Of Foxholes and Atheists and Donald Trump

 The leftist elites always hate Republicans, but there is something much deeper going on with their hatred for Donald Trump. The desire to destroy him has an almost religious element to it.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes. The basic premise is that when facing an existential threat, particularly when lives are on the line, people will look for something stronger than themselves, often God, to pull them through.

The opposite might be when things are good. Then, atheism, or at least an indifference to God, grows.

Sadly, in this context, the last 75 years have been very good for the West. WWII was horrible, of course, but there were some good things that came from it.

The first good thing features two sides of the same coin, and that coin is the utter destruction of Germany and Japan. I don’t mean their defeat, but rather the utter destruction of their infrastructure and that of many of the nations fighting them. The result for the relatively unscathed United States was that its full wartime manufacturing footing put it in a position to provide pretty much of everything the war-torn world needed. The result was that by the middle of the 1950s, the American economy, with 5% of the world’s population, approached 40% of world GDP. Times were indeed good.

The other side of that coin was that because the German and Japanese infrastructures were so completely destroyed, they could leapfrog over many iterations of evolution and begin again with the latest technologies, machinery, and processes. The result was that by the 1980s, the Japanese and German economies were the most powerful in the world after the US.

The second positive outcome of WWII was the Cold War. Now the Cold War had many downsides, including the hot wars in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere, but what it did was draw a clear line between who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. America and the West were far from perfect, but we knew that at the end of the day, the West was the land of freedom, while the communists were tyrannies constantly seeking to expand.

The result of that clarity was that, for the most part, Western nations understood there was real danger in the world and prepared for it. They focused on trading with one another, they took defense seriously, and while they sometimes tolerated communists in their midst, they rarely made heroes of them.

The consequence of that Cold War clarity, and the Soviet and Chinese understanding that the West was willing to fight to preserve freedom across the planet, was a relative peace. And that relative peace was the West’s undoing.

For the half-century from the end of World War II until 2000, the world experienced more economic growth than it had in the previous 2,000 years combined. Driven by relative peace, world trade took off both within the West and with the developing world.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to perpetual prosperity. The West, basking in its victory over the Soviets and its certainty that communist China would evolve into a modern Western democracy if only allowed to sell us tchotchkes, began to turn on itself.

The peace / communist parties, which had been funded by Moscow and had always been a fringe element of modern Western polity, suddenly morphed into environmentalists and cloaked their anticapitalist ideas in far more voter-friendly “Earth First” shibboleths. Now, just as the money spigot from Russia was coming to an end, a far larger resource was becoming viable…Western governments.

The result was the extraordinary growth in the power of the far left in Western politics. And it wasn’t just environmentalism that was driving the train. As the Cold War wound down, Western nations used their “peace dividends” to shower citizens with benefits while simultaneously seeking to regulate their economies into perfection. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t work!)

The perfect encapsulation of the West’s metastasizing can be seen in the form of the European Union. Imagined as a vehicle to foster peace and then trade between perpetually warring European states, it morphed into a leviathan that not only seeks to control virtually every aspect of citizens’ lives in its member states, but it seeks to control who can grow what and when, how states can control their borders and even whether sovereign states can conduct their own elections.

Like so much of the modern West, an idea that started out as something ostensibly good metastasized into cancer. Stopping the pouring of chemicals directly into rivers morphed into eviscerating farms. A temporary safety net for the downtrodden morphs into generational welfare. An empathetic desire to help victims of war morphs into an invasion by legions of military-aged men.

And it’s not just capitalism and freedom that have taken body blows. The third leg of the stool upon which western civilization stands is Christianity, and it has been brutalized by Western prosperity, as have the foundations of Christianity, namely, marriage and children.

