Here We Go Again

Get ready for Kavanaugh 2.0.

The Democrats increasingly threadbare bag of tricks to take down Republicans has needed something new for some time now, and it seems the Dems have seized on the (for them) astonishingly successful smear trap of Judge Kavanaugh. If you can recall without cringing, the Senate confirmation hearing on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court was concluded, when the Democrats discovered a (gasp!) new witness with damning information on High-Schooler Bret Kavanaugh - Christine Blasey Ford. They then beat the drums to have her testify in open session, the media joined in, and the Republicans caved, setting off what should have been a days worth of work that was strung out for weeks as new witnesses and new crimes were invented. All the while, both the Dems and the Media hammered Kavanaugh's reputation to a pulp with speculation heaped atop lies, hoping that the Republicans would cave again and vote Kavanaugh down.

Vote him down despite the palpable reality that Bret Kavanaugh had never done anything wrong, and that as Lindsey Graham passionately pointed out, the entire Democrat road-show was a travesty.

So, how does this translate to an Impeachment trial of President Trump? Well, the Democrats have been beating the drum for weeks now that it will be important for the Senate to call witnesses. Mitch McConnel, however, has been adamant that it is the House that calls witnesses in furtherance of its Impeachment decision, and then delivers the evidence they find to the Senate for trial. It is not the Senate's job under the Constitution to find or introduce new evidence in support of the House's Impeachment decision. So, Mitch opines, there will be no new witnesses or evidence to supplement the House's Articles of Impeachment; it is not the job of the Senate to clean up inadequate Articles of Impeachment.

This seems pretty straightforward, and has the added advantage that that is how the Democrats in the Senate handled the Impeachment of their own party's President, Bill Clinton.

But the drum beat for witnesses, and even new charges, continues, so here is what is going to happen over the next few weeks. There will be shocking stories in the Major Media, based on anonymous sources, of some especially heinous perfidy by Trump, and an all out demand that the Senate investigate immediately. Mitch will resist at the outset, and the Senate will duly convene to hear the House's representatives present the Articles of Impeachment, the President will mount his defense, and after the submission of written questions, the Senate will be prepared to vote …. Except, there will be a motion for additional witnesses related to the House's charges, but also for the introduction of evidence of any new crimes the Dems and the Major Media can stitch together out of whole cloth. Four or five of the weak-sisters in the Republican ranks will then fold up under the pressure.

And then the games will begin. Once the door to additional evidence and witnesses is opened, the Dems will parade a slew of new witnesses and odious speculations, and we will all be subjected to a weeks long hatchet job on Trump. The crimes charges will be both tenuous and risible, but it won't matter because the goal, as with Kavanaugh, will be to simply fill the air with such a fury of Trumpian scurrilousness that everyone will be unable to see that there is not one jot or tittle of real, Impeachable evidence of anything.

Hopefully, Mitch or someone will stand up and break through the fog to close the sham of a proceeding off, like Lindsay did in the Kavanaugh matter. But that is not likely.

And so, the ugliness of our politics will again be on display, to the detriment of all of us. Our only hope then will be an appeal to the only group that the Democrats are, deep down, truly afraid of: the American voters. Hopefully they will throw all these bums out next November.

Impeach Trump Now!

Yes, impeach the guy. Here are the facts.

Joe Biden/Obama set US policy as follows: the Ukraine shall not be permitted to investigate corruption in a company within its borders that has Joe Biden's son on the Board. If they insist on doing so, then we will withhold up to a billion dollars in aid.

Donald Trump canceled that policy, reinstating the policy that was in effect prior to the Obama administration, and communicated this new policy direction to the President of the Ukraine, to wit, the US encourages the Ukraine to prosecute all corruption without regard to whether it would hurt or harm the son of a powerful US politician. The stated rational for this policy is that corruption in the Ukraine has been a major sticking point in foreign relations going back decades.

The impeachable part arises because Joe Biden is running for President, and the prosecution of his son for corruption might harm his chances of winning. Actually, it might or might not - perhaps old Joe could just distance himself from his son's activities in the Ukraine, like John Kerry's son did. Or perhaps he could just deflect the matter to some 'woke' issue that the media likes to report on and cruise right on to the victory that all the polls are predicting. Or perhaps …

Well, all that doesn't matter, because this is impeachable. Just look in the Constitution and its right there, or if not, I seem to recall something in Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention about it. So, Original Intent! as you right-wingers like to drone on about.

Irrefutable conclusion: impeach him now!

Or, here's an idea: let the President run his foreign policy as he sees fit. This idea has the added advantage that it is actually in the Constitution. Look it up; our founding document is written in English and not that long.

The Predication Game

But, Easy, even assuming that Barr is sincere and intends to follow through, my concern is that I suspect he will find predication for the investigation. I think this because the intelligence and investigative agencies of our government are quite aware of what the 4th Amendment and Justice Department regs require before they can use the powerful tools at their command. And as I go over all the events of the last three years, it seems obvious to me that we are seeing a very sophisticated scheme to create a predicate and justification for an investigation. In fact, the scheme was so sophisticated that it beggars belief that this is the first time the FBI et al sought to begin an investigation in such a manner. This was obviously something approaching standard practice that the FBI et al had honed to near perfection for many years.

