Author Archives: theartfuldilettante

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About theartfuldilettante

The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.

The Wisdom of Ayn Rand on the 19th Century

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If you want to prove to yourself the power of ideas and, particularly, of morality—the intellectual history of the nineteenth century would be a good example to study. The greatest, unprecedented, undreamed of events and achievements were taking place before men’s eyes—but men did not see them and did not understand their meaning, as they do not understand it to this day. I am speaking of the industrial revolution, of the United States and of capitalism. For the first time in history, men gained control over physical nature and threw off the control of men over men—that is: men discovered science and political freedom. The creative energy, the abundance, the wealth, the rising standard of living for every level of the population were such that the nineteenth century looks like a fiction-Utopia, like a blinding burst of sunlight, in the drab progression of most of human history. If life on earth is one’s standard of value, then the nineteenth century moved mankind forward more than all the other centuries combined.

Did anyone appreciate it? Does anyone appreciate it now? Has anyone identified the causes of that historical miracle?

They did not and have not. What blinded them? The morality of altruism.

Let me explain this. There are, fundamentally, only two causes of the progress of the nineteenth century—the same two causes which you will find at the root of any happy, benevolent, progressive era in human history. One cause is psychological, the other existential—or: one pertains to man’s consciousness, the other to the physical conditions of his existence. The first is reason, the second is freedom. And when I say “freedom,” I do not mean poetic sloppiness, such as “freedom from want” or “freedom from fear” or “freedom from the necessity of earning a living.” I mean “freedom from compulsion—freedom from rule by physical force.” Which means: political freedom.

Do Not Despair

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All the bad news is actually a Blessing. For fear of sounding perverse please consider these points. The bad news of Trump not having a second term, the Republicans betraying Trump, the government institutions like the DOJ, FBI, State Courts and Supreme Court betraying Trump and the American people, the degree and scale of corruption by the Democrats to brazenly steal a national election, the media blackout and censoring, and on and on… is a blessing.

Why?

Because it allows you to see reality clearly and once you know that, you can move forward. Moving forward means understanding and learning from the past. It means learning not just about the things that are against you and stop you, but the forces that are for you and that you need to move forward. Trump sees the vast numbers of Americans that are on his side. He sees the need to have an independent media. He sees the treachery and fickleness of the Republicans and not to rely on them. This can mean starting a new party — remember Trump is a builder. Even if Trump had a second term how long would it take before the feckless Republicans betray him? It is a relief to be free of them.

So, seeing reality allows one to move forward. Though reality can be harsh it is also a blessing because you can see the truth and make rational calculations knowing both the obstacles and the things that work to your advantage. This was not really a failure, but it is a big opportunity for Trump and the American people to move forward.

BEJ

January 6th as Godsend

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The January Sixth events in Washington D.C., depicted in the corporate media as Donald Trump’s criminal “incitement to insurrection”, were predictably greeted by Democrats and their media as the worst tragedy to ever befall American democracy, the heinous plot to establish a police state — a coup d’etat, the final desperate act of a deranged tyrant. That might be considered something akin to surface discourse. Framed differently, those events could not have made the Dems happier, for by the time the last demonstrator left the Capitol the political floodgates were opened: total war against an entire nation of seditious Republicans, now demonized as “domestic terrorists”, could finally be adopted as full-fledged strategy. The perfect Dems scenario for gaining unchallenged power had been laid.

Beyond the moment of Capitol disorder the Dems would find, without much difficulty, that most precious of all gifts — a political godsend. Like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, national trauma would give the power elite just what it coveted – in this case the greatest of all opportunities to frame Trump and much of the Republican party as enemies of the state, collectively damned to ideological purgatory. January Sixth, like December Seventh before it, would serve as political code for converting national chaos into its very opposite: relief. The Dems, already beginning to solidify power in the White House, Congress, the media, and Big Tech, could now move toward a scorched-earth policy – war of annihilation.

