George Orwell disait, je crois dans 1984, que dans les temps de tromperie généralisée, dire la vérité est un acte révolutionnaire. David Hoffmann
Le langage politique est destiné à rendre vraisemblables les mensonges, respectables les meurtres, et à donner l’apparence de la solidité à ce qui n’est que vent. George Orwell
Ce n’est pas en refusant de mentir que nous abolirons le mensonge : c’est en usant de tous les moyens pour supprimer les classes. (…) Tous les moyens sont bons lorsqu’ils sont efficaces. Aujourd´hui, c´est le meilleur moyen. Comme tu tiens à ta pureté, mon petit gars ! Comme tu as peur de te salir les mains. Eh bien, reste pur ! A qui cela servira-t-il et pourquoi viens-tu parmi nous ? La pureté, c´est une idée de fakir et de moine. Vous autres, les intellectuels, les anarchistes bourgeois, vous en tirez prétexte pour ne rien faire. Ne rien faire, rester immobile, serrer les coudes contre le corps, porter des gants. Moi j´ai les mains sales. Jusqu´aux coudes. je les ai plongées dans la merde et dans le sang. Et puis après ? Est-ce que tu t´imagines qu´on peut gouverner innocemment? Jean-Paul Sartre (Les mains sales, 1948)
Ce que nous voulons, c’est la liberté par tous les moyens, la justice par tous les moyens et l’égalité par tous les moyens. Malcolm X (1964)
The Martin Luther King jr. Bust has been moved out of the Oval Office according The People Magazine DC Bureau Chief who was in there this pm. April Ryan
Correction: An earlier version of the story said that a bust of Martin Luther King had been moved. It is still in the Oval Office. Time
Now, when I was elected as President of the United States, my predecessor had kept a Churchill bust in the Oval Office. There are only so many tables where you can put busts — otherwise it starts looking a little cluttered. (Laughter.) And I thought it was appropriate, and I suspect most people here in the United Kingdom might agree, that as the first African American President, it might be appropriate to have a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King in my office to remind me of all the hard work of a lot of people who would somehow allow me to have the privilege of holding this office. Barack Hussein Obama
Il est temps de tuer le président. Monisha Rajesh
Trump c’est le candidat qui redonne aux Américains l’espoir, l’espoir qu’il soit assassiné avant son investiture. Pablo Mira (France Inter)
Ils ont été horriblement traités. Savez-vous que si vous étiez chrétien en Syrie, il était impossible, ou du moins très difficile d’entrer aux États-Unis ? Si vous étiez un musulman, vous pouviez entrer, mais si vous étiez chrétien, c’était presque impossible et la raison était si injuste, tout le monde était persécuté… Ils ont coupé les têtes de tout le monde, mais plus encore des chrétiens. Et je pensais que c’était très, très injuste. Nous allons donc les aider. Donald Trump
L’amour du prochain est une valeur chrétienne et cela implique de venir en aide aux autres. Je crois que c’est ce qui unit les pays occidentaux. Sigmar Gabriel (ministre allemand des Affaires étrangères)
Pour une fois, Le Monde n’a pas tort d’évoquer un vote de la « colère ». Mais il est de saintes colères. Sainte colère contre les médias arrogants qui auront protégé l’incompétente et factice Hillary jusqu’au bout. Sainte colère contre les médias tricheurs qui n’ont même pas critiqué cette collaboratrice de CNN qui a envoyé d’avance les questions à Clinton avant un débat crucial. Sainte colère contre la folie psychotique du genre qui impose désormais des WC mixtes pour les transsexuels dans les toilettes de la Maison-Blanche. Sainte colère contre ce faux antiracisme, condescendant envers les blancs pauvres qui seraient « petits » et qui n’a pas un mot, encore moins celui de « raciste », lorsqu’un noir fait un carton contre quatre policiers uniquement parce qu’ils sont blancs. Sainte colère contre les artistes faussement généreux mais vraiment privilégiés d’Hollywood qui avec un unanimisme conformiste obligatoire votent tous démocrates. Bien sûr, cette colère démocratique et pacifique a traversé l’Atlantique et habite désormais une Europe envahie par un doute démoralisant et un islamisme terrorisant qui ne doute de rien. Aujourd’hui, Monsieur Ayrault, paraît-il, ministre des affaires étrangères, considère le président élu américain comme inquiétant. Qu’est-ce qui est plus inquiétant pour une nation qui veut vivre : un homme politique américain qui ose reconnaître le danger d’une immigration massive, illégale, invasive et dangereuse, ou un président français qui avoue la même chose à deux journalistes le soir à la chandelle, tout en continuant à proférer le même discours convenu pour ne pas fâcher les cerbères du terrorisme intellectuel de plus en plus méchants depuis qu’ils se savent bêtes ? La victoire de ce que les fausses élites appellent avec mépris « populisme » signe avant tout leur défaite. A tout prendre, il n’est pas interdit de préférer le populisme de son peuple, à ceux qui préfèrent imposer le populisme de l’Autre. Gilles-William Goldnadel
Obama, franchement il fait partie des gens qui détestent l’Amérique. Il a servi son idéologie mais pas l’Amérique. Je remets en cause son patriotisme et sa dévotion à l’église qu’il fréquentait. Je pense qu’il était en désaccord avec lui-même sur beaucoup de choses. Je pense qu’il était plus musulman dans son cœur que chrétien. Il n’a pas voulu prononcer le terme d’islamisme radical, ça lui écorchait les lèvres. Je pense que dans son cœur, il est musulman, mais on en a terminé avec lui, Dieu merci. Evelyne Joslain
Climate change aside, the cause of Palestinian statehood is the central obsession of contemporary global politics. It’s also its least examined assumption. Would a Palestinian state serve the cause of Mideast peace? This used to be conventional wisdom, on the theory that a Palestinian state would lead to peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, easing the military burdens on the former and encouraging the latter to address their internal discontents. Today the proposition is ridiculous. No deal between Jerusalem and Ramallah is going to lift the sights of those now fighting in Syria, Iraq or Yemen. Nor will a deal reconcile Tehran and its terrorist proxies in Lebanon and Gaza to the existence of a Jewish state. As for the rest of the neighborhood, Israel has diplomatic relations with Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, and has reached pragmatic accommodations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. What about the interests of Palestinians? Aren’t they entitled to a state? Maybe. But are they more entitled to one than the Assamese, Basques, Baloch, Corsicans, Druze, Flemish, Kashmiris, Kurds, Moros, Native Hawaiians, Northern Cypriots, Rohingya, Tibetans, Uyghurs or West Papuans—all of whom have distinct national identities, legitimate historical grievances and plausible claims to statehood? If so, what gives Palestinians the preferential claim? Have they waited longer than the Kurds? No: Kurdish national claims stretch for centuries, not decades. Have they experienced greater violations to their culture than Tibetans? No: Beijing has conducted a systematic policy of repression for 67 years, whereas Palestinians are nothing if not vocal in mosques, universities and the media. Have they been persecuted more harshly than the Rohingya? Not even close. Set the comparisons aside. Would a Palestinian state be good for Palestinian people? That’s a more subjective judgment. But a telling figure came in a June 2015 poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, which found that a majority of Arab residents in East Jerusalem would rather live as citizens with equal rights in Israel than in a Palestinian state. No doubt part of this owes to a desire to be connected to Israel’s thriving economy. But it’s also a function of politics. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas just entered the 13th year of his four-year term. Fatah rules the West Bank through corruption; Hamas rules Gaza through fear. Humanitarian aid is routinely diverted for terrorist purposes: One terror tunnel stretching from Gaza to Israel consumed an estimated 800 tons of concrete and cost $10 million to build. Every three years or so, Hamas starts firing missiles at Israel, and hundreds of Palestinian civilians get killed in the crossfire. How does any of this augur well for what a future Palestinian state might bring? But isn’t a Palestinian state a necessity for Israel? Can it maintain its Jewish and democratic character without separating itself from the millions of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River? (…) In theory, Palestine could be the next Costa Rica: small but beautiful. But Israelis don’t live in theory. They live in a world where mistakes are mortal. In 2000 and 2007 Israeli prime ministers made good-faith offers of Palestinian statehood. They were met on both occasions with rejection, then violence. In 2005 Israel vacated the Gaza Strip. It became an enclave of terror. (…) The ideal of a Jewish and faultlessly democratic state is a noble one. Not at the risk of the existence of the state itself. The Paris conference takes place on the eve of a new administration that’s indifferent to prevailing orthodoxies regarding the Palestinians. David Friedman, Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel, is unequivocal in his support for the Jewish state, determined to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, unscandalized by settlements and unmoved by suggestions that Israel’s safety requires the empowerment of her enemies. These heresies alone recommend him for the job. Meanwhile, anyone genuinely concerned with the future of the Palestinians might urge them to elect better leaders, improve their institutions, and stop giving out sweets to celebrate the murder of their neighbors. Bret Stephens
Mais pourquoi n’appelle-t-on pas ce mur, qui sépare les Gazaouites de leurs frères égyptiens « mur de la honte » ou « de l’apartheid »? Liliane Messika
Trump’s executive order is so modest that the foundation of it is essentially existing law. That law was passed unanimously by both bodies of Congress in 2002. In fact, it garnered the support of 16 Democrat senators and 57 Democrat House members who are still serving in their respective bodies! Following 9/11, Congress passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which addressed many of the insecurities in our visa tracking system. The bill passed the House and Senate unanimously. The bill was originally sponsored by a group of bipartisan senators, including Ted Kennedy and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. (F, 0%). Among other provisions, it restricted non-immigrant visas from countries designated as state sponsors of terror (….) The directive to cut off non-immigrant visas from countries designated as state sponsors of terror is still current law on the books [8 U.S. Code § 1735]. Presidents Bush and Obama later used their discretion to waive the ban, but Trump is actually following the letter of the law — the very law sponsored and passed by Democrats — more closely than Obama did. Trump used his 212(f) authority to add immigrant visas, but that doesn’t take away the fact that every Democrat in the 2002 Senate supported the banning of non-immigrant visas.At present, only three of the countries — Sudan, Syria, and Iran — are designated as state sponsors by the State Department. At the time Democrats agreed to the ban in 2002, the State Department also included Libya and Iraq in that list. Although Libya and Iraq were on the list due to the presence of Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein as sponsors of terror, there is actually more of a reason to cut off visas now. Both are completely failed states with no reliable data to vet travelers. Both are more saturated with Islamist groups now than they were in 2002. The same goes for Yemen and Somalia. Neither country is a state sponsor of terror because neither has a functioning governments. They are terrorist havens. Thus, the letter of the law already applies to three of the countries, and the spirit of the law applies to all of them. Plus, the State Department could add any new country to the list, thereby making any future suspension of visas from those specific countries covered under §1735, in addition to the broad general power (INA 212(f)) to shut off any form of immigration. Given that Trump has backed down on green card holders, his executive order on “Muslim countries” is essentially current law, albeit only guaranteed for 90 days! Conservative review
From my perspective in Iraq, I wonder why all of these protesters were not protesting in the streets when ISIS came to kill Christians and Yazidis and other minority groups. They were not protesting when the tens of thousands of displaced Christians my archdiocese has cared for since 2014 received no financial assistance from the U.S. government or the U.N. There were no protests when Syrian Christians were only let in at a rate that was 20 times less than the percentage of their population in Syria. I do not understand why some Americans are now upset that the many minority communities that faced a horrible genocide will finally get a degree of priority in some manner. I would also say this, all those who cry out that this is a “Muslim Ban” – especially now that it has been clarified that it is not – should understand clearly that when they do this, they are hurting we Christians specifically and putting us at greater risk. (…) Here in Iraq we Christians cannot afford to throw out words carelessly as the media in the West can do. I would ask those in the media who use every issue to stir up division to think about this. For the media these things become an issue of ratings, but for us the danger is real. Archévêque irakien
Notre pays a encore bénéficié, ces dernières heures, des atouts de la diversité et de l’apport des disciples d’Allah. Ce matin, à 10 heures, un musulman, armé d’une machette, a attaqué, près du Louvre, une patrouille de soldats, aux cris d’Allah akbar. Abdallah E-H, selon les premières informations, aurait 29 ans, serait égyptien, et travaillerait à Dubaï. Remarquons que si on appliquait le décret Trump en France, en l’élargissant, sans doute ce sympathique touriste n’aurait-il jamais mis les pieds en France, ni n’aurait blessé un militaire avec sa machette. Riposte laïque
La portée dissuasive de l’opération Sentinelle n’était pas à la hauteur des attentes, puisque des militaires se trouvaient non loin du Bataclan et des terrasses et n’ont rien pu faire (…) Elles souhaitaient engager le feu mais on leur a donné l’ordre de ne pas faire usage de leurs armes. L’action des militaires est extrêmement réduite et leur chaîne de commandement est très complexe. (…) Rien ne prouve aujourd’hui que la présence d’une patrouille Sentinelle a permis d’éviter un attentat. Il y a bien eu au départ un rôle psychologique : voir des militaires en kaki partout, dans les rues, dans les transports, rassure la population car la menace est bien réelle. 93% des Français font confiance à l’armée pour lutter contre le terrorisme, tandis que l’antimilitarisme n’est que résiduel en France : il tourne autour de 10%. Mais on peut aussi ajouter qu’en décembre 2015, si 70% des Français approuvaient l’opération Sentinelle, ils n’étaient que 50% à la juger efficace, selon un sondage Ifop pour le ministère de la Défense. Il y a également une part importante de communication politique. Les militaires bénéficient d’une bonne image dans l’opinion publique, le gouvernement joue donc cette carte. L’opération Sentinelle fonctionne en réalité selon le principe du trompe-l’œil : elle diffuse une image de puissance dans les rues mais on ne peut que constater son impuissance effective. (…) Les militaires de Sentinelle ne sont en tout cas pas mis en avant dans le cadre de ce qui devrait être le coeur de leur action : la lutte contre le terrorisme. Un militaire, c’est fait pour faire la guerre. Les militaires de Sentinelle endossent davantage le rôle d’auxiliaires de police de proximité. par leurs présence dans les transports et dans les rues. Une étude réalisée par Elie Tenenbaum, chercheur à l’Institut français des relations internationales (Ifri), souligne que les patrouilles Sentinelle d’Ile-de-France ont été victimes de 1.300 « actions contre la force » entre janvier et septembre 2015, dont 70% d’actes malveillants. Parmi les auteurs de ces violences, certains étaient peut-être des fanatiques, mais ça, rien ne permet de l’affirmer…Et il est évidemment compliqué de faire le tri parmi les personnes qui ont commis ces actes. (…) Comme l’a récemment rappelé le général Sainte-Claire Deville, commandant des forces terrestres, avant 2015, les militaires passaient 5% de leur temps en opération intérieure (principalement dans le cadre du plan Vigipirate) et 15% en opération extérieure. Le reste du temps, ils s’entrainaient et se reposaient. Depuis le début de Sentinelle, ils sont mobilisés 50% de leur temps en opération intérieure et 15% en opération intérieure. Leurs temps de repos et de formation sont donc considérablement entamés. Des troupes fatiguées et peu entraînées sont sans aucun doute bien moins efficaces. (…) C’est d’abord une question pratique et économique. Les militaires sont rapidement mobilisables, efficaces, fiables. Si l’on raisonne à court terme il est également moins onéreux de les utiliser massivement que de recruter et mobiliser à niveau équivalent les forces de l’ordre. (…) De plus en plus de spécialistes, comme Michel Goya [spécialiste des armées, NDLR], plaident pour sa suppression ou, tout du moins, pour un réaménagement drastique, qui permettrait de mobiliser un nombre beaucoup plus faible de militaires, dans des dispositifs plus souples et moins statiques. Mais l’opération Sentinelle ne peut de toute façon pas être pensée isolément : la question de la lutte contre le terrorisme est surtout celle des services de renseignement et de police. Bénédicte Chéron (historienne)
The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition — it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It’s a point of view that I disagree with. It’s a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it’s been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it’s that Fox is very successful. Obama
Fox is not a news organization. Rahm Emanuel (White House Chief of Staff, October 2009)
Fox operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. Anita Dunn (White House Communications Director)
