Category: Trump

Sanity Check

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In the last couple of weeks, I’ve allowed my enthusiasm to become unbridled.  Everything is good, the sun is bright and shiny and I’m whistling a happy tune.  All’s right with the world in this best of all possible worlds where Donald Trump is King.  And that tells me that it’s time that I should be, in the inimitable words of Fagin “reviewing the situation.”  What could go wrong?

Let’s walk through it.  The Mid-Term Elections are upon us.  The whole Blue Wave scare is just that, a scare tactic meant to produce FUD.  So, far from retaking the Senate, odds are very good that the Republicans will add at least a couple of seats and very likely a few more.  But the House is a very different matter.  Redistricting in Pennsylvania and elsewhere and retiring Republican incumbents mean that there are plenty of races that could go to the Democrats.  So, while there may not be any groundswell of Democrat sentiment it’s entirely possible that the Democrats could take the House by a slim margin.

And although he has been quiet for the last couple of weeks, the Mueller investigation may very well be sitting on a bombshell either of a direct or indirect nature to the Russia investigation.  He may be waiting to try and do maximum damage to the House races and thereby allow a Democrat House to vote for impeachment against the President.

Finally, there’s the X factor.  Things have been going along swimmingly.  The economy is growing at a phenomenal rate and all of the President’s trade and foreign affairs initiatives have been amazingly successful.  What if something changes?  Basically, the X factor is anything big going south.  Let’s say the stock market crashes.

Now, anyone of these three events is a major problem.  Losing the House or fighting a Mueller or dealing with a Wall Street meltdown is a serious situation.  But let’s assume the worst.  Let’s assume that a Mueller bombshell causes a Blue Wave that scares the Stock Market into a crash.

Well, that’s not such a bright and shiny day anymore is it?  In fact, that’s almost a replay of 2008.  The only difference is that the 2020 election would still be two years away and the President would be Donald Trump instead of George W. Bush.  And while I don’t trivialize the severity of such an onslaught I still think that who is performing damage control is more important than the exact details of the crisis.

And one more thing is different.  I am no longer invested in trying to win over the other side.  If they already have the numerical advantage in the voting population then the sooner I know the better.  Donald Trump has given us a breather with his success.  There’s even a chance that he can put together a coalition of people who want the traditional American way of life to survive.  But it’s far from a certainty that he can pull it off.  But I’ve come to terms with this situation.  I no longer depend on us winning.  In fact, adapting to a permanent underground status would be almost easier.  At least it would solidify my survival tactics and start me moving in the direction needed to protect myself from the consequences of that sadder but less uncertain world.

So that’s the worst case.  And you know what.  I’m still good.  I can deal with that.  I’ll adapt and thrive.  I’ll help those I care about to adapt and thrive.  And that’s the worst case.  Anything lesser will be even easier.  I’ll be even better.  So as far as my sanity check, my enthusiasm is still unbridled.

Bring it.

Trump vs the Ozymandias Bias

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Dramatis Personae:    President Trump – (PT);  Vice President Pence – (VPP)

Scene 1 – White House West Wing,  Oval Office;  8 am,  Monday Morning;

(President Trump is seated at his desk and calls out through the open door)

PT – Mike … Mike …… Mike ………….  PEEEEEEEEENCE!!!!!!

(Vice President Pence enters through the door)

VPP – Right here as always Mr. President.

PT – Mike, good work on that Senate vote thing.  You kept your cool with all those blue-haired psycho broads screaming for your blood and got the thing done.  Although I think I would have thrown a couple of zingers up to the peanut gallery that would have been better than repeating, “will the sergeant at arms please restore order to the gallery” a hundred times.

VPP – Thank you Mr. President but I must admit that all the credit must go to you for showing such firmness in the face of an almost maniacal determination against you.

PT – I have to agree with you Mike.  It is all because of me and that’s why I called you.

VPP – (mumbling under his breath) Oh, no.

PT – Mike, we can’t let this great victory go uncelebrated.  We must provide a memorial to it.

