2020 - It's a Wrap

 

2020 was such an unusual year, unlike any other in most of our lives.  So unusual that it was hard to tell fact from fiction, reality from illusion.   It was a year in which the tinfoil hat conspiracy theory guys like Alex Jones often turned out to be more credible than CBS.  We were locked down, our cities were ravaged by riots, and our civil liberties kicked to the curb.  Our children were locked out of school.  Our friendships and relationships got reshuffled.  We were barred from movie theaters, sporting events and live music.   Many of us have developed serious questions about the sustainability of our Republic and Western Civilization generally.

Nonetheless, I’m putting together my annual “Best Of” lists, which will have a particular flavor and perspective because of the time that we find ourselves in.  Here are my recommendations and my favorites from 2020- A Year Gone Mad.

Film
Despite the lockdown and paucity of mainstream films, some outlets like siskelfilmcenter.org were able to pivot quickly to streaming and fill the gap.  It is certainly not the same as the theater (just as Zoom is not the same as an in person meeting), but there were still some high quality films that were (and are available).   Here are the top three that I liked:

Mr. Jones
If you see only one film this year, this should be it.  Thirty years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union.   Many of the people that escaped Stalin’s terrors have passed on, too.   An entire generation is removed from the gulags, the killings, and the starvation.  As time has passed, the stories of the horrors have faded.  In this time of worries over a tyrannical government and an obsequious press,  this film by Polish director Agnieszka Holland brings it all back.   It is the story of Garth Jones, a Welsh journalist, that sneaks out to the countryside and uncovers the truth about the intentional starvation of the Ukrainians, while other colleagues are plied with alcohol and prostitutes to keep them from reporting on this man-made humanitarian disaster.   Not only does this film resonate because of current events, it struck a chord with me personally as some of the parents of friends of mine actually lived through this.   Do not miss this film.  It will make you see things differently as current events unfold and remind you that the corruption of the media is not new.

The Cuban
The Cuban is heartwarming story of a dementia afflicted musician whose humanity is brought back to him by a daring young caretaker that discards the institutional food and brings him authentic Cuban cuisine and brings him Afro-Cuban music.  The soundtrack is wonderful as is the story of rebellion against the nursing home.   The film was criticized for being a bit maudlin.  Fair enough.  But if ever there was a time that we needed a film about restoring a person’s life and humanity, it’s now. 

Sweat
Sweat is a Polish film that won best film at the Chicago International Film Festival.  It is a Polish-Swedish film about a social media fitness star that picks up a stalker.  Like The Cuban, it explores the humanity of Sylvia (Magdalena Kolesnik) and the depth of the loneliness under her celebrity status—a kind of up to date, healthy drug-free Janis Joplin.   I loved the depiction of her extended Polish family, which I thought to be authentic.   Kolesnik has a great screen presence and is one of two young Polish actresses (Zofia Wichlacz- World on Fire below) that had outstanding performances.

Books

Nonfiction

My favorite book of the year was Erik Larsen’s The Splendid and the Vile, a detailed and well-written account of Winston Churchill’s first year in office.   The book provided lots of interesting nuggets about the Churchill family, Churchill himself and his numerous quirks and what day to day life was like during the Blitz.   Reading this book during lockdown was most meaningful because, like the Battle of Britain, you know that some people are going to die, the resolution is uncertain and you don’t know how long it will last. 

Given the political turbulence, riots, lockdown and a stolen election, along with the press of Wokeism, I turned to other writers to make sense of it all.  My favorite in this regard was Live Not By Lies: A Manuel for Christian Dissidents by Rod Dreher, but I also liked The Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony, The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity,  by Douglas Murray and Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender and Identity and How this Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.  These books offer strong defenses of Western Civilization and Enlightenment thought generally and critique globalism, Critical Theory and the poison of Postmodernism. 

One of my favorite quotes is from Rod Dreher, who sums up postmodernism quite well:

Christians today must understand that, fundamentally,  they are not resisting a different politics, but rather what is effectively a rival religion.

Fiction

In fiction, I try to tackle a “project” every year.  Last year, I successfully did Moby-Dick for the Newberry Library 26 hour Moby-Dick read-a-thon.  Brimming with confidence over that achievement, I tried Middlemarch and got bogged down like Napoleon in the Russian winter about 2/3 of the way through.

Nonetheless, there were some winning novels this year.  The translation of Abigail by Hungarian writer Magda Szabo came out this year and this coming of age story of an adolescent girl during WWII was outstanding.   I liked it even better than her other acclaimed novel, The Door.   Lionel Shriver’s The Motion of the Body Through Space came in at number 2.  This novel about the complexities of a long term marriage, and the fight against aging was yet another excellent work by Shriver.  Finally, My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell was an uncomfortable, yet interesting novel about an affair between a boarding school teacher and a 15 year old student.  I reviewed this novel last spring (https://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-dark-vanessa.html)  and I think Russell is an interesting young writer and I expect good things from her in the future.   It's probably no accident that two of my three top novels involve adolescent girls struggling through very trying and confusing circumstances.  I think they resonated with me because I am deeply concerned about the effect that lockdown and pandemic and resulting isolation and interruption in their educational and social development that is being inflicted upon them.   These two novels remind us that adolescents are complex people too, and whatever insecurities we, as adults, are feeling about all this is magnified in them.

Television

World on Fire

I confess that I do not have much to evaluate on television.  I did not see the acclaimed miniseries Queen’s Gambit (which I plan to binge watch soon).  Like the book, The Splendid and the Vile, I ended up being riveted to stories about WWII, another time that lives were upended in a chaotic, unpredictable way.   World on Fire by PBS captivated me.   I thought Helen Hunt’s performance was spectacular and I was taken by the performance of young actress Zofia Wichlacz.   More generally, Season 1 focused a lot on the invasion of Poland and Polish resistance.  I liked the fact that Masterpiece used Polish actors and it added to its authenticity.  I highly recommend World on Fire if you haven’t yet caught up.

In a most unusual year, there were some sparkling gems in film, books and TV.   While we were locked out of theaters and music venues, there were still some artistic productions that salvaged a pretty awful year and made some of lockdown a bit more tolerable.

No Consequences/No Accountability

 

I wish I had tidings of great joy this holiday season.   I really do.  Instead, I have a warning.   Hold close to the people around you.  Prepare, mostly by preparing yourself for the dark and treacherous days that lie ahead.  We have entered a period no less turbulent than WWII.   I mentioned to someone the other day that reading Eric Larsen’s book on Churchill’s first year in office and the Battle of Britain gave me a sense of what it was like during those dark, uncertain years.  We are going through something quite analogous.  It will be as difficult a challenge as the Blitz.  Like Great Britain, we will stand mostly alone (perhaps the Visegrad nations will be with us).   Great Britain was bombed from above.  Our foes have already penetrated the interior.  

I have argued that 9/11 exposed the weakness in our defense structure.  A handful of barbarians with limited technology was able to inflict a devastating blow to our nation, and hit us in the heart of our financial center and defense center.  Without the heroic acts of the passengers on Flight 93, our capitol would have like been destroyed.    The real estate crisis of ’07 and ’08 exposed the fragility of our financial system.  The real estate frenzy and the push to make loans to noncreditworthy borrowers resulted in a panic and deep and long recession.  2020 with COVID19 and the riots exposed our social and moral decrepitude.  

