Going Out On A Limb

It is a bit early to make predictions. Surprises will surely come. Based on what we know today it is not difficult to anticipate a Trump victory in 2020. 

I don’t believe that my take on the situation will sway anyone. People are pretty much locked into their position on both sides, and they are not ready to further examine the issue.

You might ask why then bother? The fun might come anticipating events clearly and with few if any pre-conceived notions.

After reading my piece, you might suggest that I must be smoking some funny cigarettes. Some of my best friends have accused me of being in denial or too biased to be objective.

We are all victims of our own paradigms but I am not the only one, I might add. Paradigms have a way of filtering out data that does not fit pre-existing notions.

My predictions are based on my personal and possibly flawed analysis of current events. I live in California where only one reality is permitted. Others be damned! It is quite possible that my own paradigm is making me blind to a more popular alternative.

Critical Incidents

Democrats began watching the 2016 election results with keen interest and anticipation. Arrangements had been made for glorious celebrations. Self-congratulatory messages were exchanged amongst the elite. It was in the bag! Hilary would win hands-down.

As results started to come in, Democrats could not believe what they were seeing. Trump had demolished the firewall in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He would be the victor and Hillary the loser. Although the winner of the popular vote, Clinton would lose in the Electoral College. Clinton won the popular vote thanks to California and New York – two large states with a supermajority of Democrats.

Americans do not elect their presidents through a national popular vote. They elect their president on a state-by-state basis. Many Democrats see this as an undemocratic process, forgetting that America is a federation of states. Framers wanted to limit the power of more populous states over less populous states.

Democrats started attacking Trump immediately. He had not taken office yet … Resist at all costs was the battle cry. All kinds of allegations about Trump’s personal life started to dominate the evening news. Trump’s business dealings were assailed.  His character shredded into smatterings. Trump contributed to the brouhaha with his undisciplined twitting.

President Obama said prior to the election that Trump would never be president. Why did he say that? I suspect that he knew fully well that the Administrative State, AKA the Deep State, would not permit it.  He knew that the FBI, CIA and the ND apparatus would fight the result and cast doubt on Trump’s legitimacy and competence to hold office.

We now know that members of the Administrative State set in motion a variety of steps indented to delegitimize Trump’s election and to boot him out of office. Several high level members of the FBI have been either fired or quit after emails surfaced about an “insurance policy” to take down the newly elected president.

To start, the FBI relied on ill-gotten FISA warrants and upon the ill-gotten and manufactured phony Steele Dossier to cast doubts on Trump. This dossier was compiled at the behest of the Clinton camp. The Clinton campaign paid for the manufactured dirt.

The charge of Russian interference in our election came next. Even though the FBI concluded that it had no material effect on the election results, the Administrative State saw it as a means to bring into question Trump’s loyalty and motives. Trump’s attempt to quash this narrative was used to justify the appointment of a Special Counsel to get to the bottom of the allegations.

Diehard Democrat operatives rallied around the so-called resist, resists, resist camp, convinced that obstruction of justice had been committed and that the Trump campaign had coordinated with the Russians. He could not be trusted with the office of the Presidency. Former FBI Director Mueller was brought in as Special Counsel to investigate the whole affair.

Recent disclosure of statements by partisan attorney Mark Zaid illustrate that as early as January 2017 a cabal was in the making to attack Trump and eventually impeach him.

Zaid and his business partner are currently representing the whistleblower that accused Trump of a quid pro quo with the Ukraine President. That is, Trump asked for an investigation (the quo) of Joe Biden and his son in exchange for military assistance funds (the quid).  No such investigation has been launched prior or since the release of the assistance to Ukraine (no quo).

Democrats have been talking about impeachment prior to Trump taking office. Fishing expeditions have been launched hoping to find crimes and misdemeanors that justify articles of impeachment. Three House Committees have been busy working toward this objective: Oversight, Judicial and Intelligence. No smoking gun to date … only partisan witnesses who disagreed with the Administration’s policies or career staff not wanting to be shut out the policy making process.

Duds and Boomerangs

Almost everybody is acknowledging that the Steele Dossier was false. It was used improperly to secure warrants of Trump’s associates. Several FBI senior officers have already been fired or have resigned, following the Inspector General’s investigation.

