Anger and Hatred

Anger and Hatred

So what are our disaffected coastal elites and other liberals/progressives resisting, obstructing and sometimes resorting to violence about?  There is a judiciously legislated temporary stay still in effect on Trump’s immigration restriction and there are still protests at the airports.  Do these people know what they are protesting about?  It seems to be just anger and hatred. The stock market is at record highs and U-3 unemployment is low.  U-6 Underemployment is still high, but this latter affects mostly the flyover country who voted for Trump and not the six figure latte sippers who voted against him.

Altruistic liberals/progressive say “it’s not only about filthy lucre, it’s about our American values”.  (Of course they’re not sitting unemployed or flipping burgers in Youngstown, Ohio).   And unfortunately, these so called supporters of American values pervert these very values by the actions they take against free speech by resorting to and supporting rioting, violence and property destruction, as recently happened at Berkeley and NYU and against Betsy DeVos in DC, and continues to happen in our streets, airports and public places.

Another great concern about the Trump administration is the continued use of executive orders and memoranda to change the course of the country.  Charges of “dictator”, “fascist” and other derogatory epithets abound.  Do they not remember that Obama weaponized this sort of executive action with his “I’ve got a pen” statement?  Also can we not remember how impossible it was to criticize any of Obama’s actions?  Attempts to do so would be immediately met with charges of racism.  It seems that anything goes against Trump, including attacks on his family, even though all first families have been spared abuse in the past.  How does attacking the ten year old son of the president and ridiculing the English speech of his wife preserve American values?

It’s this sort of continuing hypocrisy that is making some of us, who are not such great fans of Trump, apologists for him.  It’s also this hypocrisy that is turning even more Americans away from these “resisting” liberal coastal elitists.  And the Democrats and liberals continue to shoot themselves in the foot by their obstructionism and hypocrisy and perversion of our values (like free speech).  Instead of healing their party, which is on the verge of becoming a strident, obstructionist minority nonentity, they continue to rip it apart further by immature and ill-conceived emotional reaction against the personality of the president.  And that is a shame because loyal opposition of the issues is a mainstay of our democracy.  But we have no loyal opposition.  We have instead this constant beating, visceral hatred against the people leading our government.  Issues are of little import.  Hatred based on personalities is what we see in our opposing coastal liberals.  Just read the NYT opinion pages and watch CNN for a while for  confirmation of this.

After a while anyone seeking balanced news, and not just support for their own views, can see after watching CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, and after reading the New York Times, Washington Post, and other liberal rags, that these news sources are almost commercials for the liberal left.  Trump has brought them to task and stressed their bias to the public.  And the public is not stupid.  They can see the slanted so called news, and either eschew these sources or take them with a grain of salt.  It is no coincidence that Fox News consistently outstrips its competition in the TV ratings wars.

We’re becoming a leaner, meaner, more nationalist country.  This is no surprise.  It’s what was promised and what the country voted for (and spare the popular vote bit, the country is not run by a California plurality).  We may need to give up some of our dearly held government programs.  Some of our values will be affected.  Others will be strengthened.  Not all of us will be happy.  But it seems that we have a dynamic, if flawed, leader.  If we can get congress to advise and consent rather than obstruct, and to pass pertinent reform legislation to either support or limit the executive, the country can’t fail to advance for the good of all.  They should do similar for the judiciary.  A full Supreme Court vetting the executive and legislative process has to have long term benefits for our country.

Hopefully this hatred of Trump and his government will subside and we can get back to real issues.  There are rational voices in the democrat party.  Unfortunately these are not Pelosi, Schumer, or grandstanding hot heads like Elizabeth Warren.  If the democrats can get back to being a loyal opposition party rather than an instrument of insurrection, we may indeed be able to accomplish a lot for the America we all love.

Ray Gruszecki

February 14, 2017

Opposition to Trump and Populism

Opposition to Trump and Populism

We are now in the second week of Donald Trump’s presidency and from a media and opposition standpoint, nothing has changed.   The left is angry.  The country is divided.  Marches and demonstrations against Trump continue.  Claims of “Not my President” abound.  Trump seems to govern by rapid fire executive order.   He has a pen, just like Obama did.  The democrats arbitrarily delay cabinet appointments to the detriment of the country and to their own detriment and threaten to do the same for the SCOTUS appointee Neil Gorsach.

The responses against Trump, for the most part are fueled by anger at him and his abrasive personality, and particularly at the election loss.  His detractors simply cannot absorb that the country could vote against their lofty, “better than thou” and “we know what’s best for you” views for the country.  These critiques have high emotional content and many times contain little logic and reason, and little positive content.  Even pundits at the major news outlets fall prey to this incessant and empty railing against Trump and his minions.  These criticisms eventually fall on deaf ears with the American public.  The Trump advisors are certainly aware of this and keep pushing the envelope.  And the liberals/progressives/democrats continue to act from anger and continue to tear apart their party which is already in tatters rather that rebuilding it in a positive manner.

Some history - Donald Trump won the presidency within the only system we have.  He defeated sixteen other vaunted candidates to win the republican primary being completely politically incorrect.  Remember “little Marco”, “lyin’ Ted”, “low energy Jeb”.   He defeated Hillary Clinton and her $1.4 billion, well-oiled campaign by spending half a billion dollars less.  She practiced and, and was polished, and had rapid-fire catch phrases for the debates.  He was extemporaneous and called her names.  The voters didn’t care.