No consequences/No accountability

I wrote earlier this year that we have undergone what I called a “criminal inversion,’ as we lionized criminals George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, honored Floyd with multiple funerals and yet when a true American hero, Neil Armstrong passed, there was little fanfare.

Rioters and Looters.

Very few of the rioters and looter  were even arrested.  Of the ones that were, most were sprung from jail almost immediately, and activist funds posted the bail for many others.  Unbeknownst to most people, the bail posted by activist funds revert to the perpetrator.  The rioters and looters actually kept the money.  So, not only were there no consequences for the rioters and looters, many were actually subsidized.

Worse, the attacks of many rioters and looters justified the use of deadly force against them.  Rioters in Portland, Chicago, and other locales threw bricks, frozen water bottles, threw incendiary devices and pointed blinding lasers in the eyes of law enforcement officers.  Very few of these perpetrators were even arrested.  Closer to home, a “defund the police” protest escalated at Northwestern University, students broke windows and vandalized stores in Evanston and threw bricks at police – an act that justifies deadly force.  President Morton Shapiro’s response?   Writing a public letter of rebuke expressing “disappointment” in the students.   Again, no real consequences for potentially deadly assaults.

Most astonishingly, there have been no consequences for the political class whatsoever.

New York mayor Bill DeBlasio’s wife Chirlane McCray was entrusted with overseeing ThriveNYC, an initiative that was to funded to fight drug abuse, homelessness and depression.  Last I  noticed, there was plenty of that going around in New York.  But $850 million is missing and unaccounted for.   There have been no consequences and no accountability for her.  The MSM has lost interest in the scandal.

The wife of Bernie Sanders, Jane, was being investigated for bank fraud.  As president of Burlington College, she fraudulently misrepresented pledges the college was to receive in order to receive a loan.  The college ultimately went bankrupt. Defrauding a bank by misrepresenting collateral is a serious offense, yet the matter was quietly dropped.

In an earlier era, Eric Swalwell would have been summarily hanged for treason.  His tryst with Chinese fundraiser and spy revealed, Swalwell has since gone on the offense, demanding to know who leaked this information and incredulously asserting that he can’t comment on any of this because it is “classified.”  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vigorously defends Swalwell and refuses to take him off the House Intelligence Committee.

Another august member of the Intelligence Committee is Ilhan Omar.   The Marxist Somali routinely makes anti-Semitic remarks and bellows for the defunding of police.  Yet, she has funded herself pretty well, egregiously violating conflict of interest rules by steering campaign funds to her former lover and now husband.   After calls for censure for her anti-Semitic remarks, Pelosi introduced a watered down version that essentially said that any bigotry should be frowned upon.  Omar still sits on the committee and has been re-elected.  Her purported immigration fraud likewise has been kicked to the curb.

And then there is Hunter Biden.  Hunter belongs in his own special category.   I won’t repeat all that has been written about Hunter (and then covered up and censored by the media—Russian disinformation, you know), but here’s a guy so brazen that he fought paying child support to the pole dancer that he impregnated.  There has been no explanation as to why

Andrew Cuomo.  After dispatching 6,300 COVID19 infected people into nursing homes that resulting in thousands of deaths, Cuomo received an Emmy and then had the chutzpah to write a book on his own leadership capabilities.  In any other venue, deaths resulting from a mistake in judgment of this magnitude would result in disgrace, removal and exile, if not worse.  But undeterred, Cuomo continues on to his next project.  Having presided over the deaths of thousands of individuals, he is shutting down the restaurant business in New York and presiding over the deaths of thousands of businesses.

9/11 exposed our defense shortfalls.  The Great Recession showed our financial fragility.  COVID and the riots exposed our social and moral decline.  We have entire criminal and political classes that now have a veritable force field around them and are impervious to the consequences of their horrendous acts.  In each of these cases, the members are of a protected class that suffer no ill effects whatsoever for the damage they have wrought.

The Future is Female (but maybe not how you think)

 

The Future is Female is another progressive slogan that has been around for a bit.  But like “The Great Reset,” that I wrote about last week, I believe that it is partially true, but not quite as the progressive movement had in mind.

While it appears that conservatives, libertarians and Constitutionalists seem to be outnumbered and surrounded by the media (both mainstream and social), academia and the Democratic party, I’m finding that the staunchest defenders of liberalism (of the traditional type) and sanity are women.  In fact, while much of the establishment GOP has wilted in the face of the onslaught, the unflinching and fiercest defenders of Western liberalism are female.   So this week, I am putting forward some of the “momma bears” or, as I call them, the Ladies of Liberty or the Fraus and Frauleins of Freedom.   This list is not meant to be all inclusive (oh, how I have come to hate that word), but a sampling of women that you should consider following.  

Politics:

Step aside,  Nikki Haley.  Your several stumbles that belied your pandering instincts, including your rush to judgment on the “noose” that turned out to be a garage pull in Bubba Wallace’s garage.  But here are 3 women in political life worth following:

Kristi Noem
Yes, Kristi is carefully cultivating an image of herself on social media, showing photos of herself hunting, hiking and horseback riding, but Noem has shown herself to be a steady hand and a solid leader during the COVID crisis.  Unlike blue states like Illinois, she has put South Dakota on a sound  financial footing and, in fact, is adding to its financial reserves.  She has managed the response to COVID in a sane and sober way.  She has shown herself to be devoted to the Constitution and to the concept of  limited government. Look for Noem to become a higher profile player in the future.

Kim Klasic
OK, I admit, Klasic’s beauty knocks me over.   Her fearless ad campaign in her congressional bid took the world by storm, calling out the failed Democratic leadership for the mess they created in Baltimore.  She understands that the old, progressive approach will never work to revitalize a city like Baltimore.  Klasic has real charisma and courage, and I see her as a real rising conservative star.

Tulsi Gabbard
Yes, Tulsi’s economic policies are not to my liking.  But she single handed disassembled Kamala Harris during the primaries, and voted “present” on impeachment.  And now has sponsored a bill to protect women’s sports by limiting participation in girl’s and women’s sports to biological women, defying the radical elements of the LGBTQ community and the official position of her own party.  Gabbard, I believe, can be a key ally in the defense of Western ideals, and often shows signs of sensibility, a trait mostly absent in today’s Corbynized Democratic party.

Of course, many other women only have a presence on social media—they have or would be marginalized in mainstream media or academia, but here are the women I follow:

Heather Heying (@HeatherEHeying)
A self described left of center scientist, Heying and her husband run a weekly podcast called Dark Horse, much of which is aimed at the highly unscientific, disingenuous and illiberal scientific and academic world that has bathed itself in critical theory. Heying is simply a brilliant woman and an unwavering defender of the principles of the Enlightenment, free inquiry and the scientific method.

Peachy Keenan (@KeenanPeachy)
This is her nom de plume, and a recent follow of mine.  She is a contributing editor at The American Mind, a Catholic and self described survivor of an Ivy League education.  She is a very talented writer and some of her material rivals that of Lionel Shriver.  She is a no nonsense woman with an added plus of a great wit and a great sense of humor.  Her essays are a joy to read.