The Mueller Report has debunked the Russian collusion and obstruction of justice charges.  Representative Schiff’s assertion that he had incontrovertible evidence of collusion has not materialized, thus leading many critics to accuse Schiff of lying.

The whistleblower’s story of the Ukraine quid pro quo has started to unravel. Representative Schiff lied that he or his committee had no prior contact with the whistleblower. We all know now that coordination did take place between Schiff’s office and the whistleblower.

The whistleblower has been unmasked for supposedly violating the protocol of contacting Congress before filing the charges with the Inspector General. Schiff’s credibility and veracity are in question again. Democrats point out that other whistleblowers have also consulted with Congress prior to filing charges with Inspector General. Voters are skeptical of the Democratic logic that two wrongs make one right

We have since learned that the whistleblower, a CIA operative, is a partisan Democrat who served in the Biden camp and who was booted out of the intelligence apparatus for alleged leaks. It turns out that the whistleblower has no first hand evidence of the phone call between Trump and the President of Ukraine.

Many other witnesses to the affair have indicated pretty much the same. Listening to the excerpted testimonies leaked to the press by Schiff one gets the impression that there was and still is a fight raging between the Administrative State (career civil servants) and the Trump Administration about policy changes and the degree to which the Administrative State should be involved or participate in policy formulation.

To debunk the accusations by the whistleblower and other partisan witnesses the White House released a transcript of the conversation between Trump and the President of Ukraine. It is obvious from the transcript that no condition (quo) was placed on the release of the economic aid (quid). Trump merely asked that an investigation be launched into Biden’s and his son’s actions back in 2016. 

Joe Biden’s son had managed to get an $ 80,000 per month retainer to serve on the board of a gas company, although he had no qualifications for such assignment. The Trump camp has made similar charges about Biden’s son involvement with companies in China. He is also mentioned regarding a $ 135 million loan he received while his dad was in office from the federal government.

We are told that a quid pro quo in economic assistance is a recurring practice to ensure that funds appropriated by Congress for foreign aid are used for their intended purpose and are not syphoned off by corrupt politicians or government officials.

Some legal experts believe that this practice is not an impeachable offense. Hence we are now witnessing the morphing of the impeachment language to bribery and extortion. Democrats look desperate. It seems that they are trying to find something more solid. To many their findings to date appear to be exaggerated and concocted.

Representative Schiff has become the villain in the impeachment process. Holding secret meetings has given the appearance of a Stalinist kangaroo proceeding. Schiff is conducting the inquiry as if it were a grand jury rather than what many believe is a political investigation. The GOP laments its inability to call witnesses that Schiff does not approve and the denial of fundamental due process steps.

The first public session of the impeachment inquiry featured two star witnesses, Kent and Taylor, who admitted that they had no first hand evidence of what was said during the phone call by Trump to the new president of Ukraine, but they had heard about it from people who had heard it from others.

The definition of a witness is “a person who sees an event, typically a crime or accident, take place.” Merriam-Webster suggest that someone who testifies that he or she has personal knowledge of something. Neither of the two so-called star witnesses fit either definition.

The second public session features a former ambassador to Ukraine who feels she was recalled unfairly. Never mind that the constitution permits the President to dismiss any ambassador with or without cause. Never mind that she was not involved in the July phone call that is the centerpiece of the investigation.  Representative Stewart asked the ambassador point blank if she had any proof that President Trump had committed any crimes. She answered: No!

One more time we heard from a witness who might have heard something from someone who heard from someone else. A subordinate of Taylor is also scheduled to testify that he heard Ambassador Sondland speak with Trump on the phone.

In the Kavanaugh fashion, when plan A (Taylor’s testimony) fails here comes plan B (a last minute witness) to the rescue. The allegation is that Sondland was speaking on the phone with the President in a noisy restaurant. Many question whether it was possible for the new “witness” to hear what the person on the other end of the conversation said.

In anticipation of the hearing on Friday Speaker Pelosi accused Trump of having committed bribery. The Supreme Court in a 1999 decision regarding a case of bribery “concluded that a person did not violate the law merely by giving a gift to a public official.” Prosecutors must show that there was a connection between a specific official act in the past and in the future and the act.” Ukraine did not investigate Joe Biden and his son or Burissma. In other words there was no quid for the quo (economic assistance). 

