In a couple of weeks, I’ll be 63 years old. That means I was 18 when Reagan won his first term, with promises of reining in the excesses of the Federal government. As did George H.W. Bush. And Ross Perot. I voted for Perot because of his promises. I didn’t make that mistake the next time around but Bob Dole wasn’t making much in the way of promises. George W. Bush made campaign speeches, but even if he had meant it, 9/11 wiped out any chance of shrinking government – not that I believed him in the first place. Then we got McLame then Mitt. I’d given up on the idea that we were ever going to get off the express-train ride to hell.
I voted for Trump in 2016 because he wasn’t Hillary, never imagining that he could actually win the thing. My thought at the time was, even if he won he was so hated by both sides that we’d be in gridlock for four years. (That’s not a bad thing.) Then, against the odds, against the lawfare, against the media, against everything, he actually got some things done, and I thought:
Of course, in 2020 the knives really came out, and Trump was denied a second consecutive term.
Then under Biden things seriously went to hell.
The borders were opened on Day 1.
COVID hysteria rose to a crescendo.
The Transgender agenda cranked into high gear.
The Summer of Love II came about with “Fiery but Mostly Peaceful” protests.
The military pulled out of Afghanistan. Catastrophically.
Russia invaded Ukraine.
Government spending continued to accelerate.
Interest rates skyrocketed.
Cost of living shot up.
etc, etc, etc.
On top of that, people noticed that Biden wasn’t hitting on all cylinders, but the Media denied any suggestion that he was mentally impaired as a “Right-Wing conspiracy theory” and insisted that he was “sharp as a tack.” Besides, his insurance policy of Kamala Harris protected him against any threat of implementation of the 25th Amendment.
Half the country believed the MSM anyway. He was fine. The government was in the hands of Adults again. We were regaining the respect of the rest of the world.
Then 2024 rolled around. Election year! And who rose from the pits of Hell to threaten the Ruling Class™? The Donald. Lawfare ensued. With each new suit, with each criminal charge, he just got stronger, until his nomination as the Republican Candidate for President was was an iron-clad lock.
And then, The Debate®. I’ve never seen anything to better describe the result of that confrontation than this:
Still, any hope of actual change remained zero. Even if Trump could pull off a miracle and win a second term, only done once in American history, he would be hamstrung the same way as he was in his first. I watched as the Democrats hastily propped Kamala up as the Second Coming. I watched as there were not one but two attempts on Trump’s life, one of which came within one minute of angle of succeeding. I watched as Trump built a coalition of ex-Dems Robert F. Kennedy, Elon Musk, and Tulsi Gabbard. Vivek Ramaswamy, JD Vance, Marc Andreesson, etc. joined the team. It was Big Tent Republicanism with a very Jacksonian vibe. Still, I thought, “Don’t give me hope.”
And then he won. He won the popular vote. He won all the swing states. And on Day 1 he started signing all the Executive Orders he’d promised in his campaign. But more than that, it became obvious that during hisforty four years in the wilderness, he had studied, planned, organized and prepared. Elon hit the ground running as soon as Trump was sworn in. DOGE was not a new executive department, but a re-tasking of an existing one, one initiated by Barack Obama. They had dotted all the i’s, and crossed all the t’s, and it completely caught the Left off guard. Then the DOGE boys worked through the weekend, something almost unheard of in D.C, striking fear in the hearts of the Deep State.
But still, entertaining as it was, I knew the pushback would be coming, and it would be vicious.
But I was wrong. The Trump Administration was inside the OODA Loop of the Left. They were nearly paralyzed by the pace of the change. The media, the propaganda wing of the Left, could not build a Narrative™ fast enough to keep up. “Constitutional Crisis” died a pitiful death. And with alternative media making end-runs around them anyway, it wasn’t like they had the same power they’d had in 2016. The collapse of the “Sharp as a Tack” narrative, the revelation that the Hunter Biden Laptop was real and everyone knew it, COVID vaccine revelations and several other such examples had severely damaged media credibility and caused a lot of people to ask “What else were they lying to me about?”