Tara Ross (@TaraRoss)
Ms. Ross is a student of American history, and puts out a daily “This Day in American History” blast.  She is loath to jump into politics but she has seen the power grab by mayors and governors that abuse our civil rights and Constitutional rights and norms.  She is one of the fiercest defenders of individual liberty and the Electoral College in public life.   Our education system needs a lot more Tara Ross and a lot less Nikole Hanna-Jones (author of the 1619 Project).

Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO)
Like Kim Klacik, Owns is another young, fearless conservative black voice.  She is poised and well schooled, presents well and is willing to push back against Black Lives Matter and the Democratic party.   She rejects victimhood status and recently published Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democratic Plantation.  She has had a few stumbles (her comment on Hitler was misplaced) but I see Owens as a bright advocate for conservatism.

Claire Lehmann (@clairlemom)
Claire is the founding managing editor of Quilette, a platform for free thought and free expression.  It is a direct challenge to the cancel culture, and a place to obtain a variety of divergent views.  The Quilette podcasts are very good and range from Abigail Shrier on the epidemic of teen girls seeking gender reassignment, to author Lionel Shriver on the illogic of lockdowns to Jodi Shaw on the unfounded charges of racism at Smith College.

Tina Forte (@RealTina40)
Tough, foul mouthed, no holds barred, Tina is a real Bronx girl, hammering DeBlasio and Coumo mercilessly for the needless destruction of businesses, lives and the great city of New York.   One poster commented to her, ”Every time you post, I duck.” In blunt language, she holds these politicians accountable for the havoc they have caused in a once great city.

(https://twitter.com/RealTina40/status/1338865324645441543?s=20)

I also like Samantha Marika (@samanthamarika1), a young, black female conservative that does wonderful, thought provoking video pieces and author Ava Armstrong (@MsAvaArmstrong), who also consistently puts out accurate and searing tweets.

In addition to the above, there are several women overseas that I really like:  Miss Brittania (@sanefeminist), an author from Scotland,  Catholic an unapologetic advocate of nationalism, opponent of critical theory, and defender of Western Civilization; Stare Decisis (@MsResJudicata), an attorney with a strong background in economics, and Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick), an Israeli author and speaker.

These women often have divergent views, with some even tilting left, like Gabbard and Heying.  But that is the point.  Diversity of views is something the new radical left cannot tolerate.  What these women have in common is the courage of their convictions, their authenticity, and their willingness to stand against Wokeism.  I encourage you to follow all of them, and enjoy them, because Big Tech will certainly deplatform some of them.

Shifting Alliances

 

If it seems that the ground is shifting underneath you, it’s because it is.  We are going through multiple paradigm shifts simultaneously and it’s happening so fast that we can hardly catch our breath.  Alliances also are being torn apart and reformed at mind numbing speed, both here and abroad.

Alliance of Democratic Party with Islamism. 
Something like 80-85% of American Jews reliably vote Democratic year in and year out.  But astonishingly, Jews are being abandoned and scorned by Democrats.  The elevation of the stature of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib on a national level is simply stunning.  Democrats couldn’t even bring themselves to condemn Omar’s blatant anti-semitism and Tlaib is now grotesquely on a panel on anti-semitism yet recently retweeted her “from the river to the sea” comment, implying the destruction of Israel.  Democratic New York mayor Bill DeBlasio has targeted Orthodox Jews, their families and businesses for violating COVID rules, obviously singling them out for punishment.  I often wonder how long it will take for many American Jews to realize that they are not in the club anymore?

One must wonder how deeply Islamism has seeped into the American bureaucracy.   In the Obama administration, Obama inexplicably made outreach by NASA a high priority.  And more recently, the CDC in its Thanksgiving recommendations said that we should wear a mask (face veil), and refrain from singing and alcohol use. Sounds suspiciously Taliban-y to me.

The Vatican and the Globalist Left
What more can I say about Pope Francis?  Forty years ago, we had a pope that played a leading role in the fall of the Soviet Union and the discreditation of Communism.  Francis has done an about face and has embraced globalism, and has been harshly critical of the “ideology of individualism” while standing mute against the environmental and human rights abuses of the Chinese Communist Party.  Early in his tenure, I called attention to Francis’s tendency to use the exact same language as Hugo Chavez.   He has since shifted to adopt the slogans and phrases of the globalist left and explicitly used the “build back better” slogan.  He seems less concerned with saving souls than he does parroting the messages of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg.

Catholics and Jews
Faithful Catholics and Jews, finding their rights to worship abrogated by bullying mayors are closing ranks.   I proposed a National Conference of Vigano Catholics and Religious Jews.  Both are held in contempt by New York major DeBlasio, and both united to take their case for opening houses of worship to the Supreme Court.  As progressives continue to use COVID as a pretext for stomping on religious liberty, I predict a closer bond between Catholics and Jews.

Gulf States and Israel
Just as Catholics and Jews have formed tighter bonds, Gulf States and Israel are making peace.  Contrary to the assertions of John Kerry, peace between the Arab states and Israel is being forged without a Palestinian state (see Jake Novak’s latest periscope{ (https://twitter.com/jakejakeny/status/1335619906704969729?s=20)

And at the same time, the U.S. is drawing down troops in the Middle East.  This is a wonderful development, due in no small part to the continued pressure placed on the Iranian regime by Donald Trump.

Blacks and Republicans

Yes, progressives seem to be running the table right now.  Smug and confident, and one stolen election away from controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency, they are poised to make radical changes to our society.  Yet, at some level, they must be terrified.  The Democratic party is in danger of driving Jewish voters away and now black voters are starting to leak out.  Trump did reasonably well with black voters and a new cadre of conservative black voices has started to bubble up.  Burgess Owens, Kim Klacik, Candace Owens and comedian Terrance Williams have surfaced as leading black conservative blacks.  It doesn’t yet look like a mass exodus from the Democratic party, but these fresh black voices could start to chip away at Democratic dominance among African Americans.

Much is being said about the Great Reset.  Certainly, a number of traditional alliances are shifting and the Great Reset may not turn out quite like progressives expect.

The Left's Big November

 

While we all came together for our national celebration of gratitude last week, it was a bit more of a reach to find things to be grateful for, as the Radical Left had a pretty good run in November, capping it with the apparent stolen electoral victory of the ever more infirm Joe Biden.  Indeed, the Radical Left pretty much ran the table in November and exhibited more signs of raw totalitarianism than ever before.

Awards and Accolades

The Radical Left has been busy lathering itself in awards and accolades as of late.  Time’s Person of the Year contenders include despotic Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, whose singular claim to fame is chasing a 77 year old barber to the ends of the earth for defying her proclamations.   Also making the list are the vacillating Dr. Fauci, and the omnipresent socialist firebrand AOC.   Bet on a real or aspiring despot to be on the magazine’s cover this year.   New York governor Andrew Cuomo won an Emmy (?) for his handling of the COVID19 crisis, despite sentencing thousands of senior citizens to their deaths with his inexplicable order to place infected people into long term care facilities while a floating ship sat unused in New York’s harbor.   Not to be outdone, the New York Times Book Review devoted the cover and five full pages to a gushing review of volume 1 of Barack Obama’s 800 page doorstop, A Promised Land.  Reviewer Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche apparently experienced near orgasmic bliss throughout his reading of Obama’s tome:

Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come.  It is not merely that this book avoids being ponderous, as might be expected, even forgiven, of a hefty memoir, but that it is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid.

