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Independent, Mixed Assessment of Trump Presidency

March 28, 2021 by tornado Leave a Comment

Now that some weeks have passed, and some emotions have cooled, from the tumult surrounding the wild ending of the Donald Trump presidency, I’ll offer an assessment of the short but eventful four-year period. This comes from someone who, as a registered Republican voter with ardent libertarian leanings (but not a member of the Republican Party!), was strongly outspoken against their nomination of him for the office. As such, I voted Libertarian at the top of the ticket in 2016 and 2020, being duly repulsed by both Trump’s egregious incompetence and immorality, and by the horridly corrupt, truly toxic policies and radical-left extremism of the Democrat Party.

For background, I saw the possible Trump nomination coming 10 months before the election and staunchly opposed it then. Here are some things I said about him before the 2016 election, on this BLOG:


Trump is not a true conservative, in any way, shape or form, but instead an opportunistic, bellicose, vague, frighteningly ignorant celebrity pretending to be a meaningful presidential candidate. He is better-suited for a pro-wrestling charade or “reality show” than any sort of serious public office.

On every issue he “discusses”, at least one of the other candidates has a more thoughtful, detailed, specific idea. His foreign-policy naivete, on a different end of the spectrum, is nearly as egregiously lacking as Obama’s.

On the fiscal front, Trump is precisely the embodiment of the wealthy oligarchy the Tea Party ideal is supposed to mistrust…all while posing as some sort of “outsider” in your best interests. How can he help to pull our country out of crippling debt when he acts as bankrupted his own businesses?

On the moral front, Trump’s behavior has been nothing short of deplorable. His bullying, threatening attitude is well-known and even legendary. Trump’s exaggerations and brazen dishonesty alone should disqualify him (as Hillary’s lies upon lies upon lies should disqualify her too, in fairness). … The guy has opened and operated giant gambling casinos (and tried to open others before lying about it), has had suspicious dealings with mobsters, has had three trophy-wife marriages and at least one adulterous affair, and has contributed money to known adulterers, and other sexual deviants, and subsidized to the tune of millions those who advocate the murder of unborn babies (many Democrats).

With regard to conservative principles, surely heavy monetary support for Democrats for years isn’t part of the ideal. He only draws upon the Bible and Christianity when convenient. He panders to shortsighted, flavor-of-the-moment, celebrity-obsessed foamers with ten-second attention spans.

Whatever Trump is promising, his dishonest track record means he cannot be trusted to deliver. Fellow conservatives, wake up! Get away from the Kool-Aid. Stop this Trump nonsense before you damage the cause for decades.


I don’t hate to say, “I told you so,” and I do say it with brutal honesty and straight at you. But it wasn’t all bad, contrary to the shrill whines of the hyperpartisan left, nor the “greatest ever”, contrary to the worst MAGA foamers.

The Trump presidency was so eventful on so many fronts that it would be a Herculean task just to comment on it all. More happened (especially domestically), in the least time, on the most fronts than any other four years of an administration. It’s just too much. Instead I’ll touch on some highlights and lowlights. I’m fully aware that many events are not covered here.

THE GOOD:

Four months in, I had this to say in another, otherwise unflattering essay (among several I did on the topic of Trump before and since the election):

I Told You So, Now Trump Must Go

“The only substantial things he has done right were to choose Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court and James Mattis for Defense Secretary.”

His most positive and enduring governmental legacy likely will be those three quite solid and highly qualified, if unspectacular, Supreme Court picks — Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Barrett. I am most grateful, for they tilt the high court in favor of a generally conservative (though not as much as I’d like), somewhat Constitutionally beholden slant that will be needed as a bulwark against the coming invasion of radical-left-related cases of First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendment violations sure to flood into the court from challenged to new left-wing edicts, much like illegal aliens in the Dems’ open-borders vote pander.

I say “somewhat” because I see no evidence that these three are as originalist as Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito, or the late, great Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch probably comes the closest to being dependable in that regard. In a Supreme Court where these appointments have flipped John Roberts into a squishy, spineless centrist, however, the conservative shift is a massive, massive plus, and much-appreciated bit of good for this republic, for Constitutional freedoms, and ultimately, for the lives of unborn babies herein. I’ll include here the confirmation of over 200 federal judges as well, who will rise through the court ranks with solid impact for generations to come.

