The Vision Thing
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing
--Macbeth, Shakespeare
I get bored
A wish for a real one
--Bored, The Deftones
____________________
Subtitle: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
There is rampant speculation that the Democratic Party needs to develop a vision for the future.
Having thought relentless disdain and opprobrium toward their opponent and a sense of entitlement to the job good ways to sail into the White House (not), some are scabbing today onto that tone-deaf repertoire the thought that it might just be a good idea to mount a vision-quest.
To actually have something to offer the voter which is substantive, believable, forward-thinking, and more appealing than that offered by their opponent. Since the Democrats lost in 2016, it seems fair to say they failed in that mission.
But what they did well was obloquy, and they cut their teeth on their favorite catch dog, Mr. Trump. For those who do not know the "sport" of dog fighting, the catch dog is the designated loser, thrown into the training pit and on which the dogs may hone their fighting skills.
What they failed to see was, too many of We the People have become the catch dogs in the ring of life, and those people saw a vision of themselves in the pit.
None of the arrogant and privileged candidates spoke for them, and they knew it. For them, life continues to constrict, and Democrats have been on station during the devolution of their lives.
Candidate Clinton offered empty words that offered nary a drop of water to the thirsty.
So this "vision" will supposedly energize the system, allowing democracy to flourish and prevail. Great concept, but what about today?
Without a rock solid today, will there even be a tomorrow worth a hill of beans?
The Democrat's mission is a garbled transmission. One may not continue down the path of invective (their entrenched losing strategy), yet also build something credible and positive at the same time.
Speaking on the 2012 Presidential election, Mr. Trump recognized that meanness of spirit was not a winning strategy. Speaking of the Democrat's position on illegal immigrants he said, “They didn’t know what the policy was, but what they were is they were kind” (unlike their Republican opponents).
They are no longer kind.
Their continued divided efforts show them to have a tin ear, for the voters they lost already divined that the party's sole goal was a win, and not a desire for a better tomorrow for them.
There is no tomorrow without a today.
--by Lisa and Jim
Labels: catch dogs, Democrats have no vision, the vision thing, why the Democrats lost in 2016
posted by rangeragainstwar at 6:10 AM
76 Comments:
I used to vote straight up Democrat in federal elections. I voted for Bill Clinton X2 and I voted for Gore and thought he may have been robbed with the hanging chads and all. I hated the Bush years and was really pissed off abut what was clearly a trumped up illegal invasion of Iraq. I voted for Obama too. Now I would never vote Democrat for anything; not even local dog catcher.
The reason? As you note, they are the party of hate and confusion. They are also illogical and stupid.
How did I transform? For one thing, during the Obama years I climbed high enough in the corporate ranks to understand how big business thinks, makes decisions, how critical to the economy, etc. A lot of my grunt/blue collar friends - who are Dems - fear and loath big business. But they have no idea what they are talking about; nor did I when I was also against big business so many years ago.
More importantly - to me at least - most of the people I know who are left of center are true America haters. It's nothing but criticism of the country 24/7/365. Those amongst them who are minorities hate "white culture" and actively seek to erode it. What do they want to replace it with? Third world culture. How is that going to work out?
Then there is the inclusion and pandering to every freakish lifestyle in existence. Why would a competent party make policy to serve the needs of 1% of the population at the expense of the other 99%? The inability to see right from wrong and all the virtue signaling and moral equivalence is just too much.
Then the fact that a not insignificant proportion of the Democrats are actually communists. We can see how that has worked out in other countries. Why would we even consider trying it here?
Finally, all of the moral policing, language and thought control is just antithetical to what America is supposed to be all about.
I keep saying that, at bottom, too many Democrats are seeking a society that is like Sodom and Gomorrah with Karl Marx in the Oval Office. All dems? No. But even those who would protest my perception would, when push comes to shove, side with the radicals amongst them that do want that as opposed to with the Rs. So it is destiny that the Ds will slide further towards what I say they want. Because acceptance! Inclusion!
You can call me a bigot, hater, square, whatever, but most people agree with me; whether or not they are comfortable enough in today's environment to admit it. We have a right to feel that way and stand up for it. The radicals are noisy and therefor think they are legion. They are wrong.
So the Ds will keep losing elections. The more thy bash Trump, the more Trump supporters dig their heels in. The Ds have thrown down the gauntlet in an all or nothing no quarter asked/no quarter given war. They are going to end up with nothing.
avedis
avedis,
I think it's kind of hip to be square :).
Agreed, it's Nixon's Silent Majority all over again. I mean, who is in the White House? A most improbable man, by all accounts. And yet, there it is.
We have internecine debates here at RAW over whether the mere mention of the President by name connotes some sort of masked, untoward approval. You see, we have all been cowed -- we former Democrats -- into thinking that Mr. Trump's name must be preceded by some sort or withering or dismissive adjective.
And that, my friend, I find galling.
Lisa,
Also, a lot of us just got tired of all the "Dear privileged white people" crap.
What are Democrats looking for with that? When that heated up big time during the Obama years and then Obama showed no leadership in getting all of his people ("If I had a son....") to stop burning cities and assassinating police - and to the contrary - deployed his DOJ as if there was really something to "Hands up don't shoot", combined with Elizabeth Warren-esque white male bashing, I realized that the Dems really do see me as an enemy.
The Dems gambled that between the women vote and all the brown skins they had imported that they could win and smash the white male. That's when I really started to hate the left. They want to tear the country apart. I will vote for anyone of any color or gender who unites us as one people. Until such a person enters the scene, I will vote for the guy who is on my side. The Dems didn't count on women like you and minorities with a sense of conservatism.
Plus, I think that if Trump can bring back jobs, that will help everyone. Fingers crossed.
avedis
avedis,
Correct: the Democrats did not feel as though anyone in their party might resent being bullied, and all would simply march blindly into the booth and pull the correct lever.
We badly need to be united in a true common cause (not faux ones of "sanctuary cities" and the like, which seem almost a move to self-immolation.)
For those who read the news, I think the recent demographics showing middle-aged white males were the only contingent losing ground in the life-span race must have caught someone's attention. But not enough for the Democrats to make note of it.
Eventually, somewhere along the way some of the people upon whose backs the others ride got fed up.
I had a classic dialog on the election with a pure hippy draft-dodger liberal recently. He expressed his belief and those of his cohort were that Mrs. Clinton would offer absolutely nothing new; that she would be the same namby-pamby Demo-Repub griffon of the stripe of Obama. That the only thing new she might bring to the mix was perhaps her higher level of venality.
So according to the old hippy, Trump opens the way for new possibilities, and he was quite hopeful. Surprised the heck out of me, especially considering the liberal milieu in which we met, where many of the participants were sometimes incapable of a smile so low had they been brought by the seeming untenable reality of this administration and the daily media fear-mongering.
Avedis
More people voted for Clinton than for Trump, so obviously "most people" do not in fact agree with you. You might contemplate that as you triumph that the Clintonites are fighting a losing battle. I don't say this as sour grapes; I didn't like or support Clinton. But clearly it is a bit premature to declare victory in the culture wars simply because your side benefited from the layout of the Electoral College.
On Lisa's point in the main article, perhaps Clinton had nothing meaningful to say because there is no vision capable of uniting the coalition the Democrats imagine they are leading.
Specifically, I do not see how it is possible to have a genuine coalition of the working class on class issues, the various diversity special interests on identity politics issues, and the business community on trade issues. The first and third of these at least have directly opposite interests. So the Democratic coalition is either imaginary or made up of useful idiots. (I wonder which group are supposed to play the idiots!)
That didn't matter when the Republicans talked the same game on trade, but Trump was rude enough to call out the Democrats for their hypocrisy on economic regulations, and this is something they will probably never forgive him for.
David,
If you remove the heavily liberal enclave of California, Trump got more votes than Clinton. That's why the US has the electoral college; so the fruits and nuts in CA can't run the country.
I agree that Lisa is spot on and so are you, re; lack of cohesive vision in the Democrat party. All three of us are seeing the same thing.
The working class is relatively conservative. Not right wing conservative, but kind of middle of the road live and let live on social issues conservative. And they're predominantly white. Guess what...so is Trump.
