What Abbott is doing is protecting his state, because Joe Biden and the Democrats are sitting back and letting it happen. Immigration is the prerogative of the Federal government, but the border of Texas and America’s southern border coincide in time and place. The Feds can abrogate their duty and let the illegal migrants come in their millions, but Texas still can control the border of Texas and protect itself (and other states) from the illegal swarm.
The Federal Government is Against the American People – this is what we found out. They are out to destroy America.
Jan 6 response was for One Reason – to terrorize all resistance to their destruction of America. Trump’s absolutely insanely Political Lawfare cases – the Fear of the FBI- DHS -CIA, it has been cultivated so all who would stand up must be in fear of being destroyed.
Yes, it is likely past MAGA and is now trying to stay out of the Gulags. Because surely if Trump loses they will take those who dissent.
This is off the charts bonkers.
The complaint for years is that the elites were ignoring flyover America, now apparently they are trying to put them in Gulags. This is just huckster talk, the same warped process that tells African Americans that Mitt Romney wants to put them all in chains. What a load of crap.
Perhaps, but talk of re-education camps for Trump voters from high profile figures such as Hilary Clinton and Robert Reich only add fuels to this particular fire.
Such incredibly high profile figures as Robert Reich, Secretary for Labor 1993-97. Wowee. I feel like I am taking the crazy pills, listening to people who spend too long on the internet finding out what other nobodies are saying.
Everybody in the public eye is lying about near everything. That bodes ill for the republic, and makes people long for a strongman who will cut the Gordian knot.
Curiously, from over here, we are regularly told Trump lies. Then after a few weeks, it turns out he wasn’t lying after all.
One of the classics was the BBC. It ‘fact checked’ Trumps claim COVID got out of a Wuhan lab. “False News” the BBC said. Then once Biden said it they did a Radio 4 program on why it wasn’t “False News” when BIden said it.
Since then I’ve regularly checked up on things, and quite frankly the one person who appears to tell the truth more often than anyone else, is. Trump!
The Guardian and the NYT are more your cup of tea, also the BBC, CNN, the media literally owned by the government in Canada and so on and on. Time to sober up and begin to worry if you’re on the chop at work.
C’mon Aidan.
The State of New York changed its laws to allow the Tax case and the Sex assault civil case to go forward. They changed New York State Law specifically to take action against Trump.
If that is not moral corruption and political tyranny I am not sure what is.
Wake Up and own the abuses of your faction and work to change them. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/83-million
Then 2016 happened, and they realised those deplorables had votes, enough to have the temerity to challenge the awful candidate appointed by their “superior” elites.
Then 2020 happened, and those same deplorables stood up against all the election hanky panky, the covered up “unsuitable” stories.
That’s why they have stopped “ignoring” the MAGA crowd.
“they realised those deplorables had votes, enough to have the temerity to challenge the awful candidate appointed by their “superior” elites.”
No they didn’t. That foolish error is grounded in the aberration of the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton polled nearly three million votes MORE than Trump. So she was by far the more popular candidate.
As a UK citizen I neither put up with it, nor am I in a position to change it. Although there have been several moves to abolish the aberration, none has yet succeeded.
The American Founders clearly did not see it as an “aberration”. In fact, there simply was no popular vote for the first three Administrations. The Electoral College is there for a very good reason: to protect the Republic from the very real threat of electoral fraud, that was in such stark evidence in 2020
I can’t say that my UK based recollection of the news from the US ever had Biden’s apologists ‘ignoring’ the MAGA crowd. They were forever attacking them and telling us to ignore them, but they never appeared to actually do so.
Are you sure?
They said the Biden Laptop was a Russian hoax and the people who said it, in numbers, all turned out to be important actors in the State Security Services.
They said Trump colluded with Russia (it turned out to be Hilary)
They set the State Security apparatus on Parents who upset teachers.
They have thrown the book and a few new versions of it at Trump to an extent that from the outside the US looks more Russian than Russia.
The latest Floyd police body cams, apparently not shown in the court cases, seem to show Chauvin and his colleagues (in the film “The Fall of Minneapolis”) doing nothing particularly bad. Even to the point of implementing the restraint tactic they were trained on. Yet the Police Chief appears to lie under oath to get a conviction.
Then a summer of riots by the BLM, torching many Cities is deemed ‘mostly peaceful protests’ yet what to a UK eye looked like a UK’s Monster Raving Loony Party fancy dress day out in the Capitol, where they took selfies, helped themselves to a few souvenirs then went home, is deemed an ‘insurrection’.
It seems to me that something in the Anglosphere has gone badly wrong. Canada, Australia ,New Zealand, the USA during COVID (and the UK to some extent) all read from the same Hymn Sheet and produced the most shocking totalitarian response of my lifetime.
What I see as the ‘Left’ sowed the wind, and now they fear they may be about to reap the whirlwind. You seem to be a little put out at the result but not bothered about origins.
Perhaps the idea of a “4th Turning” is a true reflection of reality. I hope not, but it isn’t looking good, either in Europe or the US. One thing, however, IF it comes to civil strife, I doubt the left will win it in the US, or anywhere else either.
Thank you for educating Mr Twomey, he sorely needs it. He must be reading too much left wing news or something because he’s quite ignorant of what’s actually going on in America.
By the way, the woman who just got 83 million awarded to her, E Jean Carroll, has unsuccessfully accused numerous people of sexual assault, her dentist, her daughter’s boyfriend among them. She’s a loon who named her cat “Vagina”. But NY found a way to prop her up in their corrupt to the core system. I couldn’t find the links to corroborate this as it’s stifled by media online. However, she apparently wrote about it in her book.
How are those two things contradictory/incompatible?
For a long time the elites tried to ignore ordinary people, now they cannot ignore them they are moving to active hostility and oppression.
I agree with the OP. The actions of the governor of Texas don’t seem like some kind of reawakening of a 150 year old secessionist instinct – more like a desperate attempt to fix a really bad problem that the federal government is actively making worse.
With a name like Twomey you must be an Irishman or of Irish descent. So you have no political acumen to speak of, look at the history of Ireland and how the government there has moved to tyranny against its own people. So your comment is downvoted many times because you’re wrong, on politics anyway.
Not surprising given that the Democratic Party is now so heavily dependent for campaign funds on George Soros, a man who believes passionately in a borderless world.
Biden can’t shut the border down by himself and neither can Trump. Trump was able to shut the border for illegal immigrant crossings, with emergency powers because of COVID-19. He tried another time, before that but didn’t follow through. He boasted he would force Mexico to pay for the wall and that didn’t happen either. He wouldn’t be able to close the border to illegal crossings just by demanding it, any more than Biden can. However, Trump plans to take control of the judicial branch of government so he can do anything he pleases, otherwise Known as a dictatorship. Anyone interested in how he plans to do that should read ‘Project 2025 The Presidential Transformation Project’, on Wikipedia, and if that doesn’t put the fear of god in you, more fool you.
Clare- we know you didn’t read it. Based on your past comments there is no way you understand anything that you talk about. You simply wait for Left Wing “Experts” to take complex texts and summarize them for you. You trust them to do this completely without bias.
It says the plan is to reshape the Executive branch, not the Judicial branch. I got that wrong, but I’m surprised you didn’t just correct me about that, instead of dismissing the whole thing by trying to invalidate me. I thought when I wrote Judicial that it didn’t feel right and was going to double-check, but I forgot.
How do you mix up the judicial and executive branches in a point about Executive Authority? It absolutely invalidates everything you said.
The President IS the executive branch. Why would a new President that disagree with the current Executive not transform it into something that works better.
I have no idea where you get your information, Clare, but you need to check other sources. The Biden White House can simply enforce the laws that are on the books. The Democrat deep state won’t do that, because chaos and destruction of the American nation-state is the goal of the New Left. Our political masters play straight from Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” to make Trump a hideous boogie man as a distraction from them whittling away property rights and democratic rights on the way to a new progressive charter. Open borders means there is no longer an ‘us’ – that means that ‘we’ no longer have a say in how our country is run. When voter ID is not required and borders are open, what is the electorate?
Via inflation and crippling Federal debt, economic power is increasingly taken from the US working population and siphoned up to the Federal government – because “we” can’t be trusted with regulating our own lives. The ruling class already controls 9/10 of the media, who simply parrot DNC talking points, usually verbatim. If that’s not a dictatorship, then the word has no meaning. If you prefer, it’s an oligarchy.
Hahahaha! Wikipedia is where you get your information on Trump and actually believe it. Right there you lose standing.
Kate Madrid
3 months ago
Oh my gosh. This is so convoluted. And more of the same total unwillingness to deal with the actual job President Trump did as president. People will twist themselves into these incredible pretzels so they can keep saying the only reason to vote for president Trump is because Racism, in fact, not just racism but southerners are still trying to refight the civil war. It’s so, so crazy.
That line got stale back in 2016. Pretty funny since Biden was instrumental in getting stiffer sentences for crack cocaine over regular cocaine and was one of the chief architects of the ’94 Crime Bill (Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994). I mean the guy pretty much deserves a lifetime achievement award for throwing black men in prison. Look up Hillary talking about “super predators” sometime for extra fun.
Of course he did that, that’s where the wind was blowing at the time. Biden has no real convictions of his own, and possibly no real genuin beliefs. If he does, they don’t really matter because he’s too cowardly and self interested to stand by them. He’s a weak vain petty little man who got to where he was because he made himself useful the more powerful persons then himself, not because he’s talented or capable, he’s actually quite mediocre in terms of ability, it is easily controlled by those more powerful then. The thing is that the political system is full of people like him and that’s all awful. Such people can be harmless in times of prosperity and stability, but we are not in such times and thus such people in such conditions often tend to oversee disasters.
I’m not sure Biden has any belief except perhaps that he is still alive, and sometimes looking at him and his performance, I wonder if he sometimes even finds that hard to believe.
I agree. Trump was the first US president to call out the many ways China has been screwing us, the first to act with decisiveness regarding our southern border, the first to call our NATO “partners” out for not contributing to its mission. He presided over the defeat of ISIS in Iraq. He more than any other entity succeeded in finally getting the corrupt Clintons out of politics. I have never cared for his personality or style but he deserves credit for those things and for relentlessly enduring the shameful political use of the apparatus of government to attempt to destroy him. And as for racism, anyone who believes the US is intrinsically racist is willfully blind.
….which is why he would have a chance of settling a compromise peace in Ukraine. With China, he understood early on, that for now measured confrontation is very necessary.
Americans don’t want to pay for another European war. It’s that simple. We think Europeans should take care of their own back yard. Trump wants to do what is right for Americans- legal Americans.
Ukraine was bought and sold well before this war. It might be interesting to see how much of it the Bidens got. Ukraine is stuffed. They want to recruit 500,000 new troops. A complete Army and they are picking up men and boys from the streets to achieve it and that is according to their own media.
The Ukrainian diaspora may well never go back. The best bet for Ukraine is accept a deal now. Russia is already manufacturing tanks and missiles (according to UK reports) daily to match their losses. Heaven knows what the Ukrainian losses are, but they can’t win. Their dreams of using Western Weapons will lead to WW3 if we aren’t careful. Military nutters over here are already suggesting the UK produce a ‘Citizen Army’ Why? Because like the US, the patriotic UK working class who supply the men aren’t interested in joining a woke service that sees them and their families as the ‘problem’.
Trump isn’t the problem, he may be the solution.
I don’t recall him saying that. He did say that Germany (and indeed the rest of NATO) should spend more of their budget on defence. It’s one of the few points on which I agree with him.
Here it is, and the German’s laughing to his face. Though as I said before. Had the US not treated Russia as the Soviet Union, something to be stomped on and surrounded, there would have been no problem. Russia was a solid business partner until the West tried to screw them. https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241
The irony is the ‘sub-titles denying it’ – effectively it was. Which is why BASF and many other German firms are moving frm Germany to China or the US.
So whilst Trump was right about the dependence, it didn’t make Russia to be a bad partner. The US certainly knew about the destruction of Nordstream 2 IF NOT the NATO is useless because it was blown up under the noses of NATO.
Had NATO not kept trying to isolate Russia resulting in the 2014 Coup, Russia would still be supplying gas. In fact Russia wanted to join NATO, We should have accepted them if we weren’t going to scrap NATO after its opponent the Warsaw Pact disappeared.
Yes! And he suggested that European countries pay their promised share (2% of each country’s GDP?) to fund NATO which most hadn’t done in decades. We have had feckless leadership in the USA until Trump arrived on the scene.
All the leadership in the West has been feckless for decades. We became rather like the British Empire’s Edwardians, comfortable and so not interested in politics or power, but more interested in leisure. That leaves the committed to handle the levers of power and it seems across the Anglosphere we’ve let self-interested fanatics do what they like best, play politics BUT then to achieve power. Now we are paying the price for letting the inmates run the asylum.
Since Reagan, you mean? He didn’t kowtow to any Russians. My favourite line of Reagan’s was: “My version of how the Cold War ends is ‘We win, they lose'”.
He was, and the German’s he told laughed, literally, to his face. It’s on the Web somewhere. Still he was actually wrong. The Russians believe it or not are people you can deal with. They never reneged on their deals unilaterally, They still supply the EU.
The only issues with gas were when the Ukrainians kept ‘diverting it’ as the pipelines went over their territory. Hence the first of the Nord Streams to Germany. The second one never got used thanks to the US.
The irony is many will now say “but Russia used the gas as leverage’ – true, but the US used the banking system with Russia, Goose, sauce and Gander spring to mind. AND who blew up Nordstream 2?
It wasn’t the Russians. German money went into that pipeline, so some “friend blew it up’ – why? The gas went from Russia to Germany, not the other way around.
The consequences of the US meddling in Russia’s backyard is catastrophic. It as much as the current US(Anglosphere splits) are changing the world order.
Brexit didn’t help the EU, but the Ukraine conflict is likely to bring it to its knees as the Germany banker is de-industrialising fast thanks to their insane Green Energy not being viable now Russia isn’t supplying gas.
Victoria Nuland may find history gives her a starring role in the creation of a new, bi or even multi-polar world, and the eventual demise of the EU.
The UK demise is self-inflicted, only Brexit gives us the hope we can remove our ruling Uniparty and rescue ourselves. Trump may do the same for the US assuming the left don’t find another legal ploy to screw him.
Russia is a 2nd rate power that at most will take over European countries on its doorstep and glower from its manger while drowning in vodka. Bad for the Poles and Czechs and so on, not really an issue for anyone else. Just another installment in the ongoing centuries-long saga of land wars in Europe. China on the other hand is a 1st rate world power, with a mission to dominate the planet. Which could be ok if you don’t mind giving up freedom. Trump’s priorities are sound. That said, he probably won’t achieve anything because his entire bureaucracy is woke and will undermine him, like last time.
There is no way Putin invades Poland. It’s the biggest military power in Western Europe. If he can’t defeat Ukraine, he will be in big trouble in Poland
The Poles will hate Russia no matter what happens. If they get Lvov back, they may be mollified though.
And Ukraine is dead already. Vast millions have fled, maybe for good. A million of young men destroyed, either dead or badly wounded. And the west looting the farmland there, and anything else of value. Just like the west looted eastern Europe, only harder. Putin will take Donbas; already has. The rest will be picked over by the neighbors… maybe leaving a rump. My sense of it.
The Poles will hate Russia no matter what happens.
Surely everyone hates Russia. Russians are a fundamentally unlikable people. It is a mystery why their athletes are allowed to compete in international sport.
The Czechs have been looted by the West, and are being screwed by the EU for a change. Attitudes toward Russia are mixed.
As for the woke bureaucracy undermining Trump if elected, you got that right.
Russia will NOT trouble the Poles or the Czechs unless they interfere. Russia has only ever occupied Russian speaking areas of the surrounding countries and usually in response to the Russian speaking minorities being targetted.
The biggest mistake other than going Woke, that the West has made is to turn Russia away when they wanted to join us. Now we have acquired a powerful enemy. Not in terms of say, Western Military Might, but in terms of economic and natural resources. The world is NOT going to live off windmills, and Russia has lots of resources.
This February a meeting of the BRICS ,IIRC, will become the focus of much interest, It will take place in Russia and there are rumours it may announce a reliance on gold as a backing for international trading and currency. The aim being for the BRICS to detach themselves from reliance on the $ and the US banking system. IF it happens, then the price of gold, it is suggested, will go through the roof. The consequences for Uncle Sam and the $ hegemony could be catastrophic, but even if not, they won’t be very good at all.
IF it happens, it will be on Biden’s watch.
The EU may also not recover from the self-inflicted wound of sanctioning Russia.
As for Woke bureaucracies, somehow I think Trump won’t put up with those for very long. He knows who screwed him and who may decide to try again once he’s left office. The only question is how quickly and effectively he can achieve his aim.
Why should he? Russia was stuffed by NATO and the coup of 2014. The Nazi’s were in the Ukraine. Canada’s parliament so dumb re history, that they even applauded an ex Waffen SS Ukrainian when Zelensky visited.
I will give him all that you said, but Trump’s problem was that his methodology was sloppy and his efforts often half-hearted. Trump’s a good tactician but a bad strategist, he is the type of leader who wins battles but he loses Wars, fights bravely but not wisely and is often error prone. Trump’s issues is he can’t really finish the things that he starts when comes to politics because he’s terrible at politics, his attempts at intervening in electoral and Congressional politics have been disastrous, his candidates often lose, and attempt to enact legislation often fail. Trump is a smart and cunning person, but those qualities are often negated by the fact that his priorities are screwed up. His problem is he can’t put off personal gratification and thus loses sight of what’s really important and what’s of tangible value, he’s obsessed with validation from others which leaves him prone to being manipulated. When it comes to the cause of populism in America, in some ways he’s a he’s more of a liability the strength to the movement, a weakness that has enemies often exploit. When it comes to choosing between gold and Glory, he always goes for Glory. But glory is fleeting, but gold lasts forever. If he played his cards right he could have had both, but Trump doesn’t work that way, thus often prone to self-destruct.
Trump has the defects you list but the Trump Administration was – despite the chaos and missteps – surprisingly effective. After thirty years of continuity, it pushed the system in new directions in sustainable ways on China, halting further globalisation, corporate tax reform and, most importantly, placing the well-being of the bulk of the population back at the centre of political debate. Biden’s adoption of many of the policies is a tribute to the Trump Administration. The immigration issue is, of course, the major exception.
The challenge is that Trump may have been the cheerleader for many of these changes but was – as you suggest – too managerially inept to make them happen by himself. They depended on various lieutenants prevailing in the infighting e.g. Peter Navarro on China.
If Trump wins a second term, he will be even older and managerially inept. As with Reagan’s second term, it will probably be the lieutenants who drive policy. We will need to analyse the composition of his team very carefully.
Just wondered what was more important during his Presidency that he didn’t deal with – election fraud!! Where were his managerial failures.? Unfortunately it’s very easy for commenters to pontificate in areas, when you read between the lines, they know little about. And of course they will never give specifics.
When the ‘weakness’ to exploit requires the tactics used by the Democrats, I’d say it suggests he isn’t weak. As I’ve said before, from the UK the Democrat hunting in packs to get Trump has made the US look not just like a banana republic, but a second rate one.
I also think that he won’t want to leave behind any trace of Woke in the bureaucracy that can target him once he leaves office for the second time.
Having said that, the US seems to have gone even more insane that the UK, so I wouldn’t bet my house on any of my ideas.
It’s so, so crazy that people are giving you thumbs down. I wonder if there are few patriotic Americans on this blog and too a great majority of liberal Europeans. To accuse Trump supporters of being hypnotized ignores Trump’s record. I won’t list reasons now but his record is public knowledge. Rather than us supporters being hypnotized I’d suggest the writer from who-knows-where in Sweden suffers from a form of derangement common on the Left. Nothing personal. It’s a condition whose symptoms include a hate that influences reasoning.
Rather than being hypnotized rubes, we consider ourselves possessors of common sense using votes to express common sense to reverse the insanity of the Woke and today’s elites who flood civilized nations with unvetted strangers too many of which will choose not to assimilate. Their disruption, arrogance and ploys for power are a Frankenstein’s monster unleashed upon peace loving Judeo/Christians and rather than point to an obscure esoteric Japanese period it’s potential is more like the loss of Byzantium or other civilizations who’ve grown too complacent and leisured thinking the worst will never happen to them.
Trump supporters will put up one more fight. Trump supporters will use speech, the keyboard and the vote in an effort to return America to a place (forgive a lighter note) of apple pies and hotdogs where men are men and people are judged more by their character than the color of their skin. And this battle is not futile. It’s real and contemporary. It’s being waged right now on blogs and the border. Win or lose in November, it’s game on.
I’m nitpicking today! From Britannica: Byzantine Empire, the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which survived for a thousand years after the western half had crumbled into various feudal kingdoms and which finally fell to Ottoman Turkish onslaughts in 1453.
No contemporaries called it the Byzantine Empire or even themselves the Byzantine Emperor. They were the ‘linear’ descendants of Caesar, and as such called themselves Romanoi or Romans up until the last final hour, just before lunch on Tuesday the 29th of May 1453.
As I said before Wolf ‘invented’ the word to assist his scholarship. There were also plenty of ‘Renaissance’ Italians, Raphael for example who were only too keen to rubbish the fact that New Rome or Constantinople had lived on for nearly a thousand years after ‘old’ Rome fell to the Visigoths 476 AD.
The term Byzantine did not enter English historiography until Dr Smith’s seminal work “A dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography” in 1853.
What thoroughbred Roman would call those effete pederasts his equal? Pedantry be damned, the Troiæ were no Greeks!
If I may quote The Sopranos:
“And the Romans, where are they now?”
“You’re lookin’ at ’em, asshole.”
Kate. I don’t even know what you are trying to say. Is this pro-Trump or anti. I just can’t figure you out.
Steve Murray
3 months ago
Probably the best analysis of how and why America is where it is that i’ve read. Of course, no solutions are being offered; because there aren’t any (as yet) and it’d be foolish to do so. I think the main point the writer makes is that Trump himself isn’t offering solutions, but simply hope to those who can’t abide the way things are going; simply by saying “this isn’t right” out loud and clear, a rejection of the status quo.
At one level, the resurrection of old fault lines in the American state injects some meaning into current events. So, rather than seemingly chaotic, there’s a thread that can be followed which started at the outset of American history which provides a sense of continuity, and appears (to me at least) to be strangely comforting. The comparison with Japanese history was enlightening too, although almost unnecessary except in the sense that states have ways of evolving with some commonality. This too, seems strangely comforting in a time of flux.
IDK, I’m not convinced of the Japan analogy. I don’t think the border issue is bringing up old grievances. Abbott is fundamentally opposed to the federal govt’s approach to border control. He’s simply using whatever tools he can to justify his position.
The writer’s thesis is intriguing. There is huge resentment over Democrats/Liberals/Progressives who are trying to reshape the nation in what they think would be a more ‘equitable model’ – ie according to their definition . It started with the Civil Rights legislation which a number of academics have asserted set up a parallel Constitution which has created friction with the ‘Founding Fathers’ Constitution. Aside from destroying statues, today, we hear leftists who want to ‘pack the Supreme Court’, get rid of the Electoral College among other changes to voting mostly to take power away and reconcentrate it in liberal urban areas, not to mention that the liberals use the courts to get what they want rather than seek consent of the people at large (Dobbs ‘abortion’ comes to mind). It is also liberals who ironically declared ‘sanctuary cities’ contravening federal law, ie they will not cooperate with ICE (deportation authority) but now they are dealing with illegal migrants which they have to service which is costing specific cities billions which they are hoping to extract from the federal govt eventually. That will be another battle.