When we see a pattern of distortion, we’re going to be honest about that pattern of distortion. Valerie Jarrett (Obama senior advisor)
As John Podhoretz wrote, these are days of promise and opportunity for America’s political media professionals. So far, they’re squandering their shot. By indulging in ill-considered hysteria and posturing before like-minded colleagues, they sacrifice the credibility they’ll need to expose President Donald Trump’s mendacities. To repair some of the strained bonds between audience and journalist, media professionals must display some restraint when reacting to the latest alleged assault on freedom and decency. That is most easily achieved by recognizing that many of the unprecedented developments of the Trump era aren’t unprecedented at all. (…) The Obama administration was calling Fox “fake news” before “fake news” was a phenomenon. (…) The Obama administration’s “blog” content (now maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration), which includes former Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s “Regional Roundup: What America’s Newspapers are Saying About the Iran Deal.” The blog consisted entirely of favorable headlines from around the country reciting verbatim (and false) administration claims about the nuclear accord. “The Iran Deal” even had its own Twitter account which disseminated not only favorable press mentions but also crafted insipid pop culture memes to get the millennial generation jazzed about nuclear non-proliferation. Imagine the anxiety among journalists when the Trump White House mirrors this tactic. John Podhoretz’s admonition is particularly relevant because so many of these Obama-era precedents did not get the left’s “creeping fascism” sense tingling at the time. To rend garments over these actions now only because the Trump White House is undertaking them is not just unwise; it’s insulting. Noah Rothman
It is actually more likely that Trump will pursue pragmatic, centrist policies. For starters, Trump is a businessman who relishes the “art of the deal,” so he is by definition more of a pragmatist than a blinkered ideologue. His choice to run as a populist was tactical, and does not necessarily reflect deep-seated beliefs. Indeed, Trump is a wealthy real-estate mogul who has lived his entire life among other rich businessmen. He is a savvy marketer who tapped into the political zeitgeist by pandering to working-class Republicans and “Reagan Democrats,” some of whom may have supported Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. This allowed him to stand out in a crowded field of traditional pro-business, pro-Wall Street, and pro-globalization politicians. Once in office, Trump will throw symbolic red meat to his supporters while reverting to the traditional supply-side, trickle-down economic policies that Republicans have favored for decades. (…) And, given Trump’s inexperience, he will be all the more dependent on his advisers, just as former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were. Trump will also be pushed more to the center by Congress, with which he will have to work to pass any legislation. House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership in the Senate have more mainstream GOP views than Trump on trade, migration, and budget deficits. Meanwhile, the Democratic minority in the Senate will be able to filibuster any radical reforms that Trump proposes, especially if they touch the third rail of American politics: Social Security and Medicare. Trump will also be checked by the American political system’s separation of powers, relatively independent government agencies such as the Fed, and a free and vibrant press. But the market itself will be Trump’s biggest constraint. If he tries to pursue radical populist policies, the response will be swift and punishing: stocks will plummet, the dollar will fall, investors will flee to US Treasury bonds, gold prices will spike, and so forth. If, however, Trump blends more benign populist policies with mainstream pro-business ones, he will not face a market fallout. Now that he has won the election, there is little reason for him to choose populism over safety. The effects of a pragmatic Trump presidency would be far more limited than in the radical scenario. First, he would still ditch the TPP; but so would Hillary Clinton. He claimed that he would repeal NAFTA, but he will more likely try to tweak it as a nod to American blue-collar workers. And even if a pragmatic Trump wanted to limit imports from China, his options would be constrained by a recent World Trade Organization ruling against “targeted dumping” tariffs on Chinese goods. Outsider candidates often bash China during their election campaigns, but quickly realize once in office that cooperation is in their own interest. Trump probably will build his wall on the Mexican border, even though fewer new immigrants are arriving than in the past. But he will likely crack down only on undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes, rather than trying to deport 5-10 million people. Meanwhile, he may still limit visas for high-skill workers, which would deplete some of the tech sector’s dynamism. A pragmatic Trump would still generate fiscal deficits, though smaller than in the radical scenario. If he follows the Congressional Republicans’ proposed tax plan, for example, revenue would be reduced only by $2 trillion over a decade. To be sure, the policy mix under a pragmatic Trump administration would be ideologically inconsistent and moderately bad for growth. But it would be far more acceptable to investors – and the world – than the radical agenda he promised his voters. Nouriel Roubini
The Trump administration’s flurry of reversing the earlier flurry of Obama executive orders and the Left’s hysterical response is proving a sort of strategic Game of Thrones. (…) The model is Watergate, Iran-Contra, or the summer of 2006, when the furious rhetoric almost made and in one case did make presidential governance impossible. Given the current role of a biased media (it acted quite differently during the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, the flagrant lying about its impact, and the imploding AFC website), they hope to so increase the temperature that everyone melts down, with the goal of the in-power people liquefying first. They assume their blanket obstructionism will not suffer the public-relations boomerang that damaged the Republicans during shutdowns of the Clinton administration and slowdowns to stop Obama, given the media megaphone broadcasting their cause. In contrast, the Trump people may believe that the Left is becoming so unhinged that their inflated rhetoric has lost all credibility and eventually becomes counter-productive. In Napoleonic terms by attacking everything, the Left is attacking nothing. Second, by raising the stakes, they bring out of the woodwork the true malevolence of the Left such as the adolescent boycott of the inauguration by many in the Congress, the unprofessionalism of the media typified by the Martin Luther King bust fiasco or Michael Cohen’s nonexistent Prague meetings, the unhinged behavior of the acting attorney general, the repulsive rhetoric of a Madonna or Ashley Judd, and the creepy talk of journalists abroad of assassination. In that sense, the executive orders are pheromones that draw out and expose unattractive predators. (…) Where does this stand-off lead and how does it end? Who knows, but the Trump people, in strategic terms, need in advance to configure the third- and fourth-order effects of their executive orders to ensure: that they are seen as reactive to preexisting extremism (…), that (…) that their policies are understood as focused and sober (e.g., the travel ban affects a minuscule number of would-be entrants in an otherwise generous policy of accepting up to 50,000 newcomers; the wall is normal practice in much of the world (Israel, the Gulf States, increasingly in Europe), and we are trying not to react in kind to Mexico, given that Mexico’s own immigration practices, both in terms of punishment and questions of race and ethnicity, are in some sense racist and draconian). The loser, as in all strategic collisions, is he who more slowly misreads constantly shifting public opinion and is more guided by ideological zeal rather than empiricism and so doubles down on rather than modifies a failing strategy. The best indices of who seems to be getting the upper-hand are of course polls on particular issues and on Trump’s favorability — and the unity or lack of among congressional Republicans. Victor Davis Hanson
Securing national borders seems pretty orthodox. In an age of anti-Western terrorism, placing temporary holds on would-be immigrants from war-torn zones until they can be vetted is hardly radical. Expecting “sanctuary cities” to follow federal laws rather than embrace the nullification strategies of the secessionist Old Confederacy is a return to the laws of the Constitution. Using the term “radical Islamic terror” in place of “workplace violence” or “man-caused disasters” is sensible, not subversive. Insisting that NATO members meet their long-ignored defense-spending obligations is not provocative but overdue. Assuming that both the European Union and the United Nations are imploding is empirical, not unhinged. Questioning the secret side agreements of the Iran deal or failed Russian reset is facing reality. Making the Environmental Protection Agency follow laws rather than make laws is the way it always was supposed to be. Unapologetically siding with Israel, the only free and democratic country in the Middle East, used to be standard U.S. policy until Obama was elected. (…) Expecting the media to report the news rather than massage it to fit progressive agendas makes sense. In the past, proclaiming Obama a “sort of god” or the smartest man ever to enter the presidency was not normal journalistic practice. (…) Half the country is having a hard time adjusting to Trumpism, confusing Trump’s often unorthodox and grating style with his otherwise practical and mostly centrist agenda. In sum, Trump seems a revolutionary, but that is only because he is loudly undoing a revolution. Victor Davis Hanson
Attention: une révolution peut en cacher une autre !
Restauration des frontières nationales, moratoire et meilleur contrôle de l’immigration issue de zones sensibles face à une menace terroriste croissante, refus de la continuation de l’épuration religieuse du Monde dit « arabe », rappel de la loi nationale et remise en cause des « villes sanctuaires », explicitation de la menace terroriste islamique, rappel des membres de l’OTAN à leurs obligations de défense, dénonciation de l’incurie de l’ONU et du fiasco de l’UE, remise en question d’accords secrets accordant l’accès à l’arme nucléaire à un pays appelant ouvertement à l’annihilation d’un de ses voisins, retour à la politique d’alliance avec le seul pays libre et démocratique du Moyen-Orient, dénonciation des manipulations d’une presse systématiquement partisane …
A l’heure où un nouvel attentat terroriste en plein coeur de la capitale française …
Confirme à la fois l’intuition trumpienne et l’efficacité israélienne …
Mais aussi la mauvaise foi de nos médias se plaignant en fait que le décret Trump ne va pas assez loin …
Alors qu’après les faux dossiers des services secrets, la taille comparée des foules d’investiture présidentielle ou la bataille des bustes du Bureau ovale …
Ces derniers en sont quasiment, comme pour précédemment avec le président Bush, à l’appel à l’assassinat politique …
Comment ne pas voir avec l’historien américain Victor Davis Hanson …
Et derrière la flamboyance et les mauvaises manières du tribun Trump …
La véritable radicalité de l’Administration Obama …
Et partant la normalité proprement révolutionnaire de son successeur ?
Trump’s often unorthodox style shouldn’t be confused with his otherwise practical and mostly centrist agenda.
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review
February 2, 2017
By 2008, America was politically split nearly 50/50 as it had been in 2000 and 2004. The Democrats took a gamble and nominated Barack Obama, who became the first young, Northern, liberal president since John F. Kennedy narrowly won in 1960.
Democrats had believed that the unique racial heritage, youth, and rhetorical skills of Obama would help him avoid the fate of previous failed Northern liberal candidates Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry. Given 21st-century demography, Democrats rejected the conventional wisdom that only a conservative Democrat with a Southern accent could win the popular vote (e.g., Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore).
Moreover, Obama mostly ran on pretty normal Democratic policies rather than a hard-left agenda. His platform included opposition to gay marriage, promises to balance the budget, and a bipartisan foreign policy.
Instead, what followed was a veritable “hope and change” revolution not seen since the 1930s. Obama pursued a staunchly progressive agenda — one that went well beyond the relatively centrist policies upon which he had campaigned. The media cheered and signed on.
Soon, the border effectively was left open. Pen-and-phone executive orders offered immigrant amnesties. The Senate was bypassed on a treaty with Iran and an intervention in Libya.
Political correctness under the Obama administration led to euphemisms that no longer reflected reality.
Poorly conceived reset policy with Russia and a pivot to Asia both failed. The Middle East was aflame.
The Iran deal was sold through an echo chamber of deliberate misrepresentations.
The national debt nearly doubled during Obama’s two terms. Overregulation, higher taxes, near-zero interest rates, and the scapegoating of big businesses slowed economic recovery. Economic growth never reached 3 percent in any year of the Obama presidency — the first time that had happened since Herbert Hoover’s presidency.
A revolutionary federal absorption of health care failed to fulfill Obama’s promises and soon proved unviable.
Culturally, the iconic symbols of the Obama revolution were the “you didn’t build that” approach to businesses and an assumption that race/class/gender would forever drive American politics, favorably so for the Democrats.
Then, Hillary Clinton’s unexpected defeat and the election of outsider Donald Trump sealed the fate of the Obama Revolution.
For all the hysteria over the bluntness of the mercurial Trump, his agenda marks a return to what used to be seen as fairly normal, as the U.S. goes from hard left back to the populist center.
Trump promises not just to reverse almost immediately all of Obama’s policies, but to do so in a pragmatic fashion that does not seem to be guided by any orthodox or consistently conservative ideology.
Trade deals and jobs are Trump’s obsessions — mostly for the benefit of blue-collar America.
He calls for full-bore gas and oil development, a common culture in lieu of identity politics, secure borders, deregulation, tax reform, a Jacksonian foreign policy, nationalist trade deals in places of globalization, and traditionalist values.
In normal times, Trumpism — again, the agenda as opposed to Trump the person — might be old hat. But after the last eight years, his correction has enraged millions.
Yet securing national borders seems pretty orthodox. In an age of anti-Western terrorism, placing temporary holds on would-be immigrants from war-torn zones until they can be vetted is hardly radical. Expecting “sanctuary cities” to follow federal laws rather than embrace the nullification strategies of the secessionist Old Confederacy is a return to the laws of the Constitution.
Using the term “radical Islamic terror” in place of “workplace violence” or “man-caused disasters” is sensible, not subversive.
Insisting that NATO members meet their long-ignored defense-spending obligations is not provocative but overdue. Assuming that both the European Union and the United Nations are imploding is empirical, not unhinged.
Questioning the secret side agreements of the Iran deal or failed Russian reset is facing reality. Making the Environmental Protection Agency follow laws rather than make laws is the way it always was supposed to be.
Unapologetically siding with Israel, the only free and democratic country in the Middle East, used to be standard U.S. policy until Obama was elected.
Issuing executive orders has not been seen as revolutionary for the past few years — until now.
Expecting the media to report the news rather than massage it to fit progressive agendas makes sense. In the past, proclaiming Obama a “sort of god” or the smartest man ever to enter the presidency was not normal journalistic practice.
Freezing federal hiring, clamping down on lobbyists, and auditing big bureaucracies — after the Obama-era IRS, VA, GSA, EPA, State Department, and Secret Service scandals — are overdue. Half the country is having a hard time adjusting to Trumpism, confusing Trump’s often unorthodox and grating style with his otherwise practical and mostly centrist agenda.
In sum, Trump seems a revolutionary, but that is only because he is loudly undoing a revolution.
Voir aussi:
The best indices of who seems to be getting the upper-hand are of course polls on particular issues and on Trump’s favorability — and the unity or lack of among congressional Republicans.
The Democrat Patient
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review
January 31, 2017
Ignoring the symptoms, misdiagnosing the malady, skipping the treatment
If progressives were to become empiricists, they would look at the symptoms of the last election and come up with disinterested diagnoses, therapies, and prognoses.
Although their hard-left candidate won the popular vote, even that benchmark was somewhat deceiving — given the outlier role of California and the overwhelming odds in their favor. The Republicans ran a candidate who caused a veritable civil war in their ranks and who was condemned by many of the flagship conservative media outlets. Trump essentially ran against a united Democratic party, the Republican establishment, the mainstream media (both liberal and conservative) — and won.
He was outspent. He was out-organized. He was outpolled and demonized daily as much by Republicans as Democrats. Yet he not only destroyed three political dynasties (the Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas) but also has seemingly rendered the Obama election matrix nontransferable to anyone other than Obama himself.