But more than anything, Trump’s “controversial” Cabinet nominees were getting confirmed. With 53 Republican Senators only 50 were needed to confirm, as Pete Hegseth can attest. The Republican Party finally understood that the Voters would punish them if they did not support the Trump Agenda.
Daily the American public and the world were shown that the Deep State was taking American tax dollars and spending it on things no taxpayer would approve of. Especially the millions of dollars going to the very Leftwing media outlets shouting loudest about Trump and DOGE. Transgender this in Syria, DEI that in Moldova, etc. Money going to organization with known terrorist links, and so on, and the Left was forced to publicly support that spending.
And then, six days after the inauguration, two days after casting the tie-breaking vote to confirm Pete Hegseth, JD Vance went on Face the Nation. Questioned about his change in stance regarding “refugee resettlement,” he noted that one Afghan refugee – supposedly vetted – had been arrested for plotting a terrorist attack. When interviewer Margaret Brennan objected that no one knew if he’d “become radicalized” after coming to the U.S. Vance said this:
“I don’t really care, Margaret.”
In 1939 the public was shocked by Clark Gable saying “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” The shock was at the utterance of the curse, but it was shocking for its time.
Vance’s utterance was shocking because it was an actual statement of intent. No wishy-washy weasel words we’d normally expect from a politician, this was a statement of intent. “We’re done pussy-footing around.” And we may have now an actual Preference Cascade.
We’re now on Week 5 of the second Trump term and things are not slowing down. Outsiders are in charge of the DoJ, FBI, DoD, ICE…. Change is actually happening. Fraud and waste are being exposed. Spending will be curtailed, at least somewhat. The Ruling Class is no longer in control. They remain a serious threat. The Deep State still has hands on some of the levers of power, but that’s being eaten away by the Trump Administration and alternative media exposing it.
And I finally have some small measure of hope. I give a damn.
This one from a year ago. In answer to the question “Why is the education system in California so bad?” I replied:
The education system across the country is a sea of crap with whirlpools of suckitude, archipelagos of mediocrity, and widely scattered tiny islands of excellence.
And it’s that way by design.
We’re into our sixth generation of compulsory public education, and each generation has been progressively (and I use that word with intent) less well educated than the previous.
It’s much easier to lead a population around by the nose if they’re ignorant and apathetic. Henry Louis Mencken noted in the 1930’s:
And why is this?
So the Public Education system was established with all the best intentions! But it brought us to where we are today.
To that I would like to add this, from KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov from about 1983 or so.
So, I’m having another exchange with someone of the Left, this time at Quora. My interlocutor this time is someone I’m professionally associated with who goes by the handle “Enrique Cerdo” (not his real name). In a comment thread he asked me this question:
The DoEd was established in 1980, the year I graduated from High School (cum laude). Its mission statement is: “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
The DoEd has spent, since 1980, over $3.8 trillion dollars in supposed pursuit of “educational excellence.” This is the result:
“Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. This report is concerned with only one of the many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds American prosperity, security, and civility. We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur–others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.
“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
You want government waste? Here’s $3.8 trillion’s worth.
You know why those test scores have remained flat? Because the tests themselves have been continuously dumbed-down over the decades.
Saturday’s post, Statolatry was a quick and dirty cut-n-paste from a rather long comment I left over at Facebook. I don’t know what the current readership of this blog is, but I imagine it’s in the low two digits these days, so instead of doing my normal extensive linking to all sources, I just left it. I noted the original inspiration for the piece was not my own work, but I did not specify the author or give a link to the original Facebook post or even my share of it.
So of course I got my first Instalanche in a few years. (Thanks, Sarah Hoyt!)
As soon as I saw that, scrolling through Instapundit.com, I ran into my computer room and edited the piece, mentioning both the author’s name, Michael Smith, and linking to his Facebook post. Then he left a comment linking to his Substack copy, so I changed to that.
Now if you’ve read this blog for a while, you know I link exhaustively to my source materials normally. The one time I didn’t….