Move over, Toni Morrison.  Take a seat, Maya Angelou.  James Baldwin, your legacy is about to be trampled on by a demi-god. 

November was a very good month for awards and self-assessments for the Radical Left.

The Cancel Culture

Closer to home, at The University of Chicago, the cancel culture mob went after geophysical sciences professor Dorian Abbot for raising questions about the diversity, equity and inclusion efforts undertaken by the university in the last several years.  For the record, Abbot’s views are not dismissive of DEI efforts generally and are fairly benign:

 (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J_vf46R100Q84PBcScdoD0Z7QVfKC7gy/view)

Yet, student and faculty activists claimed that Abbot’s views “threatened the safety and belonging of underrepresented groups within the department” and  made a list of 11 demands,  that among other things, diminished Abbot’s status and role and demanded that “steps be taken to protect students and postdocs currently working with Abbot.”  This is the third major test for the university this year, as the cancel mob targeted economics professor Harald Uhlig earlier this year for suggesting that defunding the police was a poorly thought out goal of BLM.   Sadly, the English Department caved to the demands of the mob by announcing that it would ONLY accept students wishing to do work in Black Studies.  While the university fell on its face in permitting the English Department to go down this path, to its credit, the university affirmed its free speech principles in a missive released yesterday:

(https://president.uchicago.edu/page/statement-faculty-free-expression-and-diversity)

Ominously, the last paragraph also affirms the university’s diversity and inclusiveness program, and while THAT statement seems rather benign,  it says nothing of what form those efforts take, and whether academic excellence and free speech will eventually become subordinate to those efforts.  Can the Chicago Principles coexist with DEI programs as they have come to be?  I remain skeptical.  As one Twitter poster put it, “I’m beginning to think that those people with “COEXIST” bumper stickers on their cars don’t really mean it.”

Police Violence.

After enduring an entire summer of unrest, rioting and looting across the U.S. and in much of Europe due to the George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks incidents, it appears that police violence against law abiding citizens in the West is just fine now, if it’s in connection with the violation of COVID rules.  The brutal treatment of citizens in Toronto, London, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. associated with lockdown  is as nearly as bad as the George Floyd incident.   It is nearly as bad as anything the #CCP has inflicted on its citizens.   In Spain, a woman was tazed for bringing her mother to her mother’s mental health counselor in violation of the COVID rules.   In Great Britain, a 78 year old woman was manhandled for not wearing a mask.  In Toronto and the U.S., restaurant owners were arrested for keeping their establishments open.  A gym owner in New York was fined $10,000 for remaining open (he is refusing to pay) These were otherwise all law abiding citizens.  We are now treating normal, hardworking citizens like criminals, and we are celebrating career criminals like George Floyd.

Even Pope Francis jumped on board, as he penned an op-ed in the New York Times (which publication generally is contemptuous of Christianity) in which he criticized those of us that are chafing at the sudden loss of individual liberty.  “As if measures that governments must impose for the good of their people constitute some kind of political assault on autonomy or personal freedom, “ he wrote.  Further, “It is all too easy to take an idea—in this case, for example, personal freedom—and turn it into an ideology, creating a prism through which they judge everything.”  Oh, where to even begin with this foe of the Enlightenment?

Which brings me to another important question.  The “experts” in the West all claimed that opening trade with China would result in China becoming more like the West.  But almost 20 years after China’s admission to the WTO, it appears that the opposite has happened.  Western Europe and the U.S. have become more bureaucratic and more tyrannical, and are showing signs of  evolving into corrupt, one-party systems.

My Quiet Rebellion

 

What to do now?

That is a question several conservative and libertarian friends have asked me.  Anyone with a modicum of statistics knows that Joe Biden lost the election, and lost badly.   The apparent Biden victory was as plausible as a baseball player that consistently hits 20-25 home runs a year, then suddenly at age 37, bangs out 45 and asserts that he has not done steroids.  Sure, Jan.

But let’s accept reality.  The “Kraken” that Trump supporters fervently wish to appear is highly unlikely.  Fraud is very hard to prove.  WorldCom was an egregious corporate fraud and Bernie Ebbers went to prison for it.  But we would do well to remember that the AT&T president CEO was fired from his post because he was underperforming WorldCom.  AT&T hired teams of finance people to try to figure out why WorldCom’s profits were so much greater than AT&T’s.  AT&T knew World Comm’s suppliers, customers and other germane facts yet could not ascertain why WorldCom was doing so much better than AT&T.  The answer finally came to light a couple of years down the road.  WorldCom was cheating.   I suspect the 2020 election results will be similar.  We all suspect what happened, but it likely won’t be until a couple of years down the road that we will be able to prove it.

Likewise, it took John Carryrou months of painstaking work and persistence to uncover the fraud of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.  His book Bad Blood is a must read for anyone that wishes to understand how a fraud can be perpetrated and kept going for quite some time.

Yet WoldCom and Theranos teach us that frauds take time to unravel and Powell and Giuliani likely do not have the time or subpoena power to prove their case.

We are left with a Radical Left government that is likely, in my view to take the Senate, using the same techniques,  with a paramilitary arm- Antifa/BLM that is standing by and ready to inflict violence.   In addition, governors and mayors in blue states are imposing restrictions on our basic freedoms (freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of movement) that would make leaders in the old Eastern Bloc blush, even going so far as saying our families should cancel Thanksgiving.  Pennsylvania even mandated that its citizens wear masks indoors.  And all the while these local government officials flout the rules that they establish. 

We have yet to have our Boston Tea Party moment in the face of these outrageous impingements on our liberties.  There have been small showings of rebellion—the MAGA march in Washington last weekend, a few restaurants here and there defying orders, a handful of citizens fighting back against the violence and intimidation of Antifa/BLM.  Many people are simply ignoring the calls to cancel Thanksgiving. But there have been no widespread, open acts of rebellion.

 So what am I doing?   Right now, a quiet rebellion, starting with a rebellion against all forms of media.

Publications.  For years, I subscribed to the New York Times.  But its content continued to get worse and worse.  The abhorrent op-ed by Ekow Yankah in 2017 “Can My Children Be Friends With White People”
( Opinion | Can My Children Be Friends With White People? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)  almost ended my subscription right there.  Then there was the hiring of Sarah Jeong that jolted me after her vile, racist posts about white people were revealed.  Then James Bennet left and Bari Weiss quit after being bullied.  Both were fair and sensible people.  The final straw came when one Sunday, I noticed that 7 of the 8 pieces in the Review section were anti-Trump pieces, and I stopped my subscription.

N.F.L.  A lifelong football fan, I mostly unplugged once Colin Kaepernick started kneeling.  And when the entire league embraced Black Lives Matter and continued to kneel during the national anthem, I tuned out completely.  The hypocrisy of this grand exploiter of black labor through its junior partner, the N.C.A.A. cannot be overstated.  I promise I will not be back. 

