Happy Moderates

Interesting things appear at a website named Law & Liberty. Today there is a review of a book by political scientist George Hawley entitled The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization (2024). 

Hawley reaches a couple of conclusions about the bulk of Republican voters.

The first is the role and importance of cultural issues in how ordinary Republicans see the world. The gap between Republicans and Democrats, Hawley shows, is wider on cultural attitudes than on views on economic policy.

A second important lesson from Hawley’s book is that Republican voters, contrary to conventional wisdom, are happier and more optimistic about their upward mobility prospects than liberal voters.

So, the conclusion is that Republicans are happy with traditional cultural values, Democrats are not. The distance between the parties on economic issues isn't as wide. Happier people tend to be okay with the status quo and unhappy people not so much. 

I'm a happy person most of the time, the status quo has worked for me and mine. I haven't been happy with what the woke have tried to enact; MAGA seems a reasonable corrective.

Echoes of Gilbert and Sullivan

I was disappointed yesterday - the first day of the fedgov shutdown - no terminations of federal employees were announced. Politico writes that could soon change.

OMB chief Russ Vought told House Republicans on a private call Wednesday that the administration will start mass reduction in force moves, or firings, of federal workers “in a day or two.”

If it turns out the promise to fire workers was a bluff, I won't be happy. There have to be many employed in woke units who, in Gilbert & Sullivan's felicitous phrase, "never would be missed." Here's hoping Trump has his "little list" ready.

Cold Civil War

Richard Fernandez does a PJ Media column called Belmont Club, and often has insights COTTonLINE has relished. Today is no exception.

September 2025 has been an interesting month.The undeclared cold civil war in the West is everywhere coming out of the closet. Both the Woke and Populist coalitions in every country have openly declared political war on one another — clashing over ideology, generational voter bases, and economic policy.

The eerie thing about it is not that the kinetic level of confrontation has increased; even the Kirk assassination followed a string of attempts on other figures. It's just that no one pretends not to see the conflict any more. Yet it is still a cold conflict in the West — for now.

Fernandez doesn't pretend to know where this is going, or how it will turn out. We continue to live in what the ancient Chinese called "interesting times," viewing same as a curse. 

The current deadlock over funding the government is but a minor skirmish therein. Woke is currently on the back foot.

Later ... I find it curious, as Fernandez notes, this same conflict is occurring in a number of countries at the same time, not all of them "Western." And it didn't particularly begin in the US.

The Hegseth Speech

The Department of War has issued an official transcript of SecWar Pete Hegseth’s speech yesterday to the GOFOs. It is long and, if we are critical, somewhat repetitious. But worth reading.

Hegseth is trying his darnedest to change a woke culture that was forced upon the military by Obama and Biden. To survive, all force leaders had to pay lip service to those civilian leaders’ woke wishes, but some became true believers. 

The committed wokesters Hegseth wishes to separate from his command. He advises them to do the honorable thing and resign or retire. Here is my favorite quote from the speech.

Today is another liberation day, the liberation of America's warriors, in name, in deed and in authorities. You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and don't necessarily belong always in polite society.

That really describes George Patton. I’d conclude with a quote, variously attributed to George Orwell and Winston Churchill, which makes Hegseth’s point.

We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.

The profession of arms doesn’t work if those standing ready aren’t plenty rough, well-equipped and willing to "kill people and break things" at scale.

Notice

The Schumer Shutdown began at 12:01 a.m. EDT. Let the firings of uncivil servants commence.

The Aggrieved, the Resentful, the Angry ....

Power Line's Scott Johnson posts a paragraph from The Spectator (behind paywall) written by Chillton Williamson, Jr., in which he characterizes today's Democratic Party. Williamson takes no prisoners.

Today, the Donkey party is the party of the aggrieved, the resentful, the angry, the neurotic, the desperate, the illogical, the delusional, the irrational, the unchurched, the metaphysically uncentered, the unattached and childless, the anti-social, the resentful, the failures and the congenitally rebellious – all those not nailed down or secured to anything, beginning with themselves. They are the product, or rather the detritus, of an anti-traditional, aggressively secular, excessively technological, overly connected, trivialized and wholly commercialized and urbanized society divorced from nature and the direct experience of it that had been basic to human existence until a couple of hundred years ago.

A thoroughly repellant bunch of life's losers ....