Thanks for that detailed addition to the original article, the point about a parallel Constitution in particular, As old wounds re-open, the liberal elite are doing their utmost to try to insulate themselves from the effects, leaving the rest of the population to almost fend for themselves. The result? Trump, who at least recognises the problem and is willing to give voice to it.
I really liked the article myself – it seems to have some unique and valuable insights into what’s happening in America including the Japan parallel. I find this kind of insight is rare to come by since academia by and large refuse to engage with the topic, and the few who do tend to be analytical types (e.g. Peterson, Lindsay) who prefer to operate on first principles instead of doing social commentary.
This is becoming eerily close to the prediction of that Russia scholar who predicted an American break-up of states into 2 or 3 parts some time ago (can’t recall the name). I recall laughing at it a while back as Russian fanciful thinking, but it’s been quite good at predicting the trajectory so far.
UnHerd Reader
3 months ago
The thesis that this election is darker than 2016’s MAGA theme is what keeps the majority of thoughtful Americans awake at night. Setting aside Trump’s personal characteristics, from a practical standpoint who will join him in his administration now? Yes, some of his cabinet heads and other appointees in 2016 were goofy, but others–no matter their conservative predilections–were at least capable people. Nikki Haley is one example. He has burned through all of the thoughtful conservatives that might serve to buffer his excesses. Only the nut cases are left.
As to the notion that the antebellum American South had no aspirations to expand slavery, you are misinformed about US history. The Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, the efforts to acquire Cuba were all manifestations of the South’s aggressive efforts to expand American slavery.
The current state of American politics devolves from far more than the revival of grievances rooted in the Civil War. That is an oversimplification that fails to recognize that the fault lines in America today are far less North-South than Urban-Rural. Austin, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia are far more Progressive politically than most towns in upstate New York.
As for the tensions between federal and state government, the recent actions of states would not have occurred except for the vacuum of meaningful action by the federal government on issues of real importance to American citizens. The federal government has for some time responded more to Big Tech, Big Academia, Big Media, the Victim-Industrial Complex and Wall Street than to its taxpayers. Trump’s lack of a filter on his mouth means that he lies to them less than the Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons. It’s not much but it’s all they really have right now.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why this gets down votes. I might disagree that Trump won’t be able to get thoughtful conservatives, but it’s certainly plausible.
The Republican Party has a wide and talented bench compared to the Democrat Party which was eviserated – losing over 1,000 – state, local and federal elections as a result of the Obama mid-term – and never really recovered. There’s lots of Republican talent which would gladly step up. Moreover, the Hoover Institution and several other groups are identifying talent and working on plans should Trump be re-elected with the intent of getting off to a quick start. Lots needs to be ‘edited’ and repaired after the disastrous Biden years.
Trump’s treatment of his past appointees has been universally horrid. He is not surrounded by a large body of experienced Republicans who stand ready to pull on the oars for him. No political figure who served in Trump’s previous administration benefitted from it and many had their careers ruined by it. Who of those young Republicans being vetted by think tanks wants step up to be the next loyal Rudy Giuliani? Pence and Haley are but two examples of how he rewards those who have served him. Trump is a unique phenomenon of direct democracy: he and his base are powerfully joined but without any intermediary layers of true political organization with any degree of talent. No matter how many well-meaning think tanks cultivate young conservative talent, few of those bright newcomers will line up to be thrown under the Trump bus when it suits his ego. He will be down to the Marjorie Taylor Greene types.
“Setting aside Trump’s personal characteristics, from a practical standpoint who will join him in his administration now? ”
Well, if he would only follow Javier Milei’s lead he wouldn’t need so many. As with abortion, it’s clear (at least to me), that the Federal government has overstretched its intended authority, mostly via the USSC’s expansive reading of the Commerce Clause. Paring the Federal government of numerous agencies which are duplicative of state agencies (HEW, EPA, DEA,…etc.) would limit his necessary appointments while, at the same time, put a real dent in the deficit! It would also have the added benefit of making D.C. area real estate much more affordable!
Javier Milei is only the latest iteration of the perpetual Latin American doom cycle of swinging back and forth between the extreme Left and extreme Right. Everything he does will be undone when he is inevitably replaced by his polar opposite. That phenomenon is exactly the peril that the United States now faces: endless cycles of flamboyant disruptive figures who satisfy the blood-lust of their base without establishing a political equilibrium conducive to stability. We are racing towards becoming another banana republic.
Trump is the result, not the cause. From here in the UK the US and Canada both look like Banana republics. I suspect we are one election away from the same fate.
A lot of the near elite types on the right are ready to join Trump 24. Biden’s misrule has convinced people that the time for fear and equivocation is over. If we don’t commit and really fight we wont have a country anymore.
If things go as planned, then I believe there will be no issues with maga supporters who have proved their worth over the past eight years. So there will be no Bill Barr, no Pence, No Wray, etc.
The one thing Trump may have learnt is that actions speak louder than words. (also there will be no second chances).
One does have some unease in the Civil War analogy though, the specter of racism means there is a huge room to misunderstand the writers point. Passing over that though – yes. It is exactly that the Federal Government has usurped the power of the throne (the people). haha, the example of the character ‘Wormtongue’ in Lord of the Rings…….
The Deep State and Unparty are captured by the elites of Tech, Finance, and Corporate, and thus have captured USA.
It all is what is called 5th generation war. Capture by the philosophy of Postmodernism of Medea, education, entertainment, social media – and expelling the Christian Philosophy which created USA through the Enlightenment Liberal of the Constitution Writers and zeitgeist of the late 1700s. One of Freedom based on both Rights And Responsibilities. That the price of freedom is Duty, Honesty, Rule of Law, Justice, Hard Work, and Patriotism.
We are captured by Evil basically. They have a plan for us and the West. It is the destruction of the Middle Class and skilled Working Class. Those are hard working, meritocracy, have both money and morals, and so under Democracy vote for what is best for the nation. Those have to be destroyed to conquer a Democrat Nation from within. All the weirdness you see about you – that is the Fifth Generation Warfare weapons and Battles – and we are losing terribly.
Voting for Trump is also the 5Th generation warfare of Defense, defending against the Fifth Generation Warefare Attackers. This is an Existential Crises. If lost it will likely be forever, with AI as they are harnessing it against us. It is 1939….. and 1984 is the goal.
Trump is the last rallying of the forces of Enlightenment Values, and if lost will become the horrific dystopias we have seen last century, only without the chance for escaping them. There will be no Cold War, as there will be no bastion of Freedom left in the world. It will just be Cold.
“Trump is the last rallying of the forces of Enlightenment Values.” Did I read that right? List of major Enlightenment figures: David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Voltaire, Donald Trump….
This is actually a really good example of how US history now divides into pre-2016 and post-2016 narratives. If you use the date option on Google and look at when Trump was just a celebrity businessman you’ll find articles on his taste in books and reading (including the cheesiness of picking his own books). Post-2016 the narrative becomes one of an uneducated klutz reliant on TV.
Our histories increasingly have breakpoints – before and after – and changing narratives that play fast-and-loose with the past. It’s also going to get worse quickly. As AI manipulates what might or might not be true, we have to get better at retaining skepticism and a willingness to back-check, even of things we believe are true.
Given the people who read books have largely formed an elite class actively robbing resources from the hard-knocks & street-wise classes, clearly book-reading is overrated (I have a PhD so don’t look for a simple dismissal of my views based on my supposed gauche ignorance). The picture that always comes back to me is the social structure in the movie Hunger Games. Corrupt, self-absorbed, venal elites in absolute power, versus the remnants of Enlightenment universalist principles of fairness and freedom in the elite-destroyed Districts. We want the elite overthrown. Trump is the only one in the political class who gets it. I don’t care if he reads Baudelaire or not. That’s not his role.
I didn’t suggest that Trump should read Baudelaire, but he might have been a more well-rounded person if he’d read something. In my day (which is more recent than his day) you kind of had to read some things to get through school.
We need even more ignorant bloviators who are somehow proudest of what they haven’t even tried to learn?
What Evangelical fanboy thinks Trump has ever read the Bible, let alone absorbed anything that guides him from it?
Perhaps but you have no idea whether Trump is widely read or not. You are simply making an assumption based on no facts at all. As for Baudelaire, how many Brits have read Baudelaire in the original French. I would wager not too many since, in general, foreign language skills (including French) in the UK is not exactly a national forte. i.e. even those who got up to some sort of elementary French, that wouldn’t be sufficient to actually read Baudelaire.
No one is suggesting Trump should have read Baudelaire, just something a bit challenging and thoughtful. We just think that’s unlikely to have happened, is the point.
As my father would say, “Those who can’t do teach”…..Trump is a doer. What business or job in the private sector did either Biden or Obama ever have? Both are literally government wards as far as ‘work’ goes.
C’mon. Do you think he’s read any serious books since college? If so, how many?How about during college? Listen to him: He isn’t dumb but he does not care to read or learn about other people except out of naked self-interest or cynical strategy. “2 Corinthians”, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) is “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more”?
Be honest. Very doubtful he knows when either the Revolutionary War or WWII began and ended. Granted, these are not established facts, but do you find my informed assessment farfetched?
*And do you think he could tell the difference between Bach, Beethoven, and Strauss?
I’m not saying these are litmus test qualifications but Trump is a cultural ignoramus.
What a ridiculous example in Baudelaire. How about John Stuart Mill or the U.S. Constitution itself?
A “corrupt, self-absorbed, venal elite in absolute power” is exactly what you’ll have if Trump II comes to pass. He’s declared his nakedly authoritarian plans. Or is Trump a regular guy who cares about common folk, sharing more with them than their disinclination to read real books, on average?
He’s written more social media copy than he’s read of anything since 2015–quite sure of that. But there are always some people who support a destructive demagogue, from Huey Long to Joseph McCarthy and all the rest.
…Why? So he’d be just like everyone else bound by administrative state groupthink?
N T
3 months ago
this was the most interesting, compelling thing i’ve read on unherd, in a long time. nicely done.
i guess the two questions that really matter, in 2024 are:
* which side will the roberts court choose, facing several cases with states’ rights in play?
* what can, and what will this and the next president do that might serve to bring us together, or further the rift?
i hope that it does not end in violence.
and speaking of violence, there is a very real (small?) possibility that well-meaning civilians may take matters into their own hands, go rogue/vigilante, and start a cross-border conflict with mexico.
Your first question may become superfluous as states that find themselves unable and unwilling to accept the legitimacy of the Federal government also find themselves in conflict with that of the Supreme Court.
It can readily be contended that both the Federal government and the Supreme Court have egregiously overreached their legal and political influence. And by egregiously, I mean completely and thoroughly at odds with the principles of the Republic.
Martin M
3 months ago
To the extent that Trump is “fighting for America”, he will be fighting for his America, and what that is will probably change from week to week.
If you look at his policies you can clearly see that ‘his’ America is the America of the Democratic Part pre Clinton globalism and the Wall Street takeover.
Trump’s policies depend on what day of the week it is, and what he perceives his personal interest to be on that day.
Daniel P
3 months ago
One thing that I find interesting is the number of people migrating to red states from blue states.
Anecdotally, it seems that the people that are doing so are not just looking to find cheaper housing and lower taxes though that is certainly a factor. I think it is social too. There are a lot of former Boston people like myself here and we are all moderate conservatives but would probably be thought of as right wing in New England. Same with the people from New York that have moved here. They are more conservative than where they moved from.
And those of us in red states tend to tell the new arrivals “Welcome, but please do not try to do here what you did there.”.
My guess is that the next census is gonna show that the populations in the red states have risen as has their wealth and their economies. That will mean more seats in the house for them and fewer for the blue states.
Think about it, in places like New England and NY and CA, there are plenty of republicans, it is just that they are wildly outnumbered. But they also count for apportionment of house seats. If every republican in CA up and left for TX or FL or GA or WY, then those states would get more seats, CA etc. would lose seats and there would be more republicans in the house.
But this self sorting by geography is also makes things like states banning together against the federal government more likely.
Republicans departing blue states for red are being proactively replaced by immigrants so as to not only maintain the population-based levels of representation in Congress but even to extend it.
Internal political migration cannot compete with the millions of predominantly blue-voting replacements
Yes, this point is not well understood by the public.
Seats are allocated based on census data – raw population totals for each state. Not voters, not citizens ….just humans.
What the Democrats have done under Biden’s Presidency is import approximately 8 million illegals. These people are largely headed for blue states, that offer more welfare. They more than outnumber the Americans leaving those states, and will increased the power of the blue states, by growing their raw population size …which hands them more seats.
Some of the Dems even say the quiet part out loud from time to time, such as New York City Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY). In a video that can still be found online, she said when discussing the problems that come with this influx of illegals: “I’m from Brooklyn, New York. We have a diaspora that can absorb a significant number of these migrants,” …“When I hear colleagues talk about, you know, the doors of the inn being closed — ah, no room at the inn — I’m saying I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes…”
I think this important to highlight, because many members of the public are thinking “Ok, well they have brought in millions of illegals, but at least they can’t vote”… well, actually their very presence increases Dem political power. And as the Dems build more political power they will then use it to push for amnesty policies, so eventually these people will be voting (unless Trump is elected, and sends some of them back).
That “bodies” are counted for apportioning the legislature rather than citizens is crazy. (And I knew about the practice/rule before reading JJ Barnett.)
What is many times misunderstood is that most immigrants are church-going, faithfully monogamous, hard working people who are mostly conservative socially and culturally. They are increasingly voting Republican candidates who espouse these values.
That has been true of certain types of immigrants — particularly those from Latin America who have experience with socialism, as well as Catholic / Christian cultural influences.
But as border experts have attested, in later 2021, around a year after Biden had first flung open the borders, the demographics of who was coming started to shift radically.
Huge upswing in military age males traveling alone, and a shift from Latin migrants to African, Chinese, Middle Eastern and Indian / Pakistani.
It is highly questionable whether young Pakistani Muslim men, or single 30yr old male Somali Muslims, will integrate in the way that a Catholic Cuban family might. I think it would be naive to assume that this would be so, no?
True. I noticed the preponderance of single males of a certain age, a long time ago, and thought what the hell will they do, not speaking the language or having the right skills in an age of technology?
You obviously don’t know much about catholics. Some Muslim immigrants have identified increasing their numbers through immigration and reproduction in democracies will eventually allow them to seize control. In some places in the U.K. their population is increasing exponentially. The Israel/Hamas conflict has both increased their determination and exposed their intention. More and more mosques where radical Islam is preached are being built. Some Pakistani Muslims genuinely believe that Pakistan will be the next superpower and this will happen by 2030.
The great sorting continues, the productive and pro-social elements of American society are moving to were they appreciate, respected and valued and were they can thrive. Meanwhile the unproductive and anti-social stay were they are and keep doing the things that make life in their places difficult. They do this because they lack social awareness, are content because they somehow benefit from the dysfunction(welfare or employment, politics), or out some warped sense of righteousness or narcissistic indulgence. This is the reason why I don’t have a lot sympathy with the people living in those places and don’t really care about what’s happening there, save as source of amusement or fear that the the fools in are political want to impose the madness on the rest us.
We have a good many liberal friends moving south as well, as they see northern states as dysfunctional but then they vote for the same craziness when they move to the south. My aunt who lives in Georgia says there are so many Massachusetts people there that a ‘Massachusetts Club’ has formed.
We left New England for Florida in January 2021, at the height of the Covid panic, when the media was calling the state “Covid ground zero” and its governor “DeathSantis”. We never got the virus, never got the shots, never masked, and never looked back.
The problem is that the Feds fought hard to have all people counted in the census, not just citizens. So this huge number of illegals will count in the number of representatives that the states get, enabling the blues to outnumber the reds at the federal level still.
I left that pretentious enclave 25 years ago. I no longer even bother visiting, though I still have family and some growing-ever-distant friends. More the “hub of arrogance” than the “hub of the universe” they are fond of viewing themselves.
I’m visiting southern California where I grew up, after living in the wide open spaces of New Mexico and Utah for the last 25 years. This place feels like a decaying post-apocalyptic wasteland now, but growing up here I thought I was in the center of the universe. Life is funny. Can’t wait to get back to higher elevation, fresh air and freedom-loving people.
I read an interesting op-ed from Doomberg, IIRC, pointing out that increasingly the ‘energy rich fossil fuel’ states are keeping the Green States ‘alive’ – and the ‘fossil/green’ split appears to match the Republican/Democrat split. Energy is what creates civilisations, the more you have to ‘use’ the higher your standard of living. Any ‘split’ in the USA along such lines is going to make for riveting TV, as no doubt someone will document it.
Liberals and conservatives self sorting by geography makes me sad, though I understand it. The more tribal we become, the more we’ll devolve, I’m afraid, focusing increasingly on the small stuff at the expense of the larger, more important (and interesting) challenges. We need the best and brightest of all stripes to move us forward. The tribal paranoia we’re currently seeing closely parallels the rise in mental illness. This is an unfolding tragedy.
Open borders and immigration was a poor choice to illustrate the growing divide between Americans. The vast majority of Americans share the same concern about immigration and it is now the number one issue for voters. In a recent poll, 68% of respondents believe the Biden administration should make it tougher to get into the U.S. illegally – including 50% of Democrats.
Many liberal jurisdictions passed ‘sanctuary city’ laws never realizing what that would mean in the event of the invasion that is now taking place. It’s called ‘eating your vote’. Only half of Democrats think Biden should be tougher on immigration- but that number is 75% for independents and 95% for Republicans. Democrats for the most are okay with the mayhem taking place.
Democrats are most likely to be insulated from the chaos and largely unaware it even exists. The border crisis is simply not covered in a factual manner in any media they consume.
Yes, this is probably true for elite (rich & educated) Democrats, but not for inner city blacks who are now feeling the brunt of illegal immigration. In Chicago, the black community is suing the city because it wants to use a community center to house illegals. In NYC, blacks are also outraged that their children are being made to stay home and learn remotely whilst their schools are being used to house illegals as well. In Denver, the local hospital threatens to shut down after having serviced 8,0000 illegals ( 20K visits) with no recompense. Covid did enough damage to the young & disadvantaged and now this. It’s no wonder that blacks when polled are veering away from Biden – especially black men. A majority of people under 35 are now polling for Trump as well….
Cathy, Biden and the democrats do not like free blacks. As you know slave owners were democrats. Democrats have now opened the borders to replace blacks. And yet blacks continue to support their democrat masters. Perhaps the IQs coming in from the southern border will be higher than black IQ
But why are they ok with the mayhem taking place? It reminds me of the Camp of the Saints where the enthusiastic supporters of the mayhem get destroyed by it in the end. But until the last few minutes, they are still “all in.” Ideology before reality…
It boggles the mind, but it’s always ‘Orange Man Bad’ and that the Democrats are ‘Saving Democracy’ which is just lunacy at this point and folks are catching on.
The problem is that 50% of democrats are the most influential parts of their support, most of their academics, bureaucrats, teachers, govt employees, the loud, two face hypocrites who will defend illegal mass immigration to the bitter end while living in large White / Asian upper class suburban locales.
Yeah the Dems realized after it was too late. “Oh we’ll be a sanctuary and actively take them in.” And after costing 100’s of millions of dollars and bankrupting hospitals, the Dems are finally like, “oops, bad decision”.
Exactly. I’m a liberal and I’m very concerned about migrants. Who isn’t? I don’t know anyone who isn’t concerned. Commenters should be on the lookout for a documentary called “Exodus” which shows the unimaginable horror and suffering of people in Senegal. They’re starving because fish, their main food source has gone because of overfishing. Then rising sea levels, from global warming, have taken away their homes so they have nothing left. They keep risking their lives making treacherous ocean voyages in small, open boats, trying to get to Spain. Few make it. Watching that documentary, and the one about immigrants coming through the Darian gap, makes it look as though the whole third world is surging towards Europe and America, en mass. It’s very frightening because no one knows what to do about it.
Generally, it’s more about increased wealth and ease of travel than increased poverty. The migrant sources were unstable before current levels of mass migration.
0 0
3 months ago
You said, “Trump isn’t going to reinforce all those hundreds of military bases, solve the recruitment crisis, and make sure the next couple of forever wars are ran competently this time.” well the same thing can be said about Biden. The reason is is that both of these mediocrities lack the temperament to do these things or anything else related to it, at least effectively. For Biden, he’s too risk adverse, shortsighted and easily dominated by those around him and only cares about himself and is rotten family that he exploits for his own purposes and dealing with that huge chip on his shoulder born from belief that he’s never been given his due. For Trump, he’s too impulsive, shortsighted and reckless due to an incessant needs to gratify his chronically fragile ego and constantly looking for that illusionary Glory that he feels was denied to him. Both of them are self-serving individuals who care for nothing beyond themselves. Whatever issue or policy that is in question it’s a secondary interest to them and only have their interest when benefits them or they feel threatened. These people really have no real strategy or vision for the country, save for them being president and enjoying the prestige of the office, nothing more or less. They are both deeply insecure men who seek power in order to assange their deep feelings of inadequacy. Everything else in the world only exists to serve that purpose as far as they see it. Neither of these two will be the saviors of America. What’s even more terrifying is that the political system is infested with people like this, there are no saviors on the horizon. Plus I like the Japanese example you gave, political and social systems only have only have power untill people stop respecting it due to believe that doing so no longer serves their interest or they stop fearing it. Power is a social convention, empower only exists only as long as people obey the convention around it.
Alex Carnegie
3 months ago
Brilliant essay. The resurfacing of old grudges and the exposure of fault lines in the Constitution as currently interpreted are indeed major and under discussed features of the evolving crisis.
What is left out, however, are the shorter term economic factors precipitating the crisis. If the post 1990s stagnation or decline of the real standard of living of half the US population ended and the steady improvement of the 1940s-90s resumed, then the grudges and fault lines would matter less and return to their former obscurity.
If a historical parallel is obligatory, consider the French Revolution. There were all sorts of grand causes – Voltaire, Rousseau, an encyclopaedia, privileges of the aristocracy, absolute but inept monarchy, etc etc – but if there had not been food shortages in Paris then there would have been no mobs and no revolution.
As President, Trump seemed for a couple of years – prior to Covid – to be offering not only hope but effective action leading to briefly rising incomes. It is the memory of that brief period which I think is the “secret sauce” providing him with much of his current support.
The underlying problem is that since the 1990s the American political system has served more those who finance campaigns than those who vote. The combined impact of globalisation, automation and immigration have benefitted the former but not the latter. For a democracy to adopt and sustain policies for thirty years which hurt around half the population is perhaps puzzling. That democracy throws up Trump as a response should not be. He may be a weird, startling or even frightening figure but he is the equivalent of the sans-culottes crying for bread (and the incomprehension of the Democrats on a par with Marie Antoinette on cake).
As George Bernard Shaw said “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” All the reasonable US politicians joined and served the system which created this problem. One should not be too surprised therefore that it is an entirely unreasonable, utterly egocentric and flawed outsider who has ended up channeling the discontent – if understandably worried about the possible consequences.
“If a historical parallel is obligatory”.
The French Revolution is ancient history for most, perhaps Weimar and its consequences might have been a better analogy?
I think you are being an optimist if you think any historical analogy is likely to resonate widely these days. History as a subject is in sad decline. I suspect the author has got in right in choosing an obscure topic like the Meiji Restoration where one can claim any parallel one likes free from fear of contradiction (unless there are Japanese readers of UnHerd who might have strong views). In future, I am planning to quote analogies only from Lower Lotharingia and the Sokoto Caliphate and winning every argument.
