The Monarchist Party

Now we have President-Elect Donald Trump.   Whoa.

Watching the election night coverage on Tuesday, and seeing Trump’s electoral vote tally rise far faster than Hillary’s, it dawned on me that, “Trump is going to win this.  After all….”  And my first reaction was to think…

“Well, we all have to die someday anyway.”

Now I see that Trump is backtracking on some issues and making a few proposals (Second Amendment) which sound like they came from Mitt Romney or John McCain.  I believe that – bluster and bullshit aside – he did NOT really expect to beat Hillary Clinton and now is faced with the task of actually being President.  That includes a real platform, not this random nonsense he farted out during the election.  I mean, if he didn’t expect to be elected, what difference did it make what he proposed?   YUGE WALL?  Why not?  Repeal Obamacare?  Why not?  Execute Hillary?  Sure.  All under the vague and pompous banner of “Make America Great”. 

Was there anything else?  I don’t recall.  He couldn’t articulate anything more than that and since he contradicted himself daily and had no chance of winning (right?) I paid little attention to this orange Casino Hitler, his stupid speeches, or his Kool Aid Minions.  My vote was locked in for Johnson. 

All this reminds me of the Monarchist Party.   Back at the University of Maryland, College Park (1986-1990, AD), there was student government.  It had very little power and was mostly a joke.  So much so, that a group decided to take that to its logical extreme and actually run AS a Monarchist Party.  Their leader was King Tom, and his #1 campaign promise was building a moat of beer around the campus.  College Park is the main campus of the University of Maryland, mostly on the west side of Route 1 inside the Beltway, though Frat Row, Leonardtown, and Richie Coliseum are on the east side.  I don’t recall seeing a map of this plan, but it would have to involve bridges north and south of College Park for Route 1 to cross.  Nowadays it would be filled with some hipster-approved IPA.  Anyhow. 

Despite – or perhaps because of – these ludicrous campaign promises, the Monarchists did win, and King Tom did become student government president.  Guess what – NO MOAT.  Drive down Route 1 if you don’t believe me.  Nope, so far as I can tell, he simply did what the last student government president did, and most likely what his successor, whoever that was, did after him.   I believe their only power is to distribute student activities fees among the groups.  Beyond that, I couldn’t tell you – except that building moats was probably outside his power.

While I’m on the topic of the election, I’d like to address three issues.

Reasons for Hillary’s Failure.  We went from “Hillary will win in a landslide” to “Trump has been elected.”  Why did this happen?

1.         Many feel that Hillary’s email issues caused Democrats to defect en masse to Trump.  She messed up on email security and you’ll vote for the enemy.  Yeah, I don’t think so.  For every confused Democrat I’m sure there was at least one GOP-er who was horrified that Casino Hitler won his party’s nomination.

2.         Trumpers Drank the Kool Aid.  Actually, Trump won less votes than Mitt Romney.   The GOP candidate won less votes than the prior guy.   GOP voting numbers have been relatively stable for the last few elections.  Try again.

3.         Hold on, who is voting?  I think the biggest issue was that since the election was said to be a foregone conclusion, why bother voting?  This lulled too many voters – most of them Democrats - who normally would have come out to vote in a close race, to stay away from the long lines at the voting booths on Tuesday.  I find that the most plausible explanation for Trump’s victory over Hillary.

The Protests.  Apparently not everyone is happy that Trump won.   So we have protests.   A few observations about this.

1.         Your proper time to “protest” was on election day.

2.         If you didn’t actually vote for Hillary, and stayed home, what business do you have protesting?

3.         Let’s assume that 100% of the protesters did in fact turn out to vote, and voted for Hillary Clinton.  Despite that, Trump still won.  Doesn’t that show that more people wanted Trump to be president?

4.         The protests will not convince Trump to step down.  They won’t induce Congress – controlled by the GOP – to change the election.  They won’t induce the electors to change their votes.  They won’t convince the Trump voters.  They won’t convince the third party voters.  And they won’t convince all those people who stayed home instead of voting.  So who will it influence?  The protesters themselves.  If they can get this crap out of their systems without interfering with the rest of us, fine.  Whatever makes you feel better.  But don’t try to prevent the rest of us from getting on with our lives.

