senate were: 98 Ayes, 0 Nays, 2 Present but Not Voting (Senators Larry Craig, R-ID, and Jesse Helms, R-NC).
On 14 September 2001, the House passed House Joint Resolution 64. The totals in the House of Representatives were 420 ayes, 1 nay and 10 not voting.
President Obama was an enthusiastic supporter of our foreign wars, going beyond even Bush Jr in many respects – expanding the drone war, even assassination of US citizens without trial or even warrant.
Trump made gestures at reining in our mad wars, including our almost suicidal cold wars against China and Russia. Which earned him the undying enmity of the Deep State – and brutal criticism by the Democrats. He learned his lesson, and became as belligerent as the rest of our DC crowd.
Dan, keep those blinders on. Who knows what wonders you might see if you take them off. But you won’t, so I suspect the heterodox facts and logic you find here will upset you. Stick to the people who lie to you with comforting tribal truths.
I agree wholeheartedly that the Dems and neo-libs have been more than complicit in the Repulsican’s war-mongering and have given them a run for their money in sucking up to their corporate masters.
The fact that the Dems and Repubs are two sides of the same debased coin doesn’t mean that there is some national slide toward a ‘Fall of Rome’ moment being brought about by this nebulous ‘Left’ whom you demonize.
If I’m misreading your diatribes as overly simplistic, good vs. evil, reductionist scare-mongering then I am more than happy to stand corrected. However, despite your obvious historical insight and erudition I am not sold at all on the zeitgeist you describe.
Do you not see any positives in the possibility of movement toward more humanist policies at home and abroad? Do you think it’s just fine to have predatory capitalism running rampant and creating such vast chasms between the working class and the ultra-wealthy?
I see no sense of balance in your descriptions of things as they are or where you believe they may be headed. Your perspective seems so skewed toward entrenchment and reaction that I just shake my head as to how you arrive at your conclusions.
On a personal level, I have no axe to grind nor dog in this fight. I just want to see our country get back to something like the feeling we had after WWII when our country had a ‘can do’ spirit and when people saw the good in each other and didn’t look for ways to hate.
I agree that this country is going to hell in a hand basket but I disagree that it’s the Left which is at the root of it. Rather, I firmly believe that it’s the incessant greed for money and power at the upper echelons of government and business that will be our undoing.
Are you actually denying that this is the case and are you instead blaming a lack of free speech on a few campuses and other silly little blurbs on the radar screen as the cause of our ruination? Hard to believe that you could be guilty of such a narrow vision and to allow yourself to be so misdirected.
Dan,
I thought you had left. You appear to find heterodox facts and ideas upsetting, and are unable to process them rationally.
You are just making up stuff and attributing it to me. I suggest you try giving a quote and replying to it. Try beginning with my very detailed reply to your comment, in which I gave you the courtesy of replying to direct quotes.
I forgot the link to the Wikipedia entry listing those votes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_of_2001#House_of_Representatives
Dan,
I forgot to rep,y to this line of your, perhaps the most nutty in your comment.
“Was it The Left who put Bill Barr in place to crap all over our sacred constitution? “
Obama violated not just the expedition text of the Constitution, but Magna Carta by ordering the execution of a US citizen without trial or even warrant.
He approved a treaty without Senate approval -the Paris Agreement. Not only did no other democracy do so, even most authoritarian nations pretended to follow due process for approval.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2017/06/04/learning-from-other-nations-about-paris-agreement/
He signed the Clean Power Act, a far reaching law, without bothering with Congressional approval.
But keep those eyes closed! Such ignorance can be shattered by reading the news.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2019/12/16/impeachment-for-a-high-crime/
LMFAO…thats all I can say
Kristine,
Can you give some details about your thinking?
Where the f*ck did you see me say anything positive about Obama or defend any of his actions, or better yet inactions, during his time in office? What does Bill Barr’s lap dog docility in defense of Trumpf have to do with Obama? Of course Obama was a failure…what made you jump to the conclusion that I thought otherwise? Just because I decry Trump, his crime family, and their hangers as scoundrels of the worst sort doesn’t mean I am an Obama fan or booster. You see Larry, you’ve just exposed the fallacy of your argument and your distorted thinking. It’s obvious that you see this country as being locked in a battle of good vs. evil and that those sides are represented by the Left and the Right. How incredibly childish of you. Are you defending Barr’s actions by comparing them to those of Obama? Even you should realize that 2 wrongs don’t make 1 right. Wow, for someone with such a pulpit and following you are pretty damn lame in your logic. Ciao.