Consider: they want to investigate the Trump campaign to find collusion with Russia, but they have no evidence of such. What to do? Well, find a member of the Trump campaign and plant him with insider information about Russian involvement in the American election process, e.g. hacking Hillary's emails. Then, cover your tracks by having a seemingly independent source 'discover' that campaign member to have insider connections with Russia, and voila! You have the reasonable grounds you need to begin an investigation of the Trump campaign.

And this is clearly what happened with George Papadopolous. He tells them in early 2016 that he is joining the Trump campaign, and in the course of a few days - a few days! - they are able to put together a global initiative - global initiative! - to set him up as the 'evidence' that the Trump campaign had nefarious contacts with Russia. There is evidence that the highest levels of the Italian intelligence agency introduce him to the mysterious Maltese academic, Joseph Mifsud, who gives Papadopolous the information that Russia has 30,000 of Hillary's emails. Then the highest levels of British intelligence along with long time CIA assets introduce him in London to an ostensibly innocent bystander, Alexander Downer, an Ambassador from Australia, where Papadopolous is induced to pass on the information he got from Joseph Mifsud about the Russians having Hillary's emails. It is then Alexander Downer who passes on the 'information' that Papadopolous, a member of the Trump campaign, apparently has insider knowledge about Russia and Russian interference in the American electoral process.

At this point, the loop is closed and the FBI et al has the 'independent' evidence from the Australian Ambassador that will permit them to begin a full boat investigation of the Trump campaign.

Stated like this, it's all an obvious subterfuge to skirt the 4th Amendment and public policy prohibitions against turning the tools of the government against an opposing political party. But that does not take into account the sophistication and expertise of our high government officials in 'laying a predicate' for an investigation. As I said, a troubling aspect of all of this is that this looks like a practiced operation that has been honed to perfection by the FBI et al for many years. So, I suspect that Barr will find enough of a 'predicate' such that all the parties stayed just over the 'right' side of the line in beginning this investigation, even though the overall circumstances point to corruption.

Compare, Barr's recent decision not to prosecute James Comey for leaking classified and other information. James Comey is a smart, experienced guy, and he knew exactly what the rules and regs required vis a vis internal investigative information. So he fashioned 7 memos with particular attention to the type of information contained in each, and then meticulously distributed them in such a way that he would always stay just shy of the line of a violation - or at least, a violation concrete enough to warrrant prosecution. As a result, Barr had to pass on prosecution, and Comey skates.

Put simply, I suspect Barr will be similarly powerless to do anything about the corruption he finds in his "predicate" investigation, except by instituting new rules and regs to hopefully prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Which is a good thing, a very good thing - but far from a satisfying conclusion to this whole tawdry affair.

The Predication Game

I am a weird guy; I get excited over predication. No, no, not the grammatical variety, but the legal.

Finally, after more than three years and multiple investigations by the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the FBI, and multiple Congressional committees, someone in Washington has come up with the clear and concise issue that has been staring us all in the face like a grim spectre.

Attorney General William Barr tells us that he is investigating whether the FBI had a 'proper predicate' for opening and conducting an investigation against then candidate Trump and his campaign way back in 2016, and/or perhaps as early as 2015. And with simple clarity, a clarity in short supply these days in Washington, he stated that he needs to know the predicate for the investigation because it is an extraordinary fact that there was surreptitious surveillance (aka 'spying') by the highest levels of the US government against the campaign of an opposing party during a Presidential election contest.

This is not a complicated issue. Presidential election or not, the government cannot investigate anyone without an appropriate reason to believe a crime has been committed. This is basic 4th Amendment jurisprudence, and not controversial in any respect. But when the 'target' for an investigation is the candidate and campaign of a Presidential election, then the standard becomes even more stringent - because not only is the 4th Amendment in play, but also the integrity of our fundamental system of government. This is why the DOJ has numerous existing rules and regulations covering investigations and prosecutions that might interfere with elections at all levels of government.

What has obscured this otherwise obvious issue for the last 3 years (and counting)? It's basically been a studied disambiguation in support of a particular narrative, that Trump colluded with Russia. It was definitely a fact that Russia meddled in our election;  since the time of Lenin, they always have and there was no particular reason they didn't this time. But that is not evidence Trump or anyone colluded. Despite that, the FBI et al commenced an investigation, and covered their tracks publicly, with media complicity, by muddling Russian meddling with Trump collusion to give the impression that they had reasonable grounds to investigate Trump, when all they had were reasons to investigate Russia. And the fact that all of this was designated national security allowed the FBI et al to insinuate they had grounds to suspect Trump, but never have to actually show us anything.

