Category Archives: Politics – international

Trump dealing with his critics the media

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Almost an hour long but very entertaining as well as enlightening. Also reported here: Trump taunts media to its face. This may have been the most dramatic moment as the largest part of the press conference was devoted to replying to the media about whether or not he had raised money for veterans.

He called out Tom Llamas, a journalist with ABC News.

“I could have asked all these groups to come here and I didn’t want to do that. I’m not looking for credit. But what I don’t want is, when I raise millions of dollars, have people say, like this sleazy guy right over here from ABC,” Trump said, pointing to Llamas. “He’s a sleaze in my book. You’re a sleaze because you know the facts and you know the facts well.”

To establish the facts, he therefore read out the individual cheques that had been distributed to Veterans Organisations which totalled so far $5.6 million. A reminder of just how much the media can be trusted to report those facts. He also seemed to have recognised that he will not win California in an election:

In his opening remarks, he wished LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers good luck in the NBA finals.

He is thus still hoping to win Ohio who are playing Oakland.

There at the start

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IMG_9431

The news story below is how I remember it as well. It was the time when the Democrats’ dearest wish was that Trump become the nominee. So this is how it began.

LAS VEGAS – Political junkies and skeptics are still scratching their heads, wondering “How did this happen? How did Donald Trump take over the Republican Party?”

It may come as a surprise, but Trump’s luck began last July in Las Vegas. In the summer of 2015, Trump’s fledgling campaign was in trouble. After his unrehearsed remarks about Mexicans, his relationship with NBC ended, Macy’s failed to renew his contract, and Univision released unrelenting attacks on the Trump campaign. Poll numbers suffered in response, reflecting a campaign headed for certain demise.

Amid the chaos of campaigning that summer, Trump agreed to appear before several thousand wealthy investors and concerned citizens at a conference called FreedomFest, billed as, “the world’s largest gathering of free minds.” He spoke to a standing room only audience Saturday, July 11. Yes, it was 7-11 in Vegas. And it was Trump’s lucky day. His appearance attracted major media coverage including CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, MSNBC and the Daily Mail, among others. Trump’s poll numbers rose sharply right after his appearance at FreedomFest and he dominated the Primaries thereafter.

And if you would like to recall the moment, I live blogged his speech and Q&A which you can see here. It is dated July 12 since the blog is Australian and it was already the next day here. What Trump said includes everything that has since made him the Republican nominee, including “Make America Great Again”. A fantastic speech as well.

Common sense about Trump and conservatism

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This is a very accurate article about a truly vexing question. It is by John O’Sullivan and surprisingly in National Review: Conservatives in Crisis — American 2016 Edition. And if you doubt my own belief that I am a conservative, here is some evidence from just this year – The Indispensable Roger Scruton. Here, however, is O’Sullivan saying what needs to be said, which begins by noting how many different varieties of conservatism there are.

So give me a break! Stop yattering on about th­­­­e death of Republicanism or the terminal crisis of conservatism. They’re not even in the intensive-care unit. This is not their finest hour, perhaps, but they will survive.

But what will they survive as? Both Trump admirers (broadly defined) and Trump detractors (ditto) see Republican and conservative establishments reeling before a hostile takeover by an invasion of populist Vikings and Visigoths who have come from nowhere under the banners of “No Entitlement Reform” and “America First” nationalism. Peggy Noonan celebrates this; Jonah Goldberg will resist it just short of in perpetuity. But the main truth here is that this invasion doesn’t come from outside. It is an invasion mainly of people who have been in the ranks of conservatism all along.

It is understandable if most commentators haven’t fully grasped this, because the invasion is led by Donald Trump, who does come from outside both movement and party and who, as Camille Paglia noted in a very different context, makes a very fetching Viking (“bedecked with the phallic tongue of a violet Celtic floral tie . . . looking like a triumphant dragon on the thrusting prow of a long boat” — wow!). But the more we look at who votes for The Donald, the more they look like people who have voted Republican in the past. As Michael Brendan Dougherty, echoed by Ross Douthat, points out, they may belong disproportionately to the working and lower-middle classes, but they also belong to the Republican-voting sectors of those classes. (They were voting in GOP primaries, after all.) And if common observation counts for anything, it is the lower social end of the Republican electorate where conservative views are most often to be found (though less on finance, say, than on crime.)

It is a long but excellent article, worth every minute of your time. My only caveat is that I do think of Trump as conservative in a similar mould to myself.

It is a smear tactic, you buffoons

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hitler and mussolini

“Some opponents have likened Donald J. Trump to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini; supporters call that a smear tactic. Credit Associated Press”

The one essay I did at university from which I learned the most and have often thought about was titled, “Fascist Criticisms of Liberalism”. And what I learned was that fascism was a form of totalitarian ideology that was essentially tied to an authoritarian leader-principle and whose economic principles were basically socialist. Central planning was at the heart of its economic methodology. It was the nation that counted and not the individual. Hitler alone among the pre-War fascists, married the ideology to racism, but none of this was found in the ideologies of Mussolini, Franco or Salazar. You can tell a fascist state by its use of police power to suppress dissent. Fascism remains as alive today as a living reality – see Cuba and Castro – but the word itself has transmogrified into a term of abuse used by socialists to criticise everyone else. The reality, however, is that fascism is a Soviet-type Marxist socialism without its international dimension. Any ideology can be at its centre as long as it claims to be absolute truth from which no deviations are permitted.