Not that Hillary did not try to copy Obama’s formula. She brought on Obama politicos to staff her campaign. She supported all the Obama initiatives, from Obamacare and record debt to a collapsed foreign policy. She spoke in a faux-inner city accent the same way Obama had to get out the African-American vote. She outdid Obama’s clinger speech by her own twist of “deplorables” and “irredeemables.” She returned to her own hard-left phase of the 1990s. Yet she was trounced in the electoral college and saw the fabled “blue wall” crumble.
DIAGNOSIS
Any reasonable post-election autopsy for a party would identify certain inconvenient truths.
1) The African-American vote is vital to the Democratic party, but it is dubious to suppose that blacks will register, turn out, and vote in a bloc (as they did in 2008 and 2012) for a Democratic candidate other than Barack Obama. The very efforts to ensure that 95 percent of blacks will vote for other Democratic nominees might only polarize other groups in an increasingly multiracial and multiethnic America. Trump, of course, knows all this and will make the necessary adjustments.
2) Asians and Hispanics are less a monolithic voting bloc. Supposedly discredited melting-pot assimilation, integration, and intermarriage are still the norm and can temper tribal solidarities and peel away from Democrats a third of their assumed constituents — in an electoral landscape where there is already only a thin margin of error, given that Democrats have written off the white working classes. In the case of Latinos, red states such as Texas and Arizona are unlikely to be flipped soon by Latino bloc voting, especially if Trump closes down the border and ends illegal immigration as a demographic electoral tool of the Democratic party. And Latino electoral-college strength is dissipated in states that are likely to be blue anyway (California, Nevada, New Mexico).
3) The race/class/gender agenda so favored by coastal elites and promulgated by media, Hollywood, and popular culture is an anathema to Middle America, especially its strange disconnect between affluence and the mandate for purportedly progressive equality. Moralistic lectures from wealthy people are not a way to win over the working classes. Rants by Hollywood celebrities and racialist sermons by would-be DNC chairs will not win over 51 percent of the voters in swing states. The twin agents of progressive dogma, the media and the university, are themselves under financial duress, must recalibrate, and have lost support from half the country.
4) Fairly or not, the entire environmental movement, as represented by Al Gore’s campaign against global warming, has become elitist and often hypocritical, and is evident in the lifestyles of wealthy utopians who have the capital and influence to navigate around the irritating results of their nostrums. Building Keystone is a better issue than the Paris Climate Change protocols. There is little support for Bay Area environmentalism among blue-collar building trades and unions — largely because radical climate change is now a religion and skeptics are hounded as heretics.
5) For the foreseeable future, the blue wall of the Midwest seems more vulnerable than the red wall in the South. The small towns and cities in swing states are as electorally powerful as the large, blue cities.
6) What the media and Democrats see as Trump’s outrageous extremism now looks, to more than half the country, like a tardy return to normalcy: employing the words “radical Islamic terror,” or asking cities to follow federal law rather than go full Confederate, or deporting illegal aliens who have committed crimes, or building a wall to stop easy illegal entry across the U.S. border, or putting a temporary hold on unvetted refugees from war-torn states in the Middle East. In the eyes of many Middle Americans, all these measures, even if sometimes hastily and sloppily embraced, are not acts of revolution; they are common-sense corrections of what were themselves extremist acts, or they are simply continuances of presidential executive-order power as enshrined by Obama and sanctified by the media.
TREATMENT
As a result, one might have thought that Democrats would look in 2017 to bread-and-butter economic issues and try to find candidates who are 21st-century updates of Hubert Humphrey or Harry Truman, or perhaps populist minority nominees or a younger version of Joe Biden. Or is it even worse? The Democratic party of 2017 is nothing like the party of 2008, when Hillary Clinton in the primaries ran as a guns-rights Annie Oakley, with a boilermaker in one hand and a bowling ball in the other, and Barack Obama kept assuring the nation that gay marriage was contrary to his religious principles.
Instead of seeing Barack Obama (both his successful two elections and his failed two terms) as the wave of the future, Democrats would be wise to reassess his electoral legacy as a unique phenomenon. In truth, Obama’s legacy is twofold: He took the party hard left, and he downsized it to a minority party of the two coasts and big cities. And then he faded off into the sunset to a multimillionaire retirement of golf and homilies.
The progressive movement, the Democratic party and its cultural appendages in entertainment and the media seem to be doubling down on a failed electoral strategy. Instead, they all hope that either Donald Trump will crack and spontaneously implode after some new sort of Access Hollywood disclosure, or that their own unrelenting invective will eventually grind him down, as it did with Richard Nixon.
Consider a potpourri of left-wing reactions to Trump. Would-be Democratic National Committee chairwoman Sally Boynton Brown pontificated: “I’m a white woman. I don’t get it. . . . My job is to listen and be a voice and shut other white people down when they want to interrupt.” Ashley Judd gave an incoherent rant at the Inauguration Day protest marches. In reading a bizarre poem, she variously compared Trump to Hitler, alleged that he had incestuous desires for his own daughter. and then indulged in rank vulgarity.
Another Hillary Clinton bedrock supporter, Madonna, told the assembled thousands, “I’m angry. Yes, I’m outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”
Secret Service agent and loud Hillary Clinton supporter Kerry O’Grady wrote on her Facebook page that she would “take jail time over a bullet or an endorsement for what I believe to be a disaster to this the country.” Making her presidential preference clear, she ended her post with “I am with Her.”
BuzzFeed’s rumor mongering about Trump did not meet National Enquirer standards. Time magazine’s Zeke Miller decided, on no evidence whatsoever, that Trump had suddenly removed the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. Miller reported the scoop as breaking news — after all, it would confirm Trump’s alleged racism — before retracting the story.
None of these reactions will convince those in the swing states that they erred in voting for Donald Trump.
PROGNOSIS
In sum, the architects of Democratic-party reform are themselves the problem, not the solution. On key issues, they represent a minority opinion, one confined to the entertainment industry, academia, race/class/gender elite activists, and the wealthy scions of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Wall Street. In addition, minority activists themselves do not get out in the heartland and mistakenly believe that the demeanor, mindset, and, yes, guilt of white urban liberal elites in their midst characterize the white working and middle classes in general. And they mistakenly assume they themselves cannot be out-of-touch elites, given their ethnic and racial heritage, when in fact many most certainly are. Do Eric Holder and Colin Kaepernick know more about poverty and hardship than a West Virginian miner or an out-of-work fabricator in southern Ohio? Does an affluent Van Jones visit depressed rural Michigan to lecture out-of-work plant workers and welders about their endemic white privilege?
The current Democratic reset plan certainly does not resemble the 1976 strategy of nominating a governor from the South in order to avoid another 1972 McGovern catastrophe; nor does it share the 1992 wisdom of nominating Bill Clinton to fend off a second Dukakis disaster.
For now, the Democratic-party strategists are doubling down on boutique environmentalism and race/gender victimhood, while hoping that Donald Trump implodes in scandal, war, or depression. They are clueless that their present rabid frenzy is doing as much political damage to their cause as is the object of their outrage.
Voir encore:
Mourad B. était très gentil : il a juste tué son docteur de 48 coups de couteau
Paul Le Poulpe
Riposte laïque
3 février 2017
Notre pays a encore bénéficié, ces dernières heurs, des atouts de la diversité et de l’apport des disciples d’Allah.
Ce matin, à 10 heures, un musulman, armé d’une machette, a attaqué, près du Louvre, une patrouille de soldats, aux cris d’Allah akbar. Abdallah E-H, selon les premières informations, aurait 29 ans, serait égyptien, et travaillerait à Dubaï. Remarquons que si on appliquait le décret Trump en France, en l’élargissant, sans doute ce sympathique touriste n’aurait-il jamais mis les pieds en France, ni n’aurait blessé un militaire avec sa machette. Francis Gruzelle, de manière très réactive, nous avait résumé l’événement.
Quelques heures avant, à Nogent-le-Rotrou, le docteur Rousseaux n’a pas eu la chance des militaires. Ce médecin de 64 ans, apprécié par l’ensemble de ses patients, a été sauvagement assassiné dans son cabinet par un homme de 42 ans, Mourad B. On ne sait pas pourquoi on n’a pas le droit d’avoir son nom de famille. Les conditions du meurtre sont abominables. 48 coups de couteau, rien de moins, sur l’ensemble du corps et au visage. Donc probablement à la gorge…
Qui est donc ce Mourad B ? Comme toujours quand l’assassin est musulman, personne ne comprend. Il était le plus gentil du quartier. Il causait avec tout le monde. Il faisait du vélo. Il interpellait tout le temps tout le monde, et il était jovial. Ah ! Petit détail, il avait viré d’un emploi de voisinage pour vol. Mais on ne va pas salir une image aussi séduisante du musulman modéré, de l’homme de paix, de la chance pour la France. Bref, comme d’habitude, personne ne comprend.
Donc, il va avoir eu une crise de « déséquilibré », et on s’attend à entendre le procureur Tarrare du coin nous faire le coup d’une crise inexplicable, même si l’individu, arrêté aux Mureaux, a agressé le personnel soignant à Limay.
En attendant, ce fait divers, que les autorités vont tout faire pour occulter, et nous raconter qu’il n’a rien à voir avec l’islam, pose un ensemble de questions politiques que nous n’allons pas occulter.
Nous avons en France dix millions de musulmans. Si un Mourad B, ou bien un Abdallah E-H, qui ne sont pas recensés par les autorités françaises comme particulièrement dangereux, peuvent massacrer un paisible médecin pour l’un, et attaquer à la machette des militaires pour l’autre, faut-il d’abord continuer à faire entrer des musulmans en France, ou bien leur fermer la frontière ? Donald Trump a partiellement répondu à la question, en interdisant, pour trois mois, l’entrée de son pays à sept nationalités.
Toute la caste politico-médiatique pleurniche, mais la cote du nouveau président des Etats-Unis n’a jamais été aussi haute.
Supposons que Marine Le Pen ou Nicolas Dupont-Aignan annoncent qu’ils arrêteront les visas des pays musulmans, Algérie, Tunisie et Maroc d’abord, quelles seraient les réactions en France ? Je leur pronostique un bond spectaculaire dans les sondages.
Au-delà de cela, peut-on garder en France des gens qui se réclament musulmans, dont adeptes de l’islam ? Notre ami Maxime Lepante, pour avoir affirmé le contraire, est victime de deux plaintes du Parquet de Paris.
Pour éviter le génocide des Français, il faut expulser les musulmans !
Attentat à la hache dans un train allemand : musulmans dehors !
Et celui-ci, faisant d’une pierre deux coups, entend faire assumer la responsabilité de ces propos à Pierre Cassen, puisque, de manière obsessionnelle, des juges ont décidé que notre fondateur était toujours le vrai directeur de publication de Riposte Laïque. Ils vont même jusqu’à contredire des décisions de justice pour prouver cela, c’est dire pour eux l’importance de faire tomber notre fondateur.
Qu’est qu’un musulman ? C’est quelqu’un qui se réclame de l’islam. Qu’est-ce que l’islam ? C’est un dogme qui demande à ses disciples de tuer tous les mécréants, et de conquérir l’ensemble du monde. D’où parfois, et même souvent, dans leur comportement, quelques marques de « déséquilibres » comme l’explique si bien la psychiatre Wafa Sultan. Car enfin, ces agressions sauvages au couteau ne reviennent-elles pas trop souvent, de manière répétitive, pour qu’enfin des politiques commencent à se poser les bonnes questions… et surtout à amener les bonnes solutions pour protéger les Français.
Précisons que le fait d’être né musulman n’implique pas, fort heureusement, l’obligation de demeurer dans l’islam, et que nombre d’esprits libres (pas assez) parviennent à s’en émanciper, totalement ou partiellement. Mais dans ce cas, ils ne sont plus musulmans.
Conclusion : avoir écrit, comme Maxime, qu’il faut expulser tous les musulmans, est-ce une incitation à la haine, ou le plus élémentaire principe de précaution ?
En tout cas, si on avait suivi à la lettre les écrits de Maxime, le docteur Rousseaux serait encore vivant, et n’aurait pas connu de terribles derniers moments, à 64 ans, poignardé à 48 reprises dans les souffrances que l’on devine (combien de temps avant de mourir ?), avec la douleur de ses proches qu’on imagine.
Mais avec les gouvernants que nous avons, la seule question est : dans combien de temps Mourad B. sera-t-il remis en liberté, comme l’ont été le chauffard de Dijon et tant d’autres psychopathes musulmans « déséquilibrés » ?
Voir de plus:
Trump’s executive order is so modest that the foundation of it is essentially existing law. That law was passed unanimously by both bodies of Congress in 2002. In fact, it garnered the support of 16 Democrat senators and 57 Democrat House members who are still serving in their respective bodies!
Following 9/11, Congress passed the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, which addressed many of the insecurities in our visa tracking system. The bill passed the House and Senate unanimously. The bill was originally sponsored by a group of bipartisan senators, including Ted Kennedy and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. (F, 0%). Among other provisions, it restricted non-immigrant visas from countries designated as state sponsors of terror:
SEC. 306. RESTRICTION ON ISSUANCE OF VISAS TO NONIMMIGRANTS FROM COUNTRIES THAT ARE STATE SPONSORS OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM.
(a) IN GENERAL- No nonimmigrant visa under section 101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C.1101(a)(15)) shall be issued to any alien from a country that is a state sponsor of international terrorism unless the Secretary of State determines, in consultation with the Attorney General and the heads of other appropriate United States agencies, that such alien does not pose a threat to the safety or national security of the United States. In making a determination under this subsection, the Secretary of State shall apply standards developed by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General and the heads of other appropriate United States agencies, that are applicable to the nationals of such states.
The directive to cut off non-immigrant visas from countries designated as state sponsors of terror is still current law on the books [8 U.S. Code § 1735]. Presidents Bush and Obama later used their discretion to waive the ban, but Trump is actually following the letter of the law — the very law sponsored and passed by Democrats — more closely than Obama did. Trump used his 212(f) authority to add immigrant visas, but that doesn’t take away the fact that every Democrat in the 2002 Senate supported the banning of non-immigrant visas.
Given that Trump has backed down on green card holders, his executive order on “Muslim countries” is essentially current law, albeit only guaranteed for 90 days!
At present, only three of the countries — Sudan, Syria, and Iran — are designated as state sponsors by the State Department. At the time Democrats agreed to the ban in 2002, the State Department also included Libya and Iraq in that list. Although Libya and Iraq were on the list due to the presence of Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein as sponsors of terror, there is actually more of a reason to cut off visas now. Both are completely failed states with no reliable data to vet travelers. Both are more saturated with Islamist groups now than they were in 2002. The same goes for Yemen and Somalia. Neither country is a state sponsor of terror because neither has a functioning governments. They are terrorist havens.
Thus, the letter of the law already applies to three of the countries, and the spirit of the law applies to all of them. Plus, the State Department could add any new country to the list, thereby making any future suspension of visas from those specific countries covered under §1735, in addition to the broad general power (INA 212(f)) to shut off any form of immigration. Given that Trump has backed down on green card holders, his executive order on “Muslim countries” is essentially current law, albeit only guaranteed for 90 days!
Sixteen sitting Democrats, including their Minority Leader, voted for the 2002 bill [several of them were in the House at the time]:
In addition, such prominent Democrats as former Vice President Biden, former Secretary of State Clinton, former Secretary of State Kerry, and former Majority Leader Reid vote voted for the bill.