But Mueller has now spoken that there was no evidence of collusion, and the real, serious issue is finally getting the hearing it deserves: what was the evidence that started the investigation, and was it a proper ground for an extraordinary, secret investigation of a Presidential campaign?

Here's hoping that AG Barr is serious about all of this. If not, it won't be the first time we've seen the Washington insiders deep six a matter of public importance. But let's wait and see.

Hillary & Bill Clinton

These two people, despite immense and obvious flaws, have cast a singular shadow (some would say "pall") over the Republic for lo' these many decades. So, after all this time, what is their current place in American politics? Here is an article that asserts an answer, from Fox Business News.

An interesting take, but I am afraid the fact that many Democrats want the Clintons to go away is old news. Everyone forgets that it was the New York Times that dropped the expose on Hillary’s private email server – just before she was going to declare a run for the 2016 Presidency. To me, that was an obvious hit-job by some higher-ups in the Democrat Party (probably Obama) trying to dissuade her from running. However, the Clintons have so much juice on the party machinery that they refused to take the hint and she ran anyway. At that point, the Dem’s had nothing else to do but ram her through the primaries and into the Presidency.

Except Trump.

Hillary is finished as far as a political office is concerned, as is Bill, but that does not mean they don’t still have serious political muscle on their side – no one who has behaved as these two have the last 30 years could have survived this long without something really significant to leverage their party leadership. Given their Arkansas background, it’s probably dirt on certain specific people coupled with photos. But it could also be the dirt, plus money, plus a demonstrated willingness to burn the Democrat house down unless they are allowed to continue their influence.

I suspect Bill and Hillary Clinton have in their heads a last goal for their careers: to match the achievement of Ted Kennedy. And that is, to continue to be a major player in US and world politics despite a very public and outrageous scandal. And you can almost hear the Clintons comforting each other on a cold winter night in their house in Chappaqua: "After all, we never killed anyone, right?”

Tracking the Wild Rino

With the continued carping from the Republican back benchers, the NeverTrumps, it seems like a moment to clarify who is and who is not a republican in name only - a Rino.

Rino's have been a Republican bane for upwards of 40 years now, weeping and moaning and gnashing their teeth at other Republicans at whatever inopportune moment they can find. They appear to have originated in the northeast of these United States, and that remains their natural habitat, but have spread across the fruited plains into almost every political jurisdiction in the land. Over the years there have been confirmed sightings in Florida, Ohio, and also Arizona, and now Utah has drawn this grumpled beast to its jurisdiction.

And many other places as well. Wherever they are, they never boast significant numbers, but are hard to ignore because of the characteristic incessant, loud, grating noises they make.

So, what exactly makes a Rino rino-like? …

The Meaning of Meaning

I stumbled on this interesting exchange the other day - a bit late, but it touches on an issue near and dear to my heart. It is between Alan Dershowitz and Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia is dead, you say? Quite right, but it seems that early in Justice Scalia's term on  the Supreme Court, members of Mr. Dershowitz Constitutional Law class felt he, as their teacher, was a bit lopsided in his criticism of Justice Scalia's Supreme Court opinions, so they issued an invitation to the Justice to come debate Mr. Dershowitz. Nino, as Justice Scalia was nicknamed, promptly accepted. Would  that I was a fly on the wall of  that confrontation, but in lieu thereof, we have Mr. Dershowitz' report:

"So, in my classroom debate with the justice, I challenged him with the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ended racial segregation of public schools in the Southern states. As a matter of indisputable historic fact, following the Civil War the “people” who “adopted” the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment had to take into account what would surely be the continued segregation of public schools, and not only in the Deep South …

I asked Justice Scalia, whether if had he been on the court in 1954, he could have joined the unanimous court without violating his principle of originalism. He was both candid and self-effacing in his response, saying that no theory of constitutional interpretation — including originalism — was perfect. But he still insisted that originalism was “better” and “safer” than any other theory, because it precluded honest judges from substituting their own philosophies for those of the founding generation. In his own provocative words: “Show Scalia the original meaning, and he is prevented from imposing his nasty, conservative views upon the people. He is handcuffed. And if he tries to dissemble, he will be caught out.”

I feel sure that the Justice had a bit more to say than that about the subject, but that is all Mr. Dershowitz gives us, which is not to say Mr. D was being unfair to Nino. His review is uniformly affectionate, and he is trying to give the flavor of his relationship with Scalia in light of the significant differences they had on Constitutional interpretation.

But it raises my own  thoughts on Scalia's theory of Constitutional interpretation of originalism, and what a proper response to Mr. Dershowitz should be. For there is no doubt in my mind that originalism is the only proper interpretative theory for a purported Constitutional Republic. If the original meaning of the foundational document of a Republic is not determinative of its ongoing application, then the whole idea of a Constitution becomes essentially meaningless. You might just as well set up any small group of people and give them generic principles like 'justice' and 'fairness' and then wait for them to tell you what to do next. As we have seen, that is the net result of the 'living constitution' interpretive school which we have suffered under these many years.