In his book Cultures of Militarism, historian John Dower describes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as “political godsend”, a moment when humiliating military defeat (“day of infamy”) would allow president Franklin Roosevelt to do what he desperately wanted to do but could not in the face of an “isolationist” American public opinion—bring the U.S. into World War II. Pearl Harbor turned out to be a wonderful blessing in disguise for FDR, whose infamous eight-point program effectively provoked the Japanese into attacking the Pacific fleet in Hawaii. In the end, after four difficult years, victory would be heroically wrestled from defeat.

After what was portrayed as a “sneak attack” (military operations were supposed to be advertised in advance?), the New York Herald Tribune could exalt: “Since the clash now appears to have been inevitable, its occurrence brings with it a sense of relief. The air is clearer. Americans can now get down to their task [of waging war] with the old obstacles finally removed, forgotten.” Public opposition to U.S. entry into the war vanished in two hours one early Sunday morning. Democratic politicians, joined by a good many Republicans, were now ready to take military combat to Japan (and then Germany), as the attack had given FDR all the power, not to mention legitimacy, any president could possibly desire. Since 1941 Pearl Harbor has been ideological code for unlimited executive freedom, and Roosevelt energetically took advantage.

In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, shock turned to resolve, momentary defeat to righteous commitment. Victim status would be transformed into its opposite. Roughly the same dynamic would be repeated in the case of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which gave president George W. Bush “permission” to do what he and the neocons were already hellbent on doing – invading Iraq and “finishing the job” of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. In both cases – Pearl Harbor and 9/11 – national humiliation was mobilized to “reset” U.S. foreign policy.

For the present-day ensemble of Democratic elites – Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, et. al. – January Sixth at the Capitol could not have been more timely, more opportune. Truly another godsend. A jolt to the system, however feeble, partial, and ill-fated, would justify sustained authoritarian force across the public landscape. Seen as vile agents of treachery, Republicans would be thrown onto the defensive, immobilized. Pelosi, ready as ever for vengeful action, would say: “The situation of this unhinged president could not be more dangerous. He chose to be an insurrectionist.” Trump’s behavior (in riling up demonstrators) would demand immediate and harsh retribution. Other Dems quickly followed Pelosi’s lead, amplified by a monolithically frenzied media. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, shrill as ever and clearly speaking for the “progressive” squad, said: “I do believe we should exercise every avenue possible because the president has shown that his mental status and his actions are wildly eroding at a rapid pace.” Trump represents a “clear and present danger to our democracy”, she blustered, and must be removed from office as soon as possible.

Not to be overshadowed, Senator Chuck Schumer, reprising “Pearl Harbor” no less, would state: “I have never lived through or even imagined an experience like the one we have just witnessed in this Capitol. President Franklin Roosevelt set aside December 7, 1941 as a day that will live in infamy. Unfortunately, we can now add January 6, 2021 to that very short list of dates in American history that will live forever in infamy.” Oblivious to months of fire bombings, lootings, beatings, and killings across the streets and buildings of dozens of American cities (criminality that persists to this day) – all encouraged by the Dems — Schumer would add, hypocritically: “The temple of democracy was desecrated, its windows smashed, our offices vandalized.”

The authoritarian, virtually fascistic reaction of the media and political establishment was swift and, well, unhinged: the House would quickly move to impeach the president, again, Trump was permanently banned from Twitter and other social-media outlets, Republicans (even those far removed from the Capitol violence) were facing censorship, blacklisting, job loss, and thoroughly dishonest smears. Within a week the silencing of conservatives across the Internet had reached new heights. The long-cherished Beltway goal to destroy Trump, his family, and associates was in sight: any Trump hope for the presidency in 2024 would be smashed. Hysterical threats of “domestic terrorism” would mean, as always, a drastic Hobbesian response: maximum state power, strengthened ideological controls, the crushing of political opposition.

As Dower noted, the ideological code emanating from “Pearl Harbor” included yet another motif: the familiar stereotype of Asians (at that time) as sneaky, backstabbing, and irrational would be affirmed on December Seventh. Who else could carry out such a dastardly attack? The same code would naturally apply to millions (tens of millions) of deplorable Trump supporters – a motley assemblage of gun-toting racists and neo-Nazis. Didn’t those sanctimonious CNN pundits always warn about the backward white-supremacists seduced by the guile of the Orange Menace? Indeed. The truth was finally illuminated for every Beltway dweller to seize upon and embellish: Trump followers would now have to pay, their collective guilt revealed beyond doubt amidst the ashes of January Sixth.