In the House, 57 sitting Democrats voted for the 2002 bill, including leadership members, such as Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. (F, 10%), Steny Hoyer, D-M.D. (F, 8%), and James Clyburn, D-S.C. (F, 8%).
If anything, the need to ratchet down immigration and visas from the Middle East is even more important now than after 9/11.
Dianne Feinstein has now introduced a bill to overturn Trump’s executive order, but her bill would also overturn, in part, the law on the books she herself sponsored and supported in 2002. In addition, a number of Republicans who are whining about the order, such as John McCain, R-Ariz. (F, 32%), voted for the 2002 bill.
The 2002 bill also established a program to monitor foreign students in the U.S. As part of that program, the Bush administration created the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), which required visa recipients from countries that represented a security risk (at least 25 countries fell into that category) to register with an ICE office and report regularly about their plans. Unfortunately, Obama’s DHS abolished the program in May 2011. Now, there are twice as many foreign students in the United States, including well over 150,000 from the very countries originally monitored by the Bush administration’s program.
If anything, the need to ratchet down immigration and visas from the Middle East is even more important now than after 9/11. Back then we were concerned with Al Qaeda-style, command-and-control attacks whereby professional operators infiltrate our country in order to commit a large-scale terror attack. Theoretically, strong intelligence can preempt these attacks. What we are dealing with today is a ubiquitous threat of homegrown terror from years’ worth of irresponsible immigration policies, in conjunction with cyber jihad. Any number of people from these countries who subscribe to Sharia can do us harm with smaller attacks that cannot be picked up by the intelligence community.
Yet, many Republicans are now to the left of even where Democrats were just 15 years ago. As for Democrats, any shred of intellectual honesty and concern for American security has been compromised to serve their ultimate goal of creating a permanent voting bloc at any and all costs.
Voir enfin:
Terrorisme : « L’opération Sentinelle est un trompe-l’œil »
Pointée du doigt par la commission d’enquête parlementaire, l’opération de déploiement militaire a montré ses limites lors des attentats. L’historienne Bénédicte Chéron dénonce son inefficacité.
L’Obs
06 juillet 2016
Créée au lendemain des attentats de janvier 2015, l’opération Sentinelle vise à déployer massivement des militaires sur le sol français pour prévenir les actes de terrorisme. La commission d’enquête parlementaire sur les attentats de 2015 en France, dite commission Fenech, a pointé dans son rapport, rendu public mardi 5 juillet, l’inefficacité de ce dispositif dans le cadre des attentats du 13 novembre.
« Les policiers de la BAC, arrivés les premiers, voulaient au moins que les militaires de l’opération Sentinelle, arrivés sur place, leur prêtent leurs fusils d’assaut Famas, puisque les militaires n’avaient pas le droit de tirer. Et ils ont essuyé un refus ! » fulmine le député Les républicains Georges Fenech, président de la commission d’enquête.
L’opération Sentinelle est-elle une coquille vide ou a-t-elle un rôle à jouer dans la lutte contre le terrorisme en France ? Pour l’historienne Bénédicte Chéron, chercheuse à l’Irice (Identités, Relations internationales et civilisations de l’Europe) – Paris-Sorbonne, ces troupes peuvent « jouer un rôle préventif » mais doivent « être repensées » en vue d’intégrer « davantage de souplesse ».
En quoi consiste l’opération Sentinelle ?
– L’opération Sentinelle a mis en place d’importants moyens humains depuis janvier 2015 pour lutter contre le terrorisme. L’armée participait certes déjà au plan Vigipirate depuis 25 ans mais il ne s’agissait pas d’une opération à part entière. Avec Sentinelle, 10.000 soldats sont déployés dans toute la France. Leur mission, sous l’autorité du ministère de l’Intérieur, est d’assurer une présence continue sur le territoire, en particulier aux abords des lieux sensibles : lieux de culte, sites touristiques, zones d’événements sportifs…
Pourquoi ce dispositif est-il jugé inefficace par la commission Fenech ?
– Les attentats du 13 novembre n’ont pu être évités malgré l’existence de cette opération. La portée dissuasive de l’opération Sentinelle n’était pas à la hauteur des attentes, puisque des militaires se trouvaient non loin du Bataclan et des terrasses et n’ont rien pu faire [à lire à ce sujet : l’enquête de « l’Obs »].
Pourquoi ces patrouilles n’ont-elles pas pu intervenir ?
– Elles souhaitaient engager le feu mais on leur a donné l’ordre de ne pas faire usage de leurs armes. L’action des militaires est extrêmement réduite et leur chaîne de commandement est très complexe.
Faut-il en conclure que l’opération Sentinelle est inutile ?
– Rien ne prouve aujourd’hui que la présence d’une patrouille Sentinelle a permis d’éviter un attentat. Il y a bien eu au départ un rôle psychologique : voir des militaires en kaki partout, dans les rues, dans les transports, rassure la population car la menace est bien réelle.
93% des Français font confiance à l’armée pour lutter contre le terrorisme, tandis que l’antimilitarisme n’est que résiduel en France : il tourne autour de 10%. Mais on peut aussi ajouter qu’en décembre 2015, si 70% des Français approuvaient l’opération Sentinelle, ils n’étaient que 50% à la juger efficace, selon un sondage Ifop pour le ministère de la Défense.
Il y a également une part importante de communication politique. Les militaires bénéficient d’une bonne image dans l’opinion publique, le gouvernement joue donc cette carte.
L’opération Sentinelle fonctionne en réalité selon le principe du trompe-l’œil : elle diffuse une image de puissance dans les rues mais on ne peut que constater son impuissance effective.
N’y a-t-il pas néanmoins des situations au cours desquelles ces patrouilles se sont illustrées ?
– Les militaires de Sentinelle ne sont en tout cas pas mis en avant dans le cadre de ce qui devrait être le coeur de leur action : la lutte contre le terrorisme. Un militaire, c’est fait pour faire la guerre. Les militaires de Sentinelle endossent davantage le rôle d’auxiliaires de police de proximité. par leurs présence dans les transports et dans les rues.
Une étude réalisée par Elie Tenenbaum, chercheur à l’Institut français des relations internationales (Ifri), souligne que les patrouilles Sentinelle d’Ile-de-France ont été victimes de 1.300 « actions contre la force » entre janvier et septembre 2015, dont 70% d’actes malveillants. Parmi les auteurs de ces violences, certains étaient peut-être des fanatiques, mais ça, rien ne permet de l’affirmer…Et il est évidemment compliqué de faire le tri parmi les personnes qui ont commis ces actes.
Cette mobilisation de tous les instants est usante pour les soldats…
– Comme l’a récemment rappelé le général Sainte-Claire Deville, commandant des forces terrestres, avant 2015, les militaires passaient 5% de leur temps en opération intérieure (principalement dans le cadre du plan Vigipirate) et 15% en opération extérieure. Le reste du temps, ils s’entrainaient et se reposaient. Depuis le début de Sentinelle, ils sont mobilisés 50% de leur temps en opération intérieure et 15% en opération intérieure. Leurs temps de repos et de formation sont donc considérablement entamés. Des troupes fatiguées et peu entraînées sont sans aucun doute bien moins efficaces.
Comment expliquer que les militaires soient autant sollicités ?
– C’est d’abord une question pratique et économique. Les militaires sont rapidement mobilisables, efficaces, fiables. Si l’on raisonne à court terme il est également moins onéreux de les utiliser massivement que de recruter et mobiliser à niveau équivalent les forces de l’ordre.
Faut-il supprimer ce dispositif ou peut-on l’améliorer ?
– De plus en plus de spécialistes, comme Michel Goya [spécialiste des armées, NDLR], plaident pour sa suppression ou, tout du moins, pour un réaménagement drastique, qui permettrait de mobiliser un nombre beaucoup plus faible de militaires, dans des dispositifs plus souples et moins statiques. Mais l’opération Sentinelle ne peut de toute façon pas être pensée isolément : la question de la lutte contre le terrorisme est surtout celle des services de renseignement et de police.
Propos recueillis par Maïté Hellio, le 5 juillet 2016
Voir par ailleurs:
Obama Era Precedents Haunt Media
Noah Rothman
Commentary
Jan. 25, 2017
As John Podhoretz wrote, these are days of promise and opportunity for America’s political media professionals. So far, they’re squandering their shot. By indulging in ill-considered hysteria and posturing before like-minded colleagues, they sacrifice the credibility they’ll need to expose President Donald Trump’s mendacities. To repair some of the strained bonds between audience and journalist, media professionals must display some restraint when reacting to the latest alleged assault on freedom and decency. That is most easily achieved by recognizing that many of the unprecedented developments of the Trump era aren’t unprecedented at all.
On Tuesday evening, the President of the United States applauded the Fox News Channel “for being number one in inauguration ratings.” In issuing this congratulatory note, he also attacked CNN for being “fake news.” A predictable series of horrified and disappointed reactions from media professionals followed. Notable among them was that of CNN media reporter Dylan Byers: “The President of the United States wants you to watch one news organization and not another…” While Trump’s behavior hardly befits an American president, he is also crudely mirroring the Obama administration, which spent its first year in office seeking to discredit Fox News as a respectable media outlet.
The Obama administration was calling Fox “fake news” before “fake news” was a phenomenon. In October of 2009, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN that Fox was “not a news organization.” White House Communications Director Anita Dunn echoed Emanuel, saying that Fox “operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” “When we see a pattern of distortion, we’re going to be honest about that pattern of distortion,” said senior advisor to the president, Valerie Jarrett, when asked to defend the White House’s campaign against Fox.
Obama was still prosecuting the case against Fox nearly a year after the White House and the cable news network supposedly buried the hatchet. Just days before the 2010 midterm elections, Obama told Rolling Stone that Fox was cast in the mold of Hearst-era yellow journalism, and it pushes a point of view. “It’s a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country,” Obama said.
When the administration allegedly tried to exclude Fox in a round of interviews with “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg in 2009, it inspired other networks to rally to Fox’s side. They did so not only out of professional courtesy but fear the future such a precedent might yield.
Fox News was not discredited by the president’s efforts. Arguably, the campaign had the opposite of its intended effect. There is a cautionary tale here for those cheering on Trump’s attacks on the press, but also one for media professionals who seem to have forgotten the last decade.
This isn’t the only recent development that has sent reporters into paroxysms of trepidation over this sacrifice of presidential dignity. Indicative of this administration’s obsessive fixation with its media coverage, the White House press office released on Wednesday a press release summing up the positive coverage it has received.
“Don’t recall ever seeing a WH do this,” remarked Huffington Post White House reporter Christina Wilkie. “Some might call it Propaganda,” NBC News’ Katy Tur averred. “I didn’t totally expect the 1984-esque dystopian future to be so soon, but life comes at ya fast,” snarked the Center for American Progress’s economist Katie Bahn. But this, too, is not an unparalleled abuse of the public trust; at least, not for those who remember how the Obama administration sold the public on the Iran nuclear accords in 2015.
The Obama administration’s “blog” content (now maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration), which includes former Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s “Regional Roundup: What America’s Newspapers are Saying About the Iran Deal.” The blog consisted entirely of favorable headlines from around the country reciting verbatim (and false) administration claims about the nuclear accord. “The Iran Deal” even had its own Twitter account which disseminated not only favorable press mentions but also crafted insipid pop culture memes to get the millennial generation jazzed about nuclear non-proliferation. Imagine the anxiety among journalists when the Trump White House mirrors this tactic.
John Podhoretz’s admonition is particularly relevant because so many of these Obama-era precedents did not get the left’s “creeping fascism” sense tingling at the time. To rend garments over these actions now only because the Trump White House is undertaking them is not just unwise; it’s insulting.
The heretical views of Trump’s ambassador to Israel recommend him for the job.
Jan. 9, 2017
Diplomats from some 70 countries will assemble in Paris on Sunday for another Mideast conference, intended to preserve the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. The timing is not accidental: With five days to go in the Obama administration, there are whispers that the conference may lead to another U.N. Security Council resolution, this time setting out parameters for an eventual Palestinian state.
The question is: For what?
Climate change aside, the cause of Palestinian statehood is the central obsession of contemporary global politics. It’s also its least examined assumption.
Would a Palestinian state serve the cause of Mideast peace? This used to be conventional wisdom, on the theory that a Palestinian state would lead to peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, easing the military burdens on the former and encouraging the latter to address their internal discontents.
Today the proposition is ridiculous. No deal between Jerusalem and Ramallah is going to lift the sights of those now fighting in Syria, Iraq or Yemen. Nor will a deal reconcile Tehran and its terrorist proxies in Lebanon and Gaza to the existence of a Jewish state. As for the rest of the neighborhood, Israel has diplomatic relations with Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, and has reached pragmatic accommodations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
What about the interests of Palestinians? Aren’t they entitled to a state?
Maybe. But are they more entitled to one than the Assamese, Basques, Baloch, Corsicans, Druze, Flemish, Kashmiris, Kurds, Moros, Native Hawaiians, Northern Cypriots, Rohingya, Tibetans, Uyghurs or West Papuans—all of whom have distinct national identities, legitimate historical grievances and plausible claims to statehood?
If so, what gives Palestinians the preferential claim? Have they waited longer than the Kurds? No: Kurdish national claims stretch for centuries, not decades. Have they experienced greater violations to their culture than Tibetans? No: Beijing has conducted a systematic policy of repression for 67 years, whereas Palestinians are nothing if not vocal in mosques, universities and the media. Have they been persecuted more harshly than the Rohingya? Not even close.
Set the comparisons aside. Would a Palestinian state be good for Palestinian people?
That’s a more subjective judgment. But a telling figure came in a June 2015 poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, which found that a majority of Arab residents in East Jerusalem would rather live as citizens with equal rights in Israel than in a Palestinian state. No doubt part of this owes to a desire to be connected to Israel’s thriving economy.
But it’s also a function of politics. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas just entered the 13th year of his four-year term. Fatah rules the West Bank through corruption; Hamas rules Gaza through fear. Humanitarian aid is routinely diverted for terrorist purposes: One terror tunnel stretching from Gaza to Israel consumed an estimated 800 tons of concrete and cost $10 million to build. Every three years or so, Hamas starts firing missiles at Israel, and hundreds of Palestinian civilians get killed in the crossfire. How does any of this augur well for what a future Palestinian state might bring?
But isn’t a Palestinian state a necessity for Israel? Can it maintain its Jewish and democratic character without separating itself from the millions of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River?
In theory, yes. In theory, Israel would be well-served living alongside a sovereign Palestinian state that lived in peace with its neighbors, improved the welfare and respected the rights of its people, rejected extremism and maintained a monopoly on the use of force. In theory, Palestine could be the next Costa Rica: small but beautiful.
But Israelis don’t live in theory. They live in a world where mistakes are mortal. In 2000 and 2007 Israeli prime ministers made good-faith offers of Palestinian statehood. They were met on both occasions with rejection, then violence. In 2005 Israel vacated the Gaza Strip. It became an enclave of terror. On Sunday, four young Israelis were run over in yet another terror attack. The ideal of a Jewish and faultlessly democratic state is a noble one. Not at the risk of the existence of the state itself.
The Paris conference takes place on the eve of a new administration that’s indifferent to prevailing orthodoxies regarding the Palestinians. David Friedman,Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel, is unequivocal in his support for the Jewish state, determined to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, unscandalized by settlements and unmoved by suggestions that Israel’s safety requires the empowerment of her enemies. These heresies alone recommend him for the job.