But Brown v. Board of Education did conclude in a good result. Would originalism have precluded that result? And if so, what does that mean for constitutional interpretation?

Continue .....

In Like Flynn

The news cycle flies along at its typical breathtaking pace. Mannafort becomes Weinstein becomes Rob Porter becomes Kim Yo-jong becomes Bannon becomes .....

Can we take a moment to slow down the power point slide show and finish up on what used to be termed current news? Let's roll the tape back and bring Lieutenant General Michael Flynn into some focus.

Corruption at the highest levels of government, that is what we saw when our tax payer supported Super Lawyers, Robert Mueller, et al., our very own Special Prosecutors, obtained a plea deal on December 1, 2017. General Michael Flynn admitted he lied, which is not just a social faux pas or evidence of a character flaw, but a felony when done in an FBI interview. Although many who support Mr. Mueller would decry posting the 10 Commandments outside a Federal Courthouse, they have no problem with elevating within the Courthouse the 9th Commandment to a major crime.

Except, the corruption is not with poor Michael Flynn, but with the Special Prosecutors themselves. Let's take a look at some salient facts:

1. The 'lying' Michael Flynn did was not in any interaction he had with Mueller or his team. It was done way back in January of last year when the General voluntary sat down with the FBI to 'splain a few things.

2. At the time, what the FBI wanted to know was what Flynn had said to the Russian Ambassador. This was curious in that the FBI had FISA taps of the conversations and thus already knew exactly what Mr. Flynn had said. And they also knew that what he talked about was not criminal in any way, that in fact it was pursuant to his normal and necessary duties as the prospective head of Trump's NSA. The implication that rises here is that the FBI was hoping to catch him in a lie so they could enforce the 9th Commandment upon him with a God-like vengeance. This feels to me like unethical behavior by  the FBI bordering on abuse of power, but hey, I'm just a private citizen of this Republic, so what do I know?

3. In any case, what Mueller's indictment does not mention is that the FBI determined after the interview with Mr. Flynn that his account of his Russian conversations was substantially true, and that any errors or omissions did not rise to intentional dishonesty. Thus, Mr. Mueller brings his indictment based on his own determination of Mr. Flynn's responses, superseding the agents who were actually present at the interview. I ask: who is better situated to assess the credibility of a person, the one who is face to face with him or the one who is reviewing a transcript months later? A silly question, I know. Our very Special Prosecutors obviously possess super powers of detection of credibility, and it's not clear why we (me and you, dear reader) have any business questioning the matter.

So, to wrap this up, what we have is a decorated General who was performing his lawful duties as a civil servant of the government, who has become the target of large political - not criminal - forces swirling around Washington that for reasons of their own sought to entrap him in some sort of crime so that he would do ..... what?

They certainly haven't gone to all this trouble to get General Flynn; he's just a Washington player like thousands of others and he was fired from the Trump Administration about 30 seconds into his tenure. For me, there is only one obvious answer: they want leverage to force him to support their narrative that Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians to subvert the American election. If so, then they will be forcing him to lie because Michael Flynn - and Mannafort and Jared Kushner and all the rest - have already voluntarily testified that there was no collusion with the Russians, and the FBI, CIA, NSA, numerous Congressional Committees, and our very Special Super Powerful Best in Class Prosecutors have to date found no evidence of collusion.

Would that our betters on the Federal Courts would allow us to post the Ten Commandments at the door of the Special Prosecutors offices - I think they could use some brushing up on that 9th Commandment right now.

Re Trump's Faction

So, what's happenin', as they say in the vernacular?

Easy's patriotism argument is a gesture in the right direction. But it is more organic than that. Patriotism for all its nobility - or perhaps because of its nobility -  is an aspiration, an ideal to be achieved. But the founding of this blessed country was not only an example of patriotism of the highest order, as Whit tells us, but also a congruence of cultural forces ingrained in the America colonialists by their peculiar history and traditions.

The Glorious Revolution in England some 150 years earlier that established true representative government as a political ethos; the sturdy self-reliance demanded of a people who literally had to hack their existence out of the wilderness; and perhaps most important of all, the uniquely American Protestant Christian emphasis on the primacy of Christian conscience before God, that issued forth as a commitment to toleration of religious and political plurilism.

All of this congealed to form a people that were quite committed to democratic reform, the popular will, the rule of law, and civil order, but extremely obstreperous and jealous of their prerogatives ... when the political hierarchy appears to be over stepping its proper jurisdiction.

And thus the American Revolution. So what connection do we find with that singular event of 200 some years ago to Mr. Trump?

Issues change, politicians change, people change, rhetoric changes, even principles morph and transmute over time. But culture has an inertia all its own that resists change. And this exceptional culture of the United States has been building up mass for some 200 years and will not go away quietly in the face of political challenges.

