Why the Democrats can't put Humpty-Dumpty back together

Well, they can't in time for the election, anyway.  There's an old saying in politics that "personnel is policy" which refers to a lot more than just having someone competent in the job.  It's a reflection that politics is about coalitions - building them and maintaining them.  The coalition members get their cut of the government largess, and pay for it with loyalty to the guy at the top.  If they're not loyal, he gives them their pick slip and they lose the largess.

This was actually Trump's biggest mistake when he was president, not filling the Federal Government with his coalition.  In his defense, he was in the middle of a Republican civil war, where there were multiple factions and multiple coalitions.

That's exactly what the Democrats face now, and why they can't put Humpty-Dumpty back together.  Because there are multiple coalitions, whoever emerges on top won't know if he (she?) can trust these coalitions because they aren't his coalitions.  They might be able to be integrated into his coalition, given time, but time is exactly what the Democrats do not have right now.

It takes time to forge a governing coalition - just look at any parliamentary system: when the government is stable it is because the governing coalition is solid.  Ministers can issue policy with a reasonable expectation that it will be supported and carried out by the coalition members.  When the governing coalition is unstable, chaos results.  Orders get ignored or slow walked or subverted because the Minister no longer has the loyalty of the coalition members.

Eventually a leader emerges who can attract key talent from outside coalitions and integrate it into his.  This will involve rewards like positions in the bureaucracy or some such - featherbedding is the name of this game.  But until this all gets sorted out and the new coalition is filled with people who think they're better off with the new leader than without, nothing is going anywhere.

Even worse, there will always be serious back stabbing between different coalitions.  Trust is not a virtue most politicians hew to, and quite frankly until they are in a position to remove perks as well as give them, they would be a fool to trust just about anybody.

Some day a leader will emerge to stitch together the various coalitions that make up the Democratic party.  It won't happen in the next 100 days, sure as God made little green apples.

The biggest implication of this is that it will be much more difficult for the Democrats to "fortify" the upcoming election via 2020-style shenanigans.  Sure, the party bosses will want to, but how much do they trust the other coalitions to support them?  Would other coalitions even go so far as to rat them out (with plausible deniability, of course) - leading to various party elders behind bars.  That certainly would make it easier for other party elders to construct a winning coalition once they've taken out some of the competition.

Like I said, these people would have to be fools to trust very many people, and an election cheating scheme requires a lot of people to pull off.  When everyone is on-side you get the 2020 election.  When lots of people are very much not on-side you get, well, the Italian government which has had something like 60 Prime Ministers in 80 years.

The best analogy I can think of is the scene from The Godfather where all the families get together to divide things up.  Nobody trusts anybody.  That's where the Democrats are right now.

I repeat: you can't put a coalition together overnight - heck, it's taken almost a decade for Donald Trump to put together a serious coalition and a lot of his party still hates him.  I think that the Democrats will come more apart before they start to come together as the various factions start putting out mob hit style rumor whispers about their Democratic competitors.  We will hear a lot about this in the next few weeks.

And this is why the only choice at all for them to to fall in behind Kamala and hope for the best in the down ticket races.  But remember, while Kamala might have inherited Slow Joe's campaign cash, she was never really part of this coalition.  It's not loyal to her at all.  It may be that she's been so ineffective in office because Joe's coalition kept sabotaging her.  She has to build a coalition, and right quick.  The cash will help her there but coalition building takes time.

She doesn't have that.  What she does have is a whole boatload of enemies in the Democratic party.  Some of these think that their best bet to get to the top of the greasy pole is for her not to get there.  They'd rather have Trump in the Oval Office because they will have 4 years to build a coalition.  If Kamala is there, things are a lot trickier for them.

I almost feel sorry for the Democrats in general and Kamala in particular.  Almost.  It's ironic that all their short term tactical maneuvering has led them to this very spot.  Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of Mob Bosses.

In which I (kind of) disagree with Divemedic

Divemedic posts a complaint about squishy RINOs.  I actually don't have any disagreement on this.

Where my opinion diverges from his is that the old "left" vs. "right" paradigm is kind of ending.  I haven't seen a good name for hte new emerging paradigm, so let's just call it "populists" vs. "business as usual".  Lousy name, but this is where the political action is, both here and all over the place (Argentina, El Salvador, France, Germany, the UK).

The Press is hyperventilating about the emergence of the "far right" in Europe, which entirely misses what's happening.  I've posted endlessly about this, but this is maybe what comes the closest to a (non-Borepatchian length) summary.

Populism is regularly trashed by the Great and the Good, but the inroads that Trump is making with the Black community doesn't seem to be typical pandering, but rather tapping into a real sense of dissatisfaction with Business As Usual.  Kind of like what the rest of us feel.

It also seems that RFK's support comes from the same well spring of dissatisfaction.  If that's true, it implies that RFK's candidacy will hurt Trump more than Biden.  And I still have the feeling that there's a non-trivial chance that the Deep State will try to assassinate Trump, and maybe succeed.  The Great and the Good keep complaining that Trump has "overturned norms" but it sure looks to me that they're the ones that are doing that.

Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law. 

