This is not normal behaviour (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Donald Trump stops me sleeping, and I am not alone. The multiply indicted former president’s fans sneeringly call it “Trump Derangement Syndrome”. Psychologists, who since 2016 have seen a rise in people anxious about the state of the world, call it “Trump Anxiety Disorder”. As someone afflicted, I think its essence is disorientation: Trump and his supporters appear to be living in an alternate reality. The Trump phenomenon has not only intensified partisan polarisation, but also highlighted the existence of two different fact-worlds.
At least for me, the cause of Trump Anxiety Disorder is not so much Trump himself, but what his rise, and seeming untouchability, tells us about the impossibility of politics. He exposes our collective powerlessness when we cannot agree on what is true and what is not. This is why Trump’s indictment for conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy to deprive American citizens of their votes is bad news for sufferers: it is another test of whether there are consequences for saying that black is white, and just like the two impeachments, it might well fail.
On the first page of the indictment, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith succinctly sums up the case he wants to make: “Despite having lost [the 2020 election], the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.” But did he? Trump’s defenders argue that he sincerely believed there had been election rigging on a scale that altered the outcome. Of course, the indictment provides evidence that Trump was repeatedly told none of this was true by Justice Department officials, White House aides, Republican governors and even his own Vice President, who he accused — on Christmas Day, no less — of being “too honest”. But so what? Wasn’t he just Trump being Trump?
One of the problems here is the cognitive dissonance between the deadly serious charges laid against the former president and the manifest lunacy and incompetence of his carnival of co-conspirators, a cast of characters who could be from an Ealing Comedy. It includes Rudy Giuliani, the hair-dye-drizzled host of a press conference that was supposed to be in the Four Seasons Hotel but ended up in a garden supply centre instead, and the lawyer Sidney Powell, so bonkers that even Trump apparently called her “crazy”. With friends like these, Trump was just being what Trump has always been — narcissistic, reckless, gullible, mendacious, believing that the world was what he wanted it to be. He and his acolytes never wink and admit they’re playing a game, but their very outlandishness makes them harder to take seriously.
The indictment hedges against the defence that Trump was just being Trump by freely acknowledging that, like every American citizen, he had the right to lie. It focuses instead on what he did — trying to overturn the election by appointing fake electors and such like — not on what he thought. But, his defenders will argue, if the election really had been stolen, his efforts to prevent the ratification of Biden’s victory, even down to encouraging an armed crowd to go to the Capitol on January 6, were entirely reasonable. His lawyers will insist that their client was acting on the basis of “advice of counsel” from the constitutional lawyer John Eastman, presumed to be one of Trump’s as-yet-unnamed co-conspirators. Eastman apparently provided advice that Vice President Pence could delay the formal counting of the Electoral College votes on January 6. Assuming a trial does eventually take place, all it will take is for a single juror to think that, on balance, Trump was just “exploring options” and trying to make sure the election was “fair”, and he will be acquitted.
This leaves the United States in a horrible impasse. There is no outcome that will not intensify the stress on the American political system; the stakes have now been raised once again. “To support Trump is to support sedition and violence,” ran a typical piece in the liberal Atlantic. “We face in Trump a dedicated enemy of our Constitution, and if he returns to office, his next ‘administration’ will be a gang of felons, goons, and resentful mediocrities, all of whom will gladly serve Trump’s sociopathic needs while greedily dividing the spoils of power.” The Trumpites respond in kind. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who back in January 2021 blamed Trump for the violence at the Capitol, tweeted: “Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America. It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him.”
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SubscribeSo Democrats spend four years lying about the 2016 election being stolen saying Trump was an agent of Putin to undermine the 2020 election, then turn around and say Trump denying 2020 is illegal? Then you complain about people not seeing the obvious?!?
Yes, we are living in different realities. Mine is the real world, yours is a clown world, and I say this NOT being a fan of Trump. Maybe he’s guilty, but to charge someone with something you have been blatently doing for years and then have people NOT understand why people are flabberghasted by this is just.. I just can’t anymore.
“to charge someone with something you have been blatently doing for years”
There was a video I saw once about the democrat reaction to Trump 2016, titled 19 minutes.
It wasn’t 19 minutes long. It referred to the time gap between Trump being sworn in as a legally and lawfully elected president, and the first headlines on the liberal media on how he had to be kicked out.
Hypocrisy doesn’t explain it, it’s bordering on mental sickness, extreme delusion and an utterly self centred world view.
Did the out-going President make any of these claims or attempt to pervert the electoral process in any way, in 2016?
Yes – Hillary Clinton claimed the election was stolen – Trump wasn’t legitimate, the Russians hacked the election, etc. The irony is of course that the entire Steele dossier that was the supposed basis for Russian collusion came from the Democrats and was personally approved by – wait for it – Hilary. So when Trump says the election was stolen he likely believes it – when Democrats said it in 2016 they were lying – they knew Russian collusion was a hoax.
Not just approved by Hilary,but the dossier was paid for by the Democrats.
Not just approved by Hilary,but the dossier was paid for by the Democrats.
The president in 2016, Obama, was not a candidate. Hillary Clinton was no longer even a member of his administration. There was, however, a fairly well publicized attempt to ‘appeal to the conscience’ of Republican electors to change their vote, which is technically legal in some states. Hillary Clinton did not participate in this herself as far as anyone knows, but it was rather beyond the pale of what most of us have seen in our lifetimes. Then of course there was the whole Russian interference angle which is still disputed. What Trump did was much worse. Not disputing that, but this is how escalation happens. One side pushes the guardrails a bit, and then the other goes a little bit further in retaliation, and the cycle repeats. I hope Trump is defeated in 2024, not because I actually think he’ll destroy the country, no one person, even the President has that power, but because I think his victory might result in even more escalation from the other side.
You don’t think a democrat victory backed by a corrupt media and establishment institutions and a zillion self-righteous ‘serious’ academics like Adam, will lead to ‘even more escalation’?
You don’t think a democrat victory backed by a corrupt media and establishment institutions and a zillion self-righteous ‘serious’ academics like Adam, will lead to ‘even more escalation’?
Yes – Hillary Clinton claimed the election was stolen – Trump wasn’t legitimate, the Russians hacked the election, etc. The irony is of course that the entire Steele dossier that was the supposed basis for Russian collusion came from the Democrats and was personally approved by – wait for it – Hilary. So when Trump says the election was stolen he likely believes it – when Democrats said it in 2016 they were lying – they knew Russian collusion was a hoax.
The president in 2016, Obama, was not a candidate. Hillary Clinton was no longer even a member of his administration. There was, however, a fairly well publicized attempt to ‘appeal to the conscience’ of Republican electors to change their vote, which is technically legal in some states. Hillary Clinton did not participate in this herself as far as anyone knows, but it was rather beyond the pale of what most of us have seen in our lifetimes. Then of course there was the whole Russian interference angle which is still disputed. What Trump did was much worse. Not disputing that, but this is how escalation happens. One side pushes the guardrails a bit, and then the other goes a little bit further in retaliation, and the cycle repeats. I hope Trump is defeated in 2024, not because I actually think he’ll destroy the country, no one person, even the President has that power, but because I think his victory might result in even more escalation from the other side.
I think you should delete the words “bordering on”. Moreover, if my memory serves me well, I recall that many members of the left-wing fraternity were swearing that they would impeach Trump even before he had been sworn in.
Did the out-going President make any of these claims or attempt to pervert the electoral process in any way, in 2016?
I think you should delete the words “bordering on”. Moreover, if my memory serves me well, I recall that many members of the left-wing fraternity were swearing that they would impeach Trump even before he had been sworn in.
Very well articulated. Thank you!
Yes it is very odd. And I say that as a non American centrist.
I think TDS was evidenced most starkly when Sam Harris unravelled during his interview with Konstantin Krisin – when he said “At that point Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement, I would not have cared,” Harris said in a clip which has been viewed more than 3.2 million times on Twitter. The end of Sam Harris’s reputation.
Would any candidate on the political left take seriously, even for a moment, the idea of standing down, so as to save those on the right from suffering a hissy fit?
…furthermore, the US system empowers political appointees at Federal, State and Local level…which in some ways has great merit, and is certainly more clearly democratic than the UK system of a (supposedly!) neutral class of government officials serving each side of the argument with equal diligence..?
…but in current US circumstances of vicious antagonism and visceral hatred, does mean it is very easy for the losers to accuse the winners of dishonest practice…and equally easy, in contested circumstances…to give “Your Guy” the benefit of the doubt a bit too readily…
…I don’t think the Election was “stolen”…but I do wonder if the outcome would have been different if the “establishment” in some places had been from the GOP, not True-Blue Democrats…
“to charge someone with something you have been blatently doing for years”
There was a video I saw once about the democrat reaction to Trump 2016, titled 19 minutes.
It wasn’t 19 minutes long. It referred to the time gap between Trump being sworn in as a legally and lawfully elected president, and the first headlines on the liberal media on how he had to be kicked out.
Hypocrisy doesn’t explain it, it’s bordering on mental sickness, extreme delusion and an utterly self centred world view.
Very well articulated. Thank you!
Yes it is very odd. And I say that as a non American centrist.
I think TDS was evidenced most starkly when Sam Harris unravelled during his interview with Konstantin Krisin – when he said “At that point Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement, I would not have cared,” Harris said in a clip which has been viewed more than 3.2 million times on Twitter. The end of Sam Harris’s reputation.
Would any candidate on the political left take seriously, even for a moment, the idea of standing down, so as to save those on the right from suffering a hissy fit?
…furthermore, the US system empowers political appointees at Federal, State and Local level…which in some ways has great merit, and is certainly more clearly democratic than the UK system of a (supposedly!) neutral class of government officials serving each side of the argument with equal diligence..?
…but in current US circumstances of vicious antagonism and visceral hatred, does mean it is very easy for the losers to accuse the winners of dishonest practice…and equally easy, in contested circumstances…to give “Your Guy” the benefit of the doubt a bit too readily…
…I don’t think the Election was “stolen”…but I do wonder if the outcome would have been different if the “establishment” in some places had been from the GOP, not True-Blue Democrats…
So Democrats spend four years lying about the 2016 election being stolen saying Trump was an agent of Putin to undermine the 2020 election, then turn around and say Trump denying 2020 is illegal? Then you complain about people not seeing the obvious?!?
Yes, we are living in different realities. Mine is the real world, yours is a clown world, and I say this NOT being a fan of Trump. Maybe he’s guilty, but to charge someone with something you have been blatently doing for years and then have people NOT understand why people are flabberghasted by this is just.. I just can’t anymore.
It’s interesting how a professor of US politics and political history does not turn his attention to the egregious corruption of the Democratic Party.
The Watergate scandal involved a bungled attempt to tap phones at the Democrat campaign office, and Nixon lying about his knowledge. Hillary Clinton commissioned and paid for a fake dossier of lies about Trump which connected him with Russia, fed it to her friends in the FBI and CIA who used it as a basis to spy on the Trump campaign and knowingly falsely persecuted him for three years, alleging he was only elected through Russian corruption of the 2016 election. That apparently, doesn’t worry the professor.
Trump’s first impeachment was based on a telephone call in which he asked Ukrainian officials to investigate the now obvious corruption of Joe Biden and and his son Hunter in relation to selling Biden’s political influence to the oil company Burisma. On camera Joe Biden boasted that he threatened to stop $1 billion going to Ukraine if the authorities didn’t remove the prosecutor who was investigating Burisma for corruption. That apparently doesn’t worry the professor.
When the Supreme Court had it’s judgment on abortion rights leaked, mobs descended on the homes of the Justices, seeking to intimidate them in to changing their ruling. An assassin armed to murder a justice was arrested. Despite clearly being a serious criminal offences, Democrat appointed Merrick Garland refused to intervene to protect the Justices and Democrat politicians refused to condemn the intimidation of Supreme Court justices. Apparently that doesn’t worry the professor.
From the position of the British legal system the US system in which criminal prosecutors and judges are political appointments is a disgraceful anathema. When added to that, the fact that jurors are being recruited from an electorate biased towards the political position of the prosecutors and judges, the corruption of the system is self evident. Now Trump is had charges brought against him by a Democrat prosecutor, presided over by a Democrat judge and the pool of jurors with be overwhelmingly Democrat voters. But that doesn’t worry the professor.
Trump has said and done many stupid things. I sincerely wish he would go away and DeSantis have the nomination. But Trump’s actions were just dumb. In comparison, with “Russiagate” and the current persecution of Trump, the Democrats have corrupted and weaponised the FBI and CIA against their political opponents while ignoring the crimes of the likes of Hiliary Clinton and Joe Biden They have allowed the intimidation of Supreme Court justices.
Trump did dumb things. Bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Washington was dumb. Crowds are unpredictable and the chances that some morons would get out of control was high. But Trump was never a threat to democracy; within hours Biden’s presidency was certified. But a political party that has corrupted and weaponised the FBI, CIA and its elected prosecutors and judges against its political opponents while protecting its representatives from criminal charges, and allowed the intimidation of Supreme Court justices, is a threat to US democracy
A would encourage the professor to stop being a dumb partisan and to actually start thinking.
This is well said – and you’ve not mentioned numerous accusations leveled at Trump that were false but which Biden now does to applause from the same people. Trump was the ‘tyrant’ because he reversed Obama’s executive orders… Biden actually defended his student loan forgiveness plan with a straight face in the Supreme Court! Trump was accused of ‘politicizing the law’ but the left has worked overtime for seven years now to invent new legal interpretations to shoehorn in political conduct they don’t like.
I couldn’t stand Trump in 2016, but watching the liberal establishment lose its mind – the hypocrisy, the double-standards, the deliberate mischaracterizations, etc. – earned him a lot of sympathy in my book. He’s still dull-witted buffoon with the outsize ego typical of a billionaire, of course.
What’s so sad is that America must be in thrall to the 30% of the Red electorate that likes his bravado, and the 30% of the Blue electorate that derives their self-worth from being morally superior to him. I think if he’d handled the 2020 campaign with just a smidgen more political intelligence, he’d be nearing the end of his second term and we’d be about to turn the page on this chapter of American history.
Agreed
the Blue electorate that derives their self-worth from
beingpretending to be morally superior to himFIFY
Agreed
the Blue electorate that derives their self-worth from
beingpretending to be morally superior to himFIFY
All this! Yes, long gone are the days of critical, objective academics. They are all now puppets of the propagandists, moulded by groupthink and cowardice, terrorised into staying in line under threat of losing their livelihoods. We need a real intellectual revolution in this country!
Also, to my knowledge, nobody has yet been tried and put in prison for setting fire to the Federal Courthouse in Portland during the BLM riots. Although some of the armed rioters were arrested, half of them were set free again by a left wing district attorney.
The author speaks of Trump “encouraging armed crowds” going to the Capitol. I agree, it was reckless of Trump to assemble a crowd on January 6th, and telling an unpredictable bunch of people to (“peacefully”) walk to the Capitol, but I wasn’t aware that the crowd was armed, and didn’t see any evidence on TV. The leaders of these so-called Patriots looked more like a costume party, strange bearded men and a Sharman “armed” with an American flag.
Pah! Is that all you have? (Joking before the lynch mob descends.)
You raise a very good point. I taught for six years in US academia and avoided these kinds of professors like the plague. They are so utterly convinced of their own moral superiority that I can only describe it as some kind of religious zeal.
“ It’s interesting how a professor of US politics and political history does not turn his attention to the egregious corruption of the Democratic Party.”
You say “interesting”, I say completely consistent.
“[I] woukd encourage the professor to stop being a dumb partisan and to actually start thinking”
*sigh* You’re American, aren’t you?
I can tell from the self-serving righteous anger when someone has the temerity to attempt speak objectively about your basket-case of a country.
I too wish Trump would stand down, and let de Santis take the helm. But Trump is there by Democrat design. It’s Smith’s crowd who put him there
This is well said – and you’ve not mentioned numerous accusations leveled at Trump that were false but which Biden now does to applause from the same people. Trump was the ‘tyrant’ because he reversed Obama’s executive orders… Biden actually defended his student loan forgiveness plan with a straight face in the Supreme Court! Trump was accused of ‘politicizing the law’ but the left has worked overtime for seven years now to invent new legal interpretations to shoehorn in political conduct they don’t like.
I couldn’t stand Trump in 2016, but watching the liberal establishment lose its mind – the hypocrisy, the double-standards, the deliberate mischaracterizations, etc. – earned him a lot of sympathy in my book. He’s still dull-witted buffoon with the outsize ego typical of a billionaire, of course.
What’s so sad is that America must be in thrall to the 30% of the Red electorate that likes his bravado, and the 30% of the Blue electorate that derives their self-worth from being morally superior to him. I think if he’d handled the 2020 campaign with just a smidgen more political intelligence, he’d be nearing the end of his second term and we’d be about to turn the page on this chapter of American history.
All this! Yes, long gone are the days of critical, objective academics. They are all now puppets of the propagandists, moulded by groupthink and cowardice, terrorised into staying in line under threat of losing their livelihoods. We need a real intellectual revolution in this country!
Also, to my knowledge, nobody has yet been tried and put in prison for setting fire to the Federal Courthouse in Portland during the BLM riots. Although some of the armed rioters were arrested, half of them were set free again by a left wing district attorney.
The author speaks of Trump “encouraging armed crowds” going to the Capitol. I agree, it was reckless of Trump to assemble a crowd on January 6th, and telling an unpredictable bunch of people to (“peacefully”) walk to the Capitol, but I wasn’t aware that the crowd was armed, and didn’t see any evidence on TV. The leaders of these so-called Patriots looked more like a costume party, strange bearded men and a Sharman “armed” with an American flag.
Pah! Is that all you have? (Joking before the lynch mob descends.)
You raise a very good point. I taught for six years in US academia and avoided these kinds of professors like the plague. They are so utterly convinced of their own moral superiority that I can only describe it as some kind of religious zeal.
“ It’s interesting how a professor of US politics and political history does not turn his attention to the egregious corruption of the Democratic Party.”
You say “interesting”, I say completely consistent.
“[I] woukd encourage the professor to stop being a dumb partisan and to actually start thinking”
*sigh* You’re American, aren’t you?
I can tell from the self-serving righteous anger when someone has the temerity to attempt speak objectively about your basket-case of a country.
I too wish Trump would stand down, and let de Santis take the helm. But Trump is there by Democrat design. It’s Smith’s crowd who put him there
It’s interesting how a professor of US politics and political history does not turn his attention to the egregious corruption of the Democratic Party.
The Watergate scandal involved a bungled attempt to tap phones at the Democrat campaign office, and Nixon lying about his knowledge. Hillary Clinton commissioned and paid for a fake dossier of lies about Trump which connected him with Russia, fed it to her friends in the FBI and CIA who used it as a basis to spy on the Trump campaign and knowingly falsely persecuted him for three years, alleging he was only elected through Russian corruption of the 2016 election. That apparently, doesn’t worry the professor.
Trump’s first impeachment was based on a telephone call in which he asked Ukrainian officials to investigate the now obvious corruption of Joe Biden and and his son Hunter in relation to selling Biden’s political influence to the oil company Burisma. On camera Joe Biden boasted that he threatened to stop $1 billion going to Ukraine if the authorities didn’t remove the prosecutor who was investigating Burisma for corruption. That apparently doesn’t worry the professor.
When the Supreme Court had it’s judgment on abortion rights leaked, mobs descended on the homes of the Justices, seeking to intimidate them in to changing their ruling. An assassin armed to murder a justice was arrested. Despite clearly being a serious criminal offences, Democrat appointed Merrick Garland refused to intervene to protect the Justices and Democrat politicians refused to condemn the intimidation of Supreme Court justices. Apparently that doesn’t worry the professor.
