For eight years on this blog, I did my best to avoid politics. Then, six months ago, in The Debtors and the Savers 2016, I took a turn for the political, with sub-headings like Peak Progressivism, Trump and Peak Absurdity. Here's a bit from the Trump section:
Progressives, “enlightened” academics, the media, and the mainstream political establishment all seem confounded by Trump’s popularity, but it’s really quite simple. It’s not because his supporters are all dumb racists and xenophobic rednecks living in trailer parks scattered across the fly-over states. Nor is it because Trump is so smart, articulate, and never says anything regrettable. It is quite simply because:
1. People are tired of being lied to by the “progressive” media under the banner of political correctness, and are encouraged by a candidate who is not afraid to stand up to the media…
2. People are tired of being labeled with fake phobias and misused “isms” as an intimidation tactic, and are encouraged by a candidate who is not afraid to be labeled and branded by the imbeciles who buy into that BS…
3. People are tired of blatant discrimination, like affirmative action, and the entitlement attitude of those on the public dole, and are heartened by a candidate who isn’t afraid to talk about hot-button issues…
4. People who had all but given up on the political process are encouraged by a “self-funding” outsider who has the courage to say the things that got his momentum going in the first place…
5. And a whole lot of people are tired of the muzzling effect of utterly absurd political correctness, and for this reason most of all, Trump is still gaining momentum!
And by the way, if you think Trump is a racist, you are part of the problem, and you are wrong.
Now that Trump has won, I see the media and almost everybody who didn't vote for him are not only morose and despondent, but still entirely clueless as to why he won. So I decided to share this post here on my public blog, as a public service to anyone who would like to understand why.
I published the following post on Saturday before the election. It was meant to be a record of my thoughts about the election, my endorsement of Donald Trump, and perhaps a little last minute push to swing a few votes from the Speakeasy. But now that the election result is known, the same post becomes a look at what happened and why. So without further ado, here were my thoughts as of Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016, as posted at the Freegold Speakeasy:
Some Thoughts on Trump
With the election just days away, I wanted to write down my thoughts on Trump, political correctness, and this movement or phenomenon that has propelled him all the way to the finish line.
Trump was not my choice in the beginning. Nothing against him, but I just didn't take him as a serious candidate, or think he could make it through the primary let alone all the way. That said, I wasn't crazy about the rest of the Republican field either. I remember thinking, in a country of 300+ million people, with 17 major candidates, there ought to be at least one obvious stand-out. As it turns out, Trump was that stand-out, I just couldn't see it yet. And the reason I couldn't see it was because I hadn't yet made the connection between peak PC, aka peak absurdity, and Donald Trump.
It has long been a maxim that there is little or no difference between the two parties in our two-party political system. And while it may be practically true that there is little difference between the Republicans and Democrats, I believe there is actually the most profound difference imaginable between the political left and right. Today, however, most people see almost no difference, or worse, they see the exact opposite of reality. This unusual election is only scratching the surface of what I'm talking about, but even that is enough to drive this once-in-a-lifetime movement.
As I have said in the past, I began thinking about this idea of peak PC about a year ago, after a friend sent me this article titled Sorry, Social Justice Warriors: Political Correctness Has Peaked. (Incidentally, perhaps even ironically, the author of that article turned out to be an avid anti-Trumper, as did the publication itself.) Some have harshly criticized the image of Trump as this big anti-PC warrior, or the great PC destroyer. So I want to state right up front that I think that image is a straw man. I think the Trump phenomenon is merely a symptom of PC peaking, not the other way around. So I think this new core anti-PC awareness will continue with or without Trump. Trump is an effect, not the cause, therefore he need not be the most articulate anti-PC spokesman in order to become President through this anti-PC movement. He's the caboose, not the engine. ;D
Now that I've got that out of the way, I want to explain why political correctness is so insidious, and why therefore a Trump victory would be a most righteous outcome. It is not hyperbole to say that Communism is the manifestation of PC at the largest scale, and that PC is the manifestation of Communism at any scale. But before we go there, let's look at the origins of PC as a phrase.
