Bookworm Beat 2/1/17 — the “Democrat Implosion” issue

Emblem of Democrat Implosion
What you’re seeing here is a walking, talking symbol of the end of the Democrat Party.

If my internet reading had a chyron, of the type you see on cable news, under every article I read you would see the words “Democrat Implosion,” along with headlines about walking vaginas, feminists advocating sharia, Senators weeping over terrorists, and other insanity from Progressives who are no longer on the verge of a nervous breakdown because they have crossed the verge and taken a dive into the abyss of insanity. Most of the links in this round-up illustrate my point.

The cognitive dissonance about Trump’s alleged Hitlerism. Throughout the election cycle, Scott Adams pointed out the two different realities in which people were functioning: The first, the winning one, saw Donald Trump as a charismatic showman who has the skills to return America to being a constitutionally guided country — a state of things that is the complete opposite of the soft administrative and judicial tyranny under which we’ve been laboring for too long. The second, the losing side, saw Trump as Hitler. I’ve even got a nice satirical cartoon to make that point:

trump-incredibly-stupid-godwins-rule-attacks

What worries Adams is that, if people refuse to abandon a reality that they’ve constructed when the real world intrudes in stark opposition to their mental paradigm, they can go a bit nuts:

I’m talking about ordinary people doing ordinary things to turn Trump into an actual Hitler. For example, if protesters start getting violent, you could expect forceful reactions eventually. And that makes Trump look more like Hitler. I can think of dozens of ways the protesters could cause the thing they are trying to prevent. In other words, they can wish it into reality even though it is the very thing they are protesting.

In the 3rd dimension of persuasion, the protesters need to be proven right, and they will do whatever it takes to make that happen. So you might see the protesters inadvertently create the police state they fear.

If you are looking for the tells that this dangerous situation is developing, notice how excited/happy the Trump critics seem to be – while angry at the same time – that Trump’s immigration ban fits their belief system. If you see people who are simply afraid of Trump, they are probably harmless. But the people who are excited about any Hitler-analogy-behavior by Trump might be leading the country to a police state without knowing it.

If you’re looking for concrete examples of what Adams rightly characterizes as lunacy from the anti-Trump crowd, look no further than this hysterical denunciation of Gorsuch, which has nothing to do with Gorsuch himself and everything to do with blocking Trump:

It’s time for the sweet resistance we’re seeing in the streets to start showing up in the U.S. Senate.

Democrats in the chamber have the votes to hold up exactly one major appointment from President Trump without any Republican help. And they should fight Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court with every vote they’ve got — even if it means ending the ability to filibuster any high court nominations in the future.

They have no other choice.

This is an appointment by the biggest popular vote loser of the modern era to fill a stolen seat. Pretending this is just Senate business as usual would pat the GOP on the head for pulling off the heist of the century, and it would give Trump a thumbs up for his first-week “shock and awe” campaign of executive orders designed to roll back immigration, the Affordable Care Act and voting rights.

And yes, it all has to do with that “popular vote” rubric, as if it mattered. Progressives are deaf to the fact that, if the Constitution called for a popular vote, Trump would have campaigned differently and probably won that campaign too, simply by getting more people out to vote across America. Lefties, on the other hand, had already maxed out their Blue voter turnout in their Blue urban enclaves. Just remember, this is what the election map looked like:

trump-land

election-hillary-archipelago

And if you want a nice comparison of ordinary Americans and the vileness that the Left displayed on that “women’s march” (which accounted for a minute percentage of American women, with that percentage concentrated in Hillary’s archipelago) get a load of these photos, comparing the women’s march to the March for Life (which the media predictably ignored).

Fortunately, conservatives are also benefitting from Nietzsche’s insight that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger:

Progressives aren’t interested in what we have to say, or in having a “reasonable dialog” with us. It’s nothing but “shut up or we’ll shut you up!”. This is what their shouty, dialed-up-to-11 rhetoric is designed to do. And this generally works, or at least, that’s how it has worked in the past. But what has happened over time is a process very much like how we produced antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Like a dose of penicillin, the shouty rhetoric takes out “nice” conservatives or conservatives who decide they have better things to do than to get shouted at by shouty progressives. But some conservatives manage to survive, so the dosage is upped: the shouts get even louder and the attacks get more vicious and are extended beyond the political arena into personal lives. This creates a very hostile environment. But even it drives out or silences many conservatives, it also creates a new strain of tough conservatives who don’t mind fighting, who like to fight, and can throw 2 punches for every one they take. I’m thinking of Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart, and Milo Yiannapoulos. To this we can add the guy who wrote this book, Doug Giles, and Townhall.com columnist Kurt Schlichter. There are probably others I’ve missed. And of course, what is now the most imperviously resistant conservative ever, Donald Trump, who is so impervious that nobody really knew for sure until a couple of months ago that he even was conservative. Oh sure, there were indications, but there were indications the other way, too, so it was kind of a guessing game as to how he would actually govern until he started naming individuals to fill the various open cabinet positions.