It looks like Pelosi is using words that more easily express what the legal term in Latin means. Most voters are not lawyers and do not know Latin. Or she might be trying to disconnect the quid from the unproved quo.

The last day of the Schiff teams’ inquiry featured two witnesses: Fiona Hill and Holmes (the person who heard Sondland speak with Trump). Hill’s testimony was not first hand. She was there to share her views about a variety of issues with which she had a bone to pick. As an expert witness Ms. Fiona failed to impress those on the right about her own versions of the events.

Recent news accounts describing the alleged whistleblower’s Go Fund Me activities are casting a potential violation of U.S. laws that prohibit members of the CIA to accept gifts of any kind. So far, it has been reported, that $ 250,000 has been raised from contributions from 6,000 donors. Republicans are using the revelation as an example of duplicity and corruption.

The Rashomon Effect

Rashomon is a 1950 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It received many awards (Golden Lion in Venice, Best Foreign Film and the Academy Honorary Award). It is considered one of the greatest films ever made.

The plot involves various characters providing subjective, alternative, self-serving, and contradictory versions of the same incident.  The Rashomon Effect is named after the film. The stories in the film are mutually contradictory and even the final version may be seen as motivated by factors of ego and saving face.

The spectacle we are witnessing on TV will not change minds. Democrats will be all-in on impeachment while Republicans will stubbornly cling to the cabal theory.

What Happens Next?

Polls reveal that the public is not buying into either of the two narratives. Diehard Democrats will continue to portray Trump as an incompetent and out-of-control buffoon. Republicans will stick to their view that Trump is the victim of a hatchet job concocted by poor-loser Democrats and an unhappy Deep State keen on protecting its turf and privileges.

Trump’s approval rates are surging. Of considerable aghast for the Democrats, 35% amongst African Americans and about half of Hispanic Americans told the pollsters recently that they opposed impeaching the President. This is an ominous sign for the Democrats because African Americans and Hispanic Americans are supposedly their constituency. To make things worse, polls in the battle states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania show that most voters do not favor impeachment.

Looking ahead at least three possibilities emerge. 

Democrats will not come up with solid evidence of bribery and extortion, using the latest lingo, but insist on impeaching Trump anyway with the Senate rejecting the House’s conclusions. 

Voters realize that the impeachment inquiry is a politically concocted ruse to damage Trump’s chances for reelection and will give him a landslide win in 2020.

There is a face-saving alternative for the Democrats. Declare Trump’s action improper and censure him.

Based on your own political inclination, you can pick your choice.

Tyranny by the Minority

Definition

Tyranny has been defined as “unlimited authority or use of power, or a government, which exercises such power without any controls or limits.” This definition applies to heads of governments or small groups of people.

Cases in Point

We are familiar with what tyranny by the majority looks like.

Laws are passed without input from the minority. Decisions are made that have a detrimental effect on the minority. Rights of the minority are ignored or trampled on the grounds that the majority approved it.

Two recent examples illustrate this point: one by the Republicans (tax cuts in 2018) and one by Democrats (Obamacare 2008).

California as a one party system is another great example. The Democrats rule the roost … Their super majority has made it easy to pass laws that fundamentally impact the rights of the minority when it comes to taxation and regulations.  The legislature is busy passing laws to dispense favors to its base – unions, public employees, and illegal immigrants, and so on at the expense of the taxpayer.

Hijacking the Majority

We were warned over the years to pay attention to vocal groups. Left to their devices, they will highjack a political party and jump in front of issue parades to steer them in a particular direction.

In my estimation, Progressives represent 30-40 percent of the Democratic Party. Conservatives represent 40-50 per cent of the Republic Party. These minorities on the right and left have a way of hijacking their party and shape its narrative and talking points.

Swept aside is what has been called the silent majority estimated at 55-60 of the electorate.  The fringe on both sides of the political spectrum tends to dominate the conversation.

The Monolith of Views

True believers inhabit the fringe on both sides. They are not interested in dialog. They know that they are right. And they unmercifully attack those who disagree with them using vitriol, ridicule and intimidation.

Here is how they do it:

·      By regulating speech – what is or is not politically correct.

·      By erasing or rewriting history or symbols.  

·      By suggesting conspiratorial or improper behavior by opponents.

·      By blaming or shaming the opponent into submission.

·      By resorting to violence and property destruction to make their point.