But the Dems have become strange stew of screaming lunatic freaks. No cause is too weird. Mostly that hating of whites - especially white males - is their downfall, because that used to be their base. IMO, they thought they had cuckolded a sufficient number of white males to get the vote. They self-deceived because they live in a bubble full of cucks on college campuses, etc.
What I think is great is that not only have they failed to learn from this past election, they are doubling down.
avedis
So, what exactly? Californians don't count? They aren't real Americans? Terrific. How about instead you accept the objective facts of the situation: Clinton won the popular vote, just as Gore did in 2000. If the victory of your social revolution is made possible only by a system that permits a smaller bloc to triumph over a larger one, then you cannot claim to have won over the majority of Americans.
We could reverse that and, instead of taking out California, simply remove an equivalent number of red states in terms of population. Then Clinton could win the Electoral College as well as the popular vote. I'm not sure what you think this math game is supposed to prove.
We've gone back and forth on this identity politics thing so often that maybe I should just go back to first principles and explain why I'm coming at it this way. I think in terms of class first. Once you get rid of a certain level of sexism and racism which did exist historically, your political interests, objectively, come mostly from your socioeconomic class and where you live. But neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can really do anything about those, because both parties serve masters with basically the same class and regional interests. Trump is supposedly an exception to that, but as you know, I am unpersuaded.
To that end, breaking politics into competing "identity politics" blocks -- white male voters for Trump, black and female voters for the Democrats, etc. -- does two things: (1) it breaks apart the nation, maybe irreparably, and (2) it creates the appearance of "action" while the fundamental power structure is left unchanged. One way or another, last year, an extremely wealthy person who lives in New York was going to be president. Despite the histrionics about Trump's anti-free trade agenda, which predictably he has all but abandoned, I imagine that other extremely wealthy people who live in New York found that fact comforting.
My way of seeing things doesn't predict election results necessarily. I think Democrats imagined that women would vote for them en masse in the same way that blacks did: after all, Clinton was a woman and Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. Had they been right on that bet, then it really would not have mattered much how many men voted Democrat, "cuckolded" or otherwise.
So identity politics failed them, at least in that respect, but even so I do think you're right. I think their takeaway lesson from 2016 won't be, "We should have tried to lead more of the country than just our selected special interests." It will be, "We just need to keep doing even more of the same." I think we're on the same page there.
David,
I wrote this article as a simple minded Ranger, as i do all my articles.
i understand and talk simply.
my whole point (before editing) is that BOTH parties seek a vision thing as if it were a reality, and it's ALWAYS in the future and based upon hopes and prayers.
voodoo economics are still coin of the realm , and we in the middle are thrown to the wolves.
we don't need a vision for 2018 or 2020 but rather for today.
we live in the present tense and that's where our leadership should focus their efforts. vision is not a trick fuck way to win an election.
there is no tomorrow without a solid today.
we must stop electing leaders who are electable and elect people who can govern.
we at raw are fractured as is the society. it's my belief that hrc lost b/c she dared to mention sensible gun control.also i believe she over played the lesbian thing. i for one got tired of her femdom flank security.
i am frustrated b/c neither party represents a consensus.
watch this old house and what they are doing in detroit.this is the real america.
rich 1 % billionaires are not and cannot ever be populists.
try as they may , and as hard as we wish otherwise.
leaving personalities out of the mix does not improve the situation.democracy and capitalism cannot swing like a pendulum.
imo what we're seeing in the daily play of our news entertainment is that we have competing
intel agencies trying to become the real leadership by fronting pliable suckers that we call leaders.
i have been silent lately because we here at raw are of divergent opinions, and that ain't no way to run a unit , or a blog.
jim hruska
Jim,
I just got back from Detroit. If I didn't know where I turned off the hiway, I would have thought I was in Somalia. Miles of territory where I wouldn't dream of un-assing my vehicle without full body armor, extra magazines and minimally at platoon strength.
California has nothing in common in Detroit. That's why we have an electoral college. The USA is a bunch of states that agree to enter a loose union. The state maintain a level of sovereignty. Canadians and Europeans never seem capable of understanding that. I guess they still yearn to be ruled by kings and queens.
avedis
Sorry Jim, for some reason I thought Lisa wrote the article.
You speak of genuine leadership and genuine vision. Unfortunately I think neither has a role in politics today. Building a vision and a movement is hard work if it's about genuine leadership and thinking ahead about the future. Giving people an enemy to hate is much easier, and has the extra benefit to the elites that what we call politics is little more than theater and distraction.
Then, as the nation weakens, people turn to other more primal loyalties. In "failed states" it is things like tribes and religion. Here it is identity politics. Once you get to a certain point in the process of disintegrating, perhaps there is no turning back.
I do not know what to say about the intel agencies being in the news. It is obvious to me that members of Trump's team were colluding with Russian intelligence, perhaps unknowingly. It is obvious to me that Clinton's team was violating the law with her email server. It is also obvious to me that factions within the security state have been playing politics by trying to pick the executive instead of serve it. I don't know where all that leaves us, though.
David, You're not going to like this, but Trump DOES have immediate vision. America first. Bring back the jobs NOW. Get rid of the illegals NOW. ....you know the rest.
Just because a one worlder bleeding heart doesn't like the vision doesn't mean it isn't a vision all the same. It appeals to half of the country; the half that counts because they actually produce things of value - unlike California (entertainment) and NYC (financial instruments).
The Democrats, OTOH, are merely offering a chaotic circus of the weird.
avedis
If you're relying on a politician to bring you a job, then plainly you are not producing much of value at the moment and you aren't, in fact, asking for government just to get out of the way. Sounds very liberal to me. Speaking of liberals, Obama ran on a promise to bring the jobs back by ending free trade agreements, liberals ate it up, and then he abandoned it once he moved into the White House. Trump, ditto. I sense a pattern here.
"America first" isn't a vision, it's a slogan, spoken by a man who is plainly neither sincere enough nor competent enough to act on them or even conceive of what needs doing on a serious level.
You will recall that in the fall I predicted the Trump administration's policies would be effectively the same as those that came before it, save perhaps for a markedly higher degree of ineptitude. So far I seem to be correct in that assessment, but time, as they say, will tell.
David,
Just stop and reverse the government interference, like NAFTA, that sent the jobs away. That's all. And get rid of the illegals that are taking good construction jobs from Americans.
Figures a Canuck would call "America first" a slogan. I see so many from the great white North criticizing the USA on line. Do you think we care what a bunch of frost bit English hillbillies think about us, eh?
avedis
NAFTA isn't government interference. It's a removal of government interference. Corporations didn't move jobs because government required them to; they did so because government no longer required them to keep them here.
Here's the thing: every government in the Western world used to maintain one thing of ultimate value for us: our citizenships. These guaranteed us, in every country, access to a protected labor market. That labor market featured unusually high wages, especially for lower-skilled occupations, and it was protected by barriers on free movement of people, free movement of capital, and free movement of goods. We call these "regulations."
Over the past 30 years governments have gradually stripped away those all three of those protections, and the jobs have departed accordingly. You could get them back by reimposing the regulations that made citizenship valuable, but to do that, you would have to have government more involved in the economy, which you claim not to want. For the record, I favor that kind of involvement.
I won't bother with the baiting in your second paragraph, which is beneath you and does not merit a response.
Now avedis, my father is a Canuck. They are generally a tidy and orderly people. I know you was just funnin' David (as they say in The South). I have seen it first-hand with my sister's merciless employment of the South Park CAN meme in his company.
But we Americans do tend to get a tad too, um, emotional at times.
(In fact, I think I'm gonna write a little piece about the more corrosive effects of our over-emotionalism soon.)
Lisa,
Yes. Just funnin'. Mostly. I really do get tired of people from a country with a population 1/10th our size and far less culturally diverse lecturing the US on the right way to do things. And they all seem to do it. I guess they all read the same pro-Canuck propaganda.
The US is the largest and most powerful economy in the world. Canada's is a fraction of the size and, if not for the harvesting of their abundant natural resources (oil, timber) would be even smaller. Meaning, they are not so good at inventing and manufacturing.
Canadians seem to imagine that the social programs and economic and political policies that work in their little homogenous society are going to work in ours. They won't. Of course they always conveniently overlook their own crazy French separatists and issues with the so called 'first nations' when favorably comparing their frosty utopia to awful USA.
