Saturday, July 20, 2024

"A much graver danger to democracy": Want a (Tiny) Chance for a Dialog with a Leftist? Send Them "The Secret of Trump’s Resurrection" by the NYT's Bret Stephens


Just as Barack Obama knew that he stood for hope, Trump knows that he stands for defiance.

If you wish to have an iota of a chance to explain the GOP's candidate to a leftist, don't hesitate to head over to the New York Times, of all places, and send them The Secret of Trump’s Resurrection by , a man who admits to once writing a column titled “Donald Trump Is Finally Finished.”

How did Trump go from a disgraced has-been — even Fox News’s Laura Ingraham implied he was putting his “own grudges ahead of what’s good for the country” — to the man of destiny he had become even before he dodged that bullet on Saturday?

A simple explanation goes something like this: The G.O.P. ceased to be a normal political party in 2016 and became a cult of personality, less interested in winning elections than in burnishing the savior-victim myth of its charismatic leader. …

But this analysis, true to a point, falls short in at least three respects. It doesn’t give Trump the political credit he deserves. It fails to reckon with the Biden administration’s political blunders. And it reduces the Democrats’ problem to a Biden problem. Their problem is bigger than that.

First, Trump. Just as Barack Obama knew that he stood for hope, Trump knows that he stands for defiance. Defiance of what, or whom? Of the gatekeepers to cultural respectability in today’s America. And who, in the minds of Trump supporters, are they?

They are the reporters who said it was a “conspiracy theory” to suggest Covid emerged from a Chinese lab. Or the academic deans who insist every job applicant write D.E.I. statements and refuse to hire those who criticize them. Or the do-gooders who charge that Americans who want better control of the southern border are motivated by racism. Or the pundits who say, as one NBC contributor put it in 2016, that “100 percent of Trump voters are deplorable.” Or the journalists who claimed that “inflation is good for you.”

There is nobody in America whom the gatekeepers hate more than Trump. Ergo, there is nobody in America whom the haters of the gatekeepers love more than Trump. In his every beyond-the-pale, can-you-believe-he-said-that utterance, he signals his contempt for liberal pieties, his willingness to take the left’s slings and arrows, his willingness to be hated.

In MAGA world, all this translates into a picture of strength and a form of incorruptibility. Whatever else Trump stands for, he’s the sort of man who won’t be seduced into wanting to be loved by anyone.

Then there were Biden’s political blunders. One is obvious: He betrayed his implicit promise to be a one-term, transitional president. Had he stuck to it, he would have been spared the humiliation of last month’s debate and Democrats would not be the dispirited and divided party that they are today.

But Biden’s bigger blunder was the betrayal of his promise, made in his inaugural address, to end “this uncivil war that pits red against blue.” In September 2022, he delivered a blistering speech against “MAGA Republicans” whom he accused of threatening “the very foundations of our Republic.” But did he mean the Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — or those who were “MAGA Republicans” mainly by virtue of voting for Trump?

It wasn’t clear. A speech that should have distinguished the two wound up conflating them. It cast tens of millions of Americans as if they were enemies of democracy itself.

More foolish was the effort of Democrats to try to “defend democracy” by seeking to kick Trump’s name off ballots — a fine instance of destroying the village in order to save it — while pursuing Trump in court. Whatever the respective merits of the many cases against him, the bald effort to embarrass, paralyze and ultimately criminalize a political opponent smacked, to millions of Americans, as a much graver danger to democracy than, say, whether hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels constituted a campaign-finance violation.

“If his name was not Donald Trump, and if he wasn’t running for president — I’m the former A.G. in New York; I’m telling you that case would’ve never been brought,” Andrew Cuomo told Bill Maher last month. “And that’s what is offensive to people. And it should be. Because if there’s anything left, it’s belief in the justice system.”

Finally, the Democratic Party itself, which keeps insisting it’s morning in America when poll after poll shows a country that thinks it’s darkness at noon. On the eve of the pandemic in 2020, 45 percent of Americans were satisfied with the way things were going, according to Gallup, the highest percentage in 15 years. Now it’s 21 percent. That gap alone explains why Trump looks to be on his way to victory.