Facebook.  Facebook was a convenient platform to stay in touch with some friends and family.  But Facebook’s censorship policies and the insistence of some connections to continue to post political opinions (starting with some that immediately and forcefully criticized Nicholas Sandmann), I finally deactivated my account. 

Fox News.  The obvious manipulation of calling states on election night was enough for me.  That was an unforgivable sin.  I enjoyed Tucker Carlson’s segment but even he got under my skin with his goading of Sydney Powell.  Laura Ingraham’s flattery of AOC likewise burned through me.  It had been the only news outlet that, in part, was not an out and out propaganda mill.  But even Harris Faulkner, who I admire, was caught bending her reporting to the new regime.  Because of the common ownership of the Wall Street Journal, my subscription to it likewise got dumped.

LinkedIn.  Finally, there is LinkedIn, the platform for professionals.   I need to retain my profile for professional reasons, but I’ve developed some rules around it.  You automatically cause me to unfollow or disconnect from you entirely if you (1) cause political messaging to appear in my timeline,  (2) include preferred pronouns in your profile (which is actually that same as the former), or (3) sport a mask in your profile picture.   I have already disconnected from several that posted congratulatory messages regarding Kamala Harris.  One would not even THINK of posting anything praising Donald Trump on this platform.  I believe in reciprocity.

So it begins with a quiet rebellion against MSM and social media platforms (I’m retaining a Twitter account, for now).  I recognize that I risk becoming too siloed and insulated from different points of view and I will need to address that in some fashion, to protect against the danger of slipping into an ossified dogmatism.  But on the other hand, I refuse to participate in, and becoming an unwilling and unwitting co-conspirator in a movement that I utterly reject.

While I am not quite prepared to take to the streets with pitchforks and torches (I’m probably too old for that kind of thing, anyway), at this time I can do my small part and not allow myself to get swept up in the current.  Still, things could change as the ugly totalitarian face of government reveals itself.

 

A Dangerous Place

 

We are in a very dangerous place.  As I wrote last week, we are on the brink of becoming Venezuela 2.0.  What you have witnessed was not a free and fair election, but a color revolution.  It was well-planned, well-coordinated, and well-executed, down to minute details.  After four years, of calling Trump a Nazi, what we are witnessing is something as ruthlessly efficient as anything put together by the Third Reich.

The Radical Left has an overwhelming tactical advantage right now.  It will do things that Constitutionalists will not do.   Most fundamentally, Constitutionalists, believers in the American Experiment and American values believe in a vibrant two-party system.  Even those of us that tilt right understand that the Right can, and often does, go off the rails, that we must take into account other considerations and other constituencies.   The Radical Left no longer has any such inclinations.  It believes in the righteousness of its cause, harbors no doubts about them on any front—economically, socially, politically.  Therefore, opponents are infidel equivalents (it is no accident that it has chosen to ally with Islamism) and opponents must be driven from political, economic and social life.  It is a totalitarian movement and its goal is a one party system.

How do I know?  They’ve told us and they’ve been pretty explicit about it.  They have told us directly that they wish to pack the Supreme Court, end the Senate filibuster, do away with the Electoral College and open the border.   In other words, kick over every structure that assures a two-party system and that the other side has a voice. 

What concerns me most?

Three elements:  The denial of reality, the granting of privilege, and most troubling, the normalization of political violence.

Denial of Reality

The blatant denial of reality by political leaders (and the MSM) has been simply stunning.  Attempting to create an alternative universe, governors and mayors claimed that the looting, burning, intimidation and property destruction were “mostly peaceful protests.”  The rest of us looked upon the dystopian images in stunned silence as New York, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco and even little Kenosha were wrecked, their law-abiding citizens cowering in fear as mobs ravaged the landscape.

We are now being told that there is not evidence of voter fraud in this election.  But no one with a modicum of education in statistics is buying it.  It is simply implausible that a man that did not campaign and could not fill up a high school gym with supporters when he did, is barely cogent, and lost support among people of color won this election.   The “badges of fraud” are legion—counting mail-in ballots without signatures, swing states all shutting down counting simultaneously, shutting out observers, districts with more votes than registered voters.   Taken together, these anomalies, which all tilted in one direction scream FRAUD.  And, like the pay-for-play, going on in the Clinton Foundation, they respond, “Prove it!”  Do you really think we don’t know what went on? 

The Radical Left (which includes allies in the MSM) has gotten very adept at denying the reality that you see right in front of your eyes.  But unless you have the equivalent of the blue dress as evidence, you will not prevail.

Privilege

We are being told to stay in our homes, cancel the holidays, not have a funeral for grandma, wear masks, while politicians like Lori Lightfoot, Chuck Schumer, Bill DeBlasio gather in large crowds to celebrate the Biden victory.  DC mayor Muriel Bowser shrugs off violating her own quarantine rules to attend election celebrations.  Lightfoot and Pelosi get their hairdos while Michigan governor Whitmer hounds a barber in his 70’s for staying open.  Most egregiously, the infamous Dr. Fauci, who last summer was caught without a mask, violating social distancing “rules” at a baseball game, is now telling us to “do what you’re told.”   "Do what your told" lost its cache in this country in 1773 with the Boston Tea Party.

It’s been going on all summer.  Huge crowds were permitted to attend the funeral of George Floyd, but you are told to cancel Thanksgiving, forego grandma’s funeral services, and keep your kids out of school.  Nancy Pelosi was planning a large state dinner welcoming new members until she was shamed out of it.  We know that a virus cannot distinguish between the entitled political class and gatherings for progressive causes and us plebians.   We know something else is going on here, and we are taking note.

Probably the most blatant example of the privilege at play is Ilhan Omar.  She likely violated immigration laws through a fraudulent marriage, funneled millions into her new husband's consulting firm, and has engaged in vile anti-semitism, yet remains untouched, unrepentant and remains a celebrated member of "The Squad."  

The privilege extends in many directions.  Businesses are being crushed by lockdowns, people are being thrown out of work, especially in the restaurant, hospitality, and airline industries.  Yet government workers don’t miss a paycheck, even as demand for government services has declined.  

It is not white privilege that is wrecking our society.  It is Marxist privilege.

Violence

The Radical Left began to normalize political violence as soon as Trump took office.  There was the play in Central Park in which Trump was stabbed to death.  Then there was Kathy Griffin holding the severed head of Donald Trump and Whoopie Goldberg sporting a t-shirt showing Trump being shot in the head. 

Left wing politicians used it in their language.  Joe Biden spoke of “beating the hell out of Trump if he were in high school.”  Andrew Cuomo recently said, “If I wasn’t governor of New York, I would have decked him.”  The political class has normalized and verbalized their desire to use physical violence against a political opponent.  This is VERY dangerous.

Of course, there were the riots this summer in Minneapolis, New York, D.C. and Chicago and the ongoing Antifa assaults in Seattle and Portland.   There were follow on outbursts in Kenosha, Waukesha, and Philly.   In each case, people were injured and sometimes killed, property was destroyed, stores looted and in each case, public officials told law enforcement to stand down or otherwise handcuffed them.   The widespread looting, burning, harassing of citizens and physical attacks on law enforcement officers continued with muted responses from Radical Left mayors.  In Evanston a few weeks ago, Northwestern students (among the most privileged youths on the planet) rioted and threw bricks at police and pointed lasers in their eyes.  These are assaults that under the rule of law would justify the use of deadly force in response.  By not condemning it, and taking firm steps to stop it, one can only assume that Democratic politicians are giving their tacit assent.