Read the rest here.

And here’s another good post — Robert Stacy McCain’s about the psychosis that is Third Wave feminism. I can’t get my real-world friends — nice women and good mothers — to understand that what we’re seeing isn’t their Mother’s feminism any more.

The media is the enemy. Does anyone at this point doubt that the media is no longer reporting news but that it has instead hunkered down to attacking President Trump on every front, by fair means (which it doesn’t have) and foul (including lying, spinning, folding, twisting, and mutilating)? Kelly Riddell has a 10-point list of Trump’s entirely valid reasons for hating the media. And just today, John Hinderaker pointed to a disgracefully biased piece of writing from the AP.

Melanie Phillips, watching from England, has her usual astute observations on the subject, beginning with the deconstruction of one of the media’s first, damning lies:

On Thursday, the Washington Post published a story about the first interview with the new President on ABC TV. This story said the interview “revealed a man who is obsessed with his own popularity and eager to provide evidence of his likability, even if that information doesn’t match reality”.

The Washington Post story dwelt upon quotes from Trump boasting about the size of his standing ovations at the CIA; claimed that he was “preoccupied with two variables that are gumming up his claim of being widely beloved: losing the popular vote to Clinton and hosting an inauguration crowd that was smaller than in previous years”; quoted him boasting he could have won more of the popular vote had it not been for voter fraud; and said he kept claiming the crowd at the inauguration was “massive”, and that unlike his interviewer David Muir he was anxious to drag the conversation back to the size of that crowd. The clips from the interview video that accompanied this story were cut accordingly to match this account.

If you read only that, you’d be pretty alarmed that someone with a serious psychological disorder was now the leader of the free world. But the full transcript of this ABC interview, also published in the Washington Post, paints a very different picture indeed.

Most of it was about substantive issues, such as the Mexico wall, illegal immigrants, ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, voter fraud. Only a small part of the interview concerned Trump’s popularity. It was Muir who brought up the subject, referring to the crowd size at the inauguration and asking Trump when his popularity would “matter just a little less”.

It was only in response to these questions by Muir that Trump insisted that the crowds were so large and that the media had distorted the numbers to demean him. He repeatedly told Muir that he was only talking about this because Muir had brought it up. The Washington Post story removed those protestations.

From the context of the interview, it was clear that Trump was only going on at length about crowd numbers and the CIA ovation and so on to make the point that the media had tried to demean him by distorting the reality. None of that was in the Post story. Instead it created the impression that President Trump was pathologically obsessed by his own vanity.

I can attest to the power and reach of that lie because, the day after the interview, the lie showed up on the feed of every single Progressive Facebook friend I had, along with hysterical ruminations about Trump’s sanity or lack thereof.

Bravo to Trump for attacking the media: “I don’t watch CNN. . . . I don’t like watching fake news.” If Trump were the tyrant the Progressives claim he is, he would imprison everyone at CNN or order their executions. As it is, he just calls ’em as he sees em.

The Democrat retreat from reality. Matthew Continetti wrote about the Democrat retreat from reality only four days ago, and his article is already out of date because President Trump’s later actions furthered the Progressives’ slide into madness. Nevertheless, the principles are still good and, as is the case with everything Continetti writes, it’s fun to read:

I like to imagine Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer nodding sagely as Joe Manchin, the only Democratic senator with a modicum of common sense, asks a group of Trump voters to explain why calling people drug-addled unemployable racist misogynistic fascists is not, in fact, the best way to earn their votes. It’s moments like these when Barbara Boxer’s absence from the Democratic caucus would be most felt, I think. Faced with Trump supporters, the former California senator likely would respond with a hysterical and barely coherent monologue involving climate change, immigration, abortion rights, and gun control, all the while oblivious to the fact that these were the very issues that brought Trump to office. At least Boxer has pizzazz. These days the role of the clueless liberal proclaiming her moral supremacy over the déclassé is left to the nondescript, soporific, Dolores Umbridge-like Patty Murray. Here is yet another example of national decline.

What’s great is that there’s law to help drive Progressives further around the bend. It’s not just that President Trump is doing exactly what he promised on the campaign trail (and how’s that for a dream come dream?), it’s also that it turns out that he has the power to do everything he promised, including ridding America of Obama’s economically stifling, personally tyrannical regulations:

It turns out that the first line of the CRA [Congressional Review Act] requires any federal agency promulgating a rule to submit a “report” on it to the House and Senate. The 60-day clock starts either when the rule is published or when Congress receives the report—whichever comes later.

