Archive for 2017
October 30, 2017
MICHAEL LEDEEN: Did Putin Really Want Trump to Win?
The Kremlin was probably less vested in any particular candidate than it is in discrediting the American political system — an effort they’re being ably abetted in by the DNC-Media Complex.
WHEN RICH PLACES want to secede.
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THE REAL MINIMUM WAGE IS ALWAYS ZERO: Robots to help stock shelves at 50 Walmart stores.
DID SARAH HOYT HAPPEN TO LEAVE HER SHOCKED FACE HERE LAST NIGHT? Rouhani says Iran will keep producing missiles, state TV reports.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXUAL PREDATION? Nearly 200 women have signed a letter denouncing a culture of rampant sexual misconduct in the Sacramento government.
Note that this New York Times leads with a story that identifies an offender by name but not by party. Shockingly, it turns out he’s a Democrat. If he were a Republican, I’ll bet they’d have mentioned that.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UNC Chapel Hill is shameful for dodging punishment for fake classes. “After thousands of students took advantage of an unethical professor and secretary who administered nonexistent paper classes and handed out unearned grades, the NCAA observed that Carolina’s position was to embrace that academic sham as a legitimate class.”
WELL, YES: To win in 2018, Democrats must resist moving further left.
Democratic strategist Tyler Jones:
Instead of pursuing the unrealistic goal of single-payer healthcare in 2017, we should be laser-focused on putting a stop to the opioid epidemic that is literally killing off thousands of young people every day in small towns across the country.
We must demonstrate a priority and commitment to jobs and opportunities for American citizens who work hard and play by the rules.
Instead of looking to figures like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to move the party forward, we should be listening to Governors like Steve Bullock of Montana and Roy Cooper of North Carolina who actually won elections in red states.
If we want to win again, Democrats must get out of the bubbles of New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and listen to the rest of America again.
Democrats mistook Barack Obama’s personal popularity for approval of his progressive agenda, which voters chose to frustrate in every Congressional election since 2010 — and in local elections, state houses, and governors’ mansion, too. As has been noted many times before, Obama presided over the loss of about 1,000 Democrat-held offices.
The “bubbles” Jones worries about are the Democrat Remnant’s safe spaces. And while Jones is correct that Democrats need to start listening to Americans outside of those safe spaces — that’s not what safe spaces are for. They’re places to retreat, to close ones eyes, cover one’s ears, and chant “Na-na-na-na-na I can’t hear you.”
I’m not saying Democrats can’t change, but that they probably won’t until they’ve been beaten badly enough to understand that they can’t win elections and openly the disdain bitter clingers and all those other undesirables out in Flyover Country.
DO YOU WANT MORE TRUMP? BECAUSE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ARE HOW YOU GET MORE TRUMP: Let’s Ban Men From Workplaces.
JOEL KOTKIN: Is There A Civilization War Going On?
“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” — Arnold J. Toynbee
From the heart of Europe to North America, nativism, sometimes tinged by white nationalist extremism, is on the rise. In recent elections, parties identified, sometimes correctly, as alt-right have made serious gains in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, pushing even centrist parties in their direction. The election of Donald Trump can also be part of this movement.
Why is this occurring? There are economic causes to be sure, but perhaps the best explanation is cultural, reflecting a sense, not totally incorrect, that western civilization is on the decline, a movement as much self-inflicted as put upon.
In 1973 a cranky French intellectual, Jean Raspail, published a speculative novel, “The Camp of the Saints,” which depicted a Europe overrun by refugees from the developing world. In 2015 another cranky Frenchman, Michael Houellenbecq, wrote a bestseller, “Submission,” which predicted much the same thing, ending with the installation of an Islamist government in France.
Both novels place the blame for the collapse of the Western liberal state not on the immigrants but on cultural, political and business leaders all too reluctant to stand up for their own civilization. This is reflected in such things as declining respect for free speech, the importance of citizenship, and even the weakening of the family, an institution now rejected as bad for the environment and even less enlightened than singlehood.
Critically, the assault on traditional liberalism has come mostly not from the reactionary bestiary, but elements of the often-cossetted left. It is not rightist fascism that threatens most but its pre-condition, the systematic undermining of liberal society from within.
It’s disastrous to have a ruling class that doesn’t much like the countries (or people) it rules, but that’s the condition throughout the West.