Donald Trump won the electoral vote by 306 to Hillary Clinton’s 232.  Trump won the popular vote in 49 states, excluding California by 1.4 million votes.  Clinton won the popular vote in California by 4.3 million votes.  Clinton indeed won the popular vote in the whole country, as loudly proclaimed by Trump’s detractors, but the above adds some perspective to that statement.

A true wonder is how a candidate like Donald Trump could win the presidency.  Not that he is the demonized “prince of darkness” or devil incarnate defined by the same media that lied about all other aspects of the election, but because how heavily stacked against his candidacy were so many aspects of American society.  The popular president Obama and his minions, and virtually the whole Washington political establishment were against him. Virtually all major newspapers and magazines were against him. Nearly all major media were against him.  Virtually all so called intelligentsia were against him.  Pretty much 100% of university thinking was against him.  All the special interest minority and lifestyle groups out of identity politics were against him.  The above societal elements radicalized women, blacks and Latinos against him (or tried to).  He did not help his own cause by his own outrageous pronouncements and tweets about women, minorities, trade agreements and other topics normally not broached in a presidential campaign.  His backers cared not a whit for his peccadillos.  He represented the changes they sought.

The vaunted polls reflected all of this anti-Trump sentiment.   Other than one or two polls, all the national and state polls showed him to be behind by 4-5 percentage points at election time.  Some predicted a 98% chance of Hillary winning the election.  Some of us kept saying “this is a movement, not a campaign – you can’t apply the same principles to a populist movement as to a normal election”.  The whole thing smacked of Brexit, five months earlier, also a populist revolt.

Trump was indefatigable.  He crossed and re-crossed the country in his “Trump Force One”.  And he ranted and raved and inspired massive crowds wherever he went.  20-30,000 people would stand in line to get into his rallies, and the “experts” said “it means nothing, look at the polls; the polls don’t lie”.

Hillary had a well-oiled machine (I guess first conceived by Boss Tweed), that reached all over the country, down to town and township and household level.  Trump had a sporadic organization half supported by the Republican Party.  To make up for it, everyday normal citizens took it upon themselves to obtain and place Trump signs in their yards and in their stores. And once one got out into the outback, the preponderance of Trump signs was overwhelming.  The people that constitute the backbone of this country were not vociferous during the long campaign, as is their wont.  They were not silent during the election, though.  They spoke their minds with votes, all across the identity politics board.  Not only non-degreed people voted for Trump.  Many more blacks, Hispanics, degreed women, and other groups thought to be pro Clinton voted for Trump than the polls thought possible.  The whole country demographic said “we’re Americans too.  We see what’s happened in our country.  We can’t have four or eight more years of Hillary and the same”.  Union members said, the brass may vote for Clinton.  The rank and file will vote for Trump – and they did.  Many Hispanics in the I4 corridor in Florida and other locations said “Somos americanos también. Estamos votando por Trump” (we’re Americans too, we’re going to vote for Trump.

This was a grass roots movement of dissatisfied average Americans who had had enough of political correctness and a weak, do-little apologetic government in Washington.  They were sick and tired of attempts to lay guilt on them for being ethical, moral, religious, hard-working Americans.  Hillary in her smugness called them a “basket of deplorables”, and that resonated with them just like Obama’s comment in 2008 about “clinging to guns and religion”.  Trump didn’t even have to say anything, although he surely did at every rally.  The liberal elite’s arrogance, contempt and derision shone through loud and clear. 

I don’t feel that this whole issue is strictly around Trump, his election win, and the implementation of his agenda.  Trump is one feature of a major socio-economic upheaval taking place in the world.  Critics of Trump’s personality and brusque manner don’t seem to realize this and keep pulling out Trump’s past sayings and actions in an effort to discredit him.  It did not work when he was a candidate, and it certainly is not working now that he has the trappings of the presidency behind him.  But his detractors just do not learn.  Their form of emotional opposition to anything the Trump administration does harms the country and harms their own cause.  One would think that they would see this and would learn with time.  Considered intellectual and political opposition is an American right.  Opposing everything from an emotional platform is self-defeating. 

We get hung up on Trump, his cabinet choices and other nuances of his emerging government, and we concentrate on him and his personality as an individual.  Half the country loves him.  The other half is dead set against him and cycles and recycles anecdotal reasons for it.  Almost neglected is the populism he represents, its positive features and particularly its dangers.

This is an article from The Manchester (UK) Guardian about the dangers of populism for democracy.  It looks not only at Trump, but also the other major populist movements in the world.  It highlights Europe, particularly Orban’s Fidesz in Hungary and the Kaczynski’s PiS in Poland, and the negative effects of these (in power) populist parties on democracy in those countries.  It also comments on Turkey’s Erdogan, Russia’s Putin and other active populist movements in the world.

Being The Guardian, the article is slightly left oriented and critical of Trump, Farage and others.

Co-incidentally, I have read Jan Werner Muller’s book “What is Populism?” as part of my own study on the emergence of populism in the world.

(The Guardian - LEFT-CENTER BIAS

These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias.  They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes.  These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation.

Notes: UK newspaper with straight ahead reporting.)

Jan-Werner Müller is a professor of politics at Princeton and a fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna. His book What Is Populism? is published this month by the University of Pennsylvania.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/02/trump-erdogan-farage-the-attractions-of-populism-for-politicians-the-dangers-for-democracy

Ray Gruszecki

February 1, 2017