“These People Are Crazy”

Salena Zito describes President Trump’s SOTU direct hit on Democrats thus.

The most striking moment of contrast between the president and Democrats was when the latter refused to applaud his proposal to bar states from allowing teenagers to undergo gender transition treatment without parental consent.

“Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy. I’m telling you. They’re crazy,” he said of yet another 80-20 issue with voters — one that wouldn’t have caused any political harm for them except with the fringe.

Deep in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome, they are. Crazy in the eyes of normies, they appear. Democrats a right drubbing, he gave. Please pardon the Yoda-speak.

In the last year Trump has done very many tangible things to help Joe and Jill Sixpack have a better life. And the donkey tribe has fought him at every step. The time between now and November will seem both long and short, but Trump did his party a lot of good Tuesday night.

Hiding in Plain Sight?

As regular readers know, the DrsC have a winter home in a 55+ retirement community in eastern Nevada. The residents in retirement communities are oddly homogeneous in several respects and quite unusual in another. 

Similarities? Live-in children are unusual, sufficient affluence to afford the price of both admission and on-going HOA dues, etc. Most are married, singles are more often widowed than divorced. Plus at any given time half the people you know have medical issues of one sort or another.

Unusual is that the residents came here from all over, just on our couple of blocks we've had neighbors from CO, MA, ID, WA, CA, OR, and even NV. Everyone arrives a stranger, we came here and made friends or acquaintances. And we basically take everyone at face value, assuming they were whoever they claim to have been before moving here.

My insight is that these 55+ retirement communities are perfect places to stash people in witness protection programs.The odds of running into a former acquaintance from back home have to be vanishingly small. 

Nobody questions ones source of income, and as long as a person doesn't claim a false past with a lot of specific technical detail, nobody should get wise to the subterfuge. The ideal place to hide strangers is in a new community where nearly all arrive as such.

Residents can be as social or as hermit-like as they choose, and nobody complains or thinks it odd. One can even be gone all summer and it is taken in stride, quite a few of us do exactly that.

All of which has me wondering if anyone in our neighborhood could be in WITSEC? It is an intriguing thought.

When Appearances Aren't Kept Up

Various opinion writers have taken on the task of explaining why Britain's educated classes have determinedly ignored or downplayed the "rape gangs" of Pakistani men preying on lower class white girls. Most such have emphasized fear of being called "racist" or fear of stirring up unrest among a non-assimilated immigrants known for violence. These fears are real enough, but insufficient to explain the persistent refusal to act.

I write to remind readers that very little can be understood about British culture if one ignores the great influence of social class distinctions in that culture. The people making the decisions come from the educated classes, many of whose children don't go to public schools. 

The ruling class live parallel lives that only infrequently interact with the lower orders. They voted against Brexit, consider themselves more "European" than Brit, and holiday abroad. They have been snobs since the Norman conquest, at least. 

The girls being abused are from the poor white school-leaver class, very often from one parent homes lacking father-in-residence. They are vulnerable because they are latch-key children with little supervision and parental guidance, and few prospects.* 

The ruling class understands many of these girls will end up no better off than their mothers, living in public housing, on the dole, and abusing substances. This was true before the rape gangs existed, and may be no worse now. In the upper class view (not mine),  jeopardizing civic peace to rescue people living messy, dreary lives isn't worth the grief.

And the relatively large group of Brits in between are anxious not to be lumped in with the irredeemables. The TV series Keeping Up Appearances humorously chronicles the desperate efforts of Hyacinth Bucket to emulate the upper classes while hiding her sister and brother-in-law who are the sort of low-rent Brits whose daughters are being victimized.

*The girls Epstein preyed on are said to have come from the US version of this broken-home demographic and were similarly unmonitored and vulnerable.

Rice ... Not Yet Krispy

A quick followup to my Rice Whine post a couple of days ago. Writing at PJ Media, Brian S. Jung claims Netflix, of which Susan Rice is a board member, has refused to fire her in the days following her injudicious promise to exact vengeance upon Trump followers, once he is out of office.

Jung adds that Netflix' stock price dropped over 3% in the days following that refusal. Nice if true, even nicer if it persists and gets worse. Perhaps they should have fired her.

At a minimum, the corporation must issue a clarification that Rice was speaking for herself. That her opinion does not reflect Netflix policy or beliefs. 

In the absence of such statement, investors are advised to assume the obverse, That in fact Netflix agrees with her, even if they are too savvy to say it for attribution.

If a clarification is issued and as a consequence, Rice resigns from the board, Netflix' problem is solved without the ugliness of firing. If she doesn't resign, and continues to provide value to the board, the issue is resolved.

