Posted on 11/17/2024 4:08:22 AM PST by MtnClimber
Many of Trump first-round picks share some common themes.
One, many, who were in the past victimized by government bullies and cowardly bureaucratic grandees, or proved sharp critics of the administrative state, are now, in karma-style, in charge of the very agencies that hounded him.
So, Elon Musk, perennial target of government regulatory functionaries, was once policed, but now he polices the bureaucratic police.
Robert Kennedy, Jr., proposed overseer of government health programs, was often blasted as a crank by the subsidized scientists and the administrators within HHS whom he will now direct.
Pete Hegseth fought the military DEI machinery while a solider in the ranks and wrote a book about the corruption of the Pentagon. He will now, if confirmed, run the Pentagon.
Tulsi Gabbard was improperly put on a national security travel watch list as a supposed security threat—and now will be a guardian of our security as Director of National Intelligence.
Tom Homan was derided by the Biden administration and its Homeland Security minions as a fanatic border hawk; now he will run ICE and deal with the detritus of Biden fanaticism on the border.
Two, none of these appointments are traditional swamp creatures. Few rotate from the think tanks. This time around there are no retired “Wise Men” or retired four-stars. Few are Uniparty magnificoes revolving back into high government from their DC university or New York corporate and investment waystations. None are DEI, cover-our-identity-politics-base candidates.
By design, their past government service resumes are thin—few past undersecretaries of these or special assistant to those. And there are not a lot of suffixed alphabetic letters or prefixed long-winded titles that adorn their names.
In other words, they are vaxed from the sort of acculturated administrative state mindset that has alienated and terrified the citizenry.
Three, they all share a reputation from the mainstream media, bicoastal elite, or administrative state guardians as a little “out there” or even “crazy” and “nuts”, whether RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, or Pete Hegseth. So, their opponents rightly fear they are immune from mainstream media disparagements, the usually leftwing generated hoaxes, and beltway tsk-tsk scorn.
Fourth and finally, they are not radicals or nihilists. Rather, they are reformers who are trying to trim or eliminate bloated government machinery, or return institutions and agencies to their normal functions and original missions. In contrast, the last few years of Biden governance chaos and near insurrection were abnormal—and dangerous.
Destroying the border and breaking the law to allow 12 million to enter illegally were nihilist.
Stealthily routing government cash, to circumvent the law, to a communist Chinese-run viral gain-of-function engineering lab is beyond the belief.
Creating a commissar system in the military that demanded ideological orthodoxy over meritocracy, or the Chairman of the JCS secretly communicating with his People’s Liberation Army counterpart to warn about his own commander-in-chief’s stability was insurrectionist.
Weaponizing the DOJ by performance-art swat home raids on opponents, and collusion lawfare waged by local, state, and federal indictments against a former president and presidential candidate were un-American.....SNIP
It sure looks like the battle lines are forming. I hope it will be a bleak future for the swamp creatures.
VDH ping. From X this time.
Amen!
We can quickly measure whether we will return to normalcy by requesting that a bill be passed by both houses before Feb 1, 2025 that funds border walls on all borders of the US and demands completion of that wall before 2026.
“Pete Hegseth joined the Army to fight extremists. Then that same Army called him one. The military Pete joined twenty years ago was fiercely focused on lethality, competency, and color blindness. Today our brass are following the rest of our country off the cliff of cultural chaos and weakness.
“Americans with common sense are fighting this on many fronts, but if we can’t save the meritocracy of our military, we’re definitely going to lose everywhere else.
“The War on Warriors uncovers the deep roots of our dysfunction—a society that has forgotten the men who take risks, cut through red tape, and get their hands dirty. The only kind of men prepared to face the dangers that the Left pretends don’t exist. Unlike issues of education or taxes or crime, this problem doesn’t have a zip code solution. We can’t move away from it. We can’t avoid it. We have only one Pentagon. Either we take it back or surrender it altogether.”
https://www.amazon.com/War-Warriors-Behind-Betrayal-Keep/dp/0063389428/
come·up·pance
[kəˈməpəns]
noun
informal
a punishment or fate that someone deserves:
“he got his comeuppance”
The Dems are stuck...they can't move from their "losing" agenda for 2026.
“President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has written a revolutionary road map to saving our children from leftist indoctrination.
