Right Wing Fighter

More People Backing onto the Trump Train

About ten minutes ago I was listening to a local radio host – a pretty big wheel in local politics.

Apparently someone called her call-screener and cussed him out because the host now supports Trump.

The host said that of course she supports Trump: otherwise Hillary Clinton will become president.

Now, this is from a woman who, about a year ago, maligned all of Trump’s supporters as dupes who were carried away by his slogan and rhetoric. She even said that his supporters, myself included, would continue to support Trump even if, quote, “A dead hooker was found in his trunk.”

She assailed Trump’s character endlessly. Far from merely questioning his motives, she positively stated that Trump’s campaign was just a “fling:” it meant nothing to Trump, but was just an outlet for his ego.

Now, after all the attacks, both on him and his business, it is plain that this is false. Trump is in it for the country. No one would endure such attacks for a mere flight of fancy. Has this woman recanted? No.

And then, today, she patronizingly puts down a critic by saying that of course she supports Trump.

This host will not be taken to task for her unjustified attacks on Trump. She will not be held to account for damaging his reputation for over a year, before finally, a month before the election, she decided to support him. And why is that? Because politics is pure expediency. Politicians make friends with yesterday’s enemies if it means they’ll get their support on election day.

Politics is an arena: everyone is looking for an edge in battle. As such, justice is always sacrificed. No one will expend political points to follow-up on unjust attacks.

Thus there is no justice in politics. Only expediency.


 

And as an extra note, here’s an extract from my post “Anti-Trump Folks Backing onto the Trump Train“:

When things start getting hot, election-wise; when November starts getting close, many anti-Trump folks are going to start talking about how we’ve “got to stop Hillary from getting elected. Oh I’m not saying we should vote for Trump: I’m saying we should vote against Hillary!”

Last Night’s Presidential Debate

I watched and live-tweeted the whole debate last night.

It was certainly an interesting affair. Clinton was well-schooled and well rehearsed. Trump was from the cuff, more or less.

The moderator, liberal journalist Lester Holt, directed many questions to Trump, about his business, birtherism, and so forth.

Yet Holt didn’t ask Clinton about her email scandal; about money being given to the Clinton Foundation from foreigners, whose nations happened to get agreements from Hillary Clinton’s State Department on various matters at a similar time; about Clinton calling TPP ‘the gold standard’ for trade deals, and then backing away from it when it became politically unpopular to be pro-TPP; and a host of other issues.

In a word, the debate was stacked against Trump. He did well, considering all that.

In fact, he did pretty well in any case. He kept on fighting; he argued with the moderator when he tried to railroad Trump into a corner; and he kept the pressure on Hillary quite a bit.

Trump has a habit of ending what he’s saying mid-sentence and starting a new sentence. I wish he hadn’t done that so much at the debate. Still, many of the voters may not care. To anyone informed, Trump is the only one to vote for.

Separating the Sheep from the Goats

Donald Trump’s candidacy has done a wonderful job of separating the sheep from the goats.

Even a few years ago, it was difficult to tell who was really on America’s side on the right. Many who appeared to be pro-American have shown themselves to be mere idealists, people who like America because they think it expresses certain ideals. A good case in point is Glenn Beck, as noted previously.

These people are not useful allies. At bottom, they aren’t allies at all. They are in fact intellectual opponents. Why? Because they don’t regard America as a nation. They don’t regard the good of the American people as the highest good that a politically engaged person can strive for. Instead, they see the American people as a means to an end: the end being bringing into existence whatever their particular ideals happen to be.

So for instance: the adoration some people on the right have for the era of the American Revolution. They see it as the pure expression of their ideal: classical liberalism brought into reality by the selfless committment of the Founding Fathers, and citizens like them. They consider the founding era to be the pure expression of their ideals.

As noted previously, that wasn’t the case. The founding era was not a golden age. But they whitewash history to make it fit within their ideals. To them, 1776 comes close enough to their ideals that they can, to their own satisfaction, blur over anything that doesn’t fit. But the point here isn’t how they handle history: it’s how they handle life. The reason that they look back so admiringly on ’76 is because they think it expresses their ideals. That is the main point.

And that is why they are intellectual opponents: they are not striving for the American people: they are using the American people to express their ideals.

And, as noted previously, that’s why they hate Trump: they think he is setting back their program of using the citizenry to express their ideals. Trump’s populism is at odds with their idealism.

Glenn Beck Calls America an ‘Idea’

Glenn Beck has perhaps spelled out why some on the right hate Trump so much. He said this, writing about Cruz’s endorsement of Trump today:

Profoundly sad day for me.