Meanwhile, anyone genuinely concerned with the future of the Palestinians might urge them to elect better leaders, improve their institutions, and stop giving out sweets to celebrate the murder of their neighbors.
Voir enfin:
The Taming of Trump
Nouriel Roubini
Project Syndicate
Nov 11, 2016NEW YORK – Now that Donald Trump has unexpectedly won the US presidency, it is an open question whether he will govern in accordance with his campaign’s radical populism, or adopt a pragmatic, centrist approach.
If Trump governs in accordance with the campaign that got him elected, we can expect market scares in the United States and around the world, as well as potentially significant economic damage. But there is good reason to expect that he will govern very differently.
A radical populist Trump would scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), repeal the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and impose high tariffs on Chinese imports. He would also build his promised US-Mexico border wall; deport millions of undocumented workers; restrict H1B visas for the skilled workers needed in the tech sector; and fully repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which would leave millions of people without health insurance.
Overall, a radical Trump would significantly increase the US budget deficit. He would sharply reduce income taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. And while he would broaden the tax base, increase the carried-interest tax, and encourage companies to repatriate foreign profits, his plan would not be revenue-neutral. He would increase military and public-sector spending in areas such as infrastructure, and his tax cuts for the rich would reduce government revenue by $9 trillion over a decade.
A radical Trump would also drastically change the current monetary-policy approach – first by replacing US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen with a monetarist hawk, and then by filling current and upcoming Fed Board vacancies with more of the same. Moreover, he would repeal what he could of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms; gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; cut alternative-energy subsidies and environmental regulations; and slash any other regulations that supposedly hurt big business.
Finally, a radical Trump’s foreign policy would destabilize America’s alliances and escalate tensions with rivals. His protectionist stance could incite a global trade war, and his insistence that allies pay for their own defense could lead to dangerous nuclear proliferation, while diminishing American leadership on the world stage.
But it is actually more likely that Trump will pursue pragmatic, centrist policies. For starters, Trump is a businessman who relishes the “art of the deal,” so he is by definition more of a pragmatist than a blinkered ideologue. His choice to run as a populist was tactical, and does not necessarily reflect deep-seated beliefs.
Indeed, Trump is a wealthy real-estate mogul who has lived his entire life among other rich businessmen. He is a savvy marketer who tapped into the political zeitgeist by pandering to working-class Republicans and “Reagan Democrats,” some of whom may have supported Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. This allowed him to stand out in a crowded field of traditional pro-business, pro-Wall Street, and pro-globalization politicians.
Once in office, Trump will throw symbolic red meat to his supporters while reverting to the traditional supply-side, trickle-down economic policies that Republicans have favored for decades. Trump’s vice-presidential choice, Mike Pence, is an establishment GOP politician, and his campaign’s economic advisers were wealthy businessmen, financiers, real-estate developers, and supply-side economists. What’s more, he is reportedly already considering mainstream Republicans for his cabinet, including former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, and former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin (who also advised his campaign).
The traditional Republicans and business leaders Trump will likely appoint will then shape his policies. The executive branch adheres to a decision-making process whereby relevant departments and agencies determine the risks and rewards of given scenarios, and then furnish the president with a limited menu of policy options from which to choose. And, given Trump’s inexperience, he will be all the more dependent on his advisers, just as former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were.
Trump will also be pushed more to the center by Congress, with which he will have to work to pass any legislation. House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Republican leadership in the Senate have more mainstream GOP views than Trump on trade, migration, and budget deficits. Meanwhile, the Democratic minority in the Senate will be able to filibuster any radical reforms that Trump proposes, especially if they touch the third rail of American politics: Social Security and Medicare.
Trump will also be checked by the American political system’s separation of powers, relatively independent government agencies such as the Fed, and a free and vibrant press.
But the market itself will be Trump’s biggest constraint. If he tries to pursue radical populist policies, the response will be swift and punishing: stocks will plummet, the dollar will fall, investors will flee to US Treasury bonds, gold prices will spike, and so forth. If, however, Trump blends more benign populist policies with mainstream pro-business ones, he will not face a market fallout. Now that he has won the election, there is little reason for him to choose populism over safety.
The effects of a pragmatic Trump presidency would be far more limited than in the radical scenario. First, he would still ditch the TPP; but so would Hillary Clinton. He claimed that he would repeal NAFTA, but he will more likely try to tweak it as a nod to American blue-collar workers. And even if a pragmatic Trump wanted to limit imports from China, his options would be constrained by a recent World Trade Organization ruling against “targeted dumping” tariffs on Chinese goods. Outsider candidates often bash China during their election campaigns, but quickly realize once in office that cooperation is in their own interest.
Trump probably will build his wall on the Mexican border, even though fewer new immigrants are arriving than in the past. But he will likely crack down only on undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes, rather than trying to deport 5-10 million people. Meanwhile, he may still limit visas for high-skill workers, which would deplete some of the tech sector’s dynamism.
The Year Ahead 2017 Cover ImageA pragmatic Trump would still generate fiscal deficits, though smaller than in the radical scenario. If he follows the Congressional Republicans’ proposed tax plan, for example, revenue would be reduced only by $2 trillion over a decade.
To be sure, the policy mix under a pragmatic Trump administration would be ideologically inconsistent and moderately bad for growth. But it would be far more acceptable to investors – and the world – than the radical agenda he promised his voters.
jcdurbant 
Does the news cycle play into Trump’s notion of pulling the country back from the extreme to the center, or repudiate his efforts? So far, daily events, such as violence at the Louvre, the hysteria over the Gorsuch nomination, the latest Iranian missile launch, the Berkeley rioting, the second-look examination of Australia’s quite restrictionist immigration policy in comparison with the U.S., the latest celebrity outburst, etc. seem to amplify Trump’s message of a need for long overdue corrections.
VDH
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/444599/donald-trump-challenges-economy-foreign-affairs
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Donald Trump, éreinté par les prêcheurs d’amour, en devient estimable. La gauche morale, qui refuse de se dire vaincue, dévoile l’intolérance qu’elle dissimulait du temps de sa domination. Cette semaine, les manifestations anti-Trump se succèdent à Washington, où le président prête serment ce vendredi. La presse ne cache rien de la répulsion que lui inspire celui qui a gagné en lui tournant le dos. Les artistes de variétés se glorifient de ne vouloir chanter pour lui. Des stylistes de mode font savoir qu’ils n’habilleront pas la First Lady, Melania. Des peintres demandent à Ivanka, la fille, de décrocher leurs œuvres de son appartement. Au pays de la démocratie, le choix du peuple et des grands électeurs est refusé par une caste convaincue de sa supériorité. (…) Le sectarisme des prétendus bienveillants montre leur pharisaïsme. Les masques n’ont pas fini de tomber.
C’est un monde ancien qu’enterre Trump à la Maison-Blanche : celui des bons sentiments étalés et des larmes furtives, alibis des lâchetés. La vulgarité du cow-boy mégalomane et son expression brutale ne suffisent pas à le disqualifier. D’autant que ses procureurs se ridiculisent. Le mondialiste George Soros, qui avait parié sur la frayeur des marchés, aurait perdu près d’un milliard de dollars. En quelques tweets, Trump a obtenu que Ford annule un projet d’usine au Mexique au profit d’un investissement dans le Michigan. Fiat-Chrystler va également rapatrier une production de véhicules. General Motors promet d’investir un milliard de dollars. Carrier (climatiseurs) va sauver 1 000 postes. Amazon annonce 100 000 emplois et Walmart 10 000. L’effet Trump s’est déjà mis en branle. L’éléphant va casser de la porcelaine. Mais la révolution des œillères, ôtées grâce à lui, est à ce prix. Il va être difficile, pour les orphelins de l’obamania et les pandores du bien-pensisme, de faire barrage à l’insurrection populaire qui s’exprime, faute de mieux, derrière ce personnage instinctif.
Ivan Rioufol
http://blog.lefigaro.fr/rioufol/2017/01/bloc-notes-leffet-trump-ou-la-.html
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VDH confirme et signe:
Donald Trump was not my favorite in the primaries; but once he was likely to win the nomination (April 2016), I simply went to his website and collated his positions with Hillary Clinton’s on sanctuary cities, illegal immigration, defense, foreign policy, taxes, regulation, energy development, the EPA, the 2nd Amendment, the wall, school choice, and a host of other issues. The comparison supported my suspicions that he was more conservative and would not lose the Supreme Court for a generation to progressive massaging of the law, which was inevitable under Hillary Clinton. I think his appointments, Supreme Court pick, and executive orders have supported that belief that he is far more conservative than Hillary Clinton’s agendas.
Oh, I came to another conclusion: I initially thought Trump might be the only nominee who would lose to Hillary Clinton; soon, however, I began to believe that he might be the only one who could beat her, given he was the first Republican to campaign in the Lee Atwater-style of 1988 and actually fought back against the WikiLeaks nexus of the media and Democratic Party.
As for his sometimes reckless tweets and outbursts, I calibrated three variables:
1) Were they any different from past presidents’? In fact, they were—but not to a degree that I thought his behavior endangered the republic. For all his antics at rallies, he did not yet say “punish our enemies” or urge his supporters to take a gun to a knife fight or to get in “their faces.” His silliness was similar to Joe Biden’s (“put you all in chains,” or his belief that FDR went on TV to the nation in 1929).
Yes, I wish Trump was more sober and judicious, but then again we have had very unsober presidents and vice presidents in the past (LBJ showed the nation his surgery scars and reportedly exposed himself during a meeting). FDR carried on an affair while president. No need to mention JFK’s nocturnal romps. So far Trump is not using the Oval Office bathroom for trysts with subordinate interns. Much of Trump’s oafishness is media created and reflects a bit of class disdain. We all need, however, to watch every president and call out crudity when it occurs. (I am still not happy with the strained explanations of his jerky movements as not an affront to a disabled person.)
2) Did the media play a role in the demonization of Trump? I think it did. In the last few weeks we were told falsely that his lawyer went to Prague to cut a deal with the Russians, that he removed the bust of Martin Luther King from the Oval Office, and that he engaged in sexual debaucheries in Moscow—all absolutely not true. Who would trust the media after all that?
So much of the hysteria is driven by a furious media that was not so furious when Obama signed executive orders circumventing the law or the Clintons ran a veritable shake-down operation (where is it now?) at the Clinton Foundation. Not wanting to take refugees from Australia that had sent back to sea arriving migrants and had them deposited them in camps in nearby islands is not exactly an extreme position (by liberal standards, Australia is the illiberal actor, not Trump).
3) Do Trump’s episodic outbursts threaten his agendas? I don’t know, but the media will ensure that they will, if he is not more circumspect. So far he is by design creating chaos and has befuddled his opponents, but I think in the long run he must limit his exposure to gratuitous attacks by curbing his tweets—and I have written just that in the past. Trump’s agenda is fine; his pushback against an unhinged Left and biased media is healthy, but he must economize his outbursts given that the strategy of his opponents is to nick him daily in hopes of an aggregate bleed. We have four more years and he needs to conserve his strength and stamina and not get sidelined with spats with Merle Streep or Arnold at the Apprentice.
Remember, Obama was the revolution that sought to remake the country; the reaction to it is pushing the country back to the center—which appears now revolutionary. Trump’s stances on energy development, immigration, and foreign policy are not that much different from Bill Clinton’s or George H.W. Bush’s. They seem revolutionary because again he is correcting a revolution. Who had ever dreamed in 1995 of a sanctuary city, emulating the nullification policies of the Old Confederacy?
http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/9800-2/#more-9800
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Qu’est-il arrivé à Bret Stephens ?
Lui qui était si bon sous Hussein semble, sauf exception, s’être complètement perdu dans les sables de sa haine de Trump …
Quand par exemple lorsqu’il feint de confondre, pour mieux cogner sur sa nouvelle phobie, régulation et fin de l’immigration aux EU ?
A decade ago, America’s fertility rate, at 2.12 children for every woman, was just above the replacement rate. That meant there could be modest population growth without immigration. But the fertility rate has since fallen: It’s now below replacement and at an all-time low. Without immigration, our demographic destiny would become Japanese. But our culture wouldn’t, leaving us with the worst of both worlds: economic stagnation without social stability. Multiethnic America would tear itself to pieces fighting over redistribution rights to the shrinking national pie. This doesn’t have to be our fate. Though it may be news to Mr. King, immigrants aren’t a threat to American civilization. They are our civilization—bearers of a forward-looking notion of identity based on what people wish to become, not who they once were. Among those immigrants are 30% of all American Nobel Prize winners and the founders of 90 of our Fortune 500 companies—a figure that more than doubles when you include companies founded by the children of immigrants. If immigration means change, it forces dynamism. America is literally unimaginable without it. Every virtue has its defect and vice versa. The Japanese are in the process of discovering that the social values that once helped launch their development—loyalty, self-sacrifice, harmony—now inhibit it. Americans may need reminding that the culture of openness about which conservatives so often complain is our abiding strength. Openness to different ideas, foreign goods and new people. And their babies—who, whatever else Mr. King might think, are also made in God’s image.
Bret Stephens
Pour l’exception, quelle meilleure défense du choix de Trump pour le poste d’ambassadeur en Israël ?
Climate change aside, the cause of Palestinian statehood is the central obsession of contemporary global politics. It’s also its least examined assumption. Would a Palestinian state serve the cause of Mideast peace? This used to be conventional wisdom, on the theory that a Palestinian state would lead to peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, easing the military burdens on the former and encouraging the latter to address their internal discontents. Today the proposition is ridiculous. No deal between Jerusalem and Ramallah is going to lift the sights of those now fighting in Syria, Iraq or Yemen. Nor will a deal reconcile Tehran and its terrorist proxies in Lebanon and Gaza to the existence of a Jewish state. As for the rest of the neighborhood, Israel has diplomatic relations with Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, and has reached pragmatic accommodations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. What about the interests of Palestinians? Aren’t they entitled to a state? Maybe. But are they more entitled to one than the Assamese, Basques, Baloch, Corsicans, Druze, Flemish, Kashmiris, Kurds, Moros, Native Hawaiians, Northern Cypriots, Rohingya, Tibetans, Uyghurs or West Papuans—all of whom have distinct national identities, legitimate historical grievances and plausible claims to statehood? If so, what gives Palestinians the preferential claim? Have they waited longer than the Kurds? No: Kurdish national claims stretch for centuries, not decades. Have they experienced greater violations to their culture than Tibetans? No: Beijing has conducted a systematic policy of repression for 67 years, whereas Palestinians are nothing if not vocal in mosques, universities and the media. Have they been persecuted more harshly than the Rohingya? Not even close. Set the comparisons aside. Would a Palestinian state be good for Palestinian people? That’s a more subjective judgment. But a telling figure came in a June 2015 poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, which found that a majority of Arab residents in East Jerusalem would rather live as citizens with equal rights in Israel than in a Palestinian state. No doubt part of this owes to a desire to be connected to Israel’s thriving economy. But it’s also a function of politics. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas just entered the 13th year of his four-year term. Fatah rules the West Bank through corruption; Hamas rules Gaza through fear. Humanitarian aid is routinely diverted for terrorist purposes: One terror tunnel stretching from Gaza to Israel consumed an estimated 800 tons of concrete and cost $10 million to build. Every three years or so, Hamas starts firing missiles at Israel, and hundreds of Palestinian civilians get killed in the crossfire. How does any of this augur well for what a future Palestinian state might bring? But isn’t a Palestinian state a necessity for Israel? Can it maintain its Jewish and democratic character without separating itself from the millions of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River? (…) In theory, Palestine could be the next Costa Rica: small but beautiful. But Israelis don’t live in theory. They live in a world where mistakes are mortal. In 2000 and 2007 Israeli prime ministers made good-faith offers of Palestinian statehood. They were met on both occasions with rejection, then violence. In 2005 Israel vacated the Gaza Strip. It became an enclave of terror. (…) The ideal of a Jewish and faultlessly democratic state is a noble one. Not at the risk of the existence of the state itself. The Paris conference takes place on the eve of a new administration that’s indifferent to prevailing orthodoxies regarding the Palestinians. David Friedman, Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel, is unequivocal in his support for the Jewish state, determined to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, unscandalized by settlements and unmoved by suggestions that Israel’s safety requires the empowerment of her enemies. These heresies alone recommend him for the job. Meanwhile, anyone genuinely concerned with the future of the Palestinians might urge them to elect better leaders, improve their institutions, and stop giving out sweets to celebrate the murder of their neighbors.