It a great pity that our ‘expert’ on all things Japanese, Basil Chamberlain is no longer a subscriber. He was also noticeably knowledgeable on all things Dante and Belarusian monasteries, not to mention numerous other interesting subjects.
Those were the days indeed!
Sadly you have scuppered my attempt to start a conversation about the comparative intellectual abilities of Mr Trump and the late Herr Hitler.
“I try and tell myself it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. If you tell yourself it doesn’t matter […] then you have earthquakes in India where 400,000 people get killed. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. That’s how I handle stress.” – Reichsführer Donald Trump
Some great comments being made especially this one. And the original article felt like fresh analysis too. Thanks folks it’s been educational.
Rasmus Fogh
3 months ago
So now we have a pro-Trump voice also agreeing that the US is heading towards civil war – with or without the shooting. It really looks more and more likely.
Totally frightening how the narrative-smiths can roll out a talking point then have it slowly take over like a fungus rotting civil discourse. So far violence and riots have been mostly from the left, which then makes it sound too much like a call to arms.
It’s taken a huge amount of thought and effort – from Foucault to Alinsky and beyond – to develop the tools needed to control narratives in this way. But they will fail if enough people start to understand how it is done.
The increasing polarisation and the consequent risks are not an invention. Unfortunately. The left certainly has its large share of the responsibility, what with the 1619 project, defunding the police, sanctuary cities, and the general cultural woke push, and the George Floyd riots and the official support they got (in the middle of a pandemic, too!). But the right seems equally intolerant. And Trumps push to deligitimate the election and disregard the official vote counts – not to mention the invasion of the Capitol – is an even more serious step towards disintegrating the union.
I have left the Left and been hanging on rightish forums a lot, not having a real home. And I don’t see people being “equally intolerant.” There is a lot of camaraderie on the Right, and humor, and tolerance for even outlandish ideas. The Right seems to me to be rooted in treating others with courtesy despite some of their opinions. (Viz, many on the Left deplore Unherd, the way it amiably mixes people from both sides. 🙂
The quote below was on Unherd just a few days ago. And (unlike say ‘Champagne Socialist’) this attitude is not a glaring exception either. Yes, I do think there is comparable intolerance on the right (I do not care which side might be 5% worse than he other).
Use of phony propaganda memes like ’hateful right wing’ to refer to the citizen patriots who support the Jan 6 hostages is treason. Anyone spouting this bullshit will pay and we can find you.
I agree, but this is the Internet. Civil discourse is a casualty of the age we live in. I personally try to ignore stupidity rather than waste energy trying to get rid of it or being upset about it. We may as well try to empty the ocean with a bucket.
The Left denied the validity of the 2000 and 2016 elections but as with their psychotic rhetoric, such things are only a problem if the other side do it.
In principle, I agree with you, but I also take a longer term view of things. Identity politics and pushing racial grievances for the sake of getting the votes of ‘minorities’ was always going to have consequences if pursued as a long term political strategy. If one labels everyone who opposes their policies as a racist, one should not express surprise when they later find themselves opposed and outnumbered by ‘racists’. ‘They started it’ cannot be an excuse for bad behavior, but it can be true nonetheless. A vicious unprovoked attack is not the same as a vicious attack with provocation. One side is guilty of trying to force the world and its people to conform to its particular dogma so far as race, open borders, gender, climate, the pandemic, and so forth is concerned and one side is striking back in anger. That is simply my reading of these debates as they have evolved over the decades. I do not excuse the Jan 6th rioters who actually committed crimes. Those who break the law should be punished fairly and impartially. To a lot of voters, it doesn’t look like that’s happening when one compares the Jan 6th rioters to the George Floyd rioters of a few months earlier. Such inconsistencies become difficult to ignore.
I will always oppose violence as a means to change. I believe that passive resistance is both more effective and more humane. When passive resistance does succeed, it doesn’t leave behind so much anger and create grudges that span generations. That said, I’m not going to defend the establishment from said violence either. That is the problem really. Most everyone who isn’t a revolutionary for one side or the other simply doesn’t think the system is worth defending. I’m at the point I think the best outcome is some sort of ‘national divorce’ that cedes most power over social and immigration policy to state level governments and limit the national government to military and monetary policy. I’m well aware this would require throwing out the Constitution, and as much as I respect the founding fathers, I know nothing lasts forever. Perhaps its time for a new one.
Rasmus Fogh
3 months ago
The analysis of MAGA is a bit sugar-coated. Surely the point was that Trump offered his supporters a take-over of the whole country, so that all of the US would be run by and for them. Whereas now he has given up on that victory and only offers secession, so his faction can still rule supreme, but only in part of the country
Trump is a corny “I love Reagan, America Ohhh Yeah” style patriot. He was never up to or interested in subversion or Revolution. It has been his persecution by the Democratic Party especially Democratic Controlled Judges and DAs offices that has made Trump into a Revolutionary figure. He has no choice but to smash the system in order to survive.
I don’t buy Civil War. America ain’t coming apart. This is still a fight for the whole enchilada.
In other words he was forced to become revolutionary and smash the system, because the system wantonly refused to give him total power any other way. Bad Democrats, bad baad Democrats.
The whole of the Anglosphere/West is involved in the same battle. The US and Britain may survive, i don’t think the EU will. As for Canada, Australia and NZ who knows? But just in case, “So long and thanks for the mutton, coal and whatever Canada flogs us.”
Tucker thinks all Trump wants is America 1980. No revolution, thank you. He’s probably close…
Rasmus Fogh
3 months ago
One important contribution to this result is surely the woke wave. The statues of confederates, military bases named for confederate generals, a history that started in shared colonization and shared independence wars, all had the important function of binding the (intellectual) descendants of *both* sides of the civil war into one, reconciled nation. Remove all that, and you push the other side into no longer feeling they belong to the US (or vice versa).
Also military recruitment is down quite a bit especially with ‘white males’. The disaffection is alarming. Some say it’s the woke recruiting for lesbians and trannies? No matter, the traditional Scots-Irish areas of the country – The South and Midwest are not having what’s being dished out and it’s said that even traditional ‘military’ families are no longer encouraging their children to follow in their footsteps.
How does the National Guard work? Are they citizen soldiers or a sort of full time paramilitary police? Either way, I imagine IF they are seen as anti-fed. Perhaps they won’t be struggling for recruits in Republican states.
Indeed, who would want their child to be at the mercy of woke military commanders that make life-or-death decisions based on race and/or gender?
R Wright
3 months ago
The Robert Lee statue point is particularly apt. The right wingers that went to Charlottesville for the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in 2017 did so because of rumours of that statue being torn down. To see that several years later their fears were confirmed as the left ritually humiliated them by taking pictures of the statue being melted down and mocking them, no wonder people are radicalising. Left and right in the U.S are polarising to such an extent that i believe a civil war is inevitable at this point.
Unless the strike is very soon, I doubt it will be possible to begin, let alone win, a civil war. Another commentator above raised the role of AI in political domination. The elite will have a monopoly on that technology, and it will be their main weapon. Any civil war will be an information war, and will quickly transform into an unassailable totalitarian state. Even without such a war, the outcome will be the same. It will not be possible to dislodge the coming AI driven totalitarian state internally. Even its killing machines will be AI driven, and will be directed by predictive AI technology that will anticipate human fighters’ next moves. Because AI is developing rapidly, the window of opportunity to prevent this future will soon close.
I think the AI part of the equation is still to be seen. It could turn out to be a black swan in terms of what the elites think it will do, and what it will actually do. Some aspects of it will breach the traditional secrecy and withholding of information, which can strike at the heart of the status quo.
I have no great insight into the sides who might be contesting any Civil War. But somehow I get the feeling that the Antifa/BLM won’t come out too well in any armed conflict with the right. It may all depend upon who can command the US Military, BUT IF it came to Civil War, can it be commanded?
Karen Arnold
3 months ago
Trump keeps winning because he is regarded by very many as the least worst option. His opponents don’t seem to want to ask the question of why he is seen like that, or what is it is about the other candidates that put off the voters. Until they ask the question, find an answer and act upon it, Trump will keep winning.
He keeps winning because most republicans in office are spineless and his civilian supporters seem to be ignorant.
Matt M
3 months ago
It makes me laugh. These commentators build these fancy ideas to explain political phenomena that are completely clear to the layman.
Want to explain US, British and European politics over the last decade?
It’s the uncontrolled, sky-high immigration, stupid!
Well said. The upper classes benefit from the cheap labor while the working classes suffered. Trump is acting as a champion for ordinary people and the wealthy hate him for it. They was a subservient working class. Just look at the truckers protest in Canada. The government declared marshal law to stop a very peaceful working class revolt in the capital.
What gets me is how you can’t even point this out to those that are OK with mass immigration without being called all kinds of things. In the UK we’ve already had Brexit because of it – you’d think they’d learn if only for their own sakes. But no, they carry on like reincarnations of Marie Antionette.
Trouble lies ahead for us all, whilst China watches, waits and sells to us.
Superb. Enlightening. It makes one look across the channel and question whether the 30 year old New Federal Empire of Europe is not undergoing the very same process of permanent fracture dysfunction and failure. Brussels and the multiculturally obsessed Progressive New Order here have both spat on the interests and alarm of every nation state and have allowed an identical uncontrolled mass decades old Eagle Pass ‘invasions’ to occur. The mood is changing fast. French farmers besiege Paris while the venomous unelected Elitists – the arrogant EHCR judiciary and the flatulent dolts in our similarly corrupted House of Lords – relish mocking and humiliating elected national governments. The process is the same. Vast silent majorities are alarmed and have lost all faith in the Progressive Order and its crazed DEI and Net Zero ideologies. The UK is in a strange unique bubble in even contemplating a knee bending identitarian progressive party so much at odds with this popular mood. That is becausethe idea of a near 20 year Rule by Fake Tories is just impossible. It cannot ever last. One senses a global tsunami coming in which both Fake Tories and Starmerites will be washed away. Leaving .. what?
The way to wash away Blu Labour and Nu Labour is to vote Reform. They can’t be any worse than either of the above AND if they aren’t an improvement, then in 5 years time the likelihood of neither the Tory Party or the Labour party not having split into fragments is remote. At least one of those fragments may actually be conservative, and one truly ‘Labour’ as in supporting the ideals of the worker. Then again, it may also work. Though the Tories Net Zero contracts for windmills have sentenced the UK to hikes in electricity prices for perhaps a decade to come.
The European Union is circling the same plughole that the Soviet Union went down. Mikhail Gorbachev himself said that the EU was too busy making the same mistakes as the USSR to see where they were going. Putin’s ambitions to reconstitute a USSRR (Union of Satellite States around a Resurgent Russia) are doomed to failure. He’s trying to fight political gravity. They all are.
Malcolm Webb
3 months ago
Picking a convenient view of Japanese history to validate a suggestion that USA is about to rerun its Civil War seems very far fetched and wrong headed to me. Trump will likely be elected because he is a much better bet than Biden (who is truly dreadful) and because Trump articulates many of the considered views of a majority of Americans. After his election we can confidently expect bad behaviour from those who hate Trump and/ or hate America. Nothing much new there. One uncomfortable point I do accept is that America is headed for some increasingly troubled times. However I also think America’s detractors underestimate the strength of conviction of the great majority of its citizens. I feel confident that eventually their views will prevail. Let’s hope so, as the World needs a free and strong America now more than it has ever done – and goodness knows, freedom loving people across the globe have been relying on a strong America for a long time now.
My sense of it is, the people who have corrupted past elections are still there, ready to do more of what they do so well. Unless the command from on high will be to allow Trump because Biden becomes such a liability, he will not be elected.
Jake Prior
3 months ago
A very interesting article. I’m not sure the three disasters apparently afflicting the average US citizen really account for the sort of existential crisis the author describes though. The federal debt is a rather distant problem for the average citizen, and has been, and for the short term at least, will continue to be supported by the power of the US dollar, inflation is now 2.9%, hardly destroying people’s lives any more than it has for more than the last century, and Americas military dominance hasn’t been tested properly in decades, and it’s limitations have in any case clear to see since at least Vietnam. I think US citizens are well aware that so many people want to migrate to their country because they still have something most others want, primarily stability. I suspect the narrative we hear is largely one created by politicos in league with a complicit media. That’s not to say it’s not still dangerous, but not quite as disastrous as the article imagines.
I think that how you feel about these things depends, more than anything, on your class background. Blue collar people are much, much more threatened by open borders ideology, defunding the police, cashless bail and the like than are the graduate class who can insulate themselves from the effects of these things.
I’m sure you’re right, the homeless situation in San Francisco was more abject than anything I’ve seen even in some very poor countries that I’ve travelled to. If you fall on hard times in America, you land on concrete. But this doesn’t square with the income distribution of Democrat and Republican voters. The majority of those on low wages vote Democrat.
Hugh Bryant
3 months ago
Good article but the 1776 angle is slightly over-egged I think.
Trump is popular because, although he is an extreme personality, his policies are moderate and traditionally blue collar Democratic. Americans vote for him because they want to go back to a better time before the horrors of Clinton/Blair globalism and the nightmares of divisive progressivism. Who can blame them?
Trump is like a character that has stepped out of a Harold Robbins novel. He is simple, direct, energetic and has clarity of vision for what he wants. It may be a bit much for the Left and the moss encrusted Establishment, but he is definitely on the people’s wavelength. Compared too most other billionaires, he is squeaky clean.
Paddy Taylor
3 months ago
Leaving aside the somewhat convoluted analogies with Japanese Shogunate history, the real issue is that the US is so polarised and hostile that a 2nd civil war becomes a real possibility.
Barring a political (or actual) assasination, we know Trump is the Republican nominee. Whether or not Biden runs (I personally think he’ll get pulled as the candidate just before Dem convention) there is a bigger issue to confront – and that is faith in the electoral system itself.
Trust in US democracy has been eroded by a series of much contested results in the last several elections Bush/Gore, Trump/Clinton, Biden/Trump.
If the electorate lose faith in the democratic process then we are in serious trouble. Both sides of the political divide have amped up their base to a point where there is a serious risk of civil unrest, regardless of the result. Trump supporters, many of them convinced the election was stolen last time, see their man subjected to endless attempts to have him removed from the ballot in a manner that would shame a banana republic.
Democrat supporters have been told that “extreme-MAGA” forces threaten the very existence of the republic, so if the Dems lose – which they very easily could – then we might see violence that would dwarf the BLM riots in their ferocity.
Faith needs to be restored in the electoral process, that is absolutely critical, and there are some fairly simple steps that would achieve that.
Every voter should be able to be verified – the matter of every voter’s eligibility is fundamental. Anyone without a Driver’s Licence has 10 months from now to request another form of ID, issued free of charge by the Govt. Every voter needs to produce ID before being allowed to cast a vote – and there needs to be a record so that each vote is traceable and verifiable.
Mail-in Ballots should only be available for those who are incapable of attending a polling-station in person, not simply as a convenience for the lazy. The practice of Ballot-harvesting – the gathering of absentee or mail-in ballots by third-party individuals – should be banned altogether.
Voter Rolls should be integrated and made uniform across the country. If a voter changes address, including moving State, that should be updated to a national database. Every US voter should be informed that IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE ELECTORAL ROLL, YOU CAN NOT VOTE.
It is noticeable that the Democrat Party has been the party most opposed to any new election security mechanisms, all whilst condemning Republicans for the threat they supposedly pose to democracy.
The Democrat Party claim that any Voter ID laws discrimate against ethnic minority communities, yet polling shows 76% support for their introduction among Dem voters of all races.
So what is the real reason behind the push back against any measures to ensure Election integrity? Who knows, but maybe another Old Joe had the answer…. “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” ― Joseph Stalin
Many of those measures are sensible. But if you will permit me, as a non-American:
First. a lot of the Republican distrust of the election results has no basis in evidence. If exaggerated fears are a reason to change the electoral system in your favour, then everybody has a good reason to exaggerate their fear. Much like the woke have an incentive to take offence, since that is how you win concessions. If someone could point to any evidence that lack of ID and impersonation have had any actual effect on results, I have yet to see it. Similarly, there is no evidence, except for Trump’s intuition, to show that the last election was decided by ballot fraud.
Second, all the measures you cite will benefit the Republicans and harm the Democrats. Banning ballot-harvesting sounds like a good idea. But making it illegal to hand out water and snacks to people queueing at a polling station, some states seem to have done, can only be described as harassment. Making electoral rolls uniform sounds like a god idea, but taking them away from the states and making them federal might be even better. As it is there are lots of documented cases where states have gone to great efforts to purge voter rolls on flimsy pretexts of people who could be suspected of voting Democrat. And that is before you get to the point that Democrat voters are actually less likely to have the necessary documents in the first place, so the more requirements for documentation, the better for the Republicans. So stricter enforcement of voter rolls would in practice just be a way of helping Republicans keep eligible Democrats from voting.
Then there is gerrymandering, systematically and very successfully used by the Republicans. And then there is Trump’s blatant attempts to ignore the tallies of votes cast so he can win anyway. If you want to increase trust in elections, it is not enough to introduce a lot of measures that will help you win. Unless you also offer to remove some of the dirty tricks of your own side and give some security to the opposition, the obvious conclusion is that election integrity is just a pretext; the real story is that Republicans just cannot and will not accept that those horrible Democrats could possibly win honestly, and want to tilt the game in their own favour.
Make no mistake, the Dems are – by some margin – more ruthless than the Republicans when it comes to ACTUAL voter suppression. Just ask the Green Party.
The Democrats had the Green Party removed from the state ballot in Montana.
According to multiple sources (within the Green party, the State legislature and among voters), the 500 signatories the Green Party required to put them onto the ballot were called repeatedly from Dem Party campaign people asking them to recant and remove their signature from the petition.
When enough recanted, the Dems took the matter before the Montana Supreme Court, who removed the Greens from the ballot for falling short of the required signatories.
One trick they used to convince voters was telling them that the Greens were actually backed by the Republican party. …. According to one Green Party activist: “The Democratic Party had called most of them about 15 to 25 times to badger them to do a withdraw. One elderly couple told me that they just didn’t feel comfortable saying ‘no’ after the 20th call they’d received. The Democratic Party even had a third-party notary come to their house to take their withdrawal; I think that actually scared some folks, too – they think, ‘now they know where we live.’”
The Green Party head of comms, Michael O’Neil – “Our candidates have faced that kind of political bigotry for decades but employing it against regular citizens on this scale marks a new, shameful low.”
Politics can be a dirty business, and running for office is always a lot more cut-throat than governing. But when it crosses over into intimidation then surely things have gone far too far.
The Green Party’s, Gary Marbut, – “I’m only mildly surprised at this extreme effort by Democrats to be undemocratic.”
After years of claiming that Trump was an illegitimate President, after claims of stolen elections, after doubts raised over several elections since Bush controversially “beat” Gore, the crisis of confidence in democracy will endure until systems are put in place that can see that elections are run freely, fairly and without interference.
This is a by-the-by which might interest you. Last week’s Yougov’s US polling (Jan 21-23 RV) over at 538 asked for opinions about both the 2020 and 2016 elections.
It did find that 75% of Republicans thought that Biden had not won the 2020 election legitimately. However, it also showed that 48% of Democrats believed Trump had not won the 2016 election legitimately.
‘Not legitimately’ doesn’t necessarily mean believe in election fraud, but I’d say US elections have a shockingly big deficit of trust from both parties.
Whilst I do not believe there was any concerted stuffing of ballot boxes, or any obvious widespread election fraud in 2020 – I would argue there was certainly a conspiracy.
We know for a fact, thanks to the work of independent journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Schellenburger (none of them Republicans), that US Intel agencies, Big Tech and a pliant Media deliberately conspired to suppress a story (Hunter’s laptop) that would very likely have had a profound effect on the result.
It amounted to a concerted and conscious attack on a sitting President by denying the public the information to make an informed choice during an election. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”– Thomas Jefferson.
Nearly half of all Democrats believe to this day that Trump stole the 2016 election with the help of Russia, based on false evidence paid for by the Clinton campaign.
The Durham Report made that all plain, yet rather than admit they’d spent 4 years promoting a false story, the legacy media tried desperately to downplay the findings. Frankly the Durham Report was the biggest scandal of the last 10 years – yet most of the liberal media barely reported it. FBI, DOJ failed to observe ‘fidelity to the law’ in Trump-Russia investigation: Durham (nypost.com) Durham proves that Hillary and the FBI tried to rig the 2016 election (nypost.com)
Hence why I say election integrity measures are crucial. If either side doesn’t trust a result then the legitimacy of the President is in question. Solve that and the losing side can only bemoan that they lost, not that the result is a fraud – it might just save the Union.
Does anyone actually know what was on that Laptop? e.g Perhaps a phone call along the lines of “You pay me X millions and my Daddy, US President elect,will help you screw over the Russians.”
There is absolutely zero doubt in most americans’ ,mind that the Presidential election was stolen. The evidence is irrefutable. The Dems know it for certain and they are happy. The Republicans not so much…..
But the BLM riots were ‘mostly peaceful’ it was the Trump/Capitol insurrection on Jan 6th that surely sets the standard?
JOHN KANEFSKY
3 months ago
It took me several decades of visiting many different parts of the USA (thoughTBF not the rural Deep South) to really understand that the USA is really 50 countries (51 if you split N an S California) with only partial loyalty to the “United” bit. I think there *is* a real risk of some sort of split, though perhaps not a formal Civil War?
But of one thing I am certain, DJT doesn’t care about that except to the extent that it boosts his ego and bank balance.
During his term in office, Trump’s bank balance went down. Try another argument. One with evidence perhaps. It’s amazing the number of things about which people are so “certain” that are not so.
I made no comment about his actual wealth or income, no-one knows the figures, all we have is guesses and estimates from Forbes et al. Whether it went up or down after 2016 is not the point.
What I suggested was that he seems to care mainly for his ego and status as a bilIonaire, which to me as an outsider is obvious from his own statements.
I am of course aware that any opinion which doesn’t accord with the Trump bandwagon will get down voted by many people, and its interesting to have that confirmed.
That said, I’m not a US voter and therefore have no skin in this game, but from a neutral perspective the touchiness of his followers about *any* perceived criticism of him is worrying.
And I expect more downvotes for having the temerity to say so.
Dermot O'Sullivan
3 months ago
‘Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.’
-Paine
Anders Borg Sundgren
3 months ago
What the attempted symbolism of this essay misses is the fact that States’ Rights is not some new phenomenon that has laid dormant since Reconstruction. It is and has been a very live issue ever since Jim Crow. It is built into the constitution, and as such unresolvable, since states will sometimes claim their independence on specific issues, whereas the same states will at other times claim the necessity of federal oversight and control.
What we’re currently seeing is a federal government being out of touch with voter sentiment on a key issue, which is why Abbott has calculated that his strategy will work. Had the vast majority of Americans not been in favor of a regulated border, the strategy would not have worked.
Allison Barrows
3 months ago
Some guy in Sweden has thoughts about politics in America. Huh. Americans don’t think about Sweden at all.
Don’t forget that “Swedish Chef” guy on the Muppets.
Liakoura
3 months ago
Bob Woodward’s book ‘Rage’ draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with Trump and first-hand witnesses, as well as participants’ notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents.
Woodward obtained 25 personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that had not been made public before.
So who would you recommend we should read on former President Trump, Covid-19, those 25 personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Jong Un and all the other sources he quotes?
And now there’s E Jean Caroll and $83.3m.