And now,  AOC, Jennifer Rubin and others are making lists of political enemies.   Antifa is harassing lawyers that are assisting the Trump campaign.  Earlier this summer, Tucker Carlson’s family was harassed by mobs as was the family of Mitch McConnell.  No Democrat has yet condemned Antifa or their assaults, including the assaults last night in D.C. The tolerance and tacit approval of political violence will be the spark that sets things off.  

Marxism has mutated.   It has merged with Woke culture  and found an ally in COVID19 that provides the rationalization for stripping away our liberty and installing a one party system.  The hard truth is that people had more freedoms in Eastern Bloc countries than we do now in Blue States, and we will have to fight to claw them back.  With each passing day, I fear that a widespread physical confrontation becomes more likely.

Venezuela 2.0

 

I have a very nice section in my home library devoted to American history and American literature.  Giants like Page Smith, Samuel Eliot Morison, Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, among others inhabit my shelves (I actually had the honor of meeting Mr. Wood a couple of years ago).   I have collected these volumes over the years and I have often thought that if a fire broke out in my home, they would probably be the first possessions I would grab as I ran out.

On Wednesday evening as the belated results trickled in (led by the 3 a.m. ballot drop in Wisconsin), I stared at those shelves and wept a little.

What has happened hit me harder than 9/11.  Although there have been no deaths (yet), the 2020 election will have a much deeper effect on the nation than 9/11 did.   At least on 9/11, we were able to arise the next morning, unite, and say, “Let’s go get the bastards that did this.”  This is much different.  This is Venezuela 2.0.

I have to hand it to the Radical Left, though.  It was a well-executed plan, to be able to claim mandate in an election that we would not recognize if it were held in a developing nation.  

It had two major prongs to it. Writer Charles Murray (The Madness of Crowds)  commented, “Something important happened this summer.” It sure did.  The Radical Left showed unleashed their brownshirts.  With winks and nods from Democratic mayors like Ted Wheeler and Lori Lightfoot, their street thugs were able to attack police with impunity and, even if arrested, were mostly bailed out by Democratic operatives.   The Radical Left showed you the knife. 

Then, using COVID as the screen, pushed for widespread mail balloting.  With no controls, late night ballot drops, ballot counting that actively blocked observers, the Radical Left manipulated enough votes to make it look like Biden won the Electoral count.  Of course, the Radical Left had ample help from the MSM and social media, which went all out, censuring the Hunter/Joe Biden corruption and finally Fox sticking the knife in, calling Arizona soon after the polls closed which caused many voters to just go home in that tight race.  Then there were the computer “glitches,” and allegations that the Hammer and Scorecard software may have been used.  Every person that I have spoken with that has a modicum of quantitative training has asserted that it is a virtual certainty that fraud turned the election.  In the parlance of the financial world, we call these indicia “red flags,” and they were legion throughout the voting process.

They have had several practice runs at this.  I saw it first hand in the purple 10^th district in 2012.  Incumbent Republican Bob Dold ran against Democrat Brad Schneider,  for a seat the Democrats desperately wanted to flip.  I was at Dold headquarters as the results came in.  Dold held a comfortable lead all night.  There were lots of smiles, kissing and people were already starting to pop champaign corks.  All that needed to be done was to count the few hundred absentee ballots.  Inexplicably, the absentee ballots came in at 85% Schneider, 15% Dold, ludicrously improbable.  I stood next to the stunned father of Bob  Dold, who said, “Something’s not right.”

He was right.  It wasn’t.  But Dold never contested the result and now the Illinois 10^th is safely in Nancy Pelosi’s warm, loving hands with a Brad Schneider that was all in on impeachment.

You are now being told that fraud was not widespread… by the same people that looked you in the eye when cars were burning, cops were bleeding and windows were being smashed and said these were “mostly peaceful” protests.  Again, you have to hand it to them.  The messaging was brilliant. 

Trust me.  This has been game planned. 

The Radical Left has put our Republic and the court system in a very tough spot.  The ballots and process have been so muddied that forensics and recounts are likely to be of little value.  The ONLY reliable remedy would be a do-over with in person voting with valid ID and observers--- just like you would in any third world fledgling democracy.

Democrats  messaged that somehow Amy Coney Barrett is a product of an  illegitimate process (Democrats used that word multiple times during her confirmation hearings),  thus guaranteeing that if the court somehow arrived at this remedy, the resulting mayhem on our city streets would make this summer look like a picnic.   This implicit threat of violence now looms large.

Democracies depend on the losing side accepting the outcome.  In this case, the ONLY way to do that is to have a do-over in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona and perhaps North Carolina, and a supervised, in person election is now imperative in the Senate runoff in Georgia, where the Radical Left is undoubtedly planning the same shenanigans to grab power in the Senate.  The Radical Left is far from done.

If the Senate goes, the Radical Left has told you that it plans to take a sledgehammer to all the institutional safeguards that protect a viable two-party system—a 9 justice Supreme Court, the Electoral College, the filibuster, and an effective border.   The Radical Left has gotten a taste of the CCP and they like its flavor.  

Having brandished the knife (Antifa/BLM), will the Supreme Court be willing to allow our cities burn or will it allow the Constitution to be burned?  It all will come down to that question.  Good strategists force opponents to make choices between bad and worse outcomes.   The Radical Left has done just that. 

Conservatives and many Constitutionalists continue to hold out hope that the “process” will remedy this.  But this is asymmetric warfare.  The Radical Left cares little about process.

We now stand on the precipice of becoming Venezuela 2.0.

Say No to Joe

 

I wrote to a friend of mine months ago that Joe Biden doesn’t exist.  Sure, his body is there, but the Joe Biden we knew is long gone.  If you doubt me, simply go to YouTube and see his debate with Paul Ryan of eight years ago and the contrast will stun you.  Biden hardly campaigned in the last few weeks before the election and when he did, he often spoke incoherently.  His gibberish frequently went viral on social media.

What this means is that you don’t really know who you are voting for.  Is it Kamala?  Is it Obama behind the scenes angling for a third term?  Is it some amorphous group led by The Squad?  The truth is that you don’t know.  Political parties have a duty to be up front with who their candidate really is.  And the reality is that whatever is behind the more moderately sounding Biden is likely a lot more radical, and indeed, AOC is already boasting about pulling Biden to the left.

What should worry you most is the commitment of the Democrats to  completely destroy what is left of the structures that hold America together.  They have announced their goals.  Do away with the Electoral College.  Pack the Supreme Court.  Get rid of the filibuster (even though getting rid of the filibuster for judicial nominations cost them a seat at the table to replace Ginsburg).     Grant statehood to  D.C. and Puerto Rico.  Give 16 year olds the vote.  Flood the country with illegals. 