The Abraham Accord was a truly monumental foreign-policy victory for the U.S. and the world — an unparalleled and unprecedented deal of cooperation and friendship between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Morocco, Oman and Sudan since have normalized ties with Israel. This in total may be the greatest U.S. foreign-policy accomplishment of any kind since Reagan stared down the Soviet menace and drove them to ultimate breakup, and arguably may be our most unlikely and astounding foreign-policy feat since the Marshall Plan. If carried out, can serve as a model for Mideast peace and economic and technological cooperation for all time. I cannot understate the potential here. Now will the parties involved fulfill it?

Jerusalem has been the nexus of Judean (Jewish) cultural and spiritual identity since David made it the capital of his kingdom in 1003 BC. As the native people of the area, the Jews deserve to have their rightful capital formally recognized. It’s a sad testament to our leadership’s craven cowardice (both parties) that this didn’t come about until 6 February 2017. Recall that during the 1992 presidential-election cycle, Bill Clinton said that his administration would “support Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel” — didn’t happen. G.W. Bush criticized Clinton for that in 2000 — and did nothing about it after becoming President. Obama in 2008, as a candidate, referred to Jerusalem as the “capital of Israel” — and failed to follow through. That’s 24 years of broken promises and lost opportunity, for no good reason whatsoever.

The U.S. Embassy was ordered moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv also, and reopened in May 2018. Though the majority of American Jewish organizations supported the recognition and embassy move, the gaggle of spineless and meddlesome globalists on the U.S. Security Council disapproved by a ratio of 14/15, which further validates the administration’s decision in my book. Here’s a glass raised to Trump for following through on that promise, at least.

The factually Wuhan-originated coronavirus pandemic was an awful thing worldwide, and remains so, having killed millions. That this happened on his watch was a monumental stroke of misfortune in a presidency already bogged down by other troubles (many of his own making). The Chinese Communist Party ultimately bears full moral responsibility for this disaster and its worldwide carnage. Here, Trump’s handling of it was a mixed bag, but here’s the good: Operation Warp Speed, that enabled science to give us tens of millions of lifesaving and innovative mRNA vaccines in record-setting time, with FDA emergency-use authorization. This part of the pandemic response will have a long-lasting, positive legacy in medical science and more importantly, lives saved. See below for the flip side.

Trump signed a bill into law to lower personal income taxes until 2025, cut the corporate tax rate to 21%, increase child tax credits, and raise the “death tax” estate exemption to $11.2 million. I’d personally prefer to see personal income taxes disappear altogether, replaced by a simple flat tax, but in the net, anything that lowers the tax burden on the People is a good thing. Debt reduction should start by limiting government, not gouging the People.

THE BAD:

Well, I mentioned Mattis being a great pick. Trump ran the guy off, insultingly. He did so with several other well-qualified picks that he made. It’s a testament to Trump’s wholly unsuitable personality and demeanor for the office that he would make these selections, tout how wonderful they are, then trash them upon slightest hint they weren’t going to be his sycophants. What man of dignity, what diplomatic leader of the free world, behaves that way? The cabinet was a veritable revolving door throughout his presidency, too many to mention, and that’s ridiculous.

I value honesty and integrity above all else as a personal attribute. I’ll hang out with a brutally honest asshole any day before I would want to be around a lying nice guy. Trump has been the worst of both: dishonest, and an asshole. I cannot even begin to count the hundreds upon hundreds of untruthful things he spoke and tweeted throughout his presidency. His continual rain of lies and factually wrong statements were so numerous as to make us numb to them, and were decidedly unbecoming a leader at any level. All of us should have seen it coming too. It was readily apparent to me. In fact, those times he did tell the truth, that was quite remarkable. If this petulant bonehead just mustered the self-control for one thing — stay off Twitter — he might have won re-election by a decent margin. But no. He had to make it all about “me, myself and I”.

The Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, outside Operation Warp Speed, was slow, horridly messaged, and a truly bungled endeavor. His lack of both humility and scientific understanding cost him hugely here, and the mixed messaging (e.g., “Don’t wear masks”, “wear masks”, “wear two masks”) from officials like Fauci were decidedly unhelpful. So was his own personal example, with his public and private expressions differing, until and even during when he contracted the disease himself, much to some of the Left’s glee. Notably, he could have, and failed to, shut down all air traffic from China the very moment intelligence informed him of a new, nasty virus spreading there. That would have slowed the spread and bought more time for understanding and better treatment.

Every expert at crisis-management communications will testify that mixed messaging, ambiguity, and lack of direct, honest leadership, will lead to chaos and confusion. No surprise: it did. We needed a strong, dignified, serious President who would guide us through the crisis with science-based, consistent, crystal-clear messaging, and that simply did not happen.

Trump utterly bailed on his campaign promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years. Instead, when he left office, it had exploded to $27.75 trillion, the highest ever, with the highest ratio to GDP since shortly after World War II. He showed himself to be just another big-spending Republican, signing massive spending bills before the pandemic. What an onerous failure!

The 22 December 2018 government shutdown, after Trump threw a toddler-sandbox hissyfit over the Mexican border wall, resulted in 380,000 government employees furloughed and 420,000 more (including storm forecasters) working without pay. The Congressional Budget Office estimated a permanent loss of $3 billion to the U.S. economy from that needless and childish tantrum. I supported strict border restrictions — and still do — but that was not the way to gain them.

Trump played kissyface with an unstable, megalomaniacal North Korean dictator, with three meetings and no tangible result favorable to the U.S.

He lost both the popular and electoral votes in the 2020 election, but continued to claim victory, falsely. Despite armies of lawyers and PR people involved, he also never was able to substantiate claims of vote fraud at massive enough levels to change the election (though we all know from many documented instances across multiple elections, that the Left’s claims that voter fraud doesn’t happen are themselves grotesque lies). In doing so, he caused an eruption of sociopolitical chaos that was so outrageous as to defy ready description, and led to what’s next.

Not long after, I had a lot more to say about the capitol rioting during congressional election certification, and won’t belabor that here. Suffice to say, that ugly episode in American history marked the low point of the entire Trump Administration, right at the end, and now that a couple months have passed, I’m confident that it’s not just recency bias to say so.

Although he did not literally incite the riot, and did (belatedly) tell the hooligans to “go home with love & in peace,” he said and did far too little to both prevent and stop the lawlessness. Trump — portrayed as a “law and order” kind of guy, simply failed at it here, badly. The supposed tough guy got soft and complacent. He should have rained the full, all-out force of Capitol Police and all other available law enforcement down on the thugs who busted into the building; instead the cops weirdly stood down, and let rioters waltz right into the Capitol before the violence began. It was a bizarre and semi-anarchical event, farthest from stern law and order. Regardless of whatever else happened, this awkward (at best) and grossly negligent (at worst) handling of the Capitol invasion forever will serve as an indelible stain on the Trump legacy.

NET RESULT:

Now, through the lends of passing weeks, and though I would have pronounced it a slight net negative anyway, that final event at the Capitol, and his abject weakness in dealing with it, ratchets his four years from “poor” to “bad”, straight into the “solid negative” category. I rank Trump’s a tie for worst Presidency of my lifetime, right alongside Carter’s and a notch worse than Obama’s and Nixon’s. [Ronald Reagan’s was, by far, the best.] Donald Trump’s presidency did yield some good things, which the delusional secular cult of “Woke” radicalism would either oppose or never admit, but it was a net setback for our nation, contrary to what the delusional MAGA-herd lemmings would say. This presidency, as I feared, set the noble cause of conservatism back decades, wrecked the Republican Party, and carved deep wounds in our national cohesion (the latter a shared blame with the extreme-left Woke Cult).

