King Mob

     Julius Caesar was someone who claimed to represent the people and destroyed the Roman Republic.   Today's populism is all about Jacksonian Nationalism,  and is comfortable with imperial power being assigned to the president.   

     Populism has distorted our foreign policy and trade policy.   It has led to a new breed of irresponsible politicians. 

    By putting the least sophisticated among us in control,  populism is a return to King Mob that Daniel Webster fought against in the 1830's.

     Donald Trump's supporters make a lot out of their claim that America is a republic and not a democracy.   However,  these same people hate the independence of elected representatives.   Moreover,  a "power to the people " mentality is more democratic than republican.

     Another attitude inconsistent with republicanism is Trump supporters' attitude that the former president was the boss of lawmakers,  and that he had some kind of right to absolute loyalty and obedience from them. 

      Trump supporters like to self-identify as "federalists," even though none of them are smart enough to understand the Federalist Papers.   Real federalists wouldn't think a president had the right to choose which laws to enforce. 

     The idea of expansive executive power that Trump believed himself to hold is exactly what America didn't need.   The power of Congress has been weakened by 80 years of executive encroachment.   Of course,  Congress is the kind of institution that defines a republic.  Obviously,  short-changing Congress may be authoritarian or democratic,  but could never be republican.

     The concept of party loyalty bears a questionable relationship to principle.   The kind of Jack Kemp free-market ethos that used to mark the Republican party was exchanged for a cheezy protectionism that sought to one-up even our allies.   Instead of leading the world's democracies,  Trump wanted to retreat to Fortress America.   He didn't understand the basic fact that our European allies are doing us a favor by being in NATO,  and it is for that reason that the United States had always provided most of its funding.   Of course,  it is probably too much for Orange Blatherskite to understand the UN Charter.   And then,  of course,  there is the fact that he turned a party founded on civil rights into the party of Pepe the Frog.

     Populism has also warped our foreign policy discourse by leading rightist media to promote obscure think tanks peddling Jacksonian Nationalism.   Fox recently aired a segment with a representative of such a group who excused Putin's past thefts of Ukrainian territory by pointing to the presence of ethnic Russians there.   Estase's  astute mate pointed out that this was the same argument Nazi Germany made for seizing Czechoslovakia.   Smoke screens like this are injurious to honest discussions of Russian aggression. 

     Josh Hawley is a perfect example of how populism has replaced conservatism.   Hawley has said that teaching history in schools is useless.   A conservative would want young people to know the accomplishments and sacrifices of past generations.   A populist, however,  would want people to only know Brian Kilmeade-style distortions of history meant to satisfy the conceits of Jacksonian Nationalism. 

     Hawley also propagated the fiction that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.   Peaceful transition of power and the rule of law don't matter as much as holding on to power at all costs.   Hawley doesn't want to conserve the Constitutional system--he wants to remake it according to what Donald Trump wants it to be.   During the Obama years,  Estase saw a right winger online advocating violating the Constitution to protect "the spirit of the Constitution. "  For such as Hawley,  the "spirit of the Constitution " means right wing populist ideology.   Obviously,  there is no such thing as a spirit of the Constitution that differs from its written form.   That would basically be the equivalent of the "living Constitution " fallacy. 

     Hawley gets his political oxygen from the Trumpian media,  who treat him like a hero instead of the fringy dweeb he really is.   Of course,  all of these populists would have no more following than Lyndon LaRouche if it weren't for the Trumpian media.   And for all his culpability in the events leading up to the Save America Riot,  he suffered little blowback .

     If our republic has any future,  it lies with people who don't claim to have authority beyond that granted by the Constitution.   If America is a republic,  it's time to quit appeals to an amorphous "people " that really amounts to King Mob. 

This Is Your Brain On Talk Radio

     The Right has become prone to taking the opposite position from Democrats--even in those unusual situations where they are right.   Nowhere on the Right is this more true than with that favorite of the alt-right,  Tucker Carlson.   It's hard to believe that conservatives once anticipated Carlson becoming a thoughtful commentator,  now that he carries water for Communist strongman Vladimir Putin.   Now that Democrats have evolved away from their ridiculous position that considering Russia a strategic threat,  Carlson has taken the position that former KGB officer Putin should be a hero to the American Right. 