Then they are pathologically incapable of understanding the electoral system and how it relates to federalism.
And they put vinegar on French fries and potato chips. A sure sign of excessive in-breeding.
avedis
and...having been to Windsor recently, I'd say that the main employment opportunity for women seems to be working in strip joints. What is it w/ Canadians and strip joints? There's one on every corner; that and dope dealers and pizzerias. If Windsor is indicative of anything, I'd say that Canadians should focus their critiques on their own country.
avedis
The "just funnin'" part doesn't bug me. The "but actually serious" part is the part that makes me wonder whether it's worth responding.
The other part that makes me wonder is your suggestion that Canadians don't understand federalism, given that Canada is a federal system, and now your suggestion that we learn from the example Windsor, which is Canada's Detroit, right across the border and everything. The only thing to learn from Windsor is that shipping jobs off to Mexico and Asia is a fascination of the globalist class in every Western country, not just America. I imagine you would find that for the most part both Canadians and Americans do not understand their own government, which is convenient for the ruling class in both cases.
On your concerns about Canadian moral superiority, I've never suggested here that anyone should learn much from Canada's government programs except that I did once tell Nikolay I'd rather be in Canada than Cuba, but I don't think that's saying much. I'd rather be in any capitalist and democratic country than Cuba, really. Maybe that comes from growing up in an American family. My in-laws have much more of what Dean Acheson once called Canada's "stern daughter of the voice of God" delusion, although interestingly, many of them do like Trump. I think that has more to do with them being rural working class than it does about them being Canadian, though.
David,
You are a thoroughgoing gentleman, and your considered thoughts are a great asset to RAW, IMO.
You represent the civil Canadian bearing well.
avedis,
You are a wit and a scalawag, usually showing the best of American bravado.
But your criticism of vinegar on French fries is a low blow, and a bridge too far, sir. There is nothing finer than a good malt vinegar on perfectly rendered chips.
Maybe our vinegar is forgiveable, but what about the Dijon mustard I saw in the grocery store? Is that a bridge too sophisticated?
Avedis,
i've had forebodings about trump since Lisa and myself were in a red neck NC mountain barbque a couple of years ago. it was filled with motorcyclists on HD's.
they filled the place and they were all very verbal supporters of trump.in fact hd should design a new bike called the trumpster.all flash and no gash.
it could be loud and have low horse power. a perfect summary.
i knew then that trump was a force with grave potential.
unfortunately most of my dislike is emotional. i try not to hate any one. i even discourse with draft dodgers and resisters from the vn era.my cut off is when nutless wonders want to be CinC and they never shit between 2 combat boots.with trump it's even worse as he says he's america first and he buys a bimbo bride from slovenia.whats up there? can't he handle a full size american model of the female sex? maybe his johnson is dimunitive.
my gut tells me that none of this trump crap is leading us any where of benefit.
i fear he's a demagogue, and thats being kind.
if you were in a situation where your life depended on another person, would u trust trump to back you?
jim hruska
Jim,
I don't like Trump at all.
I like Clinton and Sanders even less.
I'm not big into bikes, but if I had to ride one, I'd take a Harley over a rice rocket.
I can understand wanting exotic women.
Given a bowl full of nutless wonders, I'll take the one that, nominally, doesn't hate me.
I'll take crap of unknown quantity over the same old crap any day, when same old becomes untenable. I'm expeditionary like that.
There you have it. A Trump vote.
The deep state seems intent on invalidating my vote. They're even willing to reveal that they broke the Russian diplomatic encryption just to make a leaked "story" about Kuschner/Trump talks with Russia. So it's all moot. Who we prefer matters not. I can still chose salsa for my fries and no one can force me to use stinking vinegar on them.
avedis
avedis,
I am concerned by Jim's statement that he "hates no one". Methinks he doth protest too much.
He and his knee-jerker liberal fellows are filled to the brim with hatred (if I've seen anything of hatred in my life.) My spirit is bereft in their presence when the topic turns to Trump, and that seems to be their all-consuming passion these days.
They -- and I come upon the them anywhere I go -- disturb me far more than a President Trump. I do not understand it. I have already written a piece on it (in the can). Between them and me, no civil discussion is possible. They think to treat me like their catch dog for stepping out of line, but that I will not be.
We are as far apart as I would feel from an Aryan supremacist.
To paraphrase Marge Gunderson, there is more to life, and it's a beautiful day.
Lisa,
Just to demonstrate that I pay attention, I thought the world was glued together on hate.
Someone without hate would then be unglued and/or out of this world.
Trump seems to bring out the worst in some people. I know several. I don't get it, but it isn't a logical thing.
avedis
David,
Federalism means something different in the United States than it does in Canada or generally - where the term merely means a federal government that controls the various states. It has to do with the original signing of the US Constitution by the states and the power that is reserved by the states.
avedis
Avedis, on the leaks point -- this is indeed one of the grand ironies of the security agencies' revolt against the White House. If things really did play out as described, I am sure the Israelis were not happy that Trump shared their intelligence with the Russians, but the only reason they were publicly embarrassed by it was because the intelligence agencies they gave that information to leaked it to the press.
On the federalism point, the Canadian constitution divides powers between the federal and the provincial governments, and each government is sovereign within its constitutional jurisdiction. I believe the same is true in Australia and India. I suspect it is not an accident; having seen the system worked in America, the Australians and the Canadians presumably figured they could make a go of it, too.
David,
Re; the leaks: It is normal to share certain intelligence with other countries. Letting the Russians know about terrorism plots involving laptops would, IMO, fall into that normal category. You are correct that it wouldn't be a problem for anyone (except the terrorists) if it hadn't been leaked to, and reported by, the media.
Far more concerning is the WaPo story about Kuschner meeting with the Russians to inquire about the establishment of back channel communications. The WaPO reports specifically that knowledge of the meeting was obtained from the Russian Emb.'s communications with his people back in Russia. So what has been revealed - assuming the story is true - is that US intel services have cracked the Russian diplomatic encryption. Now the Russians are aware and will switch encryption; setting US intel ops back a long ways. This was not only a criminal leak, but is, in effect, approaching treason. It demonstrates a deep state attempt at a coup. We elected Trump via the democratic process/law of the land, but deep state and media puppets are saying that it is they who ultimately decide who our leadership will be.
So the Republic is getting towards dead. Not because of Trump, but because of deep state and *an army of Trump hating zombie fascists* that includes a lot of average Joes and Janes.
That is what is being missed in the fog of maniacal Trump hatred.
To my mind, this is bigger than Trump. Trump is just one man. This goes to the survival of the Republic which is tenuous at best at this point. Are the people going to be able to elect representatives per the Constitution, or is that right now illusory?
avedis
David,
One more re; Russia + US intel sharing.
Soviet Russia was a an ally in WW2. Truman and Roosevelt met with Stalin. They shared all kinds of critical intel. Way beyond top secret.
Today's Russia isn't anything close to the Soviet Union. They are natural allies in the fight against terrorism.
Trump derangement syndrome apparently, among its many negative effects, causes basic history to be erased from the memory banks.
avedis
avedis says,
To my mind, this is bigger than Trump. Trump is just one man. This goes to the survival of the Republic which is tenuous at best at this point. Are the people going to be able to elect representatives per the Constitution, or is that right now illusory?
YES, my point exactly! Jim & his fellows are furious per Trump, yet I know they prefer neither Mrs. Clinton nor Bernie, nor any of the Republican wolf pack. They will not answer me coherently when I ask whither their fury.
To my mind, President Obama was a moderate-to-conservative Democrat. Hillary would be to his right. This makes sense, for as the first black President, he couldn't exactly be Malcolm X. Similarly, HRC must prove her ballsiness, and would continue in her war-monger mold.
Trump, OTOH, has the imprimatur of neither party. When the media says they don't understand him, that's because he not from the same pot of beans as all the "viable" Republicans and Democrats who get their party's Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
Any "winnable" candidates that the two parties will run will basically touch in the middle on most issues. Because we don't have a parliamentary system, we are not allowed to vote for the different candidate (unless we'd like to throw away our vote in protest.)
This is the first time in modern times that an individual has run as a total underdog, dismissed by both parties, and yet won the Presidency. This is an awesome phenomenon (in the true sense of the word).
And why THIS fact is not embraced as fact, and explored as bellwether astounds me.