Endorsed

RFK Jr. backs Rand Paul for Senate GOP Majority Leader.  Of course it will never happen, but interesting.

(via)

Tom Lehrer - So Long Mom (A Song For WWIII)

Seemingly everything old is new again.  Apocalypse Nostalgia, anyone? 

Nice turn of phrase

 So how many political genders are there in the GOP?

Softness to traitors

Softness to traitors will destroy us all.

- Maximilian Robespierre

Texas GOP Senator Cornyn, leader of the Republicans playing Gun Control footsie with the Democrats, gets booed by Republicans at the Texas GOP convention.  And not just a couple of Boo birds, but a solid minute and a half before his speech.  It seems that the good Senator was surprised by the response.

Smartest kid in class, right there [rolls eyes].  Maybe he should have read Shakespeare.

But cruel are the times, when we are traitors,
And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumor
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,

But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way and none

- William Shakespeare, Macbeth

We know what Red Flag enforcement looks like

I've seen how this movie ends:

I've linked several times to posts over at the blog Dispatches from TJICistan.  TJIC is an outspoken (some might say extremely so) advocate of smaller government.  He's also a firearms owner in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.  While he owns guns, it appears that he's no longer allowed to possess any:

ARLINGTON (CBS) – A blog threatening members of Congress in the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shooting has prompted Arlington police to temporarily suspend the firearms license of an Arlington man. 

It was the headline “1 down and 534 to go” that caught the attention. “One” refers to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in the rampage, while 534 refers to the other members of the U.S. House and Senate.

Police are investigating the “suitability” of 39-year-old Travis Corcoran to have a firearms license

Let's ignore for the moment how many people were investigated for making similar comments about George W. Bush.  Let's look at the "logic" being exercised by the Arlington Po-Po, shall we?

They claim that Corcoran is so dangerous that, while he has done nothing more than put up a blog post, he must be restrained from possessing firearms.  However, it appears that it's not worth it for the police to follow him, or stake out his place, or arrest him.

Huh?

Look, guys, if you think that his speech rises to the level of an actual threat of specific harm to specific persons, he should be in jail.  If you're not sure, then do the leg work to establish whether it is or not.

Ah, I was so young and optimistic, 11 years ago.  After all, we had ferocious conservative Republicans ferociously conserving things.  But even then it was clear where this would go:

It would be one thing if the law were applied equally to all.  It's not, and it will be applied disproportionately to us, because we hold views considered by some in power to be Double Plus Ungood.

Divemedic says the same, in fewer words.  He also has some suggestions on a strategy you can use.

Thanks to the GOP, we're all TJIC now.

There's a reason that they're called the "Stupid Party".  And there's a reason that the Democrats are called the "Evil Party".

Well bless her heart

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has a new ad out, highlighting opponent Stacy Abrams' remark that Georgia was the "worst State to live [in]."  After playing Abrams' statement, the narrator says "Bless her heart."

For folks up in Yankeeland, this is taking the gloves off.

Now I'm not a big Brian Kemp fan (the best Governor of Goergia in all the years I lived there was the late, great Zell Miller).  I guess we'll see how the Georgia voters react to this very southern mockery.  I mean, just because you're insulting someone doesn't mean you can't be polite.

And so, a Southern parable on politeness:

Two Southern Belles see each other at a School reunion.  While they had been friends Back In The Day, they had lost track of each other in the years since.  Here's the conversation as they catch up on what's been happening.

Belle #1: I married the most wonderful man.  On our first wedding anniversary be bought me this fur coat.

Belle #2: Oh, how nice!

Belle #1: And on our second wedding anniversary he bought me this diamond ring.

Belle #2: Oh, how nice!

Belle #1: And on our third anniversary he bought me a Merceded-Benz.

Belle #2: Oh, how nice!

Belle #1: So are you married?

Belle #2: Oh yes.

Belle #1: Does he buy you things?

Belle #2: Yes, he bought me etiquette lessons.

Belle #1: Etiquette lessons??!?

Belle #2: Oh yes.  Before the lessons I used to tell people "Fuck you."  Now I say "How nice!'

The Queen Of The World tells this in a sweet, syrupy southern accent which makes it even funnier.

The Democratic Party loses the signal

Electronic communications rely on the concept of a Carrier Wave.  Basically, this is a well-defined electronic signal that all devices can "tune" into, and upon which the actual message is transmitted.  If you lose the carrier, you lose your connection and you can't communicate with anybody.

You Old Farts will remember the old dial-up modem days.  You see, most houses back in the paleolithic age (say, the 1990s) only had one phone line.  Hen Junior wanted to jump on Compuserve (or, Lord forbid, America Online), his biggest worry was often that Mom would pick up the phone to call a friend.  When the phone went off-hook, the carrier signal went all skew-wumpus* and the modem connection dropped.  There was even a long running BBS joke Hey! Wait! Don't pick up the ph{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER

Good times, good times.

Well, the Democratic Party has had control of the carrier wave to the American people for a long, long time.  The first post I tagged Biased Media was way back in 2008, and it was obvious even back then.  They've been used to jamming the Republicans access to the Carrier for a long time.  This has given the Democrat's a big advantage for a long, long time.