So I’ve decided to edit the piece again to put in all the links.
Sorry for neglecting this place for so long. I’ll try to do a little better this year. I ran across something the other day that I shared over on FaceBook. If you’ve been a reader for a few years, you’ll know that I’ve come to the same conclusions as the author of the piece, Michael Smith. In fact, I said in the share, “This distills down what I’ve learned since I first awoke politically in 1994. 190 proof.” Please read:
If you are shocked by the Democrats panicked response to the probing of President Trump’s Emissary of Justice, Elon Musk, there is a way to frame it that makes it understandable.
First, we need to come to terms with the fact that contemporary Democrats, no matter what they choose to call themselves, are socialists at best and full-blown Marxists at worst.
In the same way a drug addict denies their addiction until they come to terms with what they are, Democrats have progressively increased their intake of various degrees of collectivist dogma until they are fully addicted. The gateway to collectivism is the idea of the “greater good,” from that they move on to socialism, then to Marxism, then finally in the end stages, communism – just as Marx prescribed and predicted.
Not only does this addiction have physical ramifications, but it also changes their mental state.
There is a word we all should know. That word is statolatry.
Economist Ludwig Von Mises coined the word to describe the literal worship of government. He said: “People frequently call socialism a religion, It is indeed the religion of self-deification.”
Statolatry is about worship for the state to replace a God they have rejected, a relationship with some entity more powerful than themselves to which they swear their love and fealty, the goal of which is to receive blessings (which are drawn the public till).
The people on the statolatrist left have landed on a toxic mixture of statism, politics, mysticism, and atheism rolled up into a loose ball called “progressivism” as a substitute for Judeo-Christian theology. Progressivism is as much a religion as Catholicism, it just replaces a Pope with government, counting on the senior leadership of the Democrat party to be their High Priests.
And in the process, this new religion became a very curious mix of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!) and the Flagellants, the 13th century group of Roman Catholics who practiced mortification of the flesh by various means. Statolatrists find pleasure in their self-inflicted pain but really enjoy dosing it out to non-believers as well. It is also the harshest of mistresses – if a believer questions any tenet, there is no force on the planet that can protect them from the fury of the scorned. If they show less than total subservience and compliance, they are declared apostates and excommunicated immediately.
The problem is that no one really knows the rules of this new religion – they change to meet the needs of the moment. Often You can be right and wrong at the same time. What you can say or think and who you can say or think certain things about changes every minute – what was acceptable yesterday is not acceptable today and that random asymmetry makes it very difficult to fight on an individual level, so one must attack where the asymmetry is less and where their power resides, where it is concentrated.
With that framing, it becomes clear why Democrats have lost their minds about Elon and the DOGE Boys.
It is not just that their religion is being attacked, their god is under assault, and it is being attacked inside one of its temples no less – the House of USAID.
These temples are the repository of Democrat power, money and influence.
They also know this is only the first wave. President Trump intends to send his Muskian warriors raging and rampaging through the rest of the temples – Department of Education, the DOJ, the IRS, the Federal Reserve, and others – stripping them naked and laying them bare in public for all to see. Once and for all, the intent is to raze the temples to the ground and scatter the priests, acolytes, and minions to the four winds thereby ending this religion forever.
They also know the boldness, aggression, and Blitzkrieg-like fury of President Trump’s offensive has drawn even former enemies to his cause, he has massed a cadre of leaders from across the spectrum, some former priests themselves, all with a shared goal – to do what is right for the people, not the priests.
This is an existential event for statolatry, and perhaps even the Democrat Party.
And it is beautiful.
I had you read that as an introduction to this. A former coworker (a dozen years ago) is a full-blown Lefty. We’ve exchanged several comments regarding our different positions on FB. Here’s his response:
Complete and utter horseshit.
When pressed for detail, he came back with:
If you honestly believe that there is equivalency between religious autocracy and democratic principles, discourse, logic and public debate among citizens, you need to brush up on your history lessons of ancient Athens.