[snip]

There are rules for which there are no reports. And if the Trump administration were now to submit those reports—for rules implemented long ago—Congress would be free to vote the regulations down.

There’s more. It turns out the CRA has an expansive definition of what counts as a “rule”—and it isn’t limited to those published in the Federal Register. The CRA also applies to “guidance” that agencies issue. Think the Obama administration’s controversial guidance on transgender bathrooms in schools or on Title IX and campus sexual assault. It is highly unlikely agencies submitted reports to lawmakers on these actions.

[snip]

Once Congress overrides a rule, agencies cannot reissue it in “substantially the same form” unless specifically authorized by future legislation.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I am so loving President Trump.

 

Conservatives will prevail because we have Iowahawk. And now for a comedy interlude:

Trump brings more another quality person to his team. I was introduced to Victoria Coates during the Republican primary, when she was Ted Cruz’s foreign policy adviser (after having worked with Donald Rumsfeld). She is incredibly smart, an excellent communicator and, as someone with a solid grasp of history, she fully understands the existential threat Islamic fundamentalism poses to the free world. That’s why it’s very exciting that she’s accepted a position as senior director for strategic assessments to the National Security Council. Yay!

 

It’s different when it’s not Texas talking succession. You may recall that, by the end of the Obama administration (not the beginning, but the end of a second term), certain Texans started talking succession . . . and Progressives ridiculed them. Apparently it’s not such a funny idea when you’re a Progressive in Week Two of the Trump administration. Michael Goodwin looks at the extreme reactions Progressives are having to every breath Trump takes and saying that they are creating a dangerous schism in America that could cause a painful split. You’ve heard it all before, but Goodwin does it well.

In Progressive-land, every thing is political. I was pleased when my daughter’s first music idol was Taylor Swift. I didn’t particularly like Taylor’s country music (I like her pop music better), and I still don’t like the way she seems to date men to get fodder for her break-up songs, but I greatly appreciate that Taylor Swift comports herself like a lady: Good behavior and an incredible classy approach to her appearance. Being a smart young woman, Swift treats her fans well and stays out of politics.

Except that in Progressive-land, where everything is political, the mere fact that Swift won’t roll in the Lefty mud is a reason to attack her. This attitude is just one more thing that should turn ordinary, decent Americans away from the Democrat party.

By the way, the Seinfeld show saw this coming:

People who have seen radical Islam up close . . . blame Obama. This showed up on a friend’s Facebook feed and I agree:

If you read the above post, you might also want to read this article and watch the video from an Iraqi Muslim who has realized that his own world is not serving him or his people well.

Let me say here that I really do think that I am more humane than those multicultural Progressives because, unlike them, I want to save generations of people from the clutches of a religion that has lost its way. The Progressives, on the other hand, think themselves morally superior for wanting to continue a world in which women are (at best) marginalized, gays are slaughtered, and warlike conquest is the highest goal. While people, who are infinitely adaptable, may be used to that life and even enjoy parts of it, we know that this is not an optimal environment for developing higher human attributes.

Islam needs a reformation. The reality about Islam is that the lunatics have taken over the asylum, sucking up the oxygen from decent people. Many ignoramuses will always follow the loudest voice, but others are genuinely scared of the radicals who have no compunction about killing off their co-religionists. In addition, thanks to our PC-ness, we don’t offer viable options who realize that their faith has taken a wrong turn, but have nowhere else to go.

With this in mind, to the extent the Progressives are always going on about refugee immigration being “for the children,” I have a proposal: I suggest that we take in up to 50,000 refugee children a year, from war- and economically-ravaged regions, aged birth to five years old, and place them with adoptive families (kind of like the Vietnamese orphans who came in the 1970s).

Here’s the catch, though: The homes in which these children are placed, if they are Muslim, would have to be vetted by representatives from organizations founded by Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Dr. Zuhdi Jasser. Both of these brave, brilliant souls envision a Reformation Islam that cultivates the best in Muslims, not the worst.

For more about the difference between the sweet little children and the potentially very dangerous adults in their world, I recommend this article.

Meanwhile, Daniel Greenfield explains why, in the world as it is, rather than the world as Progressives imagine it could be, unrestricted Islamic immigration into America is a serious concern.