The new radical Democrats have a tactical advantage.  Conservatives and libertarians are committed to a two party system, even when the liberals stretch the boundaries a bit.   A robust two party system ensures that neither side can go off the deep end.  The new radical Democrats are committed to a one party system.   They admire the CCP.  Thomas Friedman, one of their standard bearers said so explicitly.  The Chinese are able to solve BIG problems, he claimed, because they don’t have to worry about the pesky opposition or  the annoying electorate.  Worse, they have gotten comfortable with political violence.  They refused to condemn the rioting, and Kamala seemed to encourage it.  As recently as last week, Pennsylvania Tom Wolf continued to assert that the looting and rioting in Philly were “peaceful protests” while social media showed the reality of looting, burning cars, and police officers under attack. A victory by Joe Biden, especially if the Senate changed hands would mean that the entire country would be following the California and Illinois model of a one-party system.

Finally, there is the rank corruption.  Despite the media’s attempt to censor Hunter Biden’s dealings with the Chinese and the Ukrainians, the evidence is abundantly clear that the corruption was deep and widespread and that Joe knew about it and likely benefitted from it.   Hillary got away with influence pedaling, washing money through the Clinton Foundation.  Biden should not be able to hold the highest office in the country when his dealings compromise him with our greatest geopolitical adversary.

And if Biden gets elected, all the investigations into the fraudulent Russian conspiracy would die.  These are not yet completed and the American public needs to know the depth of the corruption at the FBI.

I believe that a Biden victory would ensure that the most radical elements of the Democratic party would seize power.   With Antifa/BLM as their enforcement arm, it would be a short hop to becoming Venezuela, and the Venezuelans warned us about it.

I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic when I say that if Biden wins, the American Experiment is over.  They will do enough damage to the structures that it will be impossible for Republicans ever to have the White House or Congress again.

Why I Support Trump in Election 2020

 

In less than a week, we will choose a president (although the process has already commenced).   We will choose between a sometimes blunt speaking, sometimes unpresidential showman that engages in puffery and an dementia ridden, addled old man that could hardly campaign in the final weeks and about whom Barack Obama was caught saying, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.”

Despite my reservations early on about Donald Trump, the choice is clear.  

I endorse Donald Trump, and I do so for three important reasons:

Challenges conventional wisdom.

Trump’s willingness to question conventional Republican positions was apparent to me from the beginning.   I listened carefully to the debates in the 2016 Republican primary.  He was the ONLY contender that did not invoke the name of Ronald Reagan.  While Reagan was a great president and an important figure for his time, his time has passed and the fruitless search by the Republicans for the next Ronald Reagan has not gotten traction in 25 years.   Trump never mentioned Reagan.

Likewise, Trump challenged conventional wisdom on a variety of fronts--- free trade, open borders, our relationship with our European allies in NATO.   He caused many of us to rethink accepted conservative doctrine.  Yes, sometimes Trump was overbroad. He picked unnecessary fights over European wine.  He made a big deal out of renegotiating NAFTA, which amounted to minor tweaks.  But with China, he correctly saw China as a geopolitical threat and no as a fair trader, but as a trade predator, currency manipulator and intellectual property thief.  Likewise, we had a border that was essentially not being enforced.  While the conventional wisdom said that immigration is good for the country, Donald Trump recognized that this principle is not unqualified.  While there are certainly people that come across the border that contribute to our society, there are also gang members (MS13), human traffickers, terrorists and people that are coming just for the social welfare benefits.   As I mentioned in earlier posts, an immigrant can land in three potential buckets: 1) working and self supporting, 2) social welfare system, and 3) the criminal justice system.   We should only be taking the people that have skills to work and become self sufficient.    Trump has pushed back against “sanctuary cities,” a modern form of Nullification.  The Left couches his position in terms of being anti-immigration, but he is actually a proponent of the nation-state, which cannot exist in the absence of an enforceable border. Trump’s willingness to question conventional wisdom is the #1 reason I support his re-election.

Federalism

For all the howling in the MSM and claims that  Trump is a fascist, in reality Trump is a federalist and respects the federal system, especially when it counts.   The only specific action that he took without legislative action that curtailed any rights was his rather minor executive order regarding “bump stocks.” Otherwise, while he offered federal assistance, he has left action to the states when it came to dealing with COVID19 and the rioting that has taken place.  While certain states stubbornly cling to lockdowns as a solution to COVID19 (which even the W.H.O. recommends against) Trump has taken no action to coerce them into his position.   Indeed, by chipping away at the regulatory state,  bit by bit, Trump is giving away executive power.

Meanwhile, his opponent is still talking about a national mandate to wear masks, the New Green Deal, and ripping away local zoning from local municipalities and nationalizing them https://nypost.com/2020/07/21/joe-bidens-disastrous-plans-for-americas-suburbs/).  Even more destructive are the calls among Democrats to do away with the Electoral College.   Re-electing Trump would help ensure that our Republic, as a republic, continues  for at least a few more years.

Foreign policy

It is in foreign policy that Trump has demonstrated surprising acumen, especially as he brings his ability and willingness to challenge conventional wisdom and the foreign policy establishment.   Despite the cries of the MSM that Trump is impulsive and would plunge us into war (they made the same claims of Ronald Reagan in 1980), Trump has withdrawn U.S. military involvement, especially in the Middle East. 

The wailing and hand wringing of people like Richard Haass and Jim Mattis, peace broke out all over.  Trump brokered a historic peace deal between Kosovo and Serbia.  Led by the UAE, several Arab countries have recognized Israel (much to the chagrin of the Palestinians),  and Saudi Arabia could be next.

Trump has put pressure where pressure is needed.   He responded immediately to the use of chemical weapons by Assad and was unafraid to take out Iran’s Soleiamani, who was responsible for killing U.S. soldiers and wreaking havoc across the Middle East, again despite the howls of the MSM and foreign policy establishment.  His best speeches were, in fact, foreign policy speeches on foreign soil.  His speech in Poland was magnificent and his speech in Saudi Arabia where he laid out a vision for a peaceful revitalized Middle East rivaled Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech at the Brandenburg Gate. 

But it is with China that Trump has demonstrated a sober and realistic view and toward which a major realignment needs to take place.  He understood that China has no intentions ever of being a fair trader.  China, over the years, gutted our manufacturing base, stole our intellectual property, challenged us militarily and infused our universities with espionage agents (See Charles Lieber at Harvard).  Trump wisely jettisoned the Paris Accord and kicked the TPP to the side, both of which would have advantaged China at our expense.  Our vulnerability was highlighted when we woke up to find that 80% of our pharmaceuticals were manufactured in China, and that regime would have no inhibitions about using that as leverage against us.  The coverup of the Wuhan Virus and takeover of Hong Kong demonstrated that a normal bilateral trading relationship with China is not possible.  Andrew Roberts, author of the recent biography of Winston Churchill likened Trump to Churchill in his ability to correctly spot a threat before the establishment politicians could.  The ability to constructively confront China (which Biden cannot do) is a critical attribute in this election cycle.

Finally, and most importantly, Trump loves America (unlike much of the voting base of his opponent).  His America First posture has been roundly derided by the establishment.  Trump has resisted ceding sovereignty to amorphous and unaccountable bodies.  Every CEO puts his or her company first.  Xi puts China first.  Putin puts Russia first.  Even Macron puts France first.   We should be entitled to a leader that puts America first.