I feel like a stranger in a strange land.
Avedis --
As I said, "as reported." According to the news report America received this intel from Israel on the condition it not be shared with anyone else. So it should not have been shared with Russia.
But on the other part I think we're on the same page. This is probably not the first time such guarantees have been "overlooked" and the reason Israel is upset is effectively because they and everybody else were told about it via the press.
As for the question of who shall choose the leaders, I think you're getting a bit hysterical there. The question of who shall choose them isn't in doubt. The question of whether they will be obstructed by the bureaucracy is the question.
Now, I don't want to sound like I'm blaming Trump for this next part. Obviously obstruction is the fault of the people doing the obstructing. However, especially since he was coming from so far outside the political mainstream, this problem could have been foreseen and much of it could probably have been avoided had he taken the time to staff up his administration fully and with competent people. Instead there has been an attitude that expertise is not required and, indeed, that sheer numbers of personnel were not required. This was obvious folly and the result is that, at least for the time being, many agencies in government I suspect are effectively running themselves as they see fit, even more than usual for bureaucracies.
Remember when I predicted ineptness? In government as in the military, professionals must consider logistics as well as high-level strategy.
For what it's worth, the Congress will protect the president at least for the time being. If the Democrats had majorities in both houses they would probably have started impeachment proceedings already on some trumped-up charge or another, if you'll forgive the cheap pun.
David,
I must strongly disagree with you.
First, I want to point out that the intelligence agencies turning on Trump proves my point, that we argued about a while back, that, despite his wealth, Trump is an outsider. They hate him for it as Lisa says in her last.
IMO, you are massively downplaying what a crazy thing the intel agencies (probably NSA) did in revealing the decryption of the Russian communiqué. That is someone hating Trump so much they have become a kamikaze.
Also, IMO, you are underestimating the "never-Trump" Republicans. Their plan here, again IMO, is to create such a hysteria around Trump "incompetence", etc. that they can publicly sigh and say that they must join the Dems in impeachment for the good of the country. They would love to have President Pence as Pence is a dyed in the wool cookie cutter Republican.
This is what is happening as we speak. It is not hysteria on ^my^ part.
IMO once again, there is nothing Trump could have dome about this upon entering office. No amount of staffing could have prevented it. The moles are in the intelligence community and they were placed there by Obama and Clinton and were given the go-ahead to activate their mission by the outgoing Obama. These are globalist ideologues. The idea that Trump somehow failed to staff properly and has brought this upon himself is more propaganda that you have absorbed as intended.
At bottom, this is a classic intelligence/information operation; the kind that the US government has been deploying against various governments around the world since the late 40s or early 50s.
What Trump needs to do now is purge the agencies and quickly. the media will squeal that the firings and charges leveled are all an attempt to cover up high crimes and people like you will believe it. Stories of scandal will circulate and those could lead to impeachment as well, material substance or not. But if Trump doesn't do it, impeachment is surely in the cards.
If impeachment and removal from office occurs, then US civil society WILL break down and there will eventually be a dissolution of the union. There are 10s of millions of Trump supporters that know what time it is. They are buying what the information op is selling; not even a little.
avedis
NOt buying what info ops is selling
avedis
to all,
the intel about computer security on air craft is old hat and about 20 years old or more.
jim
avedis
Agreed, and this is the part I least understand of the Democratic hysteria:
They would love to have President Pence as Pence is a dyed in the wool cookie cutter Republican.
Trump is a moderate-to-liberal Republican in most areas. When I mentioned previously that Obama was Democratic center-right, and Hillary, to the right of that, this sets Trump next to Obama on the spectrum, as they are both centrists. That is what a healthy union (sans Parliament) should want.
If they (the massive political infrastructure) move to impeach, as that seems to be their only raison d'etre, they then get Pence.
Where is the sanity? For Democrats at least, there should be no sense in Pence.
Lisa,
It would be pretty hard to argue that Trump's tax reform proposals, healthcare reform proposals, or attempted ban on major refugee-producing countries (I won't say "Muslim ban," because it wasn't) puts Trump next to Obama in any meaningful way. On infrastructure and trade protection, I would like to say you are correct, except that neither party actually wants trade protection for workers. This set Trump apart in his rhetoric from what passes for a spectrum in Washington. His swift abandonment of the issue upon arrival unfortunately brings him right back into the fold, which is where I predicted he would always be when the chips were down.
On the Pence question, my guess is that Democratic politicians who are clamoring for impeachment are thinking of their next primaries in exactly the same way that Republican politicians defending him are. It's a bit rich to hear the Democrats accuse the Republicans of putting party before country.
David,
I just wanted to address what is commonly known as Obamacare. Of course, in no way does it approach the Commonwealth's practice of universal health care. Far from it. In fact. for many of our most needy, they are father away than ever from the possibility of seeing a doctor.
It only compelled people to purchase health insurance, which does not equate with being able to afford to see a doctor. For those who cant afford even the insurance, they pay a fee every month to "opt-out" (i.e., to get nothing), so they will be in compliance with the law.
It was a true corporatist move, as it increased costs of coverage, removed competition from the marketplace (as companies shut down), and has made seeing a doctor much more difficult for the non-wealthy.
In the year before the "healthcare" (misnomer) act became law, I remember seeing large signs in doctor's offices stating that should the bill pass, they would no longer be seeing their most needy patients (those on Medicaid and Medicare). Medicaid has broken down as an effective coverage for the neediest cases, and many states (Florida being one) have refused to accept Federal Medicaid funding.
I do not know anyone personally who has benefited from Obama's "healthcare reform". Mostly, they simply suffer higher premiums (those who can afford to pay.)
P.S. --
Per avedis's, "US civil society WILL break down and there will eventually be a dissolution of the union."
Yes, of course, taking the long view there will always be dissolution and re-arrangement. But I believe the breakdown has begun, and it will be a long, inexorable decline from here. This basically due to people's indolence, ineffectualness and acclimation.
We are at the beginning of the tale (tail), and still have intimations of what greatness might look like; as time passes, fewer will have those same lodestars. So what you and I envision as a "breakdown" may simply become the new status quo.
Avedis
Your notion of a deepseated conspiracy in the intelligence community taking its marching orders from Obama and Clinton is not only absurd but calls into question the credibility of the rest of your analysis. If that was where Comey was getting his orders, they never would have released damaging info about Clinton during the campaign.
I'm sure you're right that Trump was not going to be warmly greeted by a disproportionately liberal bureaucracy. But he has exacerbated that through his rank incompetence. Those who have supported Trump should at least have the strength to admit that part. This is what you get when you hire someone without any relevant job experience to a senior management position.
One can see this without leaving the Comey issue I started this post with.
Trump should never have appointed or kept in place people known to have lied to the public and Congress about their connections to Russia. If he hadn't, he wouldn't be in the position of trying to influence an investigation while his attorney-general is forced to sit on the sidelines due to recusing himself.
He should have hired a chief of staff able to contain his own urges and temptations, at least until he has a better sense of the job. Such a chief of staff would have prevented the meetings with Comey, or if those messages were going to be given, would have delivered them himself to give the president plausible deniability.
He should have appointed more people. Not only does any attempt to impose new policies get impeded by the lack of a loyal layer of upper management to implement the decisions, but even worse, people from within the bureaucracy -- the ones you suspect of being disloyal -- have been moved up to fill those positions on an acting basis.
On the subject of appointments, he shouldn't have staffed the White House with relatives and in-laws. Not only are they unlikely to offer quality advice, but now he's saddled with Kushner being a subject of the investigation. (This is rich irony given that the Democrats though he would be their establishment voice in the White House; now he is recast as arch-villain.)
He should not have sent his staff out to lie to the public about the reasons for firing Comey given that he himself was going to say publicly it was about the Russian investigation a couple of days later.
He shouldn't have met with the Russians shortly after he fired the person leading the investigation into his staff's purported collusion with Russia. Failing that, he certainly should not have told the Russians that he was relieved Comey was out of the way. Failing that again, he certainly should not have made that comment on the record while someone was taking notes of what was said.
No liberal bureaucrat forced Trump to do any of those things. He did them all on his own.