     Attitudes like that of Tucker Carlson explain why Republicans saw the ambivalence about aiding Ukraine that occasioned Trump's first Impeachment as a non-issue.   (Many Republicans also seemed uncertain whether the POTUS had a legal responsibility to execute laws he wasn't crazy about. )

     Estase is afraid that Trump's "America First " ideology will endanger both Taiwan and Ukraine if invaded.   Republican foreign policy has become short-sighted and opportunistic.   The ridiculous Kevin McCarthy never fails to blame Orange Blatherskite's decision to leave Afghanistan (which,  according to John Bolton's book,  was primarily a financial decision) on Joe Biden.   Looking at monetary cost instead of human rights or freedom is what passes for Republican foreign policy now.   As long as Donald Trump's nonsensical ideologies animate the Republican party,  GOP leaders will now ask "What's in it for me?" in reference to stopping Chinese or Russian aggression.   Also,  any such aggression will be blamed on Joe Biden's "weakness," and not on the kind of totalitarian leadership that Republicans admire in Putin,  but simultaneously hate in Xi.

     This kind of mental confusion can be laid at the feet of all the AM radio sages and Tucker Carlsons who have made the average Republican a muddle-headed sap.

Your God's to the Left, and I'm Sticking to the Right

  Charles Sykes's The Bulwark started out as being one of those sites meant to rally anti-Trump conservatives.   Although the Biden administration has made a mess of immigration and foreign policy,  The Bulwark has remained silent on these issues.   Are the people at The Bulwark anti-Trump conservatives,  or have they just become a CNN repeater station?

      While Trump-humpers have wrecked the GOP (see my anti-Trump posts going back to 2015), my issue with the Bulwark is that they attack Russ Douthat (hardly a Trump admirer) and pro-lifers,  but not the crop of dangerously totalitarian leftists like AOC and Ihlan Omar who are just as big of a threat to democracy as Trump. 

      On Facebook,  Estase warned other pro-lifers that it would take decades for the pro-life movement to shed Donald Trump's dirt.  One man told me that I was mentally ill.   Mentally ill or not,  Estase could never understand how anyone could see a bully who mocked the disabled as a genuine pro-lifer.  Both Pope Francis and Donald Trump are phony pro-lifers.   (The difference is that,  as an ally of radical environmentalists,  Pope Francis is actively working to promote abortion and euthanasia. )

      Is The Bulwark writer Jonathan Last so disgusted by pro-Trump Catholics that he has become a Cardinal Bernadin/ Gather Us In Catholic?   Although he claims to want to avoid painting with a broad brush,  his recent articles have habitually linked conservative Catholics and pro-lifers to Donald Trump.   Last week,  Last explicitly linked rad-trads with Trumpian authoritarianism.   That's not just painting with a broad brush,  that's using a paint sprayer!

      For his part,  Estase says a plague on both Trumpian head-coaching Republicans,  and their up-against-the-wall Che Guevara Democratic counterparts.   The latter includes Muslim-supremacist Ihlan Omar,  who hilariously calls pro-lifers dangerous fundamentalists . (Nothing says moderate secularism like a head scarf.)  It also includes Chuck Schumer,  who grinned like a ghoul while hearing a description of partial-birth abortion. 

Note to Journalists

"I always deprecate the style of journalism,  more popular in older days than now[ed.-1929], of dragging into the chronicle of events the narrowness,  the bitterness,  sometimes the want of candour which are incident to partisan warfare.   A journalist becomes,  in my opinion,  not merely untrustworthy,  but dull and uninteresting,  who makes all swans of his geese, and all geese of the swans of other people. "  

Memoirs of an Old Parliamentarian Vol. 1, (p.285)

Andrew and Zeke

       Many pro-lifers have said for years that abortion and euthanasia are two sides of the same coin.   Andrew Cuomo and Zeke Emanuel have both proven that they truly hold to the idea that health care is a resource for the young and healthy.   Zeke Emanuel once said that no one deserves to live longer than seventy five years. 

      So it should come as no surprise that Andrew Cuomo,  the man who declared pro-lifers weren't welcome in New York,  and who signed a law ordering pro-life pregnancy centers like Birthright to tell women how to get an abortion,  would deliberately infect the elderly of New York's nursing homes with COVID.   Cuomo was just demonstrating his homicidal intent,  which applies equally to the unborn and the elderly. 