So when all the enlightened Dems repeat their heartfelt sadness over the fate of the Republic, over Trump’s evil subversion of “our democracy”, it might be time to look more closely beneath the surface – or maybe head for the hills. If there were any bars open in the woke Democratic neighborhoods, that is probably where Pelosi, AOC, Adam Schiff, and other sad victims of the Orange Menace might be found gathering to celebrate, toasting to their unbelievably good fortune. Whether such celebrations might be long-lived, however, would be another matter. Fascistic politics has a tendency to devour its own ruthless protagonists.

Carl Boggs, UNZ Review

Democratic Irrationality

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Some social media posts of mine from the last day:

Wow. Massive police protection in D.C. January 20. What happened to Defund the Police??

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I guess if all I had to offer America was the despair & tyranny of Communism, I would impeach Trump forever too.

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“Vaccine passports” and “immunity certificates” are coming soon to the U.K. and other European countries, according to Breitbart News and other news sources. How’s that for Orwellian terminology? Now that elections are irrelevant and discussion is censored on the Internet, do you think these policies will come to the U.S. as well? If so, and if you don’t agree with these policies, how do you plan to cope with them and resist? Grocery stores and banks in the U.K. are threatening to close bank accounts and forbid store entrance without full compliance. Compliance includes not just wearing masks, but refraining from support of political movements deemed “dangerous” by authorities. So how will you cope, and go underground? Don’t reply here, unless you want to. Most actions and, increasingly, many words are now illegal, thanks to fascist corporations working hand-in-hand with government to enforce “woke”, radical leftist positions. One thing that will never be against the law: THINKING. You may not have much else, but your thoughts will always belong to yourself.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

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I haven’t slept very well since last Wednesday…

Our country is facing one of its biggest challenges in decades. From censorship to domestic terror concerns, America is rattled to its core.

An actual attack on our Capitol building took place last week. This is something I would have considered unthinkable in our nation. I mean, sure… in Caracas, Venezuela, but not here… not in the United States of America.

We’re at a crossroads unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes. The coming days, weeks, and months will prove critical. We must preserve our democracy… our country… and our freedom.

I’ll never be OK with the use of violence to justify a political outcome. I’m a real conservative in that way… just like I didn’t condone the 2020 violence from Antifa or BLM activities. Looting and rioting are not the answer.

I believe in law and order. It is only through a proper legal framework (the U.S. Constitution) that we can resolve our differences. Most importantly, when the courts – in this case, the Supreme Court – make a decision, we must recognize it. Otherwise, why even have the courts if mobs can rule the day?

Unfortunately, the Left has effectively been handed a massive political opportunity and has the so-called “cover” it needs to push a liberal agenda… an agenda designed to help it grow its base and extinguish competition.

Even our friend and contributor here at American Consequences, former Texas Congressman and noted civil liberties champion, Ron Paul was targeted by Big Tech this week. (For what it’s worth, Ron Paul is actually a noted Trump critic.) Big Tech shut off access to his Facebook account earlier in the week with no explanation… no citation of an offending post. He was, effectively, censored for no reason.

If Ron Paul – who advocates for a strong economy and middle class through a return to the gold standard – can be shut off, what about the rest of us?

It’s a crucial question, one that I dug into both with Ron himself… and with my esteemed colleague, the celebrated free-thinker, writer, and Editor in Chief of American Consequences P.J. O’Rourke.

I joked with P.J. that our conversation felt, in some ways, therapeutic. The two of us poured through all of your questions and it was so helpful to understand what you’re thinking. Thank you for that and please keep them coming.

Bottom line, it was clear to me that so many of you who, (like me) had supported much of the Trump administration’s policy efforts and appreciated at times (though certainly not always) his candor when dealing with the criticism from the liberal media, are very disappointed.

We all want to see the success of our great nation for the sake of ourselves and future generations. So, with that in mind, now what?

After all, won’t driving the conservatives underground through de-platforming efforts just embolden them more?

Why does the Left want to create a so-called martyr out of the president? And hasn’t the answer to “bad” speech always been “more speech?”