The American culture operates mostly on the visceral level; but it makes its appearance in response to specific political programs that enable it to express itself in the body politic. It is this that has bollixed up conservative pundits about the Trump Faction. Inasmuch as Trump is no true blue conservative, then his supporters must not be conservative and ipso facto, the people are not as conservative as we all once thought.

But this puts the cart before the horse; or better, it puts the principles before the passion. Conservatives are nothing if not principled, so much so that they actually think their principles are sufficient in themselves to motivate people. But life does not proceed purely en raison. There must first be a given passion in the culture to which reason might appeal, or more properly, convince to give vent to itself. In Platonic terms, the Charioteer can crack his whip all he likes, but if there is no snorting horse of Valor or Desire at the ends of the reins, then he will go nowhere.

The key is that American cultural passion generally finds its best expression in conservative principles and policies. This is so simply because conservatism is nothing more than a return to the Founding principles of this country, and hence it resonates profoundly with the culture that Founding nurtured. But it is not self-activating; you can't just stand up and shout "Liberty!" and expect to move the American viscera. You need leaders capable of articulating conservative principles, effectively communicate the same, all within the context of the current political moment.

That is what Reagan did so effectively. And notice that he did so without relentlessly invoking the Constitution or the Founding or Enlightenment principles of freedom per se. He did not give a history lecture. He spoke instead of policies and a future that would unleash the energy of the people to solve problems of his day, in ways that excited the populace. He himself was clear about what kind of country he wanted to bring back, and was well versed in the Constitutional scheme that needed to be reinstated. But he knew that he needed to move people. And he did; boy, did he.

There is the Republican/conservative problem we have had since Reagan in a nutshell. We have had no leaders capable of instantiating conservative principles in a robust policy prescription for contemporary problems. No one capable of tapping into the unique American cultural passions. And so we've wandered politically, finally falling exhausted to the mat in the failing Presidential bids of John McCain and Mitt Romney

Then Trump came down his escalator with a straightforward political program: build the wall, make better trade deals, spur economic growth, and quit entering into stupid foreign entanglements. His overarching theme was putting America and the American worker first, and it's corollary, winning once again.

Manifestly, there is nothing unconservative about this agenda. But manifestly, Trump has not attempted to back up his agenda with a political manifesto of American principles and ideals. Instead, he has offered his program as sheer red meat, to an electorate starved for something more than the bare subsistence on offer from the Republican leadership class. And hungry Americans have flocked to him, ravenously.

This, then, is the Trump Faction, visceral conservatives as only the exceptional American culture can produce. In this context, what has been startling is how truly conservative Donald Trump has remained - even after winning his prize. Principles, after all, are the guardrails of behavior when you are navigating twisty mountain roads of events, and most men uninterested in principles (which is different, be it noted, from being unprincipled) will lose their way as the rush of political events sweep over them.  But our President seems to be clear and focused about the way forward, as evidenced by the way he has assembled one of the most conservative cabinets in the  history of cabinets, to give but one example (See also Judge Neil Gorsuch).

The  answer to this is that Donald Trump is culturally an American and as such is unmoved by the cheap rhetoric and anti-American tactics of the Left. He is no mental light weight as his adversaries think, but he is comfortable with his instincts and willing to give them their head, and those instincts are shaped and formed by the American culture he grew up in. And that culture, as I said above, is basically conservative, as conservative as was the Founding itself.

And that is why Trump has a Faction: like is attracted to like, and Trump is nothing if not authentically himself, and that self is American, through and through.

Re: Trump's Faction

It has been a mainstay of Republican primary politics for, oh, a quarter century at least, that all candidates must tack to the right to gain the Presidential prize. This was true for George ‘Read my lips, no new taxes’ Bush, but also Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and even those candidates running a loud counter-cultural campaign of moderation like John Huntsman. Whatever a candidate’s real intentions, whatever strategy they think will work in the general election, in the Republican primaries, obeisance must be paid to conservative principles or else your candidacy will be a non-starter.

 Then comes Donald Trump, upsetting the apple cart, smashing the china shop, and shattering the glass house of conventional campaign wisdom – and perhaps the careers of some of the best paid consultants in the business. Trump’s faction, as Ezra calls them, got on board his candidacy early, and after going through a bit of denial about Trump’s viability as a candidate, the other candidates, the donors and the consultant class confidently began hitting him with everything they had about his conservatism – or lack thereof.

And Trump was an easy target; in this new age, tweets and TV interviews are forever, and Trumps has not been bashful about offering his opinion about everything in any media he could get in front of. And his opinion has nearly always been some form of the conventional northeastern liberal take on things, with an overlay of Trump bravado to brand it as distinctively his own. Trump has always craved what in former times was called headlines but in today’s new age is termed buzz. And buzz only occurs along liberal lines, because liberal’s own the culture (see Andrew Breitbart). Headlines and buzz was Trump’s brand, that’s how he built and nurtured his brand, that’s how he maintained his brand, so oppo research to attack Trump politically was easily available.