VPP – Well sir, that hardly seems …

PT – I was considering adding my face to Mount Rushmore but honestly it doesn’t seem fair to me.  I mean, come on!  Sure, Washington and Lincoln won wars but Jefferson and Roosevelt?  All they did was write stuff, well except for that canal and we did give it away so big deal!

VPP – Oh sir, this is such a bad…

PT – Mike, you’re so right.  Mount Rushmore is such a bad location for a monument.  I mean who goes to North Dakota?

VPP – South Dakota.

PT – You see?  Nobody even knows where it is.

VPP – What I meant was…

PT – Exactly.  The American people deserve better.  As a tribute to the intelligence of the American people electing me president I am signing an executive order authorizing the collection of gold for the hair on my monument.

VPP – Gold?

PT – Yes, gold for the hair will make it more visible and also act as caulking to prevent erosion of the head.

VPP – How big is this going to be?

PT – None of this is written in stone yet.

VPP – Joke?

PT – Not funny.  Anyway, the way I envision this is the top thousand feet of Pike’s Peak can be reworked so that it’s shaped like a much larger version of the Washington Monument.  And on top of that will be my head with the hair made out of 24 carat gold.  Can you just see it?

VPP – I’m imagining some kind of gargantuan pez dispenser that can be seen across all of North America.  Your hair will blind jet airline pilots for a thousand miles in all directions.

PT – Well that’s what the Tac Visor is for isn’t it?

VPP – Mr. President, have you ever heard of Ozymandias?

PT – Never was a big fan of Heavy Metal.

VPP – Ah, well.  Mr. President, even though we are all very appreciative of what you did with the Kavanaugh appointment it may still be premature for you to self-declare the need for a memorial to yourself quite so gargantuan.

PT – Why?

VPP – Well, if for no other reason, because there hasn’t been enough gold mined on the whole planet to cover a monument that big.  Especially if it has to accurately scale up your own, ahhh, generous hair style.

PT – Ah hah!  That’s where you’re wrong.  I have consulted with Elon Musk.  And in exchange for calling off the SEC from hounding him, he will locate and transport a giant gold asteroid right to Pike’s Peak to be used conveniently for my hair.  So as you can see it’s all coming together.

VPP – You’re right.  What was I thinking?  How could this not be a good idea?  Anything else sir?

PT – Well, as I said earlier, I think you did a great job on the Senate vote thing and I was wondering if you wanted your head to be put somewhere too.

VPP – No, thank you sir.  My head is going to need to be examined pretty soon and I don’t think I could bear to have it staring back at me from a mountain any time soon.  Besides, I’m starting to think my head is stuck somewhere it won’t be seen.

PT – Suit yourself.

The Wind is Shifting

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Some pundits like to draw their examples from history.  They’ll point to Athens or Rome or England to lend support for some point being made.  Some draw from classic literature or drama, Homer or Shakespeare.  I’m a science fiction and fantasy geek.  So, even though I’ll quote Xenophon or Thucydides, Odysseus or Macbeth, I often find myself drawn to a scene by Tolkien.

In the Lord of the Rings there is a chapter called The Ride of the Rohirrim where King Theoden has asked for the help of the Wild Men of Druadan Forest to bypass an army of orcs and thereby reach Minas Tirith before the city falls.  Ghan-buri-Ghan, the chieftain of these stone-age primitives agrees to aid him.  As the tribesman prepares to leave them he sniffs the air like some wild creature and with a startled expression says “Wind is changing!” and bolts away.  This sentiment is repeated several more times by individuals from all sides of the battle ahead.  And the change in the wind is both a sign and also an actor in the drama.  Literally the direction of the wind changes the environment for the characters in the story from darkness and fear to light and courage.  It not only lets them see what they need to know but it gives them the courage to attempt it.

Now, far be it from me to compare Donald Trump to Gandalf the White or Mitch McConnell to King Theoden.  Although, I could be convinced that Bush Senior is a stand-in for Denethor.