From the position of the British legal system the US system in which criminal prosecutors and judges are political appointments is a disgraceful anathema. When added to that, the fact that jurors are being recruited from an electorate biased towards the political position of the prosecutors and judges, the corruption of the system is self evident. Now Trump is had charges brought against him by a Democrat prosecutor, presided over by a Democrat judge and the pool of jurors with be overwhelmingly Democrat voters. But that doesn’t worry the professor.
Trump has said and done many stupid things. I sincerely wish he would go away and DeSantis have the nomination. But Trump’s actions were just dumb. In comparison, with “Russiagate” and the current persecution of Trump, the Democrats have corrupted and weaponised the FBI and CIA against their political opponents while ignoring the crimes of the likes of Hiliary Clinton and Joe Biden They have allowed the intimidation of Supreme Court justices.
Trump did dumb things. Bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Washington was dumb. Crowds are unpredictable and the chances that some morons would get out of control was high. But Trump was never a threat to democracy; within hours Biden’s presidency was certified. But a political party that has corrupted and weaponised the FBI, CIA and its elected prosecutors and judges against its political opponents while protecting its representatives from criminal charges, and allowed the intimidation of Supreme Court justices, is a threat to US democracy
A would encourage the professor to stop being a dumb partisan and to actually start thinking.
The threats to our democracy are entirely within the party that wants to ban political speech, weaponize law enforcement and intelligence agencies against their political opposition, and use disadvantaged minority groups to enact state control of the economy.
This party has recklessly spent astonishingly high amounts of borrowed funds, much of which was given to their constituents, most of it wasted on needless, useless things. This sent inflation soaring, as well as putting us in even greater risk from debt.
They’re the real threats to democracy. Let’s be honest about this. They’re the ones pushing fake news stories, exaggerated panics, and ridiculous tales of “far right extremism,” including such groups as Roman Catholics, parents at school board meetings, and traditional Republicans as “dangerous, extremist insurrectionists.”
They are living in an alternate reality, that’s almost entirely false, and they are themselves pushing divisive, radical, dangerous agendas.
I agree with all this except the word ‘entirely’ in your first line. Both parties have allowed unconstitutional realignments of power. GOP senators seem just as willing to pass the buck (executives orders, etc.) rather than cast a vote for something that might appeal to less than 100 per cent of the people in their state. When legislatures won’t legislate, the executive and judiciary step in along with 10s of thousands of bureaucrats.
I agree with all this except the word ‘entirely’ in your first line. Both parties have allowed unconstitutional realignments of power. GOP senators seem just as willing to pass the buck (executives orders, etc.) rather than cast a vote for something that might appeal to less than 100 per cent of the people in their state. When legislatures won’t legislate, the executive and judiciary step in along with 10s of thousands of bureaucrats.
The threats to our democracy are entirely within the party that wants to ban political speech, weaponize law enforcement and intelligence agencies against their political opposition, and use disadvantaged minority groups to enact state control of the economy.
This party has recklessly spent astonishingly high amounts of borrowed funds, much of which was given to their constituents, most of it wasted on needless, useless things. This sent inflation soaring, as well as putting us in even greater risk from debt.
They’re the real threats to democracy. Let’s be honest about this. They’re the ones pushing fake news stories, exaggerated panics, and ridiculous tales of “far right extremism,” including such groups as Roman Catholics, parents at school board meetings, and traditional Republicans as “dangerous, extremist insurrectionists.”
They are living in an alternate reality, that’s almost entirely false, and they are themselves pushing divisive, radical, dangerous agendas.
Shop fronts were boarding up their windows right across the country for the 2020 election in case Trump won. They feared political violence from the Left not the Right.
That Time.com piece in February 2021 about fortifying the election admitted the Left had co-ordinated street riots ready to kick off across the country on the word of command from the Democrat leadership.
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
I don’t think this article got the attention it deserved. It’s pretty much a public admission of a national conspiracy to influence the election result.
I don’t think this article got the attention it deserved. It’s pretty much a public admission of a national conspiracy to influence the election result.
That Time.com piece in February 2021 about fortifying the election admitted the Left had co-ordinated street riots ready to kick off across the country on the word of command from the Democrat leadership.
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
Shop fronts were boarding up their windows right across the country for the 2020 election in case Trump won. They feared political violence from the Left not the Right.
This is NOT complicated. It is actually quite easy to understand. And the author should stop with the innocent, virtuous, reasonable, victim act.
Prior to Trump the DC consensus, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley did all they could to undermine the middle class in the US. Outsourcing. Offshoring. Bringing in H1B’s and illegals to compete for the jobs that were not offshored or outsourced. They bailed out banks with tax payer dollars while allowing waves of foreclosures. And that list is just getting started. The democrats abandoned the middle and working class for campaign donations, stock tips and jobs for relatives from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Then the democrats aligned with the sanctimonious educated snobs in NY, MA and CA etc to not only mock the losses in fly over country but to mock the values and character of the people who live there.
Trump, as Michael Moore pointed out, was the biggest FU in history, sent by all those alienated by liberal elites and tired of getting screwed over by the DC consensus, to give them a kick in the shins and change some policies.
Then, the adminstrative state, the FBI, IRS, CIA, DoD, State Department and the rest, the never Trump republicans, the democrats, proceeded to try and use every dirty trick they could, from the Steele Dossier and Russian Collusion to multiple impeachments to undermine the man they had sent to kick them in the shins. In short, the elite were having none the FU sent their way and they were not gonna listen. In fact, they were gonna double down.
Then, those same people proceeded to mock and humiliate the people who voted for Trump. Four years plus. Everything from Deplorables to Fascists. This despite the fact that these same people calling them these names, despite puffing themselves up as experts, have FAILED repeatedly at EVERYTHING they have done and they continue to fail while refusing to change and to top it off put a mentally incompetent crook in the White House who then proceeded to use his office to strong arm the media and social media to censor those who questioned him or his policies.
The morons put all those voters in a position where they are tied to Trump, linked to him by the disdain of the same people. THAT is why Trump’s numbers go up with each new indictment. Each indictment is essentially an attack on them too, just as the impeachments were. Just as the resistance was. Now the continued incompetence of the elites, their arrogance despite their failures, their authoritarian behavior, may well see Trump elected again.
Wow….I am impressed…EXACTLY!!
Very very well stated. What is extra scary is that this author is a professor and doesn’t understand what is actually going on. Also scary is he is in a position of influencing young minds.
US/Trump = UK/Farage.
.
The myopic liberals will never learn …
Farage. 😀 😀 😀 😀
It’s quite possible the UK’s globalist controlled two party system will eventually lead to Prime Minister Farage one day.
Farage. 😀 😀 😀 😀
It’s quite possible the UK’s globalist controlled two party system will eventually lead to Prime Minister Farage one day.
Another way to put it is that Trump has become a symbol of resistance as much as a politician – the attacks just give him a halo.
Great story, but unfortunately unrealistic one.
Trump will not be allowed to win.
Wow….I am impressed…EXACTLY!!
Very very well stated. What is extra scary is that this author is a professor and doesn’t understand what is actually going on. Also scary is he is in a position of influencing young minds.
US/Trump = UK/Farage.
.
The myopic liberals will never learn …
Another way to put it is that Trump has become a symbol of resistance as much as a politician – the attacks just give him a halo.
Great story, but unfortunately unrealistic one.
Trump will not be allowed to win.
This is NOT complicated. It is actually quite easy to understand. And the author should stop with the innocent, virtuous, reasonable, victim act.
Prior to Trump the DC consensus, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley did all they could to undermine the middle class in the US. Outsourcing. Offshoring. Bringing in H1B’s and illegals to compete for the jobs that were not offshored or outsourced. They bailed out banks with tax payer dollars while allowing waves of foreclosures. And that list is just getting started. The democrats abandoned the middle and working class for campaign donations, stock tips and jobs for relatives from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Then the democrats aligned with the sanctimonious educated snobs in NY, MA and CA etc to not only mock the losses in fly over country but to mock the values and character of the people who live there.
Trump, as Michael Moore pointed out, was the biggest FU in history, sent by all those alienated by liberal elites and tired of getting screwed over by the DC consensus, to give them a kick in the shins and change some policies.
Then, the adminstrative state, the FBI, IRS, CIA, DoD, State Department and the rest, the never Trump republicans, the democrats, proceeded to try and use every dirty trick they could, from the Steele Dossier and Russian Collusion to multiple impeachments to undermine the man they had sent to kick them in the shins. In short, the elite were having none the FU sent their way and they were not gonna listen. In fact, they were gonna double down.
Then, those same people proceeded to mock and humiliate the people who voted for Trump. Four years plus. Everything from Deplorables to Fascists. This despite the fact that these same people calling them these names, despite puffing themselves up as experts, have FAILED repeatedly at EVERYTHING they have done and they continue to fail while refusing to change and to top it off put a mentally incompetent crook in the White House who then proceeded to use his office to strong arm the media and social media to censor those who questioned him or his policies.
The morons put all those voters in a position where they are tied to Trump, linked to him by the disdain of the same people. THAT is why Trump’s numbers go up with each new indictment. Each indictment is essentially an attack on them too, just as the impeachments were. Just as the resistance was. Now the continued incompetence of the elites, their arrogance despite their failures, their authoritarian behavior, may well see Trump elected again.
Of course we can’t agree on reality – we never could. The left has a fundamental misreading of the human race based on emotion and empathy, which is I guess noble, but catastrophically misplaced. Leftism doesn’t help the people it claims to – eventually the money runs out. It often benefits the intellectuals that promote it though, which makes it obvious why they promote it so heavily.
Trump was one of those people who challenged the fundamental lie that is leftism, and deep down, that is why they hate him and why he keeps intellectuals awake at night. The rest is just fluff, despite Trump being his own worst enemy at times.
Trump challenged the political machine and threatened to ‘drain the swamp’. He had to go if the cosy arrangements for the elite to continue. It’s not unlikely that his current legal charges are part of preventing him from running again.
Threatened. And his actual actions?
Stymied at every turn, often by his own advisers. Derailed by covid. Hounded by fake impeachments.
His main achievement…destruction of the Bush and Clinton dynasties. For that he must pay!
The elites understand that, this time, he’s gonna blow it all up. Donald Trump IS an existential threat to the establishment. Listen closely to his second term policies — term limits, etc. The swamp will dry up and blow away in the wind.
No it will not dry up etc bullsh*t.
Trump is not be allowed to win.
No it will not dry up etc bullsh*t.
Trump is not be allowed to win.
Stymied at every turn, often by his own advisers. Derailed by covid. Hounded by fake impeachments.
His main achievement…destruction of the Bush and Clinton dynasties. For that he must pay!
The elites understand that, this time, he’s gonna blow it all up. Donald Trump IS an existential threat to the establishment. Listen closely to his second term policies — term limits, etc. The swamp will dry up and blow away in the wind.
One thing Trump never did was punch below his weight. He didn’t put down the average voter who refused to support him. Democrats took a big swipe at his supporters by calling them, among other things, deplorable. I think that swipe did more to get him elected than anything else.
Yes, I suspect none of the charges he now faces would have seen the light of day had Trump made it clear he would not be running again. His worst characteristics simply prevent him from getting out of the way. I agree with those who claim Trump is now the gift that keeps on giving for the Democratic Party. My recommendation for the author: lighten up professor and get some sleep.
Threatened. And his actual actions?
One thing Trump never did was punch below his weight. He didn’t put down the average voter who refused to support him. Democrats took a big swipe at his supporters by calling them, among other things, deplorable. I think that swipe did more to get him elected than anything else.
Yes, I suspect none of the charges he now faces would have seen the light of day had Trump made it clear he would not be running again. His worst characteristics simply prevent him from getting out of the way. I agree with those who claim Trump is now the gift that keeps on giving for the Democratic Party. My recommendation for the author: lighten up professor and get some sleep.
So your reality is a clean split in which everyone on one side of a binary left-right divide misreads humanity according to two abstract nouns: emotion and empathy.
That seems to leave the opposite qualities of rationality and distance for the group known as the right, or perhaps The Right.
So no emotionality on the right then. Hmm. And which qualities–if you had to choose–are nearer to the heart and message of Jesus, empathy or distance, passion or rationality?
*Perhaps those of you among the swarming downvoters who profess to, or do believe in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth–putting aside supernatural questions–can tell me whether he embraced or rejected compassion/empathy or emotion/passion, if you had to vote up or down, according to your own reading of the Gospels.
Jesus weeps.
I’m sure you use his words to say whatever you want him to say.
I’m responding to his exact words. Only one side is framed. No definition is provided for Leftism, and no definition is even imagined for Rightism–it is self-justified, in an echo chamber. But dissent is still permitted here, once the heavily-downvoted, triggering comment goes into 12-hour timeout.
I’m responding to his exact words. Only one side is framed. No definition is provided for Leftism, and no definition is even imagined for Rightism–it is self-justified, in an echo chamber. But dissent is still permitted here, once the heavily-downvoted, triggering comment goes into 12-hour timeout.
I think the poster you are replying to is not necessarily describing all left-leaning people, just those that are so invested in their own mode of thinking that they no longer view those with different political opinions as decent human beings, but rather as gullible idiots at best or fa***sts at worse.
That’s fair and I should remember that not every understood nuance can or must be specified. But the actual content of the post reads like a one-sided, slam-dunk victory lap in front of a home crowd. Which, if not great, is no big deal. Both sides do it, and I should pick my bones of contention more judiciously, to say the least.
I’m strongly opposed to blanket denunciations from both Right and Left but it occurs to me that I don’t need to keep repeating that in different ways as if it will put a stop to the practice. And I shouldn’t denounce or mock those who disagree. Putting myself on “time out” for the remainder of the day (it is still early morning here). *unless people reply to me and I can’t resist–does this computer HAVE an off button??
Thanks for the welcome note of perspective.
Brave of you to try AJ, but Unherd BTL has turned into an echo chamber. Very few want to live outside the herd.
Overall yes. But good-faith exchanges between differing points of view sometimes break out. Less so than a year ago though. Going away for the day in earnest now. “Loudly agree or bicker amongst yourselves”. Thanks, Dominic.
I disagree that Unherd BTL has turned into an echo chamber. I find it a fascinating place, full of interesting debate. What commenters will usually unanimously agree on, however, is objective truth. For example, the truth about biological sex. There are other unequivocal truths. But there are many heated debates when people voice opinions, and they are not always predictable. A person with the highest-rated comment on one post might find themselves massive down-voted on another topic. The discussion BTL is often more interesting that the article that provoked it!
Yes, that’s often still true. Depends on the subject I guess. Definitely not happening on this page – it’s all the problem is the left and the saviour is Trump. Weird.
You need to read more of the comments more thoroughly. I don’t think there are that many Trump fans amongst the commenters, just a lot of awareness that those who loathe and fear him are often guilty of the very “crimes” they accuse him of.
I agree that Trump fans are probably a minority among commenters. But there is a great deal of semi-reflexive contrarianism and skepticism about any consensus or received view here (something I share in some measure). Of late the echo chamber facet of the site manifests more and more in opposition to anything perceived as left of center or elite-sponsored. Granted there are always at least a few dissenters, and probably many others holding their typing fingers back once the piling-on starts, as it often does. Never a total echo chamber though, and sometimes not at all.
Your point about the targeted and volatile nature of support for or opposition to specific commenters is an excellent one.
It is possible to say something unpopular, in a rude way, get voted into quarantined oblivion one day, and then be applauded and given dopamine doses of digital likes the next day, or even elsewhere on the same board (not that I care one way or the other).
Not that one’s perceived errors or transgressions are forgotten, but most here are very forgiving, willing to take a fair look at the next thing you present. Otherwise, I’d have been labelled online-persona non grata and voted off the BTL island long ago.
I agree that Trump fans are probably a minority among commenters. But there is a great deal of semi-reflexive contrarianism and skepticism about any consensus or received view here (something I share in some measure). Of late the echo chamber facet of the site manifests more and more in opposition to anything perceived as left of center or elite-sponsored. Granted there are always at least a few dissenters, and probably many others holding their typing fingers back once the piling-on starts, as it often does. Never a total echo chamber though, and sometimes not at all.
Your point about the targeted and volatile nature of support for or opposition to specific commenters is an excellent one.
It is possible to say something unpopular, in a rude way, get voted into quarantined oblivion one day, and then be applauded and given dopamine doses of digital likes the next day, or even elsewhere on the same board (not that I care one way or the other).
Not that one’s perceived errors or transgressions are forgotten, but most here are very forgiving, willing to take a fair look at the next thing you present. Otherwise, I’d have been labelled online-persona non grata and voted off the BTL island long ago.
Because most problems in human history were caused by the left.
Are you going to deny it?
I have no problem with democratic left but current left are basically Communists under cover of voke rubbish.
“..most problems in human history were caused by the left. Are you going to deny it?”
I’d say that any such claim is dubious and overly simplistic. It’s surely a horrendously complex issue, with no agreed boundaries, definitions. To take just one point what is left, what is right? Some claim that fascism is actually left wing, whilst others make the exact counter-claim, e.g. that Soviet/Communist systems as played out in the real world are forms of right wing authoritarianism. The pendulum swings continuously – the Democrat party used to represent the right wing, and the Republican, the left. Most on the right wing now accept practices and attitudes that were once seen as far left; similarly on the left, accept things that were once the prerogative of conservatives.
My personal belief is that the left/right divide is not static, and really not so useful; the far left and the far left actually resemble each other quite closely (extreme wokists and anti-wokists are bad fellows and bed fellows) I believe in hybridism, centrism, that which is, over time, with due care, in the fat part of the bell curve. A blend of welfare-ism with laissez-faire, rights balanced with obligations etc.
“..most problems in human history were caused by the left. Are you going to deny it?”
I’d say that any such claim is dubious and overly simplistic. It’s surely a horrendously complex issue, with no agreed boundaries, definitions. To take just one point what is left, what is right? Some claim that fascism is actually left wing, whilst others make the exact counter-claim, e.g. that Soviet/Communist systems as played out in the real world are forms of right wing authoritarianism. The pendulum swings continuously – the Democrat party used to represent the right wing, and the Republican, the left. Most on the right wing now accept practices and attitudes that were once seen as far left; similarly on the left, accept things that were once the prerogative of conservatives.
My personal belief is that the left/right divide is not static, and really not so useful; the far left and the far left actually resemble each other quite closely (extreme wokists and anti-wokists are bad fellows and bed fellows) I believe in hybridism, centrism, that which is, over time, with due care, in the fat part of the bell curve. A blend of welfare-ism with laissez-faire, rights balanced with obligations etc.
You need to read more of the comments more thoroughly. I don’t think there are that many Trump fans amongst the commenters, just a lot of awareness that those who loathe and fear him are often guilty of the very “crimes” they accuse him of.
Because most problems in human history were caused by the left.
Are you going to deny it?
I have no problem with democratic left but current left are basically Communists under cover of voke rubbish.
Yes, that’s often still true. Depends on the subject I guess. Definitely not happening on this page – it’s all the problem is the left and the saviour is Trump. Weird.
Overall yes. But good-faith exchanges between differing points of view sometimes break out. Less so than a year ago though. Going away for the day in earnest now. “Loudly agree or bicker amongst yourselves”. Thanks, Dominic.
I disagree that Unherd BTL has turned into an echo chamber. I find it a fascinating place, full of interesting debate. What commenters will usually unanimously agree on, however, is objective truth. For example, the truth about biological sex. There are other unequivocal truths. But there are many heated debates when people voice opinions, and they are not always predictable. A person with the highest-rated comment on one post might find themselves massive down-voted on another topic. The discussion BTL is often more interesting that the article that provoked it!
I understand. The US is politically and ideologically split in two and I fear that its binary ‘them and us’ mindset is being adopted abroad.
I for one would definitely like to put away the distinctions between ‘left’ and ‘right’ thinking and explore the individuals and groups who are keen on widening and profiting from this ‘split’. It no longer seems like a healthy difference of opinion between political sides, but a concerted effort to divide and conquer the citizenry.
Too true, Julian.
Too true, Julian.