Bret Stephens
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Merci qui ? (Pourquoi il faut voter Fillon)
Crise économique, explosion de la dette, multiplication des Tanguy, banalisation du divorce, de l’avortement et du mariage homo, dévalorisation des mâles et de la religion …
Et chute record de la natalité aux EU:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-10/baby-bust-us-fertility-rate-unexpectedly-drops-lowest-record
Et les mêmes causes produisant les mêmes effets, en France:
Depuis plusieurs années, l’Unaf met en avant les atteintes à la politique familiale. Et ce, dans une réflexion transpartisane. « La baisse du quotient familial et la réduction du congé parental depuis le 1er janvier 2015 » sont les principales mesures dénoncées. « Les familles s’interrogent. La confiance est perdue », poursuit Marie-Andrée Blanc en brandissant un chiffre clé : d’après une enquête de 2013, le désir d’enfant des Français est de 2,37 enfants par famille. Il est donc bien plus important que le nombre effectif d’enfants.
Cet écart peut s’expliquer par la situation économique des ménages en temps de crise. Avoir plusieurs enfants demande généralement une stabilité concernant le logement, l’emploi, les revenus. Le pouvoir d’achat des familles n’étant pas extensible, le choix d’une deuxième naissance serait de moins en moins évident. « C’est inquiétant car un pays avec des enfants est un pays qui consomme et finance ses retraites. »
L’argument économique est également validé par le démographe. Même s’il le nuance légèrement. « On sait qu’en période de croissance du chômage, il y a moins de naissances, note Laurent Toulemon. Mais je ne crois pas que l’affaiblissement de la politique familiale puisse avoir un impact. On n’a pas encore de données précises. » Le chercheur pense notamment à la récente restriction d’allocations pour les familles aisées (+ de 6.000 euros de revenus).
Il valide en revanche une autre piste liée à la baisse du nombre de mariages depuis 1970. «Les couples mariés ont plus d’enfants que les autres. Et quand les couples mariés font peu d’enfants, la fécondité baisse.» Enfin à moyen terme, le déficit de naissances peut s’expliquer par la baisse du nombre de couples en âge d’avoir des enfants. La deuxième vague du baby-boom ayant déjà eu des enfants, il faudra peut-être attendre que la troisième génération se fasse appeler papa et maman …
http://www.20minutes.fr/societe/1770515-20160121-baisse-natalite-pourquoi-francais-font-moins-enfants
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IMMORAL, EXPENSIVE, UNWISE (Arizona ranchers said border crossings by illegal aliens have decreased 90% to 95% since Donald Trump took office)
“All the communities that I know about, all the cities along the border, already have high fences. Where the wall is necessary is in a lot of the outlying areas that still only have a four-wire barbed-wire fence between Mexico and us.”
John Ladd
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/border-rancher-illegal-crossings-90-since-trump-became-president/
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ATTENTION: UN EXTREMISME PEUT EN CACHER UN AUTRE ! (Lorsqu’on en reviendra à dire que MLP est centre-droit on comprendra sans doute mieux la pensée de la multitude déstabilisée face à celle de l’élite déracinée)
ce n’est pas seulement en revenant à un chômage minimum qu’on résoudra le malaise français. Il y a aussi des questions culturelles (« d’identité », de « vivre-ensemble », de « collectif », appelons-les comme on veut) qui se posent avec acuité. Malheureusement, elles sont souvent écartées d’un revers de la main dans le débat public, ce qui interdit à la fois d’y réfléchir et d’y répondre. (…) L’une des clés d’analyse, mais surement pas la seule, est qu’une partie de la population occidentale – pas seulement française ! – a l’impression que sa vie lui échappe, qu’elle ne contrôle plus rien, qu’elle subit ; et qu’à l’inverse, une autre partie profite pleinement et de manière injuste du monde et de ses opportunités. D’une certaine manière, la colère contre les inégalités (d’un Occupy Wall Street, Podemos et France Insoumise) rejoint le malaise identitaire (exprimé par Donald Trump ou le Front national) : l’un et l’autre expriment une demande d’unité, de cohésion identitaire et/ou sociale. Le test de l' »insécurité sociale » est simple: voir si on appelle extrêmes la tradition. Sans jugement de valeur. Dire que la société doit s’ordonner librement autour/pour des personnes françaises, nées d’un père et d’une mère également considérés et mariés, et justement rémunérées pour le travail que doit leur ménager fraternellement la société est en général la définition du centrisme. C’est aujourd’hui ce qui est qualifié d’extrême, laissant au « nouveau centre » la source de l’insécurité sociale. Lorsqu’on en reviendra à dire que MLP est centre-droit et Mélanchon centre-gauche on comprendra sans doute mieux la pensée de la multitude déstabilisée face à celle de l’élite déracinée.. Cette impression d’abandon est cruciale et motive une demande de reconnaissance multiple : les citoyens concernés veulent « simplement » qu’on admette que leur mode de vie est aussi valable que les autres, que leur attachement à certaines traditions n’est pas méprisable, que leur vision du travail, notamment industriel, n’est pas une ineptie. Or, tout un discours politique décrit un sens unique du progrès intellectuel et moral, et désigne comme des arriérés voire des coupables ceux qui, pour une raison ou une autre, y résistent.
Erwan Le Noan
A Denain, le taux de pauvreté et le taux de recours aux minima sociaux est le plus important de France. Dans cet ensemble, certains critères structurants sont forts. Il y a, par exemple, en France, une distinction forte entre la France installée sur une ligne TGV et la France installée sur une ligne classique, voire la France des gares qui ferment. Ce critère-là est symbolique mais puissant.
Les Républicains américains se sont rangés finalement derrière Donald Trump parce qu’ils n’avaient pas le choix : ils se sont faits dépasser par lui et parce qu’ils n’ont pas su maitriser le mouvement du Tea Party qui a pris une influence grandissante au sein du GOP. La comparaison ne peut cependant pas être parfaite : il y a des différences importantes entre Donald Trump (et le Tea Party) et le Front national de Madame Le Pen, à commencer par l’économie : le premier défend un programme plutôt « poujadiste » (si le qualificatif peut s’employer pour les Etats-Unis) alors que le second a adopté des positions très ancrées à gauche.
En France, le sujet de l’insécurité culturelle semble avoir été au cœur des débats politiques des dernières années et il n’a pas été porté de manière unique par le Front national : on peut considérer que les débats sur l’ « identité nationale », à l’époque du président Sarkozy, était une manière d’aborder le sujet ; ou que Manuel Valls avait aussi essayé d’en parler. La campagne présidentielle n’en a pas réellement parlé, mais cela est vrai de tous les autres sujets : ce sont les affaires qui ont dominé
le soutien du Parti Républicain aux Etats-Unis apporté à Trump fut très fluctuant et parfois même très limite. Si l’on fait le compte des dirigeants républicains qui ont attaqué Trump, y compris dans la dernière ligne droite de l’élection, on peut fortement tempérer votre propos. Pour des raisons historiques, les Etats-Unis ont vraiment du mal à sortir du bipartisme, de telle sorte que l’aile équivalente au Front National est de fait intégrée au parti républicain. Mais cette intégration ne signifie pas que la coexistence est tous les jours pacifique. Bien au contraire. Sur ce point, le Front National pourrait aussi considérer que la vie politique française lui offre la possibilité de mieux valoriser son approche et ses propositions, en concourant aux présidentielles sans frein, ou sans passe obligatoire par une primaire. Avec un peu d’efforts, il est d’ailleurs très probable que le Front National serait capable de récupérer une part substantielle des forces de droite.
Éric Verhaegh
http://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/election-donald-trump-responsable-vient-etre-demasquee-c-etait-insecurite-culturelle-mais-qu-en-est-en-france-et-non-on-ne-parle-3044967.html#GE6OaY7ILx8Agqxi.99
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WHO STARTED THE FIRE ? (Trump seems a revolutionary, but that is only because he is loudly undoing a revolution)
Social movements are critical agents of change that vary greatly in both tactics and popular support. Prior work shows that extreme protest tactics – actions that are highly counter-normative, disruptive, or harmful to others, including inflammatory rhetoric, blocking traffic, and damaging property – are effective for gaining publicity. However, we find across three experiments that extreme protest tactics decreased popular support for a given cause because they reduced feelings of identification with the movement. Though this effect obtained in tests of popular responses to extreme tactics used by animal rights, Black Lives Matter, and anti-Trump protests, we found that self-identified political activists were willing to use extreme tactics because they believed them to be effective for recruiting popular support. The activist’s dilemma – wherein tactics that raise awareness also tend to reduce popular support – highlights a key challenge faced by social movements struggling to affect progressive change.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2911177
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EXTREMISM IS THE NEW MAINSTREAM (Group polarization: Ideological uniformity plus geographic concentration equals groupthink, and with groupthink comes a tendency toward extremism)
This rapid cultural, political, and religious change is bad for our body politic. It shuts down debate on debatable topics, labels good people as bad bigots, and spikes the negative polarization that’s ripping this country apart.
Why do these changes happen so darn fast? There are many reasons, but here’s a big one — the law of group polarization. In a piece last year, I briefly described the law and its effects
Articulated by Cass Sunstein in a 1999 paper, the law posits that “in a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments.” In plain English, this means that like-minded groups grow more extreme over time, and that like-mindedness sometimes pushes groups toward so-called cascades — where they move quite rapidly to new consensus.
Progressives live piled on top of each other in ideological echo chambers far more ideologically uniform than even their counterparts the heart of Trump country. My precinct, for example, gave Trump 72 percent of its vote. That would be a catastrophically low result for Democrats in the progressive cultural centers like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Philadelphia. Some large urban centers are less ideologically diverse than your average suburban Evangelical megachurch.
The formula is simple. Ideological uniformity plus geographic concentration equals groupthink, and with groupthink comes a tendency toward extremism. It’s not a uniquely progressive failing. It’s simple human nature.
Conservatives are of course vulnerable to similar forms of groupthink, and there is evidence of our own rapid ideological changes (while there’s much dissent in conservative ranks over immigration, the red-state debate about gun rights, for example, has changed with breathtaking speed), but conservatives not only don’t live in the same concentrated cultural enclaves, they simply don’t have the cultural power to change national debate as decisively as the Left does.
There’s no sign that any of these trends are slowing down. Too many Americans view you as a racist for even questioning whether there’s an economic or cultural cost to large-scale, low-skill immigration. Too many Americans believe you’re a vicious sexist for seeking to preserve the life of a baby in the womb. Too many Americans consider you a hopeless homophobe if you maintain the most basic Christian orthodoxy on sexual morality. And the question isn’t so much whether the Left will moderate on any of these points but rather what the next issue is that it will attempt to remove from the bounds of acceptable discourse.
Moreover, such is the cultural power of the progressive machine that it’s utterly blind to its own extremism. It moves and sets the so-called Overton window, the boundaries of acceptable political discourse on any given topic. It’s how a conservative can suddenly become an “extremist” without changing his position. In 1998, a Democrat could still exist happily within the center of the Democratic party while believing that the border should be controlled, marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and the right to abortion can and should be limited. Twenty years later, that same person is a right-wing bigot, and the positions that were formerly radical-left are now the new mainstream.
So, here we are. A groupthink-prone progressive movement exercises outsized cultural influence on the academy, media, and corporate America. It sets and enforces new boundaries of acceptable discourse. It shows no sign of moderating. Indeed, the very fact that it’s ideologically uniform and geographically concentrated dictates that it will likely continue down the present course, but with accelerating speed. Get used to it, America. Progressive immigration extremism is the harbinger of more extremism to come.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455772/democrats-immigration-beliefs-sign-increased-extremism
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HE’S A BASTARD BUT HE’S OUR BASTARD (What choice is there when good family men trample your most cherished values and appease your enemies ?)
“I would be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their Presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”
Nina Burliegh (liberal journalist and Columbia University Professor, about Bill Clinton’s sleazy behavior, 1998)
While Trump’s behavior is often indefensible, it isn’t as simple as that. Like most things in life, politics is a series of choices. Religious Trump supporters are doing the same thing every other group does: weighing the costs and benefits of backing a candidate and making a rational choice that does the most to advance causes they believe are of the greatest importance.
For Evangelicals, the key issue in 2016 was religious liberty. They felt Hillary Clinton’s election would mean the appointment of more liberal judges and federal bureaucrats that would, piece by piece, dismantle their First Amendment protections, driving them from the public square as their views on social issues were rendered anathema by an intolerant popular culture. At the time, I wondered why they would trust a candidate who was devoid of religious principles or conservative convictions, to keep his promises. But their faith was rewarded since he has governed, if not behaved, like a conservative, appointing judges who are likely to stem the liberal tide that Evangelicals feared would extinguish their religious freedom. If that means putting up with Trump’s vulgar bullying on Twitter, it is, like Burleigh’s formulation, a fair bargain in their eyes.
The same test applies to Orthodox Jews, who are, as Rosenblatt notes, more engaged with Israel than other Jews. There was little reason to think Trump would be a strong supporter of Israel or keep promises like moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But those who believed he would were right. If you think the safety of Israel is the most important issue, then the trust placed by his Jewish supporters in Trump has been amply rewarded. They would not be tempted to swap him for a good family man — like, say, Barack Obama — who believed in more “daylight” between Israel and the United States and sought to appease Iran.
Would these religious voters prefer to vote for someone whose behavior exemplifies their values as well as agreeing with them on litmus test issues? Most probably would. But since they view Trump’s excesses as regrettable but hardly a threat to the republic, they will always prefer a sinner who defends religious liberty or backs Israel over a more moral alternative who would not do so. You may not agree, but they’re doing what liberals — who presumably also care about morality — did 20 years ago. As such, it may be hypocritical, but it is not irrational.
Jonathan S. Tobin
http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/why-people-of-faith-stick-with-trump/
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NOT A RACE FOR SAINTHOOD (Trump did not run in a vacuum: A presidential vote is not a one-person race for sainthood but, like it or not, often a choice between a bad and worse option)
The sorts of disturbing things we know about Trump we often did not know in the past about other presidents. By any fair measure, the sexual gymnastics in the White House and West Wing of JFK and Bill Clinton, both successful presidents, were likely well beyond President Trump’s randy habits. Harry Truman’s prior Tom Pendergast machine connections make Trump steaks and Trump university seem minor. By any classical definition, Lyndon Johnson could have been characterized as both a crook and a pervert. In sum, the public is still not convinced that Trump’s crudities are necessarily different from what they imagine of some past presidents. But it does seem convinced, in our age of a 24/7 globalized Internet, that 90 percent negative media coverage of the Trump tenure is quite novel.