And of course the Left is lying. Immediately upon the immigration stay going into effect, my Facebook feed was inundated by sob stories about people stuck in airports for hours. I should clarify. The people in the sob stories, of course, are immigrants or green card holders trying to get into the US, not American citizens trapped by screaming protesters. At least one of those sob stories (of course) was a lie.

I keep telling my Progressive friends in a general, non-partisan way, they we’re all being lied to and that we need to be more careful news consumers. They just don’t listen….

Speaking of pain at the airport. At Seraphic Secret, a reminder that it was jihadism in the 1960s and 1970s that turned air travel from a swift, pleasant process into the demeaning nightmare it is now. We’ve been bedeviled for a long time by this mindset. It doesn’t do us any good — nor does it do any good for the generations of people trapped in that cruel world — when we pretend that fundamentalist Islam is a good thing that we should respect.

The new Salem witch hunt on American campuses. I know young men who have been chased off of college campuses based upon completely unfounded rape claims. They were not allowed to face their accusers, the claims were ridiculous on their face, there was no due process, and there certainly wasn’t enough to take the matter to the police. Nevertheless, these young men’s lives have been destroyed.

I’ve also been told that there are even more young men out there than I realize. The cover was that we were told that a lot of those boys came back home because “college wasn’t working for them.” In fact, they too were victims of the Progressive campus witch hunt.

If you want to learn more about this unconstitutional, anti-male horror, a book I’ve seen recommended is The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities. It’s definitely a book I’ll be buying for myself in the near future (or, better yet, maybe it will come to my library, so I won’t be the only person in Marin to read it).

Addendum: Peter Berkowitz suggests ways in which the Trump administration can bring constitutional due process back to American campuses.

Trump’s whirlwind of work. My Progressive Facebook friends are very excited about a post that’s making the rounds claiming that Trump is throwing out all sorts of executive orders and hiring decisions to destabilize America preparatory to a fascist takeover. It’s evil, they tell me, evil!!

In fact, Trump’s whirlwind of work is because he’s that kind of guy. He’s a ferociously energetic person who has what Scott Adams calls a rapid-iteration, A/B testing approach to management.

Incidentally, America has had another president like that: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democrat. FDR significantly worsened the Depression by coming into office and, in a mad frenzy, doing all sorts of stuff, much of it unconstitutional, as a way of tinkering with the American economy to see what worked. Progressives loved his energy and his innovation, as well as the fact that he interned Japanese-Americans and that he refused admission to Jewish refugees facing certain death in the Holocaust. Funny (not!) how he’s still so popular with modern Progressives.

Does torture work? Strategic torture aimed at eliciting information necessary to America’s security is on the agenda again, now that Trump says he’ll defer to General Mattis about using it. Scott Adams (who proves to be an absolutely fascinating thinker, whether or not one agrees with him) notes that, Progressive claims to the contrary, of course torture works as a way to elicit information — but it’s not in America’s interest to admit that it works or that America occasionally uses it.

Pope Francis the communist. Three years ago, I pointed to liberation theology as the underlying problem with Pope Francis’s many worst instincts. My instincts, as it happens, were right on the money, with Pope Francis recently explicitly praising that communist attack on the Catholic Church.

Bad things happen in a post-Judeo-Christian era. The Judeo-Christian faith, unlike any other, has an exquisite reverence for the value of human life. You know what happens when that value is gone, don’t you? One of the things that happens is that licensed euthanizers in Holland are given a pass for forcing a woman to die (after they enlisted her family to hold her down for the fatal injection).

Identity politics should not be a factor in school choice. Apparently conservatives are feeling marginalized now that their former Leftist allies in the school choice movement are calling for an infusion of identity politics. They shouldn’t be. Let me explain.

One of the things that broke through my Lefty carapace was a conversation I had 25 years ago with a brilliant friend who took me on when I said vouchers were a terrible idea because my taxpayer money could be used to fund (gasp!) Christian schools. First, he explained that the government doesn’t have its own money. It only has what it takes from us. So giving people money in the form of vouchers is kind of like returning a lost wallet.

Second, he told me that all parents want what’s best for their children, even parents with beliefs I don’t support. And ultimately what’s best for children is that they are able to get a job and live a decent life. If their voucher-supported school doesn’t do that for its graduates, that school won’t last. The marketplace will eventually weed out the bad schools . . . which is unlike the situation now, where our money endlessly funds hard-Left, academically-failed public schools.

The fight should be for vouchers. After that, let’s see how well those poor kids trapped in snowflake social justice schools manage when they get out into the real world.

Incidentally, this self-identified teacher might end up at one of those social justice, BLM voucher schools. Serious language warning:

Okay, I’ve exhausted myself and I can’t even guess how tired you must be from reading all this. I’ll be back tomorrow, though.