They do all this to impose their views. They do not want to hear anything that contradicts their argument. They condemn others’ free speech as being hateful.  They want to re-write the history of the western civilization, and downplay any accomplishments they deem ill gotten and greed motivated. They see no redeeming qualities in the symbols and memories their opponents revere. They lay blame at the opponents’ doorstep for all their real or imagined afflictions.

My Pet Peeve

In the heat of the battle, generalizations are used to paint the opponent in the worst way. By demonizing the opponent, humanity is denied, and broad brushed away. While espousing inclusion, we use racial distinctions as wedges to divide one another. While striving for harmony many advocate that white men be pushed aside and deemed toxic.

White men are lately lambasted for every ill or blemish in the national tapestry of multi-culturalism. Few if any of the white man’s redeeming qualities are espoused. They are described stereotypically as if all white men were the same. This generalization generates rancor amongst many white men and women who do not share similar histories.

Not all whites are WASPs (White-Anglo –Saxon-Protestant). Many are Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, and non-believers. Not all whites owned slaves. Many Blacks owned slaves, by the way. Not all whites have a history of racial discrimination. Not all whites have benefitted from colonialism.

To paint all whites as racists, xenophobes, misogynists, homophobes, fascists, rich or privileged is wrong! Many have also suffered discrimination along the way. A few whites have been lynched for crimes they did not commit. Most proudly come from humble beginnings.

We are all proud of who we are, where we came from, and of our contribution to the nation, be it in the battlefield, the classroom, the court house, business or the halls of Congress.

Parallel Realities

You cannot lift your status by lowering someone else’s. You cannot gain respect by defiling some else’s. You cannot bury history, although you might want to rewrite it.

The silent majority avoids controversy. Its members do not demonstrate. The silent majority does not relish destroying private property or support estranged people on the rampage. It likes anonymity and shies away from the limelight. It chooses order over chaos, tranquility over warfare.

In the privacy of the voting booth, the silent majority expresses its views.  It ignores precedents and charts an unexpected direction.

Polls do not accurately capture the opinions and views of the majority because most people are unwilling or “afraid” to share them. Like we have been taught, “you can fool some of the people some of the time, but in the end you cannot fool them all the time.”

We live in parallel realities. Each reality is created to sooth a particular audience. We all know that most men are good and come in all colors. So why demonize the white male? What is the benefit and who is the beneficiary?

It is time to put a stop to identity politics. They are used to slice and dice the population for political gain. Let’s stop playing games with diversity.

We are at a crossroad.

We must choose. On one side, there is the less traveled road to civility and tranquility, and on the other, the popular finger-pointing road.

Time is of the essence! Our future rests in the balance.

The Paradoxes of Our Time

We live in turbulent times. The new normal? Discontinuity. Much disruption and uncertainty surrounds our daily lives. Chaos sows confusion, mistrust, divisions, and zero sum actions. One of the emerging norms is quite troublesome: you are either with me or you are against me. There seems to be no middle grounds, no give and take, no win-win, just win-lose. If I cannot win, neither should you (lose-lose).

How did we get here?

It has been said that you have to work very hard to destroy a great but imperfect country. We have been engaged in self-destructive practices for some time. Some critical observations follow.

It all started in my view with radicals spitting on our returning veterans from Viet Nam: men and women who risked their lives when called by their country to wage what turned out to be an unpopular and poorly executed war. The flag, a symbol of national unity to many, was desecrated and used as a foil for humiliation.

Feminists followed. I recall how leaders of the NOW movement exhorted their followers to abandon their families and join communes where excesses were not only permitted, but encouraged.  Women were pitted against men. Men were labeled toxic, ridiculed and shamed. It was the beginning of identity politics.

In the attempt to make the political tent bigger politicians encouraged fringe groups to join in. Unable to articulate a cohesive political platform, both parties chose to fit as many groups in as possible.

To rationalize this decision, identity politics became a weapon of choice. Soon, divisions began to surface: Blacks against Whites, women against men, nativists against immigrants, young against elders, the poor against the wealthy, highly educated against lesser educated, Judeo-Christians against Muslims, the extreme left against the hard right, suburban versus rural, and pro-abortion versus pro-life. Just to name a few!

We have reached a low level of civility. Folks are pilloried daily by those opposed to their political views. Deranged people on both sides of the isle, more often than we would like to acknowledge, resort to violent means to get their viewpoint across. 

