Thursday Tergiversations

     There are far too many things going on for me to write an essay about any one of them. It would leave me feeling guilty that I’d shortchanged the others. So instead I’ll do a frivolous piece that shortchanges all of them.

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1. Targets.

     In hewing to Alinsky’s dictum that it should personalize its targets, the Left operates according to certain criteria, of which the following are the most imperative:

1. The target should be white – i.e., of Euro-Caucasian ancestry.
2. He must, of course, have done something to disserve the Left.
3. He should display a certain hesitancy about expressing his convictions.
4. He should lack a platform from which to speak on his own behalf.
5. He should be reliably disinclined to fight back.

     Candace Owens’ recent appearance before a Congressional committee supposedly convened to discuss “white nationalism” made it plain that the Left cannot afford to target her. Not only is she black and forthright, she’s the communications director of Turning Point USA and she fights back fearlessly. Newly confirmed Attorney-General William Barr, on the other hand, fits all the criteria:

     The stammering is a dead giveaway that Barr was massively reluctant to express his belief that the Obama Administration, or parts of it, did spy on the Trump for President campaign. And the Left’s mouthpieces were immediately all over him like a cheap suit.

     I hope the Attorney-General is braced for the torrent of vilification and slander guaranteed to follow.

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2. The Witch Hunt Continues.

     The Dishonorable Jerrold Nadler (D, NY) is determined to spread as much manure over President Trump as he can. His charge that Trump has indulged in “betrayals of the public interest” got a lot of press attention when he first leveled it. Has he produced even a single specific allegation to that effect? No. He has no evidence for it…but that’s never stopped a Twenty-First Century Democrat.

     The Supremely Dishonorable Maxine Waters (D, CA) has apparently taken a “time out” from haranguing her colleagues about the importance of impeaching the president. Instead she’s pursuing members of his Administration…but as usual for Mad Maxine, she can’t keep her ducks in a row:

     Mnuchin made it plain how little he thinks of her – and it’s about time.

     Democrats mistreating Republican Cabinet Secretaries has a long and detailed history. Remember this incident, from when the late William E. Simon was Gerald Ford’s Energy Secretary?

     While we were in conference, I got a message that Representative Al Ullman, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, wanted me. At the end of the conference I rushed out to my car, from which I intended to phone him. Actually I rushed backward, since I was talking to two lieutenant-governors who were talking to me. As I backed into my compact car—I had already “grounded” all government limousines—I cracked my head, splitting the back of my scalp wide open. Blood started to pour from my head. I held a handkerchief to it and phones Al Ullman. He said “We want you up here immediately to answer the Shah’s charges.” I replied, “I’ve just split my head open. I’ll have to see a nurse first.” I visited the Treasury nurse, who told me that my scalp required half a dozen stitches. I relayed that information to Congressman Ullman, and that kindly fellow said “Absolutely not. Get down here right away. We’ll keep you only half an hour.” In fact I was there for about five hours, bleeding incessantly, in considerable pain and facing Congressmen who were screaming and yelling. [From A Time for Truth]

     That was forty-two years ago. What’s changed since then?

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3. The Old Guard Is Getting Tired.

     Mike Hendrix – and Gentle Reader, he goes back to blogging’s Big Bang – has some thoughts for us:

     As I’ve said before: over lo, these many years I’ve occasionally mulled over packing this blog up myself, and come damned close to doing it too, more than just once. Doing this stuff is work, and it’s time- and energy-intensive, and I find myself with precious little of both these days. But then along would come an email, from a soldier or sailor or Marine or flyboy slogging along out there at the pointy end of the spear, telling me how awfully much the blog means to them. Whereupon I sit right back down and get back to it.

     Is there a point to doing this, anything to be accomplished? Probably not, honestly. After years of sincerely and respectfully debating with the libs who wandered in once in a while, it finally dawned on me that I was never going to persuade them about anything. The divide is fundamental, deep, and unbridgeable; debate is bootless now. As I’ve so often said: either you favor a limited central government as the Founders intended and their Constitution demands, or you favor a meddlesome, almighty federal Superstate with no meaningful restrictions on what it may choose to either mandate or forbid. There is no middle ground left. After decades of steady Leftist encroachment and subversion, all that remains now is the desperate struggle for victory…or defeat.

     It has become plain that the top and middle tiers of the Left’s pyramid:

The Top: Ideologists and Strategists
The Middle: Organizers and interest-group administrators
The Bottom: Low-level allegiants who mainly provide money and votes.

     …are unreachable for religious reasons. (The top men worship only power; the organizers and interest-group barons have made their politics the justification for their sense of moral superiority.) The bottom tier is theoretically persusasible, but in practice this is usually cost-prohibitive, owing to their fear of condemnation, ostracism, and worse by other Leftists.

     So why continue to talk at them, especially as they reply with slanders and insults far more often than not?

     Good question. I lack a convincing answer. But the Dextrosphere still has a part to play in keeping up the Right’s morale and helping conservatively-inclined Americans to stay abreast of developments.

     All the same, as Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde have told us, all good things must end someday:

     Stay tuned.