It’s a fact of politics that the demagogue’s success rests less in outright lying than it does in speaking in half-truths. So long as Democrats persist in seeing nothing of Trump but his lies and outrages, they’ll miss what makes him strong. And so long as they fail to recognize their own mistakes, they may be unable to avoid the real disaster coming their way.

Friday, July 19, 2024

Donald Trump and Manifest Destiny — by Évelyne Joslain


I am not in the habit of using the word "I" and writing my articles in the first person, and even less of advertising my own books, but current events force me to contravene these self-imposed rules.

In my latest book, La Guerre Culturelle (The Cultural War), I talk about the history of this war launched by the Left over two centuries ago against the peoples in Western nations attached to their traditions, to their national sovereignty, and to Western culture. I explain how, for the past century, this war is being waged ruthlessly in the United States by the neo-Marxist left, domestic enemy, continuing Gramsci's evil plan to infiltrate, subvert, and undermine institutions. Needless to say, I devote a large part to Donald Trump who embodies the accomplished cultural warrior who fights fiercely in the arena, facing the gladiators and the wild beasts of the hateful left. 

This metaphor has now become reality through bloodshed and an undefeated Trump, inviting us all to join the “fight”, with his raised fist against the background of the American flag, an unforgettable image. Trump seems to be the only prominent politician, the only Western leader (apart from Nigel Farage), to take into account this domestic conflict that others do not see and which they do not resist, unless it is to collaborate cowardly, as we have seen in France and the United Kingdom.

Trump is alone in encouraging us to fight this murderous left, not by using the Mafia means that said Left employs but by an implacable determination, thanks to us rightists having the numbers and the moral superiority.

Let's make no mistake, everywhere in our Western societies, Gramsci has emerged the winner. Gramsci's Cultural Marxism, the Frankfurt School, the “deconstructionists” and other notorious Marxists, allied with the globalist forces that populate the “deep states” of all Western countries, forming a “global swamp” of powerful and unelected people, has practically arrived at this victory for them which is also our planned suicide. In 2016, through his talent and the strength of his convictions alone, Trump succeeded in defeating Hillary Clinton, the candidate of the international left (including the European Union) and in accomplishing great things for his country, for the West (and for the entire planet), in a first term despite an unparalleled outburst against him from the left and pseudo-Republicans (RINOs) and like-minded Conservatives, offended by his “style”, his “personality”, or his mean tweets.

The people who have been harassing Trump since 2015 have tried everything, in vain, to destroy him: slander, baseless impeachment attempts, legal warfare (lawfare), idle accusations, shameless lies. The same creatures of the global deep state (which now decides the outcome of our elections and wants to rule our way of life) hate him because he embodies the only major obstacle to their total and irreversible victory. He is the man who has the will and the courage to stand against them to turn the situation around. Isn't that a good reason to eliminate him? It is exactly what far-left politicians have been encouraging in their murderous rhetoric. Joe Biden himself recently said it was “time to put Trump in a bullseye." Ever since they stole the 2020 election, the “Democrats”, that is to say the extreme left Marxists in power, have been accusing him from wanting to go back to the White House to do what they themselves do on a daily basis: the breaching of laws and of the Constitution, tyrannical government with censorship, tolerance and impunity for the worst crimes and for the organized violence that are committed by their supporters.

Trump arrived in a political landscape in ruins after Obama's disastrous presidency, adding a chapter to the doctrine of Manifest Destiny: an America protected by Providence even after the worst trials and that nothing can overcome in the nation's march forward.

This time, Providence has an embodiment. Its name is Donald John Trump.

Good-Bye, Friend: Lou Dobbs 1945-2024

Lou Dobbs at CPAC in 2017

Lou Dobbs, the Former FOX Business host of the (appropriately entitled) Lou Dobbs Tonight show, has died at the age of 78, writes David Rutz.

A statement posted on his X account called him a "fighter till the very end – fighting for what mattered to him the most, God, his family and the country."

"Lou's legacy will forever live on as a patriot and a great American. We ask for your prayers for Lou's wonderful wife Debi, children and grandchildren," it said.

 … Former President Trump, a longtime friend of Dobbs, eulogized him in a post on Truth Social on the same evening he will accept the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

"The Great Lou Dobbs has just passed away — A friend, and truly incredible Journalist, Reporter, and Talent," Trump wrote. "He understood the World, and what was ‘happening,’ better than others. Lou was unique in so many ways, and loved our Country. Our warmest condolences to his wonderful wife, Debi, and family. He will be greatly missed!