That’s part of what differentiates the U.S. from the rest of the world. In Uganda right now, they’re holding “elections” with a dictator that has already been in charge for 35 years. Twitter, the social media giant that just permanently banned the current president of the United States, just issued a statement urging freedom of speech in Uganda.

So which is it? Ron Paul says the government and Big Tech have become the same entity and corporations are running the world. P.J. and I agree that while there cannot be militias and hate-groups looking for violent uprisings formed online, we also need to do all we can to protect our first amendment rights.

Trish Regan, American Consequences

The Wisdom of Ayn Rand on Thinking

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Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind’ and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say “It is,” you are refusing to say “I am.” By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: ‘Who am I to know?’—he is declaring: “Who am I to live?”

This, in every hour and every issue, is your basic moral choice: thinking or non-thinking, existence or non-existence, A or non-A, entity or zero.

All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identify it as a solid object; he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells, that the cells consist of molecules, that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: What is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic, and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.

Thinking is a delicate, difficult process, which man cannot perform unless knowledge is his goal, logic is his method, and the judgment of his mind is his guiding absolute. Thought requires selfishness, the fundamental selfishness of a rational faculty that places nothing above the integrity of its own function.

A man cannot think if he places something—anything—above his perception of reality. He cannot follow the evidence unswervingly or uphold his conclusions intransigently, while regarding compliance with other men as his moral imperative, self-abasement as his highest virtue, and sacrifice as his primary duty. He cannot use his brain while surrendering his sovereignty over it, i.e., while accepting his neighbors as its owner and term-setter.

Blame the Left, Not Trump, for America’s Crack-Up

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After years of bitter counterinsurgency, the Left finally has their orange scalp. And they want many, many more.

What happened at the Capitol last week did nothing to change the Left’s hostile disposition toward Donald Trump and his base. It has always seen Trump and his supporters as a malignancy that needs to be cut out of society. It never had any intention of letting Trump go down as a legitimate president, neither does it have any desire to acknowledge the grievances that fueled his rise in the first place.

The words “President Trump” would never have entered the history books if not for the Left and its relentless, pathological hatred of anyone to the right of center. If America is heading towards civil strife, it is because the Left—with the complicity of an opportunistic establishment—has slowly but surely nudged half the country into a corner.

The Left has categorized millions of ordinary people who just want decent, honorable lives as “far-right extremists” and “conspiracy theorists” who deserve to be silenced, fired from their jobs, and rendered socially untouchable. These “dangerous people,” held in such contempt by the Left and the ruling elite, retain such fringe notions as “nations should have borders” and “men and women are different.” The Left has been playing a game of “stop hitting yourself!” with these people for years, and in 2016, those people finally had enough.

It is now four years later and his supporters have watched the president they legitimately elected spend every waking moment in office fight a war of succession with a faction of narcissistic psychopaths. Without a single day of rest, the most powerful institutions in the country conspired in a temper tantrum to overturn the will of the people, all in the name of “democracy,” simply because they did not like who the people had chosen. From day one, they have treated Trump like a usurper whose mere election was an “insurrection,” and they have not concealed their disgust for his supporters, whom they regard as “racist,” subhuman scumbags.

If Trump’s base is a bit inured by now to the outrage over this “sedition” at the Capitol, perhaps they can be forgiven. After all, Joe Biden spent a whole summer pretending that leftist riots were not happening for the sake of power. He only “condemned” them after his hand was forced, and even then, he had the chutzpah to blame them on Trump supporters, even blaming a Trump supporter who was assassinated by a leftist for his own death. It was the most vile gaslighting conceivable.

America is now being treated to lectures on “civility” and “democracy” from these very same people.

The hypocrisy is obvious and galling, but the Left doesn’t care: their philosophy is “heads we win, tails you lose.” Those on the “right side of history” are permitted to do anything. On the other hand, simply taking up space in the public square is a provocation if you’re on the “wrong” side. They could bash your skull in with a rock, and the media would blame you for getting killed. But so much as complain about this crooked deal, and you’ve engaged in “hate speech” and you must be destroyed. Tucker Carlson’s formulation summarizes how arbitrary it all is: their violence is “speech,” but your speech is “violence.” And by the way, so is your silence. Endorse the official narrative, or else.