Want to know what I think about the Russian collusion? I don't think at the end of the day there's anything serious in it. I think the Russians probably reached the same conclusion about Trump that I did. Their interests are served by an incompetent administration, so they nudged in a few places to try and make it a reality. The only thing they're disappointed by is that the Democrats couldn't have won Congress and thrown the country into even worse partisan upheaval by impeaching a probably innocent president months into his term.
Lisa on Obamacare,
None of this do I dispute, but in historical terms, a private enterprise solution like Obamacare was a conservative response to market failure. The progressive response was nationalization. Unsurprisingly, a market-controlled government opted for the market-based so-called "solution."
Trump and his staff have promised that he would replace Obamacare with a better system in which there would be insurance for everybody, nobody would be worse off financially, that there would be no cuts to Medicaid, that no one currently with insurance would be left without it, that state lines would be eliminated, and that everybody would be taken care of. The current healthcare proposals accomplish none of those things, that I can see.
President Trump can perhaps be forgiven for the discrepancy on account of his complete incompetence and utter disinterest in details of policy and administration, which, as I noted in my tediously long reply to Avedis, is largely why he has run into trouble so quickly on other matters, as well. I doubt anyone actually believes that he so much as read the draft legislation or will do so before signing it. Tax reform will play out in a similar manner, no doubt.
David,
Who is telling you that Trump is incompetent? If no conspiracy then who and why are all these intel leaks happening? Think about what I said about the damage done to intel ops if the WaPo story is true about intercepting and decoding the Russian ambassador's transmission. Think, man, think. When has something like THAT happened before? It hasn't. Sorry to say, but you're just making stuff up in defense of the leftist meme, Lot's of that these days. Someone is leaking highly classified material to the press to damage Trump. Why? Who? Why are they willing to damage US intel ops to damage Trump? You can't just go waltzing past that.
Re; Obamacare. The only incompetent in that situation is Obama. The concept was highly flawed. This is squarely in my current area of operation - and no, I'm not the janitor or the guy in the copy room. Obamacare was doomed to die. US insurance companies are pulling out of the markets. There will be states with no carriers offering ACA products in 2018. Why? Because of absurdly stupid design of the ACA by Team Obama. The insurance companies are losing money hand over fist because the stupid design caused both insurmountable adverse selection and moral hazard. Seriously, don't even try to argue with me over this because this is what I do day in and day out (the financials, the cost drivers, the general economics of Obama care itself for one of the top 5 insurance companies in the US).
Nothing can be done to save Obamacare and Trump should let it die on its own. However, he's trying to be a hero and replace it with something that might work. Lot's I can't tell you, but I must say that you are beginning to appear as someone who is allowing himself to be brainwashed by leftist media. You're smarter than that.
avedis
Lisa,
I agree re; civil society currently experiencing a decline into death.
However, I think there will a rapid and unpredictable acceleration if Trump is unseated. 10s of millions of Trump supporters are going to be very pissed off. They're going to figure that there is no point in voting anymore because their vote doesn't count. However, a lot of these see themselves as true patriots. So it's not like they're going to just throw up their hands and quietly grumble.
Then there are many Bernie Sanders supporters that know their candidate got totally screwed by the DNC and they are going to be thinking about revolution too, though they are not the patriots that Trump's people are.
And what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Coup d'état by intel leaks is going to become the norm. At that point we are a banana republic. Again, agree that we are heading that way anyhow, but the acceleration may have some surprisingly unpleasant symptoms.
Remember, this country was founded on revolution. Revolt over what? Some taxes perceived as onerous and taxes without representation. That's it. The colonists could have easily just gone along with it all. maybe they don't make 'em like they used to. That's what the elitists are smarmy leftists are counting on. History is full of examples proving the coup effecters wrong. History right up to current, actually. Just because egg heads and latte sippers can't conceive of personally doing anything like what I'm thinking might happen, doesn't mean it won't. I recall being a little kid when the Detrit riots were going down and the ramifications for the future of Detroit are still in evidence. Well, Trump supporters aren't a bunch of ghetto idiots. They won't burn down their own neighborhoods.
What? Won't happen because only n*******s riot? Yep, there's more of that leftist snobbery revealing itself for the racist hypocrites that they are.
I'm with Lisa 100% and am disgusted to my core that so many people are just okie dokie with banana republic politics because their person didn't win. IMO, such people will be lucky to survive what may be coming. And then they suck off the media tit to convince themselves that Trump is doing this to himself because he's "incompetent" or [insert media provided excuse du jour for destroying the country]. Whatever one thinks of Freud, he was spot on with the concept of projection.
avedis
And re; "incompetent" - Hillary spent like a $billion on her campaign, had all the support of the MSM blaring in her favor and belittling Trump 24/7, all the resources of the Obama government at her disposal, all the resources of the DNC working for her and her alone, AND SHE STILL LOST!
Now that is incompetence.
Then the Dems double down on stupid and start some idiotic blame Russia game with 0 evidence for any Russia effect in the election, let alone evidence of an actual Russian info op.
Raging incompetence and more of the projection.
avedis
Avedis
This isn't about whether Clinton was competent at campaigning. Plainly, she was not. It is now a question of whether Trump is competent at governance. Plainly, he is not. Your attempt at misdirection is both transparent and unproductive. I did not make Trump do the things I listed and the media did not invent them, either, although it was more than happy to report them. However, had he or his advisors had an ounce of sense, they wouldn't have done those things, and the media would have had to find something less serious to play with.
On the likely consequences of impeachment, I agree. I think a lot of Democrats who despise Trump have got it into their heads that the sooner the impeachment process is invoked, the better. They do not seem to realize or care that this will not restore what they think of as normalcy. For better or for worse, Trump has been elected president, and the time to talk about impeachment is after, not before, you have proof of "high crimes and misdemeanors."
I think actually on the general decline of Western civilization we probably agree too. It's just that where you seem to think Trump offers a sliver of hope, I don't see any hope at all.
David,
We are in agreement -- "he shouldn't have staffed the White House with relatives and in-laws." Surely some apparatchik could have taken the new non-politico President aside and advised him thusly. Apparently, he was not given that courtesy.
It is given that a President's family has his ear, but one does not put that fact on display. There are many in the machine who would love to see him fail, even at the expense of our nation.
I have been horrified time and again by how his party has apparently left Mr. Trump flapping in the breeze. The first intimation was the sparseness of heavy-hitters at his acceptance speech. Even his own party was suffering sour grapes (or to be charitable, deer-in-headlights syndrome.)
So while you may technically be correct, and he is often hoist by his own petard, at the same time I do not see support and guidance for him, which he dearly needs, which any man assuming such an office needs.
avedis,
I know we are in agreement in our disgust with the Democratic Banana Republicans. Apparent outsiders on a liberal military blog -- an oddity in itself -- clearly we are many.
Like you, I am amazed at this make-believe Russian conspiracy to deny the great Hill her due! Who concocted this, and why are the rank and file so willing to accept what is nothing but innuendo -- very loud, boisterous and magnificent innuendo. Even a Le Carre fan would find this story line piker stuff!
I don't follow the purveyors of fantasy, but Ranger Jim does, so I asked him from whence the hopeful crucifiers-in-wait got their data (he had originally said it was a criminal investigation.) As we listened to the rabid talking heads imagining the smoking gun soon to be revealed, he admitted, they got nuthin'.
How can we be so stupid? I find it all very embarrassing.
We have trouble enough here in River City, we don't need to conjure further sorrows by tearing down our President before he's had a chance to do anything, really.
Lisa,
Some liberals seem positively gleeful about being the perpetrators of an anti-Russian witch hunt instead of the victims of one for a change. What was it Marx said about history repeating itself as farce? I don't recall any of these people being so upset when, say, they learned that JFK had all kinds of back channels with Khrushchev. No, that was sound diplomacy. But Trump... treason!
On the support part, I know for a fact that several at least on the foreign policy side of the Republican establishment wanted jobs in the new administration because they thought they could tame Trump. (If you glanced at the Times and Post op-ed pages at the time, as I always do to check the pulse of elite sentiment, you would have seen them publicly weighing the pros and cons of this.) They were given the cold shoulder by the Trump team.
And rightly so, maybe. If you want to break with politics as usual, you may need to dispense with the usual politicians.
But if you don't have competent people of your own to replace them, then you're in a bad situation. Trump either tried but was unable to recruit such people, or, I think more likely, was unable to recognize his own potential faults clearly enough to realize he needed such people.