Brave of you to try AJ, but Unherd BTL has turned into an echo chamber. Very few want to live outside the herd.
I understand. The US is politically and ideologically split in two and I fear that its binary ‘them and us’ mindset is being adopted abroad.
I for one would definitely like to put away the distinctions between ‘left’ and ‘right’ thinking and explore the individuals and groups who are keen on widening and profiting from this ‘split’. It no longer seems like a healthy difference of opinion between political sides, but a concerted effort to divide and conquer the citizenry.
That’s fair and I should remember that not every understood nuance can or must be specified. But the actual content of the post reads like a one-sided, slam-dunk victory lap in front of a home crowd. Which, if not great, is no big deal. Both sides do it, and I should pick my bones of contention more judiciously, to say the least.
I’m strongly opposed to blanket denunciations from both Right and Left but it occurs to me that I don’t need to keep repeating that in different ways as if it will put a stop to the practice. And I shouldn’t denounce or mock those who disagree. Putting myself on “time out” for the remainder of the day (it is still early morning here). *unless people reply to me and I can’t resist–does this computer HAVE an off button??
Thanks for the welcome note of perspective.
Leftists are terrible people. When you’re involved in conservative politics you meet people who appear to be leftists but who aren’t – they’re just loathsome people who seem out of place because the Left is the natural home of all sh!tty people. It’s easy to believe that vile people are attracted to the Left as a form of social camouflage, but that’s not the case. Leftists engage in negligible self-reflection. All of their analysis is outward-facing and their ‘conscience’ involves little self-recrimination and is mostly another tool to attack others. Only a Leftist can lie, cheat, steal and murder and feel morally superior. You cannot shame a Leftist – they really are a different type of human.
The manner in which Leftists are incapable of understanding others is akin to autism. The incessant Leftist invocation of Hitler’s second coming is not merely good politics – they believe it because every Leftist is a violent extremist, from the wettest ‘liberal’ to the most addled anarchist. The Left will never understand that people who are different to them aren’t champing at the bit to open concentration camps and massacre their neighbours – because that is what every Leftist wants (for the greater good, of course. And someone else will do the dirty work, obviously).
The Leftists(!!!) you describe do exist but they are mostly just voices in your head. Or perhaps unwelcome shadows in your mirror. They are about as common or representative as the stereotypical gargoyle-far-far-right-conservatives you seem to think all people on The Left find under every rock and in every vote they don’t like.
To be clear I am not a Leftist. Or will this forever war to the death no longer allow for any kind of a middle lane? I am an extreme moderate or radical centrist, a little to the left of the current national center as I perceive it , but not in every way. For example, I care about old books and old music and old traditions, and would not “cancel” or overthrow them without extreme cause, nor try to improve them more than incrementally and with attentive caution, in most cases. There will always be liberals, centrist, and conservatives, as well as people who are on the far fringes. No side or point on the spectrum–autistic or sociopolitical–holds all the good marbles.
Many of us could stand to be less willing to believe that the loudest fringe voices are representative of the prevailing view on the Other Side of a question or perspective. And to stop treating every thought, opinion, or even belief we have like unassailable truth. More people on “all sides” need to practice true self-reflection and self-correction. I’ve gotta go get busy with that and other things myself now.
Where are you? How are you? Have a blessed and self-reflective day, sir.
Really?
It was not me who cancelled my, former, friends for voting remain or believing covid bulshit.
It was other way round.
It is not the right which wants to impose views on people.
It is the left which wants us to believe in gender nonsense or that climate policies work or that mass immigration of low IQ savages from incompatible cultures nto the West is beneficial.
Why do Republican state legislatures pass severe and mother’s-life endangering abortion restrictions without putting it to a general vote, or require textbooks to mention the upside of slavery except to impose their views on people? (Would you object to a textbook that called the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression” or promoted a Lost Cause romanticism? Given the extremity of your Right views already expressed, I genuinely wonder)*
Wouldn’t you like to forcibly impose your racialized worldview–“low IQ savages”–on people if you could? From an historical perspective, I guess Euro-descended peoples did open themselves up to some criticism by inhabiting, then seizing the ancestral lands of other peoples, savage or not, often enslaving them and working them to death in mines and other brutal labor or converting them to the outward faith in Jesus on pain of death. Perhaps that’s allowable when those you are exploiting for lucre are mere savages. And after all, their souls did/do need saving. Or maybe they should be glad to have even sniffed the Glories of Western Civilization from an ignorant near-distance. I’m not saying our shared civilization (Western Culture) was uniquely brutal in any way, I don’t believe that. But there ought to be some effort toward living up to the universalism of the high Enlightenment and US Constitution, although those values were largely aspirational at the time and still are to some extent. That doesn’t mean open borders or campaigns of eternal apology and compensation, but it shouldn’t mean essentializing tribal/racial/class antagonisms either, on either side of the question.
You express
littleno charity, kindness, or complexity of any kind here, but imagine you have a conclusive hold on the correct path: a path littered with anger and contempt. Good luck with that.If your characterization of what happened between you and your former friends is accurate, I’m sorry that happened to you. Is it possible you were offensive or inconsiderate in any way yourself?
The Tories have had the upper hand since 2010 and Brexit was narrowly approved, but on these boards there is no sense of victory or having any cultural sway among the mostly right-leaning, leaver commenters here. Do you blame Labour , hard-Awokened youth, or institutional elites for the state and direction of the country, but not the Tories or the finance crowd? Just wondering.
I hope Britain doesn’t become as hostile and divided as it is here. I think the long-covid disruption and other recent events have made most of us a little more impatient, hostile, and unhinged than our baseline average, at least much of the time. That’s my excuse.
*Probably not a very pertinent question because you’re British. Forgive me for placing my remarks in the context of the US and the Americas. Or don’t, your choice.
“I hope Britain doesn’t become as hostile and divided as it is here.”
Liberal Democrat councillor Michael Tarling recently said he would ‘happily fill the room with carbon monoxide’ in response to people who were meeting to object to a proposed Ultra Low Emission Zone. The American fondness for England is charming but misguided.
I admit I hadn’t heard that. That’s brutal and evil. I hope there was major pushback and some form of public rebuke for Tarling. I was influenced by commenter Julian Farrows worry that the UK was “importing” US social and political hostilities. I confess a certain remaining fondness for England but am no longer a starry-eyed anglophile.
I do think these UnHerd comment boards have gotten more contentious as more Americans like me (though I was born in Canada) have flooded this website BTL over the past year. And while I usually mean well I don’t exempt myself on that perceived trend either.
If you haven’t visited the States recently and have interest in visiting…maybe wait until things cool down a little. I’m 52 and the national discontent and vitriol is easily worse than at any previous time since I moved here in 1978.
I admit I hadn’t heard that. That’s brutal and evil. I hope there was major pushback and some form of public rebuke for Tarling. I was influenced by commenter Julian Farrows worry that the UK was “importing” US social and political hostilities. I confess a certain remaining fondness for England but am no longer a starry-eyed anglophile.
I do think these UnHerd comment boards have gotten more contentious as more Americans like me (though I was born in Canada) have flooded this website BTL over the past year. And while I usually mean well I don’t exempt myself on that perceived trend either.
If you haven’t visited the States recently and have interest in visiting…maybe wait until things cool down a little. I’m 52 and the national discontent and vitriol is easily worse than at any previous time since I moved here in 1978.
“I hope Britain doesn’t become as hostile and divided as it is here.”
Liberal Democrat councillor Michael Tarling recently said he would ‘happily fill the room with carbon monoxide’ in response to people who were meeting to object to a proposed Ultra Low Emission Zone. The American fondness for England is charming but misguided.
Why do Republican state legislatures pass severe and mother’s-life endangering abortion restrictions without putting it to a general vote, or require textbooks to mention the upside of slavery except to impose their views on people? (Would you object to a textbook that called the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression” or promoted a Lost Cause romanticism? Given the extremity of your Right views already expressed, I genuinely wonder)*
Wouldn’t you like to forcibly impose your racialized worldview–“low IQ savages”–on people if you could? From an historical perspective, I guess Euro-descended peoples did open themselves up to some criticism by inhabiting, then seizing the ancestral lands of other peoples, savage or not, often enslaving them and working them to death in mines and other brutal labor or converting them to the outward faith in Jesus on pain of death. Perhaps that’s allowable when those you are exploiting for lucre are mere savages. And after all, their souls did/do need saving. Or maybe they should be glad to have even sniffed the Glories of Western Civilization from an ignorant near-distance. I’m not saying our shared civilization (Western Culture) was uniquely brutal in any way, I don’t believe that. But there ought to be some effort toward living up to the universalism of the high Enlightenment and US Constitution, although those values were largely aspirational at the time and still are to some extent. That doesn’t mean open borders or campaigns of eternal apology and compensation, but it shouldn’t mean essentializing tribal/racial/class antagonisms either, on either side of the question.
You express
littleno charity, kindness, or complexity of any kind here, but imagine you have a conclusive hold on the correct path: a path littered with anger and contempt. Good luck with that.If your characterization of what happened between you and your former friends is accurate, I’m sorry that happened to you. Is it possible you were offensive or inconsiderate in any way yourself?
The Tories have had the upper hand since 2010 and Brexit was narrowly approved, but on these boards there is no sense of victory or having any cultural sway among the mostly right-leaning, leaver commenters here. Do you blame Labour , hard-Awokened youth, or institutional elites for the state and direction of the country, but not the Tories or the finance crowd? Just wondering.
I hope Britain doesn’t become as hostile and divided as it is here. I think the long-covid disruption and other recent events have made most of us a little more impatient, hostile, and unhinged than our baseline average, at least much of the time. That’s my excuse.
*Probably not a very pertinent question because you’re British. Forgive me for placing my remarks in the context of the US and the Americas. Or don’t, your choice.
“I care about old books and old music and old traditions, and would not “cancel” or overthrow them without extreme cause, nor try to improve them more than incrementally and with attentive caution, in most cases.”
Look at what you’ve written. You believe you have the right to “improve” literature and music! But only with “extreme cause”, obviously. lol, lmao even.
Even the ‘good’ sort of Leftist gets in line behind their craziest coreligionist sooner or later. It doesn’t matter how sensitive, cultured and thoughtful they are – much to my surprise. I refer only to real people, not the phantoms haunting the sh!tlib imagination (your rude patriarch Orangeus Rex and his MAGAts). One wonders just how much more censorious you will be a decade from now.
Thank you so much for your interest in my wellbeing. On Friday the North African security guard at my local ‘grocery store’ handed me a bag of pastries as I was leaving. We often talk about perfume and he regularly anoints me with whatever perfume he has with him. Other shoppers must be quite confused. I recently sprayed him with a little Casbah by Robert Piguet, an intense fragrance which takes me back to al Buzuriyah souk in Damascus. As you know, perfume is a much more important part of life in MENA than the West. The new Mission Impossible film was great fun and had some interesting messages about men and women working together. In London you’ll notice young women are wearing pink blazers and miniskirts, presumably under the influence of Barbie. A very positive development – women look wonderful in bold colours. And it’s always satisfying to cook for people you love. In spite of the atrocious weather it was an excellent weekend. Yourself? One hopes you have at least one normal or conservative acquaintance with whom you can speak freely. It’s been my experience that Leftists are astonished there are people they can be truly open with – that being impossible among their own kind.
What punctilious fault finding. The improvement refers to tradition and institutions, not living artifacts of culture. Good Lord! I admit the phrasing was uncareful but that’s what I get for attempting to field and keep up with the torrent of outrage that comes from suggesting there are better and worse ideas and people on both sides of an over-magnified over-inflated political divide; always have been, and always will be. No side can or should win a full or permanent victory. We need innovation and we need tradition. Carefulness and openness too, etc.
Thank you for, I think, implying that I might among the “good Leftists”, at least on some days (before resuming your blanket tirade). But I am not a Leftist, unless anyone not solidly to the political right earns that easy label from you. The closest single self-label that I accept is Classical Liberal. Are you a Rightist?
I admit that many conservatives tend to be more amenable to open-ended and charitable good-faith exchanges and discussions than most progressives and many liberals–again, I see a real distinction there–in these times of ours. But I wouldn’t say you’ve shown yourself to be one of them thus far.
The rise of the illiberal Left is a real problem, a cultural phenomenon I oppose and am troubled by too. That doesn’t mean that you can simply choose the correct camp, Left, Middle, or Right, and never have to think again, conveniently reducing everything to an all-out binary (or tripartite) ideological war. I mean, you can, but is that wise?
Most of my friends and interlocutors are openminded and tend to be well to the right of the average Californian–in the Bay Area at least–like me. But there are fair-minded respectful people on the pretty far Left too (believe it!), despite the blind spots they tend to have, just like fair-minded people on the Right do–like all of us do. But there is very little open-mindedness or intellectual charity on either fringe. Internet subcultures and manipulative algorithms have made these warring extremisms much worse, both in numbers and amplification.
I’m not saying that you have to agree with me about anything, nor do I imagine I am right about everything. Anyone can observe that I too often act like a know-it-all (trying to quit), but I don’t actually imagine that I know it all. I request that you try to give me the benefit of the doubt, instead of the “doubt of the benefit”. I’ll try to do the same.
What punctilious fault finding. The improvement refers to tradition and institutions, not living artifacts of culture. Good Lord! I admit the phrasing was uncareful but that’s what I get for attempting to field and keep up with the torrent of outrage that comes from suggesting there are better and worse ideas and people on both sides of an over-magnified over-inflated political divide; always have been, and always will be. No side can or should win a full or permanent victory. We need innovation and we need tradition. Carefulness and openness too, etc.
Thank you for, I think, implying that I might among the “good Leftists”, at least on some days (before resuming your blanket tirade). But I am not a Leftist, unless anyone not solidly to the political right earns that easy label from you. The closest single self-label that I accept is Classical Liberal. Are you a Rightist?
I admit that many conservatives tend to be more amenable to open-ended and charitable good-faith exchanges and discussions than most progressives and many liberals–again, I see a real distinction there–in these times of ours. But I wouldn’t say you’ve shown yourself to be one of them thus far.
The rise of the illiberal Left is a real problem, a cultural phenomenon I oppose and am troubled by too. That doesn’t mean that you can simply choose the correct camp, Left, Middle, or Right, and never have to think again, conveniently reducing everything to an all-out binary (or tripartite) ideological war. I mean, you can, but is that wise?
Most of my friends and interlocutors are openminded and tend to be well to the right of the average Californian–in the Bay Area at least–like me. But there are fair-minded respectful people on the pretty far Left too (believe it!), despite the blind spots they tend to have, just like fair-minded people on the Right do–like all of us do. But there is very little open-mindedness or intellectual charity on either fringe. Internet subcultures and manipulative algorithms have made these warring extremisms much worse, both in numbers and amplification.
I’m not saying that you have to agree with me about anything, nor do I imagine I am right about everything. Anyone can observe that I too often act like a know-it-all (trying to quit), but I don’t actually imagine that I know it all. I request that you try to give me the benefit of the doubt, instead of the “doubt of the benefit”. I’ll try to do the same.
Really?
It was not me who cancelled my, former, friends for voting remain or believing covid bulshit.
It was other way round.
It is not the right which wants to impose views on people.
It is the left which wants us to believe in gender nonsense or that climate policies work or that mass immigration of low IQ savages from incompatible cultures nto the West is beneficial.
“I care about old books and old music and old traditions, and would not “cancel” or overthrow them without extreme cause, nor try to improve them more than incrementally and with attentive caution, in most cases.”
Look at what you’ve written. You believe you have the right to “improve” literature and music! But only with “extreme cause”, obviously. lol, lmao even.
Even the ‘good’ sort of Leftist gets in line behind their craziest coreligionist sooner or later. It doesn’t matter how sensitive, cultured and thoughtful they are – much to my surprise. I refer only to real people, not the phantoms haunting the sh!tlib imagination (your rude patriarch Orangeus Rex and his MAGAts). One wonders just how much more censorious you will be a decade from now.
Thank you so much for your interest in my wellbeing. On Friday the North African security guard at my local ‘grocery store’ handed me a bag of pastries as I was leaving. We often talk about perfume and he regularly anoints me with whatever perfume he has with him. Other shoppers must be quite confused. I recently sprayed him with a little Casbah by Robert Piguet, an intense fragrance which takes me back to al Buzuriyah souk in Damascus. As you know, perfume is a much more important part of life in MENA than the West. The new Mission Impossible film was great fun and had some interesting messages about men and women working together. In London you’ll notice young women are wearing pink blazers and miniskirts, presumably under the influence of Barbie. A very positive development – women look wonderful in bold colours. And it’s always satisfying to cook for people you love. In spite of the atrocious weather it was an excellent weekend. Yourself? One hopes you have at least one normal or conservative acquaintance with whom you can speak freely. It’s been my experience that Leftists are astonished there are people they can be truly open with – that being impossible among their own kind.
Hitler and Nazi Germany viewed the “Bolsheviks” as an existential threat. That justified anything including genocide. Find a scapegoat and you can rationalize anything against anyone. The only ones who can save us are moderate Democrats like RFK Jr. who can return the party to reality. He’s doing a fine job.
If you’re looking to be saved by a politician, then God help you. This may surprise you, but the astonishing inhumanity of the bolsheviks in Russia, and communist terrorists on the Continent, played no small role in why people were willing to take a chance on Hitler. White terror follows red.
If you’re looking to be saved by a politician, then God help you. This may surprise you, but the astonishing inhumanity of the bolsheviks in Russia, and communist terrorists on the Continent, played no small role in why people were willing to take a chance on Hitler. White terror follows red.
The Leftists(!!!) you describe do exist but they are mostly just voices in your head. Or perhaps unwelcome shadows in your mirror. They are about as common or representative as the stereotypical gargoyle-far-far-right-conservatives you seem to think all people on The Left find under every rock and in every vote they don’t like.
To be clear I am not a Leftist. Or will this forever war to the death no longer allow for any kind of a middle lane? I am an extreme moderate or radical centrist, a little to the left of the current national center as I perceive it , but not in every way. For example, I care about old books and old music and old traditions, and would not “cancel” or overthrow them without extreme cause, nor try to improve them more than incrementally and with attentive caution, in most cases. There will always be liberals, centrist, and conservatives, as well as people who are on the far fringes. No side or point on the spectrum–autistic or sociopolitical–holds all the good marbles.
Many of us could stand to be less willing to believe that the loudest fringe voices are representative of the prevailing view on the Other Side of a question or perspective. And to stop treating every thought, opinion, or even belief we have like unassailable truth. More people on “all sides” need to practice true self-reflection and self-correction. I’ve gotta go get busy with that and other things myself now.
Where are you? How are you? Have a blessed and self-reflective day, sir.
Hitler and Nazi Germany viewed the “Bolsheviks” as an existential threat. That justified anything including genocide. Find a scapegoat and you can rationalize anything against anyone. The only ones who can save us are moderate Democrats like RFK Jr. who can return the party to reality. He’s doing a fine job.
I’m sure you use his words to say whatever you want him to say.
I think the poster you are replying to is not necessarily describing all left-leaning people, just those that are so invested in their own mode of thinking that they no longer view those with different political opinions as decent human beings, but rather as gullible idiots at best or fa***sts at worse.
Leftists are terrible people. When you’re involved in conservative politics you meet people who appear to be leftists but who aren’t – they’re just loathsome people who seem out of place because the Left is the natural home of all sh!tty people. It’s easy to believe that vile people are attracted to the Left as a form of social camouflage, but that’s not the case. Leftists engage in negligible self-reflection. All of their analysis is outward-facing and their ‘conscience’ involves little self-recrimination and is mostly another tool to attack others. Only a Leftist can lie, cheat, steal and murder and feel morally superior. You cannot shame a Leftist – they really are a different type of human.