Yet the Left’s hostility increasingly has little to do with matters of conviction, which can be altered, if only involuntarily. Amidst the “reckoning” that began this summer, the Left started talking about whites like they were some form of disease. We saw the consequences of this bizarre trend in practice after the Left erupted into war-whooping bloodlust against the Capitol “seditionists,” who, they were disappointed to see, were not immediately gunned down in a hail of bullets. (One of them was, but this was not enough apparently.) Presumably their “whiteness” was a count against them.

Biden and his allies are now abandoning any pretense of a desire for “unity” or reconciliation, as if this event is what finally convinced them that Trump is a fascist whose supporters need to be marginalized and silenced. Right.

With Trump gone, they will use the Capitol “insurrection” to further disenfranchise his supporters without hesitation. While many on the Right have condemned the Capitol protesters, hoping that by doing so they will be spared, the Left has already launched a propaganda offensive to convince the public that what transpired was one of the worst things ever to happen in American history, and the inevitable consequence of an aberrational presidency. Everyone who supports Trump now, or has ever supported him, is thereby implicated in this “terrorism.”

We find ourselves in an unsustainable situation. Millions of Americans never have felt more unwelcome in their own country, more disillusioned, or more vulnerable to an unaccountable enemy that hates them with a powerful, homicidal loathing. Their own party has unconcealed indifference and contempt for them. They’re “racists” and “conspiracy theorists” just for existing and having thoughts and perceptions that contradict the propaganda of the people who want to destroy them. If they try to defend themselves by voting, their votes will be dismissed as “illegitimate” and they will be branded enemies of the public.

When your back is at the wall and you’re facing a mob, sooner or later you have to defend yourself before they bludgeon you to death.

What we are experiencing is the culmination of an effort to crush any resistance to the Left’s power. After years of bitter counterinsurgency, the Left finally has their orange scalp. And they will want many, many more.

Matthew Boose, American Greatness

Fascistbook Strikes Again

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Facebook has announced that it will remove all content that mentions “Stop the Steal,” a phrase in reference to the 2020 U.S. presidential election that is popular among supporters of President Donald Trump.

Somebody has to give Facebook a psychology 101 lesson: WHEN YOU CUT OFF THE ABILITY TO SPEAK OR COMMUNICATE, YOU FOSTER MORE RAGE, NOT LESS. I guess it’s not really violence they’re worried about; it’s dissenting opinion.

In the words of Solzhenitsyn, a famous Soviet dissident: “Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything, but not with any help from me.”

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

No One Is Listening: A Country Divided Against Itself

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In a recent article Catholic University professor Claes G. Ryn wrote “Few people are really open to persuasion in any case—not just on political subjects but on any subject about which they care and on which they have adopted certain views. Diehard partisans for a certain outlook will refuse to have their beliefs questioned, and so will many others. They will be no less dismissive of a document challenging their opinions if it is full of footnotes and appendixes. Such a document will, indeed, make them resist it even more. As for the relatively few people who are truly open-minded, they will not find another person’s observations dispositive. They will, as they should, want to consider the evidence on a contested matter for themselves.”

The observation immediately calls to mind the red-blue political division that has hardened in the United States over the past several years, with the two sides persistently talking past each other. Part of the problem is that once someone has staked out an essentially ideological position, he or she will regard new developments in such a way as to fit with that preconception. Once one is locked into a viewpoint in that fashion it becomes practically speaking impossible to “consider the evidence on a contested manner” for oneself.

That tendency to want to believe that something is indisputably true means that most people find it difficult to entertain two somewhat contradictory ideas at the same time. In the current context it should be possible to believe that Donald Trump has been a very bad president based on some aspects of his performance while also conceding that many of his failings have been spawned by the unrelenting criticism he has received from the media as well as the clandestine efforts within the government establishment to undermine and destroy him. Most who emphasize the conspiracy against the president also feel compelled to defend his record. Those who don’t believe there was a conspiracy against him, including Russiagate, support his being impeached and also condemn his achievements.