It took the scandals and excesses of Obama to beget Trump, and indeed, Obama shares a nontrivial share of responsibility for awful policies and arrogant, insulting statements (by him…”Clinging to guns or religion” and “You didn’t build that!” and Hillary…”basket of deplorables”!) that elicited the Trump-populist backlash. No wonder the mood was ripe for taking advantage by a loudmouthed, neonationalist, populist blowhard. Yes, Obama shares some blame for Trump, and that’s a bitter pill the Left needs to swallow. [Here’s more I wrote between the 2016 election and Presidential changeover on how that all went down.]

Election 2016, Part 1: Trump Wins. How?

In the very same vein, the backlash to Trump begets what’s shaping up to be a Biden administration that is hapless and senile at the top, and dangerously, subversively radical (but in am underhandedly corportatist, neoliberal, passive-aggressive way) beneath. These wild, reactionary electoral backlashes are bad for our nation, not just in terms of governance, but divisiveness and discord. To a similar extent as four years before, the prior administration will shoulder some blame for bringing about the reactionary lunacy of the next.

In one of the BLOG posts linked above, I wrote: “Worse, Trump is going to hand our government over to the radical-leftist, tax-loving, debt-growing, social-engineering, Constitution-hating, moral-anarchist freakazoids, on a shiny silver platter, for decades to come…”. I hope that’s wrong, though I’ve been right about most else regarding this era. We have four years of the left’s parasitic feeding frenzy against the People to experience anyway, at a minimum. Thanks a freaking lot, Trump, you sorry loser.

Will we ever again elect a united and not a divider, a morally and ethically upstanding, intelligent force of dignity, with steady, strong and trustworthy leadership, to that office? Or will these continue to be the contests between cults of personality to which elections have devolved since 2008?

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Obama, communication skills, Constitution, coronavirus, Donald Trump, election fraud, election results, elections, foreign policy, government shutdown, Hillary Clinton, immigration, immorality, incompetence, Israel, Jerusalem, Joe Biden, leadership, leftism, Middle East, national debt, rioting, Supreme Court, taxation, taxes

Scattershooting 180314

March 14, 2018 by tornado Leave a Comment

Scattershooting while wondering if any in the Soros-controlled media have half a conscience about using those Parkland kids as pawns to push their radical, extremist, totalitarian gun-removal agenda.

Today I have a few longer entries. If you have a thick skin, and you won’t regret entering the gallery. If you don’t, go reread See Spot Run instead. Onward…

EXPUNGE TOXIC PEOPLE from LIFE — A PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS: Classical stoicism and Christian worldview (as opposed to religious practice) share many common philosophical underpinnings. Given their geographic commingling and conterminous nature in the Greek/Roman power era, this is no surprise. To the substantial extent stoicism is consistent with Jesus’ teachings, this is a good thing! Among the common virtues are: self-control, fortitude, overcoming adversity with dignity, personal responsibility for one’s behavior, ethical/moral well-being, calmness with emotional discipline (anger control, shedding of envy and jealousy). Properly swap in God for “Nature” in the stoic upholding, since He created nature: “Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature.” [citing Russell Bertrand’s A History of Western Philosophy] There’s another remarkable commonality.

In that vein, I recently read a nice little article by Darious Foroux that offers wise advice for any age: Stop Giving Toxic People Your Time. The essay self-advertises its roots in classical, secular Stoicism, but is consistent with the Christian worldview as well. As such, it’s good for all of us, secular or religious. Who are toxic people in your life or workplace? Quite simply: liars, cheaters, manipulators, backstabbers, thieves (whether of stuff, money or time), and of course the sociopathic. In short, as the article notes, avoid close associations with people who don’t have values. They will bring you down into dark places if you let them. Instead, seek out the strongly moral and the virtuous as friends and role models, acknowledging of course that nobody is perfect, and everybody sins. Perfection isn’t the point, virtue is.