But without a doubt I will say the wind is most definitely changing.  Here are my proofs:

  1. Those most notorious of weather vanes, the Republican Congress, are pointing in Trump’s direction. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and the rest of the gutless, spineless hollow men in the Senate got up on their hind legs and gave an almost convincing impression of adult male Americans, in other words men.  Astonishing.
  2. A Republican appointee for the Supreme Court was allowed to defend himself against outrageous charges from shrieking harpies instead of being withdrawn post haste by a cowering Republican establishment.
  3. The #metoo media-political complex fired every single round they had in their guns at Justice Kavanaugh, the President and the Senate during this pitched battle and when the smoke cleared Kavanaugh was installed in the Supreme Court, Susan Collins called them out, Democrat Senator Joe Manchin signed onto the approval and President Trump’s approval rating broke 50% for the first time in many months.
  4. Just about every NeverTrumper who hadn’t already sold his soul to George Soros admitted that he was glad Donald Trump was president right now.
  5. And finally, even the most timid centrists are finally starting to understand that losing less quickly is not necessarily the best case scenario they can hope for.

Some of these signs are actually lagging indicators.  I think some of the NeverTrumpers are coming around because they lost most of their readers.  Their conversion is one of convenience due to how much the facts on the ground have already shifted against them.  The Congress has taken two years to decide which way the wind is blowing, the invertebrates.  But without a doubt, things are definitely building on existing momentum.

I expect setbacks, unexpected losses will occur and unreliable allies will bolt from time to time.  But I predict that this momentum is peaking at just the right time to sway the electorate for us.  And that will further depress the Left and its allies in the Press and Hollywood.  So this is the time for the Right to strike while the iron is hot.  If we manage to gain a few seats in the House it’s time to start building the wall and fixing the illegal immigration situation.  It’s time to start cleaning out the Justice Department and the other Executive Branch departments.  And it’s time for the Republicans to coordinate at the state and federal level to advance cases to the Supreme Court to challenge many of the unconstitutional precedents that need to be reversed.

I hate to sound so cheerful.  But honestly, things are going very well.  A lot of my friends are very fearful about a #metoo backlash and Mueller and blah, blah, blah.  Meh.  I say things are looking up.  The wind is shifting and that is the time to press ahead.

When Bret Stephens Admits He’s Glad Donald Trump is President You Know That The Democrats Are Doomed

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The NeverTrumpers have seen the light.  The blind can see.  The Millennium is upon us (again).  American Thinker has a nice review of the NeverTrumpers waking up to why President Trump is the antidote to Progressive poison.  How sweet it is when the dolts finally see the light of day.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/kavanaugh_boomerang_1_fanatical_dems_finally_have_unified_the_gop_behind_trump.html

My two favorite quotes in the piece was one from Erick Erickson:

“Congrats progressives. You so overplayed your hand that you

(A) fired up the Republican base;

(B) pissed off Susan Collins; and

(C) Radicalized the newest Justice on the United States Supreme Court.”

 

And one from Brett Stephens:

“For the first time since Donald Trump entered the political fray, I find myself grateful that he’s in it.  I’m reluctant to admit it and astonished to say it[.] …

 

I’m grateful because Trump has not backed down in the face of the slipperiness, hypocrisy and dangerous standard-setting deployed by opponents of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.  I’m grateful because ferocious and even crass obstinacy has its uses in life, and never more so than in the face of sly moral bullying.  I’m grateful because he’s a big fat hammer fending off a razor-sharp dagger.”

 

If I wasn’t sure they’d back track on this later in the week I’d welcome them back into the right-wing fold.  But I know they will so I’ll just take this as a gift from heaven and give them no credit.

But this is a wonderful moment.  And every Republican establishment type that pats himself on the back for being a part of it should know very clearly that without Donald Trump none of them would have had the backbone or the opportunity to be a part of this.

I’ll have another longer post on the Kavanaugh addition to the Supreme Court but let’s just savor the moment.

Thank you, President Trump.  Well done.

Mourning Morning Shmoe

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I went through the “Trump vs” spoof posts and picked the one I liked best.  I’ll post one section a day but if you want to read ahead or start at the beginning I have the links at the bottom and top of each post to the previous and next installments.  This one began back in March 2018.