Daniel Lee
3 months ago
When a culture begins to seriously fragment, its external enemies/competitors quickly recognize an opportunity to move in and either divvy up the pieces of consolidate them under their own power. With China lurking in the shadows, this is a very dangerous point in history.
Why then, does Trump keep winning?
Because he appears to be the only thing standing athwart of the bipartisan effort to ruin the country, and he is probably not enough. No single person is, yet no sane person wants four more years of Team Biden and the people who run it. By every objective measure, life today is worse than when that husk of a man was sworn in.
Trump is not a cure, per se. If anything, he is stark evidence of a republic gone off the rails. In a normally functioning govt structure, his candidacy would not be possible or necessary, but career politicians have made a mess of most things while lecturing upstarts about their lack of experience.
The Texas governor is doing what the feds won’t, which leads me to wonder just who in the federal system is profiting from all this human traffic. It would not be unusual for the a govt cartel to work with criminal enterprise; we’ve done it before. It brings to mind the words of an empty suit uttered a few years ago – that fundamental transformation was coming. Well, it’s here. Doesn’t look like anyone likes it.
Why then, does Trump keep winning?
He doesn’t “keep on winning”. He won in 2016, but only because he was up against the worst candidate imaginable, and even then she got more of the popular vote than he did. He lost in 2020, and his influence didn’t help the GOP in the subsequent mid-terms.
James Kirk
3 months ago
On our much smaller UK scale we too draw lines on the map and have done so for much longer. Now Scotland with its parochial SNP declares it wants independence while the majority of its population do not. Wales, whose main industry is tourism, leans over backwards to deter tourists. Ireland, delightfully picturesque and quaint with a pub embassy in every city of the world is a political minefield. Their troubles date back to Cromwell and a Protestant Dutch king. All three have contributed proud regiments to the old Empire.
Transpose this onto USA. Once, the Mason Dixon line was a clue but now we read of a shortage of U Haul trailers in California, concern that Democrats fleeing the troubled BLM Fentanyl areas will infect southern Republican voting figures. Nobody here would be surprised to see Trump flying a Confederate flag. Nor would they be surprised to see Biden’s Administration flying a hammer and sickle regardless of Ukraine. We are seeing it here in Old England and Trump’s friend Nigel Farage is increasingly popular. Opt for Trump, he can’t do the damage Biden has done but can he undo it?
Michael Coleman
3 months ago
The real tipping point will come when the Democrats next gain control of both houses of congress and the Presidency. They have made clear they are willing to do whatever is necessary, such as a complete abolition of he filibuster and packing the supreme court to achieve their objectives. High among those is an Australian-like ban on weapons, putatively to reduce violence with guns, but also to reduce the ability of citizens to resist the Leviathan.
The same states that support Texas now will not comply with such a gun grab. If the Democrats insist on trying to enforce such laws real violent chaos is likely.
‘America used to be great; vote for Trump, and it would be made great again.
That hope is mostly gone now, and it is not the focal point of Trump’s campaign.’
The focal point of Trump’s campaign to me – as an outsider and onlooker across the pond – is to keep Trump in the position to which he would like to become accustomed – which is the Presidency until he finally drops dead of old age. It doesn’t appear to me that he has any other goals.
Are Americans prepared for the possibility that once voting Trump back in power, they might be unable to get rid of him?
It doesn’t work like that. If he is elected, he will be done in 2028. That’s how it works, and the alarmist rhetoric of Trump staying in power is bizarre, unfounded and unrealistic.
PS: I am American.
There is no getting away from the fact that Trump made up the “stolen election” narrative (strictly speaking, Rudi Giuliani did, but Trump is happy enough to take credit for such things), sent his goons to storm Congress, and pressured the Georgia Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes”. If he is prepared to do that, what else is he prepared to do?
Eleanor, if you are reading UnHerd then you are on the right path to begin questioning the political narrative the Democrats plant ad-nauseum across the MSM, that unfortunately you have reproduced above.
The American elite have reached the conclusion that only they, through their new ideology (which they prefer to keep un-named so it can’t be identified or criticized, but we call “woke”), have the competence to make political decisions. They have a track record of declaring their opponents as “terrorists”, and any opposing ideas as “hate”. Surveys show their adherents welcome political censorship and dislike democracy. It’s pretty clear, once you see through their Orwellian use of language, that it is they who are the totalitarians in waiting.
I say this as an ex-wishy-washy go-with-the-flow left/liberal member of the educated class. I’m hardly “right wing”. But definitely anti the totalitarian woke elite. I hope you too continue questioning their political hegemony.
Trump has Vivek Ramaswarmi following close behind to take the baton. The policies put forward by Trump instinctively, can be continued by Vivek with conviction and rational argument. Have you seen him discussing issues with an extreme leftist in a YouTube clip? Very impressive grass roots politics.
UnHerd Reader
3 months ago
I am American, voted DEM all my life. No more. I cannot abide Trump, but America needs him. I will vote for him. Our borders need to be secured and we need to reflect strength in the middle east. Biden’s policies have made America and the west less safe. Add to this the collapse of institutions a la DEI and you have the perfect storm.
And Please. Governor Abbot is doing the right thing. He is not defying SCOTUS. Read the ruling (properly) before exploring “outrage”. We have millions streaming over the border annually, fentanyl is a huge problem, hundreds of thousands of dead Americans on the streets.
Enough.
I love my country, I am a first generation American and the author hardly understands the American heart. We are a radicalized people and the silent majority has had enough.
You are first generation American so you are not the Americans who build the country for free (in fact literally on their back) and still considered 2nd citizen. You are a product of immigration which is completely different story.
The frequent occurrence of crises, wars, and factional conflicts in many African, Middle Eastern, and some Asian countries can be partly attributed to a historical pattern of revolutions evolving into power struggles among armed groups. These conflicts are not necessarily driven by financial motives; for instance, the Houthi movement’s rise in Yemen illustrates this trend. It is important to recognize that American understanding of these dynamics is often limited by a lack of awareness of historical complexities. The goal of civil war seems to them about power and autonomy like we are in 1800s, but they may find surprise it could become just about cruelty and retribution!
The idea of ‘equal access but not equal outcome’ serves as a poignant lesson in this context where everyone will have a gun. If the US were to experience a civil war, particularly given its long history of withholding financial power from minorities, including descendants of slaves, it might find that the future landscape of power and society is unexpectedly altered.
If America wants to understand where it is headed, they should study the Liberia civil war! And see what happens when one pokes the sleeping bear!
I am an American. I am a minority. There is no “withholding of financial power” from any minority in the USA.
Can you elaborate? What do you mean?
Mike Bell
3 months ago
Another extraordinarily well crafted piece of writing on UnHerd.
Thank you, Malcom.
Brian Lemon
3 months ago
Interesting argument but it misses the mark. What’s going on is not about states’ rights, and the failure to control the border is a problem for almost everyone. Trump’s supporters like him because he speaks to their disenfranchisement and their visceral disagreement with “progressive” ideology. Also if the writer seeks a better understanding of today by understanding history, he would be better served by studying WWII and its aftermath.
Bryan Dale
3 months ago
It’s true that the constitution was intended to give primacy to the states and that it has shifted to the federal government since Lincoln, but America’s problems today are rooted in the stolen election of 2020. Having destroyed democracy through unconstitutional mail-in ballot schemes, ballot stuffing, fake news and censorship, the Biden regime lacks any democratic legitimacy. This has only gotten worse since Democrats seized the presidency. Ongoing illegal voting schemes, the weaponisation of the state against Trump, his supporters and even his lawyers has only increased the sense of illegitimacy of the government. Now, in fact, Trump is the only one who can fix America. A victory by Biden or anyone else will be illegitimate because it will transparently have been gained by illegal and unconstitutional means. If Trump isn’t the next president, the federal government will lack ant legitimacy and the states and the American people will increasingly reject its authority.
Doug Israel
3 months ago
The increasing radicalism of the Democratic Party is being completely obscured by the fact that the opposing party is nominating a narcisistic nut. If the Republicans could find someone like Reagan, a real shift could happen. But that doesn’ seem likely right now.
The left leveled the same accusations against Reagan that it uses against Trump. He, too, was seen as a mushy-headed cowboy would get us into another world war, attack minorities, and crash the country.
America faces exactly the same existential challenge as Europe, the replacement of its core culture and values through mass illegal immigration on one hand and a redefinition of its history and social practices from internal activists, principally academia, on the other. Each nurtures and encourages each and the ordinary citizen is then trapped in a pincer movement. The emergence of “Newspeak” then defines rational objection as “…ist” or “…phobic” so the avenue through which rational debate can lead to change is closed. All that is left is the possibility of a powerful leader who will act rather than argue, and the less of an academic that person is, the better. Orwell once said that “some ideas are so stupid that only an academic would believe them.” What is then required is an anti-academic, someone the academics will label as an idiot and mock. Trump may very well be the “useful idiot” that the ordinary American citizen needs.
j watson
3 months ago
So much that is wrong and almost a form of deception here difficult to know where to start.
Firstly anyone following the actual issues in Texas know the Republicans playing politics and don’t want Biden’s measures on illegal migration to work. Pure political calculus. It’s worth pondering the numbers returned under current measures to inject a little more evidential discussion but that of course is not the point. It’s an attempt to manufacture a wedge issue and it may work with the ignorant.
As regards the jump then into Federal vs Anti Federal history in US it’s almost adolescent in construction and full of contradictions and errors. Trump himself of course will say anything he might calculate helps him get elected (and avoid prison) but he’s not going to give up Federal power if he gets his hand on it again. Unbelievably naive. Watch him crush State power in Georgia as way to kill his legal jeopardy there for a start.
Hamilton compromised but largely won the arguments in late 18th Century because US and the States knew they are stronger together and could better extend their influence and way of life. That conclusion will not fundamentally change. The US ain’t broken either. Name the World’s top 10 companies- all American and it’s driving the next AI revolution like no other. The tension the author illuminates not new at all and the US dealt with these strains before. Trump does represent a serious threat but not in the way the Author contends.
Firstly anyone following the actual issues in Texas know the Republicans playing politics and don’t want Biden’s measures on illegal migration to work. What measures? The only measure has been an open border. Biden’s only had three years for his “measures to work,” and they’re working as designed. To the detriment of the country. Trump does represent a serious threat but not in the way the Author contends. Then in what way? Because we heard all the fearmongering about what he would do the first time and he did none of it. On the contrary, Team Biden is doing the very things it accused of Biden of wanting to do.
I think if you were to come and live in the States for a while, especially in the South, your view of what’s taking place here would very rapidly change. It’s not Republican vs Democrat or even Trump vs Biden. There is a group of very powerful people who have usurped the commanding heights of America and who seek to radically alter the course of the United States by fomenting unrest and pushing forward pointless culture wars and stupidly divisive ideologies.
Bob Ewald
3 months ago
America – its electorate and its leaders – are generally untethered from founding principles. These are not just constitutional but fundamental moral principles of behavior as well. The latter includes the principles of ancient Greece concerning the nature of political structures and the role of the citizen. We are pulling apart and it’s our own fault.
UnHerd Reader
3 months ago
I just subscribed to UnHerd and this essay alone is worth it. Being a step or two removed from the present agonies of the American experiment, the author has a vantage point missing in virtually all U.S. media, which are combatants themselves. Smart, insightful and well-written.
Paul Rodolf
3 months ago
Let’s not forget that the party in power wants Trump to be the nominee. They knew that the indictments and associated publicity would only make him more powerful. They specifically want him to be the candidate that goes up against Biden. Why? Because they beat him once and believe, by hook or crook, they can beat him again.
Very well done essay, very. Trump’s strength grows with each warning by European leaders that a second Trump presidency would be, well, let’s use the mild “problematic.” America was isolationist for far longer than it has been sticking its nose into the business of other people. Barring some sort of Black Swan event engineered by the Democrat and its fiefdoms in the deep state with the blessing of the deceitful legacy media, you can take a second Trump presidency to the bank — if they haven’t all failed by then.
James Knight
3 months ago
I see Trump as the only hope the save this country.
Biden at this point is abetting an invasion to fundamentally change the demographics of the country for electoral advantage.
I appreciate that this might be an unpopular view, but migration does assist economic growth. After all, the current residents of the US aren’t having as many children as they once did.
Those are important things, but they are not generally regarded as “economic indicators”.
Emre S
3 months ago
There are in fact now different Americas, completely separate and irreconcilable ideas of what the basic political dispensation should be. This was of course also true back during the period when America fought its bloody civil war. Back then, one particular America silenced all the competition, for the simple reason that it was victorious on the battlefield.
Just realised this article also provides a convincing explanation or even a framework for why the “liberals” won’t engage with the “deplorables” and how that’s consistent within that framework.
Steve Jolly
3 months ago
The worst thing Biden could do is attempt to nationalize the guard because that’s what it would be, an attempt, and it would very likely fail. The Texas national guard is probably more loyal to Texas than the U.S.A. at this point. That’s a consequence of the long term erosion of trust in and respect for the federal government. Abbott most likely knows this. I doubt he would have taken this initiative if he thought he didn’t have solid backing. So does Biden’s administration and the Pentagon, who whatever they may think of the immigration situation are not in any sort of denial about the realities of fighting a civil conflict. As bad as it looks to appear impotent and helpless in the face of a state openly defying the federal government, it would look worse by an order of magnitude to attempt to nationalize the guard and be told ‘thanks but no thanks’, because then one would have to contemplate the almost unthinkable proposition of sending in the military, making it even harder to back down while the consequences of escalation are pushed even higher.
The reason politicians and elites are failing is they have a poor grasp of power, what it is and how it works. At bottom, power is simply the ability to do something. In physics, power is the capacity to do work, a physical quantity that can be measured and understood as the ability to move an object over time and distance, to run a factory, an automobile, or an airplane. Political power then, is the ability to accomplish political goals. It is often equated with money, government, police powers, formal authorities, and military forces, but that is not where it comes from. All those things can grant power under certain conditions, but none of them is where true power lies. At bottom, power is based on loyalty. To the extent that loyalty can be bought, money can be a form of power, but loyalty bought with money is contingent. It can be undone by something as simple as someone offering more money. The American Empire has power to cause great destruction, but that power is contingent upon the loyalty of military leadership to the civilian government and thousands of soldiers to follow the military chain of command. If either of these conditions fails, the power the government thinks they have simply vanishes with a poof. The weakest sort of loyalty is that based on police power and fear of punishment, which will tend to result in a bare minimum of compliance to avoid punishment. The loyalties people feel to their families, friends, their people, and their nations can be far more powerful. These forms of loyalty regularly override the weaker kinds, but people used to living in a national government and accustomed to taking its existence for granted often forget this simple human reality.
In the 1960’s, during the Civil Rights movement Americans sense of being one people was high and the government, media, and other power structures were trusted. It could be said that loyalty towards the government and towards the abstract notion of “America” were high. Desegregation was opposed by some, but when confronted, the states quickly backed down, understanding that they could not command the loyalty of local populations against the government. Now, though, the federal government is not trusted, liked, or respected. The concept of Americans as one people has been utterly destroyed by the identity politics of the left and the corresponding polarization. The ‘big sort’ has begun to regionalize the conflict. Loyalty to the federal government, to America, is low. In such situations, however great its formal power may be, its true power is far less. People change their loyalties towards state and local governments they do trust and do approve of, or at least those governments are nearer to them. This is how the absurd situation of Greg Abbott using the Texas national guard to defend Texas from migrants is actually anything but absurd. The law is clearly against him, and Texas is by any account weaker than the national government, but in terms of the loyalty of actual human beings, the power of states is growing fast while that of the national government is crumbling before our eyes. Greg Abbott appears to have a solid grasp of this basic reality. He understands American history and knows exactly what he is doing. Moreover, he understands that while Texas is smaller, weaker, and has fewer formal power than the national government, Texas enjoys far greater loyalty from the people. He is defying the federal government, because he knows he can, and that, at bottom, shows his power and Biden’s weakness.
Sure, Biden could send in the military and crush them, but then what? What will those other twenty five states who declared their support for Abbott do? Will they be fearful, or angry? Will they cower or will they rise up? How much military force would it take to suppress a real rebellion across half the nation? Can the military that failed to defeat the Taliban occupy an area several times the size of Afghanistan? What would be the cost? Is it really worth it? I’d bet a substantial amount of money there are strategists at the Pentagon studying that question, running analyses of various scenarios, calculating costs and casualties, and so forth. I would imagine they’re telling Biden, and any other politician who is willing to listen, emphatically that there’s almost no scenario where any provocation is worth triggering a civil war, that the conflict and occupation that would last years or even decades, that it would cause the complete collapse of American international hegemony in the short term, that it would trigger a global recession and maybe a depression, that it would result in the deaths of tens of thousands at least, that it would cost billions of dollars in weapons, that the disruption to the economy would cost even more than that, and finally that whatever globalist ideals they were hoping to further would be instantly rendered impossible when every nation rushed to fill in the power vacuums America left behind and pursued their own interests while ignoring the davos men. It’s unequivocally, indubitably, inexorably, not worth the cost, but America wouldn’t be the first Empire to crumble over nothing more than petty pride and the arrogance of aristocrats.
Who do you think would win in a shooting battle between the Army and the Texan citizenry? I will leave that question unanswered. There are 25 other states involved too.
william langdale
3 months ago
If Trump wins again it will be because the average American is more scared of identity politics than it is of him.
Richard Harris
3 months ago
The premise here (the US is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis) is on the mark. However, the long detour into Japanese history is only loosely analogous and sheds little light on the current problems. More importantly, it is much more a matter of re-litigating the New Deal regulatory regime and reigning in the administrative state than refighting the Civil War. Moreover, Trump and his base reject libertarian/neoliberal policy and are fine with a national role in Social Security, Medicare, home mortgage support, etc. Immigration is a unique problem and blue states were just as opposed to federal policy under Trump as red states are under Biden.
Christopher Chantrill
3 months ago
No. This is not a redo of the civil war. Things are different now.
This is a class war between the Educated Class and the Commoner Class, and the border illustrates the conflict.
The Educated Class imagines itself the Ally of the Oppressed Peoples. Therefore we shouldn’t send migrants back at the border. Anyway, Hitler showed us that nationalism leads to the gas chamber.
The Commoner Class just wants to live an ordinary middle-class life, with marriage and children and a house in the suburbs and a decent standard of living. And it believes in the nation state of America — with borders. Ever since the chimpanzees, the males of the species have been defending the border. (Or is that raciss?)
Tina Miller
3 months ago
Bravo, Mr. Kyeyune!!! You nailed it.
Pamela Tremblay
3 months ago
An engaging and even-handed read.
Mark Henrie
3 months ago
I greatly appreciate Malcolm Kyeyune’s work both here and elsewhere. Speaking as an American, in this particular piece I think he gets one big thing wrong and one big thing right.
What he gets wrong is the implication that smoldering animosities from the Civil War may be fanned back to life, as with his elaborate analogy to the Japanese Shogunate. Americans have too little consciousness of family lineage for the analogy to makes sense, and since Americans are also incredibly mobile (by European standards) it is as likely as not that the leaders of Texas or North Carolina today have personal family roots in Pennsylvania or Michigan. Whatever civil conflict may occur in the U.S. in the coming years will therefore have a shape and character and causes all its own.
What he gets right is that a significant portion of those who were drawn to the hopefulness of the MAGA message have over the past eight years seen too much that cannot now be unseen. Their mood has therefore noticeably darkened. In 2016 Trump said, “I will be your voice.” Today, Trump says, “I will be your retribution.”
Libby Dunsmore
3 months ago
How refreshing to read an article by someone who accurately describes the causes of the War Between the States, inviting us to consider the possible implications of issues unresolved since 1787. I would imagine he is familiar with Lincoln’s « save the Union » correspondence with Horace Greeley as well as the Federalists/anti Federalists debate. Such understanding produced a thoughtful analysis of our very concerning current situation. So what will we make of the 10th Amendment?
Nancy Kmaxim
3 months ago
I think you’re truly missing the point. There is a significant number of Americans who believe that Joe Biden and his entire family have used his public office to enrich themselves. Added to that, they believe he has used a corrupt bureaucracy to attempt to destroy the lives of well meaning private citizens. It all hits pretty close to home, and affects how people vote.
“Well meaning private citizens”? What, like Donald Trump?
John Moss
3 months ago
In what sense does Trump “keep winning”? He’s never won the popular vote. He lost by a pretty large margin to Biden and republicans lost ground in the house and senate when he was in office. Candidates he backs seem to have an especially poor record. Am I missing something?
What Abbott is doing is protecting his state, because Joe Biden and the Democrats are sitting back and letting it happen. Immigration is the prerogative of the Federal government, but the border of Texas and America’s southern border coincide in time and place. The Feds can abrogate their duty and let the illegal migrants come in their millions, but Texas still can control the border of Texas and protect itself (and other states) from the illegal swarm.
Letting it happen is bad enough but the Federal Government is outright assisting it.
The Federal Government is Against the American People – this is what we found out. They are out to destroy America.
Jan 6 response was for One Reason – to terrorize all resistance to their destruction of America. Trump’s absolutely insanely Political Lawfare cases – the Fear of the FBI- DHS -CIA, it has been cultivated so all who would stand up must be in fear of being destroyed.
Yes, it is likely past MAGA and is now trying to stay out of the Gulags. Because surely if Trump loses they will take those who dissent.
This is off the charts bonkers.
The complaint for years is that the elites were ignoring flyover America, now apparently they are trying to put them in Gulags. This is just huckster talk, the same warped process that tells African Americans that Mitt Romney wants to put them all in chains. What a load of crap.
Perhaps, but talk of re-education camps for Trump voters from high profile figures such as Hilary Clinton and Robert Reich only add fuels to this particular fire.
Such incredibly high profile figures as Robert Reich, Secretary for Labor 1993-97. Wowee. I feel like I am taking the crazy pills, listening to people who spend too long on the internet finding out what other nobodies are saying.
Everybody in the public eye is lying about near everything. That bodes ill for the republic, and makes people long for a strongman who will cut the Gordian knot.
Curiously, from over here, we are regularly told Trump lies. Then after a few weeks, it turns out he wasn’t lying after all.
One of the classics was the BBC. It ‘fact checked’ Trumps claim COVID got out of a Wuhan lab. “False News” the BBC said. Then once Biden said it they did a Radio 4 program on why it wasn’t “False News” when BIden said it.
Since then I’ve regularly checked up on things, and quite frankly the one person who appears to tell the truth more often than anyone else, is. Trump!
You ignored Hillary
He did so conveniently didn’t he.
The Guardian and the NYT are more your cup of tea, also the BBC, CNN, the media literally owned by the government in Canada and so on and on. Time to sober up and begin to worry if you’re on the chop at work.
MSNBC – don’t forget the main source of progressive truth!
C’mon Aidan.
The State of New York changed its laws to allow the Tax case and the Sex assault civil case to go forward. They changed New York State Law specifically to take action against Trump.
If that is not moral corruption and political tyranny I am not sure what is.
Wake Up and own the abuses of your faction and work to change them.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/83-million
They were ignoring flyover America.
Then 2016 happened, and they realised those deplorables had votes, enough to have the temerity to challenge the awful candidate appointed by their “superior” elites.
Then 2020 happened, and those same deplorables stood up against all the election hanky panky, the covered up “unsuitable” stories.
That’s why they have stopped “ignoring” the MAGA crowd.
“they realised those deplorables had votes, enough to have the temerity to challenge the awful candidate appointed by their “superior” elites.”