The term "politically correct" in its modern usage emerged during the last century. It was a disparaging term used by Socialists against Communists, primarily in America and the West, where it was still legal to disparage Communism. The term referred to the Communist party line, which provided "correct" positions on political matters. (Wikipedia)
Then, in the 1980s, PC developed into a self-deprecating inside joke among, as Edwardo put it, "the biggest threat to the well-being of mankind," i.e., "People who know what’s best for the rest of us, who possess a surfeit of authority and a pronounced shortage of scruples, i.e. folks like HRC and George Soros," in other words, the political left. In this 80s "in-joke" usage, I think it was, in effect, probably a subconscious psychological self-defense mechanism against drifting too far to the left.
"Politically correct" was born as a lefty in-joke, an insider nod to the smugness of holier-than-thou liberals. As Gloria Steinem put it: "'Politically correct' was invented by people in social-justice movements to make fun of ourselves." In the '80s, the Brown University student Jeff Shesol's "Doonesbury"-esque campus comic strip, "Thatch," introduced a cape-wearing vigilante called Politically Correct Person, who faced off against his archenemy, Insensitive Man. Shesol went on to serve as speechwriter for Bill Clinton. (NY Times)
In the early 1990s, however, the term leaked out into the mainstream lexicon and exploded. A LexisNexis search of the term shows its usage jumped from 70 citations in 1990, to 1,532 in 1991, to more than 7,000 in 1994. Rush Limbaugh's 1993 book, "See, I Told You So", included a chapter titled "The Politically Correct Liberal Lexicon", and Bill Maher's ironically named TV show, "Politically Incorrect", began airing on Comedy Central, also in 1993.
So it went from being a disparaging term used by American Socialists against Communists in the mid-1900s, to a self-deprecating inside joke used by Progressives on themselves in the 80s, to a pejorative phrase used by the Right against the Left in the 90s. This final step, in my opinion, removed the aforementioned self-defense mechanism against drifting too far to the left, and freed the American Left to go all the way—to go for broke—which is how we finally made it to Peak PC last year, how we got a full season of PC Principal on South Park, and how Donald Trump is (IMO) about to become the next POTUS.
The debate over political correctness in the 90s revolved around what should be taught in schools, primarily colleges and universities, and academia is still the front line of PC absurdity today. Fox News Channel even has a regular feature called Campus Craziness. Here's a 4 minute sample:
The college campus problem, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. If PC was limited to kids at college, it would be no big deal. But kids at college eventually grow up, and some of them even become President. To give you just one example of PC at the highest level in the United States, I'm sure you've heard Donald Trump repeatedly criticize both Obama and Hillary for refusing to use the term "Islamic terrorism," or even "radical Islamic terrorism" (which is an even more PC term than the former), but do you know why they won't use those terms?
Words Matter (but not more than meaning, truth and reality!)
This is something we hear all the time from the PC Left: "Words matter." But I'll tell you what matters much more than words, is meaning, truth and reality. There are many things the Left does with words to bend and twist the truth, and to rewrite history (see Hillary's America for more on this subject), but under the Obama administration’s politically correct "countering violent extremism" policies, the institutional word rules of our national security agencies have become dangerous, if not outright deadly.
From practically his first day in office, Obama began what has been called an Islamophobia witchhunt, to purge words like "Islam", "jihad" and "Muslim" from the official US government counter-terrorism lexicon. In 2011, the FBI removed all terms found objectionable by a team of Muslim experts retained by the Department of Justice, from its counter-terrorism training materials. "Violent extremism" is now the government approved "PC" term in the new FBI counterterrorism lexicon manual.
Just this year, the DHS (Department of Homeland Security), which includes the Customs and Border Protection agency, Secret Service, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the US Coast Guard and the TSA (Transportation Security Administration), instructed its employees “not to use any language that might be ‘disrespectful’ to Muslims, including (but not limited to) the words ‘jihad,’ ‘sharia’ and ‘takfir.’” There's more, and according to Patrick Poole, a national security and terrorism correspondent for PJMedia, "We now have two terrorism cases with dead Americans six months apart, namely San Bernardino and Orlando, where potential witnesses did not report suspicious activity because they were afraid of being called racists and bigots."