Or there is the election itself, with one side believing it was stolen and the other maintaining that there was no fraud. In reality, an objective review of the actual evidence and examination of the registration and voting systems that are in place suggests that there certainly was fraud, though the issue of whether it amounted to a change in the outcome is likely a question that will never be answered as the Democrats are now in charge. Voting by mail, much promoted by the Democrats, either was a way of expanding the voters’ rolls or a mechanism that would permit widespread fraud. It is not unreasonable to regard it as doing both.

COVID-19 is another good example of linear thinking. Critics of the pandemic tend to go all the way, minimizing the impact of the disease while also contending that it is a hoax contrived by the government to take away the rights of citizens. Against that, one should be able to recognize that the disease is both highly contagious and deadly for certain demographics while also accepting that the government has mishandled the response to it and is seeking to aggrandize its power over ordinary citizens. So both viewpoints can more-or-less be true.

So, we come to the incident at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on January 6th. Various unofficial estimates put the number of “Stop the Steal” protesters objecting to what was seen as a fraudulent election at between 20,000 and 200,000. The language being used to describe what occurred that afternoon is suggestive and would likely delight George Orwell. The liberal media (nearly all of it) as well as some Democratic congressmen have officially declared it “incitement of insurrection.” Other expressions that are popping up include “domestic terrorism,” “sedition,” “right wing mobs,” a “coup” or a “storming” of the building, all reportedly driven by incendiary language used by President Trump. Others preferred describing a “breaching” of security or even a “riot” or possibly “treason.”

A local newspaper in Virginia wrote a headline saying that the Capitol building was “ransacked” while Politico sounded the alarm about the “mob who breached the Capitol.” The New York Times thundered that the “mob” included “infamous white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.” What is not in dispute is that five died during the incursion into the building, including a woman Air Force veteran who was unnecessarily shot and a Capitol Police Force officer who was murdered by being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. That the death toll was not higher is inevitably being attributed by some to restraint by the police due to “white privilege” as most of the demonstrators were Caucasian.

Trump allies reject the language and all it implies, insisting that the president did not ever unambiguously encourage actual violence on the part of participants in the “March to Save America” and that most of the demonstration was peaceful, consisting of ordinary Americans who are shocked by the dying spasms of the country that they grew up in. A Newsweek poll determined that nearly half of Republican voters supported the demonstrations at the Capitol, while no less than 68% opined that they were no threat to the American political system, demonstrating just how divided the country is. There have also been claims that infiltrators from Antifa and BLM might have exploited the opportunity to initiate the successful assault by the demonstrators that broke the police line and forced the entry into the Capitol building. Some Democrats are also suggesting that the entry was itself aided by some of the police, a not completely unreasonable suggestion given the inexplicably poor performance by the Capitol Police Force and some photographic evidence showing demonstrators being assisted by security personnel.

One might have noted that the only thing missing from the event had been the allegations that it included “interference” by the Russians or possibly even the Chinese, but it now appears that some Democrats are actually pointing their fingers at Vladimir Putin. And surely the Iranians and even the North Koreans must have had something to do with it. We will have to wait until the Biden Administration is installed, if it is, to find out which foreigners exactly will have to be implicated and punished. One eagerly awaits the inevitable Washington Post cartoon showing Putin in his office laughing while watching on TV events in Washington.

One thing that is for sure and that is being ignored by many of those who have taken up contrary positions is that there will be consequences from what took place last week. Given the polarization in the discussion itself, “truth” will be the first entity sacrificed as the Republicans will make haste to walk away from Trump while the Democrats will not be eager to permit anyone to dig any deeper into the mechanics of the election. No matter what the GOP chooses to do, it will be the long-term loser even if Trump himself is successfully made the designated fall guy and it will have to learn how to retain the support of the Trumpsters without Donald Trump.

In spite of all the media and talking head fulminations, it nevertheless remains unlikely that Trump will actually be impeached and convicted by both houses of Congress or removed under Article 25 as that would permit his lawyers to mount a defense, which would embarrass everyone. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has nevertheless raised tension by contacting the Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and inquiring whether the president can be denied the nuclear weapons’ codes as he appears to be “unhinged.” There is also speculation that an attack on Iran in coordination with Israel might be under consideration to change the narrative.