Catching the Cheaters

Power Line's John Hinderaker often plugs Alpha News as the only reliable news source in his home state of Minnesota. Here Alpha reports on a coordinated sweep of immigration fraud cases in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area, done by USCIS, ICE, and FBI working together.

The Feds looked at 1000 cases which had come to official attention in some fashion. USCIS Director Edlow announced:

Our officers encountered blatant marriage fraud, visa overstays, people claiming to work at businesses that can’t be found, forged documents, abuse of the H1-B visa system, abuse of the F-1 visas, and many other discrepancies.

According to Edlow, authorities found indications of fraud, noncompliance, or public safety concerns in 275 cases.

As we work to undo the neglect of the Biden Administration, we will continue to launch operations like this across the country. Operation Twin Shield was a major enforcement operation and we will be bringing many more efforts like this to cities across the country.

Imagine how much immigration fraud and abuse there is nationwide, if a sweep of metro MN netted 275. We're looking at tens of thousands, at a minimum.  

‘Overachievement’

An interesting quote by conservative commentator Rod Dreher, posted by Instapundit. I wonder if his statistics are accurate? Stunning, if true.

Black males make up 6.7% of the total US population, yet according to government statistics, are responsible for between 45-47% of all murders.

I translate as follows: 67 of every 1000 Americans are black men. Those few commit nearly half of all US murders. It is the sort of “disparate impact” black activists don’t want publicized.

Petardry

Check out a light-hearted Spiked essay on the common experience of being hoist on one’s own petard. That being Shakespeare’s phrase meaning blown up by one’s own bomb, or damaged by something the damagee created. In current US slang, FAFO.

Democrats are whining about Trump doing to them what Biden did to Republicans. Dems FAed and now are FOing as Trump pursues his former pursuers. The author calls it petardry or the worm turning, and it’s glorious fun. Hat tip to RealClearPolicy for the link.

The Businessman's Bias

President Trump has announced a 20 point peace plan for Gaza. He has gotten buy-in from European leaders and islamic leaders in the region, and he has gotten buy-in by Israel. It seems thorough, but it amounts to a Hamas surrender.

What he hasn't gotten so far is any sense Hamas is willing to give up on martyrdom and slink off into the twilight, leaving technocrats running Gaza. Trump says if Hamas doesn't sign on, he will okay Israel to keep killing until Hamas is no more.

What if Hamas says something like "Bring it, infidels" and fights to the death? Count on Hamas to try to ensure that their defeat kills as many non-combatant Arab women and kids as possible. Can Israel survive the disgust of the world community at the slaughter that will entail? 

I fear Trump has projected his desire for peace on the Gaza Arab population, when it's likely only a minority share his aim. After all, he projected that same desire on Russia's Putin, when it clearly wasn't shared by Vlad. 

If Trump has a weakness, it is that he believes a deal that will move both parties toward increased prosperity is everyone's top priority. Call it "the businessman's bias." It is evident many players esteem prosperity less than Allah's blessing, national or tribal dominance, revenge, or indeed some other goal.

I hope he succeeds, but hope is a lousy plan and I'm not optimistic.

Monday Snark

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Cartoons of the Week.

Only Citizens Should Count

RealClearPolitics has a long column arguing for the Census to count only US citizens, which hasn't been the practice in the past. I find the arguments favoring this change persuasive, perhaps you will as well.

Much of the anti-ICE rhetoric in Congress has come from big city Democrat Representatives representing their (non-citizen) constituents who by law, of course, are not permitted to vote. 

Trump tried to change to citizen-only counting for the 2020 census and failed by one vote in the Supreme Court. The Court now has a originalist majority and he should get the change locked in place sooner rather than later.

Adams Out

The New York Post reports incumbent Mayor Eric Adams has dropped out of the mayoral race in New York City. 

[He was] polling fourth, far behind frontrunner Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and also, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

Adams did not endorse any of the other candidates, and even took subtle swipes at Mamdani and Cuomo — issuing a warning about local government being used to launder radical ideals and urging voters not to elect a mayor who’s flip-flopped on the issues.

You might infer a stealth endorsement of Curtis Sliwa, as he was not sideswiped in Adams' exit. But the idea of a Republican winning the mayoral race is so far from reality Adams didn't bother to put him down. 

Adams' term as mayor was marked by charges of corruption and subordinates who abused their offices, according to the NYP. It is unlikely history will treat him well. 