Dan,
Try taking off the blinders and re-reading what I said. Perhaps twice. Eventually you might get it.
Here is a summary post of my views about America today. This might help you understand.
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2019/03/13/death-of-america/
Dan,
Whoops, I omitted this in error. I’m amazed I need to explain this, but FYI…
“The Left who put Bill Barr in place to crap all over our sacred constitution?”
That’s quite the deranged statement, produced by someone reading too much Leftist propaganda.
So I showed you what actual violations of the Constitution look like.
So let’s see your writings about Obama’s horrific violations of the Constitution.
BTW – the Constitution was not considered “sacred” by the Founders, and I doubt many consider today consider it sacred. In case you don’t understand, sacred means…
“connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.”
William F Buckley would be proud of you Larry. You are carrying on his legacy by spouting specious and faux scholastic arguments in order to justify your narrow worldview. Ugh…not what we need in this divisive and contentious time.
Dan,
Just for fun, try a rational reply. Take a quote and give facts and logic explaining why it’s wrong.
This isn’t fourth-grade show and tell. You ignored my detailed reply, and made several cognitively empty comments. It’s a waste of your time.
I nominate Larry Kummer as the rudest and most irritable old fart blog host on the Internet!
Marx got the forecast right–that unrestrained capitalism will eventually collapse after immiserating the majority (because r>g, and capitalists don’t share, AgD collapses). But Marx and the nominal Left get the solution wrong–Socialism, Communism, or the Great Reset + Modern Monetary Theory now that the debt’s too great to service.
The answer is a Jubilee and a return to Biblical principles of living, law, and morality.
Cheers, Grumpy!
benign
D
Benign,
“I nominate Larry Kummer as the rudest and most irritable old fart blog host on the Internet!”
Poor baby.
“Marx got the forecast right–that unrestrained capitalism will eventually collapse after immiserating the majority.”
Marx made that prediction 137 years ago, and so far has been spectacularly wrong – as capitalism has lifted most of humanity to levels of wealth, health, and security unimaginable to Marx. Creating the first large middle class in history.
So history doesn’t agree with that little equation. But you know the future! Can we see your past predictions? I post mine – right and wrong – on the top menu bar.
“The answer is a Jubilee and a return to Biblical principles of living, law, and morality.”
So we should live by the Book of Leviticus (which requires the debt jubilee, and sets forth much of the “Biblical principles of living, law, and morality”). Have you ever read it?
Good luck with that.
Benign,
“Cheers, Grumpy!”
I feel sorry for you. History is a story of disasters, most of which could have been avoided with warnings – if people had only listened.
Open your eyes. Life isn’t a TV sitcom, with a happy ending at the end.
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I sometimes think that our analysis of the future is hobbled by our conception of the US as one country rather than States that are United. To that end I would not count out an increasing influence from strong regional alliances. As your observation about the military’s deteriorating ability to win wars suggests, the monolithic federal government may find it a challenge to forestall states and regions from doing their own thing. Usually this is discussed as a question of secession but we might see regions and states simply ignoring federal mandates, making central governance difficult to impossible and just generally, slowly, building semi-autonomous communities, city states, state based networks of provision and political activity, and slyly frustrating attempts to get citizens back on the bus.
A serious financial crisis which forced local, regional cooperation and strained a bankrupt imperial capital to bring people into line might not have to take the form of open rebellion or all-against-all. I live in a state where people are constantly watching youtube videos not of preppers, but of homestead farms, catch clean and cook episodes, family table traditions and restoring and fixing broken and old tools and machines. These people have friends, business associates and church friends from Azerbaijan to Zambia, they are not holed up on a mountain with ma, pa and the chilluns.
The lefties here I notice are very loud but I imagine stomach growls would either pipe them down or find them moving to redder pastures. Leadership and tone at the beginning would be critical, think water flowing around an obstacle v. last stands and resistance, self-sufficiency and locality vs. secession or independence. Don’t get me wrong, people here have lots and lots of guns and there is a reason its nearly impossible to buy 223 or 9mm lately but that can be far more persuasive as an unspoken element than up front.
There are a ton of toils and snares in this scenario but I think it has some merit and the virtue of tapping in to peoples natural bent for the practical and useful in times of crisis when the smooth “smooth tongued wizards” start shrugging.
I think a good mission if the road has run out and its dark is to grab a lamp of reason and a blade of virtue and start hacking.