Musing ...

This comment is not politically correct, but here goes. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) ran against Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R-VA) in last year's governor election, and won. Spanberger is white, Sears is black. Virginia is a southern state, Richmond is both its state capital and the former Confederate capital.

I suppose the idea was Sears could win some normally Democrat black votes, perhaps she did. I wonder did she lose more than a few normally Republican white votes? In a purple state, a few thousand votes can decide elections. 

I haven't seen any fine-grained analysis of who won which VA precincts and by how much. Larry Sabato's politics shop at UVA probably knows but may not divulge the answer if it is embarrassing. You know that if my suspicion happens to be correct, most of the media won't publish it. 

Monday Snark

Image courtesy of Politico's Wuerker.

An Echo of Weimar

Writing for The Hill, Nancy Jacobson observes the extreme left and extreme right pursuing similar “burn it down” goals, using similar means, while at the same time hating each other.

Both have espoused antisemitic views, are hostile to free speech, and are adverse to free enterprise. Both believe the U.S. is a malignant force in the world. Both encourage an endless cycle of politicized retribution and persecution.

This combination of extreme forces was most famously seen in the Weimar era of Germany, after losing World War I and before the Nazis controlled the country. Organized gangs of bullies on both sides roamed the streets dealing out lawless violence to chosen targets (and each other). 

We are mostly still in the talking stage, which is bad enough. Antifa has on occasion gone farther and recent events in Minneapolis suggest the left is mobilizing. 

Allowed to continue, at some point the citizenry becomes disgusted with the violence and the government’s weak response. History suggests a strong man surfaces, promising to quell the unrest. No, Trump is not that man. 

However, if the situation gets worse, one of his successors might be. This is not a path down which we need to travel, it doesn’t end well.

Sunday Snark

This⬆ is a maze of mirrors.

Images courtesy of Sarah Hoyt's 

Crack Open Some Cold Memes.

Ow, Canada - Poorer than Alabama

Breaking economic news from Canada, their per capita GDP is less than that of Alabama! Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the rending of raiment.

See this series of reactions posted by Ed Driscoll at Instapundit. An apparent Canadian responded thusly (NSFW).

We imported millions of people from third world shitholes and now our country is turning into a giant third world shithole. How is that possible?

Possible? It is very nearly unavoidable. 

The accompanying graph shows more than a quarter of the Canadian populace is foreign born. The US has problems and our foreign born are only maybe 15% (and recently declining).

Acculturation takes time, time we hope we have. Canada’s lump of the foreign born may be indigestibly large.

Goldilocks

As Presidents, Barack Obama and Joe Biden did little, and that poorly. In contrast Donald Trump has done very much, and of that body of work, much that is consequential and positive.

I wonder if, looking back, historians will develop a theory that both too little and too much presidential action is possible. In the current era, both have been exhibited literally within a single decade. 

Perhaps a theory of the “Goldilocks presidency” will result. A sort of golden mean where neither too little nor too much is ideally done by the nation’s CEO. Let’s call that a COTTonLINE almost-prediction.

It is not my personal preference, however. I find Trump’s hyperactivity refreshing and invigorating after a longish period of “can’t do,” gridlocked government.

Rice Whine

Susan Rice, Obama's UN ambassador and a current Netflix board member, has gone public with a threat to every company, campus, and government employee who can credibly be accused of cooperating with the Trump agenda. Her threat: we will make your life as miserable as the law allows when we Dems return to power. Margolis accurately calls the Rice threat “fascist.”

She threatens that Dems will remember who "collaborated" and those will get no goodies, no grants, no plum committee assignments, no contracts. They will be on the government's and the media's (excrement) lists. Those not imprisoned will become "non-persons."

Imagine if vengeance becomes official Democrat Party policy. Can you think of anything more likely to force MAGA folks and their allies to think thoughts no one in a republic like ours should ever think? 

Thoughts about exercising force majeure to avoid another election where the alternative to winning is exile or a life of torment. Civil war might well ensue.

An SOP of political vengeance is third world madness - banana republic autocrats rule till they die in office of natural or unnatural causes - or they self-exile somewhere with no extradition treaty. The penalty for stepping down in-country is lynching or imprisonment (cf. Brazil, South Korea). It is not our way, it is in fact unAmerican in a literal sense.

If highly placed Democrats don't disavow the Rice vengeance formulation, if they let it stand, be warned. I believe it places continuation of our multiparty elected government at serious risk.

FAFO in NYC

It is early days in the administration of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. His actions so far appear to be calculated to drive both the wealthy and the upper middle class out of town. 