NYP thinks his exit helps Cuomo. Are New York voters into European-style strategic or tactical voting? We will find out.

Joe's Revenge

Writing for the very leftwing Salon, Amanda Marcotte entitles her column, "Kamala Harris is right: Biden set her up to fail."  Well ... her title is right although her description of how that came about leaves out that her defeat was Biden's revenge on a party that had thrown him - their supposed leader - under a bus.

Joe Biden gave Kamala Harris a ringing endorsement when who the Democrats would choose post-Biden was still up in the air. The fact the generous early campaign contributions were all in his name made his endorsement much weightier than it otherwise would have been.

Biden is a doofus, and mentally foggy to boot. Still, he had spent four years closer to Kamala Harris than most of us, and had doubtless noted her near inability to perform as a campaigner, or as much of anything else. 

Biden's endorsement of Harris was entirely cynical. Her performing down to expectations brought about the desired outcome, a Democratic loss that was decisive (312 to 226 electoral votes). 

Call it "Joe's revenge" on a party to which he'd been loyal his whole life. When things got ugly, Democrats didn't reciprocate his loyalty. 

It turns out he had a dirty trick left when the need arose, and he played it. I like to think Trump would have won regardless, but it would have been a much harder slog against a more able candidate.

Misery loves company, and revenge is a dish best served cold, consumed at leisure. Each Democrat outrage at a Trump action is another morsel of delight at Casa Biden where the banquet is scheduled to last another 3+ years.

Saturday Snark

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Autism and Tylenol?

Does Tylenol cause autism? The truth is we don't know for sure. Okay, so what do we know pretty much for sure? That women who took Tylenol during pregnancy are somewhat more likely to have an autistic child. But isn't that causation? Possibly but not necessarily. 

What if carrying a fetus that becomes autistic causes the mother pain, for reasons we do not now understand? That would encourage her to take Tylenol for the pain and create the appearance of causation being Tylenol => autism when it is actually autism => pain => Tylenol.

Correlation ≠ Causation, although it suggests the possibility of causation. It is always possible some third factor is causing the other two to vary in tandem.

Mexico-Bashing

Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, spoke at the third annual US - Mexico Policy Summit. The National Interest has the text of his recent speech, presented as an article. Roberts is very tough on Mexico, and almost equally tough on the policies of both nations in the recent past. For example.

Together, Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel López Obrador represented the worst versions of American and Mexican leadership that have hurt our countries for decades.

Biden and Lopez Obrador’s disastrous leadership was not an anomaly—it was the most destructive example of a longstanding dynamic in the US-Mexico relationship stretching back to NAFTA. American leaders undermined sovereignty, exported jobs, and imported labor in the naive hope that Mexico would liberalize. Mexican leaders took advantage, empowered cartels, and consolidated power in Mexico City.

Roberts really gives Mexico an earful of bad news, and much of it has needed saying for a long time. I think you might like to read his speech.

Three Choices

The story of SecWar Hegseth calling a meeting of all general-level military officers continues to reverberate. It probably will do so until said meeting is history. 

If you'd like to read the educated guess of a retired Army colonel who writes as Cynical Publius, American Greatness has what Publius imagines Hegseth will say to the assembled brass. 

His bottom line can be summarized as follows: "Your choices are three. Commit to the new warrior program, resign or retire (if eligible), or be courtmartialed for insubordination."

274 FBI Present on Jan. 6

The Biden DOJ repeatedly promised us there were zero undercover FBI agents on Capitol Hill for the Jan. 6, 2020 riots. Now, the Trump DOJ admits there were some 274 plainclothes FBI personnel mixing in the crowds. 

We're learning many of them were really unhappy to be so detailed. They apparently didn't agree with their bosses, one of whom is now under criminal indictment, who believed that half the US population is disloyal.

I'm afraid we must conclude our government will tell us whatever story makes them look good, regardless of its relation (if any) to the actual facts of the matter. They do this knowing enough of us will believe them that they'll get away with lying, if that's what is needed.

Lying to the public is politics, lying under oath to Congress is perjury, a felony. Former FBI Director James Comey stands newly indicted of this crime and of obstruction of justice. 

Does he deserve the usual caveat of innocent until proved guilty? Technically I suppose he gets that fig leaf, whether he deserves it is another matter entirely.

Friday Snark

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