Friends, Not content with putting his face on legal tender currency, DJT is now promising every adult American $5,000 if Republicans win the House and Senate in November. Wow!!! If you ask me, this is a dreadful idea on so many levels, the first being that we've got an almost $2 trillion yearly deficit, and Trump is proposing to add to it. More importantly, I suspect the brazen pandering that this represents will be seen for what it is by the American people. Trump threw money in all directions in 2020 in an effort to get reelected, and we all know how that turned out. I doubt this gambit will be any more successful, or will be any more likely to produce those $5,000 checks. But hey, the voters aren't universally bright, and they sure like freebies, so who knows... Maybe this is what American politics boils down to these days: whoever promises more free stuff, WINS!!! The truth is, as I see it, that Trump has accumulated a strong record in his second term and has already made life better for most Americans. This dividend business may distract from that record, and that's a shame, but that's just my two cents.
Dr.Waddy: I think it was Ben Jonson who said of Shakespeare , while effusively praising him: " would that he had blotted a thousand words". Our happy warrior President is a great one but would that he would refrain from some perhaps compulsive remarks. Maybe he was trying to say that every American would benefit to the equivalency of $5000 from the preservation of a GOP Congress. (?) Rather have to deal with his sometimes bumptious blather than with the oily patronization displayed by recent Dem Presidents and Presidential candidates.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteI'm sure you are more than aware that Trump is a RINO. He is GOP on paper, but a populist president in fact. In any event, if I ever see the $5,000, how much taxes do I have to pay on that?
Dr. Waddy: A commentator on Fox today opined that President Trump was saying "we would have the votes to do this if Congress remains GOP. " He came through on taxcuts, eg.relief for those - including so many of the Working Class , ehh, Comrades - who depend on tips ,and for Social Security recipients ; those put a lot of money in a alot of private pockets.Too, he did it without spending; the government never sees the saved money in the first place. He would be faithful on this new proposal too. Besides, America would be far better off on myriad issues without the socially vindictive DSA/Dems in charge of either or both houses. (and that reminds me; if the DSA wants to abolish the Senate,why don't they simply remove their august presence from that hallowed chamber and curse it with the "abolishment" of their unimpeachable wisdom and justice from its "undemocratic" confines.)
ReplyDeleteSure, a reasonable person could see this as a tawdry bribe but DSA/Dem opposition can be fully attributed to reflexive far left bigotry and juvenile hatred for President Trump. I'd respect Senator Fetterman if he objected to it but the rest of his party has no moral authority to say that anything is wrong or unprincipled. They have long since proven themselves dedicated by getting their way "by any means necessary" and if it means them dancing around the campfire in paroxysms of outrage we should but laugh at them. Will they change many minds with their nocturnal saturnalia? I think not!
Ray: No, with respect for the plausible concerns you expressed ,I don't see President Trump as a RINO. I see RINOS as irresolute compromisers with a DSA/ Dem party which sneers at heretic accomodations of anyone who doubts them. "Why, I don't want to be 'judgemental'"is the RINOS' obsequious maxim. People like Mitt Romney and pore ol' Paul Ryan were exemplary of this . Not many of their squishiness left I think.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP is President Trump's party now and he is the antithesis of Rino, as I see it. To see him restored to office and , as the happy warrior he is, putting a thumb in the eyes of the cynical, amoral DSA /dems without letup: to finally see that faithful resolve in a GOP President is most redeeming.
Concern about unjustified government spending is sine qua non for conservatives and we need to show our support even when President Trump works deep cuts to relatively small but still obnoxious and imperious spending presumptions heretofore so blithely enacted by overintellectualized snobs like those who run the Smithsonian or the now still enduring "Public" Broadcasting System.