“Behind a smokescreen of “preparing students for the new industrial economy,” early progressives had political control in mind. America’s original schools didn’t just make kids memorize facts or learn skills; they taught them to think freely and arrive at wisdom. They assigned the classics, inspired love of God and country, and raised future citizens that changed the world forever.
“Today, after 16,000 hours of K-12 indoctrination, our kids come out of government schools hating America. They roll their eyes at religion and disdain our history. We spend more money on education than ever, but kids can barely read and write—let alone reason with discernment. Western culture is on the ropes. Kids are bored and aimless, flailing for purpose in a system that says racial and gender identity is everything.
“Battle for the American Mind is the untold story of the Progressive plan to neutralize the basis of our Republic – by removing the one ingredient that had sustained Western Civilization for thousands of years. Pete Hegseth and David Goodwin explain why, no matter what political skirmishes conservatives win, progressives are winning the war—and control the “supply lines” of future citizens. Reversing this reality will require parents to radically reorient their children’s education; even most homeschooling and Christian schooling are infused with progressive assumptions. We need to recover a lost philosophy of education – grounded in virtue and excellence – that can arm future generations to fight for freedom. It’s called classical Christian education. Never heard of it? You’re not alone.
“Battle for the American Mind is more than a book; it’s a field guide for remaking school in the United States. We’ve ceded our kids’ minds to the left for far too long—this book gives patriotic parents the ammunition to join an insurgency that gives America a fighting chance.”
https://www.amazon.com/Battle-American-Mind-Uprooting-Miseducation/dp/0063215047/
The Left's biggest problem is that it ignores reality and refuses to listen to anyone who tries to warn them.
The left tries to destroy anyone who tries to warn them.
“Everyone who doesn’t already work for ICE or Border Patrol should read this book. If more people armed themselves with the kind of information Tom Homan presents, this country might actually see some immigration policy reform.
“Defend the Border and Save Lives” gives readers a glimpse at what a conversation with Mr. Homan is like. He writes the way he speaks: he is direct, incredibly knowledgeable, and deeply committed to the law enforcement mission. He shares personal experiences from various periods in his 34-year career that tell the story of his fight to protect both the citizens of this country as well as those who are not citizens, but who suffer in their desperate attempts to enter the United States illegally. The book describes what really happens along the Southwest Border from the point of view only someone who has spent many years in the midst of the crisis could possess.
“In addition, Mr. Homan poses important questions that politicians continue to dodge. He identifies the flaws in the arguments supporting sanctuary cities and opposing the border wall and explains in real terms the solutions that would solve the security and humanitarian issues at the heart of immigration controversy. And, notably, he calls out the hypocrisy of the politicians in Washington, DC and their continuing failure to enact change in our dysfunctional immigration system.”
https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Our-Border-Immigration-Director/dp/1546085939/
“Tulsi Gabbard was the rising star of the Democratic Party. But the growing wokeness, racism, and intolerance were more than she could stomach, and she left. This is her story.
“Today’s Democratic Party is controlled by an elitist cabal of warmongers driven crazy by woke ideology and anti-white animus. They are a clear and present threat to the God-given freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.
“A soldier, former member of Congress, and a presidential candidate, Tulsi loves her country: “I answered the call of duty and took an oath, dedicating my life to supporting and defending those freedoms, both in uniform and in public office. I became a Democrat when I ran for office because I saw them as a party that stood up for the little guy and against the interests of big business and warmongers. I remained a Democrat for twenty years, albeit with an independent streak.”
“Today that party is unrecognizable: antagonistic to people of faith, hostile to the police and law and order, suspicious of law-abiding Americans, unserious about border security, and uncritical of a national security apparatus that targets political opponents and that is dragging us ever closer to apocalyptic nuclear war.
“Now an Independent, Tulsi calls on those who love America to protect our rights from those who are seeking to undermine them at every turn. It’s time to say good-bye to the Democratic Party.”
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Country-Leave-Democrat-Behind/dp/B0CL15KR1N/
Killing ALL messengers is a self-destructive policy...as the Democrats would notice if they weren't still killing all messengers.
I’m in total agreement with VDH’s assessment here but as usual there’s an irritant in his output. Pointing out that they have no credibility because Dems were “mostly quiet” about their misbehavior* and is lame. Hypocrisy is a charge leveled by teenagers; like spitballs.