That's been going away for a long, long time.  Reagan beat Carter, and then whats-his-name from Minnesota.  The Republicans swept control of Congress in the 1990s.  The whole "Bush lied" (about Iraq) dates back to Hillary Clinton who needed Media air cover for her vote to authorize the Iraq invasion in 2003.  Sure, Obama won in 2008 but the 2010 elections decimated the Democratic Party, as the country reacted in revulsion to the far left-wing policies of his administration.

In my counting, that's 40 years of increasing rejection of the Democratic Party's narrative pushed by an increasingly weak and irrelevant media.

And so here we are at today.  We've had two mass shootings in as many weeks, and three or four in the last couple of months.  It's so perfectly set up to support the Democratic narrative that people are wondering if this is yet more FBI instigation**.  And yet, it's not moving the needle in the Democrat's favor.  Consider:

• Senate Majority Leader (Democrat) Chuck Schumer has refused to move forward with a gun control bill.  This is despite all the recent mass shootings.  Schumer may be a jerk but he knows how to count votes, and he knows how to look at what the polls say about issues.  The American people are entirely uninterested in more gun control, and forcing his party to put their necks on that chopping block is something that he (wisely) will not do.
• Covid is over, and every time a (Democrat) politician or bureaucrat suggests further lock downs or restrictions this "news" disappears from the media in a day.  It's political suicide, any why the Democrats would love to ride that crisis further, they know they'd just ride it into the ditch.
• Russia! Russia! Russia! is over.  Polls are starting to show that people want sanctions to end so we can import oil from them to drop gas prices.  The joke is I can't believe that it's MonkeyPox season!  I still have my Ukraine decorations up!
  

• Oh, yeah - I forgot all about the riots.  And MonkeyPox?  Bitch, please.

Each of these has had a shelf life measured between 2 months and 2 days, but the lifetime is shortening.  And as this has played out, Joe Biden's approval ratings have continued sinking.  He's now the least popular "President" since Harry Truman.  That's 70 years.  If you actually remember Harry Truman, you're really, really old.  Polls repeatedly show that people would prefer Republican candidates over Democrat ones by 5, or 8, or 10 points.

My point is that the media and the Democrat Party (but I repeat myself) is that crisis after crisis after crisis, all blamed on the Republicans, or Vladimir Putin, or White People have had precisely zero effect.  Nada. Nichto.  ничто.  无.

So to my point - The Democrats are very unpopular, and are getting increasingly unpopular.  The Media has lost all ability to change this trajectory.  We will leave for another day the question of whether the Republicans will be any better, but in all honesty - could they possibly be worse?***

We will also leave for another day the question of how legitimacy is established in a "Western Democracy" when elections are repeatedly stolen.  There's no question that both the Democratic and Republican Parties are up to this, and since "free and fair elections" are the bedrock of the American sense of political legitimacy, what happens when this is under minded needs to be explored in more detail.****

I shall endeavor to address these open items this weekend.  But I maintain what I said ten years ago after another notorious mass shooting: no new gun control laws are on offer.  And if Republican s are smart, after the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade they should counter all gun control proposals with "Common Sense" abortion control proposals.  You'd have to pop popcorn to enjoy the meltdown that would induce.

* Technical term in computer networking, I was told.

** Remember the jury that refused to convict the people who were "plotting to kidnap" the Michigan Governor because almost all of the folks who were involved were FBI? 

*** Spoiler alert: maybe.

**** Spoiler alert: nothing good.

We've known the cut of Mitt Romney's jib for a long time

Mitt is in the news beating the drum for war in Ukraine.  Lots of tough talk, including accusing people of treason.  Looks like quite the fighter, right?

Except we've known what he is for a long, long time.  Ten years ago I called out what he is and the past decade has not given me cause to rethink anything.  I took some heat on this back then but believe that the intervening years has proven that he would have been a disaster as President.

In which I endorse Barack Obama for President

Stick with me on this, because I am motivated by hope and change.

The race essentially is between Obama and Romney - Ron Paul is interesting but whatever impact he has had is over.  Likewise, the Libertarian (whatzisname?) will get the typical Libertarian 2%.  As adults, we need to face reality that this is President Composite Girlfriend vs. Mittens.  OK then, which way will make us better off?

Let me start my cheerfully admitting that a second Obama term - unfettered by the need for re-election and likely facing a Congress entirely controlled by the GOP - will be a disaster of faculty lounge inspired radicalism.  It will be EPA killing oil production and the ATF arming the Iranian Mullahs.  He will moot card carrying communists for the Supreme Court, as well as for every open Federal Bench seat.  Nobody can constrain his radicalism now, and it will be much, much worse come January.

So what about Romney?  He's an Establishment Fixer to the core, as his record as Governor of Massachusetts shows.  While he might not support new gun control laws today, he was happy to in the past when he felt the need to "reach across the aisle" to "make an impact" (build a political career).  While he may not support huge State-sponsored intrusion into your private business today (RomneyCare), he was happy to in the past - again, when he felt the need to "reach across the aisle" to "make an impact".  Romney is easy to figure - just ask yourself what's most beneficial for Mitt Romney right now, and that's what he'll support.