Here's former FBI Asst. Director, James Kallstrom, discussing it in a 5 minute video:
This is how PC works, whether we're talking about universities, corporations, the government, the FBI, or entire Communist countries. First, stupid rules are made by "people who know what’s best for the rest of us, who possess a surfeit of authority and a pronounced shortage of scruples," and then everyone else follows the stupid rules out of fear of losing their jobs, or worse.
Here's four minutes of Aquilus from his debrief, talking about Communism, PC and Donald Trump:
Projection
On October 17th, "The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) released the first-of-its-kind Annual Report on U.S. Attitudes towards Socialism, surveying Americans’ attitudes toward Socialism, Communism, and related issues." Shockingly, the poll found that 45% of the upcoming generation (people aged 16-20 today, called GenZ) say they would vote for a Socialist, and 21% would even vote for a Communist. That compares with 91% of elderly Americans who believe that Communism was and still is a problem. The new generation also prefers Socialism over Capitalism, with only 42% of millennials having a favorable view of Capitalism.
Probably the most stunning finding, though, was that a third of millennials believe that more people were killed under George W. Bush than Joseph Stalin, and only 25% knew that communism led to the deaths of "over 100 million people." "It is because of such widespread ignorance about Communism that we formed the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which is dedicated to telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," according to the co-founder of the foundation.
This shifting of public opinion that has taken place, from objective reality to some alternate leftist counterfactual unreality, is due (IMO) to media bias, which comes from the slow creep of political correctness, and which is driven by the left's tendency to project. As a quick aside on media bias, I recently heard an interesting anecdote on the news.
Someone on FNC a few days ago, who had worked with Richard Nixon on the Nixon Library during the early 90s, had asked him why he thought the liberals owned the media, and I thought Nixon's answer was interesting. He said that smart conservatives come out of college and go into business to make money, while smart liberals come out of college and join the media to change the world. It's that old (but true) stereotype that conservatives tend to better themselves to do well in the world as it is, whereas liberals tend to prefer to change the world rather than work on themselves.
Anyway, while emailing with FoNoah recently over his worries about the election (regardless of the fact that he's not even American, he's still quite uneasy about our election), I wrote the following:
Something you need to understand about the Left is that they "project". Projection is a psychological effect in which people defend themselves (both subconsciously and explicitly) against their own (conscious or subconscious) illicit impulses by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. So in the case of elections, the Left always tries to rig elections, and (Watergate notwithstanding) the Right doesn't. But the Left projects this uncontrollable impulse they have on the Right, while denying it in themselves.
This may sound terribly biased, but I assure you that it's true, and it's true in so many ways other than just election rigging that I'm not even going to go there. We'll just stick to election rigging in this email, but if you watched Hillary's America, you saw Democratic projection on an epic, historical scale!
Anyway, so even as all this stuff is coming out through Wikileaks and James O'Keefe videos, I hear lefties on CNN saying how everybody does this kind of stuff. How both sides do dirty tricks and voter fraud, and it's just the Dems getting caught right now. Then they talk about Bush stealing the 2000 election by rigging the vote in Florida because his brother, Jeb, just happened to be the Governor of Florida at the time. LOL! If they'd rigged Florida in 2000, Bush would have won by more than just a handful of votes after a long and contentious recount.
In fact, there are numerous stories every election of Democrats trying to rig elections, but you rarely see them because the media favors the Dems. Here's one from the 2014 congressional election, in which the Republican candidate tried to vote for himself in Chicago, and the machine would only cast votes for Democrats. And here's an article on how Al Franken beat Norm Coleman in 2008 with "miracle ballots," how Durkin beat Wyman in '74, how McCloskey beat McIntyre in '84, as well as a story from Washington State in 2004. There were stories in 2000, too, but you never hear them anymore since Bush won. I bet, if everything could be known, we'd know that Gore only came so close to winning due to inflated vote counts the night of the election.