The manner in which Leftists are incapable of understanding others is akin to autism. The incessant Leftist invocation of Hitler’s second coming is not merely good politics – they believe it because every Leftist is a violent extremist, from the wettest ‘liberal’ to the most addled anarchist. The Left will never understand that people who are different to them aren’t champing at the bit to open concentration camps and massacre their neighbours – because that is what every Leftist wants (for the greater good, of course. And someone else will do the dirty work, obviously).
Agreed, and if it’s true we never agreed on reality and humanity got along OK for those thousands of years, why is it that we’re expected to agree now?
Trump challenged the political machine and threatened to ‘drain the swamp’. He had to go if the cosy arrangements for the elite to continue. It’s not unlikely that his current legal charges are part of preventing him from running again.
So your reality is a clean split in which everyone on one side of a binary left-right divide misreads humanity according to two abstract nouns: emotion and empathy.
That seems to leave the opposite qualities of rationality and distance for the group known as the right, or perhaps The Right.
So no emotionality on the right then. Hmm. And which qualities–if you had to choose–are nearer to the heart and message of Jesus, empathy or distance, passion or rationality?
*Perhaps those of you among the swarming downvoters who profess to, or do believe in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth–putting aside supernatural questions–can tell me whether he embraced or rejected compassion/empathy or emotion/passion, if you had to vote up or down, according to your own reading of the Gospels.
Jesus weeps.
Agreed, and if it’s true we never agreed on reality and humanity got along OK for those thousands of years, why is it that we’re expected to agree now?
Of course we can’t agree on reality – we never could. The left has a fundamental misreading of the human race based on emotion and empathy, which is I guess noble, but catastrophically misplaced. Leftism doesn’t help the people it claims to – eventually the money runs out. It often benefits the intellectuals that promote it though, which makes it obvious why they promote it so heavily.
Trump was one of those people who challenged the fundamental lie that is leftism, and deep down, that is why they hate him and why he keeps intellectuals awake at night. The rest is just fluff, despite Trump being his own worst enemy at times.
If you read Gaetano Mosca’s The Ruling Class you would have noted that a good ruling class promotes from the lower classes, not least because they need to know what’s going on below the top drawer. So they won’t get blindsided by some local yokel like Trump.
The fact that our US ruling class was completely blindsided and deranged by the Trump presidency and the movement he leads shows, to use a Brit phrase, that our ruling class is not fit for purpose.
I suggest that Adam Smith watch the movie American Friends about an Oxford prof being completely blindsided and deranged by a couple of American babes back in the olden time.
Excellent post. The political elite in the west is no longer fit for purpose. That’s why you get Trump in the US and the AfD in Germany.
It does seem like while there is intense, continuous screeching about sexism, racism, pride, etc etc, the real conflict point here is class.
Whether Trump or Brexit, the real problem is.the lower classes getting uppity and exercising their democratic rights.
It’s always been a class war….if the lower class blacks would recognize that they are not alone and that lower class whites, etc. have the same problems, they would recognize it. But God forbid that the actual cause be identified…so much easier to say racism or sexism….
Yes, there’s no snobbery worse than intellectual snobbery and it’s rife all over the western world.
The half of the younger population who went to university think that older people are inferior to them. That view is wrong – at least in Britain, where in 1970, only 10% could go to university: 5% of women and 15% of men. Nowadays that doesn’t mean that the extra 40% nowadays are more intelligent than the 40% who didn’t go. Far from it, those people have lived and worked through a lot (and have paid taxes for a long time). It actually makes a lot of them wiser and far more able to put fluctuations in world events into context in a way young people can’t yet do. The hard left relies on the votes of inexperienced people.
Demonisation of anyone right of centre is ignorant. There are always different ways to achieve what everyone wants, which is an end to poverty, a safe world and clean air.
All that said, I’ll never understand Trump’s appeal. It’s plain weird – and he IS a destabilising influence in the world.
If you don’t recognize Trump’s appeal, despite all his character flaws, then you’re probably one of the elites. It isn’t just age. Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell, Graham, etc. are not spring chickens.
If you don’t recognize Trump’s appeal, despite all his character flaws, then you’re probably one of the elites. It isn’t just age. Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell, Graham, etc. are not spring chickens.
Bingo.
That what it is about.
Lower orders stopped believing that globalisation, mass immigration and multi culti nonsense is good for them.
So top orders threw lefty grads in crap subjects few bones to chew on.
Gender, climate emergency, love all immigrants etc.
So they forget that wages are xrap, house prices exorbitant.
It’s always been a class war….if the lower class blacks would recognize that they are not alone and that lower class whites, etc. have the same problems, they would recognize it. But God forbid that the actual cause be identified…so much easier to say racism or sexism….
Yes, there’s no snobbery worse than intellectual snobbery and it’s rife all over the western world.
The half of the younger population who went to university think that older people are inferior to them. That view is wrong – at least in Britain, where in 1970, only 10% could go to university: 5% of women and 15% of men. Nowadays that doesn’t mean that the extra 40% nowadays are more intelligent than the 40% who didn’t go. Far from it, those people have lived and worked through a lot (and have paid taxes for a long time). It actually makes a lot of them wiser and far more able to put fluctuations in world events into context in a way young people can’t yet do. The hard left relies on the votes of inexperienced people.
Demonisation of anyone right of centre is ignorant. There are always different ways to achieve what everyone wants, which is an end to poverty, a safe world and clean air.
All that said, I’ll never understand Trump’s appeal. It’s plain weird – and he IS a destabilising influence in the world.
Bingo.
That what it is about.
Lower orders stopped believing that globalisation, mass immigration and multi culti nonsense is good for them.
So top orders threw lefty grads in crap subjects few bones to chew on.
Gender, climate emergency, love all immigrants etc.
So they forget that wages are xrap, house prices exorbitant.
That is why I started following Matt Taibbi. He was writing for Rolling Stone about the election in 2015 and was the only mainstream journalist who wrote about Trump supporters as actual individual people and who recognized that something new was happening. The entire rest of the MSM was just laughing at the idea that a bunch of red neck yokels could achieve anything. I mean – they don’t even have university degrees.
Indeed. I’m not so naive that I expect a ruling class to be benevolent and righteous. I’d settle for being lorded over competently, in a way that benefits me even tangentially. What we have now is a ruling class that seems both completely inept, while simultaneously maintaining an air of superiority and contempt toward the masses (basket of deplorables, clinging to guns and religion, don’t care about the % who don’t pay taxes, etc.), and embracing policies that benefit foreign citizens at the expense of the domestic working class. They are right to be afraid of Trump, even though he’s a con-man and a fraud of a populist. They should be more afraid of the next Trump, who might not be a bumbling incompetent. If I were them, I’d be using my wealth to build a bunker to hide in when the other shoe finally drops.
I am not sure either the US or UK have a “ruling class” or even a definable “establishment” anymore. Back in the 1950s both had cohesive establishments of a few hundred individuals mostly selected from the products of the Ivy League or Oxbridge whose collective view had enormous impact. Today it is more diffuse with far more individuals, companies and groups seeking influence. I suspect some of the increased incoherence and ineptitude that you comment on flows from this change. The “autistic arrogance” of the well educated and affluent is real but I suspect it is a separate if equally disagreeable phenomena.
RFK Jr. is their worst nightmare.
I am not sure either the US or UK have a “ruling class” or even a definable “establishment” anymore. Back in the 1950s both had cohesive establishments of a few hundred individuals mostly selected from the products of the Ivy League or Oxbridge whose collective view had enormous impact. Today it is more diffuse with far more individuals, companies and groups seeking influence. I suspect some of the increased incoherence and ineptitude that you comment on flows from this change. The “autistic arrogance” of the well educated and affluent is real but I suspect it is a separate if equally disagreeable phenomena.
RFK Jr. is their worst nightmare.
Excellent post. The political elite in the west is no longer fit for purpose. That’s why you get Trump in the US and the AfD in Germany.
It does seem like while there is intense, continuous screeching about sexism, racism, pride, etc etc, the real conflict point here is class.
Whether Trump or Brexit, the real problem is.the lower classes getting uppity and exercising their democratic rights.
That is why I started following Matt Taibbi. He was writing for Rolling Stone about the election in 2015 and was the only mainstream journalist who wrote about Trump supporters as actual individual people and who recognized that something new was happening. The entire rest of the MSM was just laughing at the idea that a bunch of red neck yokels could achieve anything. I mean – they don’t even have university degrees.
Indeed. I’m not so naive that I expect a ruling class to be benevolent and righteous. I’d settle for being lorded over competently, in a way that benefits me even tangentially. What we have now is a ruling class that seems both completely inept, while simultaneously maintaining an air of superiority and contempt toward the masses (basket of deplorables, clinging to guns and religion, don’t care about the % who don’t pay taxes, etc.), and embracing policies that benefit foreign citizens at the expense of the domestic working class. They are right to be afraid of Trump, even though he’s a con-man and a fraud of a populist. They should be more afraid of the next Trump, who might not be a bumbling incompetent. If I were them, I’d be using my wealth to build a bunker to hide in when the other shoe finally drops.
If you read Gaetano Mosca’s The Ruling Class you would have noted that a good ruling class promotes from the lower classes, not least because they need to know what’s going on below the top drawer. So they won’t get blindsided by some local yokel like Trump.
The fact that our US ruling class was completely blindsided and deranged by the Trump presidency and the movement he leads shows, to use a Brit phrase, that our ruling class is not fit for purpose.
I suggest that Adam Smith watch the movie American Friends about an Oxford prof being completely blindsided and deranged by a couple of American babes back in the olden time.
Democrats are scared that Trump is a threat to American democracy.
He has to go. They will fabricate evidence of Russian collusion. They will produce absurd claims to try to stop Trump’s election of Supreme Court judges. They will invade the Capitol and disrupt congress meetings and have to be arrested in their hundreds so proceedings can continue.
But they would never use dubious methods to increase the number of votes, even if they spent a large part of 2020 changing the voting rules to make that very thing much easier.
For example, witnesses for mail-in votes?
‘Minnesota eliminated the witness signature requirement for its primary, and this has been extended for the general election, too.
The witness requirement was waived for the primary in South Carolina, and a federal judge ruled on Friday that it will not be required for the general election either, citing how severe the pandemic is as the reasoning.’
And, of course, states changed the laws so that mail-in ballots would still be counted , even if there was no postmark and it was received days after the election.
But despite changing the laws to make voter fraud legal, there was no voter fraud. How could there be? It is not fraud if it is legal.
In fact, there was not a single case of voter fraud in the entire 2020 election. Not one! Fancy that! The election was ‘the most secure in history’.
More blacks “voted” for Biden than Obama. Right. Anyone with common sense knows what travesty was pulled on the American voting public. Just like COVID having zoonotic origins despite originating two miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. How do you reach common ground on “truth” when obvious realities are disputed?
More blacks “voted” for Biden than Obama. Right. Anyone with common sense knows what travesty was pulled on the American voting public. Just like COVID having zoonotic origins despite originating two miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. How do you reach common ground on “truth” when obvious realities are disputed?
Democrats are scared that Trump is a threat to American democracy.
He has to go. They will fabricate evidence of Russian collusion. They will produce absurd claims to try to stop Trump’s election of Supreme Court judges. They will invade the Capitol and disrupt congress meetings and have to be arrested in their hundreds so proceedings can continue.
But they would never use dubious methods to increase the number of votes, even if they spent a large part of 2020 changing the voting rules to make that very thing much easier.
For example, witnesses for mail-in votes?
‘Minnesota eliminated the witness signature requirement for its primary, and this has been extended for the general election, too.
The witness requirement was waived for the primary in South Carolina, and a federal judge ruled on Friday that it will not be required for the general election either, citing how severe the pandemic is as the reasoning.’
And, of course, states changed the laws so that mail-in ballots would still be counted , even if there was no postmark and it was received days after the election.
But despite changing the laws to make voter fraud legal, there was no voter fraud. How could there be? It is not fraud if it is legal.
In fact, there was not a single case of voter fraud in the entire 2020 election. Not one! Fancy that! The election was ‘the most secure in history’.
What persuaded me about the 2020 “steal” was Patrick Basham’s article, Reasons why the 2020 presidential election is deeply puzzling. This is an extract:
I would like to have the whole article argued line by line, but that is never going to happen is it?
Of course all those irregularities are precisely the point. And the reason that close to 50% of the country believe the election was stolen is precisely because these irregularities were never investigated and the elites have simply continue to say “move on, nothing to see here”. Now it could well be that the irregularities were not sufficient to alter the election, but in the absence of a proper investigation which the courts refused to allow to take place owing to lack of standing (i.e. not sufficient time to try the case before the certification deadlines), many people believe that the election was a mess. And simply recounting votes doesn’t do any good if those votes are fraudulent.
This, of course, is the whole crux of the matter. Unfortunately, the courts refused to allow cases to proceed owing to lack of standing, based on the fact that there wasn’t enough time to complete this until the certification deadlines came to pass. This is obviously a truly Kafkaesque situation. The net result is that close to half the country believes the election was irregular and probably stolen (which wouldn’t exactly be the first time in US history).
Now whether the irregularities in those 3 states was sufficient to swing the election the other way is a whole other matter. But what is for certain is claiming that recounts and so-called audits failed to show anything up is nonsense. It was not the counting of the votes that was at an issue, but rather whether a significant number of votes was fraudulent.
Personally, what boggles the mind is how Biden could have garnered far more votes than Obama (a truly charismatic character for better or worse) while not being able to attract more than about 20 people at any of his very small number of rallies and spending most of his time sitting in his basement uttering complete gibberish and eating ice cream. Trump, on the other hand, was attracting overflow crowds to his rallies. Just a little weird. But perhaps, in these days of cognitive dissonance, where every small variation in the weather is equated to global boiling, perhaps it is not impossible, especially if sufficient people have been appropriately brainwashed and are no longer capable of critical thinking.
The only plausible neutrally stated explanation is that the Democrat political operatives and their financial and media backers focused their efforts on 3/4 states, Pa, Mi, Wi, Az. In fact 3/4 cities, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Phoenix. Ignoring Oh and Fl, swing states that swung towards Trump (or did their efforts not work there?) They also made little effort, naturally, in very safe states (Ca and NY the largest) which also moved slightly towards Trump.
The real question is this. What was the nature of those special efforts. They are trumpeted in the Time Magazine long article that describes the ‘protection’ of the vote and the ‘saving’ of the election. But the precise ways in which the votes were ‘harvested’ are never spelled out. Were they legal? Constitutional? Licit but smelly?
Of course all those irregularities are precisely the point. And the reason that close to 50% of the country believe the election was stolen is precisely because these irregularities were never investigated and the elites have simply continue to say “move on, nothing to see here”. Now it could well be that the irregularities were not sufficient to alter the election, but in the absence of a proper investigation which the courts refused to allow to take place owing to lack of standing (i.e. not sufficient time to try the case before the certification deadlines), many people believe that the election was a mess. And simply recounting votes doesn’t do any good if those votes are fraudulent.
This, of course, is the whole crux of the matter. Unfortunately, the courts refused to allow cases to proceed owing to lack of standing, based on the fact that there wasn’t enough time to complete this until the certification deadlines came to pass. This is obviously a truly Kafkaesque situation. The net result is that close to half the country believes the election was irregular and probably stolen (which wouldn’t exactly be the first time in US history).
Now whether the irregularities in those 3 states was sufficient to swing the election the other way is a whole other matter. But what is for certain is claiming that recounts and so-called audits failed to show anything up is nonsense. It was not the counting of the votes that was at an issue, but rather whether a significant number of votes was fraudulent.
Personally, what boggles the mind is how Biden could have garnered far more votes than Obama (a truly charismatic character for better or worse) while not being able to attract more than about 20 people at any of his very small number of rallies and spending most of his time sitting in his basement uttering complete gibberish and eating ice cream. Trump, on the other hand, was attracting overflow crowds to his rallies. Just a little weird. But perhaps, in these days of cognitive dissonance, where every small variation in the weather is equated to global boiling, perhaps it is not impossible, especially if sufficient people have been appropriately brainwashed and are no longer capable of critical thinking.
The only plausible neutrally stated explanation is that the Democrat political operatives and their financial and media backers focused their efforts on 3/4 states, Pa, Mi, Wi, Az. In fact 3/4 cities, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Phoenix. Ignoring Oh and Fl, swing states that swung towards Trump (or did their efforts not work there?) They also made little effort, naturally, in very safe states (Ca and NY the largest) which also moved slightly towards Trump.
The real question is this. What was the nature of those special efforts. They are trumpeted in the Time Magazine long article that describes the ‘protection’ of the vote and the ‘saving’ of the election. But the precise ways in which the votes were ‘harvested’ are never spelled out. Were they legal? Constitutional? Licit but smelly?
What persuaded me about the 2020 “steal” was Patrick Basham’s article, Reasons why the 2020 presidential election is deeply puzzling. This is an extract:
I would like to have the whole article argued line by line, but that is never going to happen is it?
What a supremely naïve, pompous and confused essay. It is undeniable that the US is in the middle of a second civil war, and that the nature of that war is information. But it’s not being played out as a battle between truth vs. lies. Trump is neither a hero or the Antichrist. It’s in the interests of both “sides” to convince people that this is the only choice of perspective. Anyone willing to open their eyes wide enough and think critically can see that the weapons we are dealing with are different cages of propagandised sound bites designed to trap and pull people further and further into purposely designed unrealities. Powerful people retain power by persuading the plebs that there are different sides to be chosen and fought for (a version of the Hegelian dialect). The truth is, the battle is between “us” (regular people) and “them” (those who hold power). Trump is not our friend. Biden is not our friend. Putin is not our friend. Zelensky is not our friend. Musk is definitely not our friend. Anyone with a lot of money and power is invested ONLY in keeping the status quo, and they do that by making us fight amongst ourselves. The more people start to understand what is really going on, the more likely we might see the rise of a modern Peasants’ Revolt. Already the public are fighting back and winning against CCTV surveillance and parking fines. It’s a impressive start. The most critical fight must be against Digital ID. If they succeed in implementing that, it’s game over until the Internet is destroyed and we enter the post-digital age.
What a supremely naïve, pompous and confused essay. It is undeniable that the US is in the middle of a second civil war, and that the nature of that war is information. But it’s not being played out as a battle between truth vs. lies. Trump is neither a hero or the Antichrist. It’s in the interests of both “sides” to convince people that this is the only choice of perspective. Anyone willing to open their eyes wide enough and think critically can see that the weapons we are dealing with are different cages of propagandised sound bites designed to trap and pull people further and further into purposely designed unrealities. Powerful people retain power by persuading the plebs that there are different sides to be chosen and fought for (a version of the Hegelian dialect). The truth is, the battle is between “us” (regular people) and “them” (those who hold power). Trump is not our friend. Biden is not our friend. Putin is not our friend. Zelensky is not our friend. Musk is definitely not our friend. Anyone with a lot of money and power is invested ONLY in keeping the status quo, and they do that by making us fight amongst ourselves. The more people start to understand what is really going on, the more likely we might see the rise of a modern Peasants’ Revolt. Already the public are fighting back and winning against CCTV surveillance and parking fines. It’s a impressive start. The most critical fight must be against Digital ID. If they succeed in implementing that, it’s game over until the Internet is destroyed and we enter the post-digital age.
Hopefully your confession about your own (self-admitted) Trump derangement syndrome was therapeutic for you, but it was far from convincing on this end.
And I say this as someone that has never voted for him nor ever will.
Hopefully your confession about your own (self-admitted) Trump derangement syndrome was therapeutic for you, but it was far from convincing on this end.
And I say this as someone that has never voted for him nor ever will.
Maybe it is the times we live in, but I find most academics to be as disingenuous as politicians: They just use longer sentences.
Maybe it is the times we live in, but I find most academics to be as disingenuous as politicians: They just use longer sentences.
Ultimately Trump happened to you for the same reason that Brexit happened to the British metropolitan class: you got too greedy.
Ultimately Trump happened to you for the same reason that Brexit happened to the British metropolitan class: you got too greedy.