      It says nothing positive about America that Ralph Northam was in less trouble for advocating infanticide than for wearing blackface,  or that Andrew Cuomo is in less trouble for the negligent homicide of thousands of elderly people than for playing grab-ass.

         P.S.   Vice-president Moloch is being tasked with overseeing the border crisis because of her expertise in murdering children. 

January 6, 2021

       The Save America Riot was a predictable result of 2016 primary voters' disregard for personal character.  

       Americans knew Orange Blatherskite was a lying womanizer with no knowledge of politics.   As such,  he was Aristotle's natural slave,  exactly the kind of person who would become a tyrant when invested with unlimited power.   His supporters responded that he wasn't a politician and that he wouldn't be beholden to anyone due to his wealth.   

       Republican lawmakers who rejected inane Jacksonian populism were called RINOs.  Paul Ryan had his career prematurely ended by the Trump Hate Machine.   Pure partisanship alone saved Orange Blatherskite from impeachment.   Once he lost the 2020 election,  he went full-on sociopath, refusing to perform the basic duties of his Office,  and doing an Obama-style purge of military officers. 

       It may be too late to save the Republican party from the damage Orange Blatherskite has wreaked upon its reputation. 

Evolution v. Design

     Societies should evolve slowly over time.   The main difference between the evolution of British democracy that culminated in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the violent redesign of French society in 1789 is the relative bloodlessness of the first versus the violence of the second.   This resulted entirely from the fact that Britain's movement away from feudalism started under Henry VIII.

       Unfortunately,  leftists and progressives idealize the French Revolution,  its spirit of class hatred,  its redesigning of society,  and its massacre of nobles and the wealthy. 

       Edmund Burke imbued Aristotle and Cicero's vision of a society as a cooperative effort for the mutual benefit of all.  Like an organism,  it cannot be taken apart and reassembled.   As Burke writes in Reflections on the Revolution in France,  "This necessity [revolution] is no exception to the rule;  because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things to which man must be obedient by consent or force;  but if that which is only submission to necessity [again,  revolution] should be made the object of choice,  the law is broken,  nature is disobeyed,  and the rebellious are outlawed,  cast forth,  and exiled, from this world of reason,  and order,  and peace,  and virtue,  and fruitful sentience, into the antagonist world of madness,  discord, vice,  confusion,  and unavailing sorrow (p.195, Penguin ed.)."

       Burke knew Irish society had been warped and distorted by English dispossession and religious oppression.   No society ever needed reform more than eighteenth century Ireland,  and no one knew that better than Edmund Burke.   Rather than an effusion of violence and blood,  what Ireland needed was for Britain to take baby steps towards respecting the Irish people and their faith.   Instead,  Britain imported German colonists,  continued to let its nobility profit off of the peasantry,  and finally let millions of Irish die of starvation . 

      The American progressive wishes for nothing to remain fixed,  usually using America's supposed racism as an excuse.   They have a totalitarian wish to rewrite American history as a list of oppressors and their crimes.   Thus,  even Abraham Lincoln isn't even pure enough for their Jacobinical redesign of America.   Their revolution is emphatically not about survival,  but about choice,  the ultimate weasel-word of leftism.

The Right-Wing Philistine

     Liberalism demolished Plato and Aristotle's vision of the good life.   The fact that almost no one, right or left,  thinks one correct way of living exists means that natural law principles are unintelligible to professional conservatives,  who say things that gladden any secondary liberal's heart, like that natural law is a "solopsism."  

      As recently as Edmund Burke,  government was "a partnership in all science;  a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue,  and in all perfection. "  Today's so-called conservative thinks anything other than fighting wars and running prisons isn't the government's "business."  This brings us back to Orange Blatherskite, whose ability to run hotels made him the perfect presidential candidate for right-wing philistines, who also failed to recognize that presidents can't bark orders at legislators,  and that constantly firing appointees was no way to create a working government. 

      Right-wing philistines loved the way Orange Blatherskite "owned the libs."  If John Locke made American politics class warfare,  many saw O.B. as a right-wing Carlos Hathcock, dispatching one lefty after another with zippy tweets.  This masked the fact that he had no legislative skills whatsoever.   An intelligent president doesn't watch both parties horse-trade and blogroll for five months,  and then red-line provisions in a bill at the last minute.   This is yet another sign that Orange Blatherskite thinks lawmakers are somehow his employees,  instead of other elected officials who themselves hold authority. 