 

 

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

The expiscatory Question is, Was the Trump assassination fail procedural (i.e., incompetence) or operational (i.e., a sanctioned kill fail)?


Photo courtesy Sarah Hoyt

Email from Damian Bennett:

Update: Thanks for the Instalinks, Ed Driscoll and Sarah Hoyt

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

French TV: "We Are Angry" About the Murder Attempt on Trump, But "We Aren't Surprised"

"On est en colère [...] maintenant, on n'est pas surpris": Paul Reen, président de "Republicans in France" réagit à l'attaque contre Donald Trump

L'ex-président Donald Trump, candidat républicain à l'élection présidentielle, a été évacué après avoir été visé par des tirs lors d'un meeting de campagne en Pennsylvanie ce samedi 13 juillet.

Paul Reen on the BFMTV channel (or on DailyMotion, merci à Anntoinette pour les photos) about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Here is the full video (Paul at 5:25/5:55, Nicolas Conquer at 2:00:44)… I have been looking for my own appearances on CNews and BFMTV (July 15 at 9:30 and 10:30, respectively), as well as for other TV appearances of members of Republicans in France (RIF), but without luck…

« Visé par des tirs, Trump blessé à l’oreille », revoir notre soirée spéciale - 14/07

C’est une image qui fera date dans l’histoire américaine. Donald Trump, est sorti blessé, mais sorti miraculeusement vivant, samedi soir lors d’une tentative d’assassinat à Butler, en Pennsylvanie. Le tireur présumé, âgé de 20 ans, a été abattu. La dernière information, selon la presse américaine, des explosifs auraient été retrouvés dans sa voiture. Un spectateur a également été tué, deux grièvement blessés. Comment cette attaque a-t-elle pu se produire ? Quelle motivation pour son auteur ? Quelles conséquences politiques, alors que nous sommes en période de campagne présidentielle américaine ?
On en parle avec : Benoît Ballet, envoyé spécial de BFMTV à Milwaukee, Wisconsin (États-Unis). Paul Reen, président de “Republicans in France”. Ulysse Gosset, éditorialiste international à BFMTV. Marjorie Paillon, journaliste spécialiste de la vie politique américaine. Christopher Mesnooh, avocat au barreau de New York, Washington et Paris. Guillaume Farde, consultant police-justice pour BFMTV. Jérôme Poirot, consultant BFMTV, ancien adjoint à la coordination nationale du renseignement. Chloé Giraud, journaliste à BFMTV. Le général Jérôme Pellistrandi, consultant défense pour BFMTV. André Kaspi, historien, spécialiste des États-Unis. Stéphane Bureau, consultant États-Unis pour BFMTV. Anne-Laure Banse, journaliste à BFMTV. Alain Bauer, professeur de criminologie au conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Nicolas Conquer, porte-parole des Republican Overseas France. Olivier Piton, avocat français installé aux États-Unis et auteur. Patricia Allemoniere, grand reporter spécialiste des questions internationales. Et Patrick Saint-Paul, rédacteur en chef du service International Le Figaro.

"Donald Trump Has Become an Unbeatable Marketing Machine" Announces Paris Republican on French TV

«Donald Trump est devenu une machine de marketing imbattable», affirme le porte-parole de Republicans in France

 «Donald Trump est devenu une machine de marketing imbattable», a affirmé Philippe Karsenty ce lundi 15 juillet sur CNEWS. Ce porte-parole de Republicans in France est revenu sur l'image et le message passé par l'ex-président américain après la tentative d'assassinat à son encontre lors d'un meeting, samedi 13 juillet.

Here is the full video of RIF's Philippe Karsenty on CNews from 24:48-55:10

Sunday, July 14, 2024

RARE VIDEO of the Trump Assassination Attempt: Did the Secret Service Sniper(s) the Shoot First?

A video at the Times of India seems, if I'm not mistaken, to show the sniper(s) of the Secret Service shooting first (like Han Solo?) at, if not at the exact same time as, the gunman. If that is correct, that might help explain why Thomas Matthew Crooks (thankfully) missed his target…