 Except …. None of it worked as conventional wisdom said it would. Then began the angst of conservatives: all these years they had invested in the Republican Party, fought to make it their own, established litmus tests. After all of this, are we back to 1965 and the terrible defeat of Barry Goldwater? How? Where did the conservative base so painstakingly built up over countless election cycles go? Was it never really there?

Ezra has nodded at the answer.

To be continued.

Re: Trump's Faction

Whit, I did not say Trump was running a campaign based on patriotism. I was identifying the passion he was tapping into among the Republican base.

 In this, I am putting you might say the best face on the situation. It is clear that Trump's intention is to galvanize a nationalist/populist coalition around an America First agenda, whether that be immigration controls, international trade, or national security. And there is a vast gulf, in my opinion, between bonafide patriotism - which is a national good - and nationalism/populism - which is a national cancer. The former is a positive pride and self assurance that, whatever particular agenda the body politic undertakes, magnifies the civilizational gains of the Founding of this country around individual rights, whereas the latter distorts and ultimately undermines those rights.

Compare the universal admiration of a patriotic leader like George Washington with the worshipful idolatry of a nationalist/populist like Franklin Roosevelt, and you can begin to see the effects, beneficial and deleterious, respectively, on our politics. The former evokes the unum in E Pluribus Unum; the latter, E Pluribus only, and a bitter, divisive electorate, jockeying for power and favors from the Guvmint.

Trump's quasi Dear Leader style does bear watching. But that is part of my point: the patriotic instincts of the American public are there, Trump is tapping into them, and if we advocate strongly for our principles, I think Trump and Trump's style can be directed to enhance the 'good' instincts of the public, preserving what is best in America - its patriotism, love of country, and pride in our Founding principles.

And thereby put Obama's America with all its rancor, animosity, and divisiveness on the ash heap of history where it belongs.

Re: Trump's Faction

Soaring rhetoric, Whit. And I mean that in the best sense because it is in the service of the best cause.

But I think Ezra is onto something, something that I have not seen clearly expressed among the commentariat, which has tied itself in knots trying to come to terms with the Trump phenomenon. Talk about cognitive dissonance, Whit, they got it.

But let me not project my own cognitivity on Ezra's thesis; at least not yet.

Ezra you have the floor.

Re: Trump's Faction

Whoa, Easy. Patriotism? Trump is running a campaign based on patriotism?

I dunno....

Patriotism evokes to me a dignity that befits the object of patriotism: America as founded by the Founding Fathers. It evokes their sacrifice in a noble cause, a cause that held the world spell bound and continues to do so, a sacrifice that at the time it was made held no guarantee of success - quite the opposite. A revolt against arguably the most powerful sea-faring nation in the world and an army that in a few years would topple the great Napoleon?

Our Founders rolled the dice, embraced a truly profound cusp, and with boundless courage enacted one of the greatest moments in history - and defined forever, for me at least, what true patriotism is.

I revere our heritage, and have a hard time getting my head around your equation of the Trump campaign with American patriotism.

In short, I got cognitive dissonance here, Easy; can you help me?

Trump's Faction*

Indiana has spoken and Ted Cruz has suspended his campaign. Barring an awesome surge by John 'The Postman' Kasich, Donald Trump will take the GOP prize, for better or worse.

According to some, it will be the worser part: a northeastern liberal with a Dear Leader complex rivaling the Kims of North Korea, will become the new face of the party of Lincoln.

Well. As one who cannot be accused of being a Trumpster, I am here to advise everyone to calm down. The Trump Faction is not something new in Republican politics, nor is it unconservative. It is instead a strand within conservatism that has largely been abandoned by Republicans over the last decade.

The strand can be broadly categorized as patriotism, a positive pride in America, it's founding and its continuing importance in the world. It is a muscular loyalty to ''My Country 'tis of Thee'', the sense of triumph in ''USA, USA, USA'', and a basket of little reflexive social norms like the requirement that politicians must wear flag lapel pins.

This patriotic strand of Republicanism is so strong that it fairly leaps off the pages of some reputable social science studies, which indicate that any association with things like the flag or 4th of July parades will significantly influence people to vote Republican. Clearly, patriotism is not just a strand of Republicanism, but the strongest, most durable brand it has among the people at large.

What would cause the Republicans to abandon such a positive brand? Democrats, in general, and President Obama, in particular: there has been a fullscale assault on American patriotism from the Left, arguably beginning when Barack Obama tried to go without a flag lapel pin in the 2008 primaries. He failed to pull it off, but the Democrat's continued the fight nevertheless in the ensuing years, branding, ceaselessly branding, every display of patriotism as nationalism, Naziism, and/or xenophobia.They have been so successful that in many instances the display of the flag itself has been banned as some sort of Hate crime.

And thru all of this, the Republicans have been silent, acquiescent, as they have been on so many other Obama agenda items, unwilling to engage and fight for this most basic of American societal values: loyalty to this Country. Thus, the opening for Trump: to pick up on a major inflection of the body politic that crosses all traditional interest groups, men, women, blacks, conservative, liberal, young, old, middle, etc, etc, et al.