5.         Stories of people dying because an ambulance couldn’t get through traffic blocked by protesters appear to be recycled stories of Black Lives Matters protesters causing similar fates, themselves originally made up.

6.         People have a right to protest for whatever reason they want, no matter how stupid or unpopular the cause.  This includes KKK marchers.  What they don’t have a right to do is block traffic, kill people, beat people up, or destroy property.   None of that endears the protesters to the nation at large and is in fact counterproductive.

7.         As asinine as I find these protests, the litany of Trumpers telling protesters to get back to work – if they have jobs – is equally annoying.  The Trumpers are showing just as much arrogance and cluelessness as the PC crowd and SJWs they bitch about. 

Not My President.  For the last eight years we’ve endured the anti-Obama crowd whining, “not MY President”, “it’s the WHITE House!”, “kick out the Kenyan”, etc.  Now that Trump has won, his supporters somehow expect us all to fall in love with the guy and shut up.  Nope.  Facebook – among other forums for public opinion - will be full of anti-Trump stuff for the next 4-8 years.  We’ll make fun of his bizarre orange tan, his Boris Johnson hair, his tiny hands, his thin skin, his bankrupt casinos, his hot immigrant wife, his spoiled kids, and whatever mistakes he makes will be blown up 100x.  The slightest hint of dishonesty and corruption will be grounds for incessant demands for impeachment.  Turnabout is fair play.  If the Trumpers want to deny they’re fascists who expect complete obedience to authority and no tolerance for dissent, they can prove it by showing the same thick skin to criticism and complaints as Obama had to all this time.  From what I’ve seen so far, Trump is incapable of laughing at himself – unlike Obama – and his followers likewise do a poor job of tolerating opposing viewpoints.   It’s like they need trigger warnings and safe spaces.  Trump won?  Tough s**t for everyone who didn’t vote for him.  Trump is ridiculed and made fun of?  Tough s**t for him and his minions.  Consistency is all we ask for….

Anyhow.

As of November 18, it’s still two months to go before Obama moves out and Trump moves in.  That’s two months for him to figure out what the hell he’s going to do for the next four years.  My subjective impression – and we’ll see how accurate my prediction works out to be – is that his more outlandish proposals will fall into the same oblivion as King Tom’s moat of beer, leaving us with a platform of politically feasible policies indistinguishable from what any other conservative Republican president – e.g. Mitt Romney, John McCain, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, etc. (except for outliers like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul) – would do.  If that’s the case, I think we can all sleep a little easier.  We survived 8 years of Reagan, 4 years of George H.W. Bush, and 8 years of Dubya.  A properly restrained Trump – assuming that’s possible – is not something to worry about.   And if it is? 

“Well, we all have to die someday anyway.”

The Tea Party

The election is coming up, and there’s more talk about the role of the so-called “Tea Party” movement in influencing the outcome.  There’s also been a fair amount of ridicule heaped upon it from the usual liberal quarters, particularly Doonesbury, but also Tom the Dancing Bug.  Of course, when I hear it, I recall David Hockney’s clever observation, amidst “Tonight Let’s All Make Love in London”, about bars in London having tiny chairs, so that “it like an organized children’s tea party,” (I also liked his quip about “tartan on the walls” and “a pound for a drink”).  Note: I don’t recall Doonesbury lampooning ANY of the liberal protests.  He’s clearly trying to turn the tables now that it’s the other side of the spectrum doing the protesting.

 I have not been to any of the Tea Party protests, in DC or otherwise.  Ironically, I have been to a protest in DC against Israel, although I was not particularly participating, more like observing.  And here are my observations:

 It seems that the more people you get involved in these type of events, the wider the net cast and the more variety of viewpoints end up expressed in various ways.  In particular, the lunatic fringe truly emerges.  At the World Bank/IMF protests these ended up being the paper mache puppet crowd, vying with the anarchists for shock value.  I’m sure the liberal media is going to fixate on the “It’s the WHITE HOUSE, N*gga!” goofballs who make up a small minority of the Tea Party group.  At the WB protests you end up with oddballs accusing Bush = Hitler (sorry, Saddam makes a much better comparison) or “FREE MUMIA!” 