No they didn’t. That foolish error is grounded in the aberration of the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton polled nearly three million votes MORE than Trump. So she was by far the more popular candidate.
and how long have you put up with that aberration? How many Democrat Presidents have been ‘thwarted’ in their attempts to change the aberration?
As a UK citizen I neither put up with it, nor am I in a position to change it. Although there have been several moves to abolish the aberration, none has yet succeeded.
The American Founders clearly did not see it as an “aberration”. In fact, there simply was no popular vote for the first three Administrations. The Electoral College is there for a very good reason: to protect the Republic from the very real threat of electoral fraud, that was in such stark evidence in 2020
I can’t say that my UK based recollection of the news from the US ever had Biden’s apologists ‘ignoring’ the MAGA crowd. They were forever attacking them and telling us to ignore them, but they never appeared to actually do so.
Are you sure?
They said the Biden Laptop was a Russian hoax and the people who said it, in numbers, all turned out to be important actors in the State Security Services.
They said Trump colluded with Russia (it turned out to be Hilary)
They set the State Security apparatus on Parents who upset teachers.
They have thrown the book and a few new versions of it at Trump to an extent that from the outside the US looks more Russian than Russia.
The latest Floyd police body cams, apparently not shown in the court cases, seem to show Chauvin and his colleagues (in the film “The Fall of Minneapolis”) doing nothing particularly bad. Even to the point of implementing the restraint tactic they were trained on. Yet the Police Chief appears to lie under oath to get a conviction.
Then a summer of riots by the BLM, torching many Cities is deemed ‘mostly peaceful protests’ yet what to a UK eye looked like a UK’s Monster Raving Loony Party fancy dress day out in the Capitol, where they took selfies, helped themselves to a few souvenirs then went home, is deemed an ‘insurrection’.
It seems to me that something in the Anglosphere has gone badly wrong. Canada, Australia ,New Zealand, the USA during COVID (and the UK to some extent) all read from the same Hymn Sheet and produced the most shocking totalitarian response of my lifetime.
What I see as the ‘Left’ sowed the wind, and now they fear they may be about to reap the whirlwind. You seem to be a little put out at the result but not bothered about origins.
Perhaps the idea of a “4th Turning” is a true reflection of reality. I hope not, but it isn’t looking good, either in Europe or the US. One thing, however, IF it comes to civil strife, I doubt the left will win it in the US, or anywhere else either.
Thank you for educating Mr Twomey, he sorely needs it. He must be reading too much left wing news or something because he’s quite ignorant of what’s actually going on in America.
By the way, the woman who just got 83 million awarded to her, E Jean Carroll, has unsuccessfully accused numerous people of sexual assault, her dentist, her daughter’s boyfriend among them. She’s a loon who named her cat “Vagina”. But NY found a way to prop her up in their corrupt to the core system. I couldn’t find the links to corroborate this as it’s stifled by media online. However, she apparently wrote about it in her book.
How are those two things contradictory/incompatible?
For a long time the elites tried to ignore ordinary people, now they cannot ignore them they are moving to active hostility and oppression.
I agree with the OP. The actions of the governor of Texas don’t seem like some kind of reawakening of a 150 year old secessionist instinct – more like a desperate attempt to fix a really bad problem that the federal government is actively making worse.
Touched a nerve, huh?
With a name like Twomey you must be an Irishman or of Irish descent. So you have no political acumen to speak of, look at the history of Ireland and how the government there has moved to tyranny against its own people. So your comment is downvoted many times because you’re wrong, on politics anyway.
Rubbish!
I suggest you go and read the responses to Aiden Twomey, it’ll help to educate you.
Not surprising given that the Democratic Party is now so heavily dependent for campaign funds on George Soros, a man who believes passionately in a borderless world.
They are also heavily dependent on the many lies they’ve been spewing and the allegiance of the MSM/social media to spread them.
Biden can’t shut the border down by himself and neither can Trump. Trump was able to shut the border for illegal immigrant crossings, with emergency powers because of COVID-19. He tried another time, before that but didn’t follow through. He boasted he would force Mexico to pay for the wall and that didn’t happen either. He wouldn’t be able to close the border to illegal crossings just by demanding it, any more than Biden can. However, Trump plans to take control of the judicial branch of government so he can do anything he pleases, otherwise Known as a dictatorship. Anyone interested in how he plans to do that should read ‘Project 2025 The Presidential Transformation Project’, on Wikipedia, and if that doesn’t put the fear of god in you, more fool you.
Clare- we know you didn’t read it. Based on your past comments there is no way you understand anything that you talk about. You simply wait for Left Wing “Experts” to take complex texts and summarize them for you. You trust them to do this completely without bias.
I didn’t read what? And who are the “we”? I wonder why you feel the need to attack me instead of countering what I said with some facts.
The Presidential Transformation Project says nothing about “taking over the judiciary.” That’s a blatantly obvious conspiracy theory.
It says the plan is to reshape the Executive branch, not the Judicial branch. I got that wrong, but I’m surprised you didn’t just correct me about that, instead of dismissing the whole thing by trying to invalidate me. I thought when I wrote Judicial that it didn’t feel right and was going to double-check, but I forgot.
How do you mix up the judicial and executive branches in a point about Executive Authority? It absolutely invalidates everything you said.
The President IS the executive branch. Why would a new President that disagree with the current Executive not transform it into something that works better.
Nice try. Nobody’s buying it.
I have no idea where you get your information, Clare, but you need to check other sources. The Biden White House can simply enforce the laws that are on the books. The Democrat deep state won’t do that, because chaos and destruction of the American nation-state is the goal of the New Left. Our political masters play straight from Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” to make Trump a hideous boogie man as a distraction from them whittling away property rights and democratic rights on the way to a new progressive charter. Open borders means there is no longer an ‘us’ – that means that ‘we’ no longer have a say in how our country is run. When voter ID is not required and borders are open, what is the electorate?
Via inflation and crippling Federal debt, economic power is increasingly taken from the US working population and siphoned up to the Federal government – because “we” can’t be trusted with regulating our own lives. The ruling class already controls 9/10 of the media, who simply parrot DNC talking points, usually verbatim. If that’s not a dictatorship, then the word has no meaning. If you prefer, it’s an oligarchy.
Oh, Goodness! Now we’re quoting Wikipedia (!?!) as some sort of “authority”…
Hahahaha! Wikipedia is where you get your information on Trump and actually believe it. Right there you lose standing.
Oh my gosh. This is so convoluted. And more of the same total unwillingness to deal with the actual job President Trump did as president. People will twist themselves into these incredible pretzels so they can keep saying the only reason to vote for president Trump is because Racism, in fact, not just racism but southerners are still trying to refight the civil war. It’s so, so crazy.
That line got stale back in 2016. Pretty funny since Biden was instrumental in getting stiffer sentences for crack cocaine over regular cocaine and was one of the chief architects of the ’94 Crime Bill (Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994). I mean the guy pretty much deserves a lifetime achievement award for throwing black men in prison. Look up Hillary talking about “super predators” sometime for extra fun.
Of course he did that, that’s where the wind was blowing at the time. Biden has no real convictions of his own, and possibly no real genuin beliefs. If he does, they don’t really matter because he’s too cowardly and self interested to stand by them. He’s a weak vain petty little man who got to where he was because he made himself useful the more powerful persons then himself, not because he’s talented or capable, he’s actually quite mediocre in terms of ability, it is easily controlled by those more powerful then. The thing is that the political system is full of people like him and that’s all awful. Such people can be harmless in times of prosperity and stability, but we are not in such times and thus such people in such conditions often tend to oversee disasters.
I’m not sure Biden has any belief except perhaps that he is still alive, and sometimes looking at him and his performance, I wonder if he sometimes even finds that hard to believe.
I agree. Trump was the first US president to call out the many ways China has been screwing us, the first to act with decisiveness regarding our southern border, the first to call our NATO “partners” out for not contributing to its mission. He presided over the defeat of ISIS in Iraq. He more than any other entity succeeded in finally getting the corrupt Clintons out of politics. I have never cared for his personality or style but he deserves credit for those things and for relentlessly enduring the shameful political use of the apparatus of government to attempt to destroy him. And as for racism, anyone who believes the US is intrinsically racist is willfully blind.
Trump may be no friend of China, but he doesn’t have a bad word to say about Russia.
….which is why he would have a chance of settling a compromise peace in Ukraine. With China, he understood early on, that for now measured confrontation is very necessary.
I think he is more likely to want the sort of peace that sells Ukraine out.
Americans don’t want to pay for another European war. It’s that simple. We think Europeans should take care of their own back yard. Trump wants to do what is right for Americans- legal Americans.
Methinks, Martin, Ukraine has been sold out long time ago. And not on Trump’s watch. 🙁
At least it’s war against Putin has been funded so far. If Putin wins, he will invade other countries soon enough.
Ukraine was bought and sold well before this war. It might be interesting to see how much of it the Bidens got. Ukraine is stuffed. They want to recruit 500,000 new troops. A complete Army and they are picking up men and boys from the streets to achieve it and that is according to their own media.
The Ukrainian diaspora may well never go back. The best bet for Ukraine is accept a deal now. Russia is already manufacturing tanks and missiles (according to UK reports) daily to match their losses. Heaven knows what the Ukrainian losses are, but they can’t win. Their dreams of using Western Weapons will lead to WW3 if we aren’t careful. Military nutters over here are already suggesting the UK produce a ‘Citizen Army’ Why? Because like the US, the patriotic UK working class who supply the men aren’t interested in joining a woke service that sees them and their families as the ‘problem’.
Trump isn’t the problem, he may be the solution.
Wasn’t he the guy who told Germany to stop buying Russian gas? Maybe I’m wrong.
I don’t recall him saying that. He did say that Germany (and indeed the rest of NATO) should spend more of their budget on defence. It’s one of the few points on which I agree with him.
Actually, I stand corrected. He did apparently tell Germany to not be so reliant on Russian oil and gas in 2018.
Here it is, and the German’s laughing to his face. Though as I said before. Had the US not treated Russia as the Soviet Union, something to be stomped on and surrounded, there would have been no problem. Russia was a solid business partner until the West tried to screw them.
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1044740334306058241
The irony is the ‘sub-titles denying it’ – effectively it was. Which is why BASF and many other German firms are moving frm Germany to China or the US.
So whilst Trump was right about the dependence, it didn’t make Russia to be a bad partner. The US certainly knew about the destruction of Nordstream 2 IF NOT the NATO is useless because it was blown up under the noses of NATO.
Had NATO not kept trying to isolate Russia resulting in the 2014 Coup, Russia would still be supplying gas. In fact Russia wanted to join NATO, We should have accepted them if we weren’t going to scrap NATO after its opponent the Warsaw Pact disappeared.
Yes! And he suggested that European countries pay their promised share (2% of each country’s GDP?) to fund NATO which most hadn’t done in decades. We have had feckless leadership in the USA until Trump arrived on the scene.
All the leadership in the West has been feckless for decades. We became rather like the British Empire’s Edwardians, comfortable and so not interested in politics or power, but more interested in leisure. That leaves the committed to handle the levers of power and it seems across the Anglosphere we’ve let self-interested fanatics do what they like best, play politics BUT then to achieve power. Now we are paying the price for letting the inmates run the asylum.
Since Reagan, you mean? He didn’t kowtow to any Russians. My favourite line of Reagan’s was: “My version of how the Cold War ends is ‘We win, they lose'”.
He was, and the German’s he told laughed, literally, to his face. It’s on the Web somewhere. Still he was actually wrong. The Russians believe it or not are people you can deal with. They never reneged on their deals unilaterally, They still supply the EU.
The only issues with gas were when the Ukrainians kept ‘diverting it’ as the pipelines went over their territory. Hence the first of the Nord Streams to Germany. The second one never got used thanks to the US.
The irony is many will now say “but Russia used the gas as leverage’ – true, but the US used the banking system with Russia, Goose, sauce and Gander spring to mind. AND who blew up Nordstream 2?
It wasn’t the Russians. German money went into that pipeline, so some “friend blew it up’ – why? The gas went from Russia to Germany, not the other way around.
The consequences of the US meddling in Russia’s backyard is catastrophic. It as much as the current US(Anglosphere splits) are changing the world order.
Brexit didn’t help the EU, but the Ukraine conflict is likely to bring it to its knees as the Germany banker is de-industrialising fast thanks to their insane Green Energy not being viable now Russia isn’t supplying gas.
Victoria Nuland may find history gives her a starring role in the creation of a new, bi or even multi-polar world, and the eventual demise of the EU.
The UK demise is self-inflicted, only Brexit gives us the hope we can remove our ruling Uniparty and rescue ourselves. Trump may do the same for the US assuming the left don’t find another legal ploy to screw him.
He did not think Russia could be trusted, being a great believer in energy independence.
That was quite sage of him. Russia can’t be trusted, and won’t ever be able to be trusted.
Russia is a 2nd rate power that at most will take over European countries on its doorstep and glower from its manger while drowning in vodka. Bad for the Poles and Czechs and so on, not really an issue for anyone else. Just another installment in the ongoing centuries-long saga of land wars in Europe. China on the other hand is a 1st rate world power, with a mission to dominate the planet. Which could be ok if you don’t mind giving up freedom. Trump’s priorities are sound. That said, he probably won’t achieve anything because his entire bureaucracy is woke and will undermine him, like last time.
There is no way Putin invades Poland. It’s the biggest military power in Western Europe. If he can’t defeat Ukraine, he will be in big trouble in Poland
The Poles will hate Russia no matter what happens. If they get Lvov back, they may be mollified though.
And Ukraine is dead already. Vast millions have fled, maybe for good. A million of young men destroyed, either dead or badly wounded. And the west looting the farmland there, and anything else of value. Just like the west looted eastern Europe, only harder. Putin will take Donbas; already has. The rest will be picked over by the neighbors… maybe leaving a rump. My sense of it.
What a crap show. All of it could have been avoided.
The Poles will hate Russia no matter what happens.
Surely everyone hates Russia. Russians are a fundamentally unlikable people. It is a mystery why their athletes are allowed to compete in international sport.
The Czechs have been looted by the West, and are being screwed by the EU for a change. Attitudes toward Russia are mixed.
As for the woke bureaucracy undermining Trump if elected, you got that right.
Russia will NOT trouble the Poles or the Czechs unless they interfere. Russia has only ever occupied Russian speaking areas of the surrounding countries and usually in response to the Russian speaking minorities being targetted.
The biggest mistake other than going Woke, that the West has made is to turn Russia away when they wanted to join us. Now we have acquired a powerful enemy. Not in terms of say, Western Military Might, but in terms of economic and natural resources. The world is NOT going to live off windmills, and Russia has lots of resources.
This February a meeting of the BRICS ,IIRC, will become the focus of much interest, It will take place in Russia and there are rumours it may announce a reliance on gold as a backing for international trading and currency. The aim being for the BRICS to detach themselves from reliance on the $ and the US banking system. IF it happens, then the price of gold, it is suggested, will go through the roof. The consequences for Uncle Sam and the $ hegemony could be catastrophic, but even if not, they won’t be very good at all.
IF it happens, it will be on Biden’s watch.
The EU may also not recover from the self-inflicted wound of sanctioning Russia.
As for Woke bureaucracies, somehow I think Trump won’t put up with those for very long. He knows who screwed him and who may decide to try again once he’s left office. The only question is how quickly and effectively he can achieve his aim.
I think it is incumbent on the West to make Russia a bankrupt 3rd rate power that can’t even maintain internal security.
Why should he? Russia was stuffed by NATO and the coup of 2014. The Nazi’s were in the Ukraine. Canada’s parliament so dumb re history, that they even applauded an ex Waffen SS Ukrainian when Zelensky visited.
“The Nazis were in Ukraine”. In 1943 they were, sure.
It sounds to me you have very little understanding of the dynamics at play here.
All I know is that when Xi Jinping goes, China will in large part “go back to normal”, whereas Russia will still be fundamentally untrustworthy.
I will give him all that you said, but Trump’s problem was that his methodology was sloppy and his efforts often half-hearted. Trump’s a good tactician but a bad strategist, he is the type of leader who wins battles but he loses Wars, fights bravely but not wisely and is often error prone. Trump’s issues is he can’t really finish the things that he starts when comes to politics because he’s terrible at politics, his attempts at intervening in electoral and Congressional politics have been disastrous, his candidates often lose, and attempt to enact legislation often fail. Trump is a smart and cunning person, but those qualities are often negated by the fact that his priorities are screwed up. His problem is he can’t put off personal gratification and thus loses sight of what’s really important and what’s of tangible value, he’s obsessed with validation from others which leaves him prone to being manipulated. When it comes to the cause of populism in America, in some ways he’s a he’s more of a liability the strength to the movement, a weakness that has enemies often exploit. When it comes to choosing between gold and Glory, he always goes for Glory. But glory is fleeting, but gold lasts forever. If he played his cards right he could have had both, but Trump doesn’t work that way, thus often prone to self-destruct.
Trump has the defects you list but the Trump Administration was – despite the chaos and missteps – surprisingly effective. After thirty years of continuity, it pushed the system in new directions in sustainable ways on China, halting further globalisation, corporate tax reform and, most importantly, placing the well-being of the bulk of the population back at the centre of political debate. Biden’s adoption of many of the policies is a tribute to the Trump Administration. The immigration issue is, of course, the major exception.
The challenge is that Trump may have been the cheerleader for many of these changes but was – as you suggest – too managerially inept to make them happen by himself. They depended on various lieutenants prevailing in the infighting e.g. Peter Navarro on China.
If Trump wins a second term, he will be even older and managerially inept. As with Reagan’s second term, it will probably be the lieutenants who drive policy. We will need to analyse the composition of his team very carefully.
Just wondered what was more important during his Presidency that he didn’t deal with – election fraud!! Where were his managerial failures.? Unfortunately it’s very easy for commenters to pontificate in areas, when you read between the lines, they know little about. And of course they will never give specifics.
When the ‘weakness’ to exploit requires the tactics used by the Democrats, I’d say it suggests he isn’t weak. As I’ve said before, from the UK the Democrat hunting in packs to get Trump has made the US look not just like a banana republic, but a second rate one.
I also think that he won’t want to leave behind any trace of Woke in the bureaucracy that can target him once he leaves office for the second time.
Having said that, the US seems to have gone even more insane that the UK, so I wouldn’t bet my house on any of my ideas.
He also worked hard of the Abraham Accords, and that is something that even God appeared to have found hard.
It’s so, so crazy that people are giving you thumbs down. I wonder if there are few patriotic Americans on this blog and too a great majority of liberal Europeans. To accuse Trump supporters of being hypnotized ignores Trump’s record. I won’t list reasons now but his record is public knowledge. Rather than us supporters being hypnotized I’d suggest the writer from who-knows-where in Sweden suffers from a form of derangement common on the Left. Nothing personal. It’s a condition whose symptoms include a hate that influences reasoning.
Rather than being hypnotized rubes, we consider ourselves possessors of common sense using votes to express common sense to reverse the insanity of the Woke and today’s elites who flood civilized nations with unvetted strangers too many of which will choose not to assimilate. Their disruption, arrogance and ploys for power are a Frankenstein’s monster unleashed upon peace loving Judeo/Christians and rather than point to an obscure esoteric Japanese period it’s potential is more like the loss of Byzantium or other civilizations who’ve grown too complacent and leisured thinking the worst will never happen to them.
Trump supporters will put up one more fight. Trump supporters will use speech, the keyboard and the vote in an effort to return America to a place (forgive a lighter note) of apple pies and hotdogs where men are men and people are judged more by their character than the color of their skin. And this battle is not futile. It’s real and contemporary. It’s being waged right now on blogs and the border. Win or lose in November, it’s game on.
Don’t you mean Rome? There NEVER was a Byzantine Empire.*
Otherwise an excellent synopsis of the current hysteria that surrounds this vexed issue.
(*A term ‘invented’ by the German scholar Hieronymus Wolf in the 16th century.)
I’m nitpicking today! From Britannica:
Byzantine Empire, the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which survived for a thousand years after the western half had crumbled into various feudal kingdoms and which finally fell to Ottoman Turkish onslaughts in 1453.
Well Britannica is WRONG!
No contemporaries called it the Byzantine Empire or even themselves the Byzantine Emperor. They were the ‘linear’ descendants of Caesar, and as such called themselves Romanoi or Romans up until the last final hour, just before lunch on Tuesday the 29th of May 1453.
As I said before Wolf ‘invented’ the word to assist his scholarship. There were also plenty of ‘Renaissance’ Italians, Raphael for example who were only too keen to rubbish the fact that New Rome or Constantinople had lived on for nearly a thousand years after ‘old’ Rome fell to the Visigoths 476 AD.
The term Byzantine did not enter English historiography until Dr Smith’s seminal work “A dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography” in 1853.
Pedantic perhaps, and true none the less.
What thoroughbred Roman would call those effete pederasts his equal? Pedantry be damned, the Troiæ were no Greeks!
If I may quote The Sopranos:
“And the Romans, where are they now?”
“You’re lookin’ at ’em, asshole.”
Welcome back Sir! We’ve missed you!
But what did the Romans ever do for us (apart from the aqueduct, sanitation and the roads….)?
The man who took on Britannica! Fair play.
Kate. I don’t even know what you are trying to say. Is this pro-Trump or anti. I just can’t figure you out.
Probably the best analysis of how and why America is where it is that i’ve read. Of course, no solutions are being offered; because there aren’t any (as yet) and it’d be foolish to do so. I think the main point the writer makes is that Trump himself isn’t offering solutions, but simply hope to those who can’t abide the way things are going; simply by saying “this isn’t right” out loud and clear, a rejection of the status quo.
At one level, the resurrection of old fault lines in the American state injects some meaning into current events. So, rather than seemingly chaotic, there’s a thread that can be followed which started at the outset of American history which provides a sense of continuity, and appears (to me at least) to be strangely comforting. The comparison with Japanese history was enlightening too, although almost unnecessary except in the sense that states have ways of evolving with some commonality. This too, seems strangely comforting in a time of flux.
IDK, I’m not convinced of the Japan analogy. I don’t think the border issue is bringing up old grievances. Abbott is fundamentally opposed to the federal govt’s approach to border control. He’s simply using whatever tools he can to justify his position.
The writer’s thesis is intriguing. There is huge resentment over Democrats/Liberals/Progressives who are trying to reshape the nation in what they think would be a more ‘equitable model’ – ie according to their definition . It started with the Civil Rights legislation which a number of academics have asserted set up a parallel Constitution which has created friction with the ‘Founding Fathers’ Constitution. Aside from destroying statues, today, we hear leftists who want to ‘pack the Supreme Court’, get rid of the Electoral College among other changes to voting mostly to take power away and reconcentrate it in liberal urban areas, not to mention that the liberals use the courts to get what they want rather than seek consent of the people at large (Dobbs ‘abortion’ comes to mind). It is also liberals who ironically declared ‘sanctuary cities’ contravening federal law, ie they will not cooperate with ICE (deportation authority) but now they are dealing with illegal migrants which they have to service which is costing specific cities billions which they are hoping to extract from the federal govt eventually. That will be another battle.
Thanks for that detailed addition to the original article, the point about a parallel Constitution in particular, As old wounds re-open, the liberal elite are doing their utmost to try to insulate themselves from the effects, leaving the rest of the population to almost fend for themselves. The result? Trump, who at least recognises the problem and is willing to give voice to it.
I really liked the article myself – it seems to have some unique and valuable insights into what’s happening in America including the Japan parallel. I find this kind of insight is rare to come by since academia by and large refuse to engage with the topic, and the few who do tend to be analytical types (e.g. Peterson, Lindsay) who prefer to operate on first principles instead of doing social commentary.