Morning Shmoe vs the Doggie Gaegogi

 

Dramatis Personae: Morning Shmoe – (MS);  Lycra Spandexy – (LS);  Producer Jorge – (PJ);  President Trump – (PT)

Scene 1- 8am, MSNBC, Set of the Morning Shmoe talk show; the set is festooned with black streamers, in the center of the breakfast table is a poster sized photo of a morbidly obese pug dog;  

MS – Welcome solemnly back from that tasteful adult diaper commercial break and it’s the saddest two minutes after the quarter hour I’ve ever experienced here at the Morning Shmoe Show.  I’m your co-host Morning Shmoe Browfurrowed and here’s our co-host the lovely but deeply bereaved Lycra Spandexy.

LS – Yes, that’s right Shmoe.  Very, very lovely and deeply, deeply bereaved.

MS – Exactly.

LS – Exactly.

MS – Lycra, maybe for the sake of any of the at-home audience who were in comas yesterday and didn’t hear the earth shattering events you could relate a synopsis of events leading up to this sad, sad day.

LS – No, Shmoe.  Anyone too stupid or callous to educate himself to the scope and details of yesterday’s global catastrophe cannot be helped and must be allowed to perish from the earth, or at least be shadow-banned from Twitter.  But I will say this, Mr. Toodles’ abduction, brutal murder and cannibalization is laid squarely at the feet of Donald Trump.

MS – Yes, absolutely.  Trump’s support for the unnamed perpetrator (a rogue leader of an unnamed  country with the initials NK) was what enabled this heinous crime.  Any sensible President would answer this unspeakable provocation with a measured, proportionate response, namely, the total thermonuclear annihilation of North Korea, err, I mean NK.

LS – Yes Shmoe, that seems just.  Even merciful if you consider it the right way.

MS – And by the right way you mean the left way.  A truly progressive world view recognizes that the brutal murder of even one somewhat plus-sized American pug dog must be the moral equivalent of incinerating fifty million East Asian people who engage in dog eating.

LS – That’s right Shmoe, very, very equivalent.

MS – Exactly.

LS – Exactly.

MS – Oh for! … … … … …………………. Anyway, anyway we are demanding that Donald Trump immediately call off the peace process with NK and proceed directly to a full nuclear launch.

LS – Yes, warmonger Trump, do what you want to do anyway go directly to Def Jam 4.

MS – That’s DEFCON 1.

LS – Well, whatever channel it is on your remote go to it and start bombing those dog eaters.  And I hear South Korea and China are also dog eaters so nuke them too.

MS – Uhhh, maybe we should slow down a minute.  China is not only one of the larger nuclear powers with a population of over a billion people, it also makes most of the stuff we live on.

LS – Really Shmoe, really?  Is that all you care about Mr. Toodles?  I mean, just because there is a small chance that you will get nuked, you let dog eaters roam the earth free, chowing down on chow-chows as the mood strikes them?

MS – Hey, just wait a second.  I go along with almost all of your nutty crap day in and day out.  Cut me a little slack when I don’t want to go beyond the partial annihilation of the planet over one dog.

LS – One dog?  Mr. Toodles?  After all he did for you?  Do I even know you at all?

(as a staccato exchange of bickering breaks out between the married co-hosts, Producer Jorge, interrupts)

PJ – Lycra, Shmoe.  I hate to interrupt but we have Donald Trump on line one.

LS – Put him through!  I want to tell him what I really think of him.

PT – Hello Shmoe and Lycra.  I see you’re engaging in your usual nutbaggery.

LS – Go to hell Trump.  We won’t let you divide us.

MS – Exactly!

LS – Exactly!

MS – (audibly grinds his teeth but shakes it off and continues) What do you want Trump?

PT – I called up to broker a peace treaty between the two of you and my friend Kim Jong Un.

LS – (starts screaming incoherently then yells) Monster, murderer!  You are responsible for the murder of Mr. Toodles.

PT – Calm yourself Lycra Spandexy, at your advanced age a stroke is always a concern.

LS – (once again starts screaming incoherently then yells) I am not old!  I am young and beautiful and in the prime of my life as a powerful, talented and desirable woman.