 I didn’t vote for Obama – I voted for Bob Barr (that’s another story….).  But here’s my problem with Chocolate Jesus as of October 2010.  As far as I’m concerned, he lowballed us in the election.  Even if he didn’t expressly promise to solve every damn problem he inherited from Bush, he certainly didn’t deny anything or stop his supporters from claiming that.  This whole business of “WE CAN” had the implicit underlying message of “if we can elect a black man as President, we can do anything.”   If you’re going to promise the Moon, don’t be surprised when people are dissatisfied at getting anything less.

 Well, we’re waiting.  I think he’s certainly a smart guy, very articulate, and very likable.  But so are a lot of other guys his age.  His problem is a lack of experience: he is in over his head.  

 Would McCain have done any better? Or Bob Barr?  Maybe not.  But neither of them promised to solve everything. 

 Getting back to the Tea Party.  I find it hard to discern a consistent or coherent message or ideology amidst all the rhetoric and flag waving.  What seems to be the beef? The two most vocal “beefs” are that Obama hasn’t fixed the economy (+ bailouts), and socialized medicine.  At a very basic level the Tea Party movement considers Obama to be socialist and opposes the policies of what it perceives to be the left wing of the Democratic Party, “liberals” in general as personified by their beloved Chocolate Jesus.  In a sense, the Tea Party opposes the vague and nebulous collectives who showed up to protest the Iraq War.  So let’s look at the sides.

Tea Party.   Clearly they have found a wide range of dissatisfied people. 

            A.         Hardcore racists.  Not everyone wants a black president, no matter how articulate he may be.

            B.         Opponents to socialism.  Count me in.  While I agree that the health care system is messed up, I’m not convinced that mandatory health insurance is the answer.

            C.         Opponents to corporate welfare.  Count me in this group too.

            D.         Vague “patriots”.  Just people who love waving flags and considering themselves “true American” or “patriots” (whatever that means) and who somehow sense that Barack Obama represents something anti-American. 

            ** How can Obama be funneling $15 billion to AIG and other greedy American businesses (who presumably don’t deserve the bailouts), yet be socialist at the same time?  Aren’t socialists AGAINST big business?  Probably the more appropriate label would be fascist, in the Mussolini/corporatist sense of the word.

 Anti-War Group.

            A.         Pacifists.  These are “peace at any price” people who believe that surrendering to evil is the best policy – anything to avoid bloodshed.

            B.         Anarchists.  These guys view themselves as the radical, violent vanguard of the movement against government oppression and the capitalist system.  As you can imagine, it’s a VERY small group, too small to be of any threat to anyone except themselves.

            C.         Socialists/communists.  They rarely call themselves that.  They supported the USSR, Mao’s China, every communist regime which ever existed – and now Cuba is their favorite (for some reason they avoid mentioning North Korea).  “Trotskyist” is a label they like now that Stalin can no longer assassinate them.  Michael Moore and Ralph Nader are in this category although for public relations reasons they would never admit it.

            D.         Vague “leftists”.  This forms the majority.  These are people who simply oppose the war, not due to a sincere preference for peace or due to any explicit ideology. 

             Most liberals understand that command economies like the USSR and North Korea don’t work.  They value private property and recognize that the market usually provides the best results, they just believe that it fails too often and needs to be fixed by the government.  Given the choice between trusting the private sector to do the right thing and assuming the government can regulate away any problem (given enough money and power – and when the government “solution” doesn’t fix the market failure their “solution” is more money and power to the government, not to admit failure) they’ll trust Uncle Sam rather than Bill Gates.  Their ideal ranges from Sweden to Cuba depending on the issue.  90% taxes?  Well, we’ll take that if it means free health care.  But most Americans wouldn’t accept that tradeoff. 

 ..and faced with that prospect, many Americans get upset.  Upset enough to protest!  Thus we have…the Tea Party.  

Injustice 2008

I’m watching the poll numbers – but ignoring the debates – and seeing Obama’s numbers rise and McCain’s fall.  No one seems to be paying any attention to Bob Barr except as a novelty item in the Style Section, not the A (News) section.  I see “Saturday Night Live” crucify McCain as some sort of senile idiot, while Obama is some man of pure reason and ethics.  Yet I see plenty of McCain stickers in my neighborhood, which should be solidly Obama territory.