I have had other military people tell me that one of the most frustrating situations can be the arrival of a new lieutenant, fresh from college and officer training, who fails to realize the limitations of his own experience and therefore fails to rely on an NCO to get him through the rough patches until he finds his own feet. The stakes are not so deadly in politics, but the principle I think is the same.
Lisa and David,
Re; Trump's alleged incompetence and nepotism
Trump has been saying all along that they're out to get him, he was "wiretapped", etc.
It should be painfully obvious by now that this is true.
Who could he trust? His own family.
He's got moles and leaks everywhere. I do not think there has ever been a POTUS in recent history that has been so despised by insiders and so internally opposed. You blame him for the challenges he faces. I do not. I do not think he is analogous to a butter bar fresh out of OCS. I think he is more the Captain of a ship crewed by mutinous pirates.
He's been in office < 1/2 a year. He's facing an internal revolt. Yet you quickly judge him as incompetent. I don't think that's reasonable.
I didn't bring up Clinton's incompetence to misdirect. Each person much be assessed on his or her own merits. I brought her up because no MSM has cracked on her about incompetence like they have Trump. In fact, it wasn't her fault. It was Russia! This is further illustration of how the system is stacked against Trump.
avedis
David,
As Lisa noted above, you are clearly a scholar and a gentleman. However, I think your problem with Trump and what I am saying is related to your scholarly gentlemanliness.
You object to Trump's style. It offends someone of your bent. Honestly, I don't like his style either.
However, it is substance that counts at the end of the day. I think it is too early in the game to assess the substance (I do like that already Trump has killed TPP, illegal border crossings are down 77% and there is indication of increased cooperation with Russia in fighting al Qaeda/ISIS). Also, needing to be taken into account are all the attempts to obfuscate Trump's policies and to impeach him.
I think your assessment of Trump at this point is unjustifiably harsh.
I think your dismissal of the level of involvement of deep state in Trumps perceived problems is naïve and poorly thought out.
Otherwise, I do think we agree on most everything.
avedis
So far we only have Trump's word that he was wiretapped and denials from others. Your faith in the man is impressive, I will say that.
It isn't really that I object to his style. I honestly care more about actions. Not ratifying TPP was probably a good idea, although it does leave the door open for China. I thought the intent behind the immigration restrictions was good although the first of the two orders was horrendously badly written (again -- incompetence). Unfortunately, Trump and his associates made so many comments about a Muslim ban, and linking that first order specifically to the Muslim ban idea, that it left the door open to the courts to reject it. Again, incompetence.
It's not that I expected everyone in Washington to roll over and be nice to him simply because he was sworn in as president. It's that Trump walked into a possibly hostile setting and proceeded to give them exactly what they wanted.
There are only 24 hours in the day, and only so many staffers in the White House. Every minute spent planning a response to Trump's latest rant on Twitter is a minute that cannot be spent on something more productive. Every hour spent dissembling about Comey and Russia is an hour that cannot be spent on other things. There are actions that Trump has taken and that have had predictable negative consequences.
You could distill this down to the Twitter feed alone, if you wish. Managing the responses to it takes a lot of time and complicates relationships on the Hill with other Republicans. The administration would run more smoothly without Trump's Twitter account. It's not that I object to what he posts; it's simply a fact. Either Trump does not see this or does not care. More to the point, either Trump's closest advisors do not see this or do not care. So we return to the question of incompetence.
Above all, Trump assured us that as an experienced businessperson he could make quick and effective deals in Washington. It is clear that he was wrong. When political leaders and faithful followings encounter such problems, they usually prefer to blame a conspiracy by others rather than accept responsibility for their own shortcomings. So far Trump is a very typical politician in that respect.
"So far we only have Trump's word that he was wiretapped and denials from others. Your faith in the man is impressive, I will say that."
David, come on. You're just not thinking. It has been leaked that Flynn was "wire tapped". Now it has been leaked that Kuschner was "wire tapped". Either the Democrats and the liberal media are lying about this or they were "wire tapped". You decide.
If the former, then 95% of the hoopla over Trump + Russia and all the investigations is utter rubbish and there is a crazy conspiracy of lies designed to derail and impeach Trump.
If the latter, then there is an extremely high probability that Trump himself was "wire tapped" - if for no other reason than Flynn and Kuschner talk to Trump. And there is still a conspiracy to derail and impeach Trump and it's not only crazy, it involves criminal leaks from the intelligence community (i.e. deep state).
This is really simple. The ball is not bouncing very fast or high. You should be able to follow it easily. I cannot understand what the problem is other than deep seated bias.
Do you have an alternative that I have missed? I'm all ears.
avedis
David says,
I have had other military people tell me that one of the most frustrating situations can be the arrival of a new lieutenant, fresh from college and officer training, who fails to realize the limitations of his own experience and therefore fails to rely on an NCO to get him through the rough patches until he finds his own feet.
I have heard this from Jim, too. While it is very true, the saddest situation is when the NCO is not kind and does not take the new leader's hand, so to speak. I believe he still has some very unpleasant recollections about this.
Of course, some NCO's did provide the needed help, and they were great. They had parked their egos at the door.
Lisa,
This is a fair point. Look, Avedis seems to be reading my comments as me thinking that Washington was waiting to faithfully execute decisions made by the Trump White House. I don't think they were. My point is simply that Trump's incompetence has made the situation far worse than it had to be and quite likely will ruin any chance he has, if it has not already, of making this movement successful.
However, if you think you are coordinating a political insurgency against the Washington establishment, then it is a given that your team is going to have to be good enough to be self-reliant. Obviously with Trump this is not the case.
Avedis,
Trump wasn't wiretapped. Nothing you have indicated here suggests he was. If you're going to claim that someone was specifically targeted to have all their communications intercepted, you'll need to have some evidence to back up that claim, which you don't have.
I have half an inkling Flynn might have been.
The bigger question, and the one Democrats seem cheerfully ready to overlook, is the likelihood that most of us are having our communications routinely intercepted without wiretaps and consequently, at least for those deep enough inside the security state, it isn't necessary to "tap" any "wires" anymore, because they just use a driftnet the size of the planet instead.
The other bigger question is why, if you think there was such a sinister and far-reaching conspiracy in the security state to undermine Trump, they (a) also revealed damaging information about Clinton during a vital point in the election campaign, and (b), assuming they're lying, why they haven't chosen some more incriminating lies than the distinctly borderline stuff so far.
David,
I never said - or meant to imply - that it's every member of the intelligence community involved. It's a few Obama hold overs and maybe some Bush era ones as well. So it's not a completely coordinated attack.
Furthermore, the plan of attack is clearly meant to be centered on the stupid Russian connection/ Russian election influence meme.
For both reasons we don't have more incriminating evidence. That and because there's no there, there.
I repeat that if you're scooping up communications of person of interest A and B and both A and B talk to C, then you're intercepting C as well. That's a no brainer.
I see what you're doing. You're taking my undeniably obvious statements and your trying to put a hyperbolic spin on them so as to make them out to be indicative of a "crazy" conspiracy theory which can then be hand waved away as all conspiracy theories must be by "reasonable" people.
As for Trump being "incompetent" because he's an insurgent candidate and wasn't prepared for resistance, well sometimes insurgents win and sometimes they don't. When you go hunting dangerous game, despite best preparation and efforts, sometimes you eat the game and sometimes it eats you. Such is life.
avedis
David,
You're still in denial over the fact that either 1. The media is making up damaging lies about a Russian plot to "hack" the election n collusion with Trump (itself a kooky conspiracy theory) or 2. the intelligence community is actually leaking highly classified intel (Russian ambassador intercepts to HQ) ....all for the purpose of damaging Trump.
I noticed that you glided right past that again in your mission to frame it all as a kooky "conspiracy theory".
avedis
No, it's not that I think nobody is leaking classified information. It's that I think the conspiracy exists only in your own head. Exactly how much experience do you have working in government bureaucracies, or any bureaucracies for that matter, or any group of people for that matter? How effective are secret conspiracies usually? You're attributing superhuman organizing abilities to people like Clinton and Obama, and have no evidence to back it up that isn't circumstantial and easily explained by other theories.