This is becoming eerily close to the prediction of that Russia scholar who predicted an American break-up of states into 2 or 3 parts some time ago (can’t recall the name). I recall laughing at it a while back as Russian fanciful thinking, but it’s been quite good at predicting the trajectory so far.
The thesis that this election is darker than 2016’s MAGA theme is what keeps the majority of thoughtful Americans awake at night. Setting aside Trump’s personal characteristics, from a practical standpoint who will join him in his administration now? Yes, some of his cabinet heads and other appointees in 2016 were goofy, but others–no matter their conservative predilections–were at least capable people. Nikki Haley is one example. He has burned through all of the thoughtful conservatives that might serve to buffer his excesses. Only the nut cases are left.
As to the notion that the antebellum American South had no aspirations to expand slavery, you are misinformed about US history. The Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, the efforts to acquire Cuba were all manifestations of the South’s aggressive efforts to expand American slavery.
The current state of American politics devolves from far more than the revival of grievances rooted in the Civil War. That is an oversimplification that fails to recognize that the fault lines in America today are far less North-South than Urban-Rural. Austin, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia are far more Progressive politically than most towns in upstate New York.
As for the tensions between federal and state government, the recent actions of states would not have occurred except for the vacuum of meaningful action by the federal government on issues of real importance to American citizens. The federal government has for some time responded more to Big Tech, Big Academia, Big Media, the Victim-Industrial Complex and Wall Street than to its taxpayers. Trump’s lack of a filter on his mouth means that he lies to them less than the Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons. It’s not much but it’s all they really have right now.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why this gets down votes. I might disagree that Trump won’t be able to get thoughtful conservatives, but it’s certainly plausible.
The Republican Party has a wide and talented bench compared to the Democrat Party which was eviserated – losing over 1,000 – state, local and federal elections as a result of the Obama mid-term – and never really recovered. There’s lots of Republican talent which would gladly step up. Moreover, the Hoover Institution and several other groups are identifying talent and working on plans should Trump be re-elected with the intent of getting off to a quick start. Lots needs to be ‘edited’ and repaired after the disastrous Biden years.
Trump’s treatment of his past appointees has been universally horrid. He is not surrounded by a large body of experienced Republicans who stand ready to pull on the oars for him. No political figure who served in Trump’s previous administration benefitted from it and many had their careers ruined by it. Who of those young Republicans being vetted by think tanks wants step up to be the next loyal Rudy Giuliani? Pence and Haley are but two examples of how he rewards those who have served him. Trump is a unique phenomenon of direct democracy: he and his base are powerfully joined but without any intermediary layers of true political organization with any degree of talent. No matter how many well-meaning think tanks cultivate young conservative talent, few of those bright newcomers will line up to be thrown under the Trump bus when it suits his ego. He will be down to the Marjorie Taylor Greene types.
“Setting aside Trump’s personal characteristics, from a practical standpoint who will join him in his administration now? ”
Well, if he would only follow Javier Milei’s lead he wouldn’t need so many. As with abortion, it’s clear (at least to me), that the Federal government has overstretched its intended authority, mostly via the USSC’s expansive reading of the Commerce Clause. Paring the Federal government of numerous agencies which are duplicative of state agencies (HEW, EPA, DEA,…etc.) would limit his necessary appointments while, at the same time, put a real dent in the deficit! It would also have the added benefit of making D.C. area real estate much more affordable!
Javier Milei is only the latest iteration of the perpetual Latin American doom cycle of swinging back and forth between the extreme Left and extreme Right. Everything he does will be undone when he is inevitably replaced by his polar opposite. That phenomenon is exactly the peril that the United States now faces: endless cycles of flamboyant disruptive figures who satisfy the blood-lust of their base without establishing a political equilibrium conducive to stability. We are racing towards becoming another banana republic.
Trump is the result, not the cause. From here in the UK the US and Canada both look like Banana republics. I suspect we are one election away from the same fate.
Milei is a bit unusual in being a Latin American Right-winger who doesn’t wear a fancy uniform with lots of gold braid on it.
Free Market Libertarian = Right Winger?
A dictatorship if Trump gets in that’s his plan. Please read Project 2025.
A lot of the near elite types on the right are ready to join Trump 24. Biden’s misrule has convinced people that the time for fear and equivocation is over. If we don’t commit and really fight we wont have a country anymore.
If things go as planned, then I believe there will be no issues with maga supporters who have proved their worth over the past eight years. So there will be no Bill Barr, no Pence, No Wray, etc.
The one thing Trump may have learnt is that actions speak louder than words. (also there will be no second chances).
Trump has actually said that he’s a victim.
Well written
One does have some unease in the Civil War analogy though, the specter of racism means there is a huge room to misunderstand the writers point. Passing over that though – yes. It is exactly that the Federal Government has usurped the power of the throne (the people). haha, the example of the character ‘Wormtongue’ in Lord of the Rings…….
The Deep State and Unparty are captured by the elites of Tech, Finance, and Corporate, and thus have captured USA.
It all is what is called 5th generation war. Capture by the philosophy of Postmodernism of Medea, education, entertainment, social media – and expelling the Christian Philosophy which created USA through the Enlightenment Liberal of the Constitution Writers and zeitgeist of the late 1700s. One of Freedom based on both Rights And Responsibilities. That the price of freedom is Duty, Honesty, Rule of Law, Justice, Hard Work, and Patriotism.
We are captured by Evil basically. They have a plan for us and the West. It is the destruction of the Middle Class and skilled Working Class. Those are hard working, meritocracy, have both money and morals, and so under Democracy vote for what is best for the nation. Those have to be destroyed to conquer a Democrat Nation from within. All the weirdness you see about you – that is the Fifth Generation Warfare weapons and Battles – and we are losing terribly.
Voting for Trump is also the 5Th generation warfare of Defense, defending against the Fifth Generation Warefare Attackers. This is an Existential Crises. If lost it will likely be forever, with AI as they are harnessing it against us. It is 1939….. and 1984 is the goal.
Trump is the last rallying of the forces of Enlightenment Values, and if lost will become the horrific dystopias we have seen last century, only without the chance for escaping them. There will be no Cold War, as there will be no bastion of Freedom left in the world. It will just be Cold.
“Trump is the last rallying of the forces of Enlightenment Values.” Did I read that right? List of major Enlightenment figures: David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Voltaire, Donald Trump….
…yep that’s right Martin. Enough of the the thinkers and talkers, now for the (literal) actor.
It would be a bit more convincing if Trump had actually read some books at some point in his life.
This is actually a really good example of how US history now divides into pre-2016 and post-2016 narratives. If you use the date option on Google and look at when Trump was just a celebrity businessman you’ll find articles on his taste in books and reading (including the cheesiness of picking his own books). Post-2016 the narrative becomes one of an uneducated klutz reliant on TV.
Our histories increasingly have breakpoints – before and after – and changing narratives that play fast-and-loose with the past. It’s also going to get worse quickly. As AI manipulates what might or might not be true, we have to get better at retaining skepticism and a willingness to back-check, even of things we believe are true.
Given the people who read books have largely formed an elite class actively robbing resources from the hard-knocks & street-wise classes, clearly book-reading is overrated (I have a PhD so don’t look for a simple dismissal of my views based on my supposed gauche ignorance). The picture that always comes back to me is the social structure in the movie Hunger Games. Corrupt, self-absorbed, venal elites in absolute power, versus the remnants of Enlightenment universalist principles of fairness and freedom in the elite-destroyed Districts. We want the elite overthrown. Trump is the only one in the political class who gets it. I don’t care if he reads Baudelaire or not. That’s not his role.
I didn’t suggest that Trump should read Baudelaire, but he might have been a more well-rounded person if he’d read something. In my day (which is more recent than his day) you kind of had to read some things to get through school.
I think we might have had enough of supercilious book readers
And their pesky books – throw them into the flames!
Proud semi-literacy. That the classic example of Jefferson and Lincoln. Oh…wait.
Obama was a reader and couldn’t get out of his own head…..
Where does Trump dwell if not in his chattering ego, petty thoughts, and ageing nether regions?
We need even more ignorant bloviators who are somehow proudest of what they haven’t even tried to learn?
What Evangelical fanboy thinks Trump has ever read the Bible, let alone absorbed anything that guides him from it?
Perhaps but you have no idea whether Trump is widely read or not. You are simply making an assumption based on no facts at all. As for Baudelaire, how many Brits have read Baudelaire in the original French. I would wager not too many since, in general, foreign language skills (including French) in the UK is not exactly a national forte. i.e. even those who got up to some sort of elementary French, that wouldn’t be sufficient to actually read Baudelaire.
Yes I have read Baudelaire in the original French – as part of my degree studies! But it doesn’t have to be a qualification for a politician.
No one is suggesting Trump should have read Baudelaire, just something a bit challenging and thoughtful. We just think that’s unlikely to have happened, is the point.
As my father would say, “Those who can’t do teach”…..Trump is a doer. What business or job in the private sector did either Biden or Obama ever have? Both are literally government wards as far as ‘work’ goes.
Do we know everything they’ve ever done?
Why do the Brits need to learn foreign languages? They already speak the World Language (admittedly thanks to the Americans).
Wrong way round, in the wide view. English was already a lingua franca pre-WW2 and English-speaking Americans were produced by Britain.
A lot of people speak English because it is the language of international commerce, and it is that because of American economic power post-WW2.
Me, I’ve read Baudelaire in French many times, and War and Peace in Russian. And I’m an MD and a Ph.D. So you’d better heed my opinion.
That was rather feeble sarcastic humor!
C’mon. Do you think he’s read any serious books since college? If so, how many? How about during college?
Listen to him: He isn’t dumb but he does not care to read or learn about other people except out of naked self-interest or cynical strategy. “2 Corinthians”, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) is “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more”?
Be honest. Very doubtful he knows when either the Revolutionary War or WWII began and ended. Granted, these are not established facts, but do you find my informed assessment farfetched?
*And do you think he could tell the difference between Bach, Beethoven, and Strauss?
I’m not saying these are litmus test qualifications but Trump is a cultural ignoramus.
I guess when one is the fount of all wisdom, one seldom has to rely on any other sources.
More people have read Solzhenitsyn than Baudelaire. He’s irrelevant nowadays.
What a ridiculous example in Baudelaire. How about John Stuart Mill or the U.S. Constitution itself?
A “corrupt, self-absorbed, venal elite in absolute power” is exactly what you’ll have if Trump II comes to pass. He’s declared his nakedly authoritarian plans. Or is Trump a regular guy who cares about common folk, sharing more with them than their disinclination to read real books, on average?
He’s written more social media copy than he’s read of anything since 2015–quite sure of that. But there are always some people who support a destructive demagogue, from Huey Long to Joseph McCarthy and all the rest.
Even if you have a PhD (one can say anything here) you may still be ignorant.
I think he totally acts on instincts, might be not bad in emergencies.
. . but most of life isn’t dealing with emergencies!
Probably is when you are US President and fighting the inane policies of the Democrats.
…but being the POTUS sure is !
Exactly!
Given that his instincts are “Lie, Cheat, Steal”, that is probably not a good thing.
Exactly! A bit of integrity wouldn’t come amiss.
I would say he tends to overreact especially if his ego is wounded.
It must be time for someone to bring up that “short fingers” thing again. That seems to annoy him quite a bit.
He attempts to turns everything into an urgent emergency with cartoon villains and heroes–“he alone” to the rescue.
…Why? So he’d be just like everyone else bound by administrative state groupthink?
this was the most interesting, compelling thing i’ve read on unherd, in a long time. nicely done.
i guess the two questions that really matter, in 2024 are:
* which side will the roberts court choose, facing several cases with states’ rights in play?
* what can, and what will this and the next president do that might serve to bring us together, or further the rift?
i hope that it does not end in violence.
and speaking of violence, there is a very real (small?) possibility that well-meaning civilians may take matters into their own hands, go rogue/vigilante, and start a cross-border conflict with mexico.
Your first question may become superfluous as states that find themselves unable and unwilling to accept the legitimacy of the Federal government also find themselves in conflict with that of the Supreme Court.
It can readily be contended that both the Federal government and the Supreme Court have egregiously overreached their legal and political influence. And by egregiously, I mean completely and thoroughly at odds with the principles of the Republic.
To the extent that Trump is “fighting for America”, he will be fighting for his America, and what that is will probably change from week to week.
If you look at his policies you can clearly see that ‘his’ America is the America of the Democratic Part pre Clinton globalism and the Wall Street takeover.
Trump’s policies depend on what day of the week it is, and what he perceives his personal interest to be on that day.
One thing that I find interesting is the number of people migrating to red states from blue states.
Anecdotally, it seems that the people that are doing so are not just looking to find cheaper housing and lower taxes though that is certainly a factor. I think it is social too. There are a lot of former Boston people like myself here and we are all moderate conservatives but would probably be thought of as right wing in New England. Same with the people from New York that have moved here. They are more conservative than where they moved from.
And those of us in red states tend to tell the new arrivals “Welcome, but please do not try to do here what you did there.”.
My guess is that the next census is gonna show that the populations in the red states have risen as has their wealth and their economies. That will mean more seats in the house for them and fewer for the blue states.
Think about it, in places like New England and NY and CA, there are plenty of republicans, it is just that they are wildly outnumbered. But they also count for apportionment of house seats. If every republican in CA up and left for TX or FL or GA or WY, then those states would get more seats, CA etc. would lose seats and there would be more republicans in the house.
But this self sorting by geography is also makes things like states banning together against the federal government more likely.
Republicans departing blue states for red are being proactively replaced by immigrants so as to not only maintain the population-based levels of representation in Congress but even to extend it.
Internal political migration cannot compete with the millions of predominantly blue-voting replacements
Yes, this point is not well understood by the public.
Seats are allocated based on census data – raw population totals for each state. Not voters, not citizens ….just humans.
What the Democrats have done under Biden’s Presidency is import approximately 8 million illegals. These people are largely headed for blue states, that offer more welfare. They more than outnumber the Americans leaving those states, and will increased the power of the blue states, by growing their raw population size …which hands them more seats.
Some of the Dems even say the quiet part out loud from time to time, such as New York City Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY). In a video that can still be found online, she said when discussing the problems that come with this influx of illegals:
“I’m from Brooklyn, New York. We have a diaspora that can absorb a significant number of these migrants,” …“When I hear colleagues talk about, you know, the doors of the inn being closed — ah, no room at the inn — I’m saying I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes…”
I think this important to highlight, because many members of the public are thinking “Ok, well they have brought in millions of illegals, but at least they can’t vote”… well, actually their very presence increases Dem political power. And as the Dems build more political power they will then use it to push for amnesty policies, so eventually these people will be voting (unless Trump is elected, and sends some of them back).
That “bodies” are counted for apportioning the legislature rather than citizens is crazy. (And I knew about the practice/rule before reading JJ Barnett.)
What is many times misunderstood is that most immigrants are church-going, faithfully monogamous, hard working people who are mostly conservative socially and culturally. They are increasingly voting Republican candidates who espouse these values.
That has been true of certain types of immigrants — particularly those from Latin America who have experience with socialism, as well as Catholic / Christian cultural influences.
But as border experts have attested, in later 2021, around a year after Biden had first flung open the borders, the demographics of who was coming started to shift radically.
Huge upswing in military age males traveling alone, and a shift from Latin migrants to African, Chinese, Middle Eastern and Indian / Pakistani.
It is highly questionable whether young Pakistani Muslim men, or single 30yr old male Somali Muslims, will integrate in the way that a Catholic Cuban family might. I think it would be naive to assume that this would be so, no?
I doubt Muslim males are going to turn out shoulder to shoulder with many of the Democrat supporters.
They will do anything necessary to spread the Caliphate.
True. I noticed the preponderance of single males of a certain age, a long time ago, and thought what the hell will they do, not speaking the language or having the right skills in an age of technology?
And they’re mostly Catholics and don’t use birth control.
You obviously don’t know much about catholics. Some Muslim immigrants have identified increasing their numbers through immigration and reproduction in democracies will eventually allow them to seize control. In some places in the U.K. their population is increasing exponentially. The Israel/Hamas conflict has both increased their determination and exposed their intention. More and more mosques where radical Islam is preached are being built. Some Pakistani Muslims genuinely believe that Pakistan will be the next superpower and this will happen by 2030.
I absolutely agree, Aphrodite. Muslims taking over is a terrifying prospect. Anybody thoughtlessly breeding is a problem.
How long will immigrants vote Democrat if things start to go pear-shaped?
The great sorting continues, the productive and pro-social elements of American society are moving to were they appreciate, respected and valued and were they can thrive. Meanwhile the unproductive and anti-social stay were they are and keep doing the things that make life in their places difficult. They do this because they lack social awareness, are content because they somehow benefit from the dysfunction(welfare or employment, politics), or out some warped sense of righteousness or narcissistic indulgence. This is the reason why I don’t have a lot sympathy with the people living in those places and don’t really care about what’s happening there, save as source of amusement or fear that the the fools in are political want to impose the madness on the rest us.
We have a good many liberal friends moving south as well, as they see northern states as dysfunctional but then they vote for the same craziness when they move to the south. My aunt who lives in Georgia says there are so many Massachusetts people there that a ‘Massachusetts Club’ has formed.
They are referred to as “Massholes”.
We left New England for Florida in January 2021, at the height of the Covid panic, when the media was calling the state “Covid ground zero” and its governor “DeathSantis”. We never got the virus, never got the shots, never masked, and never looked back.
Bravo!!!
Well done.
The problem is that the Feds fought hard to have all people counted in the census, not just citizens. So this huge number of illegals will count in the number of representatives that the states get, enabling the blues to outnumber the reds at the federal level still.
I’m vacating Boston for the Midwest at the end of next month.
I left that pretentious enclave 25 years ago. I no longer even bother visiting, though I still have family and some growing-ever-distant friends. More the “hub of arrogance” than the “hub of the universe” they are fond of viewing themselves.
I’m visiting southern California where I grew up, after living in the wide open spaces of New Mexico and Utah for the last 25 years. This place feels like a decaying post-apocalyptic wasteland now, but growing up here I thought I was in the center of the universe. Life is funny. Can’t wait to get back to higher elevation, fresh air and freedom-loving people.
Love the San Juan mountains down to Carson Forest and Taos.
You sound a bit arrogant yourself.
You’ll fit in there.
I read an interesting op-ed from Doomberg, IIRC, pointing out that increasingly the ‘energy rich fossil fuel’ states are keeping the Green States ‘alive’ – and the ‘fossil/green’ split appears to match the Republican/Democrat split. Energy is what creates civilisations, the more you have to ‘use’ the higher your standard of living. Any ‘split’ in the USA along such lines is going to make for riveting TV, as no doubt someone will document it.
Liberals and conservatives self sorting by geography makes me sad, though I understand it. The more tribal we become, the more we’ll devolve, I’m afraid, focusing increasingly on the small stuff at the expense of the larger, more important (and interesting) challenges. We need the best and brightest of all stripes to move us forward. The tribal paranoia we’re currently seeing closely parallels the rise in mental illness. This is an unfolding tragedy.
Why the hell would most thinking Californians want to move to Texas?!!
Do you still find yourself stranded in the Lone Star State?
No, I don’t live there!
Open borders and immigration was a poor choice to illustrate the growing divide between Americans. The vast majority of Americans share the same concern about immigration and it is now the number one issue for voters. In a recent poll, 68% of respondents believe the Biden administration should make it tougher to get into the U.S. illegally – including 50% of Democrats.
Many liberal jurisdictions passed ‘sanctuary city’ laws never realizing what that would mean in the event of the invasion that is now taking place. It’s called ‘eating your vote’. Only half of Democrats think Biden should be tougher on immigration- but that number is 75% for independents and 95% for Republicans. Democrats for the most are okay with the mayhem taking place.
Democrats are most likely to be insulated from the chaos and largely unaware it even exists. The border crisis is simply not covered in a factual manner in any media they consume.
Yes, this is probably true for elite (rich & educated) Democrats, but not for inner city blacks who are now feeling the brunt of illegal immigration. In Chicago, the black community is suing the city because it wants to use a community center to house illegals. In NYC, blacks are also outraged that their children are being made to stay home and learn remotely whilst their schools are being used to house illegals as well. In Denver, the local hospital threatens to shut down after having serviced 8,0000 illegals ( 20K visits) with no recompense. Covid did enough damage to the young & disadvantaged and now this. It’s no wonder that blacks when polled are veering away from Biden – especially black men. A majority of people under 35 are now polling for Trump as well….
So the Democrats are really going to have to be innovative to win the next election?
Cathy, Biden and the democrats do not like free blacks. As you know slave owners were democrats. Democrats have now opened the borders to replace blacks. And yet blacks continue to support their democrat masters. Perhaps the IQs coming in from the southern border will be higher than black IQ
That’s a nasty, bigoted, and ignorant comment. I find it offensive and I hope you get blocked.
I doubt that.
Shivanthi Sathanandan wasn’t insulated enough it seems.
Again, not true. I’m a liberal and none of my liberal friends and acquaintances is ignorant of the facts or uncaring.
But why are they ok with the mayhem taking place? It reminds me of the Camp of the Saints where the enthusiastic supporters of the mayhem get destroyed by it in the end. But until the last few minutes, they are still “all in.” Ideology before reality…
It boggles the mind, but it’s always ‘Orange Man Bad’ and that the Democrats are ‘Saving Democracy’ which is just lunacy at this point and folks are catching on.
Not true, we’re not okay with the mayhem.
No? Please tell more. Why do Dems keep voting for people guaranteed to promote more mayhem? Like the guy in Chicago…
Didn’t Trump create Mayhem?
The problem is that 50% of democrats are the most influential parts of their support, most of their academics, bureaucrats, teachers, govt employees, the loud, two face hypocrites who will defend illegal mass immigration to the bitter end while living in large White / Asian upper class suburban locales.
Yeah the Dems realized after it was too late. “Oh we’ll be a sanctuary and actively take them in.” And after costing 100’s of millions of dollars and bankrupting hospitals, the Dems are finally like, “oops, bad decision”.
Exactly. I’m a liberal and I’m very concerned about migrants. Who isn’t? I don’t know anyone who isn’t concerned. Commenters should be on the lookout for a documentary called “Exodus” which shows the unimaginable horror and suffering of people in Senegal. They’re starving because fish, their main food source has gone because of overfishing. Then rising sea levels, from global warming, have taken away their homes so they have nothing left. They keep risking their lives making treacherous ocean voyages in small, open boats, trying to get to Spain. Few make it. Watching that documentary, and the one about immigrants coming through the Darian gap, makes it look as though the whole third world is surging towards Europe and America, en mass. It’s very frightening because no one knows what to do about it.
Generally, it’s more about increased wealth and ease of travel than increased poverty. The migrant sources were unstable before current levels of mass migration.
You said, “Trump isn’t going to reinforce all those hundreds of military bases, solve the recruitment crisis, and make sure the next couple of forever wars are ran competently this time.” well the same thing can be said about Biden. The reason is is that both of these mediocrities lack the temperament to do these things or anything else related to it, at least effectively. For Biden, he’s too risk adverse, shortsighted and easily dominated by those around him and only cares about himself and is rotten family that he exploits for his own purposes and dealing with that huge chip on his shoulder born from belief that he’s never been given his due. For Trump, he’s too impulsive, shortsighted and reckless due to an incessant needs to gratify his chronically fragile ego and constantly looking for that illusionary Glory that he feels was denied to him. Both of them are self-serving individuals who care for nothing beyond themselves. Whatever issue or policy that is in question it’s a secondary interest to them and only have their interest when benefits them or they feel threatened. These people really have no real strategy or vision for the country, save for them being president and enjoying the prestige of the office, nothing more or less. They are both deeply insecure men who seek power in order to assange their deep feelings of inadequacy. Everything else in the world only exists to serve that purpose as far as they see it. Neither of these two will be the saviors of America. What’s even more terrifying is that the political system is infested with people like this, there are no saviors on the horizon. Plus I like the Japanese example you gave, political and social systems only have only have power untill people stop respecting it due to believe that doing so no longer serves their interest or they stop fearing it. Power is a social convention, empower only exists only as long as people obey the convention around it.
