This might sound weird, but I often just sit and think and try to understand what I'm missing about Democrats and their remarkable hatred, passion and anger towards us. Like you, I cannot understand why the antipathy toward people who just simply want--more or less--to be left alone and to trust people as adults. We want things like, say, school choice, but they hate us because we're "destroying public schools." The conservatives I know *see* things clearly, but the Democrats I know seem mentally ill. They are crazy and irrational.
The biggest observations I have about Democrats/Leftists are that they "indulge the worst of us." Almost to the point of where it seems that they completely do not understand human behavior or history. An alien planted here for a week would observe Democrats and not understand why they do what they do, considering how most humans react to their policies.
The flip side is that conservatives have an appreciation for history, traditions and mores. We understand that the human condition has been a steady build over thousands of years, and that many things exist for the reason of helping us -- their future generations. I used to understand that the study of history was to not repeat mistakes, but I understand it at a deeper level now. I understand that it teaches us why we are who we are, and that the things we do are not irrational. They have a basis. We don't always understand why, but there is a reason.
When I see a Democrat, I see someone who rejects what history has taught us, and rejects all of the foundations that have been built for us. A Democrat is a narcissist who believes that they are suddenly enlightened and that every idea into their head is somehow better than thousands of years of historical acquisition and refinement.
I could go on and on, but I don't want to bore you guys.
I'll just say that there is a reason that young people are "liberals" and that as people grow older they become "conservative." They learn. Not all, but many. Remember, half the population is below average!
We are in the midst of an actual communist Revolution in America. It has been slowly brewing up since 2006. Getting hotter and hotter. Read this below and weep. Please tell me how it ends well.
“the Biden administration has directed that the number of questions asked of illegal Chinese immigrants be reduced. Until recently illegal immigrants from China were required to answer 40 separate questions about their background. Now they are expected to answer only five. Human smuggling organizations know the five questions and coach Chinese immigrants in advance on how to answer the questions.”
A couple of thoughts. First your list is not 'conservative'. The underlying ideas of Locke et al are the most radical and successful in human history whereas so called 'radical' ideas, whether Marxism or racism, are as old as human history and have always failed. We should express them that way. Second my take on people such as Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Bill Mahar, Bill Ackman and Joel Kotlin is that they have been 'purple pilled'. They know something is wrong but can't / won't see to the root causes. So they wring their hands and maybe sound sane on a particular topic but will resist the 'red pill' with all their strength because they can't stand to have their entire world view blown up. They are not ready to accept that those 'conservative' ideas are the key to humans thriving.
Conservative is a label that's often misleading. Free speech is important because it leads to truth. Only when the public discussion is open and free can we get to the truth. Public debate should be a brawl of opinion and facts. This is why X is so important right now. As to Gay, academics gossip like a gang of teen age girls. Harvard's reputation -- and Stanford's -- have taken a real beating because of this. Effects will be subtle but long lasting.
"all of this happens, and then we sit here and watch in horror as people will STILL clamor to give government MORE power over their lives and shame those who disagree"
Dostoyevsky explained this phenomenon: Why the Grand Inquisitor Sentenced Jesus Christ to be Burned at the Stake
A word of disagreement on tariffs; they are quite conservative and legitimate. Here's what tariffs do:
1. Tariffs are used to protect strategic industries with national security implications like high tech, steel, aviation, pharmaceuticals against unfair competition like dumping.
When done correctly this has a gigantic job creation potential -- Exhibit No 1 Stanley moving its tool production back to the US from China.
2. Tariffs are used to protect fledgling, startup businesses and their new technology against thieves like China. This has a monumental impact on US job creation.
3. Tariffs are used to punish bad actors — talking to you China and your intellectual property theft, your currency manipulation, your closed markets, and your slave/child labor. There is more — like the environmental impact of Chinese manufacturing.
4. Tariffs are used to create fair trade -- as an example to level the playing field between the higher French tariffs on US wine v the lower tariffs on French wine and champagne imported into the US.
The Biden admin's failure to erect tariffs on EV minerals and batteries will kill the US EV manufacturing industry and ensure China is the big winner on EVs.
Exhibit No 2 -- the tariffs placed on foreign car manufacturing -- such as BMW, MB, Lexus -- forced those manufacturers to bring their production to the US.
Go see the magnificent Lexus, MB and BMW plants in South Carolina.