      It is past time to stop Donald Trump's rape of the Republican Party , but the fact that conservatism has been warped into an obsession with cutting social programs and insulting liberals makes this unlikely. 

Belial/Moloch 2020

      The White House has been won by President Belial, God of Rape, and Vice-president Moloch,  Devourer of Children.   These pro-abortion Jacobins may talk about representing all Americans,  but will actually restart Barack Obama's reign of terror against pro-lifers. 

      They will be abetted by the dominant media,  hysterical about Vladimir Putin,  while oblivious to the fact that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has the same ideology.   Fully expect Jeffrey Toobin to rejoin CNN as their resident expert on onanism.

      Orange Blatherskite was a man of many faults,  and the myriad of whores in the "conservative "media who allowed him to win the 2016 primary should never be forgiven.   That doesn't mean that the leftist magazines weren't also responsible for Trump.   When the leftist media called conservatives white trash,  that empowered Trump.   When "The Atlantic " called pro-lifers racist,  that empowered Trump.   When a liberal journalist called John McCain voters "NASCAR retards," that paved the way for Trump.  The same liberal media that now invokes St. John McCain were happy to call his backers every name in the book in 2008.  Similarly,  they called Mitt Romney a racist before considering him the conscience of the Republican party .

Media Mediocrity

Legendary football coach Mike Ditka once remarked that "media" is the plural of "mediocrity."  Never has there been a better example than the two town halls the other night;  Joe Biden had a kindly chat with Mr. Rogers,  while Trump was pummeled with loaded questions.

       Recently, there was an Ozzy Osbourne documentary on A&E.  When A&E showed Ozzy singing the famous last line of "Paranoid," their closed captioning claimed such was "I tell you to enjoy life/I wish I could, but it's too late."  Of course,  a network so scared of Black Lives Matter that it canned its highest rated show can't handle "I tell you to end your life/I wish I could, but it's too late."

       Last but not least are the AM radio whores.  Since 2016, Estase has come to recognize talk radio consists of followers, not leaders.  One disadvantage Jeb Bush had in primary season was conspiracy theories about Goldman Sachs and Henry Paulson.  These were cooked up by the same ideological cranks who called George W. Bush a "fiscal Marxist" over the 2008 response to the housing crisis.  I'm sure these AM talkers aren't giving Orange Blatherskite the same grief over our multi-trillion Dollar coronavirus stimulus programs.

Kamala Harris is in Love With Abortion

       There comes a point when a Never Trumper who is pro-life has to concede he has no option other than to support Orange Blatherskite in 2020.  Joe Biden has made the most extreme pro-abort in American politics his vice-presidential candidate,  a fact made even worse by his advanced age making it likely his VP will actually become President. 

       Kamala Harris tried to send David Deleiden to prison for making undercover videos of Planned Parenthood doctors talking about harvesting fetal organs.  If this had been done by "60 Minutes ",it would have been praised as hard-hitting journalism.  But when you do journalism for the benefit of the unborn,  Kamala Harris calls it a felony. 

       Harris also wants to treat states that have enacted pro-life laws as civil rights violators.  That is, she wants  the Department of Justice to force such states to (under Federal supervision) start promoting abortion, as though abortion was akin to voting rights or segregation. 

       Estase has never had much good to say about soft-on-Turkey Trump,  or his meretricious attempts to funnel government money into his pocket.  Donald Trump is a piece of shit,  but Kamala Harris is toxic sludge,  full of heavy metals.  So where you might eventually get a rose bush out of Trump,  Kamala Harris brings death wherever she goes. 

Brain-Dead Conservatism

Rarely had a man pretended to be one of principle and substance  more thoroughly than Rush Limbaugh.  His moralizations on Bill Clinton's marijuana use and sexcapdes were belied by his own opioid abuse and the sexcapades of Orange Blatherskite, which passed without mention.  

       Limbaugh created two maxims, which he, of course, abandoned by supporting Orange Blatherskite. The so-called Limbaugh Rule was that no Republican should speak ill of another Republican . No Republican trashed other Republicans as often or as thoroughly as Orange Blatherskite.  Another of Limbaugh's maxims was Words Mean Things ". Of course,  words mean almost  nothing  to Donald Trump  . Orange Blatherskite is sloppier and more careless  about language than any man alive.