Brilliant essay. The resurfacing of old grudges and the exposure of fault lines in the Constitution as currently interpreted are indeed major and under discussed features of the evolving crisis.
What is left out, however, are the shorter term economic factors precipitating the crisis. If the post 1990s stagnation or decline of the real standard of living of half the US population ended and the steady improvement of the 1940s-90s resumed, then the grudges and fault lines would matter less and return to their former obscurity.
If a historical parallel is obligatory, consider the French Revolution. There were all sorts of grand causes – Voltaire, Rousseau, an encyclopaedia, privileges of the aristocracy, absolute but inept monarchy, etc etc – but if there had not been food shortages in Paris then there would have been no mobs and no revolution.
As President, Trump seemed for a couple of years – prior to Covid – to be offering not only hope but effective action leading to briefly rising incomes. It is the memory of that brief period which I think is the “secret sauce” providing him with much of his current support.
The underlying problem is that since the 1990s the American political system has served more those who finance campaigns than those who vote. The combined impact of globalisation, automation and immigration have benefitted the former but not the latter. For a democracy to adopt and sustain policies for thirty years which hurt around half the population is perhaps puzzling. That democracy throws up Trump as a response should not be. He may be a weird, startling or even frightening figure but he is the equivalent of the sans-culottes crying for bread (and the incomprehension of the Democrats on a par with Marie Antoinette on cake).
As George Bernard Shaw said “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” All the reasonable US politicians joined and served the system which created this problem. One should not be too surprised therefore that it is an entirely unreasonable, utterly egocentric and flawed outsider who has ended up channeling the discontent – if understandably worried about the possible consequences.
“If a historical parallel is obligatory”.
The French Revolution is ancient history for most, perhaps Weimar and its consequences might have been a better analogy?
I think you are being an optimist if you think any historical analogy is likely to resonate widely these days. History as a subject is in sad decline. I suspect the author has got in right in choosing an obscure topic like the Meiji Restoration where one can claim any parallel one likes free from fear of contradiction (unless there are Japanese readers of UnHerd who might have strong views). In future, I am planning to quote analogies only from Lower Lotharingia and the Sokoto Caliphate and winning every argument.
It a great pity that our ‘expert’ on all things Japanese, Basil Chamberlain is no longer a subscriber. He was also noticeably knowledgeable on all things Dante and Belarusian monasteries, not to mention numerous other interesting subjects.
Those were the days indeed!
Sadly you have scuppered my attempt to start a conversation about the comparative intellectual abilities of Mr Trump and the late Herr Hitler.
“I try and tell myself it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. If you tell yourself it doesn’t matter […] then you have earthquakes in India where 400,000 people get killed. Honestly, it doesn’t matter. That’s how I handle stress.” – Reichsführer Donald Trump
Exactly sir!
we have to be grateful for small mercies
Some great comments being made especially this one. And the original article felt like fresh analysis too. Thanks folks it’s been educational.
So now we have a pro-Trump voice also agreeing that the US is heading towards civil war – with or without the shooting. It really looks more and more likely.
Totally frightening how the narrative-smiths can roll out a talking point then have it slowly take over like a fungus rotting civil discourse. So far violence and riots have been mostly from the left, which then makes it sound too much like a call to arms.
It’s taken a huge amount of thought and effort – from Foucault to Alinsky and beyond – to develop the tools needed to control narratives in this way. But they will fail if enough people start to understand how it is done.
The increasing polarisation and the consequent risks are not an invention. Unfortunately. The left certainly has its large share of the responsibility, what with the 1619 project, defunding the police, sanctuary cities, and the general cultural woke push, and the George Floyd riots and the official support they got (in the middle of a pandemic, too!). But the right seems equally intolerant. And Trumps push to deligitimate the election and disregard the official vote counts – not to mention the invasion of the Capitol – is an even more serious step towards disintegrating the union.
I have left the Left and been hanging on rightish forums a lot, not having a real home. And I don’t see people being “equally intolerant.” There is a lot of camaraderie on the Right, and humor, and tolerance for even outlandish ideas. The Right seems to me to be rooted in treating others with courtesy despite some of their opinions. (Viz, many on the Left deplore Unherd, the way it amiably mixes people from both sides. 🙂
yes we just laugh at Rasmus
The quote below was on Unherd just a few days ago. And (unlike say ‘Champagne Socialist’) this attitude is not a glaring exception either. Yes, I do think there is comparable intolerance on the right (I do not care which side might be 5% worse than he other).
I agree, but this is the Internet. Civil discourse is a casualty of the age we live in. I personally try to ignore stupidity rather than waste energy trying to get rid of it or being upset about it. We may as well try to empty the ocean with a bucket.
The Left denied the validity of the 2000 and 2016 elections but as with their psychotic rhetoric, such things are only a problem if the other side do it.
In principle, I agree with you, but I also take a longer term view of things. Identity politics and pushing racial grievances for the sake of getting the votes of ‘minorities’ was always going to have consequences if pursued as a long term political strategy. If one labels everyone who opposes their policies as a racist, one should not express surprise when they later find themselves opposed and outnumbered by ‘racists’. ‘They started it’ cannot be an excuse for bad behavior, but it can be true nonetheless. A vicious unprovoked attack is not the same as a vicious attack with provocation. One side is guilty of trying to force the world and its people to conform to its particular dogma so far as race, open borders, gender, climate, the pandemic, and so forth is concerned and one side is striking back in anger. That is simply my reading of these debates as they have evolved over the decades. I do not excuse the Jan 6th rioters who actually committed crimes. Those who break the law should be punished fairly and impartially. To a lot of voters, it doesn’t look like that’s happening when one compares the Jan 6th rioters to the George Floyd rioters of a few months earlier. Such inconsistencies become difficult to ignore.
I will always oppose violence as a means to change. I believe that passive resistance is both more effective and more humane. When passive resistance does succeed, it doesn’t leave behind so much anger and create grudges that span generations. That said, I’m not going to defend the establishment from said violence either. That is the problem really. Most everyone who isn’t a revolutionary for one side or the other simply doesn’t think the system is worth defending. I’m at the point I think the best outcome is some sort of ‘national divorce’ that cedes most power over social and immigration policy to state level governments and limit the national government to military and monetary policy. I’m well aware this would require throwing out the Constitution, and as much as I respect the founding fathers, I know nothing lasts forever. Perhaps its time for a new one.
The analysis of MAGA is a bit sugar-coated. Surely the point was that Trump offered his supporters a take-over of the whole country, so that all of the US would be run by and for them. Whereas now he has given up on that victory and only offers secession, so his faction can still rule supreme, but only in part of the country
Trump is a corny “I love Reagan, America Ohhh Yeah” style patriot. He was never up to or interested in subversion or Revolution. It has been his persecution by the Democratic Party especially Democratic Controlled Judges and DAs offices that has made Trump into a Revolutionary figure. He has no choice but to smash the system in order to survive.
I don’t buy Civil War. America ain’t coming apart. This is still a fight for the whole enchilada.
In other words he was forced to become revolutionary and smash the system, because the system wantonly refused to give him total power any other way. Bad Democrats, bad baad Democrats.
The whole of the Anglosphere/West is involved in the same battle. The US and Britain may survive, i don’t think the EU will. As for Canada, Australia and NZ who knows? But just in case, “So long and thanks for the mutton, coal and whatever Canada flogs us.”
Tucker thinks all Trump wants is America 1980. No revolution, thank you. He’s probably close…
One important contribution to this result is surely the woke wave. The statues of confederates, military bases named for confederate generals, a history that started in shared colonization and shared independence wars, all had the important function of binding the (intellectual) descendants of *both* sides of the civil war into one, reconciled nation. Remove all that, and you push the other side into no longer feeling they belong to the US (or vice versa).
Also military recruitment is down quite a bit especially with ‘white males’. The disaffection is alarming. Some say it’s the woke recruiting for lesbians and trannies? No matter, the traditional Scots-Irish areas of the country – The South and Midwest are not having what’s being dished out and it’s said that even traditional ‘military’ families are no longer encouraging their children to follow in their footsteps.
How does the National Guard work? Are they citizen soldiers or a sort of full time paramilitary police? Either way, I imagine IF they are seen as anti-fed. Perhaps they won’t be struggling for recruits in Republican states.
Indeed, who would want their child to be at the mercy of woke military commanders that make life-or-death decisions based on race and/or gender?
The Robert Lee statue point is particularly apt. The right wingers that went to Charlottesville for the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in 2017 did so because of rumours of that statue being torn down. To see that several years later their fears were confirmed as the left ritually humiliated them by taking pictures of the statue being melted down and mocking them, no wonder people are radicalising. Left and right in the U.S are polarising to such an extent that i believe a civil war is inevitable at this point.
Unless the strike is very soon, I doubt it will be possible to begin, let alone win, a civil war. Another commentator above raised the role of AI in political domination. The elite will have a monopoly on that technology, and it will be their main weapon. Any civil war will be an information war, and will quickly transform into an unassailable totalitarian state. Even without such a war, the outcome will be the same. It will not be possible to dislodge the coming AI driven totalitarian state internally. Even its killing machines will be AI driven, and will be directed by predictive AI technology that will anticipate human fighters’ next moves. Because AI is developing rapidly, the window of opportunity to prevent this future will soon close.
I think the AI part of the equation is still to be seen. It could turn out to be a black swan in terms of what the elites think it will do, and what it will actually do. Some aspects of it will breach the traditional secrecy and withholding of information, which can strike at the heart of the status quo.
I have no great insight into the sides who might be contesting any Civil War. But somehow I get the feeling that the Antifa/BLM won’t come out too well in any armed conflict with the right. It may all depend upon who can command the US Military, BUT IF it came to Civil War, can it be commanded?
Trump keeps winning because he is regarded by very many as the least worst option. His opponents don’t seem to want to ask the question of why he is seen like that, or what is it is about the other candidates that put off the voters. Until they ask the question, find an answer and act upon it, Trump will keep winning.
Just say it Karen: he’s the best option.
He keeps winning because most republicans in office are spineless and his civilian supporters seem to be ignorant.
It makes me laugh. These commentators build these fancy ideas to explain political phenomena that are completely clear to the layman.
Want to explain US, British and European politics over the last decade?
It’s the uncontrolled, sky-high immigration, stupid!
The ‘Angela Merkel’ effect !!!
The UnHerd contributors do tend to over intellectualize most things. Thanks for stating the obvious.
Well said. The upper classes benefit from the cheap labor while the working classes suffered. Trump is acting as a champion for ordinary people and the wealthy hate him for it. They was a subservient working class. Just look at the truckers protest in Canada. The government declared marshal law to stop a very peaceful working class revolt in the capital.
What gets me is how you can’t even point this out to those that are OK with mass immigration without being called all kinds of things. In the UK we’ve already had Brexit because of it – you’d think they’d learn if only for their own sakes. But no, they carry on like reincarnations of Marie Antionette.
Trouble lies ahead for us all, whilst China watches, waits and sells to us.
The truckers were disrupting the lives of all the ordinary people. It was a selfish act and the general public was not behind it.
Yes!
Superb. Enlightening. It makes one look across the channel and question whether the 30 year old New Federal Empire of Europe is not undergoing the very same process of permanent fracture dysfunction and failure. Brussels and the multiculturally obsessed Progressive New Order here have both spat on the interests and alarm of every nation state and have allowed an identical uncontrolled mass decades old Eagle Pass ‘invasions’ to occur. The mood is changing fast. French farmers besiege Paris while the venomous unelected Elitists – the arrogant EHCR judiciary and the flatulent dolts in our similarly corrupted House of Lords – relish mocking and humiliating elected national governments. The process is the same. Vast silent majorities are alarmed and have lost all faith in the Progressive Order and its crazed DEI and Net Zero ideologies. The UK is in a strange unique bubble in even contemplating a knee bending identitarian progressive party so much at odds with this popular mood. That is becausethe idea of a near 20 year Rule by Fake Tories is just impossible. It cannot ever last. One senses a global tsunami coming in which both Fake Tories and Starmerites will be washed away. Leaving .. what?
The way to wash away Blu Labour and Nu Labour is to vote Reform. They can’t be any worse than either of the above AND if they aren’t an improvement, then in 5 years time the likelihood of neither the Tory Party or the Labour party not having split into fragments is remote. At least one of those fragments may actually be conservative, and one truly ‘Labour’ as in supporting the ideals of the worker. Then again, it may also work. Though the Tories Net Zero contracts for windmills have sentenced the UK to hikes in electricity prices for perhaps a decade to come.
The European Union is circling the same plughole that the Soviet Union went down. Mikhail Gorbachev himself said that the EU was too busy making the same mistakes as the USSR to see where they were going. Putin’s ambitions to reconstitute a USSRR (Union of Satellite States around a Resurgent Russia) are doomed to failure. He’s trying to fight political gravity. They all are.
Picking a convenient view of Japanese history to validate a suggestion that USA is about to rerun its Civil War seems very far fetched and wrong headed to me. Trump will likely be elected because he is a much better bet than Biden (who is truly dreadful) and because Trump articulates many of the considered views of a majority of Americans. After his election we can confidently expect bad behaviour from those who hate Trump and/ or hate America. Nothing much new there. One uncomfortable point I do accept is that America is headed for some increasingly troubled times. However I also think America’s detractors underestimate the strength of conviction of the great majority of its citizens. I feel confident that eventually their views will prevail. Let’s hope so, as the World needs a free and strong America now more than it has ever done – and goodness knows, freedom loving people across the globe have been relying on a strong America for a long time now.
My sense of it is, the people who have corrupted past elections are still there, ready to do more of what they do so well. Unless the command from on high will be to allow Trump because Biden becomes such a liability, he will not be elected.
A very interesting article. I’m not sure the three disasters apparently afflicting the average US citizen really account for the sort of existential crisis the author describes though. The federal debt is a rather distant problem for the average citizen, and has been, and for the short term at least, will continue to be supported by the power of the US dollar, inflation is now 2.9%, hardly destroying people’s lives any more than it has for more than the last century, and Americas military dominance hasn’t been tested properly in decades, and it’s limitations have in any case clear to see since at least Vietnam. I think US citizens are well aware that so many people want to migrate to their country because they still have something most others want, primarily stability. I suspect the narrative we hear is largely one created by politicos in league with a complicit media. That’s not to say it’s not still dangerous, but not quite as disastrous as the article imagines.
I think that how you feel about these things depends, more than anything, on your class background. Blue collar people are much, much more threatened by open borders ideology, defunding the police, cashless bail and the like than are the graduate class who can insulate themselves from the effects of these things.
I’m sure you’re right, the homeless situation in San Francisco was more abject than anything I’ve seen even in some very poor countries that I’ve travelled to. If you fall on hard times in America, you land on concrete. But this doesn’t square with the income distribution of Democrat and Republican voters. The majority of those on low wages vote Democrat.
Good article but the 1776 angle is slightly over-egged I think.
Trump is popular because, although he is an extreme personality, his policies are moderate and traditionally blue collar Democratic. Americans vote for him because they want to go back to a better time before the horrors of Clinton/Blair globalism and the nightmares of divisive progressivism. Who can blame them?
What policies? USA. Lock her up. Build the wall. Drain the swamp.
Extraordinarily impressive and detailed, aren’t they?
Build the Wall is detailed enough, or does 6 or 8 million nipping into Texas and then, presumably being bussed North, not provide enough detail?
I agree; much more uplifting than being lectured on my innate racism and privilege. Not sure why you got downvoted.
I think you are adding an unneeded level of complexity to Trump’s policy position. I would sum it up as “Me”.
Exactly!
Trump is like a character that has stepped out of a Harold Robbins novel. He is simple, direct, energetic and has clarity of vision for what he wants. It may be a bit much for the Left and the moss encrusted Establishment, but he is definitely on the people’s wavelength. Compared too most other billionaires, he is squeaky clean.
Leaving aside the somewhat convoluted analogies with Japanese Shogunate history, the real issue is that the US is so polarised and hostile that a 2nd civil war becomes a real possibility.
Barring a political (or actual) assasination, we know Trump is the Republican nominee. Whether or not Biden runs (I personally think he’ll get pulled as the candidate just before Dem convention) there is a bigger issue to confront – and that is faith in the electoral system itself.
Trust in US democracy has been eroded by a series of much contested results in the last several elections Bush/Gore, Trump/Clinton, Biden/Trump.
If the electorate lose faith in the democratic process then we are in serious trouble. Both sides of the political divide have amped up their base to a point where there is a serious risk of civil unrest, regardless of the result. Trump supporters, many of them convinced the election was stolen last time, see their man subjected to endless attempts to have him removed from the ballot in a manner that would shame a banana republic.
Democrat supporters have been told that “extreme-MAGA” forces threaten the very existence of the republic, so if the Dems lose – which they very easily could – then we might see violence that would dwarf the BLM riots in their ferocity.
Faith needs to be restored in the electoral process, that is absolutely critical, and there are some fairly simple steps that would achieve that.
Every voter should be able to be verified – the matter of every voter’s eligibility is fundamental. Anyone without a Driver’s Licence has 10 months from now to request another form of ID, issued free of charge by the Govt. Every voter needs to produce ID before being allowed to cast a vote – and there needs to be a record so that each vote is traceable and verifiable.
Mail-in Ballots should only be available for those who are incapable of attending a polling-station in person, not simply as a convenience for the lazy. The practice of Ballot-harvesting – the gathering of absentee or mail-in ballots by third-party individuals – should be banned altogether.
Voter Rolls should be integrated and made uniform across the country. If a voter changes address, including moving State, that should be updated to a national database. Every US voter should be informed that IF YOU ARE NOT ON THE ELECTORAL ROLL, YOU CAN NOT VOTE.
It is noticeable that the Democrat Party has been the party most opposed to any new election security mechanisms, all whilst condemning Republicans for the threat they supposedly pose to democracy.
The Democrat Party claim that any Voter ID laws discrimate against ethnic minority communities, yet polling shows 76% support for their introduction among Dem voters of all races.
So what is the real reason behind the push back against any measures to ensure Election integrity? Who knows, but maybe another Old Joe had the answer….
“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” ― Joseph Stalin
Many of those measures are sensible. But if you will permit me, as a non-American:
First. a lot of the Republican distrust of the election results has no basis in evidence. If exaggerated fears are a reason to change the electoral system in your favour, then everybody has a good reason to exaggerate their fear. Much like the woke have an incentive to take offence, since that is how you win concessions. If someone could point to any evidence that lack of ID and impersonation have had any actual effect on results, I have yet to see it. Similarly, there is no evidence, except for Trump’s intuition, to show that the last election was decided by ballot fraud.
Second, all the measures you cite will benefit the Republicans and harm the Democrats. Banning ballot-harvesting sounds like a good idea. But making it illegal to hand out water and snacks to people queueing at a polling station, some states seem to have done, can only be described as harassment. Making electoral rolls uniform sounds like a god idea, but taking them away from the states and making them federal might be even better. As it is there are lots of documented cases where states have gone to great efforts to purge voter rolls on flimsy pretexts of people who could be suspected of voting Democrat. And that is before you get to the point that Democrat voters are actually less likely to have the necessary documents in the first place, so the more requirements for documentation, the better for the Republicans. So stricter enforcement of voter rolls would in practice just be a way of helping Republicans keep eligible Democrats from voting.
Then there is gerrymandering, systematically and very successfully used by the Republicans. And then there is Trump’s blatant attempts to ignore the tallies of votes cast so he can win anyway. If you want to increase trust in elections, it is not enough to introduce a lot of measures that will help you win. Unless you also offer to remove some of the dirty tricks of your own side and give some security to the opposition, the obvious conclusion is that election integrity is just a pretext; the real story is that Republicans just cannot and will not accept that those horrible Democrats could possibly win honestly, and want to tilt the game in their own favour.
..
Make no mistake, the Dems are – by some margin – more ruthless than the Republicans when it comes to ACTUAL voter suppression. Just ask the Green Party.
The Democrats had the Green Party removed from the state ballot in Montana.
According to multiple sources (within the Green party, the State legislature and among voters), the 500 signatories the Green Party required to put them onto the ballot were called repeatedly from Dem Party campaign people asking them to recant and remove their signature from the petition.
When enough recanted, the Dems took the matter before the Montana Supreme Court, who removed the Greens from the ballot for falling short of the required signatories.
One trick they used to convince voters was telling them that the Greens were actually backed by the Republican party. …. According to one Green Party activist: “The Democratic Party had called most of them about 15 to 25 times to badger them to do a withdraw. One elderly couple told me that they just didn’t feel comfortable saying ‘no’ after the 20th call they’d received. The Democratic Party even had a third-party notary come to their house to take their withdrawal; I think that actually scared some folks, too – they think, ‘now they know where we live.’”
The Green Party head of comms, Michael O’Neil – “Our candidates have faced that kind of political bigotry for decades but employing it against regular citizens on this scale marks a new, shameful low.”
Politics can be a dirty business, and running for office is always a lot more cut-throat than governing. But when it crosses over into intimidation then surely things have gone far too far.
The Green Party’s, Gary Marbut, – “I’m only mildly surprised at this extreme effort by Democrats to be undemocratic.”
After years of claiming that Trump was an illegitimate President, after claims of stolen elections, after doubts raised over several elections since Bush controversially “beat” Gore, the crisis of confidence in democracy will endure until systems are put in place that can see that elections are run freely, fairly and without interference.
This is a by-the-by which might interest you. Last week’s Yougov’s US polling (Jan 21-23 RV) over at 538 asked for opinions about both the 2020 and 2016 elections.
It did find that 75% of Republicans thought that Biden had not won the 2020 election legitimately. However, it also showed that 48% of Democrats believed Trump had not won the 2016 election legitimately.
‘Not legitimately’ doesn’t necessarily mean believe in election fraud, but I’d say US elections have a shockingly big deficit of trust from both parties.
Whilst I do not believe there was any concerted stuffing of ballot boxes, or any obvious widespread election fraud in 2020 – I would argue there was certainly a conspiracy.
We know for a fact, thanks to the work of independent journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and Michael Schellenburger (none of them Republicans), that US Intel agencies, Big Tech and a pliant Media deliberately conspired to suppress a story (Hunter’s laptop) that would very likely have had a profound effect on the result.
It amounted to a concerted and conscious attack on a sitting President by denying the public the information to make an informed choice during an election.
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”– Thomas Jefferson.
Nearly half of all Democrats believe to this day that Trump stole the 2016 election with the help of Russia, based on false evidence paid for by the Clinton campaign.
The Durham Report made that all plain, yet rather than admit they’d spent 4 years promoting a false story, the legacy media tried desperately to downplay the findings. Frankly the Durham Report was the biggest scandal of the last 10 years – yet most of the liberal media barely reported it.