Perhaps more interestingly, some Democrats are calling for investigation and punishment for some fellow politicians, government employees and ordinary citizens who might be found guilty of supporting the Trump “coup.” Several identified demonstrators have already lost their jobs while the Washington Post has demanded that “seditious Republicans must be held accountable.” There is even some discussion of setting up a “truth commission” to investigate and punish those individuals who aided in Trump’s other alleged crimes. Such people might have their liberty to travel on commercial flights, to associate in groups and/or to hold certain jobs restricted, expanding on existing anti-terror legislation that would now include a focus on “rightwing terrorism” while also increasing the number of “hate crimes.” Surveillance of individuals who have committed no crimes would likely increase dramatically. Any or all of those moves by Biden would, however, set a very bad precedent, sure to beget more violence.

And also there are calls for greater restrictions on what appears on social media. One ex-Obama adviser has even claimed that social media caused the Capitol building riot by “enabling the spread of the lies, hate speech, and conspiracy theories [by rightwing extremists] that led to” the attack. Since the Democrats now command a majority in both houses of Congress as well as the White House that will mean that those labeled “white supremacists” and their message will be expunged while politically correct social justice content will be promoted. Several social media platforms have begun banning what they call right wing material and Biden as well as several senators have, in fact, already promised to bring in stronger “domestic terrorism prevention” legislation based on the Patriot Act. And even those who believe themselves “safe” as holding reliably progressive views will eventually discover that any deviance from Establishment acceptable positions will be forbidden. Free speech in America will become as dead at the Dodo and the United States would become effectively two nations with the increasingly impoverished helot “deplorables” under the heel of the empowered social justice warriors. It won’t be pretty, and it won’t be stable.

Philip Giraldi, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest.

The Republican Party Killed Itself

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The Republican Party killed itself. The particular poison it swallowed is the hatred it harbors for its own voters. Sooner or later, all that hatred was going to burn it up. When Republican lawmakers turned their backs on Republican voters protesting for free and fair elections and endorsed election fraud by ignoring it, they blew up any remaining illusion that the Red-Blue divide in D.C. is real.

Republican voters struggled for over a decade to give the Republican Party all the power it needed to fight for the Constitution and American liberty and against the quickening assault of totalitarian state control. Republican voters repeatedly urged Republican lawmakers to stomp out Big Tech’s censorship and strangling of free speech before it was too late. Republicans in office have done nothing.

When voters turn a blind eye to their suspicions that only a UniParty exists in D.C., actively support Republican lawmakers, and find themselves inevitably betrayed by those same lawmakers nonetheless, the sting is particularly fierce. From the point of view of a Trump-supporter, the Republican Party has wasted a tremendous opportunity. The “stupid party” looks as if it’s achieved peak stupidity. But from the point of view of D.C. Republicans who have worked to thwart President Trump’s agenda for four years, it is a certainty that the only stupid Republicans they see are their own voters.

It didn’t have to be this way. Republicans in Washington could right now be in the majority with a strong president in the White House. Instead, they spent years using Trump-supporters when their votes were needed and giving little in return. It was a betrayal that leaves deep scars.

Did Republicans finally pay the price with their voters in Georgia? With turnout in pro-Trump areas diminished, that seems the case, and after most Senate Republicans spent the last two months surrendering the presidency, rather than fighting for it, who could blame Georgia voters for choosing not to care? On the one hand, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock seem like shoe-ins to supercharge Obama’s socialist legacy. On the other hand, in a Republican Party that overwhelmingly prefers Donald Trump’s handling of domestic and foreign policy issues to the ways in which establishment Republicans have handled those spheres in the past, neither David Perdue nor Kelly Loeffler looked very “Trumpy.”

Neither Georgia senator jumped up in fury after an avalanche of suspicious voting irregularities led the national press corps to anoint Joe Biden as “president-elect” a full four days after the election had ended, and when Senators Perdue and Loeffler finally pledged to challenge the results of the presidential election a day or two before their January 5 runoff, their commitments reeked of desperation, not righteousness. After their losses and subsequent refusals to see their promises through the next day in D.C., it seemed Trump voters had pegged them correctly.