He has an exquisitely refined sense of sniffing out tactical personal gain, and does not suffer from a surfeit of political philosophy like those boring old Founding Fathers did, with all their tiresome talk of liberty.

He's Gov.Party the Lesser.

And so we must vote for Obama.  He's the only hope for real change.

The GOP in general, and Mitt Romney in particular are big-government, big-spending, big-intrusion-into-our-business.  The Republic is facing a fiscal crisis - the nation's credit has been downgraded, the Entitlement programs are just now tipping into a bottomless sea of red ink, the middle class has been hammered with collapsing housing valuations, persistent unemployment, and a higher education bubble that is ensuring that our children graduate with so much student debt that they will never be able to marry.

And where are the bold reforms from the GOP?  The best on offer is Paul Ryan's plan which won't balance the budget for three decades.

And dig this: the Media will savage a President Romney mercilessly in hopes that he will falter, lose heart and supporters at the savage attacks, and think it will be in his best interest to reach across the aisle to preserve his re-election chances.  The media will think this because Romney has shown repeatedly that he'll cave if it builds his personal political chances.

So what about change?  We're actually seeing change today, before our eyes.  Just ask Orin Hatch, in the fight of his political life against a Tea Party candidate.  Or ask (former) Senator Bennett, or (former) Congressman Castle.  A Million people were energized to take to the streets to protest, two years ago.  That's change.  And you know what they were protesting?

Barack Obama and his vision for a remade America.

That's what you give up by voting Mitt Romney into the White House.  In six months, Romney will be a sad sack, pummeled by the media into losing his "conservative" veneer (and let's be honest, no one believes he's actually a conservative).

A RINO President will demoralize the one significant spark of change that we've seen, the onlyreaction to an out of control Fed.Gov, our only hope of putting the brakes on before we're as wrecked as Greece.  And quite frankly, a withering of the Tea Party reform movement will be a delight to a GOP Establishment every bit as corrupt and venal - and power mad - as Nancy Pelosi.

And so, it is our civic duty to take a hit for our Country.  Put Obama back in office, unfettered.  The orgy of Progressive overreach by Regulation will be sporadically (and mostly ineffectively) resisted by a corrupt Big Government GOP.  The Agencies will rule the land, and the economy will remain seized up.

And rather than a million Tea Partiers taking to the streets, it will be two million, or three.  Rather than five or ten corrupt GOP Establishment corrks turned out of office, it will be thirty, or fifty.

And that will be the time when the calculators like Mitt Romney will get the idea that they will most likely advance their career by striking down the Progressive beast, again and again.

Because if that message doesn't come across loud and clear, and repeatedly, then the game is over.  It simply won't matter who's in office, because they're both the Establishment Party.

So vote Obama this November.  I do not say this from anger, or frustration, or peevishness, but from cold, rational calculation.  Sure it will be painful, but we got into this mess because like Bluto in Animal House, we f***ed up: we trusted the GOP.

We screwed up, and believed all this, and the government never got smaller under the GOP.  It got bigger, and more intrusive, and more remote from the people, yea even under St. Ron.  Maybe it's too late for us, but if it's not then the only way forward is to burn the GOP to the waterline.  The most expedient way is to keep the Tea Party energized, and a President Romney will cause many to fall away from that movement under the eleventh commandment (another Reagan philosophy).

Well screw that noise.  We f***ed up once, trusting him and the rest of the GOP team.  How's that working out?  Rebuilding a party that Reagan might actually recognize is what this country needs - and right now, damn it - and Mitt Romney isn't the man to do it.

Barack Obama is.

Hope and Change.  Your country depends on you.  Your children and grandchildren will wonder what you did at the Republic's darkest hour.  Don't let them down.  Vote Obama.

Don't ever change, National Review

National Review, 2016:

National Review, 2021: Something is wrong with the President.

By "President" they mean Joe Biden, natch.  Sorry, neocons - your should have known than there was an expiration date when you started hanging with the Cool Progressive Kidz.  Sorry for your luck and all your broken Middle East War dreams ...

This actually makes a lot of sense

Via Sal the Agorist.

Quote of the Day: Politicians and fowling pieces edition

 Dick Cheney, take your daughter hunting.

Snerk.

Dad Joke XXXII

I just finished a book on Stockholm Syndrome.  It was awful at first but by the end I really loved it.

(Analogies to the GOP's relationship with the Media sort of write themselves, don't they?) 

President's Day - Best and Worst Presidents

I've posted this each President's Day for ten years but have found no reason to adjust the rankings.

It's not a real President's birthday (Lincoln's was the 12th, Washington's is the 22nd), but everyone wants a day off, so sorry Abe and George, but we're taking it today.  But in the spirit intended for the holiday, let me offer up Borepatch's bestest and worstest lists for Presidents.

Top Five:

#5: Calvin Coolidge

Nothing To Report is a fine epitaph for a President, in this day of unbridled expansion of Leviathan.