EMASCULATED “MEN” and DEARTH of FATHERHOOD: The wussification of American “men” is well underway and has been for much of the past 15-20 years, maybe more. Too few dads are willing to teach their sons what manhood means! From the Christian-worldview perspective, it means being mentally and physically strong and sturdy in keeping with our God-given biology, while at the same time, servant leaders of households (wife and children) — loving and benevolent, present for them, while also decisive and wise, and firm without cruelty in discipline of kids…and never, ever abusive or manipulative! It means real strength — authentic strength of mind, body and spirit, not the trendy fad-word “vulnerability”. The “vulnerable man” gets used, taken advantage of, beaten up (literally or figuratively), his self-advertised weaknesses readily attacked by human predators, and in the end, he is discarded like yesterday’s garbage when he is no longer useful to his manipulator(s). Unsolicited advice: instead of advertising your “vulnerability”, don’t advertise or hide it…just fix it, with authenticity!

The best outcome we can hope for from the feminist/leftist school-curricula indoctrination of (effectively or actually) fatherless boys, deprived of that sorely needed role model by a broken society full of broken families, medicated to a mentally awry extent on synthetic brain-altering chemicals from early ages, awarded participation stickers/trophies for mediocrity in academics and athletics, “educated” that Christianity is an outdated mythological construct for simple/stupid people, and emasculated psychologically through the feminism’s inherent misandry to believe men are not an equal gender but an inferior one, is that they somehow rebel in a constructive way and learn to be a real man regardless. That has to be rare.

The typical path is they grow into emasculated little pencil-armed leftist dweebs, bereft of strong father figures and therefore of any meaningful understanding of manhood as an ideal, instead perpetual victims “in touch with their feminine side”, and either wondering what the proper use is for that little bitty thing sticking out between bunghole and bellybutton, or ashamed of it. Sometimes the shame extends to a delusional, genetically absurd extreme of defying the XY chromosome and lopping that thing off, much to the insane approval of left-wing social engineers. The worst outcome is of the kind we saw from a deranged orphan in Parkland, FL. Fortunately that is rare also, but gets a lot of attention and is blamed on the wrong thing (guns). What we need are more Christian servant-leader fathers! I mean real fathers — expressively loving while grounded in solid morals, convicted to lead lives of personal and professional virtue, pillars of honor and integrity, leading households both directly and by example. Until we get back to cherishing that role (and that role model), expect more of the same. And more misguided blame…

TRUMP’s CONTINUED DEBASEMENT of HIS OFFICE and of CONSERVATISM: Speaking of personal and professional virtue, the Trump administration clearly lacks this. It’s no surprise. I have no qualms saying, “I told you so”, because it’s the brutally honest truth. I told you it was coming. It has. It will. I told you he would stain conservatism, despite the truth that Trump is not a conservative (but instead a pseudo-populist blowhard and con artist). He has and he will. I take neither pride nor comfort in this, because it’s bad for our nation. It’s bad for our nation to have leftism take over, which is exactly what will happen as a pendulum-swing reaction to this moron (who was a pendulum-swing reaction to an Obama administration that was highly dishonorable for other reasons). It’s bad for us all to have a highly unqualified, immoral and undignified President (regardless of nominal party affiliation) engaging in personal attacks on social media, paying hush money to a smut star over an alleged affair (while married to his third freakin’ wife, after publicly cheating on at least his first!), and firing cabinet members left and right. Donald — if you were going to let ______ go (fill in any name among many from Tillerson on back), why did you hire him/her in the first place? That shows a horrifying lack of either personal or professional judgment, or both. Yet as Mark Levin recently stated, Trump didn’t know Rex Tillerson from Rex Reed or Tyrannosaurus Rex. That’s readily apparent. Get it right the first time, you big blowhard! Apparently that’s too much to ask from someone so administratively incompetent. His ineptitude makes even the notoriously naive, facile, over-his-head Obama’s look sanguine by comparison.

Look, dear reader: as you probably have found, I think independently, am beholden to no party line, follow no herd of lemmings. I will not hesitate to praise what Trump has done right (Gorsuch, Mattis, Haley, agreeing to meet the pot-bellied Nork dictator depending on results), nor wrong (see above, plus steel/aluminum tariffs, tone-deaf responses to several incidents, vile and immoral utterances almost weekly, and too much else to list in brief). Hard as it is to imagine, the alternative was at least as awful. At the same time I am so glad Hillary is not President that even I, one of uncommonly gigantic vocabulary, have inadequate words to describe my relief. I just want to reiterate, for the record, that I did not vote for this a**hole either, and wish he were not the alternative to the unadulterated and multifaceted evil that the Clintons would have unleashed upon us from the White House. Where is the stoic, wise, knowledgeable, strong, intelligent, dignified statesman with a foundationally unwavering Christian worldview, who can and should be our Presidential leader and representative to the world? Will we ever have another?