Disappointment does not begin to describe.

Maybe it is time to go to the mountains for a while. (Read below and notice the knives prodding that direction)
Again, disappointment doesn’t begin to describe my feelings.

America is an idea, not a country. When we discuss the destruction of our country, that is vastly different than the destruction of an idea.

I fear the idea is already lost, due to the panic of losing ones comfort and country..

[Emphasis added]

To Beck, America is an idea, not a country. He said that he thought the fear of losing the country was causing us to lose the idea that is America. In other words, he considers the country and America to be two different things.

I’ve noticed this type of thinking a lot on the right. They regard America, not as a nation, but as the expression of certain ideas. Hence why they endlessly prattle about ‘American ideals,’ as if they are the whole reason to care about the country. I’ve always been aggravated by that, because it misses the entire point: the purpose of ideals is to strengthen and better the lives of people: people don’t live just to be exponents of ideals.

But this crowd has it backwards. That’s why they consider Trump such a backwards-looking candidate: they think he will turn the arrangement around, and put people before ideals. That’s why, as noted in a previous post, they are concerned with his “populist rather than conservative message.”

This, incidentally, is why the right has failed: it only really cares about certain ideals. The people of America aren’t important to them. To them, people are just exponents of ideals.

Cruz Endorses Trump

Well, the big day has arrived. Even after his GOP Convention stunt, when he didn’t endorse Trump and basically told people not to vote for him, the tide has turned and Cruz has endorsed Trump.

In his Facebook post announcing the endorsement, Cruz said:

If Clinton wins, we know — with 100% certainty — that she would deliver on her left-wing promises, with devastating results for our country.

My conscience tells me I must do whatever I can to stop that.

[…]

Our country is in crisis. Hillary Clinton is manifestly unfit to be president, and her policies would harm millions of Americans. And Donald Trump is the only thing standing in her way.

A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment. And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.

As I noted before, people are backing onto the TrumpTrain by arguing they are voting against Hillary Clinton. Cruz is following this trend.

He should have done it much sooner. It would have helped to undercut the #NeverTrump nincompoops and helped to strengthen Trump’s support among some members of the right. It still helps: but it would have been better if he did it farther out.

At least there’s one thing to say for Cruz: he didn’t preface his endorsement with paragraphs of anti-Trump virtue signalling, like Mark Levin did.

National Review and Populism

In a long-winded article that never seems to get to the point, Victor Davis Hanson refers in passing to Trump’s

opportunistic populist rather than conservative message

This has always struck me as odd: why are the establi-cons so philosophically opposed to populism?

They’ll address think tanks, foundations, and institutes, and warn of the ‘dangers of populism.’

It isn’t simply that they are donorist hacks guarding their fat cat subsidies: they are actually afraid of the normal citizen. They think that if the ‘stupid’ people get in control, the country will go to pieces.

Let’s see if that’s true:

Immigration is the biggest issue in the country: yet a majority of citizens want immigration reduced, illegals deported, and immigration reformed in order to benefit us.

What about the economy? The ‘smart people’ support free trade. Yet free trade is sending millions to the unemployment line. Citizens want free trade to end: they want nationalist economic policies.

So on these issues, the citizens of America are much wiser than their alleged betters. So why, exactly, is populism so bad?

Right Wing Fighter comes to Twitter!

I’m now officially on Twitter. Follow me for quips, thoughts, and comments on the news of the day!

The State of Politics in the West

The state of politics today in western nations is unprecedented. Never in times past has the basic question of politics been whether western nations will even exist fifty years from now.

Politics is no longer a question of higher taxes or lower taxes, infrastructure construction, or basic matters of public order. This was the fair of days gone by.

Now, all of politics is focused on the basic question of whether nations have a right to exist.

For that is the question: if the profits of companies and the free movement of peoples across borders are the ideals to strive for, then necessarily nations have no right to exist. Because these things are mutually exclusive.

Heres why:

Companies make the most money by building at the lowest price and selling at the highest price. In order to do this, they must be able to move around the globe, freely building wherever it’s cheapest. Mexico and China are good examples.

Now, in order for a nation to exist, it must have a strong economy. This requires that plenty of manufacturing occur at home. No nation can be strong without producing something. Without solid blue-collar work, both the economy and the civic life of the nation weakens. It puts men on unemployment lines who could be working and supporting families. It removes hope from men who work best with their hands.

Thus if the profits of corporations are held to be of the highest value, the good of workers, of the nation itself, has no value at all. This is because, in a question regarding mutual exclusives, whichever option gets top value has the only value.