Trump did not run in a vacuum. A presidential vote is not a one-person race for sainthood but, like it or not, often a choice between a bad and worse option. Hillary Clinton would have likely ensured a 16-year progressive regnum. As far as counterfactual “what ifs” go, by 2024, at the end of Clinton’s second term, a conservative might not have recognized the federal judiciary, given the nature of lifetime appointees. The lives of millions of Americans would have been radically changed in an Obama-Clinton economy that probably would not have seen GDP or unemployment levels that Americans are now enjoying. Fracking, coal production, and new oil exploration would have been vastly curtailed. The out-of-control EPA would have become even more powerful. Half the country simply did not see the democratic socialist European Union, and its foreign and domestic agendas, as the model for 21st-century America.
What John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Peter Strzok, Sally Yates, and others did in 2016 would never have been known — given that their likely obstruction, lying, and lawbreaking were predicated on being unspoken recommendations for praise and advancement in a sure-thing Clinton administration. Christopher Steele might have either been unknown — or lionized.
Open borders, Chinese trade aggression, the antics of the Clinton Foundation, the Uranium One deal, the Iran deal, estrangement from Israel and the Gulf states, a permanently nuclear North Korea, leading from behind — all that and far more would be the continued norm into the 2020s. Ben Rhodes, architect of the Iran deal and the media echo chamber, might have been the national-security adviser. The red-state losers would be institutionalized as clingers, crazies, wackos, deplorables, and irredeemables in a Clinton administration. A Supreme Court with justices such as Loretta Lynch, Elizabeth Warren, and Eric Holder would have made the court little different in its agendas from those of the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and Harvard Law School.
The proverbial Republican elite had become convinced that globalization, open borders, and free but unfair trade were either unstoppable or the fated future or simply irrelevant. Someone or something — even if painfully and crudely delivered — was bound to arise to remind the conservative Washington–New York punditocracy, the party elite, and Republican opinion makers that a third of the country had all but tuned them out. It was no longer sustainable to expect the conservative base to vote for more versions of sober establishmentarians like McCain and Romney just because they were Republicans, well-connected, well-résuméd, well-known, well-behaved, and played by the gloves-on Marquess of Queensberry political rules. Instead, such men and much of orthodox Republican ideology were suspect.
Amnestied illegal aliens would not in our lifetimes become conservative family-values voters. Vast trade deficits with China and ongoing chronic commercial cheating would not inevitably lead to the prosperity that would guarantee Chinese democracy. Asymmetrical trade deals were not sacrosanct under the canons of free trade. Unfettered globalization, outsourcing, and offshoring were not both inevitable and always positive. The losers of globalization did not bring their misery on themselves. The Iran deal was not better than nothing. North Korea would not inevitably remain nuclear. Middle East peace did not hinge on constant outreach to and subsidy of the corrupt and autocratic Palestinian Authority and Hamas cliques.
Lots of deep-state rust needed scraping. Yet it is hard to believe that either a Republican or Democratic traditionalist would have seen unemployment go below 4 percent, or the GDP rate exceed 3 percent, or would have ensured the current level of deregulation and energy production. A President Mitt Romney might not have rammed through a tax-reform policy like that of the 2017 reform bill. I cannot think of a single Republican 2016 candidate who either could or would have in succession withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord, moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, demanded China recalibrate its asymmetrical and often unfair mercantile trade policies, sought to secure the border, renounced the Iran deal, moved to denuclearize North Korea, and hectored front-line NATO allies that their budgets do not reflect their promises or the dangers on their borders.
The fact that Trump never served in the military or held a political office before 2016 may explain his blunders and coarseness. But such lacunae in his résumé also may account for why he is not constrained by New York–Washington conventional wisdom. His background makes elites grimace, though their expertise had increasingly calcified and been proved wrong and incapable of innovative approaches to foreign and domestic crises.
Something or someone was needed to remind the country that there is no longer a Democratic party as we once knew it. It is now a progressive and identity-politics religious movement. Trump took on his left-wing critics as few had before, did not back down, and did not offer apologies. He traded blow for blow with them. The result was not just media and cultural hysteria but also a catharsis that revealed what Americans knew but had not seen so overtly demonstrated by the new Left: the unapologetic media bias; chic assassination talk; the politicization of sports, Hollywood, and entertainment in slavish service to progressivism; the Internet virtue-signaling lynch mob; the out-of-control progressive deep state; and the new tribalism that envisions permanent ethnic and racial blocs while resenting assimilation and integration into the melting pot. For good or evil, the trash-talking and candid Trump challenged progressives. They took up the offer in spades and melted down — and America is getting a good look at where each side really sits.
In the end, only the people will vote on Trumpism. His supporters knew full well after July 2016 that his possible victory would come with a price — one they deemed more than worth paying given the past and present alternatives. Most also no longer trust polls or the media. To calibrate the national mood, they simply ask Trump voters whether they regret their 2016 votes (few do) and whether any Never Trump voters might reconsider (some are), and then they’re usually reassured that what is happening is what they thought would happen: a 3 percent GDP economy, low unemployment, record energy production, pushbacks on illegal immigration, no Iran deal, no to North Korean missiles pointed at the U.S., renewed friendship with Israel and the Gulf states, a deterrent foreign policy, stellar judicial appointments — along with Robert Mueller, Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, and lots more, no doubt, to come.
VDH
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/trump-rationale-why-voters-chose-him-and-support-him-now/
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QUELLE MONTEE AUX EXTREMES ? (Quand les façons moyenâgeuses et les appels au meurtres ne visent plus seulement Trump ou Netanyahou)
A l’image de nombreux internautes, Valérie Sauviat-Duvert, référente LREM de Loire-Atlantique, a vivement dénoncé ces « façons moyenâgeuses ». « ‘L’appel au meurtre par pendaison du président de la République Emmanuel Macron, cet après-midi dans les rues de Nantes, dans le cadre de manifestations, est purement scandaleux et inacceptable », a-t-elle jugé. La députée et porte-parole du groupe LREM à l’Assemblée Aurore Bergé a également ironisé sur ce « 3e tour social » qui remettrait en cause l’élection d’Emmanuel Macron tandis que la députée Anne-Laurence Petel, membre du bureau exécutif de LREM, a regretté la dérive d’une « revendication syndicale en appel au meurtre »…
https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2018/04/08/nantes-un-mannequin-a-leffigie-de-macron-pendu-lrem-denonce-un-appel-au-meurtre_a_23405763/
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QUELLE MONTEE AUX EXTREMES ? (Quand les façons moyenâgeuses et les appels au meurtres ne visent plus seulement Trump ou Netanyahou)
Au-delà de ces actes inadmissibles, une autre forme de violence, plus pernicieuse et symbolique est venue entacher le défilé des fonctionnaires, opposés aux réformes du gouvernement Philippe. Une effigie géante d’Emmanuel Macron a été mise à feu par des militants radicaux, en plein milieu de l’avenue Daumesnil. Sur le front de cette immense poupée présidentielle en papier mâché, un impact de balle sanguinolent… Des images choquantes, qui rappellent celles du mannequin à l’effigie d’Emmanuel Macron, pendu et brûlé par des manifestants radicaux, début avril à Nantes…
https://www.programme-tv.net/news/tv/207388-polemique-une-effigie-geante-demmanuel-macron-brulee-lors-des-manifestations-du-22-mai-a-paris-video/
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I CAME IN LIKE A WRECKING BALL (What if Trump’s new approach to old problems turned out to be more effective than Obam’s old approach to new problems ?)
I came in like a wrecking ball I never hit so hard in love All I wanted was to break your walls All you ever did was break me Yeah, you wreck me…
Cyrus Milo
You may wonder how Mr Trump’s narcissism and lack of detailed understanding could ever transform America’s standing for the better. Yet his impulses matter, if only because he offers a new approach to old problems. Like Barack Obama, Mr Trump inherited a country tired of being the world’s policeman, frustrated by jihadists and rogue states like Iran, and worried by the growing challenge from China. Grinding wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the financial crisis of 2008, only deepened a sense that the system of institutions, treaties, alliances and classically liberal values put together after 1945 was no longer benefiting ordinary Americans.
Mr Obama’s solution was to call on like-minded democracies to help repair and extend this world order. Hence the Iranian nuclear deal, choreographed with Europe, Russia and China, which bound Iran into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And hence the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which sought to unite America’s Asian allies around new trading rules that would one day channel Chinese ambitions.
Mr Trump has other ideas. He launched air strikes on Syria after it used nerve gas in the name of upholding international norms—and thus looked better than Mr Obama, who didn’t. Otherwise he treats every relationship as a set of competitive transactions. When America submits to diplomatic pieties, conventions or the sensitivities of its allies, he believes, it is negotiating with one hand tied behind its back.
If any country can bully the world, America can. Its total military, diplomatic, scientific, cultural and economic power is still unmatched. Obviously, that power is there to be exploited, which is why every president, including Mr Obama, has used it to get his way abroad even if that involves threats, intimidation and, occasionally, deception. But it is hard to think of a president who bullies as gleefully as Mr Trump. No other modern president has routinely treated America’s partners so shoddily or eschewed the idea of leading through alliances. None has so conspicuously failed to clothe the application of coercive power in the claim to be acting for the global good.
In the short term some of Mr Trump’s aims may yet succeed. Iran’s politics are unpredictable and the economy is weak. Mr Kim probably wants a deal of some sort, though not full disarmament. On trade, China would surely prefer accommodation to confrontation.
He is right to detect a surge in Chinese ambitions after the financial crisis and the arrival of Xi Jinping in 2012. That justifies toughness.
Mr Trump prefers to fall back on the old idea that might is right. His impulses may begin to impose a new geopolitics, but they will not serve America or the world for long. Remember the words of Henry Kissinger: order cannot simply be ordained; to be enduring, it must be accepted as just…
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/06/07/donald-trumps-demolition-theory-of-foreign-policy-wont-work
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TRUMP COULD GO DOWN AS ONE OF THE GREATESTS PRESIDENTS IN HISTORY
Politically, meanwhile, Lynch is all over the map. He voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary and thinks – he’s not sure – he voted Libertarian in the presidential election. “I am not really a political person, but I really like the freedom to do what you want to do,” says the persecuted Californian smoker. He is undecided about Donald Trump. “He could go down as one of the greatest presidents in history because he has disrupted the thing so much. No one is able to counter this guy in an intelligent way.” While Trump may not be doing a good job himself, Lynch thinks, he is opening up a space where other outsiders might. “Our so-called leaders can’t take the country forward, can’t get anything done. Like children, they are. Trump has shown all this.” …
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/23/david-lynch-gotta-be-selfish-twin-peaks
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WHEN ENOUGH IS ENOUGH (A rich and powerful U.S. was supposed to subsidize world trade, take in more immigrants than all the nations of the world combined, protect the West, and ensure safe global communications, travel, and commerce – and accept its interior being hollowed out )
Why does Germany by design run up a $65 billion annual trade surplus with the United States? Why does such a wealthy country spend only 1.2 percent of its GDP on defense? And if Germany has entered into energy agreements with a supposedly dangerous Vladimir Putin, why does it still need to have its security subsidized by the American military?
Both Canada and Mexico have substantial trade surpluses with the U.S. In Mexico’s case, it enjoys a $71 billion surplus, the largest of U.S. trading partners with the exception of China. Canada never honored its NATO security commitment. It spends only 1 percent of its GDP on defense, rightly assuming that the U.S. will continue to underwrite its security.
During the lifetime of NAFTA, Mexico has encouraged millions of its citizens to enter the U.S. illegally. Mexico’s selfish immigration policy is designed to avoid internal reform, to earn some $30 billion in annual expatriate remittances, and to influence U.S. politics.
Yet after more than two decades of NAFTA, Mexico is more unstable than ever. Cartels run entire states. Murders are at a record high. Entire towns in southern Mexico have been denuded of their young males, who crossed the U.S. border illegally.
The U.S. runs a huge trade deficit with China. The red ink is predicated on Chinese dumping, patent and copyright infringement, and outright cheating. Beijing illegally occupies neutral islands in the South China Sea, militarizes them, and bullies its neighbors.
All of the above has become the “normal” globalized world.
Had NATO members and NAFTA partners just kept their commitments, and had Mexico not encouraged millions of its citizens to crash the U.S. border, there would now be little tension between allies.
Instead, what had become abnormal was branded the new normal of the post-war world.
Again, a rich and powerful U.S. was supposed to subsidize world trade, take in more immigrants than all the nations of the world combined, protect the West, and ensure safe global communications, travel, and commerce.
After 70 years, the effort had hollowed out the interior of America, creating two separate nations of coastal winners and heartland losers.
Trump’s entire foreign policy can be summed up as a demand for symmetry from all partners and allies, and tit-for-tat replies to would-be enemies.
Did Trump have to be so loud and often crude in his effort to bully America back to reciprocity?
Who knows?
But it seems impossible to imagine that globalist John McCain, internationalist Barack Obama, or gentlemanly Mitt Romney would ever have called Europe, NATO, Mexico, and Canada to account, or warned Iran or North Korea that tit would be met by tat.
VDH
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/trump-foreign-policy-demands-reciprocity-keeping-commitments/
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WHAT WITCH HUNT ?
“When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?”
Johnny Depp
https://www.thewrap.com/hollywood-stars-donald-trump-violent-death-kathy-griffin-snoop-dogg/
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WHAT INCITEMENT ?
“Violent crimes and other acts of hate by right-wing extremists and white nationalists are on the rise in this country and around the world. We can no longer ignore that they are being encouraged by the occupant of the highest office in the land.”
Ilham Omar
https://truthout.org/articles/in-face-of-death-threats-omar-says-we-must-confront-white-nationalism/
“She’s been very disrespectful to this country. She’s been very disrespectful, frankly, to Israel. She is somebody that doesn’t really understand life. Real life. It’s unfortunate. She’s got a way about her that’s very, very bad, I think, for our country. I think she’s extremely unpatriotic and extremely disrespectful to our country.”