Jobs that were in Germany came to the Piedmont. Parts suppliers flooded in. Americans paid taxes to the US and the state.
Result -- gobs of good jobs, income taxes, growth plus foreign car prices went down because of the elimination of ocean shipping.
Win, win, win.
Play the long game. Tariffs are a useful economic tool.
Tax credits and subsidies often do not work either. Remember when the Biden Administration installed the tax credit for EVs? What did Ford do? Raise the price by the amount of the tax credit!
The foreign car companies didn't set up shop here because of tariffs. They did it because it was cheaper and closer to their customers.
I don't mind fighting economically, but it must be done with tax and regulatory policy.
US and Chinese trade policy between 2017 and 2018. The analysis uses a unique data set with the universe of new auto sales at the US county level, at a monthly frequency, and a simple difference-in-difference approach to measure the effect of changes in trade policy on county-level consumption. I estimate the elasticity of consumption growth to Chinese retaliatory tariffs to be
around minus one. This implies that counties in the upper quartile of the retaliatory-tariff distribution experienced a 3.8 percentage point decline in consumption growth. The fall in consumption corresponds with decline in both tradeable and retail employment. These results suggest that Chinese retaliation is leading to concentrated welfare losses in the US.
Let's take a look at the early 1990s (Geo HW Bush, Bill Clinton POTUS) whereat the foreign car companies enjoyed a rising market share -- BMW, MB, Jaguar, Lexus -- in a decidedly luxury market.
These are elite, ego cars and the buyer is not price shopping for this luxury good.
At that time, the US had a 2.5% tariff on foreign cars imported into the US and Europe had a 10% tariff on US cars shipped to Europe.
Why was that unequal tariff situation tolerated? Because the American car makers were already manufacturing their European cars in Europe. Today, Ford has more than a dozen plants in the EU.
The US threatened tariffs based on country of manufacturing origin and percentage of a car made outside the US. The threatened tariff was 25%.
The Europeans threatened to retaliate, but they had way more to lose than the US based on the magnitude of comparative flows plus Ford, et al, was already manufacturing there, so it was an empty threat.
Within 5 years, BMW/MB were manufacturing cars in the Upstate in South Carolina and Lexus was in Kentucky. Today, these are gigantic plants and employ tens of thousands plus all the parts manufacturers who orbit around these facilities.
Huge bloody win for tariffs and the US.
BTW, this was also the cleverest way to create US jobs in a right-to-work, non-union environment.
These manufacturers have doubled and tripled down on these investments, many of which are their largest facilities outside their home countries.
The trends continue to this day with Daimler and Volvo recently building huge plants in North Charleston and Hyundai building a $10B battery plant in Savannah.
All of this started because the US "threatened" tariffs to protect a critical industry and to spur employment.
These cars are not particularly cost sensitive and thus the consumers' willingness to pay up for a MB/BMW, etc., is irrelevant to the convo.
That's how tariffs can work well for the US.
This is, of course, an isolated situation and tariffs have to be used in conjunction with an orderly trade policy.
US car manufacturing ills did not happen because the US threatened -- but did not enact -- tariffs. It was management getting too deep in bed with the unions and resisting opportunities for modernization like robots. Robots are, of course, a huge issue with the unions.
Through all of the US car company ills, these foreign owned plants sold the Hell out of their product lines.
[The Ford F-150, made in right to work Texas, continues to be the biggest winner in car history.]
Do you drive any foreign cars today? Why? Because they are many times superior in styling, performance, luxury, and brand image.
I drive a 1985 MB convertible, a 2005 Yukon, and my wife drives a Lexus. I can afford a slightly better car, but I like those ones.
And don’t forget the chipmaker subsidies. TSMC is more or less failing in the USA because there aren’t enough high skilled workers and American building sclerosis. Costs will be at least 150% of Taiwan.
There are four recognized reasons -- only one of which is national security -- to consider tariffs (same answer I gave above):
"1. Tariffs are used to protect strategic industries with national security implications like high tech, steel, aviation, pharmaceuticals against unfair competition like dumping.
When done correctly this has a gigantic job creation potential -- Exhibit No 1 Stanley moving its tool production back to the US from China.
2. Tariffs are used to protect fledgling, startup businesses and their new technology against thieves like China. This has a monumental impact on US job creation.
