Friends, as Democrats grow increasingly desperate and apocalyptic in their rhetoric, they're comparing Trump to Hitler more and more, and even claiming that Trump speaks admiringly of Hitler. Assuming you believe what anyone who hates Trump says, and assuming you ignore all the times Trump has condemned Hitler, it's an awfully credible smear. Assuming you have a brain and a capacity for critical thought, on the other hand, it seems much like sour grapes by a party that's about to lose an election. Anyway, speaking of Hitler, in the picture above he's shaking hands with Marshal Petain, France's hero of the Battle of Verdun who would go on to serve as the leader of the collaborationist Vichy regime. I reference Petain when Brian and I talk about Verdun on this week's Newsmaker Show. Of course, we also delve deeply into all the latest developments in the campaign for president, including the polls, the growing importance of Elon Musk, the British Labour Party's "election interference", and more!
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Speaking of the rising crescendo of cries of "Fascism!" coming from the Left, Kamala Harris has added her voice to the chorus. Do the lefties really think this tired old tactic will work? As if inflating their Trump-hating rhetoric will finally catch independent voters' attention... Please!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/harris-says-she-agrees-trump-is-a-fascist_n_6719a3dee4b07a68074663f6
To be fair, you can see why the Dems and progressives are flailing. The polls and the betting markets look worse and worse for them by the day, and none of their punches seem to be landing. In fact, Trump's favorables keep going up. In most of the latest polls, in fact, Trump is even ahead in the national popular vote, which makes it no surprise that the lefties are fit to be tied.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/10/24/nolte-trump-leads-nationally-four-most-recent-polls/
Finally, kudos to the British government under Sir Keir Starmer for getting at least one thing right: it will refuse to pay reparations for slavery to any other country. Reparations are a fool's errand, and there is no way to do them in a way that would be fair and productive. Having said that, my ancestors were (almost certainly) enslaved by the Romans, and I would like some free pasta. That's not asking too much, is it?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c238lje181ko
Dr. Waddy from Jack: The Brits led the world in the suppression of the slave trade. They did it with their superlative Navy. But life aboard a Brit man o war in the 18th and early 19th century was hell on water for their crews, especially when on months long cruises followed by no access to shore! Of course the Brits' demonstrated determination to end
ReplyDeletethe abomination of slavery is of no moment for those countries which crave the benefits of reparations. Such countries are of course not to blame for any aspect of the slave trade.
Perhaps, being of Scotch Irish descent I shall immediately task the state of N. Carolina for their use of often unwilling indentured servants of my ethnicity to build their agriculture. Oh yeah, N.Carolina is pretty busy just now; but I harbor three hundred years of grievance at that and I can wait a little longer.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Aww, you just have to understand far left thinking: When you are way over on the left, the center does look to be extremely far away and since it is on the right, then it is far right and we all know that the far right is the abode of nazis (right?). So all those Magas, the unredeemed middle of our polity, the deplorables (a phrase which will be Hillary's only lasting legacy), are nazis - get it? And their fuhrer is DJT. Why , reductio ad absurdum you say? That's a warn out relic of the University in the middle ages. Our present day Academy exalts reason!
ReplyDeleteOh I can see why the antiamerican left deplores lotteries! Why the INEQUITY of results of course. Being that Musk's lottery in Pa. is to support DJT it is by definition doubly condemned . I can hear the well oiled lawfarte machine swinging into action even now but alas, maybe too late?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I bid anyone who plays loose with comparisons to Hitler and Nazis to read Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, if only for the descriptions of what the SS did as it followed the Wehrmacht into Russia. Have plenty of antinausea remedy at hand. After they have I dare them to equate Hitler's evil with any living person and with more than a few historical figures ( eg. Genghis Khan, Stalin, Pol Pot). Such hyperbole completely discredits those who express it.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Verdun can be seen as the exemplar of the truly indescribable horror of WWI. Its reasonable to think that no matter how much one might sympathize with those who lived it , that to empathize is beyond human perception. And as such Verdun perhaps presents the most stark and revealing contrast between the optimism of the Edwardian Age and the unimaginably staggering catastrophe wrought even far beyond the battlefield.