PT – Sure, sure, whatever, now listen.  Kim Jong Un called me up last night and told me all about the joke he pulled on you two.  It’s not widely known but he has a very wry sense of humor.  He took your morbidly obese and pop-eyed canine and brought him along on his flight back to Pyongyang.  The dog is well, or as well as he was when taken, and will be returned to you unharmed in return for an apology.

LS – I’ll never apologize to that monster.

PT – Oh it’s worse than that.  You have to apologize to me.

MS – What?  Why would we apologize to you?

PT – Well you see, Kim thinks it’s beneath his dignity to negotiate with a leader whose own people hold in such low esteem that they insult him publicly.  So, he is insisting that you two be made an example and forced to perform the equivalent of a North Korean show trial where you denounce yourselves through a long list of your thought and deed crimes.  He reluctantly agreed that you didn’t have to end off by being summarily executed with a bullet through the brain paid for by your families.

MS – We’ll never do it.

PT – That’s your choice but the dog is still in North Korea and he is about oven-stuffer size.  And the Korean Festival of the Garlic and Ginseng Stuffed Dog does begin next week.

LS – Don’t say no, Shmoe!  We must save Mr. Toodles no matter the cost.

MS – Very well, you villain.  We’ll do it.  What must we say.

PT – Oh, don’t rush me.  I’ll get back to you when I’ve got the script finished.  I’ll just let Kim know it’s a deal and we’ll set up the broadcast in a day or so.  And believe me when I say that what you’ll have to say will bring tears to those leftist blue state eyes of yours.  Till then rejoice.  Your pop-eyed pooch was dead but now is alive again.  Trump out.

04OCT2018 – OCF Update

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Looking ahead, I will be reviewing a few science fiction and fantasy books.  I’m currently reading the pre-release copy of Hans G. Schantz’s third volume in his “Hidden Truth” series.  It’s called “The Brave and the Bold.” It’s a combination of a techno-thriller and a parallel history story.  I’m only about halfway through but there are all kinds of nice touches.  And the technical stuff is 100% legit.  And there are a couple of other books in the hopper.  Larry Correia edited a collection of short stories by famous (and not so famous) fantasy writers writing in his Monster Hunter universe called “The Monster Hunter Files.”  Then there’s the next volume in the Galaxy’s Edge series called “Message for the Dead.”  So, it’s a busy reading month ahead.  I have some movie reviews coming up and I want to go through some of my older photo collections for fresh content for the photo of the day.  And I’ve got to keep up with my Trump vs … series.  President Trump is sure to get involved in political mayhem sometime soon and he’s sure to bring along his long-suffering buddy Mike Pence and fixer Mad Dog Mattis for clean up.  And of course the daily drum beat of SCOTUS confirmation lunacy and mid-term skullduggery along with the baleful shadow of Mueller will provide me with plenty of fresh fodder for my political blather.

So stay tuned.

 

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Trying to Write Satire in the Age of the Resistance

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Any of the regular readers know that I dabble in ridiculous satire with a cartoon version of President Trump and absurd versions of all our favorite Washington villains.  Ove the last couple of years I’ve had newly elected President Trump become a werewolf and devour the State Department just to help drain the Swamp.  I’ve indulged in time travel, personality transfer technology and the President and the First Lady opening up a dating service to help Millennials avoid dying childless.  Nothing was beyond the pale.

But how can I compete with the Resistance?  A senior Senator from the great State of California introduced a woman who accused Brett Kavanaugh of complicity in multiple occurrences of gang rape at a college fraternity.  How can I compete with that?  I mean, after the first “incident” would there be a rationale for returning?  Was it just to make sure she wasn’t mistaken with respect to the nature of the proceedings?

The only way I can think of to keep up with real life is have one of the Resistance testify before the Senate to having been abducted onto a flying saucer at the hands of Space Alien Brett Kavanaugh.  That might work!  But I will have to work on the details.  Is Alien Brett a humanoid alien indistinguishable from earthlings?  Or is he one of the Star Trek, The Next Generation aliens that have some kind of wrinkles on their brow that saves enormous amounts of money on expensive latex costumes?  Or is he a really disgusting worm or squid or something and only looks human when he wants to like from Men in Black?  These are tough questions to decide on.  I guess from the point of view of the Resistance, there is no more horrible monster than a normal white man so if he’s that kind of alien it would sure make the conviction easy.  If he’s got the brow wrinkles he still looks mostly like a white man but it might earn him enough diversity points to confuse the shrieking harpies.  And if he’s a squid then the tree huggers will probably declare him an endangered species and declare him king of the world.  Decisions, decisions.