#4. Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson is perhaps the last (and first) President who exercised extra-Constitutional power in a manner that was unambiguously beneficial for the Republic (the Louisiana Purchase).  He repealed Adam's noxious Alien and Sedition Acts and pardoned those convicted under them.

#3. Grover Cleveland. 

He didn't like the pomp and circumstance of the office, and he hated the payoffs so common then and now.  He continually vetoed pork spending (including for veterans of the War Between the States), so much so that he was defeated for re-election, but unusually won a second term later.  This quote is priceless (would that Latter Day Presidents rise so high), on vetoing a farm relief bill: "Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character." 

#2. Ronald Reagan

He at least tried to slow down the growth of Leviathan, the first President to do so in over half a century (see entry #5, above).  He would have reduced it further, except that his opposition to the Soviet fascist state and determination to end it cost boatloads of cash.  It also caused outrage among the home grown fascists in the Media and Universities, but was wildly popular among the general population which was (and hopefully still remains) sane.

#1. George Washington

Could have been King.  Wasn't.  Q.E.D. 

Bottom Five:

#5. John Adams.

There's no way to read the Alien and Sedition Acts as anything other than a blatant violation of the First Amendment.  It's a sad statement that the first violation of a Presidential Oath of Office was with President #2. 

#4. Woodrow Wilson.

Not only did he revive the spirit of Adams' Sedition Acts, he caused a Presidential opponent to be imprisoned under the terms of his grotesque Sedition Act of 1918.  He was Progressivism incarnate: he lied us into war, he jailed the anti-war opposition, he instituted a draft, reinstituted segregation in the Civil Service, and he was entirely soft-headed when it came to foreign policy.  The fact that Progressives love him (and hate George W. Bush) says all you need to know about them.

#3 Lyndon Johnson.

An able legislator who was able to get bills passed without having any real idea what they would do once enacted, he is responsible for more Americans living in poverty and despair than any occupant of the White House, and that says a lot.

#2. Franklin Roosevelt.

America's Mussolini - ruling extra-Constitutionally fixing wages and prices, packing the Supreme Court, and transforming the country into a bunch of takers who would sell their votes for a trifle.  He also rounded up a bunch of Americans and sent them to Concentration Camps.  But they were nice Concentration Camps - at least we're told that by his admirers.  At least Mussolini met an honorable end.


#1. Abraham Lincoln.

There's no doubt that the Constitution never would have been ratified if the States hadn't thought they could leave if they needed to.  Lincoln saw to it that 10% of the military-age male population was killed or wounded preventing that in an extra-Constitutional debacle unequaled in the Republic's history.  Along the way, he suspended Habeas Corpus, instituted the first ever draft on these shores, and jailed political opponents as he saw fit.  Needless to say, Progressives adore him.

So happy President's Day.  Thankfully, the recent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue haven't gotten this bad.  Yet. 

On Governmental legitimacy

Here is a nifty summation of the subject from the late and very lamented Counting Cats in Zanzibar.  This is from 5 years ago but is newly fresh once again:

In this sense, the old Marxist Tony Benn had it about right when he raised the matter of the democratic deficit in the [European Union] during the European Parliamentary Elections Bill of the 5 questions that should be asked of anyone who sought to wield power.

• What power do you have?
• Where did you get it?
• In whose interests do you exercise it?
• To whom are you accountable?
• How can we get rid of you?

Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system.

The fact of the matter is that despite the appearance of democracy in the form of the European Parliament, power within the EU does not reside with anyone who was directly elected by the people and consequently the people cannot “Throw the bums out”

 With a plurality (and very close to a majority) of Americans thinking that the last election was (ahem) fishy, we can replace the term "EU" with "Congress".  And that ignores the 95% reelection rate that the House of Representatives has enjoyed for decades.

I wish this didn't look so plausible

Six years ago I posted The Inevitability of Secession which laid out how it seemed that the wheels were fixin' to come off the Republic.  Donald Trump - despite the insanity suffered by the left - gave a 4 year breather for this, by directly addressing the legitimate grievances of those most likely to leave the Union.  Now with the Democrats back in the White House and Congress - and the insanity not one whit less than before - it looks like we're maybe going to accelerate into a great national divorce.

As with all divorces, it will be very, very messy.  I have some thoughts on that for a later post but for now this looks pretty prescient.

(Originally posted 20 March 2015)

The inevitability of secession, part 1: Introduction

Chief Justice Salmon Chase was wrong.  In Texas v. White (1869), he wrote the majority opinion on secession:

The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to 'be perpetual.' And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?

Except the Republic did not date its governing principles to the Articles of Confederation, which were clearly a failure - a failure clear at the time, in fact.  Instead, it dated to the Constitution.  That was ratified by all original thirteen States, and it is clear that it would not have been ratified if the States hadn't thought that they couldn't leave if they had needed to.  Indeed, the ending of the Articles of Confederation were essentially an act of secession.

Chase was an interesting bird.  He founded the Free Soil movement - "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men".  It was an unabashedly abolitionist party, and reflected what was very probably the real cause of the American War of Southern Independence (the "Civil War" to you Yankees).