And if you don’t see benefits in the “greater good”, you need to get out more often. What is killing this country is economic inequality, which is making the losing side more desperate and ready to blame “Someone”. Along comes Trump who tells the losing side who to blame and they swallow it hook, line, and sinker. The so-called reforms that Trump and his handlers are blitzing will make life nearly unbearable for those without the financial resources to fight their way through it. The Rich will get richer, and the Poor will be defenseless and voiceless.
Most progressive countries are living better than the US. We are no longer a progressive county. We are a complete oligarchy heading rapidly towards a totalitarian oligarchy. Trump doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together but nobody seems to care because, oh, we’re whipping the libtards.
Let me simplify. Democracy is not a religion.
I told him that his response rated a real rebuttal, but at 9PM on my phone was not the place or the time. So today I fulfilled my promise. His response in italics, other quotes in bold.
“Democracy is not a religion.”
The idea of it, no. In practice, however the modern Democrat Party has become a cult, the cult isn’t “democracy,” it’s “Progressivism.”
“If you honestly believe that there is equivalency between religious autocracy and democratic principles, discourse, logic and public debate among citizens, you need to brush up on your history lessons of ancient Athens.”
If you honestly believe that the modern Democratic Party practices “democratic principles, discourse, logic and public debate among citizens,” you are a part of that cult.
“And if you don’t see benefits in the ‘greater good,’ you need to get out more often.”
Who decides? How are these decisions reached?
“What is killing this country is economic inequality, which is making the losing side more desperate and ready to blame ‘Someone’.”
I think that’s simplistic, but as a first-order approximation, it’s OK.
“Along comes Trump who tells the losing side who to blame and they swallow it hook, line, and sinker.”
Who does he say is to blame? Please provide examples. He pointed out that our tax dollars are being wasted, that the government is spending money it doesn’t have on things the public didn’t agree to DEMOCRATICALLY, and he promised to put a stop to it. Only two weeks in, and… WOW.
“The so-called reforms that Trump and his handlers are blitzing will make life nearly unbearable for those without the financial resources to fight their way through it.”
So your cult says. During his first four-year term Joe and Jane Average saw an increase in their income and buying power. Not so much for the last four.
“The Rich will get richer, and the Poor will be defenseless and voiceless.”
As occurred between 2020 and 2024, when HUGE sums were transferred to the wealthy, largely through government coffers, occurring UNDER A DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION. This was, of course, shortly after the previous tremendous transfer of money to the wealthy after the collapse of 2008, laid directly at the feet of the Federal Government.
“Most progressive countries are living better than the US.”
Then find one you like better and MOVE THERE. We’re busy trying to fix THIS ONE.
“We are no longer a progressive county.”
If you capitalize “Progressive,” I certainly hope so. “Progressivism” is anything but.
“We are a complete oligarchy heading rapidly towards a totalitarian oligarchy.”
Nice of you to finally fucking NOTICE. The Ruling Party – made up of Democrats AND Republicans, AND the ultra-wealthy and their sycophants – has been gaining more and more control over the hoi polloi since the 1960’s. The recent exposure of the abuses of USAID illustrate that they long ago learned that they could undermine “democracy” using our own tax dollars to control The Narrative™, to stifle opposition, even to attempt “Regime Change.” Oh, and to also enrich themselves – you know, “The Rich get richer, the Poor, poorer.”
“Trump doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together but nobody seems to care because, oh, we’re whipping the libtards.”
He’s beating the Ruling Party like a drum set. What does that say about their vaunted intellectual capabilities?
You know when I figured out that you guys had become a religious cult? It was 2008, when it was explained to me in a fascinating book that the media was the Priesthood of the Left, standing between the Church of State and the laypeople, handing down Government’s edicts. It fit everything I’d learned up until then.
Michele Obama in a 2008 speech at UCLA said, “We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another, that we cannot measure our greatness in this society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure out greatness by the least of these, that we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I’m here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that, that before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.” If that’s not religious iconography, I don’t know what is.