Well, anyway, you see my predicament.  Life has completely swamped out parody and satire.  There are literally no limits to the tactics these people will stoop to.  They will destroy anyone and everyone who stands in the way of their agenda.  I’ve maintained that the Alt-Right, Dissident Right or whatever else people call it is wrong to think that we can’t get back to normal.  They claim that the country is broken and all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men are out of luck.  I’ve somewhat waveringly hoped that the Trumpocalypse will right the ship and we can cobble together a new coalition of the less crazy that can eliminate the toxic excesses of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and try to rebuild on the ruins of the old society that really was great.  But it gets harder and harder to believe that the idiots on the establishment right are capable of withstanding the beating they will take if they try to resist the Resistance.  I mean it was sort of entertaining to hear Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell make noises like un-neutered men.  It was novel and it made me feel almost sympathetic for their plight.  Almost.  But they’re gonna have to do a whole lot better than that if they want to win.  Meanwhile let me get that copy of Galaxy Quest off the shelf.  I’m going with squid.

Morning Shmoe vs the Doggie Gaegogi

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I went through the “Trump vs” spoof posts and picked the one I liked best.  I’ll post one section a day but if you want to read ahead or start at the beginning I have the links at the bottom and top of each post to the previous and next installments.  This one began back in March 2018.

Trump vs Kim Jong Un and the Shanghai Noon

Dramatis Personae: Morning Shmoe – (MS);  Lycra Spandexy – (LS);   President Trump – (PT); Kim Jong Un (KJU)

Scene 1- 8am, MSNBC, Set of the Morning Shmoe talk show;  

MS – Welcome back from that commercial break and it’s the cube root of 27 minutes after the hour and we’re here at the set of the Morning Shmoe Show.  And Lycra Spandexy and I were just saying how we’ve never been more in love or more sure that Donald Trump’s presidency is seconds away from imploding before our eyes.

LS – Yes, that’s right Shmoe, very, very in love and very, very close to imploding.

MS – Exactly.

LS – Exactly.

MS – And continuing on our discussion of the bromance between Trump and Kim, I just wonder how Donald Trump feels knowing that he has become just as much of a laughing stock as that other tin pot dictator Kim Jong Un.  After all he may not be as short and fat as Kim but he’s just as much of a psychopath and just as ugly.

LS – Yes that’s right Shmoe, very, very much a laughing stock and very, very ugly.

MS – Exactly.

LS – Exactly.

MS – Hmmm.

LS – Oh, look!  Producer Jorge says we have a caller on line one.  Go ahead caller.

KJU – You listen good, Lycra Spandexy and Morning Shmoe!  This Kim Jong Un, Supreme Dear Leader of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  You really piss me off.  Maybe my friend Donald Trump let you get away with this stuff but I no will.  You are in deep doo doo.  You make fun of me?  Hah, I make fun of you!  What kind name Lycra Spandexy?  Sound like the sports bra.  And Morning Shmoe?  You some kind of Fourth Stooge?  Hah, Hah!

LS – Oh yeah?  Well your name is really funny.  Don’t you know Kim is a girl’s name?  Like Kim Kardashian.

MS – Honey, I don’t think you should engage.  I think the directive in these situations is to remain calm and shelter in place until the back-up arrives.

KJU – Too late you foolish losers.  I already sent team to your apartment.  You aware that Korean cuisine includes dog, right?

LS – Mr. Toodles?

KJU – That right.  I now finishing off Toodles with Noodles. Very hot and very tasty.

(Lycra becomes hysterical)

MS – You fiend!  I’ll call the State Department and have you arrested.