For a Professor of history, Dr. Smith is remarkably loose with the facts. He states “even down to encouraging an armed crowd to go to the Capitol on January 6”. How far can one go down an altered reality to state this. The crowd was NOT armed. The only person killed was a veteran, Ashley Babbit, who was shot by a black policeman at point blank range because he panicked and yet he never suffered the consequences. Just imagine if it had been a white policeman who had shot a black woman at point blank range.
The good professor should realize that there are more guns in the US than people, and had the crowd been armed, the halls of congress would have been torn down brick by brick just as the Bastille was on July 14, 1789.
Incidentally, the footage within Congress showed that the protestors were in fact very peaceful and were led around by a compliant police. That’s why Shaman man was let out of jail because in fact he was wrongfully prosecuted.
As for Pence, he really was a coward. He should have refused to certify the election until such time as all irregularities were properly and fully investigated and those investigations were completely above board. Failure to do so has led to a situation that has divided the country.
The ‘policeman’ concerned was one Lt Michael Byrd, whom I gather was subsequently decorated for gallantry!
Incidentally it was Ms ASHLI BABBITT.
Mr. Strauss, I challenge you, Mr. Stanhope, and anyone else that thinks this event was mostly peaceful to watch these 5 minutes of video “highlights” from January 6th, 2021. Judge for yourself. A mere 5 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXnHIJkZZAs
It may come as a complete surprise to you, but in an earlier life I had considerable experience of dealing with “full on violence”, as we know call it, against a number of recalcitrant peoples.
Well, thanks for the clip but I actually thought that this was a pretty low grade riot! Actually more reminiscent of an unruly English football crowd. Lets say 3 out 10.
Where were the plethora of petrol bombs, the myriad of rocks, stones mixed in with bottles of acid? Ultimately backed up by high and low velocity gunfire? Plus the hordes of screaming, decidedly ugly, foul mouthed women? Where also the retaliatory rubber bullets, CS gas and Water Cannons, Searchlights, Sirens etc?
All in all NEITHER side looked like it could “knock the skin of a rice pudding” as ‘we’ would say.
Finally I note that they clip of ‘hero’ Lt Michael Byrd, shooting unarmed Ms Ashli Babbitt at point blank range and in cold blood had been omitted! Why?
Because the footage is biased toward the rioters wrongdoing, and shows much of the worst of it (though not what some wanted to do, thankfully). Understandably so, but also worth pointing out. A legitimate point on your part but becoming a bit of a reductive fixation for you I think. Not as much of the story as you seem to suggest, but the shooting of Babbitt was tragic and unjustifiable, I agree (I watched it too, I think on the same day it happened). But do you contend that the members of the mob calling for the heads of Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, from inside the Capitol, didn’t mean it?
I’m surprised that given the circumstances and location you wouldn’t bump it up it to at 5 or 6 or more, but at least you’ve “upgraded” it from “fracas”. Thank you for indulging me. My respect.
The ‘body count’ was far too low to give it any more than 3 at most, in my opinion.
As personal aside these things were also much more fun if conducted after dark!
Interesting to know that in an “earlier life” your malevolent or sadistic side was put into real-world practice. Much more fun huh? Wretched.
Surprised? Not really. A bit sickened and negatively impressed by your evident glee in violence or death directed in the direction(s) you approve, here and elsewhere on these boards.
*But I have a menacing and even a malicious streak in me too (hope no one’s noticed). And since it’s kind of my policy now–if not always my practice–I’ll continue to look for the upside in your perspective, enjoying your historical “fun facts” and caustic wit when I can.
You have to make the best of things in this life however grim they maybe.
For example you may either take say Wilfred Owen’s view of The Great War, or indeed that of Ernst Jünger, which is almost diametrically opposed to it.
I happen to prefer the latter. There is nothing malevolent or sadistic about it, it is just a question of morale and making light of adversity, however you can.
Finally, and I do not wish to be rude, but until you have actually been in the situations that I have, you are in no position to judge.
Nonsense. I can judge your glee, and eagerness, and lack of forethought or regret (as expressed, I can’t see within or through you, of course). And I do.
You judge all sorts of historical and present-day situations and people with something equivalent to an up or down vote. In many cases you haven’t comparable experience or demonstrated evidence as to how you would act either. And yet you judge. Nor would you tend to imagine you were not in a position to do so, I suspect. Right?
That said, “sadistic” was a bit far in this instance, I admit. I can’t quite read your tone nor see how much you might be winking, if at all, in digital text. But you did refer to the fun of violence and one-sidedly express grief for Ms. Babbitt while minimizing the living heck out of every other real and intended menace on Jan 6th.
A deliberate, cheeky provocation from my point of view, Mr. Stanhope, however important and knowledgeable you may be.
Then again, to be more fair you often do provide historical perspective and insight, not merely “fun facts”. And your wit can be cheerful or fun, not merely mean or “caustic”.
I hope you are doing well. I’ll turn my evaluating and pleading gaze to others now. And maybe look in the mirror too.
A skilful attempt to sidestep the Ashli Babbitt issue but I must reiterate that that was far and away the most appalling event perpetrated on the 6th January.
For an Officer of the State to blatantly kill in cold blood an unarmed, hysterical woman, inside the haloed Capitol Building and to do it on film, requires maliciousness of a very high order indeed. For the State then to reward him for ‘gallantry’ almost defies belief!
Suffice to say had Lt Byrd attempted that stunt inside the Palace of Westminster he would be facing many years confinement at His Majesty’s Pleasure, as we say.
What I and no doubt you to may also find odd, is how many people seem to completely jettison their moral compass over certain issues or individuals.
Ashli Babbitt being a prime example, but also the names Trump, or over here Farage, seem to drive people apoplectic with rage and thus sadly demean themselves.
As an aside, unlike many Americans, you seem to have understood our use of irony, no doubt some of your possibly ill spent youth was squandered over here?
Finally you upbraided me for using the word “fun”, when dealing with ‘civil disobedience’ etc.
It was idle of me, and I should have qualified that remark by saying it was ‘exhilarating’ and thus fun, particularly when you are young and without a care in the world.
Well better stop boring the rest of UnHerd, but let me say how much I have enjoyed our convivial chat!
Sidestepping you say. You are foregrounding that single wrongful death–though all lives matter of course–to the point of monomania. Rather like the histrionic fools who made George Floyd’s wrongful death (about which I recall you were dismissive to say the least) into an excuse to riot and wail in the public square in sackcloth and ashes for months.
If you must assign your brand of irony to your sceptered isle alone, you can chalk it up to my study of English Literature and years in Canada where the queen, and now the king, are still on the money. Also, while I remain capable of gullibility and scoldish outrage in my 50s, I am not insensible to instruction yet either.
And must say I don’t think one has to be an obtuse or puritanical American to be a little bristled or brushed back by some of your breezy self-exhilarations.
But at least you are sharp, independent of mind, and far from humourless. Cheers.
Salve!
Well we can certainly agree on the demise of the late, and very strangely lamented GF!
Another absurdity as I now recall was that on that fateful day, the 6th January another Capitol Policeman died. At the time it was claimed he had been beaten to death with a large fire extinguisher! Subsequently he was given a quasi full-state funeral, his catafalque lying directly beneath the Capitol Dome itself, whilst the ‘Queen of Botox’, otherwise known as Nancy Pelosi* oversaw the mawkish proceedings!
Later it emerged, somewhat quietly, that the said Policeman had died of natural causes! Oh dear!
Well I think we may have to move on to how the Romans ran their astonishing ‘Extortion Courts’, just to add some light relief!
Vale!
(* Where on earth did she come from?)
See you on the “eternal” next board, sir.
See you on the “eternal” next board, sir.
Salve!
Well we can certainly agree on the demise of the late, and very strangely lamented GF!
Another absurdity as I now recall was that on that fateful day, the 6th January another Capitol Policeman died. At the time it was claimed he had been beaten to death with a large fire extinguisher! Subsequently he was given a quasi full-state funeral, his catafalque lying directly beneath the Capitol Dome itself, whilst the ‘Queen of Botox’, otherwise known as Nancy Pelosi* oversaw the mawkish proceedings!
Later it emerged, somewhat quietly, that the said Policeman had died of natural causes! Oh dear!
Well I think we may have to move on to how the Romans ran their astonishing ‘Extortion Courts’, just to add some light relief!
Vale!
(* Where on earth did she come from?)
Sidestepping you say. You are foregrounding that single wrongful death–though all lives matter of course–to the point of monomania. Rather like the histrionic fools who made George Floyd’s wrongful death (about which I recall you were dismissive to say the least) into an excuse to riot and wail in the public square in sackcloth and ashes for months.
If you must assign your brand of irony to your sceptered isle alone, you can chalk it up to my study of English Literature and years in Canada where the queen, and now the king, are still on the money. Also, while I remain capable of gullibility and scoldish outrage in my 50s, I am not insensible to instruction yet either.
And must say I don’t think one has to be an obtuse or puritanical American to be a little bristled or brushed back by some of your breezy self-exhilarations.
But at least you are sharp, independent of mind, and far from humourless. Cheers.
A skilful attempt to sidestep the Ashli Babbitt issue but I must reiterate that that was far and away the most appalling event perpetrated on the 6th January.
For an Officer of the State to blatantly kill in cold blood an unarmed, hysterical woman, inside the haloed Capitol Building and to do it on film, requires maliciousness of a very high order indeed. For the State then to reward him for ‘gallantry’ almost defies belief!
Suffice to say had Lt Byrd attempted that stunt inside the Palace of Westminster he would be facing many years confinement at His Majesty’s Pleasure, as we say.
What I and no doubt you to may also find odd, is how many people seem to completely jettison their moral compass over certain issues or individuals.
Ashli Babbitt being a prime example, but also the names Trump, or over here Farage, seem to drive people apoplectic with rage and thus sadly demean themselves.
As an aside, unlike many Americans, you seem to have understood our use of irony, no doubt some of your possibly ill spent youth was squandered over here?
Finally you upbraided me for using the word “fun”, when dealing with ‘civil disobedience’ etc.
It was idle of me, and I should have qualified that remark by saying it was ‘exhilarating’ and thus fun, particularly when you are young and without a care in the world.
Well better stop boring the rest of UnHerd, but let me say how much I have enjoyed our convivial chat!
(My longer reply may or may not post within twelve hours, but my central points: Making light of or playing upothers’adversity, and in a one-sided way, is a bit different than resilient pluck. And while we should all forbear to judge harshly, lest be we judged accordingly, you judge past and present situations and people quite freely, whether you have any equivalent experience or evidence of how you’d act or not. I feel entitled to respond to your sometimes gleeful or cheeky tone, and your deliberate provocations. Though I probably shouldn’t. I hope you are well and I’ll turn my judgmental gaze elsewhere now. And maybe check the mirror too.) *first reply postedNonsense. I can judge your glee, and eagerness, and lack of forethought or regret (as expressed, I can’t see within or through you, of course). And I do.
You judge all sorts of historical and present-day situations and people with something equivalent to an up or down vote. In many cases you haven’t comparable experience or demonstrated evidence as to how you would act either. And yet you judge. Nor would you tend to imagine you were not in a position to do so, I suspect. Right?
That said, “sadistic” was a bit far in this instance, I admit. I can’t quite read your tone nor see how much you might be winking, if at all, in digital text. But you did refer to the fun of violence and one-sidedly express grief for Ms. Babbitt while minimizing the living heck out of every other real and intended menace on Jan 6th.
A deliberate, cheeky provocation from my point of view, Mr. Stanhope, however important and knowledgeable you may be.
Then again, to be more fair you often do provide historical perspective and insight, not merely “fun facts”. And your wit can be cheerful or fun, not merely mean or “caustic”.
I hope you are doing well. I’ll turn my evaluating and pleading gaze to others now. And maybe look in the mirror too.
(My longer reply may or may not post within twelve hours, but my central points: Making light of or playing upothers’adversity, and in a one-sided way, is a bit different than resilient pluck. And while we should all forbear to judge harshly, lest be we judged accordingly, you judge past and present situations and people quite freely, whether you have any equivalent experience or evidence of how you’d act or not. I feel entitled to respond to your sometimes gleeful or cheeky tone, and your deliberate provocations. Though I probably shouldn’t. I hope you are well and I’ll turn my judgmental gaze elsewhere now. And maybe check the mirror too.) *first reply postedYou have to make the best of things in this life however grim they maybe.
For example you may either take say Wilfred Owen’s view of The Great War, or indeed that of Ernst Jünger, which is almost diametrically opposed to it.
I happen to prefer the latter. There is nothing malevolent or sadistic about it, it is just a question of morale and making light of adversity, however you can.
Finally, and I do not wish to be rude, but until you have actually been in the situations that I have, you are in no position to judge.
Interesting to know that in an “earlier life” your malevolent or sadistic side was put into real-world practice. Much more fun huh? Wretched.
Surprised? Not really. A bit sickened and negatively impressed by your evident glee in violence or death directed in the direction(s) you approve, here and elsewhere on these boards.
*But I have a menacing and even a malicious streak in me too (hope no one’s noticed). And since it’s kind of my policy now–if not always my practice–I’ll continue to look for the upside in your perspective, enjoying your historical “fun facts” and caustic wit when I can.
Strange how BLM scumbags burning buildings or worse are never part of the narrative?
Encouraged by current leaders of “Democratic” party.
That’s a very general, unsubstantiated claim. Which Democrat leaders “supported” it and how? Certainly each side, “R” and “D” alike, has their preferred bad actors, who seem to them incomparably less to blame than the Other Side.
I don’t support or defend any of the 2020 riots and violence connected to the George Floyd protests. But should every Jan. 6th forcible vote-cancellation attempt story need to “whatabout” BLM?
There’s plenty of self-serving narrative on both sides, whichever story’s your favorite.
That’s a very general, unsubstantiated claim. Which Democrat leaders “supported” it and how? Certainly each side, “R” and “D” alike, has their preferred bad actors, who seem to them incomparably less to blame than the Other Side.
I don’t support or defend any of the 2020 riots and violence connected to the George Floyd protests. But should every Jan. 6th forcible vote-cancellation attempt story need to “whatabout” BLM?
There’s plenty of self-serving narrative on both sides, whichever story’s your favorite.
The ‘body count’ was far too low to give it any more than 3 at most, in my opinion.
As personal aside these things were also much more fun if conducted after dark!
Strange how BLM scumbags burning buildings or worse are never part of the narrative?
Encouraged by current leaders of “Democratic” party.
Because the footage is biased toward the rioters wrongdoing, and shows much of the worst of it (though not what some wanted to do, thankfully). Understandably so, but also worth pointing out. A legitimate point on your part but becoming a bit of a reductive fixation for you I think. Not as much of the story as you seem to suggest, but the shooting of Babbitt was tragic and unjustifiable, I agree (I watched it too, I think on the same day it happened). But do you contend that the members of the mob calling for the heads of Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, from inside the Capitol, didn’t mean it?
I’m surprised that given the circumstances and location you wouldn’t bump it up it to at 5 or 6 or more, but at least you’ve “upgraded” it from “fracas”. Thank you for indulging me. My respect.
The violence is not surprising to those who understand the instability of a mob. In this case a noisy crowd became a mob after flash bangs were tossed into a packed crowd. Along with rubber bullets, the crowd became a mob. The mob was turned into a riot by people with bull horns urging them into the capitol. Once inside some the mob became quieter and some even in awe at the place – tourists by then.
How much of that was engineered?
A charged-up mob is inherently unstable. Not that I’m trying to demand it but: Did you watch those five minutes of footage? Some of the mob did become calmer, in awe as you say, while a few made themselves at home or performed naughty schoolboy type pranks. But many remained rowdy and intent on mayhem, with a faction that truly intended to perform summary executions from their enemies list.
The breach of the Capitol was planned by various far right groups, the crowd frenzy was enabled by Trump and fomented by the rowdiest and loudest among the rioters. But “engineered”? Do you mean staged? If that’s what you’re suggesting (and I’m not sure it is) than I think that’s seeing what you need or want to see rather than the video and audio evidence.
What are these federal convictions and prison sentences born of: Doctored video or playacting? (Again, perhaps I misunderstood you).
A charged-up mob is inherently unstable. Not that I’m trying to demand it but: Did you watch those five minutes of footage? Some of the mob did become calmer, in awe as you say, while a few made themselves at home or performed naughty schoolboy type pranks. But many remained rowdy and intent on mayhem, with a faction that truly intended to perform summary executions from their enemies list.
The breach of the Capitol was planned by various far right groups, the crowd frenzy was enabled by Trump and fomented by the rowdiest and loudest among the rioters. But “engineered”? Do you mean staged? If that’s what you’re suggesting (and I’m not sure it is) than I think that’s seeing what you need or want to see rather than the video and audio evidence.
What are these federal convictions and prison sentences born of: Doctored video or playacting? (Again, perhaps I misunderstood you).
It may come as a complete surprise to you, but in an earlier life I had considerable experience of dealing with “full on violence”, as we know call it, against a number of recalcitrant peoples.
Well, thanks for the clip but I actually thought that this was a pretty low grade riot! Actually more reminiscent of an unruly English football crowd. Lets say 3 out 10.
Where were the plethora of petrol bombs, the myriad of rocks, stones mixed in with bottles of acid? Ultimately backed up by high and low velocity gunfire? Plus the hordes of screaming, decidedly ugly, foul mouthed women? Where also the retaliatory rubber bullets, CS gas and Water Cannons, Searchlights, Sirens etc?
All in all NEITHER side looked like it could “knock the skin of a rice pudding” as ‘we’ would say.
Finally I note that they clip of ‘hero’ Lt Michael Byrd, shooting unarmed Ms Ashli Babbitt at point blank range and in cold blood had been omitted! Why?
The violence is not surprising to those who understand the instability of a mob. In this case a noisy crowd became a mob after flash bangs were tossed into a packed crowd. Along with rubber bullets, the crowd became a mob. The mob was turned into a riot by people with bull horns urging them into the capitol. Once inside some the mob became quieter and some even in awe at the place – tourists by then.
How much of that was engineered?
Is see you are as reliable on US history as you are on COVID.
The ‘policeman’ concerned was one Lt Michael Byrd, whom I gather was subsequently decorated for gallantry!
Incidentally it was Ms ASHLI BABBITT.
Mr. Strauss, I challenge you, Mr. Stanhope, and anyone else that thinks this event was mostly peaceful to watch these 5 minutes of video “highlights” from January 6th, 2021. Judge for yourself. A mere 5 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXnHIJkZZAs
Is see you are as reliable on US history as you are on COVID.
For a Professor of history, Dr. Smith is remarkably loose with the facts. He states “even down to encouraging an armed crowd to go to the Capitol on January 6”. How far can one go down an altered reality to state this. The crowd was NOT armed. The only person killed was a veteran, Ashley Babbit, who was shot by a black policeman at point blank range because he panicked and yet he never suffered the consequences. Just imagine if it had been a white policeman who had shot a black woman at point blank range.
The good professor should realize that there are more guns in the US than people, and had the crowd been armed, the halls of congress would have been torn down brick by brick just as the Bastille was on July 14, 1789.
Incidentally, the footage within Congress showed that the protestors were in fact very peaceful and were led around by a compliant police. That’s why Shaman man was let out of jail because in fact he was wrongfully prosecuted.
As for Pence, he really was a coward. He should have refused to certify the election until such time as all irregularities were properly and fully investigated and those investigations were completely above board. Failure to do so has led to a situation that has divided the country.
The author and his friends should consider how much better they would feel now if Trump had won in 2020. He would now be in the lame-duck phase of this final term and they would be looking forward to a “normal” election – probably with a new generation of Democrats to fight out the primaries. They might have also had a secure southern border and no war in Ukraine to boot!
Instead they got 4 years of Biden and Trump is back!
Haha brilliant! Be careful what you wish for.
Brilliant!
This cannot be emphasised enough.
Haha brilliant! Be careful what you wish for.