3. Tariffs are used to punish bad actors — talking to you China and your intellectual property theft, your currency manipulation, your closed markets, and your slave/child labor. There is more — like the environmental impact of Chinese manufacturing.
4. Tariffs are used to create fair trade -- as an example to level the playing field between the higher French tariffs on US wine v the lower tariffs on French wine and champagne imported into the US."
In the link you provide the argument advanced is related to dumping, and maybe #3. and #4. above.
Companies do not exist solely for consumers; they also exist for basic property rights -- to make the ownership class some God damn money and return on their investment -- and also for the employees because taking care of a company's employees is a good business practice.
Done correctly, taking care of consumers and employees makes the owner class more money. Capitalism.
Steel does have national security implications, but a capital transaction is different than tariffs. I won't dig into that.
The chipmaker subsidies, in my view, were too late to the game. The chipmakers had already made their bets. There is a huge national security implication as it relates to China v Taiwan and the potential for a wartime interruption of orderly markets.
The future of chips whether in the US or overseas will continue to be held hostage to talent and the ability to man up complex manufacturing processes, but that has been true since the first clean room was built.
Intel used to be on the cutting edge. Until they weren’t. Lots of parallels to the US steel decline. Lots of it due to bad management decisions.
The Jones Act is one of the most pernicious trade practices. Screw the Alaskans, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans for a shriveled and almost non-existent domestic shipbuilding industry. As a result the USA should be buying Navy ships from the Japanese and Koreans to maximize national security.
Jobs at the plant floor level are labor incorporated into a product and the better the labor component, the better the product and the better the price.
Jobs are also taxpayers who pay income taxes and payroll taxes and thus essential to the efficient conduct of gov't. I am opposed to high taxes.
The theory of unilateral free trade is that it is a myth. It can't be done. The greatest market in the world is the US market and it is perfectly legitimate for the US to charge a fee to enter it -- not talking about tariffs, but regulations and adherence to law.
Bad management should be punished by shareholders. Depending upon its power, it will or will not. This is politics.
The Jones Act is nonsense.
The US should have a robust shipbuilding industry with extra care given to warships. This means that the regulatory burden of an American flagged ship should be fixed.
No foreign shipbuilder has ever built a ship as complex and capable as our boomers and aircraft carriers. Same is true of our military aircraft.
This is not just system complexity, but the actual process of shipbuilding.
The cost is totally out of control and contracting is also.
I was in Seoul when S Korea did not produce a single ton of steel -- not even reinforcing rods. They have come a long way in a comparatively short period of time -- half a century.
The US should work on its military and economic allies and make it a huge advantage to be a friend of the US.
Talking to you, India, S Korea, Australia, and Japan. We are woefully absent in S America and Africa.
Our realistic choice is between Trump and the "Core Republican Establishment". In my eyes Trump is the easy winner given the CRE is just part of the uniparty and happy to continue feeding on the carcass of America. They are servants of the unelected bureaucracy. Trump isn't a conservative but I distrust him less than Christie or Haley. Great column, by the way! Thanks
I’m a little more optimistic. The absurdity has become too much for too many people. There are a lot of new left-liberal fans of Rufo et al. There’s no requirement to become a Republican. The R extreme is every bit as bad and illiberal as their D counterparts and unfortunately the extremes have the loudest voices. https://x.com/timurkuran/status/1742439137372762427
This might sound weird, but I often just sit and think and try to understand what I'm missing about Democrats and their remarkable hatred, passion and anger towards us. Like you, I cannot understand why the antipathy toward people who just simply want--more or less--to be left alone and to trust people as adults. We want things like, say, school choice, but they hate us because we're "destroying public schools." The conservatives I know *see* things clearly, but the Democrats I know seem mentally ill. They are crazy and irrational.
The biggest observations I have about Democrats/Leftists are that they "indulge the worst of us." Almost to the point of where it seems that they completely do not understand human behavior or history. An alien planted here for a week would observe Democrats and not understand why they do what they do, considering how most humans react to their policies.
The flip side is that conservatives have an appreciation for history, traditions and mores. We understand that the human condition has been a steady build over thousands of years, and that many things exist for the reason of helping us -- their future generations. I used to understand that the study of history was to not repeat mistakes, but I understand it at a deeper level now. I understand that it teaches us why we are who we are, and that the things we do are not irrational. They have a basis. We don't always understand why, but there is a reason.