KJU – Don’t bother.  Diplomatic immunity.  And I already in flight and over Atlantic Ocean.  Plus, I no think Donald like you two too much.  You piss him off too.  So goodbye losers.  Better not say more about me or you might end up on menu for my shark tank.  (call ends in a dial tone)

MS – (with Lycra in the background keening shrilly for Mr.Toodles)  Well this is a black day on Morning Shmoe.  Not since the 9-11 attacks has anything as shocking occurred.  In fact, as we all know, the 9-11 attacks were the fault of Islamophobia whereas this murder is strictly the fault of Donald Trump and his Axis of Evil with a dictator who will remain nameless because of reasons.  I would declare a morning of mourning but we really need the paychecks to cover the wedding expenses we incurred.  It was an event wedding in Hawaii and Lycra had a lot of Eastern European relatives to fly in.

LS – (breaking out of her wailing dirge)  You were the one who wanted Hawaii.

MS- Whatever!  Well anyway, goodbye everybody and may your morning progress.

 

Mourning Morning Shmoe

The Great Revolt – by Salena Zito and Brad Todd – A Book Review – Part 3

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In Part 2 of this review I said that the Great Revolt is divided into a number of chapters, each named after a particular group of Trump voters that because of their circumstances either flipped from the Democrats to Trump or stayed with Trump despite an ideological conflict with him.

For each of these categories there are several individuals who exemplify the profile but live in a different location.  These locations are rural, or towns and cities located in the ten counties in question in Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In each of these categories and in each of these locations we are shown how the Democrats started out as the natural or default political party but ended up becoming the reason to vote for the unlikely personage of Donald J. Trump.  Although the list includes some individuals who are affluent and highly educated they all reside in areas of the country that have been taken for granted and at the same time abandoned by the Democratic Elite.  The people interviewed range from pillars of the community and entrepreneurs to folks who have barely survived hard economic times that coincided with personal tragedy and challenge.  But they all look to Donald Trump to correct problems.  Economic problems, cultural problems, moral problems.  Not all of these people are conservatives or even moderates.  Some are demonstrably old school Democrats.  But what they all are is self-described Americans.  None of them think of themselves as citizens of the world.  None of them have bought into the globalist perspective and many of them are obviously mourning for the death of their homes.  Places like Erie and Freeland Pennsylvania are for all intents and purposes dead.  There aren’t any growing industries and even the few employers left are slowly moving out to the sunbelt.  Young adults leave for opportunities elsewhere.  Parents and grandparents stay because they can’t sell their houses.  Who would buy them?  All they are left with is memories of happier times when they were part of a thriving community with a future and the dignity of earning a living and raising their families.  In these places voting for Donald Trump is almost a reflex.  A final self-defensive movement.

But other examples show communities that are still viable and even thriving but even in these places the inhabitants recognize that the Democrats don’t pretend to share the values that these communities still believe in.  Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio.  These are all places that are seeing themselves ignored because they are the areas where remnant blue collar communities are supposed to disappear and be replaced by the new constituencies that are earmarked for inclusion in the “coalition of the ascendant.”

So, speaking in broad generalities, who are the Trump voters that handed him Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa?  For the most part, they are the union guys who stopped voting for Republicans after Ronald Reagan.  If we start in the worst hit spot in the Rust Belt we’re in Pennsylvania.  Places like Erie and Wilkes Barre have been deconstructed to the point that it’s remarkable anyone at all is left.  After all the industries from yesteryear shut down and off-shored to China Obama finished it off by outlawing coal.  Places like Wisconsin are comparatively healthy.  Many of the largest manufacturers are gone but entrepreneurial types have stepped in and started smaller companies in emerging industries that still employ many people and keep the areas as viable communities for families and young adults to remain in.  In between these extremes is the rest of the gradient.  What they all share was a dependence on large scale union employment in heavy industry.  And because of this history they typically voted Democrat.  And they thought of the Republicans as their class enemies.  What they didn’t see happening was the Democrats moving on from needing them or more specifically pretending to care about their votes.  Once the Democrats had built up the “Coalition of the Ascendant,” these mid-west white union workers were an embarrassment to the rest of the coalition.  They weren’t college educated and they didn’t eat the right foods or care about the right causes and they might even believe in God.  So, the best thing to do was quietly stop talking about them and wait until they dropped dead so they could be replaced with some Central Americans or Middle Easterners.  But somehow, they are still there so they are looking for a new political home.  Donald Trump provided that.  He was the first Republican since Ronald Reagan to acknowledge their plight and actually come up with a plan for helping them.  Finally, let’s sum it up.