State and local officials proudly refuse to enforce federal laws with which they disagree. Collaboration between State, Local and Federal authorities is shunned principally along the Coastal States. We seem to have found our enemy. It is we!

Stifling Dialog

If you criticize a person of color, regardless of his/her ineptness, crookedness, immoral behavior, and ignorance, you will be accused of being a racist. On the other hand, you are free to pillory a White person. In fact, you can do so willy-nilly without proof or consequences.

If you criticize an inept, crooked, immoral, or ignorant LGBTQ person, you will be accused of homophobia, possibly unsure of your own sexuality, or worse yet for being an intolerant and backward SOB.

If you refer to undocumented immigrants by using the term illegal alien, you are reprimanded for hating Brown people or for being xenophobic. The reason? No human is illegal, undocumented or sin papeles immigrants yes, even though they are breaking our laws and forcing their way in.

God forbid a man should criticize a woman for being inept, crooked, immoral, or ignorant, you will be charged with misogyny – you know, a man who hates women. Surely his masculinity therefore needs to be purged and he will be ridiculed as being Neanderthal.

Digging Deeper

Much controversy surrounds one of our cherished rights: freedom of speech. If you openly disagree with the position of either the far-left or the far-right, you will be accused of engaging in hate speech.

What seems to define hate speech is any notion, viewpoint or concept that one side sees as opposed to their side. You will be labeled a fascist on the right and a communist or socialist on the left. Those on the right should not be permitted to speak in our campuses or on television. They must be silenced so that they cannot offend our tolerant sensitivities. Violence against them is excused off as a provocation.

The left is adamant that this country has never been great. Slavery, denied access, exploitation of workers, and other sins have been committed in the past that disqualify the nation from greatness. Someone wearing a Trump button, or God forbid, a MAGA hat, unleashes a torrent of anger, profanities, and violent response. Is it not good for everyone if our country does better?

The current economy is booming, more people are working, wages after a long dry spell are experiencing a real increase. Minorities are benefitting. Is this not a win-win outcome?

Diversity is celebrated. People on the left tend to define it in terms of color, sexual preference, gender, national origin, young and old, natives and immigrants. Some suggest that diversity of ideas should be encouraged, not just people’s background. Better ideas can come from anyone regardless of group or identity.

Inclusion by all is to be championed but in the end performance should count. Access should be non-discriminatory. Although we are all equal, not all of us perform equally. Some folks work harder than others. Some are brighter than others.

It is a shame that universities rig admissions to let the rich, the alumni’s descendants, and the “recommended” enter while excluding worthy candidates. It is a crime in my view to keep some Asians out because there are too many of them in the rolls. Letting some of the disadvantaged or the rich in should not be done at the expense of deserving applicants.

Commentary

Morris Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford University, commented on the recent incident in Palo Alto that has received national publicity. A weird-looking local lady attacked an elder man wearing a MAGA hat at a local coffee shop and railed that he not wear it in “her” town and lambasted him with profanities and epithets.

According to Gallup about two in five Americans identify as independents. Those people who resort to extreme reactions, like this crazed lady in Palo Alto, Fiorina explains results form “the more involved a person is in politics, the more distorted is his or her views of the opposite side of the political spectrum. Her image of Trump voters is that they are all racists, bigots, and Bible thumpers – all of these perceptions that come from watching MSNBC and CNN. The more liberal or conservative you are, the less accurate portrayal you have.”

Fiorina continues … “adding to the extremism of American politics today is the idea among those deeply invested in politics that you have to prove just how serious you are about your beliefs. They basically do things to make sure they prove how serious they are by exaggerating their points of view and taking them to the extreme.”

In a 2018 blog I commented on the subject of Compulsive Opposition.  Compulsion often triggers neurosis. I am told that there are no cures for neurosis; it is a chronic disease. We have witnessed the reaction by some loyal supporters to Clinton’s defeat by Trump. They just cannot accept that fact. Something sinister is to be blamed. Two years later, court challenges and a special counsel’s investigation have yielded no solid proof, yet many insist that there is all kind of proof. There is only one answer for them: He did it!

Irreparable harm has been done to our Republic! We have better things to do that beat a dying dog, so to speak. We have important issues to solve and unfinished business to address.

Let’s get on with it!