When I see a Democrat, I see someone who rejects what history has taught us, and rejects all of the foundations that have been built for us. A Democrat is a narcissist who believes that they are suddenly enlightened and that every idea into their head is somehow better than thousands of years of historical acquisition and refinement.
I could go on and on, but I don't want to bore you guys.
I'll just say that there is a reason that young people are "liberals" and that as people grow older they become "conservative." They learn. Not all, but many. Remember, half the population is below average!
Excellent comment! Very insightful, thanks.
We are in the midst of an actual communist Revolution in America. It has been slowly brewing up since 2006. Getting hotter and hotter. Read this below and weep. Please tell me how it ends well.
“the Biden administration has directed that the number of questions asked of illegal Chinese immigrants be reduced. Until recently illegal immigrants from China were required to answer 40 separate questions about their background. Now they are expected to answer only five. Human smuggling organizations know the five questions and coach Chinese immigrants in advance on how to answer the questions.”
https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/i-guess-we-know-now-what-31-million
A couple of thoughts. First your list is not 'conservative'. The underlying ideas of Locke et al are the most radical and successful in human history whereas so called 'radical' ideas, whether Marxism or racism, are as old as human history and have always failed. We should express them that way. Second my take on people such as Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Bill Mahar, Bill Ackman and Joel Kotlin is that they have been 'purple pilled'. They know something is wrong but can't / won't see to the root causes. So they wring their hands and maybe sound sane on a particular topic but will resist the 'red pill' with all their strength because they can't stand to have their entire world view blown up. They are not ready to accept that those 'conservative' ideas are the key to humans thriving.
Great wide ranging but still spot-on post! Thank you Mr Carter! I really enjoy your comments section too! Nice to know we're not alone...
Conservative is a label that's often misleading. Free speech is important because it leads to truth. Only when the public discussion is open and free can we get to the truth. Public debate should be a brawl of opinion and facts. This is why X is so important right now. As to Gay, academics gossip like a gang of teen age girls. Harvard's reputation -- and Stanford's -- have taken a real beating because of this. Effects will be subtle but long lasting.
"all of this happens, and then we sit here and watch in horror as people will STILL clamor to give government MORE power over their lives and shame those who disagree"
Dostoyevsky explained this phenomenon: Why the Grand Inquisitor Sentenced Jesus Christ to be Burned at the Stake
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/48081.html
...the difference today being that few people are hungry for Bread, they are hungry for security and social acceptance.
that makes a lot of sense
A word of disagreement on tariffs; they are quite conservative and legitimate. Here's what tariffs do:
1. Tariffs are used to protect strategic industries with national security implications like high tech, steel, aviation, pharmaceuticals against unfair competition like dumping.
When done correctly this has a gigantic job creation potential -- Exhibit No 1 Stanley moving its tool production back to the US from China.
2. Tariffs are used to protect fledgling, startup businesses and their new technology against thieves like China. This has a monumental impact on US job creation.
3. Tariffs are used to punish bad actors — talking to you China and your intellectual property theft, your currency manipulation, your closed markets, and your slave/child labor. There is more — like the environmental impact of Chinese manufacturing.
4. Tariffs are used to create fair trade -- as an example to level the playing field between the higher French tariffs on US wine v the lower tariffs on French wine and champagne imported into the US.
The Biden admin's failure to erect tariffs on EV minerals and batteries will kill the US EV manufacturing industry and ensure China is the big winner on EVs.
What's not conservative about that?
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Tariffs do not punish anyone but the end consumer
Let us reason together like two Jeffs.
Exhibit No 2 -- the tariffs placed on foreign car manufacturing -- such as BMW, MB, Lexus -- forced those manufacturers to bring their production to the US.
Go see the magnificent Lexus, MB and BMW plants in South Carolina.
Jobs that were in Germany came to the Piedmont. Parts suppliers flooded in. Americans paid taxes to the US and the state.
Result -- gobs of good jobs, income taxes, growth plus foreign car prices went down because of the elimination of ocean shipping.
Win, win, win.
Play the long game. Tariffs are a useful economic tool.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
The tariffs on car companies do not work. The protect bad businesses and raise prices for consumers. https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/tariffs-trump-trade-war/
Tax credits and subsidies often do not work either. Remember when the Biden Administration installed the tax credit for EVs? What did Ford do? Raise the price by the amount of the tax credit!