Detroit might be a not-bad model for NYC's future, Mamdani is taking early steps on a path that leads to the Gotham of Harry Harrison's book Make Room, Make Room, and the 1973 film Soylent Green inspired by MRMR.

Downstream from Soylent Green lies the dystopian Manhattan of the 1981 Escape from New York. Seal Team psych washouts yearning to play Snake Plissken lie in wait.

And the people of NYC? They volunteered for what's coming; they voted for Armageddon. Quoting H. L. Mencken, "The common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Influencing Is High Risk

I have noticed every week or two I read about another young influencer dying in their teens or twenties. Being curious I did a web search for "influencer dies young." I found page after page of cases of these deaths.

Somebody should look into this phenomenon, why do influencers often die young? How many are suicides? How many engage in life-threatening behaviors? How many fall victim to accidents? Or are killed by fans? 

One thing is sure, were I an underwriter, I wouldn't write life insurance policies on influencers. They appear to be at high risk of dying young.

Oh, Canada

Politico has a poll of Canadians who are angry with Trump’s America, not viewing us as a reliable ally or friend (out from behind paywall). In a sense, they are probably correct. 

Trump publicly takes a very dim view of nations he believes are “taking advantage of the US” in trade or otherwise. For example, Canada’s current military is a pale shadow of its former self. They know we have to defend them against invasion so they don’t bother. 

Prior presidents put up with Canada’s “spoiled child” behavior, Trump is disinclined to do so. Tough love is more his style. 

He seems much more likely than his predecessors to try to change things he dislikes, See for example, Venezuela and Iran. I’d be very surprised if Trump hasn’t privately considered whether taking over Canada is practical.

A Vibesession

An opinion writer with the unlikely name of Bayta Ungar-Sargon observes we are in a “vibecession” which she defines as follows.

Not a recession—that’s when the economy is bad—but a VIBE-cession: That’s when the economy is good, but the vibes just suck.

And she identifies a reason, supplied by Vox.

White-collar workers likely exert disproportionate influence over how economic conditions are perceived, since we enjoy an outsize voice in journalism and politics. Given that clout, the fact that job and wage growth has been especially weak in white-collar sectors might partly explain the darkening national mood.

To which she adds. 

The fact that white collar workers are much more likely to be Democrats, and political affiliation has become a major predictor for whether a voter thinks the economy is doing well, might explain a lot.

To which I’d add that the bad vibes are the sour feelings of voters who find their TDS exacerbated by Trump’s hyperactivity and omnipresence. I doubt there is much the GOP can do to assuage their angst. 

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Unclear Aims

About the military build-up in the Middle East and negotiations with Iran, Power Line's John Hinderaker opines as follows.

It appears to me that we are in a situation where we have been negotiating for something we don’t really want, a worthless undertaking by the mullahs with regard to weapons, while marshaling a great deal of military force that, however powerful in its own terms, will not prove capable of bringing about the downfall of the mullahs, the only objective we should be working toward.

That's close to my view, as well.

Perilous Parallels

We have repeatedly noted that China appears to be on an economic trajectory similar to Japan, if somewhat less far along the story arc. To see our many mentions, search this site using the key words “China like Japan.” 

Others have seen the similarities too, a recent example is by Ronny P. Sasmita, an Indonesian writing for Asia Times. He draws many parallels between what happened in Japan two decades ago and what is happening in China now.

One factor not similar between the two neighboring economies is governance. China’s is very much top-down and command-driven, Japan’s was much less so. Whether Xi can wield this power to avoid the trap into which Japan fell is unclear at this writing. 

As “the Donald” is fond of saying, “We’ll see what happens.”

No Shrinking Violet

In a column for The American Conservative, of which he is senior editor, Andrew Day decodes the actual message the Trump administration sent Europe via Sec. Rubio’s speech to the Munich conference. I particularly like Day’s description of Trump.

Look at Donald Trump. Look at the totality of his life in business and media and politics. Does he symbolize restraint to you? Are you simple? The man used to split his time between a palace in Palm Beach and the top of a skyscraper in Manhattan with his name on it, cycling through leggy supermodels and eating three Big Macs every meal, before moving into the White House—which he’s currently turning gold.

Not precisely a model of restraint, is our Trump? We’re headed back to the Moon and beyond. Ejecting millions of illegal aliens, reforming government, changing long-held policies, acting the neo-colonial hegemon, settling international disputes, and more. 

Trump is a hyperactive CEO, an over-the-top builder-developer-impresario-raconteur on steroids. He’s gotten our sluggish, no-can-do government to bestir itself, while having the time of his life. 

Trump’s motto could be “Go Big.” Not young, I hope he has the energy to keep going full-tilt until January, 2029.