FEDERAL CRIMINAL CHARGES NEEDED for “SANCTUARY” OFFICIALS: The Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, and other radical left-wing state and local officials enabling and hiding illegal aliens, need to be taught this: illegal immigration is…illegal, under Federal law. Wow, what a revelation! An illegal act is illegal! So is aiding and abetting commission of a Federal crime by harboring fugitives, and also, warning them that law enforcement is coming. That makes her an accessory to a Federal crime. There is no need to over-analyze here. This is very straightforward. In addition to obstruction of justice, which is being considered, she should be charged and put on trial for harboring fugitives, and aiding and abetting a Federal crime: one count of each per illegal alien involved.

“SCATTERSHOOTING” IS HERE TO STAY; DEAL WITH IT: Finally, a misguided mind, whose name is withheld to protect his/her tender and insecure little ego, and whom I care about despite (and perhaps because of) their need for re-education to reverse years of high-school and university indoctrination in the ways of the passive-aggressive virtue signaler, recently suggested that I stop titling this periodic entry, “Scattershooting”. You can guess why.

Short answer: “No.” Long answer: “Hell no”. Longer answer: If you do not have the mental wherewithal to separate the figurative from the literal, nor the metaphorical from the tangible, nor to realize that being offended is a choice, I suggest going back to Romper Room and playing in the safe-space sandbox. Nobody forces you to read this. Yet ya did. Can’t take the heat? Stay out of the kitchen. Sometimes we all need to hear things we don’t want to hear. Call this love — tough love.

Filed Under: Scattershooting Tagged With: Chrstianity, Donald Trump, emasculation, emotion, fatherhood, fathers, Hillary Clinton, illegal aliens, immigration, independent thinking, leftism, Libby Schaaf, logic, manhood, men, rationality, reason, Rex Tillerson, safe spaces, sanctuary cities, Stoicism, transgender, vulnerability, worldviews

Brexit: Calm Down, Knee-Jerk Reactionary Fools!

June 27, 2016 by tornado Leave a Comment

Several days ago, a majority of the British people, in a fair and open democratic referendum, and with a margin comparable to the Obama-Romney election here, voted to pull out of the bureaucratic and regulatory quagmire known as the European Union.

I’m not going to pretend to be any sort of expert on the logistic or economic details of the “Brexit” maneuver. Yet I guarantee I’ve read more about it than 95% of the instant-experts on social media, who had no clue about it a month in advance, yet somehow grossly overestimate the meaningfulness of their day-after knee-jerk thoughts thereabout. All I can do is draw some parallels to tendencies I see every day in the news and in the society here, and draw upon experts I do read, most from the homeland of our former colonial overlords.

Brexit, in many ways, was inevitable. Ivory-tower left-wingers on this side of the pond have been casting the vote as “xenophobia” (example). Bullshit. American leftist Bill Maher, of all people, countered nicely: Is it really a phobia if you really have something to be afraid of?

Or, as Ian Tuttle put it: “They are unable to believe they may be wrong, so their opponents must be irrational bigots.” “Bigot”, of course, is a common, hackneyed, petty, laughable, increasingly meaningless, ad hominem slur, arising from the insular catacombs of a leftism that acts so self-congratulatory when some election result does go their way. No, xenophobia had nothing important to do with it. Instead, authentic, real-world concerns of real people did.

In addition to immigration, and likely more importantly, the issue of globalism was at play. The opposite of anti-globalism is not “xenophobia”. The latter simply is a convenient and patronizing pejorative used by the economic, bureaucratic and (pseudo-)intellectual elite for those they perceive as ignorant, drooling rubes. This is done to elicit head nods from the agreeable fellow members of the herd, as I’ve seen commonly on social media.