President Trump
https://nypost.com/2019/04/16/trump-has-no-regrets-about-attacking-very-disrespectful-rep-ilhan-omar/
« In their defenses of Rep. Ilhan Omar, many fellow Democrats and leftist partisans have conflated vehement critiques with incitement, a transparent and deliberate effort to deflect and disqualify entirely reasonable and justified anger over Omar’s pattern of incendiary, bigoted, or insensitive comments. She’s a walking political problem for the Left, so they’re attempting to paint those who notice and object as engaging in dangerous, out-of-bounds rhetoric. It’s cynical, and it must not succeed. If this is liberals’ new standard, their frequent, vituperative broadsides against President Trump (who faces numerous threats) constitute ‘incitement’ that must be silenced, for his safety. Their vicious campaign against Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination would also certainly have fit the same bill, as he and his family received death threats after Democrats dialed up their language to eleven. Indeed, virtually any intense denunciations of Republican figures, rhetoric, or policy could arguably rise to the level of incitement under these rules. Remember, the attempted mass assassination of GOP Congressmen on a baseball field was perpetrated by a left-wing extremist shouting about a healthcare bill he opposed, and which Democrats said was “evil” and would kill people. Loudly opposing that bill clearly put lives at risk. (…) And imagine the danger liberals have placed Rep. Steve King in through their incitement. Much like Omar, King drew widespread ire over his pattern of deeply insensitive and bigoted comments (unlike Omar, he was confronted with serious consequences from his own party). By calling him a racist, even if true, their words might lead one of their unstable followers to snap and inflict harm. »
Guy Benson
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2019/04/16/revealed-context-that-makes-omars-911-and-al-qaeda-comments-worse-n2544784
https://www.thewrap.com/hollywood-stars-donald-trump-violent-death-kathy-griffin-snoop-dogg/
https://www.boston25news.com/news/national/north-dakota-man-pleads-guilty-to-using-stolen-forklift-in-trump-assassination-attempt/887176291
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-secret-service-foiled-an-assassination-attempt-against-trump-by-isis
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THE BUCK STOPS HERE (Trump is actually taking ownership of the most terrifying problems the country faces and trying to solve them in a direct way that his recent predecessors avoided)
Critics describe President Donald Trump’s foreign policy as a muddled, unpredictable collection of impulses, with the one organizing principle being the coddling of like-minded, ruthless dictators. But there is, in fact, a defining diplomatic strategy: He is cleaning up the messes left by his predecessors. Trump, regularly derided as the most irresponsible of presidents, is actually taking ownership of the most terrifying problems the country faces and trying to solve them in a direct way that his recent predecessors avoided. With respect to Iran, China, North Korea and even Russia, Trump is taking tough stances. He is getting cozy with dictators because the man who considers himself an artist of the deal understands that those are the people he must strike bargains with.
Under Trump, China has finally been recognized as a long-term strategic opponent and potential enemy, rather than a nation of billions yearning for democracy. Capitalism has indeed taken hold in China — though without economic nor political liberalization. Instead, authoritarian China is using its newfound riches to expand its economic, political and military influence. Since Clinton permanently normalized trade relations with China in 2000, American manufacturing has relocated to China for its cheap labor, the Chinese have consistently cheated on trade and the annual U.S. trade deficit with China has soared from $83 billion to a record $419 billion in 2018. Recognizing that placating China and quietly nudging it to play fair is not going to work; Trump has taken a more direct approach and assessed tariffs on Chinese imports while threatening even more. The Chinese are now at the table, talking, and Washington may at last secure a more equitable deal.
After two and a half decades of Washington dithering, by 2017 the North Koreans were on the cusp of being able to load their bombs on missiles that could reach the continental United States. So Trump decided to try something different. (…) Trump likely cannot succeed in disarming Kim of his weapons by disarming him personally. The North Korean dictator is probably just buying more time. But Trump is at least taking an unconventional approach rather than re-enacting the failures of the past.
Since Clinton, administrations have fostered quixotic illusions of reasonable moderates within the Tehran leadership. But there was little change in that country’s behavior — which has included supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah and killing more than 600 U.S. troops in Iraq through militia surrogates. Obama’s 2015 Iran deal was the ultimate can-kicking exercise, granting Iran sanctions relief in return for limits on its nuclear program that would expire over the next dozen years. The arrangement could have given Iran the cash it would need to complete its nuclear ambitions once sunset clauses allowing it to enrich more uranium were invoked. (…) But Trump has reasoned the time to get tough with Iran is now, not in a dozen years when they are stronger and have perfected technologies related to nuclear weapons.
U.S. policy toward Russia pre-Trump had also been marked by years of complacency — remember Russian President Vladimir Putin convincing Bush there was a soul behind his eyes? During the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama dismissed Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s concerns about Russia with a quip about the 1980s wanting its foreign policy back. Obama was also caught on an open mic whispering to Russia’s then-President Dmitri Medvedev that he’d have more “flexibility” after the election. (…) Trump’s administration, Foreign Policy explained, “has held a tough line on Russia, building on his predecessor’s policies by layering on further sanctions, expelling dozens of Russian diplomats, and providing lethal weapons support to Ukraine — a step that former President Barack Obama had been unwilling to take.”
Trump’s demand that European nations pay their North Atlantic Treaty Organization obligations — another can regularly kicked down the road — might seem hostile toward long-time allies, but ensures they have skin in the game when it comes to confronting Russia.
The Washington establishment, so used to conventional ways, is aghast. But business as usual has strengthened our enemies. Trump’s iconoclasm is worth a try.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-policies-iran-north-korea-russia-are-cleaning-messes-ncna1028626
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UNUSUAL TIMES CALL FOR UNCONVENTIONAL LEADERSHIP (Trump is not just advancing an unorthodox trade, immigration, and cultural agenda, he is also waging a 360-degree, 24/7 war against a corrupt media and the international progressive order)
Trump certainly did not need to assume the role of a discordant weatherman at a time when the Bahamas were flattened, or kneel to spar with nutty George Conway, or remind the nation that his new transient primary rival Mark Sanford is seriously delusional. Trump can be funny, as when he did not take the media bait by saying he didn’t like the Democratic debaters, but instead had “respect” for anyone willing to undergo the ordeal of a presidential candidate (such as he had done), or, earlier, speculated what alcohol might have done to a type-A personality such as himself. More of that, and less of tweeting about Greenland and the huffy Danish ambassador of course might be wise.
But don’t forget that Trump is not a traditional president, defined as the head of a loyal party and an emissary of his party’s orthodoxies. He arose attacking Chamber of Commerce Republicans who sanctioned open borders.
Trump was elected on the apostate position that if China is not stopped now in its systematic destruction of the global commercial order, it will end up as a hegemony that will devour the West. To that end, no one so far has come up with a more effective lever than the rusty iron bar of tariffs. Pre-Trump, our policy was to shrug or offer a whine or two about China.
No one in the Republican party previously believed that either offshoring or outsourcing was all that bad. Republican orthodoxy was more or less to let the Midwestern out-of-work deplorables eat cake, defined as getting in their old pickups and heading to the fracking fields in between oxycontin flare ups. The market alone would adjudicate their dismal futures.
Pre-Trump, the Republican habit was often to appoint a periodic William Brennan, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, or Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court—and not dream of confirming 150 conservative federal judges including a quarter of all federal appeals court justices. It was to split the difference on climate change and carbon taxes, to moan that the border was open and would stay so, and to give up on curbing late-term abortion on demand.
The Left since 2000 had seen Republicans not as the loyal opposition but caricatured them as Nazis, fascists, and criminals that needed destroying, not defeating.
Remember the assassination chic that surrounded George W. Bush? Mainstream writers, columnists, and filmmakers vied to think of ways of expressing their desire for Bush to be assassinated. When national hero John Glenn stooped to insinuate that his president was a Nazi (“It’s the old Hitler business”), then the Democratic Party had reached a new low. Substitute any progressive presidential name for Bush in Jonathan Chait’s New Republic essay, “Why I hate George W. Bush,” and a crisis would have followed. Trump then was seen in 2016 as a belated antidote to all that.
So what makes Trump wearisome is that he replies to the new incarnation of the old traitor/Nazi/fascist boilerplate tit-for-tat—unlike George W. Bush, a good man, who was gentlemanly and long-suffering and by 2006 was more or less rendered as an unabashed monster by the media, entertainment, and academia.
Trump’s style is often seen as his weakness. Again, perhaps. But for many it was his very combativeness that fueled his support, as if near lethal chemotherapy not delusional neglect is more likely to shrink cancerous tumors.
Trump’s popularity rating may be for now frozen between 43-44 percent. But, even if accurately calibrated by polls, it is not yet Bush’s 33 percent when he left office. Bush, contrary to popular invective, had a decent last year, he was quiet and philosophical not Texas combative in his final 12 months. He calmed the economy in his final 16 weeks following the disastrous September 2008 meltdown to the degree the recession ended in June 2009 just six months after he left office. And he completed a successful surge that had so secured Iraq by January 2009 that new Vice President Joe Biden thought the new calm Iraq might become one of his new administration’s “greatest achievements.” Yet he was reduced by the corporate leftist media nexus to the status of a criminal.
Long suffering is not wearying. But it does result in a total and absolute destruction of a president’s likeability.
The reason Bill Clinton survived impeachment, aside from a toady and compliant media, was that he fought back tooth-and-nail and managed to focus on a booming economy and not the fact that he was facing disbarment. I am not endorsing Clintonism, only describing how a miscreant left office with stellar popularity that suggests the proverbial people apparently liked the idea he fought back against the impeachment bloc in the House.
Trump is not just advancing an unorthodox trade, immigration, and cultural agenda that transcends his otherwise orthodox conservative deregulation, energy promotion, conservative judges, tax reform and reduction, and support for personal freedom against deep swamp overreach.
He is also waging a 360-degree, 24/7 war against a corrupt media—an assessment that most in the past accepted but were too fearful of confronting. Before Trump, CNN, despite its overt biases, was still considered a legitimate news organization; after Trump it is little more than the airport lounge equivalent of Muzak.
Ditto the New York Times and the Washington Post. They are descending into tony blogs whose reason for being has been reduced to destroying Trump, a frenzy in which the Times stooped to anti-Semitism and recruiting racists to their editorial board to publishing fake news.
Trump also warred against the international progressive order. Remember the many pronged war involving the climate change pieties of the Paris Climate Accord crowd, the statist and anti-democratic agendas of the European Union, the obfuscations of what even Obama called the “free-riders” of the NATO alliance, the mythologies of the “Palestinians” as eternal refugees, the namby-pamby 50-50 policy vis-à-vis Israel, and the idea that the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and globe-trotting NGOs had a moral right to adjudicate American foreign policy.
Then there is the prior Republican decision not to wade into campus free speech issues, to avoid openly supporting the NRA take on the Second Amendment, and to ignore race-class-gender agendas that had turned professional sports, late night television entertainment, morning and daytime talk shows, and movies into progressive propaganda.
Fighting all that can be wearying. The very thought of such disruption, acrimony, and media hysterias is why George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney were not trench fighters but saw themselves more as sober and judicious protectors of the existing American order. Translated that meant slowing down somewhat the process of America becoming progressively Europeanized—while being polite about it.
But these are not normal times. There is (for now) no longer a Democratic Party. Instead, it is a revolutionary Jacobin movement that believes socialism is our salvation, that identity politics is our creed, that gun confiscation is our duty, that the abrupt end of fossil fuels is coming very soon, that open borders is our new demography, and that the archetypical unmarried, childless, urban hipster is our model woke citizen.
For more than two years, Hillary Clinton—via Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, the DNC, and Christopher Steele—attempted to destroy the Trump campaign. Later the Justice Department, FBI, and CIA took up her cause and sought to sabotage the Trump transition and presidency, in a near coup attempt. I cannot remember a moment in U.S. history when a presidential candidate conspired with the intelligence community of the lame-duck administration of the same party to destroy a presidential rival.
Robert Mueller forever discredited the idea of a special counsel, given his unprofessionalism, bias, and apparent incompetence that ate up 22 months of the Trump presidency. Even in the crude post-1960s, we have never seen anything like the current assassination rhetoric of Hollywood celebrities and the boasts of doing bodily harm to the president by his political opponents.
No president—not LBJ, not JFK, not Bill Clinton—in his first term has had his prior 50 years, his family, his lifestyle, his businesses and his friends so exhaustively explored for any morsel of impeachable material.
Is it any wonder, Trump, to his own occasional detriment, obsesses with “fake news” and believes that every minor tit requires a major Trump tat?
So far more wearisome than Trump’s tweets are three years of unethical and likely illegal attempts to remove an elected president, to so warp our culture that 90 percent of media coverage is anti-Trump and dozens of grandees in the entertainment, sports, and media industries have so often publicly wished to assassinate, beat up, or otherwise physically injure the president of the United States.
After all that, the strange thing is not that Trump can be occasionally wearisome, but that he is even still breathing.
VDH
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HOW POPULISM SWINGS FROM THE LEFT TO THE RIGHT (For two-and-a half centuries, the left has been a font of terrible ideas: the Soviet Union, Communist China, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, you name it !)
Populism has made great strides in the West. But it is misguided, and I greatly hope it fails. There’s no standard definition for populism, but it always includes some degree of denigrating the rich and powerful while praising the virtuous and innocent common folk. Populists ascribe obscene self-serving motives to the greedy, privileged and exploitative elite. Were only the country class to mobilize, they argue, it could expel the ruling class, replace it and claim its righteous share.
Populism has left and right versions, led in the United States by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Leftists usually focus on money (Occupy Wall Street’s 1 percent, Sen. Sanders’ billionaires), while Rightists attack insider influence (the Tea Party’s Swamp, Steve Bannon’s Deep State). Very occasionally, they agree on a common enemy, such as Globalists.
Populism need not rely on conspiracy theories, but it often does, as these neatly explain how so tiny a minority can enjoy such wealth and influence. Likewise, it need not turn to anti-Semitism, but the temptation permanently exists to single out Jews as rich, connected or both.
I am not a populist. I do not blame the rich or bureaucrats for our problems; rather, I blame the left.
For two-and-a half centuries, the left has been a font of terrible ideas, socialism foremost but so many others too, including: The noble savage, emphasizing equality over freedom, progressivism, the administrative state, the personal is political, anthropogenic climate change, white guilt, marriage for all, and the “childfree” movement.
Some billionaires and senators, to be sure, espouse these bad ideas; but plenty do not. George Soros and Elizabeth Warren do, Sheldon Adelson and Ted Cruz do not. The problem is not someone having wealth or power but his point of view. So, it’s a mistake to go indiscriminately after the elite.
Further, the elite has necessary roles: most rich earned their money by creating wealth and the government must rely on bureaucrats to function. Destroying it does irreparable damage; just look at Venezuela for an example and imagine what damage Jeremy Corbyn’s left-populism would do in the United Kingdom. (« Super-rich prepare to leave UK ‘within minutes’ if Labour wins election, » reads one headline.)
The Supreme Court also shows the limitations of populist rage. Almost by definition, nominees to the court come from erudite and elite circles. (G. Harrold Carswell settled that in 1970.) A justice’s privilege and brokerage account matter infinitely less than his good sense and his ability to express ideas.
I recently had some fun in a letter to the editor. It concerned an article I read by Christopher DeMuth in the Claremont Review of Books edited by Charles Kesler. In it, DeMuth introduces two ideal-types, Anywheres (« cosmopolitan, educated, mobile, and networked ») and Somewheres (« rooted in … their families, neighborhoods, clubs, and religions »). It was all very convincing except that DeMuth the author, Kesler the editor, and I the reader are card-carrying Anywheres (all three of us have degrees from Harvard) who espouse Somewhere views. Again, stereotypes mislead.
Trump (Penn ’68, NBC, Forbes #275) rates as a partial populist. That’s why Bannon, frustrated by this partiality, quickly flamed out of his administration. Trump attacks the elite media and the intelligence agencies but not the rich (well, of course not, as he is one of them) nor Jews (though it’s easy to imagine his latent stereotypes bursting forth).
Populism is a simple response to a complex problem. Like racism, it incorrectly attributes one characteristic to a diverse population. Like racism, it is an ignorant, mischievous impulse that, based on a falsehood, satisfies base instincts. It cannot solve problems but only creates new ones.
Are you discontented with the direction of the United States? Then focus your attention on the real problem: the leftist elite – politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, intellectuals, teachers, artists, et al. The Left brought us the Soviet Union, Communist China, and calamities in Cuba, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Today, it is actively ruining Europe. Warren wants to impose a wealth tax, ban fracking, create a government monopoly on health care, and abolish the Electoral College.
So, be smart and oppose the Left, not the elite.
Daniel Pipes
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/26/blame-the-left-for-the-soviet-union-china-and-a-ru
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