Or how about this from Albert Gore Jr. in a 2010 NYT op-ed, “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change” – “From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.”
That’s what ESG is – an attempt to legislate human redemption. Redemption for what? For Original Sin. What is that Original Sin? Depends on your particular sect of Progressivism. For the Environmentalists, it’s “Raping Gaia.” For many it’s Colonialism. For others, Capitalism. Look at the activist to find their particular favorite Sin.
Also in 2008 I read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism from which came this quote:
“Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the “problem” and therefore is defined as the enemy.”
That too fit perfectly what I was observing. Note the use of “common good” here, semantically equal to “greater good.” And it was about this time that I understood that whatever it was the Left was accusing its enemies of, it had either done, was doing, or desperately wanted to do – thus the unending accusations of “FASCISM!”
He also wrote:
“Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don’t matter. It also highlights the real fascist legacy of World War I and the New Deal: the notion that government action in the name of “good things” under the direction of “our people” is always and everywhere justified. Dissent by the right people is the highest form of patriotism. Dissent by the wrong people is troubling evidence of incipient fascism. The anti-dogmatism that progressives and fascists alike inherited from Pragmatism made the motives of the activist the only criteria for judging the legitimacy of action.”
That, too fit my observations.
In 2016 a poster at Reddit wrote an eloquent explanation of the Left’s reaction to Trump’s election, “Why Hollywood is really freaking out over Trump.” Of course it was quickly yanked from the site, but the Wayback machine still has a copy. From that essay:
“Blue Team Progressivism is a church, offering you moral superiority and a path to spiritual enlightenment. As a church it’s got a lot going for it. It runs religious programming on television, all day every day. Every modern primetime program is like a left-wing Andy Griffith show, reinforcing lessons of inclusion, tolerance, feminism, and anti-racism.
“Watching a 90-pound Sci-Fi heroine beat up a room full of giant evil men is as satisfying to the left as John Wayne westerns were for the right.
“The Blue Church controls the HR department, so even if you don’t go to church, you have to act like a loyal churchgoer in every way that matters while you’re on the clock. And off the clock, on any kind of public social media platform.
“Jon Stewart and John Oliver are basically TV preachers. Watching them gives the same sense of quiet superiority your grandma gets from watching The 700 Club. The messages are constantly reinforced, providing that lovely dopamine hit, like an angel’s voice whispering, “You’re right, you’re better, you’re winning.”
“Hollywood award shows are like church talent shows – the skits and jokes aren’t really funny, but it’s fun to look at the pretty girls, and you’re all on the same team.”
Spot. Fucking. ON. And you’ll notice that – democratically – Hollywood is failing these days.
You belong to a cult, Bill. You believe that you are good and pure, and that taking money from other people and giving it to the needy is noble and righteous, and anyone who questions that is obviously stupid. (See “two brain cells” above.) Your ideological brethren, however, don’t believe they’re stupid or ignorant. They believe anyone who opposes them must be EVIL. You’re still willing to engage because you still think that “discourse, logic and public debate among citizens” is what the Democrat Party is all about.
It’s not. And when they find out you still do, you might be excommunicated like all those who have #WalkedAway. And you know what you’ll discover? The difference between Progressivisim and all other religions: There is no redemption in the Progressive Church. They may take you back, but they’ll never trust you again.
You believe that Government is Good. It’s not. Government is a NECESSARY EVIL, best kept small and watched closely. Our elected representatives are not morally superior to the rest of us, in fact far too many of them are sociopaths with some very dark secrets. The Professional Managerial Class that makes up the bureaucracy? They are not our betters to whom we are supposed to kowtow, they’re supposed to be our employees carrying out our wishes.
Donald Trump is the result of the government failing to carry out the wishes of the MAJORITY for far, far too long. He may be the proverbial bull in the China shop, but hopefully it will be “creative destruction” that leaves behind something better, leaner, and more closely aligned with the Constitution.
I’m not holding my breath, but there’s no fucking way what we’ve been doing for the last sixty years can continue.