Brilliant!
This cannot be emphasised enough.
The author and his friends should consider how much better they would feel now if Trump had won in 2020. He would now be in the lame-duck phase of this final term and they would be looking forward to a “normal” election – probably with a new generation of Democrats to fight out the primaries. They might have also had a secure southern border and no war in Ukraine to boot!
Instead they got 4 years of Biden and Trump is back!
If you think there was no cheating in the 2020 election, then the events at the Capitol look like an attempt to overthrow the election. If you think there was cheating in the 2020 election, then the events at the Capitol were an earnest attempt to prevent cheats from stealing the election. Both sides saw (and still see – c36% still believe 2020 was illegitimate) themselves protecting America and protecting American institutions.
After 2016, when Democrats protested and tried to overturn that election (p***y hats) and tried to undermine the Trump presidency with fake documents, 2020 was always going to be contested, whoever won. The change of rules on mail-in voting and dropboxes due to covid, the large swings because of the preference for in-person voting by Republicans and mail-in voting by Democrats. And made worse by the huge number of votes (Trump won the most votes ever by an incumbent – but still lost), and the slim margins in a handful of contested states. The election and election oversight itself needed to be impeccably transparent to overcome the partisanship on both sides, and in the rush to declare the vote, it wasn’t.
To the Trump-side it was another part of a very clear double standards on justice. The whatabouts matter, because one side got a pass and protection, able to destroy evidence, make up false claims, censor bad news, and the other gets a DOJ willing to breach existing standards on executive privilege, lawyer-client confidentiality, even with judges turning into prosecutors.
And they understand this isn’t really about Trump – it really isn’t – he actually doesn’t matter in this. He’s the lightening conductor where all the energy is focused. But once he’s gone, the administrative state is coming after them. If you’re not voting for the ‘right’ party, free speech has been removed, free access to money removed, freedom of conscious removed, the law protects criminals, compelled speech is being enforced, wars just ‘happen’ without voter oversight, industries are being closed down and prices will rise to make the world ‘green’. The anti-technocracy views will still remain, as they also do in Europe and elsewhere, and someone else will emerge.
The key tell is freedom of speech – authoritarians hate freedom of speech. If you’ve stopped believing in freedom of speech, and freedom of the press (think Assange) and that the state should control its citizens, and not the other way around, then perhaps you’ve moved to the wrong side. Justice needs to be blind. There needs to be fair and due process. Politics cannot be solved by prosecuting your enemies with lawfare.
I agree with most of it apart from Assange.
He tried to escape justice by hiding in foreign embassy.
Julian Assange received a leak of accurate information from a whistleblower inside the US military. Just the same as Woodward and Bernstein did. He then worked with very proper newspapers to publish that information and tried to work with the Pentagon to redact any information which might place specific individuals in harms way.
.
The information he disseminated revealed important truths about the conduct of the Iraq war – including several war crimes. The Pentagon has never cited a single instance in which his publications placed US personnel in harm’s way. This is the very definition of the type of legitimate whistle blowing that is protected under the US constitution.
.
Moreover, he is not a US citizen and he was not on US soil at the time his actions were undertaken. This is an almost perfect example of a political prosecution and, it is worth mentioning, most legal theory holds that you cannot be extradited for political crimes. That doctrine is the entire basis of political refugee status.
.
To seek sanctuary in a foreign embassy – since he could not reach foreign soil was therefore his legitimate right.
.
And, finally, since it is now uncontested that his conversations with his lawyers were eavesdropped by the CIA whilst he was in the Ecaudorian embassy, it is perfectly clear that he cannot receive a fair trial.
.
In short:
What he did is not a crime: Even if it were, the crime would be political and therefore non-extradictableHe cannot receive a fair trial since the US has already breached his right to attorney-client privilege
Out of interest, what was it you thought he had done wrong?
Julian Assange received a leak of accurate information from a whistleblower inside the US military. Just the same as Woodward and Bernstein did. He then worked with very proper newspapers to publish that information and tried to work with the Pentagon to redact any information which might place specific individuals in harms way.
.
The information he disseminated revealed important truths about the conduct of the Iraq war – including several war crimes. The Pentagon has never cited a single instance in which his publications placed US personnel in harm’s way. This is the very definition of the type of legitimate whistle blowing that is protected under the US constitution.
.
Moreover, he is not a US citizen and he was not on US soil at the time his actions were undertaken. This is an almost perfect example of a political prosecution and, it is worth mentioning, most legal theory holds that you cannot be extradited for political crimes. That doctrine is the entire basis of political refugee status.
.
To seek sanctuary in a foreign embassy – since he could not reach foreign soil was therefore his legitimate right.
.
And, finally, since it is now uncontested that his conversations with his lawyers were eavesdropped by the CIA whilst he was in the Ecaudorian embassy, it is perfectly clear that he cannot receive a fair trial.
.
In short:
What he did is not a crime: Even if it were, the crime would be political and therefore non-extradictableHe cannot receive a fair trial since the US has already breached his right to attorney-client privilege
Out of interest, what was it you thought he had done wrong?
I agree with most of it apart from Assange.
He tried to escape justice by hiding in foreign embassy.
If you think there was no cheating in the 2020 election, then the events at the Capitol look like an attempt to overthrow the election. If you think there was cheating in the 2020 election, then the events at the Capitol were an earnest attempt to prevent cheats from stealing the election. Both sides saw (and still see – c36% still believe 2020 was illegitimate) themselves protecting America and protecting American institutions.
After 2016, when Democrats protested and tried to overturn that election (p***y hats) and tried to undermine the Trump presidency with fake documents, 2020 was always going to be contested, whoever won. The change of rules on mail-in voting and dropboxes due to covid, the large swings because of the preference for in-person voting by Republicans and mail-in voting by Democrats. And made worse by the huge number of votes (Trump won the most votes ever by an incumbent – but still lost), and the slim margins in a handful of contested states. The election and election oversight itself needed to be impeccably transparent to overcome the partisanship on both sides, and in the rush to declare the vote, it wasn’t.
To the Trump-side it was another part of a very clear double standards on justice. The whatabouts matter, because one side got a pass and protection, able to destroy evidence, make up false claims, censor bad news, and the other gets a DOJ willing to breach existing standards on executive privilege, lawyer-client confidentiality, even with judges turning into prosecutors.
And they understand this isn’t really about Trump – it really isn’t – he actually doesn’t matter in this. He’s the lightening conductor where all the energy is focused. But once he’s gone, the administrative state is coming after them. If you’re not voting for the ‘right’ party, free speech has been removed, free access to money removed, freedom of conscious removed, the law protects criminals, compelled speech is being enforced, wars just ‘happen’ without voter oversight, industries are being closed down and prices will rise to make the world ‘green’. The anti-technocracy views will still remain, as they also do in Europe and elsewhere, and someone else will emerge.
The key tell is freedom of speech – authoritarians hate freedom of speech. If you’ve stopped believing in freedom of speech, and freedom of the press (think Assange) and that the state should control its citizens, and not the other way around, then perhaps you’ve moved to the wrong side. Justice needs to be blind. There needs to be fair and due process. Politics cannot be solved by prosecuting your enemies with lawfare.
“Trump and his supporters appear to be living in an alternate reality.”
I would say the author and his fellow travellers exist in an alternative reality, where they impose that are an anathema to most people, repeatedly tell us black is white and are outraged when this is questioned and see the rest of us get poorer while they garner more wealth to themselves which they shamelessly proclaim to be the reward of virtue. How deranged is that?
It’s smart thinking until you’re debanked!
It’s smart thinking until you’re debanked!
“Trump and his supporters appear to be living in an alternate reality.”
I would say the author and his fellow travellers exist in an alternative reality, where they impose that are an anathema to most people, repeatedly tell us black is white and are outraged when this is questioned and see the rest of us get poorer while they garner more wealth to themselves which they shamelessly proclaim to be the reward of virtue. How deranged is that?
Adam Smith is a professor at Oxford and this is the level of his reasoning and understanding.
Shockingly poor.
He got off to a good start coming from the North East but since then it’s been pretty much downhill.
He’s only been at Oxford since 2019, but sadly the days of ‘Porterhouse’ are long gone!
ps. A reminder for younger readers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujrE4H5mpwI
Ah! Skullion. I loved Tom Sharpe’s books.
Yes indeed, such savage wit.
“Dives in Omnia”.
Yes indeed, such savage wit.
“Dives in Omnia”.
Ah! Skullion. I loved Tom Sharpe’s books.
That’s former polytechnics for you
He got off to a good start coming from the North East but since then it’s been pretty much downhill.
He’s only been at Oxford since 2019, but sadly the days of ‘Porterhouse’ are long gone!
ps. A reminder for younger readers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujrE4H5mpwI
That’s former polytechnics for you
Adam Smith is a professor at Oxford and this is the level of his reasoning and understanding.
Shockingly poor.
Conservatives are told for years that they’re living in an alternate reality, then we slowly find out that every “conspiracy theory” was actually true. Yes, Trump is flawed as are many of his lieutenants. Any more than Joe Biden and his cast of clowns and shakedown hacks? Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Mafia? The Left, notably the MSM, broke from truth and reality the day Trump entered office. All will come crashing down as rational Democrats like RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, and other independent journalists and podcasters take the red pill and return to reality. Anything, including Trump, is better than the lunacy of the modern day Left.
Conservatives are told for years that they’re living in an alternate reality, then we slowly find out that every “conspiracy theory” was actually true. Yes, Trump is flawed as are many of his lieutenants. Any more than Joe Biden and his cast of clowns and shakedown hacks? Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Mafia? The Left, notably the MSM, broke from truth and reality the day Trump entered office. All will come crashing down as rational Democrats like RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, and other independent journalists and podcasters take the red pill and return to reality. Anything, including Trump, is better than the lunacy of the modern day Left.
“Trump and his supporters appear to be living in an alternate reality.”
Correction: many College professors and their students appear to be living in an alternate reality.
“Trump and his supporters appear to be living in an alternate reality.”
Correction: many College professors and their students appear to be living in an alternate reality.
It’s not voter fraud if they change the laws to make it legal.
Which is the Democrats wanted the ‘For the People Act’ to make vote harvesting legal in every single state.
I don’t like vote harvesting, but the republicans can push back against it and still do it effectively if it’s legal in certain states. To do nothing but argue against it is a losing strategy.
I don’t like vote harvesting, but the republicans can push back against it and still do it effectively if it’s legal in certain states. To do nothing but argue against it is a losing strategy.
It’s not voter fraud if they change the laws to make it legal.
Which is the Democrats wanted the ‘For the People Act’ to make vote harvesting legal in every single state.
‘It focuses instead on what he did — trying to overturn the election by appointing fake electors and such like — not on what he thought.’
What is a fake elector?
In 2016….
‘The faithless electors who opposed Donald Trump were part of a movement dubbed the “Hamilton Electors” co-founded by Micheal Baca of Colorado and Bret Chiafalo of Washington. The movement attempted to find 37 Republican electors willing to vote for a different Republican in an effort to deny Donald Trump a majority in the Electoral College and force a contingent election in the House of Representatives.’
Ok, why are these people not in jail?
Why is it absolutely legal to try to get people in the Electoral College to refuse to vote for Donald Trump to be President?
‘It focuses instead on what he did — trying to overturn the election by appointing fake electors and such like — not on what he thought.’
What is a fake elector?
In 2016….
‘The faithless electors who opposed Donald Trump were part of a movement dubbed the “Hamilton Electors” co-founded by Micheal Baca of Colorado and Bret Chiafalo of Washington. The movement attempted to find 37 Republican electors willing to vote for a different Republican in an effort to deny Donald Trump a majority in the Electoral College and force a contingent election in the House of Representatives.’
Ok, why are these people not in jail?
Why is it absolutely legal to try to get people in the Electoral College to refuse to vote for Donald Trump to be President?
Yes, there are two contradicting fact-worlds. The first, the world of actual reality, has been gradually undermined to the point of destruction by the progressive Left in its relentless corruption of every formerly reliable institution in the country, infiltrated by activists who churn out specious research in support of its pre-existing goals. Trump exists as a force only because so many people have watched in growing horror as this has played out over decades, and are determined to reverse course and return to reality.
Yes, there are two contradicting fact-worlds. The first, the world of actual reality, has been gradually undermined to the point of destruction by the progressive Left in its relentless corruption of every formerly reliable institution in the country, infiltrated by activists who churn out specious research in support of its pre-existing goals. Trump exists as a force only because so many people have watched in growing horror as this has played out over decades, and are determined to reverse course and return to reality.
“None has ever before tried to overturn an election, however ineptly.”
I assume that Bush v Gore in 2000 has simply slipped your mind momentarily.
It’s just a footnote of course, since Bush was such an uncontroversial centrist and nothing remotely unconstitutional happened during his presidency.
Moreover, it’s not as though the people that this illegitmate president nominated to the supreme court did anything to foster the present political crisis by doing anything really stupid such as, oh, I don’t know, equating unlimited political donations with constitutionally protected speech.
“None has ever before tried to overturn an election, however ineptly.”
I assume that Bush v Gore in 2000 has simply slipped your mind momentarily.
It’s just a footnote of course, since Bush was such an uncontroversial centrist and nothing remotely unconstitutional happened during his presidency.
Moreover, it’s not as though the people that this illegitmate president nominated to the supreme court did anything to foster the present political crisis by doing anything really stupid such as, oh, I don’t know, equating unlimited political donations with constitutionally protected speech.
The sneering implicit (to this Prof) in the TDS insult is nothing compared to the sneering directed at Trump and the ‘deplorables’. The (semi) educated after all are better at sneering than the oiks.
He goes on to cite the ‘Atlantic’ describing Trump’s people as ‘felons, goons and resentful mediocrities’.
Then quotes the response IN KIND of Kevin McCarthy…’…It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him’
Is McCarthy’s boilerplate tweet the same KIND of language as the Atlantic’s mob oratory?
A huge orange scarecrow has been assembled on a hillside by pantomime political scientists. A blind professor raises his popgun and shoots at it. He misses.
Next ‘think’ piece!
The sneering implicit (to this Prof) in the TDS insult is nothing compared to the sneering directed at Trump and the ‘deplorables’. The (semi) educated after all are better at sneering than the oiks.
He goes on to cite the ‘Atlantic’ describing Trump’s people as ‘felons, goons and resentful mediocrities’.
Then quotes the response IN KIND of Kevin McCarthy…’…It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him’
Is McCarthy’s boilerplate tweet the same KIND of language as the Atlantic’s mob oratory?
A huge orange scarecrow has been assembled on a hillside by pantomime political scientists. A blind professor raises his popgun and shoots at it. He misses.
Next ‘think’ piece!
Excellent essay. Fair and balanced IMO. I will add one caveat. Trump is a symptom of the political rot that is destroying the US. He is not the cause. Millions of Americans no longer think the political class is looking after their interests. Republicans and Democrats are more beholden to the donor class than actual voters. People who support Trump want to destroy the rot and corruption that has infected Washington. I’m not sure why these people are fixated on Trump, because he’s about the worst choice to make it happen, but they are angry and Trump feeds into that anger.
Agree that he is symptom more than cause at an underlying level, but also a very inflammatory agent.
No total political outsider, without a military history other than a probably-concocted “bone spurs” deferment (he couldn’t remember which foot they were on), had become president before Trump.
Trump is a unique figure–or at least a “special piece of work”–who found a very opportune time to grasp the highest office against the only other recent candidate that many dislike as much as many dislike Trump: Hilary Clinton. But Trump attracted passionate believers in a way Clinton never did and never could.
Perhaps no other Trump-like figure is electable, and someone who genuinely went after the rot and corruption ,especially in a bi-partisan or constructive way, would not be welcomed by the faithful: TV savvy swagger and viciousness toward personal enemies and political opponents–“very evil people” etc.–is part of the allure.
He tells his most fervent fans exactly what they want to hear: “The establishment elites have wronged the Real Americans, you decent, normal people, and I alone, a former (and current) TV star and Ivy League grad from inherited wealth, can fix it, because I will fight for you and I really care, hugely”. (Perhaps not an exact quote).
The first part of the message is, at a core level, true, and the pitch is so powerfully delivered to those standing in its trajectory that the quality and sincerity of the messenger is never doubted, or even looked at directly by many. (Obviously, some support him in a more open-eyed way, perhaps gritting their teeth or crossing their fingers). I doubt there can be a different national MAGA leader on his scale. I hope not, one is more than enough. And however you view him, whether you like what you hear or reach for reality cancelling headphones, there’s only one DJ Trump.
I’m not sure you’re allowed to paraphrase the Koran.
*Removed after your sensible heads-up.
Why not?
Try it and see whether the comment ever posts. I’d like to know. I think some here would object if paraphrastic liberties taken with the Bible–I might too, depending– but an editorial policy influenced by religious extremists and the Charlie Hebdo incident would be less likely.
As regards two major works of fiction, the one inestimable advantage the Koran has over the Bible is that it is much, much shorter.
Additionally both are decidedly humourless.
Mistaken. There’s a few intentional corkers in there. Instance:
Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
“What is truth?” said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer –Francis Bacon
I think the “Life of Brian “ said it best, don’t you?
I do like that movie, but I don’t take it as gospel.
“Always look on the bright side of death (cheerful whistling…Right before you draw your terminal breath”
I do like that movie, but I don’t take it as gospel.
“Always look on the bright side of death (cheerful whistling…Right before you draw your terminal breath”
And that sentence should be printed at the head of this and every other commentary section.
”What is truth” said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.
I think the “Life of Brian “ said it best, don’t you?
And that sentence should be printed at the head of this and every other commentary section.
”What is truth” said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.
Mistaken. There’s a few intentional corkers in there. Instance:
Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?
“What is truth?” said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer –Francis Bacon
As regards two major works of fiction, the one inestimable advantage the Koran has over the Bible is that it is much, much shorter.
Additionally both are decidedly humourless.
Try it and see whether the comment ever posts. I’d like to know. I think some here would object if paraphrastic liberties taken with the Bible–I might too, depending– but an editorial policy influenced by religious extremists and the Charlie Hebdo incident would be less likely.
*Removed after your sensible heads-up.
Why not?
There are some excellent candidates out there. Vivek Ramaswamy for the GOP and to a lesser extent, RFK JR for the DNC. Yet the options will likely be trump and Biden.
I’m glum about that grim probability. Will the candidates in 2028 be in their early 90s? Or will Trump continue to run though confined to a golf cart if he can’t manage his moonshot re-election bid?
I call it a lunar longshot not because I put it past him but because of all that swirls in the air and may blow open before election day.
Maybe one of Trump’s children?
Haha! Actual LOL on that one.
I’m not sure which one is my favorite prospective president.
Caudillo Barrono Trompo
Caudillo Barrono Trompo
Haha! Actual LOL on that one.
I’m not sure which one is my favorite prospective president.
Maybe one of Trump’s children?
If Biden runs, he is pretty much guaranteed to get 80 million votes.
I’m glum about that grim probability. Will the candidates in 2028 be in their early 90s? Or will Trump continue to run though confined to a golf cart if he can’t manage his moonshot re-election bid?
I call it a lunar longshot not because I put it past him but because of all that swirls in the air and may blow open before election day.
If Biden runs, he is pretty much guaranteed to get 80 million votes.
I’m not sure you’re allowed to paraphrase the Koran.
There are some excellent candidates out there. Vivek Ramaswamy for the GOP and to a lesser extent, RFK JR for the DNC. Yet the options will likely be trump and Biden.
Agree that he is symptom more than cause at an underlying level, but also a very inflammatory agent.
No total political outsider, without a military history other than a probably-concocted “bone spurs” deferment (he couldn’t remember which foot they were on), had become president before Trump.
Trump is a unique figure–or at least a “special piece of work”–who found a very opportune time to grasp the highest office against the only other recent candidate that many dislike as much as many dislike Trump: Hilary Clinton. But Trump attracted passionate believers in a way Clinton never did and never could.