My buddy Dave hit the nail square on the head.  The Republican Party is beholden to what he refers to as the Bush Crime Family (BCF).  In 1988, with Ronald Reagan’s second term ending, the field was wide open for GOP candidates.  Among them was Bob Dole, who had served in the trenches as senator from Kansas and was even Ford’s running mate in 1976.  But the powers that be in the GOP, the party machine, decided to give the nomination to George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush I).  Eight years later, in 1996, with Bush I no longer an appropriate candidate, they threw the bone to Dole and let him run against the immensely popular Bill Clinton – with predictable results.

And history repeated itself.  In 2000, the GOP had a very capable – and electable – candidate in John McCain.  Indeed, the Democrats were worried McCain would win the nomination, because they knew he would crush Gore.  There would have been no goatfuck in Florida, it wouldn’t have been close.  And who knows what McCain might have done on 9/11 and after?  Probably something much better than Bush II.

So now it’s 2008, and the GOP threw the bone to McCain, putting him up against the immensely popular Barack Obama, 8 years after his own popularity had peaked.  He is not the same man now as he was in 2000.  And I can see he is going to lose, big time.  He does not deserve this.  The GOP has used and abused McCain, and spit him out.

On a darker note, several other things are clear:

1.         The GOP has its own best interests at heart, not those of even its rank and file members, those of the soldiers, or those of the country at large.  Our soldiers are simply pawns in a chessboard to be used and thrown away.

2.         The GOP shamelessly exploits the sincere patriotism of all the Americans who support it out of a misguided belief that the party represents traditional American, capitalist values.  It doesn’t.  It represents the corporatist, even quasi-fascist values of corrupt big business, companies asking for subsidies and handouts and not expecting to compete fairly in the marketplace.

At this point, I need to make something “perfectly clear”.  The Democrats are NOT the answer.

1.         If the Republicans are slammed for appealing to “fear”, the Democrats appeal another base emotion: greed.  Vote for us, they claim, and we’ll take from everyone richer than you and give to you.

2.         Yet look at the facts: many of the same big corporations who donate to the GOP, also donate to the Democrats, covering their butts either way.  Maybe the GOP is in bed with Big Business, but so are the Democrats (it’s a very big bed).  Too many politicians on both sides owe too much influence to the same interests which plague the other.

3.         The Democrats claim to be looking out for the middle and lower classes, but do very little to assist these groups – it’s all just smoke & mirrors to attract votes.  When I hear yet another “populist” politician like Obama talk about sticking up for the little guy, I have to laugh.  Haven’t we heard this before??  Lies, lies, and more lies.  The Republicans have no monopoly on deceit.

 With Barack Obama we have at best another politician who will tell us what we want to hear; at worst we have a socialist who really does intend to take from the rich and give to the poor (and we saw how well Comrade Lenin did that).  The Democratic Party machine represents its own interests and those of a minority of its own special interest groups such as unions and teachers.  We won’t get any improvement in education, for example, despite the Democrats’ claims that THEY support education and that it’s “their” issue, because the Democrats insist on supporting a corrupt and ineffective public school system and oppose vouchers – and these same Democratic politicians send their OWN children to private schools!  Likewise, the Democrats continue the war on drugs, and they oppose 2^nd Amendment rights, among other unacceptable positions.  Why are our two choices fascism and socialism?  Why not capitalism? The system will not change so long as pro-capitalist Americans identify with the Republicans out of fear of the socialist Democrats, or the lower classes mistakenly vote Democrat due to some misguided belief that the Dems are looking out for their interests and not their own.  We need a third party.  Now.

This is why I support the Libertarian Party.  It is the closest we have to a Capitalist Party.  Yes, I know it “has no chance”.  Bob Barr is not an ideal candidate - he’s somewhat of an asshole, and wasn’t particularly popular even when he was in Congress.  And the geniuses running the party refuse to pick celebrity candidates – to the extent there are any who want to run on their ticket – out of some misguided fear of being labeled wacky and not taken seriously, so they pick complete nobodies and lack the resources to compete effectively against the major parties.  The party screwed up big time by shunning Jesse Ventura, who could have been the first Libertarian governor.  But I will support it anyway, and vote Libertarian across the board, in every election.  We have to fight, each time, every time, until we have a Libertarian congress and President.  Maybe not in my lifetime, but who knows.