Did you know that it's even probable that JFK (really the Democratic Party) stole the 1960 election from Nixon? Oliver Stone put it in his movie, and here are all the details, laid out in a liberal magazine no less:
www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2000/10/was_nixon_robbed.html
Of course Nixon is the singular name that comes to everyone's mind when we think of election fraud, right? I wonder why that is… (never mind, rhetorical question.)
Sincerely,
FOFOA
Good versus Evil
There was an interesting moment on the Bill Maher show last Friday. On his panel was Michael Moore, some girl, and a former Republican congressman, Rick Lazio from New York. At one point, they were talking about email hacking, and Bill said something like, “I’m at the point where I don't ever want to send another email, which is such a shame because email made all of our lives so much easier 15, 20 years ago.” He was referring to email being hackable, so you just don’t use email if you don’t want your dirty laundry aired publicly by Wikileaks. Michael Moore agreed, and then Rick Lazio disagreed.
Rick said (basically), “If you're not doing anything wrong, if you’ve got nothing to hide, then there’s nothing to worry about.” He said that back when he was running against Hillary for Senate, his campaign email got hacked dozens of times, and his personal computer got hacked once. Michael Moore jumped in and tried to make it about him indicting Hillary in the hacks, but he said, “No, that’s not my point. My point is that I got hacked dozens of times, and nothing embarrassing to me ever came out!" Here, I found the 2 minute clip:
On Tuesday, Aurora wrote:
"Trump is not perfect either, but none of this election is about Trump for us. It’s about right and wrong, good versus evil, love versus hate, truth versus lies, freedom versus tyranny. That is why so many are so passionate about this election because “We The People” want our damn country back from the lunatic left!! That’s what I really care about!! Trump, is just the vehicle to get us there."
Like Aurora, I believe that good and evil exist. I am aware, however, that this is a controversial belief. Some say that good and evil are subjective, or a matter of perspective, but I believe they exist objectively. That doesn't mean I think they are always easy to identify. They aren't.
But I do believe that Communism is evil, and therefore I believe that the political left leans toward the evil end of the spectrum. That does not mean that I think all people on the political left are evil. I don't. As I said at the very top of the post, I think that most people see almost no difference between the political left and right, or worse, they see the exact opposite of reality. I think that most people on the left are very good, compassionate people, who simply see the exact opposite of reality. But like evil, the Left does corrupt, and some people are more corrupted than others.
I am also well aware that people on the left think similarly about me, because I'm on the right. I am aware that some of them hate me passionately and think I'm evil, simply because I'm on the right. This is projection, and seeing the opposite of reality. I will say, though, that in my experience, people on the left are far more passionate, emotional and outspoken about the way they feel toward people on the right than vice versa.
Aurora also wrote:
"Anyone who can openly and passionately support Hillary’s lifetime of and ongoing corruption, lies, collusion, cover-ups, and hate as she bids to be leader of our free world, truly defies all logic and is a real eye opener. One valuable thing this election has done is provide us all with a good look at the people around us, and what they truly look like “inside”. It does not surprise me that family, friends, and other relationships have completely lost their connection over this election cycle due to the Clinton star burst effect lighting up who people “REALLY” are."
I have seen this disconnection myself, even in my own extended family. As the election grows closer, the rising emotion, stress and tension is literally visible if you watch for it on social media. Even Mrs. FOFOA tells me the election is stressing her out.
Strangely, I'm not stressed or nervous about it. For one thing, I am fairly confident that Trump will defy the polls on Tuesday and win in a surprise landslide. But even if I'm wrong about that and Hillary (God forbid) wins, I still think we already won and good things will happen, because as I said at the top, PC has peaked, and this new core anti-PC awareness will continue with or without a Trump victory on Tuesday. Remember that Trump is an effect of what is unfolding, not the cause, and while this may very well be a battle of Good versus Evil, the winner on Tuesday will only be Trump or Clinton, not good or evil.