Perhaps no other Trump-like figure is electable, and someone who genuinely went after the rot and corruption ,especially in a bi-partisan or constructive way, would not be welcomed by the faithful: TV savvy swagger and viciousness toward personal enemies and political opponents–“very evil people” etc.–is part of the allure.
He tells his most fervent fans exactly what they want to hear: “The establishment elites have wronged the Real Americans, you decent, normal people, and I alone, a former (and current) TV star and Ivy League grad from inherited wealth, can fix it, because I will fight for you and I really care, hugely”. (Perhaps not an exact quote).
The first part of the message is, at a core level, true, and the pitch is so powerfully delivered to those standing in its trajectory that the quality and sincerity of the messenger is never doubted, or even looked at directly by many. (Obviously, some support him in a more open-eyed way, perhaps gritting their teeth or crossing their fingers). I doubt there can be a different national MAGA leader on his scale. I hope not, one is more than enough. And however you view him, whether you like what you hear or reach for reality cancelling headphones, there’s only one DJ Trump.
Excellent essay. Fair and balanced IMO. I will add one caveat. Trump is a symptom of the political rot that is destroying the US. He is not the cause. Millions of Americans no longer think the political class is looking after their interests. Republicans and Democrats are more beholden to the donor class than actual voters. People who support Trump want to destroy the rot and corruption that has infected Washington. I’m not sure why these people are fixated on Trump, because he’s about the worst choice to make it happen, but they are angry and Trump feeds into that anger.
“None has ever before tried to overturn an election …”. Has the Professor forgotten Al Gore, Florida and the hanging chads?
“None has ever before tried to overturn an election …”. Has the Professor forgotten Al Gore, Florida and the hanging chads?
Just a lot of BS from a propagandist who has been bought for a few shekels. None of it makes much sense and the Smith indictments are chilling as the government t wants to decide what is free speech, not our constitution. I certainly remember the Dems in 2016 saying the election was not valid and Trump fixed it.
Fraud isn’t free speech, sport.
Fraud isn’t free speech, sport.
Just a lot of BS from a propagandist who has been bought for a few shekels. None of it makes much sense and the Smith indictments are chilling as the government t wants to decide what is free speech, not our constitution. I certainly remember the Dems in 2016 saying the election was not valid and Trump fixed it.
However bad things are now they HAVE been worse!
On the 18th June, 1812 the moronic ‘Founding Father’, Slaver and fourth President of the USA, one James Madison.* declared War on Great Britain.
Two a half years later the nation was on the cusp of bankruptcy, its maritime trade destroyed, its Navy chastised, its pathetic attempt to conquer Canada rebuffed, its capital including the ‘White House’ in ruins, and New England on the brink of Secession.
So, we have some way to go yet.
(*1751-1836.)
Well that’s one perspective, the other is that Britain had declared economic war on the US through the “Order in Council” – sanctions designed to punish anyone trading with Napoleon’s “empire”. Funny how little is taught or discussed about that period, including the assassination of Spencer Percival, the only British PM ever to be assassinated. Why doesn’t everyone know his name?!
I seem to recall the ‘Orders in Council’ were withdrawn just before the declaration of War.
As to Percival all a bit too embarrassing I presume, it smacked slightly of Revolutionary behaviour, when in fact it was a lone ‘nutter’ was it not?
Oh that “lone nutter” theory they keep on trotting out. Never gets old! The Orders in Council were cancelled just after Perceval was assassinated, but not soon enough to avoid the declaration of war.
If no ‘nutter’ then what? Man with a grudge perhaps?
A useful stooge perhaps.
Interestingly the assassin was one John Bellingham, and he was off course quite correctly hanged.
A descendant of his with same name was a Tory MP for somewhere in Norfolk and was recently ‘elevated’ to the House of Lords for ‘services rendered’
Not a fan of capital punishment, myself. And, again, this is one version of the story, and quite clearly the narrative that the establishment wanted to promote.
Bellingham felt defrauded and probably was, but in 1812 being sentenced to ‘swing’ at Newgate was the only option.
No thought here of Transportation to Botany Bay or Van Dieman’s Land.
What a shame.
Maybe his descendant could had been Australian MP or played cricket for convicts side?
What a shame.
Maybe his descendant could had been Australian MP or played cricket for convicts side?
Bellingham felt defrauded and probably was, but in 1812 being sentenced to ‘swing’ at Newgate was the only option.
No thought here of Transportation to Botany Bay or Van Dieman’s Land.
Not a fan of capital punishment, myself. And, again, this is one version of the story, and quite clearly the narrative that the establishment wanted to promote.
Interestingly the assassin was one John Bellingham, and he was off course quite correctly hanged.
A descendant of his with same name was a Tory MP for somewhere in Norfolk and was recently ‘elevated’ to the House of Lords for ‘services rendered’
A useful stooge perhaps.
If no ‘nutter’ then what? Man with a grudge perhaps?
Oh that “lone nutter” theory they keep on trotting out. Never gets old! The Orders in Council were cancelled just after Perceval was assassinated, but not soon enough to avoid the declaration of war.
I seem to recall the ‘Orders in Council’ were withdrawn just before the declaration of War.
As to Percival all a bit too embarrassing I presume, it smacked slightly of Revolutionary behaviour, when in fact it was a lone ‘nutter’ was it not?
Chief architect of the Constitution, James Madison, “moronic”. Laughable hyperextension.
Slave owner on an appallingly large scale, yes Capable of hubris and folly, yes. . Also a physically unimposing man at about 5′ 3″. But I have to assume you’ve not read any of his 29 contributions to The Federalist Papers or use the word too loosely for it to have any remaining meaning to explain your assignment of anything like moronic status to him.
To declare war on the world’s greatest power when your own forces are puny, and then bring your country to the brink of ruin is MORONIC! Or would you prefer ASININE?
I almost forgot, also exceedingly cowardly when he ‘legged it’ from the Bladensburg Races’ along with the rest of his motley crew!
“To declare war on the world’s greatest power when your own forces are puny, and then bring your country to the brink of ruin is MORONIC! Or would you prefer ASININE?“
Ha! For a moment there I forgot which “puny forces“ and “world’s greatest power” you were referring to. Great perspective when we watch history repeat itself. It was ever thus.
I settle for ‘asinine’. You oughtn’t talk too freely of cowardice in connexion with that era though given the runaway Redcoats from earlier in Madison’s lifetime (1775-1783). Why has all your learning made you into such an arch national partisan?
Can’t we all just get along? 😉
Troops will invariably ‘run away’ if badly led, and Madison was the Commander in Chief after all!*
As they know say at ‘probably’ the Harvard Business School, “a fish rots from the head down”.
Finally, as you may guessed I’m a tad bored with this Trump-Biden thing, and thus thought a little ‘light entertainment’ wouldn’t go amiss.
(*I wonder what George Washington would have made of it?)
Fair enough. I think Madison was an actual genius in the intellectual sense, but a pretty bad president. You may be familiar with Marbury vs. Madison (1803)*, a foundational Supreme Court case that established the right of the judiciary to place certain checks on executive (and legislative) power. Without this, Madison would have honored no restraint, making him at once autocrat-adjacent and a bad (former) Englishman. I still have some love for the little slave driver, but that was another low point.
Unlike Madison, Washington was no intellectual, but kind of a big picture moderate for his place and time (I’d estimate). Given his physical courage and ethics (I don’t idealize him, but he was well above average there), he probably would have been appalled at the retreat, more than most. He would have hated the idea of a voluntary war so early in the life of the Republic too. And the Presidential Mansion and Capitol burned down: Now that, I think we can agree, was more than a ‘fracas’!
*Madison was Jefferson’s Secretary of State at the time
Agreed poor old Madison was completely unsuited for the roll of a War President, and should have exercised greater control over his ‘hawks’, although that was easier said than done!
As for Washington, had he ended up in such a pickle I am sure he would died manfully at the head of his troops as ‘English’ officers were expected to do!
Sounds about right, sir.
Sounds about right, sir.
Agreed poor old Madison was completely unsuited for the roll of a War President, and should have exercised greater control over his ‘hawks’, although that was easier said than done!
As for Washington, had he ended up in such a pickle I am sure he would died manfully at the head of his troops as ‘English’ officers were expected to do!
Fair enough. I think Madison was an actual genius in the intellectual sense, but a pretty bad president. You may be familiar with Marbury vs. Madison (1803)*, a foundational Supreme Court case that established the right of the judiciary to place certain checks on executive (and legislative) power. Without this, Madison would have honored no restraint, making him at once autocrat-adjacent and a bad (former) Englishman. I still have some love for the little slave driver, but that was another low point.
Unlike Madison, Washington was no intellectual, but kind of a big picture moderate for his place and time (I’d estimate). Given his physical courage and ethics (I don’t idealize him, but he was well above average there), he probably would have been appalled at the retreat, more than most. He would have hated the idea of a voluntary war so early in the life of the Republic too. And the Presidential Mansion and Capitol burned down: Now that, I think we can agree, was more than a ‘fracas’!
*Madison was Jefferson’s Secretary of State at the time
Troops will invariably ‘run away’ if badly led, and Madison was the Commander in Chief after all!*
As they know say at ‘probably’ the Harvard Business School, “a fish rots from the head down”.
Finally, as you may guessed I’m a tad bored with this Trump-Biden thing, and thus thought a little ‘light entertainment’ wouldn’t go amiss.
(*I wonder what George Washington would have made of it?)
Slight correction.
Greatest maritime power.
Which in turn allowed us, and only us, to project our power virtually anywhere on earth.
Which in turn allowed us, and only us, to project our power virtually anywhere on earth.
“To declare war on the world’s greatest power when your own forces are puny, and then bring your country to the brink of ruin is MORONIC! Or would you prefer ASININE?“
Ha! For a moment there I forgot which “puny forces“ and “world’s greatest power” you were referring to. Great perspective when we watch history repeat itself. It was ever thus.
I settle for ‘asinine’. You oughtn’t talk too freely of cowardice in connexion with that era though given the runaway Redcoats from earlier in Madison’s lifetime (1775-1783). Why has all your learning made you into such an arch national partisan?
Can’t we all just get along? 😉
Slight correction.
Greatest maritime power.
To declare war on the world’s greatest power when your own forces are puny, and then bring your country to the brink of ruin is MORONIC! Or would you prefer ASININE?
I almost forgot, also exceedingly cowardly when he ‘legged it’ from the Bladensburg Races’ along with the rest of his motley crew!
I am sorry to intrude on your alternative history but Britain couldn’t even subdue Ireland.
So how would it do it to USA?
On cusp of anything is just saying it didn’t really happen?
Fairly comprehensively thrashed in 1609, 1650c 1690, 1798 and 1916.
Today Dublin could be Bristol or Leeds.
They even send their brats to Eton, God forbid!
As to the USA were weren’t trying to conquer the wretched place.
We were just looking for a little sport and plenty of ‘prize money’!
Nothing wrong with that surely?
I agree, cusp also translates as nearly. Thus for example:Northern Ireland is on the cusp of being a civilised province.
QED.
Fairly comprehensively thrashed in 1609, 1650c 1690, 1798 and 1916.
Today Dublin could be Bristol or Leeds.
They even send their brats to Eton, God forbid!
As to the USA were weren’t trying to conquer the wretched place.
We were just looking for a little sport and plenty of ‘prize money’!
Nothing wrong with that surely?
I agree, cusp also translates as nearly. Thus for example:Northern Ireland is on the cusp of being a civilised province.
QED.
Well that’s one perspective, the other is that Britain had declared economic war on the US through the “Order in Council” – sanctions designed to punish anyone trading with Napoleon’s “empire”. Funny how little is taught or discussed about that period, including the assassination of Spencer Percival, the only British PM ever to be assassinated. Why doesn’t everyone know his name?!
Chief architect of the Constitution, James Madison, “moronic”. Laughable hyperextension.
Slave owner on an appallingly large scale, yes Capable of hubris and folly, yes. . Also a physically unimposing man at about 5′ 3″. But I have to assume you’ve not read any of his 29 contributions to The Federalist Papers or use the word too loosely for it to have any remaining meaning to explain your assignment of anything like moronic status to him.
I am sorry to intrude on your alternative history but Britain couldn’t even subdue Ireland.
So how would it do it to USA?
On cusp of anything is just saying it didn’t really happen?
However bad things are now they HAVE been worse!
On the 18th June, 1812 the moronic ‘Founding Father’, Slaver and fourth President of the USA, one James Madison.* declared War on Great Britain.
Two a half years later the nation was on the cusp of bankruptcy, its maritime trade destroyed, its Navy chastised, its pathetic attempt to conquer Canada rebuffed, its capital including the ‘White House’ in ruins, and New England on the brink of Secession.
So, we have some way to go yet.
(*1751-1836.)
I disagree. Fundamentally. Trump is not likely to have any real effect on our politics, any more than Berlusconni had on Italian politics. Both systems were almost totally trashed before Trump or Berlusconni entered the arena. A more reasonable reaction to either was to sit tight and wait for the storm to pass. For the sake of our kids and their grandmothers, pretending that you’re not worried, not going bonkers, would certainly help.
Your anxiety comes from the fact that you created in your mind a cloud-castle of perfect politics; liberal victories as far as you can see; your ideological opponents confused and embarassed, and rightly so. Then you ran into reality. You must learn to accept uncertainty and disappointment. Step into the real world. You can’t stop those people from voting and you can’t force them to think like you. You need a better strategy.
I’m a life-long old fashioned liberal and proud of it. And I’m horrified to see my fellow liberals doing everything they can to get Trump elected again. Up to and including some very illiberal shenanigans.
I disagree. Fundamentally. Trump is not likely to have any real effect on our politics, any more than Berlusconni had on Italian politics. Both systems were almost totally trashed before Trump or Berlusconni entered the arena. A more reasonable reaction to either was to sit tight and wait for the storm to pass. For the sake of our kids and their grandmothers, pretending that you’re not worried, not going bonkers, would certainly help.
Your anxiety comes from the fact that you created in your mind a cloud-castle of perfect politics; liberal victories as far as you can see; your ideological opponents confused and embarassed, and rightly so. Then you ran into reality. You must learn to accept uncertainty and disappointment. Step into the real world. You can’t stop those people from voting and you can’t force them to think like you. You need a better strategy.
I’m a life-long old fashioned liberal and proud of it. And I’m horrified to see my fellow liberals doing everything they can to get Trump elected again. Up to and including some very illiberal shenanigans.
When we can’t agree on the facts, there’s a pretty severe limit on what’s possible at the national level. You simply can’t run a modern nation state on a top down basis without far more cultural homogeneity than exists, or has ever existed, in the USA. Fortunately, we don’t have to. Federalism divides power between government at the state and federal levels. What we need is for some of the immense power that accumulated to the executive branch and the federal government during WWII and the Cold War to be transitioned back to the state level, reducing the number of issues that the federal level has to agree on. In other words, we simply agree to disagree and let people have their own sets of facts, and stop trying to pretend we’re all one big happy US family. We aren’t and never have been. If we can’t agree on the facts, we simply allow each other to peacefully disagree. It won’t be easy, and it won’t satisfy everyone. Liberals will have to accept that they can’t help children in other states change genders or get abortions without parental consent. Conservatives will have to accept they can’t prevent people from having abortions in other states, you know like we don’t worry about the abortion laws in Canada, because it’s a different country and not our business. The solution is to empower states and communities a certain level of self determination and self government, to reestablish the importance of borders, both internal and external, and to give people a sense of empowerment and participation in their government rather than being powerless against distant governments, global organizations, and big corporations. The problem with this is that doing so runs contrary to the interests of the people who wield power in those governments, global organizations, and corporations. They squash any real ‘populist’ who might push the country in that direction, and even those like Trump who pretend populism for selfish reasons. This is the real dilemma we have. The world has always, ALWAYS, lived in different cultural, religious, and social realities. It’s never before been important that everyone agree on ‘the facts’ on a global scale or even the scale of a large nation. The reason it’s a problem now is because globalism needs everybody to live in the same reality. All of humanity will never agree on everything, even the basic facts. Expecting that is unreasonable. Let’s do away with the philosophy that demands the impossible before we kill millions in a second civil war over who gets to decide what ‘the facts’ are.
This is what Nixon tried unsuccessfully at one point I think. I feel the hesitation from the ruling class to this solution also has to do with a kind of “ideological vanity” that came from the robust conviction that they found the correct arc towards the end of history, and all that’s needed at this point was to make people accept it. I think this strand of blunt progresivism was always present in America but globalisation made it much more powerful in many ways like a Soviet Republic.
This is what Nixon tried unsuccessfully at one point I think. I feel the hesitation from the ruling class to this solution also has to do with a kind of “ideological vanity” that came from the robust conviction that they found the correct arc towards the end of history, and all that’s needed at this point was to make people accept it. I think this strand of blunt progresivism was always present in America but globalisation made it much more powerful in many ways like a Soviet Republic.
When we can’t agree on the facts, there’s a pretty severe limit on what’s possible at the national level. You simply can’t run a modern nation state on a top down basis without far more cultural homogeneity than exists, or has ever existed, in the USA. Fortunately, we don’t have to. Federalism divides power between government at the state and federal levels. What we need is for some of the immense power that accumulated to the executive branch and the federal government during WWII and the Cold War to be transitioned back to the state level, reducing the number of issues that the federal level has to agree on. In other words, we simply agree to disagree and let people have their own sets of facts, and stop trying to pretend we’re all one big happy US family. We aren’t and never have been. If we can’t agree on the facts, we simply allow each other to peacefully disagree. It won’t be easy, and it won’t satisfy everyone. Liberals will have to accept that they can’t help children in other states change genders or get abortions without parental consent. Conservatives will have to accept they can’t prevent people from having abortions in other states, you know like we don’t worry about the abortion laws in Canada, because it’s a different country and not our business. The solution is to empower states and communities a certain level of self determination and self government, to reestablish the importance of borders, both internal and external, and to give people a sense of empowerment and participation in their government rather than being powerless against distant governments, global organizations, and big corporations. The problem with this is that doing so runs contrary to the interests of the people who wield power in those governments, global organizations, and corporations. They squash any real ‘populist’ who might push the country in that direction, and even those like Trump who pretend populism for selfish reasons. This is the real dilemma we have. The world has always, ALWAYS, lived in different cultural, religious, and social realities. It’s never before been important that everyone agree on ‘the facts’ on a global scale or even the scale of a large nation. The reason it’s a problem now is because globalism needs everybody to live in the same reality. All of humanity will never agree on everything, even the basic facts. Expecting that is unreasonable. Let’s do away with the philosophy that demands the impossible before we kill millions in a second civil war over who gets to decide what ‘the facts’ are.
The first two paragraphs of this article describe with very little substitution my own struggles with Woke Anxiety Disorder.
Aka “W.A.D.”. Sure is a lot of mutual misunderstanding these days, especially coming from the Other Side, whichever side that may be for us as individuals. It’s maddening that They cant see that We are clearly far more in the right, and that They are deluded and/or evil.
Aka “W.A.D.”. Sure is a lot of mutual misunderstanding these days, especially coming from the Other Side, whichever side that may be for us as individuals. It’s maddening that They cant see that We are clearly far more in the right, and that They are deluded and/or evil.
The first two paragraphs of this article describe with very little substitution my own struggles with Woke Anxiety Disorder.
It takes only one jury member. And there you have it. Because although the academic class can’t understand how a sane person could possibly find a single one of Trump’s actions reasonable, almost half of America’s ordinary people supported him to a greater or lesser extent.
Paradoxically, this article nicely embodies it least one of the threats to IS democracy that it describes: political polarisation. Adam Smith has incorporated the a priori assumption that Trump is so false and evil that anybody who admires and supports even a single thing he has done or said is, by definition, deranged.
Goodbye nuance. Goodbye variegation. 4 legs good, 2 legs bad.
That’s the disease affecting American politics right now.