ReplyDeleteCan it be that the effect of Verdun's perhaps unprecedented war weariness was the fount of France's understandable apparent lack of willingness to fight all out in 1940. I wonder what Marshall Petain's trial after the war revealed of his motivation. Was it that of a dutiful old soldier resigned to doing the best he could for his country after its investment by monsters? Did he see Naziism as the advent of a terribly counterintuitive change in Western civilization perhaps as astonishing and fearful as that wrought by the Vikings but perhaps similarly capable in time of some beneficial evolution?
I'd be very interested to see if you, as a Professor of European History think my opinion, which is that WWI is the seminal event of the 20th century, is creditable. Before it: well founded perception that a golden age of well being had arrived; after it: boundless cataclysm exemplified by the rise of the curse of Naziism and Communism and the ruin of countless lives but perhaps, unexpected redemption by the end of the century.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Fox had pics of a huge crowd freezing their cans off outside Madison Square Garden this AM waiting for a Trump rally. This, in NYC, which supposedly shunned him. The NY voters among them may be casting wasted Presidential votes I fear, in the People's Republic. But then, while they are at it, one hopes they'll help vote in a GOP Congress. Besides , a popular vote win for DJT would knock out one of their election nullification lawfare" justifications" Revulsion at the antiamerican left , the intent of which is clear through all of their euphemistic obfuscation; that plus gratitude and respect for DJT's gutsiness, may well deliver us on Nov. 5.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: The attendance of a massive pro DJT rally crowd in NYC, where their Presidential vote may well not count, strongly suggests that our side is doing the right thing! It is taking nothing for granted and is sustaining maximum effort!
ReplyDeleteBoxers are taught to aim to punch straight through their target in order to land maximum power on it where and when its needed. We may be doing the same and its looking good. I wonder at what point the dems might give up and revert to vindictive chaos. A historic decision is close at hand and their always highly emotional state of mind may be driven by justified dread of the unthinkable to complete collapse.
The British both dominated the slave trade AND they led the movement to extirpate it. I say: it's a little late to claim credit or assume blame.
ReplyDeleteAgreed: the hyperbolic comparisons of Trump to Hitler are disgustingly stupid, and they are, and should be taken for, a gross insult to anyone who suffered under Nazi oppression. Rhetorical inflation seems to be the only arrow that the Left has remaining in its quiver. But they do excel at inflation, so I guess in that sense you can understand why they're trying it.
Hmm. Interesting perspective on WWI. It certainly catalyzed a lot of cynicism, pessimism, and extremism. It thus bore some very bitter fruit. But, in a way, how could it NOT be the formative event that determined all that followed? It was a World War, after all, and how!!!
Jack, if the Dems had gotten all of their own authoritarian ducks in a row, now is about the time they would be sowing chaos in the streets, planting some false flags of "insurrection", and canceling the blasted election! Is a week enough time to organize all that? It could be cutting it close.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: In great civilizations like Rome and Great Britain good people Britain once sincerely believed slavery to be justified. In England in say, 1700 you could have , in principled dialogue in polite company, have argued in favor of it. But Britain's abolition movement, which freely and publicly gathered head in the 18th century ,made a successful moral argument to a culture already highly advanced for its day. And once those Brits were convinced they took action.
ReplyDeleteEmpathy has taken a long time to develop in humanity. Perhaps the intense physical and dread induced pain of daily life fostered desperate indifference to the suffering of others. In retrospect it is condemned but perhaps it was a simple grim matter of fact almost impervious to moral restraint. Christ made a dent in it but his astonishing views have taken a recalcitrant humanity a long, long time to achieve such acceptance as they have today.
Jack, I daresay in 1700 virtually no one would have thought to argue AGAINST slavery. It was a fact of life and seldom placed under even cursory scrutiny. By 1780 there were glimmerings of conscience. By 1800 something big was underway.
ReplyDelete