Bottom Line

Boiling down all the cases and places it comes down to this.  Donald Trump was elected president by the Rust Belt blue collar working areas because he was willing to promise to save them.

 

In the last part of this review I’ll give my thoughts on where we go from here.

Last Man Standing – TV Series Revival – TV Review

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I’ve been watching Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing since its beginning.  I’ve enjoyed the show all along although the last two seasons’ scripts were definitely at a lower level.  Maybe they knew the series had almost run its course and the old writers had started to move on.  But what was noticeable was a less skillful plot and dialog.  And for all the angst from the left about its right wing slant the point of view was a mild libertarian stance with a few humorous jibes thrown at Obama or Hillary Clinton by Tim’s character (Mike Baxter).  And just to make sure no one thought there was an ideological problem the wife played by Nancy Travis is a Hillary fan and a fairly mild feminist.  My biggest disappointment was in the final season that only one small joke about Trump showed up in the show.  That’s how timid they were.  But all that aside, the show was refreshing because Mike was at least allowed to mostly correspond to a normal man of his generation.  He wasn’t forced to make believe he didn’t like sports and cars and guns and hunting and fishing.  He was pro-military and traditional in his ideas about gender roles and religion and unabashedly American.  He spends a considerable time on the screen mocking his Canadian soy-boy son-in-law (Ryan) but at the same time he mentors this young man on family responsibilities for a husband and a father.

In 2017 Disney/ABC was in a snit about Trump being president so they cancelled Last Man Standing, even though it was the most popular show on Friday nights and doing well financially.  Tim Allen who has been a staple of ABC and Disney for decades said he was devastated that they pulled the plug on him so needlessly.  Next season (2018), when Roseanne Barr’s  reboot of her show Roseanne featured a star that had some positive things to say about Trump and did land office business it immediately woke up some network geniuses to the fact that Last Man Standing was ready made to take advantage of that same audience.  And when Roseanne’s show was cancelled because she said something politically incorrect about an Obama administration official, well, that same audience was now available for another show that had characters they could relate to.

Because 20th Century Fox was the production company that originally made Last Man Standing for ABC it wasn’t much of a stretch for the Fox Network to consider bringing back the show and hosting it on their network.  And that’s just what they’ve done.  Boy, this has been some wind up for a tv review!

Camera Girl and I watched the show on Friday night.  It was pretty good.  They started off with a set up where the Kyle character (one of the sons-in-law) is failing to find his favorite show on tv and his in-laws throw out some lines about networks being bastards for cancelling good shows and how it very rarely happens that a show is picked up by another network unless its fans are truly great.  So, light fun, and here we go.

The show revolves around the family being split between conservatives and liberals quarreling about the Trump presidency.  But the writers decide to completely leave out Trump’s name.  Now that felt phony.  Next the Canadian son-in-law Ryan gets so stressed about living in Trump’s America without any way to address his opposition to it that he decides he’s moving his family to Canada.  When Ryan’s young son goes missing the family rallies around to find him.  They forget all their quarrels and after finding him safe they use the happy outcome to cement their solidarity and agree to look for common ground.  As is usual with the show, Mike ends the episode with a vlog from his office at Outdoorsman to talk about the importance of Americans finding common ground and there being two points of view, left and right.  He does takes one small jab by saying that “of course one of them already has the word “right” already in it.

So, there it is.  The show is back.  And it is a nice middle of the road show that stakes out a spot for a character that is an American man who hasn’t been neutered and feminized.  Is it a full-throated roar of defiance by the right wing?  Hardly.  Will it even acknowledge by name the Trump revolution?  Hopefully.  But so far, the verdict is still out.  Is it funnier than last season?  Maybe.  My plan is to watch a few more episodes and then evaluate whether I’m still going to be standing with Tim Allen’s last man.  Did you see what I did there?