And Chase wasn't just one of the chief proponents of the political position, he was Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  One of the charges leveled at the post war Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals was that it was "Victor's Justice"; America had an 80 year history of Victor's Justice, dating back to Texas v. White.

And so secession was ruled illegal.

The problem, of course, is that it was only illegal because "Honest Abe" Lincoln determined that it was better that 10% of the military age population be killed or wounded in battle than a set of States should choose to leave the Republic.  For a while, it worked.

For a while, the Fed.Gov demonstrated that it could deliver - more growth, more prosperity, freedom increasing through the 1960s.  In 1969, the Fed.Gov landed a man on the moon.  It was the high water mark of government legitimacy.

What we've seen since then is an intentional fracturing of the Republic, based on race, gender, and class.  Political careers have been made for those who have done this - Al Sharpton is a particularly loathsome example of this, but he is by no means alone.  Barack Obama may be the most successful of these, parlaying racial themes of guilt and offered redemption into two terms in the White House during which he has thoroughly politicized the Federal Agencies.  Eric Holder was the chield law enforcement official in the land but ran the Department of Justice along racial grievance lines.  If you have any doubts about this, read up on the New Black Panther Party, George Zimmerman, and Ferguson MO.

Obama reflected a small but well organized segment of society determined to fundamentally reshape society.  Unsurprisingly, this hasn't turned out to be popular with much of society who overwhelmingly voted Democrats out of House and Senate seats - historical defeats for Obama's Democratic Party.  The voters gave significant majorities to the Republican Party in both houses of Congress, because GOP candidates ran on a platform of overturning Obama's overreach on health care, immigration, and general weakening of the USA on the international stage.

So how's that working out for GOP voters?

Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on Wednesday announced he is leaving the Republican Party.

“I’ve made my decision — I’m out,” Beck said Wednesday on “The Glenn Beck Program,” his broadcast on TheBlaze.com. “I’m out of the Republican Party. I am not a Republican. I will not give a dime to the Republican Party. I’m out.”

The host said Republicans lost him with their inaction on both ObamaCare and illegal immigration.

“All this stuff that they said and they ran and they said they were doing all of these great things and they were going to stand against ObamaCare and illegal immigration — they set us up,” Beck added. “They set us up. Enough is enough. They’re torpedoing the Constitution and they’re doing it knowingly.”

Can't really argue with any of that.  And he's not the only one:

Yes, Establishment GOP, you can teach us that you will always lie to us, stab us in the back, humiliate us and crush us; but if you teach us that, be aware we are learning another lesson, too. Not just that "The Establishment Will Always Crush You," but the lesson that There is no hope in any kind of conventional politics for those of us who want better than this Pile of Shit the two parties give us.

And the mutterings have been going on for years:

1. Many inner-circle strategists in the Republican Party machine basically believe the game is over demographics wise. They’ve believed this for a long time. Call them the “We Are Doomed” Machiavellians, trying to make a barely-palatable lemonade out of some very nasty lemons.
2. Privately, personally, they probably agree with everything Richwine and all the rest have ever said. But it doesn’t matter, because, on the strategic time scale, we’ve already crossed the Rubicon.
3. Tactically, short-to-medium term, you could follow the Sailer Strategy and, maybe, squeeze out a few Revanchist wins for Republicans, but it would be counterproductive. The Cathedral (they don’t call it that, of course) would make easy hay of “the hateful white party” in due time, and it would go the way of the Know-Nothings in Boston – permanent obsolescence.
4. So, the best you can do, if you care at all about the long-term survival of anything like even a fake opposition party in out decadent democracy, is to embrace the Latin American / Texan model, an increasingly Brazil-esque society, but one in which, in some places, at some times, you can still get some Hispanics to feel fondly about and vote for the Republicans.
5. To do this, you must absolutely, positively, and, most importantly, preemptively cave to everything you think the Democrats could possibly leverage against you. Which, in practice, means being the volunteer auxiliary PC-enforcer on your own side. It also helps when you’ve got big business on your side.

Salmon Chase had been a member of the Whig Party, which fractured under the strain of abolitionism.  The Republican Party looks like it's headed for the same crack up.

But it doesn't really matter: it's clear that the citizens of this Republic will not vote themselves out of this mess.  The Establishment is united - across both Parties - against the population which holds them in increasing contempt.

So if there's no way to vote in representatives who will represent the will of the People, what remains?  It's hard to see any alternative to the country splitting into two or more parts that will eliminate the Washington D.C. Establishment as something that can impose unpopular laws on them.

Not everyone believes this will happen:

Secession was tried before in the US and it failed. If part of the US tries to secede, the Protestant-Hippie-Communist-Jesus types get offended and their blood lust knows no bounds. They were fine with the death of hundreds of thousands to prevent secession. Then they took property, installed new governments and destroyed local economies for the better part of a century.

Secession in the US is only a long, drawn-out suicide. 

This time, it's hard to see a politician willing and able to sacrifice 10% of the military age population in a War of Secession.  And so Chief Justice Chase's decision is more or less irrelevant.  He had the legitimacy imposed by a victorious army at the point of the bayonet; the current Establishment doesn't have that and doesn't seem to be fixin' to get it anytime soon.