        Rush Limbaugh started out as a comedian,  morphing into a pretender deep thinker.  In reality, his career was only aimed at ratings and the election of Republicans--even one who had only been one for a couple of years and, never having held lower office, was grossly unprepared for the presidency.  He wasn't sensitive enough to realize that Trump was reintroducing all the racists and anti-semites Bill Buckley spent his career exorcising from the conservative movement. 

        Estase has long bemoaned the fact that that none of the commentators  Rush Limbaugh spawned advocates the Conservatism of Edmund Burke or Alexis deToquevillle . You have Vladimir Putin fanboy Tucker Carlson.  You have Ann Coulter,  a racist who wants to forcibly convert the Muslim world to Protestantism  .  And you have Sean Hannity,  a parasite who makes his money repeating the ideas of people who have brains. We can thank Rush for all these illustrious figures. 

Hump Day With KLOD

     You'll feel really bad about how FDR sold out Poland when you see Polish model KLOD.  The top

photograph was done by Wolos fotografia.  The middle photograph was done by Karolina Roszak Photography.  The bottom photograph is by Joanna Pakosinska.

Our Hulk Hogan Government

Forescript:  Rush Limbaugh does NOT deserve the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

       In February 2019, Estase wrote a blogpost comparing the Court of King's Bench to crooked NBA referee Tim Donaghy.  The blogpost argued that American politics might be as real as professional wrestling.
       Jean Jacques Rousseau posited imaginary systems of government.  That is, he did for government what Isaac Newton did for the natural world.  What is real becoming imaginary may have aided in creating republican systems of government.  But in an era where presidents from Wilson on have treated Congress as a rubber stamp, many of us see representative government in danger of becoming totally imaginary.
       The relationship between the White House and Capital Hill is so dysfunctional that we almost expected Pelosi to hit Orange Blatherskite over the head with a folding chair during the State of the Union address.
       O.B.'s respect for Paul Ryan had been even lower than it is for Pelosi.  Obviously, it's O.B.'s desire for unfettered power, rather than party, that makes him despise the Speaker.  Total domination may be a pro wrestler's goal, but it makes little sense in government.

The Great Pretenders

       Last week there was a kerfuffle over a segment on Don Lemon's show on CNN where Rick Wilson and another panelist ridiculed Trump voters as illiterate hicks.  (This, of course, plays perfectly into the hands of Trump, who has always depicted the "they-took-our-jobs!" set as being reviled by the Deep State, the GOP "establishment," and media elites.)
       This blogpost isn't about the uneducated riff-raff that backs Trump.  It's about the college-educated professionals who tell them Trump does no wrong.  These people have no excuse for not knowing this presidency is hot garbage.  Fox News has soft-pedaled the Impeachment, acting as though the President did nothing to frustrate Congress' attempts to repel the invasion of Ukraine.   Fox conveniently neglected to inform their viewers that Trump made the Ukrainians promise to keep their Javelin anti-tank missiles in parts of the Ukraine not under invasion.  It is as though FDR provided Britain with Lend-Lease on the condition that none of the ships provided left harbor.
        Back in the day (pre-2016), National Review had a story on their website about William F. Buckley's low estimation of Donald Trump.  When this story came up in Memories on my Facebook feed, Rich Lowry (now a Trumphumper) made sure the story was no longer available.
       Of course, Mark Levin is by far the worst offender.  A lawyer who fancies himself an expert on the Constitution, once targeted by Roger Stone and the alt-right cockroaches, Mr. Levin at one time promised to never support Donald Trump.  Of course, bucking the opinions of the Trumphumpers would mean no sweet radio gig, and no books sold.  Thus, Levin joins the ranks of college-educated professional "conservatives" who defend someone they know in their hearts is an incompetent con man for the almighty Dollar.
       Years ago, Estase compared the President to Cody Jarrett, the psychotic gangster in White Heat who destroyed all of his partners to save himself.  John Bolton, once the patron saint for the tough-on-Iran crowd, is now a pariah to the right.  Unsurprisingly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will pimp his mother to avoid a similar fate.