* “but his very accusers were mostly quiet about the weirdos, creeps, and revolutionaries in the Biden administration — accused of stealing women’s luggage at airports, or lying that a subordinate ‘racist’ border patrol whipped in slave-master fashion innocent would-be immigrants, or trying to fix a felonious presidential son’s sentencing to avoid the accustomed legal consequences of his criminal behavior.”
“The New York Times bestselling author of The Case for Trump explains the decline and fall of the once cherished idea of American citizenship.
“Human history is full of the stories of peasants, subjects, and tribes. Yet the concept of the “citizen” is historically rare—and was among America’s most valued ideals for over two centuries.”
“In The Dying Citizen, Hanson outlines the historical forces that led to this crisis. The evisceration of the middle class over the last fifty years has made many Americans dependent on the federal government. Open borders have undermined the idea of allegiance to a particular place. Identity politics have eradicated our collective civic sense of self. And a top-heavy administrative state has endangered personal liberty, along with formal efforts to weaken the Constitution.
“As in the revolutionary years of 1848, 1917, and 1968, 2020 ripped away our complacency about the future. But in the aftermath, we as Americans can rebuild and recover what we have lost. The choice is ours.”
https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Citizen-Progressive-Globalization-Destroying/dp/154164753X/
Reader review:
“As we continue seeing the devaluing of actually being a citizen of our nation, many problems are unfolding. I doubt Russia, China, Japan, Korea, Iraq, or most other countries would be moving toward non-citizens being given voting and other rights. It’s impacting those who pay taxes and support our nation’s infrastructure. Regardless of anyone’s opinion, the objective impact on crime, national debt, and many other areas is being seen in major cities across our nation.”
"Weaponizing the DOJ by performance-art swat home raids on opponents..."
DOJ raids must end. It will take legislation, but the police powers of the FBI and any other federal agency that has them must be taken away - dare democrats to object. Fed agencies can investigate, but in the future they should have to work with local police agencies to make arrests. And arrests should never be made when communication with an attorney will do. For starters.
“The Case for Trump Paperback – March 17, 2020”
“In The Case for Trump, award-winning historian and political commentator Victor Davis Hanson explains how a celebrity businessman with no political or military experience triumphed over sixteen well-qualified Republican rivals, a Democrat with a quarter-billion-dollar war chest, and a hostile media and Washington establishment to become president of the United States — and an extremely successful president.
“Trump alone saw a political opportunity in defending the working people of America’s interior whom the coastal elite of both parties had come to scorn, Hanson argues. And Trump alone had the instincts and energy to pursue this opening to victory, dismantle a corrupt old order, and bring long-overdue policy changes at home and abroad. We could not survive a series of presidencies as volatile as Trump’s. But after decades of drift, America needs the outsider Trump to do what normal politicians would not and could not do.”
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Trump-Victor-Davis-Hanson/dp/1541673557/
Reader review:
“The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in November 2016 was a singular event in the history of the country. Never before had anybody been elected to that office without any prior experience in either public office or the military. Trump, although running as a Republican, had no long-term affiliation with the party and had cultivated no support within its establishment, elected officials, or the traditional donors who support its candidates. He turned his back on the insider consultants and “experts” who had advised GOP candidate after candidate in their “defeat with dignity” at the hands of a ruthless Democrat party willing to burn any bridge to win. From well before he declared his candidacy he established a direct channel to a mass audience, bypassing media gatekeepers via Twitter and frequent appearances in all forms of media, who found him a reliable boost to their audience and clicks. He was willing to jettison the mumbling points of the cultured Beltway club and grab “third rail” issues of which they dared not speak such as mass immigration, predatory trade practices, futile foreign wars, and the exporting of jobs from the U.S. heartland to low-wage sweatshops overseas....”
Agreed. One thing missing...whatever remains of these agencies when the smoke clears, they must be disarmed. There should be NO fed.agency that carries arms. As you said, they can investigate.
“Robert Kennedy, Jr., proposed overseer of government health programs, was often blasted as a crank by the subsidized scientists and the administrators within HHS whom he will now direct.”
I’m opposed to making RFK Jr. head of HHS, which supervises Medicare and Medicaid.
RFK Jr. should only be made head of the FDA or NIH (or both) and only because his desire for improving the health of children and the quality of our food and pharmaceuticals outweighs his horrible leftist ideology.
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