As they say, idle hands are the Devil’s workshop. The West’s relative prosperity has caused citizens not focused on a common enemy to turn on their own history. From British universities dropping Shakespeare and Chaucer to the New York Museum of Natural History removing Teddy Roosevelt’s statue to the Spanish government’s vow to “decolonize“ the nation’s museums, to the cancer of DEI, across the West, nations are turning their backs on their own foundations, the things that set them apart from—and above, frankly—every other civilization in human history. From socialism to communism to Islam, Western intellectuals have led the charge, via schools and the media, to champion everything that is anti-Western, anti-capitalist, anti-masculine, and anti-white.

At the end of the day, the globalist elites co-opted the hard-won prosperity and peace by leveraging technology, Chinese tchotchkes, and social media algorithms to aim society’s guns at the very things that built success in the first place. They’ve created a Mexican standoff where everyone loses as the core elements of Western civilization are undermined by policies specifically formatted to destroy them, while the resulting “culture” is not equipped to support anything close to the same level of civilization.

All of this is why Donald Trump is for the left, a new Jesus Christ—not in the sense that he’s godlike, because I think we can all agree that he’s not, but because he embodies their eventual destruction. Thus, just as Christ was a heretic whose message of love and a gracious God had to be destroyed because it threatened the established order, Trump’s pro-America, pro-masculinity, and pro-Western civilization message must be destroyed because it threatens the New World Order.

The globalists argue that they are best equipped to structure the lives of citizens, organize world economies, and control everything from speech to cow farts to electricity generation. Any message that suggests that citizens should control their own lives, that capitalism makes for the most prosperous outcomes, and that free speech is a cornerstone of civilization must be quashed.

Western elites think Donald Trump is the common enemy they need to unify citizens under the banner of globalism. They’ve got it backwards. They’re more likely to discover exactly how many of their citizens feel like they’ve been crouching in a foxhole waiting for someone to inspire them to climb out, pick up their weapons, and charge into a battle of ideas to take back their lives. Imagine the sheer horror on the globalists’ faces when they realize that Donald Trump just might be that guy...

Don't Look Now But The Democrats of 2020 are Eerily Similar to the Nazis of 1933...

One of the brilliant things about the United States’ founding fathers was their understanding of human nature. They understood that it is the nature of man to seek to accumulate power. It’s been that way throughout human history. The seemingly unquenchable thirst for the accumulation of power has created empires across the globe. In Africa you had the Egyptians, the Songhai and the Carthaginians. Asia had the Ming, the Han, the Mongols, and of course the Ottomans. Europe had the Greeks, Romans, and the Spanish. The Americas had the Mayans, the Aztecs and the Incas. The British eventually assembled an empire that literally circled the world.

The parts of the world that were not subsumed into giant empires were part of smaller civilizations of varying sizes that operated, in most cases, through the accumulation of power via conquest and slavery. It was usually the conflict or potential conflict with competing powers that dictated how large a nation or an empire would grow. Because, after all, it is largely a trait of men to seek to accumulate more power until prudence dictates not doing so – and even then in some cases prudence is not much of a deterrent. And that applies even more to competing powers within a state than to those between states.

Our founding fathers knew this and decided to craft a Constitution to yoke the darker nature of men. Thus we have the federal system, where states have some powers and the federal government has others. The federal government would handle most large national issues while states would handle those closer to the people.  We have a separation of federal power between three theoretically equal branches of government. Within the legislative branch – which at the time of writing was expected to be the first among equals – there is a separation between the houses, and within the houses different powerbases. The states appointed Senators and the citizens elected the Representatives. Add to all of this the staggering of terms of office and you have a vehicle that was designed to limit the powers of mobs and keep any single group from being able to play on the emotions of men and take power.

And finally of course, for the single most powerful limit on the accumulation of government power, you had the Bill of Rights which clearly articulated the rights of the people, both individual and collective, that could not be tread on by the government. Free speech, a free press, free practice of religion, the freedom of assembly, a right to be secure in their persons and homes, and most important of all, because it protects all the others, the right to bear arms.