The fact that people in the intelligence community are leaking highly classified intel is proof that people in the intelligence community do not like Trump. From this, you've concluded that there is a secret organization inside the state that takes its marching orders from Clinton and Obama. Naturally, you've never seen these orders and you don't know who they are.
Does this secret group of yours include Comey?
David,
I have ample experience in bureaucracies.
Again, you are resorting to hyperbolic thinking that I never employed in an effort to make the idea that ideological holdovers are causing problems. There is no need for anyone to have super-human organizational abilities. All you need is a few well placed moles and a few sympathetic worker bees.
However, IMO, it's more than that. The deep state is utterly fixated on the USA as an imperial global hegemon. All you need to do is listen to them to know this. The State Dept is permeated with such people in addition to the intelligence agencies and the DoD for that matter. Clinton would have been their dream come true. Pence would most likely be as well. Listen to what both of them say about Russia being the big bad enemy.
What Trump expressed as his vision for the USA - especially the part about partnering with Russia - threatens their world view. It threatens all kinds of schemes and dirty deeds they have implemented in recent years or wish to implement in the near future. Russian power is a major block to the imperialists designs.
To dismiss this as mere "dislike" of Trump is yet more hand waving away of a serious systemic issue.
The information that has been leaked s the kind of info that only a handful of people would have access to and, in order for a leak to occur w/o an arrest of the leaker, there would have to be some level of conspiracy to be occurring. Has to be.
I do not understand your fixation on Comey. I think he is a tool of the people I'm talking about that found himself between a rock and a hard place after playing a failed hand of politics. He compromised himself and then, as a result, was played over and over until he stuck and had to be tossed out as bad garbage. He's a loser.
avedis
shoot....typing while on the phone..."Again, you are resorting to hyperbolic thinking that I never employed in an effort to make the idea that ideological holdovers are causing problems APPEAR FAR FETCHED".
avedis
David,
I see what the problem is between us. I've been analyzing incomplete data, professionally, most of my adult life. You seem to want standards of proof only available in court rooms.
Reading this: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis/art9.html
Might helpful. This is the mindset I use when working.
avedis
Not to worry about typos. I am guilty of many, as Lisa and Jim sometimes remind me.
The reason I mention Comey is that for one reason or another he is in the center of this. If he is the tool of this conspiracy, why would he leak information damaging Clinton? For that matter, why didn't this conspiracy leak all of their damaging information on Trump before the election, rather than waiting until after the inauguration? It seems very foolish of them.
If you have indeed been professionally analyzing data all your life, then you are probably well aware that the more grandiose your claims, the more substantial the evidence must be. Yet you offer no evidence at all of this great conspiracy of yours, other than that it's a useful way of explaining Trump's failures without having to worry about his own manifest incompetence.
Have you considered that perhaps the people in charge of this conspiracy are in fact aliens rather than Obama and Clinton? Certainly there is no proof that it is NOT aliens. Perhaps aliens are Democrats. That would make sense.
David,
You are still avoiding the fact the WaPo essentially reported, based on leaks, that the US (NSA no doubt) had cracked the Russian encryption. I think you are just not comprehending how massive a felonious leak that is and just how damaging to US intelligence operations.
Snowdon had to flee to Russia after revealing US intel secrets.
Comey is not in the center of this.
I think aliens are responsible for Trudeau and for vinegar on French fries, but not what is happening in Washington DC. It's the close, but not quite right, imitation of humanness that is the tell.
avedis
On vinegar you are no doubt correct.
On the leaks, no, I get it. I'm not a lawyer but at the very least it seems on its face to be damaging to U.S. security interests and is presumably a serious crime.
Unless of course the Russians were using regular cell phones because they hoped the NSA would pick it up. See the one thing about the Russian angle that I do buy is that they wanted Trump as president. I don't think Trump is a Russian spy but Clinton was clearly going to be less favorable to Russia than Trump might be. Still, what Russia really benefits from is a Washington crippled by partisan infighting, which is more or less exactly what you have now. So what I fear isn't that Trump is Russia's spy, just that Russia has taken advantage of the divided political culture. I am sure Russia would be thrilled to see America brought even lower in the event that the liberals succeed in their current impeachment campaign, since that would damage American political culture for generations, maybe permanently.
But that is my own conspiracy theory. It's probably wrong, but offered as food for thought about Russian intentions.
I think as I have said before you and I probably share a general view of the likely future but disagree on what forces are getting us there. I just don't see any need for your theories about moles and secret orders from Obama and Clinton, and since there is no evidence to support those theories, I dismiss them. You've got a secret bureaucracy whose mostly paranoid members still think of Russia as the main adversary and a president who from the outset has proclaimed himself at war with the Washington bureaucracy while trying to improve relations with Russia. On the whole, it would be more surprising if no leaks emerged. There's no need for a coordinated plot.
You might think Democrats would be more sympathetic given that they were once the victims of the anti-communist witch hunts, but no, now that the tables have turned, they are more than happy to play prosecutor instead. There's human nature for you, I suppose.
In the absence of a grand conspiracy, what becomes relevant is Trump's manifest incompetence. I did not make up the various things I listed for you earlier, and nobody forced him to do those things. Now they have become fodder for the propaganda campaign against him, and it is proving to be a very effective campaign. I do not know what might happen if a genuine populist with actual expertise managed to take the White House, because so far that has never happened. Instead what you have is an incompetent billionaire trying to play the populist and not doing it very well, which is what I predicted last fall.
David,
"Unless of course the Russians were using regular cell phones because they hoped the NSA would pick it up"
Nah. That would be a red flag that the Russians were conducting an info op.
Agree that Russia benefits from partisan fighting within the US govt. They also benefit from idiot partisans leaking highly classified intel.
That's been one of points all along. These anti-Trump people are fanatical kamikazes. There's something about Trump that makes some people go totally bananas to the point of self-destruction. Lisa's point too. I have been trying to understand what this is, but have failed so far. Lisa indicates she has also failed.
I was hoping you were one such person, as you are willing to open up about your perceptions but you are more moderate. You just have the opinion that Trump is incompetent. I disagree in that I think he is no more or less incompetent than any new POTUS; especially one facing constant kamikaze attack.
In WW2, in the Pacific, the Kamikaze came into its fullest expression during the battle for Okinawa. The US Navy had a massive armada of ships off the island in support of Marine and Army land forces. No ships = no support = an evening up of the odds re; the land battle. The Japanese had some 80,000 troops on island; more if laborers of various Asian extraction were to be included. The Japanese sought to at least prolong that battle as long as possible so as to have more time to prepare the home islands for the invasion that would immediately follow a US victory on Okinawa. The damage inflicted on the US Navy by the Kamikazes was horrible. The Navy screamed at the land forces to get the island secure, faster, so they could get their ships the hell out of there.
At any rate, despite the damage inflicted by Kamikazes combined with a fanatical, yet well organized, defense in depth by the Japanese ground troops, the island fell to the US after approximately three months of heavy combat. All but a few hundred of the Japanese military personnel were KIA or committed suicide. US losses were atrocious. Sadly, somewhere between 80,000 and 120,000 civilians, caught in the crossfire with no where to run to, were killed.
Ironically, the costly resistance by the Japanese designed to delay US invasion of Japan itself, resulted in the decision to drop A-bombs on Japan and end the war nearly instantly. The experience of Okinawa - including the Kamikazes - taught Americans that attacking Japan in a conventional way was going to be far too costly. The Kamikazes and fanatical resistance by the ground pounders played a moral role in the decision as well. The Japanese were clearly crazy and did not value their own lives. Incinerating them by the tens of thousands - or even hundreds of thousands - at a time was like the moral equivalent of killing ants.
History often rhymes.
avedis
David,
Thank you for the link to the CIA Monograph.
Avedis,
Thank you for reaching for that syllogism which might just reveal the connection aliens --> malt + chips --> DC leaks.
I've enjoyed your dialog. You each hold your own.
Although I do love taking credit for things, I believe the CIA report is Avedis's link.
Avedis --
I wouldn't say I "just" have that opinion. So far, however, that has been the defining feature of his presidency. What the security state might have contrived against him had he been more competent remains to be seen.