Now, I am aware that there have been stories in the past few days linking Hillary to Satan, and John Podesta to witchcraft. That's not where I'm coming from at all in this post. The Left has a long history of calling people on the right evil, and I'm simply pointing out that it's another example of projection and seeing the exact opposite of reality.
I know that some of you on the left will be offended by this post, but please don't be. I'll tell you, and this is just my personal experience, but I can really feel, see and hear the rage, disgust and hate that comes out of certain people on the left when they talk about people on the right. I'm not here to return the favor. I think a lot of us on the right are so used to it that we almost tune it out. The Democrats like to talk about how violent and angry Trump supporters are, but again, that's just projection and the exact opposite of reality.
Here's a video of how reality really is. It's from a Trump rally in Costa Mesa earlier this year. Watch how the peaceful protestors representing tolerance interact with the violent, intolerant (i.e. racist) Trump supporters. Oops, that's not how it is. That's the exact opposite of reality:
And it's not just rage, disgust and hate that I've seen coming from the Left, aimed at the Right. It's also extreme condescension, especially right now as the election grows nigh, the kind of disdainful, conceited smugness that is almost never seen in polite society. I think it must have something to do with the election being so close, because what I've seen in the past couple of weeks between people who are otherwise respectful to each other, even though they are on opposite sides politically, is just embarrassing for the Left (IMHO). And yes, I only see it coming one direction, not the other.
I'm sure that some of you know exactly what I'm talking about, and others (mostly the lefties and foreigners) probably don't. So I tried to come up with an analogy to describe what I'm seeing, but it was really hard to do. The best I could come up with was Anthony Weiner. Did any of you see the film Weiner? I watched it the other day on Showtime, and it was actually pretty good.
Anyway, Anthony Weiner was so disgraced that certain reporters, and even just some random people on the street, felt empowered to approach him and say the most condescending, disdainful things right to his face. The kinds of things you wouldn't normally dream of saying to another person. But Anthony Weiner had become nothing more than a piece of shit to these people, not only not worth of the smallest bit of respect, but worthy of vocal distain, talked down upon his lowness from up high. And it's that kind of gross smugness I've not only seen coming from certain reporters when they interview Trump supporters, even famous ones, but I've also seen it coming through social media, from friends and family of people I know. And again, I only see it coming one direction, not the other. I know there are exceptions to this generalization, rude Trump supporters (e.g., some that call themselves "the alt-right"), but spare me. I am not part of, and do not care for (from what I've seen) the "alt-right."
My point here is that I am not spreading rage, disgust and hate, nor am I being disdainfully condescending and conceitedly smug toward the Left. In fact, I am saying that the problems of the Left lie more in the political philosophy than in the people, and while some have been corrupted by the philosophy more than others, most have simply been fooled by decades of political correctness and liberal control of the media into seeing the exact opposite of reality.
My primary purpose here is not even to demonize the Left. I'm here to explain this anti-PC movement or phenomenon that has propelled Donald Trump all the way to the election, which is now only three days away. As Bill Maher put it in the video above, "Donald Trump is largely a result of a backlash to political correctness." And while I agree with Bill (who, btw, is one of those disdainfully condescending interviewers I mentioned) on this one issue, the way he put it makes it sound so small, when in reality it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of movement, and Trump is only the caboose. So let's parse Bill's statement.
"Donald Trump is largely a result…" Very good! As I said at the top, Trump is an effect (or "result"), not the cause of what's happening. So what is the cause? "…result of a backlash…" Yes! The cause is a backlash. But to what? "…a backlash to political correctness." Okay, now we get to the real cause, PC, which you now hopefully understand is evil. Too much? Okay, at the top of the post I said, "It is not hyperbole to say that Communism is the manifestation of PC at the largest scale, and that PC is the manifestation of Communism at any scale." And then about halfway down, I said, "But I do believe that Communism is evil…"
So if Communism is evil, and PC is the manifestation of Communism on any scale, i.e., creeping Communism, then perhaps it is fair to say that PC is evil, or the creep of evil, even at a small scale. And now we have what amounts to a more hefty-sounding cause than just "…a backlash to political correctness." We have "…a backlash to creeping evil!"