Go the globalists: “Clap clap clap…yes they’re xenophobes, clap clap clap, yes they’re xenophobes! Thank you sir, shall we pander to one another some more, and continue with our patronizing, elitist puffery…”

Instead the opposite of globalism is more properly termed sovereignty. Boris Johnson, who actually is English and is immersed in this issue deeply, elucidates this well, as he assures us all from within that the U.K. still is part of Europe, and isn’t going to collapse into a smoldering heap of ashes.

The reasoned people who supported this (yes, they exist!) cast a vote substantially for sovereignty, or if you prefer, against the slow-creep toward one-world governance. And yes, there were young voters who voted for this also; this fact is being swept under the rug. Minority or not, they clearly matter(ed). And yes, there were highly educated people who voted for this; that also is being conveniently ignored. I have read a few of their well-reasoned essays. But if one wants to take the easy road and label this “xenophobia”, it’s apparent the proletariat aren’t the ignorant ones.

Yet for expressing this layered, textured idea, I’ve been labeled “absolutist”. Hardly! Indeed, to dig deeper than that is the farthest from “absolutist”–but instead peels into layers of the onion that aren’t so readily apparent.

One of these is the supposed “regret” bloc that is receiving attention far out of proportion to its size of assorted well-publicized individuals. This is so short-sighted and irrational. If you’re going to vote one way and second-guess that the next day, you should have studied the issue better, or stayed home. Your vote is your word…too late now, grasshopper. That passionate one-night stand is done and you must live with your decision. Such is the case in any election in any nation.

Two days is much too short of a time to determine ramifications. The meaningful consequences of this vote, for better or worse, will unfold over 5-10 years. Rantings of pundits this soon thereafter are worthless drivel (it’s way, way, way too soon!)–much akin to NFL draft-grading before the players have even reported to training camp. That (including the aforementioned buyer’s remorse reactions) is itself reactionary, emotional, shortsighted.

Whither the shock and rage over losing value in the equities and monetary exchange markets? That is a very overstated, short-fused gnat fart when you graph it versus the past seven years’ bull market; if we do happen to go to into bear mode soon, factors far larger, deeper and darker than Brexit will be responsible.

Brexit is a sign simply and foremost of working-class disillusionment with an inertial and bloated bureaucratic establishment, globalist trade policy, unfettered immigration at the expense of domestic jobs and security, and loss of both economic and sociopolitical national sovereignty. It’s very loosely similar to some sentiments behind the Trump phenomenon here–but not necessarily in the way you might think at first.

Instead, it’s a manifestation of democracy as it should work: enough people get sick and tired of what those in power are doing and want to go a different way. Personally I wish that “way” in the U.S., were a truly intelligent leader like Rand Paul or Ted Cruz, and not a conceited, false-conservative buffoon like Trump, who is driving me even farther out of the Republican Party than the reprehensible “RINO” establishment in DC did. But for all his flaws, he (along with the authentically principled, if misguided, Bernie Sanders) has figured out one thing: there is a lot of discontent with the “way things are” out there and an intense desire to knock it down and start over.

In the U.K., the people had their vote. Agree with it or not, we should respect it. Or as more than one Obama voter obnoxiously and pompously stated after 2008: “Deal with it”.

As for the anti-establishment sentiment here, I refuse to support a candidate entirely devoid of integrity, whether “establishment” (HRC) or pretending to be anti-establishment (Trump). I will not play that binary-choice game anymore. Hillary and Bill Clinton (and they are a package deal, remember) are classic corporate-globalist tools (not to mention corrupt as hell), and Trump is simply deranged. Neither gives a whit about the Constitution in full; either would ratchet domestic spying and Constitutional evasion to new levels. I’ll be voting third-party; hence, don’t blame me for whatever happens when either of those two egomaniacal head cases attains the presidency.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: arrogance, Bill Clinton, Brexit, bureaucracy, Clinton, Donald Trump, economics, economy, elitism, England, establishment, European Union, globalism, Great Britain, Hillary Clinton, immigration, nationalism, one-world governance, Republicans, sovereignty, trade, Trump, xenophobia

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