You are of course free to remind me of the last time a president, within the first few months of coming to office, has done some of the things as laughably foolish as this administration, not just the mishandling of the Russian issues but also, to give one other example, the horribly poorly written first immigration order. It is widely reported, and not denied, that Trump must be briefed with lots of pictures and less than a page of text. He lacks even the self-awareness to realize he would have more time to govern the country, as would his staff, if he simply put his smartphone away. In that respect at least, I suppose Trump is the perfect president for these digital times. An electronics addict to represent electronics addicts.
The idea that "the Japanese," writ large, did not value their own lives plainly is false. Beyond that, I'm not sure what historical lesson you are attempting to draw here, but it is not a very useful one. I can go to any number of other sites and read liberals using exactly the same epithets and generalizations to describe Trump supporters.
Who do you suppose benefits while you and they search for the most imaginative ways to condemn and despise each other?
David,
I a not saying ^I^ think the Japanese are or were ants. I am saying that is what Americans concluded at the time.
Here is Kathy Griffin. An American news person and someone who rings in the new year every year on CNN with outspoken ultra liberal homosexual CNN reporter friend Anderson Cooper, doing a Jihadist imitation. Lovely accepting liberal having a little fun, I guess - and showing that leftist are sick nutjobs. Sodom and Gomorrah with Karl Marx in the oval office and lots of dead conservatives; the
cesspool that is the liberal subconscious. That is what they are consistently telling people that they are.http://nypost.com/2017/05/30/kathy-griffin-photographed-with-beheaded-trump/
The perfect pic to cap off this thread.
avedis
"I wouldn't say I "just" have that opinion. So far, however, that has been the defining feature of his presidency. What the security state might have contrived against him had he been more competent remains to be seen."
Boloney. You're getting that straight from the sicko kamikazes that think it's funny to parade around with Trump's severed head.
I could point out failures to pass legislation in any administration.
I recall you getting upset when I suggested that a street full of rioting leftists is a good opportunity to deploy a belt fed machinegun. I think you said I was an extremist or crazy...or both. Well, is Kathy Griffin a crazy extremist or not? She works for CNN. Why do you allow CNN - and similar leftist slime (Salon, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, etc, etc) - to form your opinions for you?
I mean you're not in DC. You're not in the Capitol participating in policy formation. You getting your info second hand.
avedis
In crafting that list I deliberately stayed away from things that were based solely on unnamed sources and denied by the administration. Amusing that Trump supporters won't even trust Trump's own words on the question of his competence.
I abhor Twitter, but there is one account I monitor, since the person who runs it obviously thinks it is important, and he is important to me. It is riddled with inane rants, poor grammar and spelling, and occasionally, presumably because he is too tired, simply strange things like last night's post about "covfefe." That's the President of the United States of America speaking to the world there. It should be embarrassing to you.
He is simply not a sufficiently serious person. I am sorry to say that, I really am. You'll recall I wished you luck with him in the fall, and I meant that. But Trump's problems begin with himself, not the security state. Maybe you are right that there was a group conspiring within it to bring him down. Maybe I'm right that it's more likely it's individuals who are not taking orders from Obama and Clinton. Either way, Trump was asinine enough, boorish enough, and simply incompetent enough to freely hand them all the ammunition they need, at least so far. That is why I call him incompetent.
On the Griffin thing, I prefer not to get my news from television, which would include CNN. In a spirit of generosity, though, I did decide to check Griffin's relationship with CNN.
Co-host of the New Year's Eve show.
I can see now how CNN is a terrible, reprobrate, and anti-American news service in a way I never imagined before. I mean, my goodness, if that's who they employ as a co-host on New Year's, what does that say about their completely unrelated news division?
David,
She's good friends with CNN's Anderson Cooper and a CNN rep.
I had a thought about machining gunning leftist protestors......if they get shot, they are just incompetent protestors, right?
Women who get raped are just incompetent women.
People that get ripped off by con artists are just incompetent investors.
Minorities that claim victimhood due to discrimination are incompetent minorities.
I get it now. I never knew you were such a hardcore libertarian. Welcome to the club!
avedis
David,
As for seriousness, Hillary Clinton drunkenly doing a face plant on the sidewalk at a 9/11 memorial? Screeching "Why am I not 50 points ahead?"... when asked during Congressional testimony why no USMC security detail at the Benghazi complex she responded, "I see these Marines all over the world and they're just a bunch of teenagers....". Come on. That's someone to be taken seriously?
Or Bernie Sanders, looking and sounding like the mad professor from "Back to the Future". A nutjob communist from Podunk Vermont with his 60s radicalism.
You love style over substance, don't you?
Style can be faked. Substance not so much.
I like Trump's proposed policies and I think he's doing fine.
And his wife isn't a poorly dressed hulking gorilla calling me a racist. That alone puts Trump several levels above Obama. Michelle/Michael was a massive embarrassment to the US simply by existing.
I could live without the tweets, but a lot of his supporters love them. Keeps an open channel between POTUS and his supporters. The tweets aren't intended for his detractors. Detractors gonna detract no matter what.
avedis
I did not know she was friends with Cooper. As I say, since I don't get my news from television, it won't really change my life. Should I take from the Bill O'Reilly saga that Fox News was okay with harassing women right up until they fired him? Maybe in both cases the explanation is that the networks don't really care because they expect that the audiences who help determine their advertising rates don't really care. That strikes me as likely.
On protesters, well, yeah, clearly. Many of them are grossly ignorant of government affairs and are engaging in methods that are obviously completely ineffective. When people like you dream of machine gunning them instead of joining them, obviously the protests are failing to sway you. Then, when they fail, they blame the system, or you, or whatever else. So ignorant, engaging in unproductive tactics, and unable to realize they're ineffective. Yeah, I would call that incompetent. Wouldn't you?
David,
That's it. I throw my hands up. White flag waving :-)
avedis
David,
Thanks for setting me straight on the link.
Griffin is certainly no "news person", though she is vetted by them, appears on the program and consorts with Cooper, et al. Her status as a comic is their plausible deniability of blame.
While CNN once had claim to some substance, now, like most "news" broadcasters, feel themselves entitled to be "newsmakers". The bias and slant is brazen.
Some people obviously thought her "joke" a good one. It is a tad beyond the evisceration and beheading (metaphorical) of Mr. Trump which has been going on in the press circus since at 2015. The comic just delivered a visual.
I have written about the comedown in U.S. humor. Someone like Andy Borowitz used to be often amusing. Now that he works for The Empire, he is simply a bore, and a painful one. It would be as though the Komintern had hired a dedicated humorist for its cause.
Prior to the election, The New Yorker pandered to its liberal base by running an entire issue of anti-Trump cartoons. The magazine had confidently joined in a very unmerry band of pranksters whose lack of restraint, taste, anything decent, really, failed in its project.
Notice not too long after Mr. Trump's inauguration, the magazine's cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff -- who had been going strong, having been just interviewed by the New York Times -- stepped down. Neither of those two major outlets understand the tenor of the times, and it seems they will just continue in their same tone-deaf harangue.
To me, humor is a great barometer for a nation's health. Usually, we all find things that unite us in humor. It is the one safe area.
Now, there is no question that while some expect, are inured to and are entertained by the angry vulgarity, others are estranged by it.
The outlets don't seem to care, as long as someone is paying for the print.
Lisa,
This goes back to the "eventizing" theory I mentioned earlier. I know what I said about them not caring but maybe it goes beyond that. I don't know a great deal about CNN besides the obvious because I really don't watch it, but take the New York Times and the Washington Post. Obviously, the lion's share of their readership are expecting columns condemning Trump. Those newspapers are happy to deliver it, even if it means cutting back on investigative journalism so they can afford more op-eds.
One doesn't have to agree with Noam Chomsky's politics to appreciate his criticism of the mainstream media. You always have to ask yourself: who is the client? For the news media, it isn't us, the people watching or reading it. It's the people purchasing ad space.
We're not the client, we're the product.
If sensational editorializing -- severed heads and all -- is going to deliver more of an audience than telling the truth, then it doesn't take a lot of intelligence to predict what is likely to happen.
David,
Correct. The advertisers pay for the existence of media.
Not a "public service" in truth, just a money- making venture.
One doesn't have to agree with Noam Chomsky's politics to appreciate his criticism of the mainstream media. You always have to ask yourself: who is the client? For the news media, it isn't us, the people watching or reading it. It's the people purchasing ad space.
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