Children of the West

 

Of all the disquieting events that are unfolding,  what  we are doing to our children disturbs me most.

It occurred to me that the biggest difference between the left and right is how we treat and regard our children.   And it says a great deal about how we view the future.  The contrast is unmistakable and stark.  Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac has supplanted Michelle Obama as the nation’s #1 female bellyacher.  Nicks complained that COVID is stealing her “last youthful years” (as if the rest of us plebians are not also affected).   Last week, Nicks asserted that if she had not had an abortion “there would have been no Fleetwood Mac.”   I’m not sure whether that statement is a self-rationalization or an attempt to get support from her adoring fans and justify the snuffing out of the life of her unborn child.  But it’s clear that in her mind, the tradeoff was worth it (although perhaps she could have done both,  but refuses to consider that third option).   Likewise, Michelle Obama asserted that she “gave up her dreams to have children.”  Sorry Malia and Sasha.  You seem like bright, attractive kids.  Too bad mommy carries so much resentment over you.  Contrast this with the position of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who has 7… count ‘em 7 (and had room in her life for two that are not hers, and one of her children has Downs)  to look after and still has managed to have a respectable career.  Living what must be an exhausting life, Barrett called her children “her greatest joy.” 

We are seeing the contrast played out in real time.   And our left leaning society is sending a strong message about children and our future.

In the current COVID crisis, the mortality rate among young people is practically negligible.   Yes, occasionally, you get an outlier in their 20’s that succumbs to this dreadful virus, but the reality is that it is rarely fatal in young people.  Yet, we are inflicting the burden of COVID19 on them in multiple ways.  Despite the low hospitalization and mortality rate among children and teens, we are condemning them to “remote learning.”  Remote learning is fairly ineffective and, among kids with special needs, simply unworkable.   In certain subjects, like math, kids may never catch up.  The social and mental health costs are beginning to pile up on these kids. I can tell you from my own experience that after about a half an hour or so during webinars and Zoom calls, my attention starts to drift.  I can’t imagine what it’s like for a teenage boy.  Yet, in the effort to try to protect the health of older citizens, we are shifting the costs to our children to bear.  I cannot speak for all adults, but I would happily accept a greater risk of sickness and, yes, even death to make sure that our younger generation is prepared for the challenges that are in front of them.  As a society, we have always done this---we bare costs and risks so our children don’t have to.  We sacrifice to pave the way for our children.  But our politicians have chosen otherwise.  

I have also written numerous posts concerning our inability to protect our children against violence.  I wrote an impassioned post following the Birmingham terrorist bombing and our failure to protect young girls against Islamic terror and “grooming” in Europe.  Last fall, I wrote about the heinous murders of four young schoolgirls of different races in separate incidents (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2019/12/bloody-fall.html).   In bloody Chicago, children are being gunned down nearly every weekend.   Yet, we hear little or nothing from Governor Pritzker or Mayor Lightfoot on specific step being taken to curtail this assault on our children by savage gang members.  These politicians are willing to virtually shut down the economy of the entire state for a virus that rarely causes death among young people, are willing to threaten people for violating the “rules” and have weekly press conferences to discuss where we stand, but every weekend the body count on the streets of Chicago piles up among children, and they have grown to accept it as “part and parcel” of urban life just as London mayor Sadiq Khan has accepted Islamic terrorism in his city.

Along with the violence that is perpetrated on children, sexual exploitation and sexualization of children  has become endemic in our society.    It is appearing in a myriad of places and the mainstream media is behind normalizing it.    This is an issue that is also tied to immigration, as human traffickers regularly work to bring children over the border for the sex trade (the Trump administration recently has done a superb job of finding these kids and rescuing them).   As horrible as the scandal in the Catholic Church was, it is hardly the only institution that has protected the pedophiles, not the children.  The Chicago Public School System and the Boy Scouts were fertile ground for the sexual exploitation of young people.  Sex abuse in athletics shocked the world with the Penn State case, the U.S. Gymnastics case and the long and sordid career of Larry Nassar case at Michigan State, where a large part of the school’s administration was involved in the cover up.  We have seen pedophilia surface in our political class with Anthony Weiner,  probably with Senator Menendez and Bill Clinton and now with Hunter Biden.   Our children are not being protected but rather exploited to satisfy the twisted sexual desires of these despicable people.

And now, the leftist media has been hard at work normalizing pedophilia.    “Drag Queen Story Hour” an innocent sounding event infected our libraries across the nation—an event aimed at children 3 to 8 where drag queens read stories to little children and let them crawl on their laps, clearly a thinly veiled grooming practice.  And if you write objecting, as I have, you get a polite response back suggesting you are a bigot.    The dust up at Netflix over the show Cuties, which featured little girls twerking and touching themselves was dismissed as “storytelling” by the president of Netflix.   The New York Times has been periodically running op-eds arguing that pedophilia should not be criminalized but rather is a psychological condition.  And they are attempting to change the language, ridding us of the word “pedophile” and instead substituting the more innocuous sounding “minor attracted persons” as the pedophiles have attempted to latch on to the LGBT movement to garner legitimacy.

Long term, the debt we are heaping on our children is most troublesome.   And we are burying them in debt at every level, ensuring that they will become virtual future slaves to our current voracious appetites to consume.   Our national debt now stands at a staggering $23.2 trillion with no end in sight.  While the proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) rationalize this intergenerational robbery, there is no doubt this debt load will eventually have a crushing effect on their futures.  Here in  Illinois, our debt loads are rated near junk status.   The City of Chicago and State of Illinois are now trying to push through whopping tax increases to deal with it.   A young man or woman starting out their careers that wish to buy a modest condo in the city will need to peddle harder and faster so some 55 year old city retiree can be comfortably fishing off a dock in the Florida Keys.  We are robbing them of their ability to save and have some cushion so boomers can enjoy a protected, safe retirement.  

The sanctimonious world of academia (which also had a hand in the sexual exploitation of children) is doing its part to darken the futures of our young people.   Student debt stands at a staggering $1.7 trillion as college costs have outstripped inflation over the past few decades (as universities layered on administrative staff and added degrees guaranteeing no employable skills like gender and ethnic studies).   Condemning our children to near slavery, working substantially for the people that hold the debt instruments of the federal government and their student loan providers, especially as our economy is staggering after COVID19 is morally reprehensible.

Finally, there is abortion.  While the numbers continue to decline (862,000/year), states like Illinois and New York now permit abortion up to birth for any reason.   Safe, legal and rare has turned into virtual infanticide.   It sickened me to see the New York legislature cheer when the measure passed to permit unfettered late term abortion.   At one time, I was among those “uncomfortably pro-choice” (as Megan McArdle put it) people until I saw the dark place they were dragging us to.

We burned cities and kicked off hundreds of corporate and institutional initiatives because one ex-felon and meth user died at the hands of the police.  But we look the other way when it comes to the care and nurturing of our children.  I would gladly cut the EPA budget in half and establish the Child Protection Agency instead.   There must be a sense of urgency about what we are doing to make sure the next generation have a bright future.