President Trump won more votes in November than any other sitting president, crushing his own 2016 victory by adding over ten million new voters to his coalition. He expanded his support from minority voters, sustained his gains with blue collar laborers, and attracted former Democrats disgruntled with the socialist direction of their former party. For the first time since President Reagan, a Republican leader came along who strengthened the GOP. And how have establishment Republicans in D.C. mostly treated this unexpected gift horse? They’ve stymied President Trump and his agenda for four straight years. When they weren’t denying him funds for an effective border wall or undermining his promises to end Obamacare permanently, too many Senate Republicans spent their time before television cameras publicly bemoaning the president’s efforts to fight communist China’s growing economic power, his insistence on reinvigorating American manufacturing, and his refusal to allow the Democrats to win every battle of the Culture War.

Instead of seizing the opportunity President Trump handed them in 2016 to prove to Americans that they were capable of tackling the immigration, trade, and health care issues Republican voters prioritized, Republican leaders decided to waste most of the president’s first two years in office by giving Obama and Clinton cover for a Russia hoax that was designed and utilized by Democrats both to spy on Donald Trump’s campaign and hamstring his presidency. More effort was given by Republican congressional leadership to obfuscate potential crimes committed by Obama’s administration and Clinton’s campaign than to tackle any of the “America First” policy proposals that had delivered President Trump victory. If there were a prize for lost opportunities, stalwart NeverTrump Republicans in Washington have no competition.

Somehow the only Republicans who don’t understand that voters have repeatedly rejected their preferred policies are the same D.C. lawmakers who have spent four years battling the president. It is hard to believe now, but prominent Republican leaders in Washington repeatedly warned before and after his election that Donald Trump would (1) ruin Republican outreach to black and Hispanic voters, (2) lead America into violent conflicts abroad, and (3) undermine conservative policy through his nominations and executive orders. Instead, President Trump won over more minority voters than any Republican presidential candidate since 1960; judiciously avoided wars with North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela (while utilizing a mixture of unexpected outreach and diplomacy, economic warfare, and firm deterrence); and presided over arguably the most staunchly conservative administration in a century (strongly supporting religious leaders, protecting the lives of unborn babies, and appointing constitutionalists to the federal courts).

If the Mitt Romneys, Paul Ryans, Ben Sasses, or any of the other consistent NeverTrump naysayers who all predicted the worst from Trump’s presidency had any professional credibility, they would recognize how repeatedly wrong they have been about their doom-and-gloom predictions for five years. That they have only doubled and tripled down on their hatred for President Trump while, in Senator Romney’s case, astonishingly turning potential Biden family financial crimes into a Trump impeachment has only made them (and, by extension, their Republican colleagues) increasingly repugnant to ordinary Republican voters.

It is difficult to pull the lever for the Republican members of a legislative body that stubbornly refuses to understand why voters elected President Trump and how the president has succeeded for those voters despite the intractable efforts at sabotage by NeverTrump Republicans in Congress. It is hard to imagine ever supporting members of a political party who see ordinary Americans protesting for free and fair elections as a greater threat to the Union than their own totalitarian colleagues pushing censorship and socialism in the halls of Congress.

For some Trump-supporters, the choice between authoritarian Democrats and turncoat Republicans is a coin toss. They may abhor the way Democrats are destroying America’s constitutional foundations and freedoms, but they also detest the weak-willed Republicans in office who are complicit in the Democrats’ efforts to fundamentally transform the country by failing to actively fight back tooth and nail. Was that not why Donald Trump rose to power in the first place? Because Republican voters had become so fed up with thirty years of slow but consistent betrayals by their own party that they finally decided to bring in someone new willing and able to fight?

For anyone not residing in D.C., that was the obvious lesson of 2016. Over four years later, too many elected representatives still haven’t figured that out. Washington Republicans have worked tirelessly to make President Trump go away, and they have done so at great cost to the future of the Republican Party. When Republican leaders constantly countermand the voters of their own party, many voters would rather destroy the party and start from scratch than reward the very people who seem to hate them most.

J.B. Shurk, American Thinker