Now, I know I keep mentioning Hillary's America, but for those of you who haven't seen it yet, there's a part near the end about Hillary and Saul Alinsky that I thought would be appropriate for this point in the post, so here's that 14 minute scene:
Complete Bullshit
Of course, most of the things said about Trump by the left are hyperbole, projection, or just complete bullshit. The executive producer of HBO's "Girls" (not Lena Dunham) called Trump "a madman who incites violence and racism." Norman Lear called him "f———g dangerous." Bill Maher calls him "the pussy grabber." Even Megyn Kelly used the words "sexual predator" referring to the Access Hollywood "Trump tape". I could go on and on, but let's talk about this "sexual predator" bullshit for a moment.
From what I've seen, Donald Trump is a gentleman who happens to like women. To pretend that it's appalling that he likes beautiful women is simply disingenuous. He's been married to three beautiful women and divorced twice, all in the public eye. And where most billionaires buy sports teams, Trump bought a beauty pageant ffs. That doesn't make him a sexual predator though. It makes him a healthy male.
The latest, greatest Trump sexual assault story (the porn star with Gloria Allred), if true, sounds like a wannabe Hef (he was wearing pajamas) who struck out (he offered $10K for sex and she said no, end of story). As for the Access Hollywood tape, Trump details another failed attempt to sleep with a woman, and when bragging about pussy-grabbing, he wasn't talking about sexually assaulting women. He said, "they let you do it." In fact, what he actually said was, "When you’re a star, they let you do it," which is true. If you still don't get it, watch this awesome video:
I'm sorry for using vulgar language here, but if there's one thing I can't stand, it's the kind of pure bullshit being used against Trump. Yes, I wish he was more articulate. Then again, maybe I don't, because the more polished the politician, the more likely he's delivering a message that was carefully crafted for your consumption. Almost nothing Trump says is carefully crafted, and there's something trustworthy about that.
Donald Trump was uniquely situated to be the one to make it this far. I honestly don't think anyone else could have done it. His kids are great, and more presentable, more articulate than him. Some people wish they were the ones running, but the fact is that the only reason you saw them being so presentable and articulate is because their father ran for President. He's the one. He had the state of mind, the will, the money, the position, the freedom, the name-recognition and the ego to give it a go, and the thick skin to withstand the blowback. There aren't many conservative billionaires who like the limelight. And I believe him when he explains why he's running. He may well be narcissistic, but the abuses he's had to endure on this campaign are not something a narcissist seeks out. Sure, I think he and his brand will come out ahead even if he loses, but that was never a given. It could have easily gone the other way.
I'm sure that this post made a few of you uncomfortable, and it probably made others mad. I am aware that politics is divisive and polarizing, but this past week I decided that I wanted to officially endorse Donald Trump to my small group of subscribers. Not that you didn't know who I was voting for already, but what the heck, maybe I'll get a few more of you to vote for Trump. I think it's worth it, even if I lose a few subscribers.
Freegold
One last thing, there's this question about who would be more likely to upset the status quo and usher in Freegold faster, Trump or Clinton? I don't know the answer, and I don't think it matters that much. But consider this. Clinton represents the status quo. Those who are deeply invested in the continuation of the status quo (like Wall Street) want Clinton to win. To quote Michael Moore, "He is the human Molotov cocktail… the human hand grenade… yes, on November 8th, you… get to go and blow up the whole goddam system, because it's your right. Trump's election is going to be the biggest fuck you ever recorded in human history, and it will feel good."
Poll Time
Here's the poll from back in July:
Now I want to take a new one. This one will close on Tuesday, or whenever we know who the actual winner is. So vote early and often. ;D
But before you vote, please watch Trump's newest TV ad:
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Sincerely,
FOFOA