How can we free up enough public funding to give each family the stipend the President proposed? Maybe deny all federal funding to the American academy save for that research devoted to national defense and national health. Let it persist only on its own highly compromised merits. Let it attempt to garner voluntary support and free the taxpayer from mandatory financial support for the American Academy's shameful surrender to totalitarian marxist doctrine. I'd bet that would be a good start and would send a chilling message to other American institutions which think this absurd forced national spending for national suicide is just peachy.
RAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteI understand where you are coming from. I still say he is a populist president, belonging to no party, and representing himself, because he is so unique. Forget RINO!
Ray: Thats a good point; he certainly is unlike any other recent GOP notable except maybe Gingerich.
ReplyDeleteAbove when I said " ehh, Comrades" I was aiming a thumb in the eyes of the far left, not working people. Jack
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: I do agree though; the good fortune wrought for America by President Trump's tenure not withstanding, that measure of deficit spending is thoroughly alarming! Maybe , if he's able to after January, he'll take some drastic measures similar to those he took in his first term(?). At least a midterm advanced prolifigate DSA/Dem party wouldn't be able to build on this almost inconceivable amount due to him holding the veto power.
ReplyDeleteOf course the '28 campaign starts the day after the midterms and despite the fact that he can't run, President Trump must be mindful of the effect drastic cuts could have on that vital contest. DSA/ dem Bolsheviks, should they get the power, would make frantic haste to undo all of his reforms in Jan. '29 and to commence their limitless reign of dictated artificial "equity" .
Dr. Waddy: I had to laugh, in a brief look at MSNBC I saw a commentator pontificating the "Trump is the new McCarthy" .
ReplyDeleteTakes one to know one. Only radicals get to speak on that obsequious radical outlet so I'm sure that his impassioned condemnation is solely because our President is outspokenly anticommie. MSNBC of course dreams of becoming the new Pravda.
The "American" far left has been thoroughly McCarthylike in its savage assault since the 60s on the integrity of any who doubt its unimpeachable wisdom and justice. They have no moral authority to castigate anyone ,or to try to suppress their free speech, for putative McCarthyism.
Yes, our President maybe can be compared to McCarthy in his unfortunate use of intemperate language but DJT is right on point with hostility to "American" Marxists. McCarthy was their scourge and I hope that DJT puts just as much fear of God in them .
RAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteSenator McCarthy was sniffing down the right trails. Too bad Eisenhower ended his career in 1954.
RAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteIf I ever read any more books or articles about McCarthy, it would be one that defended him, which is: "Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies" by Stanton Evans (Pub, 2007, 2009, 672 pages).
Ray: I'm going to get Evans' book. Thanx for the heads up.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteThank you! Hope you find it without any problems, unless some lefty burned all the copies. Ha!
Dr. Waddy: Well, the "America" far left is crowing and preening about its upcoming imminent victory in the midterms. Its shameful and appalling to have to give serious consideration to that yet not assured possibility in America of all places .
ReplyDeleteTo better understand the potential for DSA inroads in our polity I am reading and rereading parts of Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism. Yes, her upbringing in Germany was intellectually challenging, "progressive" and socialist. Yes, her lover for a time was the Nazi party member Martin Heidegger but she was a Jew who was briefly examined by the Gestapo and who then fled Germany. From what I can tell she was an intensely, rigorously painstaking and courageously objective scholar. The Origins of Totalitarianism is considered one of the most influential works of political theory but because of her creditable comparisons of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia she is also castigated, often no doubt reflexively, by far leftists.
In trying to understand the totalitarian threat the Marxist DSA presents to America , this time I'll use a quote from The Origins of Totalitarianism: "transformation of classes and the concomitant elimination of all group solidarity are the condition sine qua non of total domination. Sounds to me like the Marxist DSA's determination to impose absolute EQUITY in public and theretofore private life in America. And history confirms the murderous devotion Marxists in power have paid to their version of unrelenting ,absolute fulfillment of their doctrine no matter the human cost.