And so if reform is not possible, exit is the obvious result.  The Republic has large parts what are tired of having a left wing ideology rammed down their throats - and an ideology that enriches Wall Street and the big banks, at that.  These people have played the game the way it has been laid out, by the rules that were what everyone had been told were just - one man, one vote.  And that vote clearly is a waste of time.

Okay, then.  But things will not continue as they have.  

So Nancy Pelosi waved the white flag

Ooooooh kaaaaaaaay:

House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Panderville) just announced she has dropped procedural blockage and will allow a vote on the Senate’s version of the COVID bill instead of holding the nation hostage by demanding what some commentators called “racial and gender pay equity provisions, diversity on corporate boards, increased use of minority-owned banks by federal offices, and a grab-bag of other diversity-themed requirements.”

So Congress was was working on a deal which presumably contained pork out the wazoo, and Nancy came in at the last minute saying "you have to eliminate the letter 'Q' from the alphabet or we won't pass EMERGENCY ZOMGVIRUSOMYGODWE'REGOINGTODIE!!!!!11!!!eleventy!!!!"

It looks like the GOP cunningly  agreed to her plan.  Oooooooh kaaaaaaay.

so now that the Senate has passed it, can we see what's in it?  Asking for a friend.

Senate (n)
A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.

- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

How Charles Martel turned back the Caliphate

Charles the Hammer

The Islamic Caliphate exploded onto the world scene in the 630s AD.  In thirty years they took the wealthiest 75% of the Roman Empire, leaving the rest to huddle behind the mountains of Anatolia.  They entirely swallowed Rome's greatest adversary, the Sassanian Persian Empire.  By the end of the century, they pushed all the way to the Indus valley and to the straights of Gibraltar.  They crossed those straights and ended the Visigoth kingdom which for 250 years had ruled Spain.  In 717 they marched to the gates of Constantinople, the Roman capitol.  Only the massive Theodosian Walls and their secret weapon Greek Fire stopped their expansion into Europe from the east.

But the west remained, and Islamic raiders began crossing the Pyrenees into the kingdom of the Franks.  In 732, Charles Martel crushed the invaders at the battle of Tours.  This ended the invasion, securing Europe from the west.  It was the high water mark of the Caliphate and while it would achieve new heights in art and literature (notably the 1001 Nights), they never added more territory.  They had peaked in 100 years and the long slide to fracture had begun.

It's really not a surprise that Charles stopped him.  The chronicles of his day describe him as an unusually effective warrior, and his army as the best to be found.  His nickname, Martel - "The Hammer" - pre-dated the islamic invasion of his land.  He was a leader who brought victory.

He did this, as the clickbait links say, through this one weird trick: he took his army campaigning each year, every year.  The Franks were a feudal kingdom, where nobles were supposed to bring troops to support their Lord.  But a Lord could only expect as much support as he could enforce.  Charles determined to enforce his claims each year.  If a noble didn't show up when summoned then next year he would find Charles' army camped outside his castle asking why he hadn't come.  After a while everyone sort of fell in line and Charles was able to expand the borders of his realm.

His son and grandson continued this strategy and created the greatest kingdom in the west since the Roman Empire fell.  You've heard of his grandson, Charlemagne, who was so powerful that the Pope crowned him Roman Emperor on Christmas Day in 800 AD.

All because of one weird trick.

The Richmond rally is over.  It was a success in that everyone seemed polite and happy and cleaned up after themselves, but now the narrative is emerging: White supremacists wanted to start a civil war in Richmond.  And Governor Blackface and the Democrats are moving full steam ahead with their reindeer games.  So now what?

Well, you've demonstrated that you can put an army in the field.  Charles Martel can tell you how to use it.

But you need more than rallies.  Here are some things that you can do that will bring the hammer down on your enemies - but only if you can keep the campaign going.

Recall the Governor.  You had over 20,000 people attend the rally.  If each would commit to gathering 25 signatures on a recall petition, that would give you half a million signatures.  The media can't really spin that.  Yeah, this is hard and not as much fun as a rally.  Campaigning to win is hard.

Form a militia under the command of a County Sheriff.  Almost 100 counties in Virginia are sanctuary counties.  As the Legislature starts passing bills, find one of those 100 Sheriffs to deputize a militia to resist confiscation.  The media will try to spin this, but if these are all sworn deputies under the command of the Sheriff, that's a lot harder to spin.  Organize and train, under the Sheriff's authority. Then find anther Sheriff and do it again.  And another.  And another.  Yeah, this is hard and not as much fun as a rally.  Campaigning to win is hard.

Meet with the NRA, the GOA, and the Virginia state Republican Party to target weak democrats (for the general election) and weak Republicans (for the primary).  There are probably 20 or 30 of these, so those 20,000 rally attendees might be able to provide as many as 1000 volunteers for each opponent who will run against them.  For a local election, that's a big number.  It's important to target both Democrats and Republicans to show that this is a non-partisan effort.  It's important to work with these organizations because they have a lot of experience in this sort of work.  The media can't really spin this, other than saying it's politics.  Sure is - that's the point.  Yeah, this is hard and not as much fun as a rally.  Campaigning to win is hard.