Our Constitution, like its authors, was and is not perfect, but over the years it’s evolved to ban slavery, grant equal application of laws and to expand suffrage. What is perhaps most interesting about the American Constitution is the fact that it’s guided the country for 233 years without a standing army of enforcers. Yes, there is an army of course, but it’s not used to keep citizens in line, because there is no line to be kept in. America was, for most of its history, a nation defined by freedom. Citizens could largely go about and do and say what they wanted. They could buy land where they wanted. They could start just about any kind of business they wanted. They could worship as they wanted. They could say anything that came to their minds… although whether or not that was prudent is another matter. Americans could move from place to place without permission of the government. They could, at the end of the day exercise their freedom, and that came from the Constitution. Barack Obama accurately stated “Generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the state or federal government must do on your behalf.” Obama meant that as a criticism of the document, but the fact is, that is exactly why our nation has endured and our freedom has endured so long and allowed us to change the face of the world along the way.

Which brings us to America circa 2020… Virtually all of those key elements that have kept our nation and her citizens free are today under direct assault… largely by the Democrat party and their partners in the media, academia, BLM and Antifa.

The left is today using the blueprint of the Nazi party to bring America as we know it to an end. Although the Nazi party came to power legally, constitutionally in Germany in 1933, prior to that the Storm Troopers (Sturmabteilung - SA) had spent a decade using violence and intimidation to cow some Germans into submission while simultaneously emboldening others to take up their cause. Once the Nazis were in power it was game over for a free Germany. The model of using the freedoms / rights afforded citizens of a nation to take control of that nation and then eviscerating those very laws and rights that allowed them to come to power in the first place can have staggering results. The Nazis took a dysfunctional post WWI Germany and turned it into an extraordinarily efficient killing machine, both of its own citizens and millions of others as it set the world on a course of war. That model of gaining power followed by death and destruction has proved highly effective in modern times from Robert Mugabe to Hugo Chavez to Vladimir Putin to Xi Jinping.

And today the left is seeking to use that very model to destroy America. Not sure? Just listen to them. They want to pack the Supreme Court. They want to eliminate the Electoral College. They want to eliminate free speech. They want to take away your guns. They have no compunction about using the IRS to stifle opposition. They have no problem using the FBI to overturn a fair election. They want to defund the police. They want to expropriate your property. They seek to rewrite American history. They want to implement laws based on race. They want to decide what communities look like. They want to keep schools and churches closed. They want to obliterate science. They want to decide what art you see. And of course they want to control the means of production to save the planet from the fiction of global warming.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Make no mistake, Democrats do not decry the violence in the streets, they seek to harness it. Make no mistake, Democrats hold no love for the Constitution other than how it can be used to bring them more power. Make no mistake, the Democrats don’t care one iota about your freedom or your liberty and they will take them in a heartbeat, if you let them. And this is not a bug in their system, it’s a feature. The Democrat party in 2020 no longer has a vested interest in freedom. Their only goal is power and subjugation. “Think what we believe or you’ll be cancelled.” “Say anything we don’t like and you’ll be cancelled.” “Support our opposition and you’ll be cancelled.” Today mostly what they do is get you fired, kicked out of school and shamed on social media, but with amorphous “hate crime” legislation advancing on every front, soon there will be literally no place to hide, because words no longer mean anything so the woke can literally characterize anything as “hate”. Taken individually some may argue these are nothing like Hitler’s fascist state. Perhaps, but collectively they are as clear a portent to the future as was Mein Kampf.

The most telling thing about this situation is that it’s not actually the Democrats per se leading it. It’s the Twitter and Facebook mobs. It’s the fascists at BLM and Antifa. It’s academia and the media. The Democrats (who nonetheless agree with all of it) are too spineless to actually believe in anything other than power. They are not leading, but rather playing catch-up, trying to run to get out in front of a parade that’s already in progress and pretend they're leading it to keep the money flowing in. Once in power – i.e. having the White House and both houses of congress – they will enact every over the top progressive policy BLM and George Soros can come up with because they understand that if they are not on the bleeding edge of wokeness, the mobs will simply replace them with people who are even more hardcore.