Jeanne Kirkpatrick, in her famous 1970's article in the journal Commentary , which much struck Ronald Reagan, held that in authoritarianism ,venal merciless tyrants seek to control your life only to the extent that you not burden them in their chosen enjoyment of their voluptuary lives and their power. Oh that may involve using you for whatever depraved pleasure it affords but then they may just leave you alone.
But ,she said, totalitarians like the Nazis and Marxist Soviets were fanatically determined to take charge of EVERY aspect of the lives of citizens and to compulsively "correct" any perceived heretic deviation from their perfected doctrine. DSA promises like "fundamental transformation", abolishing free enterprise , creating a freed up criminal class for temporary service in a "united front" for their cause: gee, that sure smacks of intended limitlessly enforced TOTAL change to me.
Dr. Waddy: Another quote from Origins of Totalitarianism , cited by noted historian of Eastern Europe and its oppression by tyrants ,Anne Applebaum ,( she accompanied Polish President Lech Walesa on his 2025 lecture tour in America, which I attended. Certainly no man alive better understands the terrible truth about marxism than he!) ; on p.xvii c1976 edition within Applebaum's Introduction c2024. "Terror can rule absolutely over men who are isolated against each other . . . Isolation may be the beginning of terror ; it certainly is its most fertile ground".
ReplyDeleteHistory conclusively proves Marxism in power to be inseparable from terror. Our DSA is marxist, I think it is at the very least consciously and incipiently so. Even if it never triumphs it will work limitless injustice in trying.
Its obvious intention to free all criminals to do their will would of course foment a reign of physical terror. Its fundamental resolve to destroy the engine of our blessed prosperity and its myriad benefits , free enterprise , would if realized ,strike incalculable terror in common sense Americans. Its now demonstrated in incubus in NYC determination to abolish private property, would in enforcement be met with furious contradiction and attendant anarchy welcomed by Marxists. Like the Marxists they are DSA seeks to exacerbate "contradictions" in American civilization by fomenting dissension and dysfunction , by destroying the rule of law and encouraging anarchic hate for any dissenters from its unchallengeable virtue. It knows of course that its absurd ideas cause outrage and divisive reaction . And the DSA's medium, the "American" far left ,has since the 60s resolved to use "any means necessary" to impose its will on America and it cheerfully lauds the use of terrorism in seeking that end. Oh and BTW, there is the detestable rise of Jew hatred , which manifests intense terror in America, commensurate and coincident with the rise of the DSA.
I think our DSA is essentially Marxist and so by definition willing to countenance terror for both "revolution" and its consolidation and so, fundamentally totalitarian in close cousinage with its Nazi bedfellow.
I should add, purposely hostilely atomizing Americans , isolates them one against another and provides the "fertile ground" Jack
ReplyDeleteJack, if Trump wasn't promising a DIRECT $5,000 payout, then he was even less precise in his wording than usual. No, I think he meant what he said, although I suspect it's nothing more than a talking point, and Trump knows it. One has to wonder, though, whether the Dems might feel some pressure to put a dollar figure on their (meaningless) promises too?
ReplyDeleteAs for cutting off higher ed from federal support, most of that support comes in the form of subsidized loans and loan guarantees, which go to students, not directly to institutions, so, to screw the universities, you would first have to screw a whole lot of voters... Unlikely.
Is Trump a RINO? Not in the sense that most people use that term, but neither is he a "party man". He believes in America and he believes in himself. Almost all of his other beliefs, I feel, are tactical and mutable.
Oh, I think the chances of deep spending cuts, initiated by President Trump, are slim to none. Elon was fired for a reason!
For what it's worth, I have long considered "totalitarianism" to be something of a myth. No regime can ever have TOTAL control over a society. Having said that, particularly in communist countries, there were ZERO institutions that were not heavily influenced by the party apparatus. Even so, the party apparatus itself was riven by divisions, so that blunted the monoculture to a degree, as it did the human penchant for freedom and self-expression.