If you think about it, there are probably a thousand other ideas that can hammer Governor Blackface. None of them will include putting on a rally.

Of course, this is hard, and not as fun, so you won't get your 20,000 turnout.  That's OK.  Even 2,000 or 3,000 is a really good start, as long as it's focused on a win.  Charles the Hammer kept his army in the field year in and year out until none could stand before it.  We've seen this before; it's not complicated, it's just hard.

It's just one weird trick.

The GOP does not represent traditional conservatives

There is a very interesting post over at Peter's discussing political polarization.  A comment left by McChuck jumped out at me:

The "Never Trumpers" are part of the Left, not the Right. They are infiltrators and Wormtongues. They are the approved opposition, the Washington Generals. They have finally being so obvious about their true loyalties that anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen can tell.

"You may think these thoughts, but not those. You may go this far, but no further. Now, the conservative case for eating the flesh of the innocent."

To take a leaf from Polifact, I would rate this "mostly true" - everything after the first sentence is spot on.  And the first sentence is also sort of right, but our "left" vs. "right" thinking is two dimensional, and so has hidden the really nefarious games that the GOP has been playing for decades.  If we expand our thinking just a little, a lot falls squarely into place.

Picture our classic "left" and "right" as a horizontal line but instead of the old labels let's use "Perfectability of Mankind" and "Traditionalist" as the labels.  Much of this captures the social issues that are so divisive in the political conversation today.  The GOP can correctly claim that it exists on the Traditionalist side of that spectrum.

But now let's add a vertical axis, representing the desired size of government (smaller or bigger).  We get something that looks like this:

Conservatives in the way we're used to think about them are in the lower left - traditionalists who believe in smaller government.  Communists (and actually fascists as well) believe in the perfectability of mankind and are quite eager to use a vastly expanded government to bring this about; they inhabit the upper right.  The political establishments are (mostly) about not rocking the boat too much but have a galaxy of hangers-on, all feeding at the public trough; they are in the upper left.  It's important to emphasize that these types really don't want to upset the apple cart by radical changes.  Lastly, there is almost nobody in the lower right: people who want to perfect humankind but don't really want any part of government.  About the only example I can think of is the Branch Davidians who got burned to death by the ATF in Waco.

Now let's populate the current political Who's Who into this quadrant:

Yeah, nobody I can think of is in the lower right.  The upper right is who you'd expect - Big Chief Sitting Bulls**t, Bernie, and AOC.  Obama may or may not be here (more on this later).  But the interesting bit - and the bit that gets to McChuck's comment ("The Never Trumpers are part of the left") is in the upper left quadrant.  Let me explain.

That quadrant is perhaps best labeled as "Grifters".  All of those mentioned are in it for the filthy lucre.  Not one of the republicans listed (all of whom I should point out have impeccable Establishment credentials) lifted a finger to reduce the size of government, and indeed were enthusiastic in their use of big government to oppress their opponents - all of whom were in the lower left quadrant.  Where were all the GOP complaints about the IRS targeting the Tea Party?  Who in the GOP Establishment stood up against the smearing of Sarah Palin?  Who was complaining about ballooning Federal Regulations*?  Where were National Review and The Weekly Standard in all this?  [crickets]

The Establishment is about using ever increasing government to feed their swelling army of clients.  The difference between the Republicans and Democrats is actually pretty small - look at the massive expansion of spending under George W. Bush.  The Deep State lives right there, in the upper left, and all the people listed are 100% Deep Staters.

Now what else is interesting is that the core bases of each party are much more motivated by social issues which the parties play up to distract everyone from, well, the graft.  As long as the rubes keep chasing the laser dot then the Powers That Be can relax and go back to the money machine.  Both parties play this game, with Obama perhaps the most successful Democrat to do so (which is why even though I show him in the upper right he is probably in the upper left/Establishment quadrant).  With him it was a lot of pretty murmurings of transformation to the base while in many ways governing as the 3rd and 4th George W Bush administrations.

In short, the Democratic Party lies to their base and the GOP lies to their base.  They have been for decades.

But Donald Trump breaks this cozy arrangement.  I would tentatively put him in the lower left quadrant.  Yes, the Federal Budget is still out of control, but Congress is firmly in the "Establishment/Grifter" camp and Congress passes the budget.  This isn't something that he can do much about (yet - we'll see if it gets on his radar or not).  But he has been enormously successful in slashing regulations in a very short time, and people vastly underestimate just how important this is.  If he doesn't do anything other than this for the rest of his two terms, this will be a major sea change for America.

And so to McChuck's comment - the Never Trumpers are violently opposed to Trump, but they're all in the upper left.  That's more evidence that Trump is seen as being in the lower left, or he wouldn't get that sort of visceral reaction from them.  Livelihoods are at stake, if Trump can dry up the gravy train - and the best way to understand government regulation is as a gravy train for the connected class.  All of the complaining about Trump's tweets and how he is mean is transparent drivel.  When they say it's all about the principle, it's really all about the money.

* I would like to point out that it was Richard Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency, and George H. W. Bush who established the wetlands protection regulations.