 

Immigration is a similar case, but in many ways it’s worse.

This is because, over time, the continual influx of incompatible people will destroy our national cohesion. It will, and already has, cause us to trust each other less. Community will break down. Additionally, different peoples have different political goals. Thus the immigration of, say, Arabs who believe in Sharia law will put them in conflict with the Christian population which wants nothing of the kind. The result is strife – unnecessary strife which weakens the nation.

It’s also true that different cultures have different values. Views on work ethic, recreation, public works: all of these more or less commonplace things will become battlegrounds. Many already have.

This is the issue:

Will western economies be destroyed because governments didn’t take a hand in protecting their native industries?

Will the very peoples of the west be replaced by foreigners, who are nothing like us and not at all in sympathy with our goals and values?

In a word, will western nations continue to exist?

That is the ultimate question of politics today. Not Left vs Right; not Liberty vs Tyranny.

The real question is the one Hamlet asked himself: ‘To be, or not to be?’

All other questions shrink into insignificance. Taxes, global warming, gun control: they all become academic discussions if western nations cease to exist.

Ford Moving ALL Small Car Manufacturing to Mexico

From Breitbart.com:

Ford Motors has now announced it intends to move all its small car manufacturing lines out of Detroit and the U.S. and into its Mexico-based plants.

[…]

[Ford CEO] Fields added that Ford is investing an additional $4.5 billion to develop electric vehicles by 2020, most of which will be spent in its Mexico facilities. The company also said all emerging small car models will be made south of the border.

[…]

In February, Ford Motor Company announced it was set to double production capacity at a previously built Mexico factory, instead of enlarging U.S. factories.

This is why Donald Trump is so popular. It’s why he won the nomination. And it’s also why he’ll probably win the election.

Our country is getting completely ripped off by companies that are supposedly American, but that haven’t the least shred of patriotism.

It’s why we need economic nationalism now, before all our industries go to other countries.

In another story from Breitbart.com:

The CEO of Ford Motor Company dodged CNN’s Poppy Harlow‘s question to him about whether Donald J. Trump was right when he said Ford will fire all of its employees in the United States and move all the jobs to Mexico.

“You know, Poppy, it is really unfortunate when politics get in the way and the facts are: Ford’s investment in the U.S. and commitment to American jobs has never been stronger,” said Mark Fields, who took over the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker in July 2014.

“So, Mr. Trump is wrong, correct?” Harlow asked.

“That is correct,” he said. The jobs going to Mexico are new jobs and the American workers now building the Focus will be tasked with other production lines.

“Facts are stubborn things sometimes,” he said. “We are going to continue to lay them out in a season of a lot of political activity.”

What a pack of lies.

Ford’s ‘commitment to American jobs’ is nil, if it’s moving all of its small car production to Mexico. Sending new jobs to Mexico, instead of creating them in the U.S., shows that Ford hasn’t the least commitment to American jobs. Ford is committed to one thing: money.

Ford is maintaining some production in America, where in some ways it’s cheaper than sending it to Mexico. But they’ll continue to grow their facilities in Mexico until they can offload all of their manufacturing there.

And finally, what a sanctimonious little punk Fields is. For him to get up there and lecture about ‘facts,’ when they are nothing but lies, is aggravating.

I’m not a fan of Thomas Jefferson. But I certainly agree with this quote from him:

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.[1]

 

 

[1] Thomas Jefferson. BrainyQuote.com, Xplore Inc, 2016. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff138493.html, accessed September 16, 2016.

Former House Speaker John Boehner Joins Tobacco Company Board

From CBS News:

Reynolds American Inc., the tobacco company behind brands like Newport, Camel, and American Spirit, has added a high-profile new name to its board of directors: former House Speaker John Boehner.

[…]

In a 2010 appearance on “Face the Nation,” then-host Bob Schieffer pressed Boehner on his smoking and his relationship with the tobacco industry. Schieffer noted that the industry had been “the largest contributor to your political campaigns over the years,”

Isn’t it funny that the industry which gave Boehner the most campaign money over the years has now taken him on as an employee?

The fat cats take care of their own. I noted this in my detailed post about Eric Canter, when he was hired by a bank right after being defeated in his primary election.

There is an enormous amount of money to be made by companies that can manipulate laws to their benefit. That’s the purpose of all these bought and paid for politicians: to pass laws that favor the companies that pay their campaign bills.

For doing so, the politicians get a guaranteed stream of cash to run for office with. And if they are defeated or retire, they then get easy jobs on company boards with lavish salaries.

It’s a stinking, corrupt system. And the ones who pay for it are the tax payers.