The foreign car companies didn't set up shop here because of tariffs. They did it because it was cheaper and closer to their customers.
I don't mind fighting economically, but it must be done with tax and regulatory policy.
In addition, there is this economic study on tariffs: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26353/w26353.pdf This paper provides evidence on the consumption effects of trade shocks by exploiting changes in
US and Chinese trade policy between 2017 and 2018. The analysis uses a unique data set with the universe of new auto sales at the US county level, at a monthly frequency, and a simple difference-in-difference approach to measure the effect of changes in trade policy on county-level consumption. I estimate the elasticity of consumption growth to Chinese retaliatory tariffs to be
around minus one. This implies that counties in the upper quartile of the retaliatory-tariff distribution experienced a 3.8 percentage point decline in consumption growth. The fall in consumption corresponds with decline in both tradeable and retail employment. These results suggest that Chinese retaliation is leading to concentrated welfare losses in the US.
Tariffs on cars work and they work well.
Let's take a look at the early 1990s (Geo HW Bush, Bill Clinton POTUS) whereat the foreign car companies enjoyed a rising market share -- BMW, MB, Jaguar, Lexus -- in a decidedly luxury market.
These are elite, ego cars and the buyer is not price shopping for this luxury good.
At that time, the US had a 2.5% tariff on foreign cars imported into the US and Europe had a 10% tariff on US cars shipped to Europe.
Why was that unequal tariff situation tolerated? Because the American car makers were already manufacturing their European cars in Europe. Today, Ford has more than a dozen plants in the EU.
The US threatened tariffs based on country of manufacturing origin and percentage of a car made outside the US. The threatened tariff was 25%.
The Europeans threatened to retaliate, but they had way more to lose than the US based on the magnitude of comparative flows plus Ford, et al, was already manufacturing there, so it was an empty threat.
Within 5 years, BMW/MB were manufacturing cars in the Upstate in South Carolina and Lexus was in Kentucky. Today, these are gigantic plants and employ tens of thousands plus all the parts manufacturers who orbit around these facilities.
Huge bloody win for tariffs and the US.
BTW, this was also the cleverest way to create US jobs in a right-to-work, non-union environment.
These manufacturers have doubled and tripled down on these investments, many of which are their largest facilities outside their home countries.
The trends continue to this day with Daimler and Volvo recently building huge plants in North Charleston and Hyundai building a $10B battery plant in Savannah.
All of this started because the US "threatened" tariffs to protect a critical industry and to spur employment.
These cars are not particularly cost sensitive and thus the consumers' willingness to pay up for a MB/BMW, etc., is irrelevant to the convo.
That's how tariffs can work well for the US.
This is, of course, an isolated situation and tariffs have to be used in conjunction with an orderly trade policy.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
They didn't. They made US car manufacturers less competitive, and raised prices!
Put a little meat on that bone, amigo.
"They didn't" what?
US car manufacturing ills did not happen because the US threatened -- but did not enact -- tariffs. It was management getting too deep in bed with the unions and resisting opportunities for modernization like robots. Robots are, of course, a huge issue with the unions.
Through all of the US car company ills, these foreign owned plants sold the Hell out of their product lines.
[The Ford F-150, made in right to work Texas, continues to be the biggest winner in car history.]
Do you drive any foreign cars today? Why? Because they are many times superior in styling, performance, luxury, and brand image.
I drive a 1985 MB convertible, a 2005 Yukon, and my wife drives a Lexus. I can afford a slightly better car, but I like those ones.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
What are the national security interest in domestic glass bottle production? It’s all a scam. Companies exist for consumers, not to employ people. Though it is good that people can work productively and support their families. https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/glass-maker-usw-seek-duties-wine-bottles-china-mexico-chile
This is a good one too. https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/capitolism/japanic-at-the-steelco/
And don’t forget the chipmaker subsidies. TSMC is more or less failing in the USA because there aren’t enough high skilled workers and American building sclerosis. Costs will be at least 150% of Taiwan.
Well, clearly none.
There are four recognized reasons -- only one of which is national security -- to consider tariffs (same answer I gave above):
"1. Tariffs are used to protect strategic industries with national security implications like high tech, steel, aviation, pharmaceuticals against unfair competition like dumping.
When done correctly this has a gigantic job creation potential -- Exhibit No 1 Stanley moving its tool production back to the US from China.