FBI, DOJ failed to observe ‘fidelity to the law’ in Trump-Russia investigation: Durham (nypost.com)
Durham proves that Hillary and the FBI tried to rig the 2016 election (nypost.com)
Hence why I say election integrity measures are crucial. If either side doesn’t trust a result then the legitimacy of the President is in question. Solve that and the losing side can only bemoan that they lost, not that the result is a fraud – it might just save the Union.
Does anyone actually know what was on that Laptop? e.g Perhaps a phone call along the lines of “You pay me X millions and my Daddy, US President elect,will help you screw over the Russians.”
There is absolutely zero doubt in most americans’ ,mind that the Presidential election was stolen. The evidence is irrefutable. The Dems know it for certain and they are happy. The Republicans not so much…..
Please give me a link to that irrefutable evidence. I will not take your word for it – or Trump’s.
But the BLM riots were ‘mostly peaceful’ it was the Trump/Capitol insurrection on Jan 6th that surely sets the standard?
It took me several decades of visiting many different parts of the USA (thoughTBF not the rural Deep South) to really understand that the USA is really 50 countries (51 if you split N an S California) with only partial loyalty to the “United” bit. I think there *is* a real risk of some sort of split, though perhaps not a formal Civil War?
But of one thing I am certain, DJT doesn’t care about that except to the extent that it boosts his ego and bank balance.
Don’t know about his ego – but it certainly hasn’t done much for his bank balance.
During his term in office, Trump’s bank balance went down. Try another argument. One with evidence perhaps. It’s amazing the number of things about which people are so “certain” that are not so.
I made no comment about his actual wealth or income, no-one knows the figures, all we have is guesses and estimates from Forbes et al. Whether it went up or down after 2016 is not the point.
What I suggested was that he seems to care mainly for his ego and status as a bilIonaire, which to me as an outsider is obvious from his own statements.
I am of course aware that any opinion which doesn’t accord with the Trump bandwagon will get down voted by many people, and its interesting to have that confirmed.
That said, I’m not a US voter and therefore have no skin in this game, but from a neutral perspective the touchiness of his followers about *any* perceived criticism of him is worrying.
And I expect more downvotes for having the temerity to say so.
‘Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.’
-Paine
What the attempted symbolism of this essay misses is the fact that States’ Rights is not some new phenomenon that has laid dormant since Reconstruction. It is and has been a very live issue ever since Jim Crow. It is built into the constitution, and as such unresolvable, since states will sometimes claim their independence on specific issues, whereas the same states will at other times claim the necessity of federal oversight and control.
What we’re currently seeing is a federal government being out of touch with voter sentiment on a key issue, which is why Abbott has calculated that his strategy will work. Had the vast majority of Americans not been in favor of a regulated border, the strategy would not have worked.
Some guy in Sweden has thoughts about politics in America. Huh. Americans don’t think about Sweden at all.
Do more that 1% of Americans actually know where Sweden is?
Additionally do any* know that Sweden once possessed a small slice what is now the USA?
(*Besides your good self that is.)
Give us some credit – we know ABBA and Mamma, Mia : ) LOL
Don’t forget that “Swedish Chef” guy on the Muppets.
Bob Woodward’s book ‘Rage’ draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with Trump and first-hand witnesses, as well as participants’ notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents.
Woodward obtained 25 personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that had not been made public before.
So who would you recommend we should read on former President Trump, Covid-19, those 25 personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Jong Un and all the other sources he quotes?
And now there’s E Jean Caroll and $83.3m.
When a culture begins to seriously fragment, its external enemies/competitors quickly recognize an opportunity to move in and either divvy up the pieces of consolidate them under their own power. With China lurking in the shadows, this is a very dangerous point in history.
Not to mention Russia.
Why then, does Trump keep winning?
Because he appears to be the only thing standing athwart of the bipartisan effort to ruin the country, and he is probably not enough. No single person is, yet no sane person wants four more years of Team Biden and the people who run it. By every objective measure, life today is worse than when that husk of a man was sworn in.
Trump is not a cure, per se. If anything, he is stark evidence of a republic gone off the rails. In a normally functioning govt structure, his candidacy would not be possible or necessary, but career politicians have made a mess of most things while lecturing upstarts about their lack of experience.
The Texas governor is doing what the feds won’t, which leads me to wonder just who in the federal system is profiting from all this human traffic. It would not be unusual for the a govt cartel to work with criminal enterprise; we’ve done it before. It brings to mind the words of an empty suit uttered a few years ago – that fundamental transformation was coming. Well, it’s here. Doesn’t look like anyone likes it.
Why then, does Trump keep winning?
He doesn’t “keep on winning”. He won in 2016, but only because he was up against the worst candidate imaginable, and even then she got more of the popular vote than he did. He lost in 2020, and his influence didn’t help the GOP in the subsequent mid-terms.
On our much smaller UK scale we too draw lines on the map and have done so for much longer. Now Scotland with its parochial SNP declares it wants independence while the majority of its population do not. Wales, whose main industry is tourism, leans over backwards to deter tourists. Ireland, delightfully picturesque and quaint with a pub embassy in every city of the world is a political minefield. Their troubles date back to Cromwell and a Protestant Dutch king. All three have contributed proud regiments to the old Empire.
Transpose this onto USA. Once, the Mason Dixon line was a clue but now we read of a shortage of U Haul trailers in California, concern that Democrats fleeing the troubled BLM Fentanyl areas will infect southern Republican voting figures. Nobody here would be surprised to see Trump flying a Confederate flag. Nor would they be surprised to see Biden’s Administration flying a hammer and sickle regardless of Ukraine. We are seeing it here in Old England and Trump’s friend Nigel Farage is increasingly popular. Opt for Trump, he can’t do the damage Biden has done but can he undo it?
The real tipping point will come when the Democrats next gain control of both houses of congress and the Presidency. They have made clear they are willing to do whatever is necessary, such as a complete abolition of he filibuster and packing the supreme court to achieve their objectives. High among those is an Australian-like ban on weapons, putatively to reduce violence with guns, but also to reduce the ability of citizens to resist the Leviathan.
The same states that support Texas now will not comply with such a gun grab. If the Democrats insist on trying to enforce such laws real violent chaos is likely.
I predict Trump to win but Biden to steal the deal and use every game that Trump is using now and more!
your comment is beyond me
‘America used to be great; vote for Trump, and it would be made great again.
That hope is mostly gone now, and it is not the focal point of Trump’s campaign.’
The focal point of Trump’s campaign to me – as an outsider and onlooker across the pond – is to keep Trump in the position to which he would like to become accustomed – which is the Presidency until he finally drops dead of old age. It doesn’t appear to me that he has any other goals.
Are Americans prepared for the possibility that once voting Trump back in power, they might be unable to get rid of him?
It doesn’t work like that. If he is elected, he will be done in 2028. That’s how it works, and the alarmist rhetoric of Trump staying in power is bizarre, unfounded and unrealistic.
PS: I am American.
It would take you ten seconds to find innumerable materials that explain how this scenario is impossible. We elect presidents; we do not anoint kings.
You seem to believe all the bull about Trump ushering in a dictatorship. Silly stuff… but even many (woke) Americans believe it.
On what do you base your opinion, what happened during the 45th Presidency. Somehow it does not seem to compute.
There is no getting away from the fact that Trump made up the “stolen election” narrative (strictly speaking, Rudi Giuliani did, but Trump is happy enough to take credit for such things), sent his goons to storm Congress, and pressured the Georgia Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes”. If he is prepared to do that, what else is he prepared to do?
Eleanor, if you are reading UnHerd then you are on the right path to begin questioning the political narrative the Democrats plant ad-nauseum across the MSM, that unfortunately you have reproduced above.
The American elite have reached the conclusion that only they, through their new ideology (which they prefer to keep un-named so it can’t be identified or criticized, but we call “woke”), have the competence to make political decisions. They have a track record of declaring their opponents as “terrorists”, and any opposing ideas as “hate”. Surveys show their adherents welcome political censorship and dislike democracy. It’s pretty clear, once you see through their Orwellian use of language, that it is they who are the totalitarians in waiting.
I say this as an ex-wishy-washy go-with-the-flow left/liberal member of the educated class. I’m hardly “right wing”. But definitely anti the totalitarian woke elite. I hope you too continue questioning their political hegemony.
Trump has Vivek Ramaswarmi following close behind to take the baton. The policies put forward by Trump instinctively, can be continued by Vivek with conviction and rational argument. Have you seen him discussing issues with an extreme leftist in a YouTube clip? Very impressive grass roots politics.
I am American, voted DEM all my life. No more. I cannot abide Trump, but America needs him. I will vote for him. Our borders need to be secured and we need to reflect strength in the middle east. Biden’s policies have made America and the west less safe. Add to this the collapse of institutions a la DEI and you have the perfect storm.
And Please. Governor Abbot is doing the right thing. He is not defying SCOTUS. Read the ruling (properly) before exploring “outrage”. We have millions streaming over the border annually, fentanyl is a huge problem, hundreds of thousands of dead Americans on the streets.
Enough.
I love my country, I am a first generation American and the author hardly understands the American heart. We are a radicalized people and the silent majority has had enough.
You are first generation American so you are not the Americans who build the country for free (in fact literally on their back) and still considered 2nd citizen. You are a product of immigration which is completely different story.
Migrants shouldn’t get paid?
The frequent occurrence of crises, wars, and factional conflicts in many African, Middle Eastern, and some Asian countries can be partly attributed to a historical pattern of revolutions evolving into power struggles among armed groups. These conflicts are not necessarily driven by financial motives; for instance, the Houthi movement’s rise in Yemen illustrates this trend. It is important to recognize that American understanding of these dynamics is often limited by a lack of awareness of historical complexities. The goal of civil war seems to them about power and autonomy like we are in 1800s, but they may find surprise it could become just about cruelty and retribution!
The idea of ‘equal access but not equal outcome’ serves as a poignant lesson in this context where everyone will have a gun. If the US were to experience a civil war, particularly given its long history of withholding financial power from minorities, including descendants of slaves, it might find that the future landscape of power and society is unexpectedly altered.
If America wants to understand where it is headed, they should study the Liberia civil war! And see what happens when one pokes the sleeping bear!
I am an American. I am a minority. There is no “withholding of financial power” from any minority in the USA.
Can you elaborate? What do you mean?
Another extraordinarily well crafted piece of writing on UnHerd.
Thank you, Malcom.
Interesting argument but it misses the mark. What’s going on is not about states’ rights, and the failure to control the border is a problem for almost everyone. Trump’s supporters like him because he speaks to their disenfranchisement and their visceral disagreement with “progressive” ideology. Also if the writer seeks a better understanding of today by understanding history, he would be better served by studying WWII and its aftermath.
It’s true that the constitution was intended to give primacy to the states and that it has shifted to the federal government since Lincoln, but America’s problems today are rooted in the stolen election of 2020. Having destroyed democracy through unconstitutional mail-in ballot schemes, ballot stuffing, fake news and censorship, the Biden regime lacks any democratic legitimacy. This has only gotten worse since Democrats seized the presidency. Ongoing illegal voting schemes, the weaponisation of the state against Trump, his supporters and even his lawyers has only increased the sense of illegitimacy of the government. Now, in fact, Trump is the only one who can fix America. A victory by Biden or anyone else will be illegitimate because it will transparently have been gained by illegal and unconstitutional means. If Trump isn’t the next president, the federal government will lack ant legitimacy and the states and the American people will increasingly reject its authority.
The increasing radicalism of the Democratic Party is being completely obscured by the fact that the opposing party is nominating a narcisistic nut. If the Republicans could find someone like Reagan, a real shift could happen. But that doesn’ seem likely right now.
The left leveled the same accusations against Reagan that it uses against Trump. He, too, was seen as a mushy-headed cowboy would get us into another world war, attack minorities, and crash the country.
Reagan won the Cold War. That was a mighty feat.
America faces exactly the same existential challenge as Europe, the replacement of its core culture and values through mass illegal immigration on one hand and a redefinition of its history and social practices from internal activists, principally academia, on the other. Each nurtures and encourages each and the ordinary citizen is then trapped in a pincer movement. The emergence of “Newspeak” then defines rational objection as “…ist” or “…phobic” so the avenue through which rational debate can lead to change is closed. All that is left is the possibility of a powerful leader who will act rather than argue, and the less of an academic that person is, the better. Orwell once said that “some ideas are so stupid that only an academic would believe them.” What is then required is an anti-academic, someone the academics will label as an idiot and mock. Trump may very well be the “useful idiot” that the ordinary American citizen needs.
So much that is wrong and almost a form of deception here difficult to know where to start.
Firstly anyone following the actual issues in Texas know the Republicans playing politics and don’t want Biden’s measures on illegal migration to work. Pure political calculus. It’s worth pondering the numbers returned under current measures to inject a little more evidential discussion but that of course is not the point. It’s an attempt to manufacture a wedge issue and it may work with the ignorant.
As regards the jump then into Federal vs Anti Federal history in US it’s almost adolescent in construction and full of contradictions and errors. Trump himself of course will say anything he might calculate helps him get elected (and avoid prison) but he’s not going to give up Federal power if he gets his hand on it again. Unbelievably naive. Watch him crush State power in Georgia as way to kill his legal jeopardy there for a start.
Hamilton compromised but largely won the arguments in late 18th Century because US and the States knew they are stronger together and could better extend their influence and way of life. That conclusion will not fundamentally change. The US ain’t broken either. Name the World’s top 10 companies- all American and it’s driving the next AI revolution like no other. The tension the author illuminates not new at all and the US dealt with these strains before. Trump does represent a serious threat but not in the way the Author contends.
Firstly anyone following the actual issues in Texas know the Republicans playing politics and don’t want Biden’s measures on illegal migration to work. What measures? The only measure has been an open border. Biden’s only had three years for his “measures to work,” and they’re working as designed. To the detriment of the country.
Trump does represent a serious threat but not in the way the Author contends. Then in what way? Because we heard all the fearmongering about what he would do the first time and he did none of it. On the contrary, Team Biden is doing the very things it accused of Biden of wanting to do.
I think if you were to come and live in the States for a while, especially in the South, your view of what’s taking place here would very rapidly change. It’s not Republican vs Democrat or even Trump vs Biden. There is a group of very powerful people who have usurped the commanding heights of America and who seek to radically alter the course of the United States by fomenting unrest and pushing forward pointless culture wars and stupidly divisive ideologies.
America – its electorate and its leaders – are generally untethered from founding principles. These are not just constitutional but fundamental moral principles of behavior as well. The latter includes the principles of ancient Greece concerning the nature of political structures and the role of the citizen. We are pulling apart and it’s our own fault.
I just subscribed to UnHerd and this essay alone is worth it. Being a step or two removed from the present agonies of the American experiment, the author has a vantage point missing in virtually all U.S. media, which are combatants themselves. Smart, insightful and well-written.
Let’s not forget that the party in power wants Trump to be the nominee. They knew that the indictments and associated publicity would only make him more powerful. They specifically want him to be the candidate that goes up against Biden. Why? Because they beat him once and believe, by hook or crook, they can beat him again.
i think you are giving them too much credit!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/11/15/democrats-boosted-trump-gop-primaries-helping-midterms/10670042002/
Very well done essay, very. Trump’s strength grows with each warning by European leaders that a second Trump presidency would be, well, let’s use the mild “problematic.” America was isolationist for far longer than it has been sticking its nose into the business of other people. Barring some sort of Black Swan event engineered by the Democrat and its fiefdoms in the deep state with the blessing of the deceitful legacy media, you can take a second Trump presidency to the bank — if they haven’t all failed by then.
I see Trump as the only hope the save this country.
Biden at this point is abetting an invasion to fundamentally change the demographics of the country for electoral advantage.
I appreciate that this might be an unpopular view, but migration does assist economic growth. After all, the current residents of the US aren’t having as many children as they once did.
Only in a pyramid scheme sense, more ppl = higher GDP but tells us little about important stuff like quality of life or human happiness.
Those are important things, but they are not generally regarded as “economic indicators”.
Just realised this article also provides a convincing explanation or even a framework for why the “liberals” won’t engage with the “deplorables” and how that’s consistent within that framework.
The worst thing Biden could do is attempt to nationalize the guard because that’s what it would be, an attempt, and it would very likely fail. The Texas national guard is probably more loyal to Texas than the U.S.A. at this point. That’s a consequence of the long term erosion of trust in and respect for the federal government. Abbott most likely knows this. I doubt he would have taken this initiative if he thought he didn’t have solid backing. So does Biden’s administration and the Pentagon, who whatever they may think of the immigration situation are not in any sort of denial about the realities of fighting a civil conflict. As bad as it looks to appear impotent and helpless in the face of a state openly defying the federal government, it would look worse by an order of magnitude to attempt to nationalize the guard and be told ‘thanks but no thanks’, because then one would have to contemplate the almost unthinkable proposition of sending in the military, making it even harder to back down while the consequences of escalation are pushed even higher.
The reason politicians and elites are failing is they have a poor grasp of power, what it is and how it works. At bottom, power is simply the ability to do something. In physics, power is the capacity to do work, a physical quantity that can be measured and understood as the ability to move an object over time and distance, to run a factory, an automobile, or an airplane. Political power then, is the ability to accomplish political goals. It is often equated with money, government, police powers, formal authorities, and military forces, but that is not where it comes from. All those things can grant power under certain conditions, but none of them is where true power lies. At bottom, power is based on loyalty. To the extent that loyalty can be bought, money can be a form of power, but loyalty bought with money is contingent. It can be undone by something as simple as someone offering more money. The American Empire has power to cause great destruction, but that power is contingent upon the loyalty of military leadership to the civilian government and thousands of soldiers to follow the military chain of command. If either of these conditions fails, the power the government thinks they have simply vanishes with a poof. The weakest sort of loyalty is that based on police power and fear of punishment, which will tend to result in a bare minimum of compliance to avoid punishment. The loyalties people feel to their families, friends, their people, and their nations can be far more powerful. These forms of loyalty regularly override the weaker kinds, but people used to living in a national government and accustomed to taking its existence for granted often forget this simple human reality.
In the 1960’s, during the Civil Rights movement Americans sense of being one people was high and the government, media, and other power structures were trusted. It could be said that loyalty towards the government and towards the abstract notion of “America” were high. Desegregation was opposed by some, but when confronted, the states quickly backed down, understanding that they could not command the loyalty of local populations against the government. Now, though, the federal government is not trusted, liked, or respected. The concept of Americans as one people has been utterly destroyed by the identity politics of the left and the corresponding polarization. The ‘big sort’ has begun to regionalize the conflict. Loyalty to the federal government, to America, is low. In such situations, however great its formal power may be, its true power is far less. People change their loyalties towards state and local governments they do trust and do approve of, or at least those governments are nearer to them. This is how the absurd situation of Greg Abbott using the Texas national guard to defend Texas from migrants is actually anything but absurd. The law is clearly against him, and Texas is by any account weaker than the national government, but in terms of the loyalty of actual human beings, the power of states is growing fast while that of the national government is crumbling before our eyes. Greg Abbott appears to have a solid grasp of this basic reality. He understands American history and knows exactly what he is doing. Moreover, he understands that while Texas is smaller, weaker, and has fewer formal power than the national government, Texas enjoys far greater loyalty from the people. He is defying the federal government, because he knows he can, and that, at bottom, shows his power and Biden’s weakness.
Sure, Biden could send in the military and crush them, but then what? What will those other twenty five states who declared their support for Abbott do? Will they be fearful, or angry? Will they cower or will they rise up? How much military force would it take to suppress a real rebellion across half the nation? Can the military that failed to defeat the Taliban occupy an area several times the size of Afghanistan? What would be the cost? Is it really worth it? I’d bet a substantial amount of money there are strategists at the Pentagon studying that question, running analyses of various scenarios, calculating costs and casualties, and so forth. I would imagine they’re telling Biden, and any other politician who is willing to listen, emphatically that there’s almost no scenario where any provocation is worth triggering a civil war, that the conflict and occupation that would last years or even decades, that it would cause the complete collapse of American international hegemony in the short term, that it would trigger a global recession and maybe a depression, that it would result in the deaths of tens of thousands at least, that it would cost billions of dollars in weapons, that the disruption to the economy would cost even more than that, and finally that whatever globalist ideals they were hoping to further would be instantly rendered impossible when every nation rushed to fill in the power vacuums America left behind and pursued their own interests while ignoring the davos men. It’s unequivocally, indubitably, inexorably, not worth the cost, but America wouldn’t be the first Empire to crumble over nothing more than petty pride and the arrogance of aristocrats.
and a large percentage of men in the federal military are Texans. does biden believe Texans are going to fight Texans?
Who do you think would win in a shooting battle between the Army and the Texan citizenry? I will leave that question unanswered. There are 25 other states involved too.
If Trump wins again it will be because the average American is more scared of identity politics than it is of him.
The premise here (the US is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis) is on the mark. However, the long detour into Japanese history is only loosely analogous and sheds little light on the current problems. More importantly, it is much more a matter of re-litigating the New Deal regulatory regime and reigning in the administrative state than refighting the Civil War. Moreover, Trump and his base reject libertarian/neoliberal policy and are fine with a national role in Social Security, Medicare, home mortgage support, etc. Immigration is a unique problem and blue states were just as opposed to federal policy under Trump as red states are under Biden.
No. This is not a redo of the civil war. Things are different now.
This is a class war between the Educated Class and the Commoner Class, and the border illustrates the conflict.
The Educated Class imagines itself the Ally of the Oppressed Peoples. Therefore we shouldn’t send migrants back at the border. Anyway, Hitler showed us that nationalism leads to the gas chamber.
The Commoner Class just wants to live an ordinary middle-class life, with marriage and children and a house in the suburbs and a decent standard of living. And it believes in the nation state of America — with borders. Ever since the chimpanzees, the males of the species have been defending the border. (Or is that raciss?)
Bravo, Mr. Kyeyune!!! You nailed it.
An engaging and even-handed read.
I greatly appreciate Malcolm Kyeyune’s work both here and elsewhere. Speaking as an American, in this particular piece I think he gets one big thing wrong and one big thing right.
What he gets wrong is the implication that smoldering animosities from the Civil War may be fanned back to life, as with his elaborate analogy to the Japanese Shogunate. Americans have too little consciousness of family lineage for the analogy to makes sense, and since Americans are also incredibly mobile (by European standards) it is as likely as not that the leaders of Texas or North Carolina today have personal family roots in Pennsylvania or Michigan. Whatever civil conflict may occur in the U.S. in the coming years will therefore have a shape and character and causes all its own.
What he gets right is that a significant portion of those who were drawn to the hopefulness of the MAGA message have over the past eight years seen too much that cannot now be unseen. Their mood has therefore noticeably darkened. In 2016 Trump said, “I will be your voice.” Today, Trump says, “I will be your retribution.”
How refreshing to read an article by someone who accurately describes the causes of the War Between the States, inviting us to consider the possible implications of issues unresolved since 1787. I would imagine he is familiar with Lincoln’s « save the Union » correspondence with Horace Greeley as well as the Federalists/anti Federalists debate. Such understanding produced a thoughtful analysis of our very concerning current situation. So what will we make of the 10th Amendment?
I think you’re truly missing the point. There is a significant number of Americans who believe that Joe Biden and his entire family have used his public office to enrich themselves. Added to that, they believe he has used a corrupt bureaucracy to attempt to destroy the lives of well meaning private citizens. It all hits pretty close to home, and affects how people vote.
“Well meaning private citizens”? What, like Donald Trump?
In what sense does Trump “keep winning”? He’s never won the popular vote. He lost by a pretty large margin to Biden and republicans lost ground in the house and senate when he was in office. Candidates he backs seem to have an especially poor record. Am I missing something?