Wednesday, April 25, 2018

This summer I hear the drumming

The best observer of the current moment continues to be Victor Davis Hanson. And what he's observing is, well, frightening:
Each cycle of hysteria demands another, as the race to the bottom has descended into which celebrity or politician can discover the most provocative — or crude — Trump expletive. “S***” and “f***” are now the ordinary vocabulary of angry Democratic politicos and officeholders. Are we reaching a point in the so-far-failed Resistance where little is left except abject violence in the manner of the Roman or French Revolution? The problem for Trump’s pop-culture foes is not whether to imagine or advocate killing the president. That’s a given. They just need to agree on the means of doing so: decapitation (Kathy Griffin), incineration (David Crosby), stabbing (the Shakespeare in the Park troupe), shooting (Snoop Dogg), explosives (Madonna), old-fashioned, Lincoln-style assassination (Johnny Depp), death by elevator (Kamala Harris), hanging (a CSU professor), or simple generic assassination (a Missouri state legislator).
There's more:
After the prior era of hysteria, between 2005 and 2008, when books and docudramas staged the imagined assassination of George W. Bush, and celebrities like Michael Moore and activists such as Cindy Sheehan reduced Bush to the status of a war criminal, the Left in 2009 demanded a return to normal political discourse and comportment, with the election of Barack Obama. A newly contrite and apologetic America was abruptly worth believing in again. In 2009, the CIA and FBI suddenly were reinvented as hallowed agents of change.
And there's more, with the next two words being the crucial ones:
Bush careerists, including Clapper and Brennan, were now damning the very counterterrorism practices that they once helped put in place, while offering Obama-like politically correct sermons on the benign nature of Islamism. Surveillance and jailing were appropriate punishments for suspected Obama apostates (ask James Rosen or Nkoula Basseley Nakoula). The IRS was weaponized for use against Obama’s ideological opponents. Suggestions that the president was unfit or worse became near treasonous. Unity was the new patriotism. The assumption was that Obama had ushered in a half-century of progressive norms, not that he so alienated the country that he birthed Donald Trump.
Trump won because he wasn't part of the cabal. But in order for Trump to have any chance of curing the fever, we need to see something Hanson despairs we'll see:
We are entering revolutionary times. The law is no longer equally applied. The media are the ministry of truth. The Democratic party is a revolutionary force. And it is all getting scary.
It is. I sense a long hot summer ahead. And, of course, hit the link.

9 comments:

3john2 said...

10 dead in Toronto.

Gino said...

when the rule of law is not equally applied, there is no law, only the tyranny of the favored.
The courts have the joined the resistance movement as well, so do we even have courts anymore?... never mind that, there is no law for courts to rule upon.

i've been saying that the revolution is already here. the govt is being overturned before our very eyes in the courts and the DOJ.
the shooting will start eventually, because its not a matter of if, but when. The Left is not opposed to using violence. just look at any college campus.


Petercorp said...

You guys are absolutely correct about the lack of law and order. We barely have a democracy anymore with too much corruption, and a lack of personal responsibility. The right had better hurry up with stacking the courts. If it all goes Dem it'll be chaos after that. Even Elisabeth Warren votes for some republicans realizing the dangers of one party rule.

But Trump was a part of the Cabal, and for a long time. It wasn't until he made his announcement to run in the style that he did that he removed himself from it. This stuff with whatever the Russian investigation is doing, and whatever they think that they have with Cohen could be nothing. I'd be more concerned with all of the business, and political leaders that Trump had to do business with over the years while knee deep in the Cabal. I don't know if how true it is that the republican party is quickly becoming only Christians, but if it is I'm not sure how bright a future it is with a group that's been shrinking for many years. Unless both are temporary

W.B. Picklesworth said...

What's surprising to me, though maybe it won't be once the time of retrospection comes, is why mess the whole thing up? This is a pretty good gig. It's not as if they're doing reckless things out of desperation or deprivation.

Once I write that out I realize that acting from rational, material motivation isn't all that common. Far more common is acting from emotion. I think the progressives driving this whole "Resistance" and the generation that preceded it (with all of its misanthropy disguised as love) call to mind nothing so much as a child desperately seeking a boundary, a firm voice to say, "No." The problem is that, unlike with a child, citizens who have not been swept along by this emotional childishness cannot simply assert their prerogative as rightful parents. We can't simply say, "This household isn't a democracy."

W.B. Picklesworth said...

J. Peterson, I'm not sure that then country has much of a future, never mind the Republican party, if America has gone post-Christian. And without a sound America to buttress Europe, I'm not convinced that Western Civilization in general has much going for it.

Après nous la déluge?

W.B. Picklesworth said...

That said, none of this really worries me exactly. One could wish to live in more stable, happy times. But living in "interesting times" affords one opportunities. I think that is especially the case for Christians.

Gino said...

Butress Europe? Fairly soon, demographic changes in Europe will render that concept moot.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Exactly, Gino. Already it couldn't stand by itself. Europe was mortally wounded by World War 1 (and the rise of the Bolsheviks). Essentially, we've been contaminated by the corpse.

Petercorp said...

The country has a future. It may not be that bright for now. It will be someday again. Who know's exactly what it will become. Going by history even we're not all too sure of what exactly yet. We could split into a couple of different nations. It could be even more division than that.

It could become totalitarianistic. I could become anarchistic as well. It might not be a very fun ride. And it still might end up being a rather fun ride. I can't wait to find out for myself