2. Tariffs are used to protect fledgling, startup businesses and their new technology against thieves like China. This has a monumental impact on US job creation.
3. Tariffs are used to punish bad actors — talking to you China and your intellectual property theft, your currency manipulation, your closed markets, and your slave/child labor. There is more — like the environmental impact of Chinese manufacturing.
4. Tariffs are used to create fair trade -- as an example to level the playing field between the higher French tariffs on US wine v the lower tariffs on French wine and champagne imported into the US."
In the link you provide the argument advanced is related to dumping, and maybe #3. and #4. above.
Companies do not exist solely for consumers; they also exist for basic property rights -- to make the ownership class some God damn money and return on their investment -- and also for the employees because taking care of a company's employees is a good business practice.
Done correctly, taking care of consumers and employees makes the owner class more money. Capitalism.
Steel does have national security implications, but a capital transaction is different than tariffs. I won't dig into that.
The chipmaker subsidies, in my view, were too late to the game. The chipmakers had already made their bets. There is a huge national security implication as it relates to China v Taiwan and the potential for a wartime interruption of orderly markets.
The future of chips whether in the US or overseas will continue to be held hostage to talent and the ability to man up complex manufacturing processes, but that has been true since the first clean room was built.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Jobs are costs not benefits. Dumping is just another word for foreign taxpayer subsidies for American consumers. The welfare maximizing default trade policy is unilateral free trade. https://www.aier.org/article/a-short-primer-on-free-trade-and-protectionism/
Intel used to be on the cutting edge. Until they weren’t. Lots of parallels to the US steel decline. Lots of it due to bad management decisions.
The Jones Act is one of the most pernicious trade practices. Screw the Alaskans, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans for a shriveled and almost non-existent domestic shipbuilding industry. As a result the USA should be buying Navy ships from the Japanese and Koreans to maximize national security.
https://catalyst.independent.org/2024/01/03/lng-ruling-jones-act/
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/02/asia/japan-south-korea-naval-shipbuilding-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html
Jobs at the plant floor level are labor incorporated into a product and the better the labor component, the better the product and the better the price.
Jobs are also taxpayers who pay income taxes and payroll taxes and thus essential to the efficient conduct of gov't. I am opposed to high taxes.
The theory of unilateral free trade is that it is a myth. It can't be done. The greatest market in the world is the US market and it is perfectly legitimate for the US to charge a fee to enter it -- not talking about tariffs, but regulations and adherence to law.
Bad management should be punished by shareholders. Depending upon its power, it will or will not. This is politics.
The Jones Act is nonsense.
The US should have a robust shipbuilding industry with extra care given to warships. This means that the regulatory burden of an American flagged ship should be fixed.
No foreign shipbuilder has ever built a ship as complex and capable as our boomers and aircraft carriers. Same is true of our military aircraft.
This is not just system complexity, but the actual process of shipbuilding.
The cost is totally out of control and contracting is also.
I was in Seoul when S Korea did not produce a single ton of steel -- not even reinforcing rods. They have come a long way in a comparatively short period of time -- half a century.
The US should work on its military and economic allies and make it a huge advantage to be a friend of the US.
Talking to you, India, S Korea, Australia, and Japan. We are woefully absent in S America and Africa.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Our realistic choice is between Trump and the "Core Republican Establishment". In my eyes Trump is the easy winner given the CRE is just part of the uniparty and happy to continue feeding on the carcass of America. They are servants of the unelected bureaucracy. Trump isn't a conservative but I distrust him less than Christie or Haley. Great column, by the way! Thanks
The only hurdle that keeps the Fox Decision Desk from declaring Trump the winner TODAY is the weaponized "justice" system.
I suspect the Sup Ct will cut away half of the gangrene and Trump will have to get lucky to deal with the rest.
There is not a single one of those actions that would be initiated if that fella's name was Brophy.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I’m a little more optimistic. The absurdity has become too much for too many people. There are a lot of new left-liberal fans of Rufo et al. There’s no requirement to become a Republican. The R extreme is every bit as bad and illiberal as their D counterparts and unfortunately the extremes have the loudest voices. https://x.com/timurkuran/status/1742439137372762427
And there are people on the moderate left who have seen the issues for a long time. This is a good book. https://www.amazon.com/Woke-Antisemitism-Progressive-Ideology-Harms/dp/1637587678