So, Trump is not some nascent demagogue, tapping the populist anger of a mob; he's just an opportunist, feeding the patriotic fervor of a people starved by their 'leaders.'

So, what to do? Stick to our principles and be loudly and unapologeticaly American, and we can both steer a Trump Presidency through the gate of liberty and limited government, and bring the people back to an America we can all be proud of once again.

And don't give up, don't ever give up.

*For a similar but not identical take, see also -Trump’s Faction by Henry Olsen, National Review Online.

Re: AstroTurf

Me, a Trumpster? Not even close, although I am not a #NeverTrump guy either. For my money, Trump would be infinitely better than Hillary. For that matter, so would Simon Cowell, Kim Kardashian, and Jeffrey Dahmer. At least the latter would be upfront about his cannibalism of the body politic.

 #NeverDemocrat.

Re: AstoTurf

Well said, Easy, an epic blog. The fact that the Democrats publicly support such anti democratic mob intimidation as they do is a stunning development in the political culture. As you note, they've always used such tactics, but always sub rosa, publicly affirming the opposite.

I am still trying to understand what has changed in the culture that makes the Democrats think they will not experience electoral backlash. They just don't seem to fear voters anymore.

But that is a quetion for another day. Much more important at the moment is, are you a Trumpster now, Easy? That would truly be a stunning political development.

AstroTurf

The political silly season continues, in its default mode of high dudgeon. The target is, of course, that human lightning rod, Donald Trump. Apparently, he is fomenting violence against peaceful protesters, dutifully pursuing their All American 1st Amendment rights to free speech. The Donald just will not abide such behavior at his rallies, and has even gone so far as to promise to pay legal fees for any supporter who will take these Norman Rockwell types out.

At the risk of committing a micro-aggression, I say balderdash. It's true that Trump's rhetoric exceeds the bounds of normal political speech, but that's because Trump is not engaging in political speech. He riffs in the common tongue, utilizing the kind of language you chair warriors use every day watching TV news. ''Look at those jerks ... Somebody ought to punch him in the nose ... Get 'em out a here!''  And Trump gets away with it; and the fact that he does is a large part of his attraction.

On this scale, the Trump scale, he is entirely within the bounds of acceptable speech. Because what his supporters hear is a guy mouthing off, blowing off steam, and they like it. But they do not take it literally as a license to assault a protester.

And the proof of this is clear for all to see. Trump has been assembling crowds upwards of 25-30,000 for months and months, and in all that time we have exactly one Trumpster who has actually attacked anyone. One. Per capita, that is a record of non violence that easily exceeds any confab of Democrats, Black Lives Matter, or even the Vatican Council of the Catholic Church.

What's really going on at these Trump rallies is that the Democrats are out of the closet and all in on the tactics of thuggery as a tool to crush political opponents. Democrats have a long history of these tactics, dating back to the KKK and voter suppression of Blacks for 100 years or more, but also more recently (and currently) with the deployment of Union thugs to tidy up voting habits in certain strategic regions of the country. But it was the advent of the radical student left in the McGovern campaign of 1972 that brought a whole new swath of shock troops into the Democrat orbit, together with a new public 'cover' for baldfaced intimidation: civil rights disobedience and protest.

The cover is, of course, a farce, which would be easily identified as such in any other cultural moment that pretends to honesty. However, these days the national media follows the Democrat party line no matter the circumstances.

These groups are not grassroots, but pure AstroTurf. Black Lives Matter is a transparent racist movement, with liberal elements of anarchy, cop hatred, and old fashioned theft and looting sprinkled throughout, and there is nothing about its 'demonstrations' that can be tied to a real  concern with civil rights for anyone. It wields the power of the mob, but a mob not spontaneously combusted, but one put together with the help of paid apparatchiks who have all the authentic passion for a cause of a used car salesman.

It's time for Republicans to come out of the closet as well and to call these 'demonstrations' for what they are. For some reason (intimidation? rank cowardice? plain stupidity?), the Repubs have gone along with the 'civil rights' meme of the Democrats. The time is now to speak plainly and honestly about what these groups really are all about: thuggery and intimidation and anarchy and vandalism and power, specifically Democrat power. They are anti-1st Amendment, anti-American culture, and anti-America.

The Republic stands at the brink. If not now, when? If not Republicans, who?

Re: Goosing the Polls

Conspiracy, Ezra? No, not as such. There is certainly a cultural bias going on, deeply rooted enough that many pollsters aren't even aware of their prejudice.

But even that is too strong. The science of polling is just like any other science - there is an art to the practice which, if done correctly, will sift the data into wise conclusions, and if done incorrectly, will produce drivel. In general, the art involves the selection of appropriate methodological assumptions.