One wonders what the reaction to all of this will be from Americans who still value liberty and freedom… will they go quietly into that not so good night or will they “cling to guns or religion” and decide to push back against the new fascism?

Wisconsin proves it's possible to save America...

After spending two years touring the United States in the 1830’s Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” One wonders what he might have thought had he spent the last six months in Wisconsin.

The road Wisconsinites have traveled since November of last year may well indeed foretell the future of America.

Everything began in November when, fed up with fiscal irresponsibility on the part of Democrats, Wisconsin voters handed to the GOP not only the Governor’s mansion, but both the House and the Senate as well. The mandate was clear: Get government spending under control.

The state’s new Governor and legislature hit the ground running with the Senate working on the Governor’s bill that would strip government employee unions of the ability to negotiate for benefits and forced those state employees to contribute more to their health and pension funds. More consequentially it made the paying of union dues voluntary rather than mandatory.

Governor Walker was vilified and became the center of a firestorm of protest. On February 17th the 14 Democrats in the Senate decided to run away to Illinois, depriving the body the required 20 member quorum necessary to pass any fiscal bills.

Almost immediately the Capitol came under siege by a marauding horde of leftists bent supporting the Democrats and stifling the will of the people.

By March 9th, having had enough of the obfuscation by the Democrats, the GOP senators stripped the bill of all fiscal elements and proceeded to pass the bill after providing two hours notice online. (Only fiscal legislation requires a quorum.) The Assembly passed the bill the next day and Governor Walker immediately signed it into law…

Democrats immediately claimed the law was invalid and quickly found a state judge who would support their claim despite the fact that the Senate clearly did not violate the state’s Open Meeting’s law nor internal Senate rules. Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi at first attempted to stop the law from being published and then issued an order stopping any further implementation of the law.

The real question with Judge Sumi’s ruling is: Are there any limits on the power of the courts? Apparently the judiciary has the right to insert itself in the inner workings of a co-equal branch of government, in this case the legislature. If the Judge’s order is allowed to stand, if it is above even its co-equal branches of government then there is truly no place a judge's gavel cannot reach, not within the legislature, the executive branch nor one would expect, into absolutely every aspect of the lives of citizens. Who could stop them?

At this point democracy in Wisconsin had become a farce. The people vote; the elected officials attempt to do what they were elected to do, all the while being pilloried and attacked by opponents. They succeed in passing the law according to the constitution and suddenly a member of the judiciary rips the reins of power from the people. Soon the case finds its way in front of the state Supreme Court.

The witching hour came last Tuesday when Justice David Prosser was up for reelection to the Supreme Court, which is currently composed of four generally conservative justices and three progressives. Union and other leftist organizations from around the country poured tens of millions of dollars into Wisconsin to support Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, a progressive who could be considered a sure fire vote to sustain Judge Sumi’s ill advised ruling.

The question on everyone’s mind leading up to the election was, would the citizens of Wisconsin vote to support their elected officials or would they cave into the intimidation and lies of the unions? While a recount seems likely, in what was by far the most highly participated in judicial election in Wisconsin history, it appears that the citizens of Wisconsin have decided that they have had enough of the thuggish behavior of its public employee unions and Justice Prosser will be retuning to the Supreme Court.

If this resurgence of fiscal responsibility and internal fortitude was not enough to solidify Wisconsin’s position as the leading light in the very winnable battle to save the Republic, there are a few more things that should make the state’s position crystal clear:

1. Wisconsin voters gave 3 term incumbent Russ Feingold the boot in November.
2. Paul Ryan’s district is in Wisconsin, and Ryan is the leading voice in the GOP on fiscal responsibility.
And perhaps most tellingly:
3. Wisconsin citizens are not only withstanding the union thug tactics, they are actually pushing back…

Many of us feel like America is approaching a precipice on the edge of an abyss from which there would be no return. We could do much worse than look to the example set by Wisconsin’s citizens and politicians (or at least some of them…) to remind us that it is possible to pull back from the edge regardless of the foes lined up against you. I think Tocqueville would not have been surprised.