Reflections on This American Moment
U.S. presidential politics in the End Times.–
“X is either an incompetent know-nothing or a strategic genius who plays the fool to throw off the other side. After all, he did become President of the United States, and how could an incompetent know-nothing do that?”
X just talks, but has no idea what he is saying, and even less concern with whether anything he is saying is true. As long as he is talking his gibberish, his handlers can do all the real planning and policy-making behind the scenes. The only danger is that X is so loopy he might just contradict the professionals occasionally in a public statement, whether through sheer ignorance and incompetence or as a result of a lifetime of unrestrained blowhardism.
If X becomes president, America is doomed — not so much because of what X is (a hollow shell), or what he believes (nothing coherent), but because of what he is not, and what he does not believe.
The binary choice presented to American voters: “Make the world despise and laugh at America — or apologize to the world for being America.” There will be no third option.”
Trump Cards.–
Former president Donald Trump — at least I believe that is still the correct description, although some of his cultists (whom I am not supposed to call cultists because of course they have nothing whatsoever in common with a cult) now believe that Jesus secretly inaugurated Trump for his second term back in March or something — is asking his “supporters” to (pay for and) carry an “Official TRUMP Card” with them at all times, as a personal declaration of eternal deference and allegiance to the most consequentially destructive one-term president in American history.
Because becoming a literal card-carrying member of a politician’s fan club is what an adult citizen of a free republic would do.
Because expressing undying support for an individual political figure — not for a cause or a national idea, but for the politician himself — is indicative of the kind of moral seriousness and dedication to the principles of self-government that could save a dying nation.
I admit the cards are tempting, though. If you take a peek at the four designs that Trump’s “fundraising organization” has pitched to the cult for their opinion, you will notice (apart from the glaring spelling error on one of them) that each one looks like a wallet-size replica of a publicity poster for “Wrestlemania.” In other words, they look exactly like Trump — vulgar, gaudy, and fake. And somewhat frightening in their implications.
The United States Senate just voted to pass a so-called “infrastructure” bill which in its enormity and its sensibility might more accurately be called the “digging history’s biggest hole” bill. But of course that was just an appetizer — every time the U.S. Federal Government boasts of stealing a trillion dollars “in a bipartisan vote,” you may rest assured that this theft was merely the preface to an even more substantial plunder just ahead.
Since January 2017 (hmm, what happened in the U.S. that month again?), the national debt has risen at the greatest sustained speed ever achieved outside of wartime. And no, contrary to the popular bipartisan deflection of the day, viruses do not incur debt or waste tax dollars; power-mad opportunists do.
And so, in modern democratic politics, where the standard operating model is, “If it’s broke, there’s no harm in continuing to break it,” it is only natural that the Biden administration and its congressional bagmen are in the process of introducing a spending bill on a scale that the universe has never known. “Heck,” the progressives declare, “if no nation has ever appropriated and redistributed this much money from its imaginary future before, then what empirical evidence is there that this action won’t result in universal prosperity and electric cars growing on trees in every Democrat’s backyard? After all, the problem with the old-style communists’ five-year plans was that they were too shortsighted and underfunded. With our great new thousand-year plan, and a budget to match, what could possibly go wrong?”