Most on our side have noticed, for instance, how the pollsters weight their data in accordance with their assumption about the electoral mix on November 6. If you poll 1,000 citizens, you might find that your sample contains 70% Republicans and 30% Democrats. Clearly, this raw data will not reflect the actual electorate on voting day, so if this sample is to yield any meaningful results, it must be re-weighted to approximate reasonable expectations. 

The key is the term "reasonable." Good scientists can differ, and each can make a good case for his position.  Many pollsters have assumed the race in 2012 will reflect the electoral weighting seen in 2008, others have chosen 2004 as the model, and some (mainly the outliers) have assumed an electorate that appeared in the 2010 bi-elections. I myself prefer something closer to the 2010 elections, but recognize that such a choice would be a bit dicey for any reputable pollster. It was not a Presidential election and historically the correlation is not that close between bi-elections and those involving the President.

And there are myriad different electorate assumptions in any sub-group polled, e.g. women v. men voters, black v. white, hispanic turnout, and etc. Good pollsters will have models that deal with all these demographic groups and more, and each model will tend to push the results in one direction or the other.

But given all of this, there is still a problem: given the number of polls (and this election has seen an extraordinary amount of polling information) you would think that the average would cancel everything out and give us a fairly representative forecast. But they don't; the averages, as you note, uniformly and consistently show a tight race, at best a toss-up for Romney. Why should this be if he will win as decisively as I predict?

The answer is David Axlerod. All politicians and campaigns spin the news media to support their candidate. But Axlerod has introduced something new into Presidential politics: he has been assiduously spinning the pollsters to insure their results will mesh with a story of an overwhelming tide of support for Obama that will swamp Romney. He has been so effective at this that even those pollsters he has not contacted have tended to follow the herd and adopt assumptions favorable to Obama. In one reported case, it seems he even invoked the heavy hand of the Justice Department to get Gallup to change its methodology - which it did, suddenly tilting its polls towards Obama after previous polls had shown Romney surging ahead.

Why this man has such credibility, I don't know, but he does. Fortunately, not even his Justice Department can intrude into the privacy of the voting booth, so November 6 should finally give us an accurate poll, and a Romney/Ryan win.

Re: Goosing the Polls

Okay, Chase, you're officially out on a limb. But what is the reason that all the polls have the race so tight? Is it possible that all the pollsters are in the tank for Obama? Is the conspiracy really that big?

Goosing the Polls

First, a touch of humility. No one can predict what will happen in a Presidential election year with any precision, because it is by definition that which defines an electorate. Only through this four year process can we know where an electorate is, demographically, politically, and emotionally at a given point in time. The best we can do is to look through a glass, darkly, and correlate the dynamis of the electorates from past election cycles with the various tea leaves and witch doctor bones of the modern era, polls and bi-elections. And place a guess.

But it's still fun to do, so enough with the humility and herewith some hubris.

Watching the Democrats watching polls is like watching domestic geese try to fly. They fluff and pump their wings, trying vainly to capture enough air to lift their heavy torsos up, up, into the sky. Faster and faster they flap, effort doubles exertion as they push all into a hop-hop run, but nothing happens; they continue earthbound, failing to clear even a two foot fence.

The air the pollsters seek to capture are positive poll numbers for the President, and any puff of good news makes them honk and hiss into print with analyses of Presidential inevitability. At the beginning of this year, they seized on national polls showing Obama leading. Then as the air went out of those polls, they focused on polls of the Battleground States. Then as those polls tightened, they turned their critical talents in praise of early voting and the President's so-called ground game.Ground game is right; the Democrat professionals are game, but still firmly stuck in the mud and dirt of the earth.

The principal problem they face is that the President has never, ever been above 50% in any of the polls. I don't mean to get too technical here, but my understanding of our system is that you need 50.1% to win. And it is clear after a year of polling that 50.1% and more of the electorate are not going to be voting for this President. When election day comes, there is only one other candidate to vote for, and that is where these voters will turn.

The penultimate problem the Dem's face was ably pointed out by my compatriot: President Obama's approval ratings among independent voters have been tanking all year. My math indicates that Republicans + Independents = electoral victory.

The third problem is historical and traditional patterns going back over 30 years: Republicans always win the vote on election day. When Democrats win, it is because of early voting advantages gained before election day, such as occurred in 2008.  Mitt Romney has put a severe crimp in the argument that Obama will amass an overwhelming lead in early voting due to his much vaunted ground game. As befits a man trained to be a thorough, detail oriented executive, the Romney campaign has organized an early voter turnout of his forces unprecedented in Republican annals. As a result, the Democrats are only maintaining a modest lead in early voting, leaving election day, a Republican strength, to decide the matter. 

Finally, it is a well known fact that polls always underestimate Republican strength. Take all of the polls of the last year and add 2 to 4 points to Romney's totals, and you will see that this election has been baked against the President for some time now.

The Democrat ganders can flail away all they like, but there is simply no wind beneath their wings. It will be Romney/Ryan with at least 55% of the vote, and a massive, embarrassing loss for the Democrats come November 6th.