Imagine along with me, if you please.
As the Year of Our Lord 2020 draws toward its end, the United States of America is enjoying a rebirth of freedom and prosperity virtually no one foresaw five years earlier. The vista is almost impossible to believe...yet there it lies before us.
Hundreds of oppressive laws and many thousands of anti-Constitutional regulations have been lifted from Americans’ shoulders. Private citizens have regained their right to keep and bear arms, in full. Federal taxes have been sharply reduced. Kelo v. New London has been overturned, by a remarkable unanimous opinion of the Justices. Nonjudicial punishments are a thing of the past. All five branches of our military have been revitalized. Perhaps best of all, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments have been restored to their full and proper effect, returning internal autonomy to the states while binding them to their own constitutions under penalty of federal wrath.
With the reduction in government power has come an economic explosion. Growth rates have returned to Nineteenth Century levels. Involuntary unemployment is virtually nil. The nation’s urban cores, many of which were once spoken of as blighted beyond recovery, have shared fully in the economic renaissance. The welfare rolls are a shrunken remnant of their former bloat. And American made products are once again the envy of the world.
None if it has come without effort...and some painful re-evaluations. The fortification of the borders caused more than a little suffering. The institution of extreme vetting for all immigration applicants excited a great deal of controversy, especially when it became clear that ideological and religious affiliations would once again become criteria for exclusion. The repeal of the Environmental Protection Act, the dissolution of the Environmental Protection Administration, and the return of all environmental and conservationist authority to the states put nearly two hundred thousand federal employees out of work. Yet the public came to accept that it was all necessary.
Our nation is once again free, rich, and secure. The architect of this remarkable turnaround, who was once reviled by half the electorate yet now seems destined to reap the first fifty-state sweep since George Washington on Election Day next week, is no other than the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
Yet there remain pockets of intense dissatisfaction: angry voices that can be heard from all our media. They’ve called for everything from street protests against the Administration to a violent revolution. Who are they and what do they want?
The concluding question in the little fantasy above is the one uppermost in my thoughts this morning. Make no mistake: it is a fantasy. Unless President Trump should get total cooperation from Congress and the Supreme Court from this point forward, it could not come to pass. A president’s powers are not those of a dictator, the claims of Barack Hussein Obama notwithstanding.
But my fantasy can serve as the basis for a Gedankenexperiment. Imagine that what I wrote above were to come to pass in reality. Who would occupy the “pockets of intense dissatisfaction?” Why would they be angry about such developments? What would be the substance of their denigrations...if there were any substance to them at all?
Contemplate those questions while I get more coffee.
This morning, the following snippet from this interview with Camille Paglia provides much insight into our current political turmoil:
Had Hillary won, everyone would have expected disappointed Trump voters to show a modicum of respect for the electoral results as well as for the historic ceremony of the inauguration, during which former combatants momentarily unite to pay homage to the peaceful transition of power in our democracy. But that was not the reaction of a vast cadre of Democrats shocked by Trump's win. In an abject failure of leadership that may be one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of the modern Democratic party, Chuck Schumer, who had risen to become the Senate Democratic leader after the retirement of Harry Reid, asserted absolutely no moral authority as the party spun out of control in a nationwide orgy of rage and spite. Nor were there statesmanlike words of caution and restraint from two seasoned politicians whom I have admired for decades and believe should have run for president long ago—Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. How do Democrats imagine they can ever expand their electoral support if they go on and on in this self-destructive way, impugning half the nation as vile racists and homophobes?
Candidate Trump played by the rules: he pursued an Electoral College victory, as is prescribed by the Constitution. The Democrats were shocked! shocked! that Trump had focused on winning the election rather than on securing a majority of the popular vote. Yet it was pretense from the very first. Had Clinton secured a victory in that fashion – and an Electoral College majority is the only way to win the presidency – they would have been strident in proclaiming Clinton’s political genius and insisting that the popular vote is of no ultimate importance.
The Democrats were endlessly forgiving of actions and measures Barack Hussein Obama took as president that were at best Constitutionally dubious. They characterized any criticism of Obama or his methods as “racism.” They applauded as Obama disparaged the GOP and its major spokesmen in the most contemptuous fashion. They blamed the economic consequences of Obamunist policies on “Republican sabotage.” They spoke of permanent Democratic hegemony in Washington, and acted as if it had already been set in stone. They dismissed all warnings from the Right as sour-grapes backbiting.
President Trump has exercised the legitimate, Constitutional powers of the presidency to fulfill several campaign promises. The economy and public confidence are already responding favorably. Yet he’s excited the most violent condemnation imaginable from prominent Democrats. Several have accused him of having stolen the election with assistance from the Russian government. There have been several calls for his impeachment, entirely without grounds. Accusations of every conceivable low motive have been hurled at him. Yet he’s done only what he said he would do while campaigning, albeit not all of it.
Yes, President Trump faces significant opposition from Republicans as well: the so-called “NeverTrumpers.” That opposition largely accounts for the sluggishness with which his agenda has advanced, despite GOP control of both houses of Congress. And while some of those opponents are animated by the same envy and resentment that have fueled the Left’s year-long tantrum, some are unhappy with Trump for ideological or stylistic reasons. A sufficient degree of success might win the latter group over.
Trump fights back. It’s one of the most significant contrasts he makes with prior Republican presidents. He who disparages Trump can expect a return of fire, usually solidly based in fact. As Don Surber has noted, a wise man, after reviewing the record to this point, would refrain from crossing rhetorical swords with Trump. Yet the fusillades continue.
The reason can only be found in the very worst kind of envy: the hatred-filled rage of him who mutters “That should be me up there.” The lust for power characteristic of politicians, combined with the conviction that power is owed to oneself by right, can elicit such a reaction from any of them. One who has had his presidential aspirations defeated is especially prone to it.
The political Left is all about power. It has no ideals; it exists solely to dominate...to oppress. There is no joy for them other than “a boot stamping on a human face.” The Leftist politician’s alliances and collaborations are tactical only; today’s ally can swiftly become tomorrow’s blood enemy, should he become a menace to one’s ambitions.
Yes, there’s some envy and frustrated power-lust on the Right. But it’s not Republicans or conservatives straining to turn our city streets into zones of permanent chaos. It’s not Republicans or conservatives doing their damnedest to silence our spokesmen with vilification, vandalism, and violence. It’s certainly not Republicans screaming for Trump’s impeachment and trial, as if he’d wielded the presidency in the fashion of his predecessor.
The political dynamic of the decade is deeply colored by hatred: the hatred of those who believe themselves entitled to rule the rest of us, for the movement that elevated their bitterest foe to the White House. That hatred will not be quenched by Trumpian success. Indeed, it would be inflamed by such a demonstration of its emptiness. That’s what we have to look forward to, should the president’s agenda bring the national resurgence for which we hope.
Both sides of the aristocracy act for the love of money and status but the marxists love power most of all.
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