It takes only one jury member. And there you have it. Because although the academic class can’t understand how a sane person could possibly find a single one of Trump’s actions reasonable, almost half of America’s ordinary people supported him to a greater or lesser extent.
Paradoxically, this article nicely embodies it least one of the threats to IS democracy that it describes: political polarisation. Adam Smith has incorporated the a priori assumption that Trump is so false and evil that anybody who admires and supports even a single thing he has done or said is, by definition, deranged.
Goodbye nuance. Goodbye variegation. 4 legs good, 2 legs bad.
That’s the disease affecting American politics right now.
I seem to recall the contested election of President Rutherford Hayes was pretty volcanic.
I seem to recall the contested election of President Rutherford Hayes was pretty volcanic.
I agree there may be civil conflict in the US. If there is progressives are going to get hard lesson in reality. 90% of US foot soldiers vote Republican. Most rural and conservative Americans own guns – many for the specific purpose of being able to defend themselves against government tyranny. If there is an actual conflict the Democrats are going to lose it badly.
Republican voters are typically dumb and poor. And 90% of foot soldiers do not vote Republican nor do they support anti-constitutional attempts to overthrow the government by clowns like Trump and Giuliani.
More so these days perhaps. However, poor nonwhites still favor Democrats and a rainbow of the very affluent favor Republicans, with certain notable exceptions like Hollywood actors and nonwhite professional athletes.
More so these days perhaps. However, poor nonwhites still favor Democrats and a rainbow of the very affluent favor Republicans, with certain notable exceptions like Hollywood actors and nonwhite professional athletes.
Yep….
Republican voters are typically dumb and poor. And 90% of foot soldiers do not vote Republican nor do they support anti-constitutional attempts to overthrow the government by clowns like Trump and Giuliani.
Yep….
I agree there may be civil conflict in the US. If there is progressives are going to get hard lesson in reality. 90% of US foot soldiers vote Republican. Most rural and conservative Americans own guns – many for the specific purpose of being able to defend themselves against government tyranny. If there is an actual conflict the Democrats are going to lose it badly.
The way I see it, Trump is the Prince Harry of the Royal family. He’s not trusted by his peers to play the game. All politics is a little dirty, the keyword being “little” here. Trump is the guy who outs the game promising purity. He’s a yahoo amongst criminals who breaks the code. That’s why he’s hated, and I believe he’s very dangerous and would bring a huge amount of instability with no real improvement himself to today’s situation other than breaking what’s in place. I suspect many of his supporters actually understand this as well.
Yet the liberals are acting like precious Marie Antoinettes who are clearly out of touch with what many people think which is not helping their case despite being essentially right with their worries.
Intriguing take. As you likely know, Trump is actually a second son too. His older bother died of problem drinking complications in his early 40s.
Though insincere and motivated by self-interest more than most, Trump is in touch with the fears and hopes of many struggling Americans who feel abandoned by the establishment of both major parties, largely because they have been. And for those who don’t detest him, Trump also has a lot of dark charisma, enough to make many people learn to want what Trump wants, all the while feeling that this silver spoon huckster is on the side of the common man and woman, that this porn star loving, handsy horndog who can’t hold a Bible right side up is a defender of faith and family values. (He did send them three conservative judges that broke the Roe vs. Wade dam on their litmus test issue though…wow). A pretty successful, long running show so far.
Intriguing take. As you likely know, Trump is actually a second son too. His older bother died of problem drinking complications in his early 40s.
Though insincere and motivated by self-interest more than most, Trump is in touch with the fears and hopes of many struggling Americans who feel abandoned by the establishment of both major parties, largely because they have been. And for those who don’t detest him, Trump also has a lot of dark charisma, enough to make many people learn to want what Trump wants, all the while feeling that this silver spoon huckster is on the side of the common man and woman, that this porn star loving, handsy horndog who can’t hold a Bible right side up is a defender of faith and family values. (He did send them three conservative judges that broke the Roe vs. Wade dam on their litmus test issue though…wow). A pretty successful, long running show so far.
The way I see it, Trump is the Prince Harry of the Royal family. He’s not trusted by his peers to play the game. All politics is a little dirty, the keyword being “little” here. Trump is the guy who outs the game promising purity. He’s a yahoo amongst criminals who breaks the code. That’s why he’s hated, and I believe he’s very dangerous and would bring a huge amount of instability with no real improvement himself to today’s situation other than breaking what’s in place. I suspect many of his supporters actually understand this as well.
Yet the liberals are acting like precious Marie Antoinettes who are clearly out of touch with what many people think which is not helping their case despite being essentially right with their worries.
A blatantly partisan piece. It has been said many times that people on the left tend to have zero self-awareness or sense of irony. Graphically illustrated here?
A blatantly partisan piece. It has been said many times that people on the left tend to have zero self-awareness or sense of irony. Graphically illustrated here?
‘manifest lunacy and incompetence of his carnival of co-conspirators’
What’s a woman Adam?
Covid lab origin = conspiracy theory
It was Trump who took money from China/Ukraine?
Seriously Adam, you seem to have an extraordinary deficit of self-awareness – like everyone else down your particular rabbit hole
‘manifest lunacy and incompetence of his carnival of co-conspirators’
What’s a woman Adam?
Covid lab origin = conspiracy theory
It was Trump who took money from China/Ukraine?
Seriously Adam, you seem to have an extraordinary deficit of self-awareness – like everyone else down your particular rabbit hole
Proposal for Adam Smith
Dear Adam, If I may,
I just read your article in Unherd and (I apologize for being blunt) I thought it was appalling.
For sure you’re knowledgeable in your field and you write well. That’s par for the course in our profession. What was truly disconcerting was the extent to which, even when stepping outside of your bubble and addressing an educated and fairly sophisticated audience that for the most part is completely at odds with your worldview – you made no attempt to acknowledge that truly wicked nature of many hot button issues or the complexity of the trade-offs.
You seem oblivious of the disconcerting reality that individuals may share exactly the same set of values but come to diametrically opposed conclusions simply by according slightly different weights to this or that issue or value (freedom versus equality; equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome etc.). You may not be ‘right’. There may not even be a ‘right’.
I wonder seriously, if you are friends with (and I mean really close friends with) anyone who voted for BREXIT? Or who would vote for a Farage or aTrump? Have you stood up publicly for any women/feminists (TERFS) in Oxford who might dare to question the current orthodox around gender and sex? Did you uphold the right of Helen Joyce to address students at Gonville and Cauis in Cambridge? Would you give a friendly hearing to anyone profoundly disturbed by the kind of COVID-era authoritarianism now pushed as orthodoxy by WEF, WHO and seemingly all the major political parties? What about people disturbed by the implications of digitizing the national currency? How about those who never agreed with the open China policy in the first place? What about climate change dissidents such as Lomborg or even Steven Pinker who argue that the cure might be more devastating than the problem? These should all be questions for robust debate in any healthy university. But in fact, dissident voices in all these areas are now routinely labelled as conspiracy theorists, ‘far right provocateurs’ and even racists or white supremacists.
I’m sure that you have now registered the overwhelmingly negative tenor of the comments to your article. The first person’s comment (Hopp I think) registered nearly 300 likes almost straight away.
If, as you say, people live in different cognitive worlds – how can you be so sure that YOU are not down a rabbit hole of some kind. If you were, it would be almost impossible for you to register this fact because – as a result of our current condition of polarization – the institutions and circles in which you move are almost completely purged of any dissenting voices. I can think of only a single ‘out’ conservative in my own university. The echo-chamber is now complete – on both sides. It’s almost impossible to escape.
With this in mind, here is a challenge. Go back to those 286 Unherd readers who liked Hopp’s comment or the 200 who endorsed Leach’s very critical response (see below )…..and talk to them. Invite them to give you detailed feedback….Do a survey….and then come back to Unherd with a reflective response. See if a little honest engagement might change your mind in anyway….Why not invite Hopp and Leach for a pint? Or see if your college will put a couple of dozen of them up for a night….and see if you can really get inside their heads and understand their objections.
I’m sure you’re aware of Hegel’s Master/Slave dialectic. Your view, and your constituency represents the Master narrative. In Martin Buber’s (1937, I and Thou) sense your mainstream echo-chamber ‘I’ treats the dissident and silenced perspectives given a minor platform in Unherd as an ‘it’ – rather than a ‘thou’.
Given the degree of polarisation and disaffection on both sides of the Atlantic – surely it is incumbent upon you to try and understand what the slaves and their representatives are thinking …and what they are saying to each other. This would make for a much more interesting and useful article.
I’m sure Mary Harrington would be delighted to Umpire.
Best wishes
Steve Quilley
Proposal for Adam Smith
Dear Adam, If I may,
I just read your article in Unherd and (I apologize for being blunt) I thought it was appalling.
For sure you’re knowledgeable in your field and you write well. That’s par for the course in our profession. What was truly disconcerting was the extent to which, even when stepping outside of your bubble and addressing an educated and fairly sophisticated audience that for the most part is completely at odds with your worldview – you made no attempt to acknowledge that truly wicked nature of many hot button issues or the complexity of the trade-offs.
You seem oblivious of the disconcerting reality that individuals may share exactly the same set of values but come to diametrically opposed conclusions simply by according slightly different weights to this or that issue or value (freedom versus equality; equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome etc.). You may not be ‘right’. There may not even be a ‘right’.
I wonder seriously, if you are friends with (and I mean really close friends with) anyone who voted for BREXIT? Or who would vote for a Farage or aTrump? Have you stood up publicly for any women/feminists (TERFS) in Oxford who might dare to question the current orthodox around gender and sex? Did you uphold the right of Helen Joyce to address students at Gonville and Cauis in Cambridge? Would you give a friendly hearing to anyone profoundly disturbed by the kind of COVID-era authoritarianism now pushed as orthodoxy by WEF, WHO and seemingly all the major political parties? What about people disturbed by the implications of digitizing the national currency? How about those who never agreed with the open China policy in the first place? What about climate change dissidents such as Lomborg or even Steven Pinker who argue that the cure might be more devastating than the problem? These should all be questions for robust debate in any healthy university. But in fact, dissident voices in all these areas are now routinely labelled as conspiracy theorists, ‘far right provocateurs’ and even racists or white supremacists.
I’m sure that you have now registered the overwhelmingly negative tenor of the comments to your article. The first person’s comment (Hopp I think) registered nearly 300 likes almost straight away.
If, as you say, people live in different cognitive worlds – how can you be so sure that YOU are not down a rabbit hole of some kind. If you were, it would be almost impossible for you to register this fact because – as a result of our current condition of polarization – the institutions and circles in which you move are almost completely purged of any dissenting voices. I can think of only a single ‘out’ conservative in my own university. The echo-chamber is now complete – on both sides. It’s almost impossible to escape.
With this in mind, here is a challenge. Go back to those 286 Unherd readers who liked Hopp’s comment or the 200 who endorsed Leach’s very critical response (see below )…..and talk to them. Invite them to give you detailed feedback….Do a survey….and then come back to Unherd with a reflective response. See if a little honest engagement might change your mind in anyway….Why not invite Hopp and Leach for a pint? Or see if your college will put a couple of dozen of them up for a night….and see if you can really get inside their heads and understand their objections.
I’m sure you’re aware of Hegel’s Master/Slave dialectic. Your view, and your constituency represents the Master narrative. In Martin Buber’s (1937, I and Thou) sense your mainstream echo-chamber ‘I’ treats the dissident and silenced perspectives given a minor platform in Unherd as an ‘it’ – rather than a ‘thou’.
Given the degree of polarisation and disaffection on both sides of the Atlantic – surely it is incumbent upon you to try and understand what the slaves and their representatives are thinking …and what they are saying to each other. This would make for a much more interesting and useful article.
I’m sure Mary Harrington would be delighted to Umpire.
Best wishes
Steve Quilley
It is obviously time for the USA to find its OLIVER CROMWELL!
It shouldn’t be that hard with over 300 million of you.
Can’t we safely guess whose side you’d have been on from 1644-1660 and during the Restoration too, Charles?
The “Good Old Cause!”
Just confirming it.
I wasn’t exactly “spoilt for choice” as we say.
I wasn’t exactly “spoilt for choice” as we say.
Just confirming it.
The “Good Old Cause!”
Can’t we safely guess whose side you’d have been on from 1644-1660 and during the Restoration too, Charles?
It is obviously time for the USA to find its OLIVER CROMWELL!
It shouldn’t be that hard with over 300 million of you.
“Donald Trump stops me sleeping, and I am not alone.”
Diddums! Get over it!
Biden is arguable a cause for sleep disrupting anxiety; equally if not more so!
“Donald Trump stops me sleeping, and I am not alone.”
Diddums! Get over it!
Biden is arguable a cause for sleep disrupting anxiety; equally if not more so!
I can see by the tenor of this article that Mr Smith repeats the nonsense popular in liberal circles. “Overturn the election” was a claim which is not true; examine the election irregularities is nearer to the truth. The riot of J6 was created by improper use of explosives and rubber bullets on a compressed crowd. Whether we can get around the crowd that detests or loves Trump is unclear. So odd that one person can produce so much anxt.
I can see by the tenor of this article that Mr Smith repeats the nonsense popular in liberal circles. “Overturn the election” was a claim which is not true; examine the election irregularities is nearer to the truth. The riot of J6 was created by improper use of explosives and rubber bullets on a compressed crowd. Whether we can get around the crowd that detests or loves Trump is unclear. So odd that one person can produce so much anxt.
“Republicans are mean and call it Trump Derangement Syndrome, but it’s actually called Trump Anxiety Disorder and it’s totally a real thing because my psychologist told me so.”
I almost hope said quack psychologist is billing him an arm and a leg for these “therapy” sessions. I wonder if it was ever suggested to him that maybe the problem lies with himself. Doesn’t a good shrink prompt you to look internally at what is actually causing your stress? To examine what is in your own power to change? I find it so difficult to sympathize with this man. The idea that politics ALONE is causing him sleepless nights suggests someone who doesn’t have many real problems and is mind numbingly self-absorbed.
It’s not that Adam Smith can’t understand. He WON’T. The problem is never going to be with anything Mr Smith thinks, does, or says. His whole world will come crashing down if he were to contemplate such a possibility. So he attains that vaunted status he was surely craving the entire time. His mental state isn’t his own fault. It’s some nebulous group of “others”. He has no control. He is the victim. He can now join the ranks of modern sainthood.
“Republicans are mean and call it Trump Derangement Syndrome, but it’s actually called Trump Anxiety Disorder and it’s totally a real thing because my psychologist told me so.”
I almost hope said quack psychologist is billing him an arm and a leg for these “therapy” sessions. I wonder if it was ever suggested to him that maybe the problem lies with himself. Doesn’t a good shrink prompt you to look internally at what is actually causing your stress? To examine what is in your own power to change? I find it so difficult to sympathize with this man. The idea that politics ALONE is causing him sleepless nights suggests someone who doesn’t have many real problems and is mind numbingly self-absorbed.
It’s not that Adam Smith can’t understand. He WON’T. The problem is never going to be with anything Mr Smith thinks, does, or says. His whole world will come crashing down if he were to contemplate such a possibility. So he attains that vaunted status he was surely craving the entire time. His mental state isn’t his own fault. It’s some nebulous group of “others”. He has no control. He is the victim. He can now join the ranks of modern sainthood.
The article is exactly right – and the debate below confirms it. We live in different realities, and there is no connection between them. I am naturally for compromise, but all I can hope for here is that my reality will crush all of yours, instead of the other way around.
Someone give me a better offer?
Maybe you’ll waken up and realize that you have been living in a bizarro fantasy world?
Interesting. Do you mean a world where Trump did not try to ‘find’ enough votes to prove he won, and everybody (and all the subpoenaed documents) are just lying? Or where that is just the normal acceptable behaviour for presidents that should be followed from now on? Or where there is an enormous, completely secret Democrat conspiracy to falsify the vote that was so brilliantly done that there was no evidence for it anywhere except some coincidences, but that Trump and his followers with their faultless intuition somehow knew was hapening?
Mr. Fogh: I don’t have anything to offer that you haven’t heard before or read from me (and others) somewhere else. But I think your calm, often implied advocacy for a middle path of compromise and common sense is valuable. Voices like yours are in critically short supply here and (just about everywhere else) now, so I’ll hope you’ll not make yourself too scarce. You may have a subtle or even major influence on certain individuals.
I try to follow a version of your approach but I am often too confrontational and intemperate for many, sometimes for myself. Don’t leave us! I’m only being a little overdramatic.
Thanks!
I despise Trump. At the same time, I have no doubt whatsoever that he completely believed what he was saying. That seemed to be quite obvious during his ranting. The item in the indictment that states that “he knew they were false”, it seems to me, must certainly fail. The burden of proof on that is going to be impossible to meet.
There seems to me to be two different essays here. The first six paragraphs focus on Mr. Trump but then there is a significant pivot to the work of other scholars who lay out four challenges which apparently are appearing together for the first time. The second part of this write up, in my opinion, could have been a separate essay. Because of this pivot there was, again, in my opinion, a lot left out about the visceral cultural and journalistic reaction to Mr. Trump – no mention of Russiagate or the highly politicized Women’s March, to name just two omissions. Also no mention in the second part of the essay of the deep divide in journalistic sources which have amplified partisan messages to the point of being propagandistic in many instances.
Strong article. Here’s another recent article that delivers a well-crafted pushback against the author’s claim of a certain general appetite for rebellion among Founding Fathers and other Revolutionary Era elites:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-madisonian-case-against-trump?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Strong article. Here’s another recent article that delivers a well-crafted pushback against the author’s claim of a certain general appetite for rebellion among Founding Fathers and other Revolutionary Era elites:
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-madisonian-case-against-trump?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Watch the co-conspirators flip over next few months when they know Trump will throw them under a Bus to save himself – ‘I was just badly advised and misled’ etc. Let’s see what they then say.
Watch also the contortions Trump supporters, (or probably more to the point those who just can’t abide the Democrats and become blinded to rule of law in their adversarialism), pull to try and downplay how bad it was for a POTUS to claim and try to overturn an election he lost by c7million votes. Watch also the half witted attempts to suggest what Trump did the same as anything Clinton, Biden or Gore did.
Folks may believe what they want to believe but expect to be ignored and ridiculed if you avoid facts and evidence.
“Folks may believe what they want to believe”
You cannot get your head around the simple fact that this applies to you in equal measure. Ah! The dangers of being one of the righteous!
You missed out the rest of the sentence PR in your haste. Facts and evidence.
Having read the indictment pretty damning. And they won’t have shared all the evidence one suspects. Listening to Bill Barr last night just further slam-dunked the issue. He knew.
We live in modern times. Facts and evidence are in the eye of the beholder. That was my point. No haste involved.
Strongly suspect you’ve not read it PR. Nor the Govt records indictment either.
Strongly suspect you’ve not read it PR. Nor the Govt records indictment either.
We live in modern times. Facts and evidence are in the eye of the beholder. That was my point. No haste involved.
You missed out the rest of the sentence PR in your haste. Facts and evidence.
Having read the indictment pretty damning. And they won’t have shared all the evidence one suspects. Listening to Bill Barr last night just further slam-dunked the issue. He knew.
“Folks may believe what they want to believe”
You cannot get your head around the simple fact that this applies to you in equal measure. Ah! The dangers of being one of the righteous!
Watch the co-conspirators flip over next few months when they know Trump will throw them under a Bus to save himself – ‘I was just badly advised and misled’ etc. Let’s see what they then say.
Watch also the contortions Trump supporters, (or probably more to the point those who just can’t abide the Democrats and become blinded to rule of law in their adversarialism), pull to try and downplay how bad it was for a POTUS to claim and try to overturn an election he lost by c7million votes. Watch also the half witted attempts to suggest what Trump did the same as anything Clinton, Biden or Gore did.
Folks may believe what they want to believe but expect to be ignored and ridiculed if you avoid facts and evidence.