The picture and text is from The New York Times in an article titled, Rise of Donald Trump Tracks Growing Debate Over Global Fascism. Here’s the definition they use:

Fascism, generally defined as a governmental system that asserts complete power and emphasizes aggressive nationalism and often racism.

Let’s see which of the following would characterise the US if Donald Trump were elected:

  • an ideology to which every member of the community must subscribe
  • a police state in which opponents of the regime are in peril of their lives and are often imprisoned
  • a centrally planned economy
  • suppression of dissent
  • a state run media

Not one of these is even remotely possible if Donald Trump were elected president. The article is worth a read since it represents just how far the modern media has fallen. The plain reality is that they cannot criticise Trump on the specifics of what he has in mind since even to state Trump’s aims would only add to his support. So it is just ignorant name calling by people who have no idea what they are talking about but manage to have their views printed in what was once one of the prestige newspapers of the world.

Calling Trump a fascist is ignorance attempting to deceive the willingly ignorant. If they don’t know that calling Trump a fascist is slander without content then why would you read such a newspaper ever again, other than to remind you of what great dangers our civilisation must now face in dealing with the actual fascists in our midst.

What would an economist know about Brexit?

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Let us assume that all things remain equal, there are no changes in regulations, no change in business structures, no new openings in international trade and no other economic changes of any kind. What do you assume will happen to the British economy if it leaves the EU? And here is one answer: Economists overwhelmingly reject Brexit in boost for Cameron.

Nine out of 10 of the country’s top economists working across academia, the City, industry, small businesses and the public sector believe the British economy will be harmed by Brexit, according to the biggest survey of its kind ever conducted.

A poll commissioned for the Observer and carried out by Ipsos MORI, which drew responses from more than 600 economists, found 88% saying an exit from the EU and the single market would most likely damage Britain’s growth prospects over the next five years.

A striking 82% of the economists who responded thought there would probably be a negative impact on household incomes over the next five years in the event of a Leave vote, with 61% thinking unemployment would rise.

But let’s mix that story with this one: Millions more migrants coming – deal with it, UN chief tells EU. This is what’s coming next:

A top UN official says Europe must prepare for the arrival of millions more refugees from the Middle East and Africa – and has accused David Cameron and other EU leaders of failing to create a “positive narrative” about the issue.

Michael Moller, who heads the Geneva office of the UN, said “complacency and lack of leadership” on the part of EU leaders left it unprepared for the mass influx of migrants.

“What we have been seeing is one of the biggest human migrations in history,” Moller, a Dane, said in an interview. “And it’s just going to accelerate. Young people all have cellphones and they can see what’s happening in other parts of the world, and that acts as a magnet.”

Get it? The EU and Britain are being accused of being unprepared to accept all of these migrants, not of thinking of ways to stop them from coming. For myself, I would be getting out of the EU while the going was good, I would blow up the Chunnel and then treble the size of the Royal Navy. If you are looking for a rapid and permanent descent in your standard of living, nothing will quite do it like a million unemployable migrants camping out in the centre of your cities. Indeed, the French are seeing the same problem. Also today, ‘The French Have Been Silent For Too Long’: Identitarians March Through Paris. Here’s what they want:

“The French have been silent for too long… It is time to show our determination to continue to live on our land, under our laws, our values and with respect to our identity.”

That is what everyone wants. No one is coming to France to be a Frenchman or to Germany to become German.

Why Republicans will vote for Trump (and Democrats too)

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From Victor Davis Hanson, the top heads but read the lot:

First, Trump stays in the news not just by taking extreme positions, but also by taking extreme positions on issues that are already extreme. . . .

A second reason why many conservatives will vote for Trump is that they, like everyone else, are cynical about what candidates say and what they, as presidents, actually do. . . .

Third, we have become so inured to the outrageous, that many conservatives are not quite sure whether Trump is just a more in-your-face version of current politicians or if he truly is an outlier in his vulgarity.

Fourth, most Republicans do not quite buy the #NeverTrump argument that Trump is running to the left of Hillary Clinton. [Does anyone?] . . .

Finally, Republicans might embrace a democratic fatalism—or the opinion, in other words, that “if that’s what the people want, that’s what the people get.”

Of course, the real reason is that Trump is offering to do what voters want their government to do and no one else is.

He’s over the top

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trumpmcdonalds

UPDATE: Adding the picture above which comes with this: To Celebrate Winning 1,237, Trump Eats McDonald’s, Has Diet Coke. Been there myself. I’ve often said the worst thing about my children growing up is that I no longer have an excuse to go to McDonald’s. It is still an incongruous picture which must have some intended meaning but one that eludes me for the moment.

In the news today: Trump reaches 1237. And so now he begins to say what he really thinks:

Trump, whose support from North Dakota national convention delegates put him over the top for securing the party’s nomination earlier in the day, told the crowd he’d eliminate regulation he says is killing the fossil fuel industry as well as be favorable to additional pipeline projects and exports of American oil.

Thunderous applause greeted Trump’s declaration that in his administration there’d be an “America-first energy plan.”

“We will accomplish a complete American energy independence,” Trump said. “We’re going to turn everything around. We are going to make it right.”

And in a related story from The Japan Times: Trump sends shivers down spines of nations trying to solidify global warming pact. Here I agree there is reason to worry, or there is if you think global warming is a genuine problem. Future generations are going to look back at us in amazement. So more of the Trump effect on policy:

The talks in Germany to flesh out December’s historic global climate deal are probably not at the top of Donald Trump’s agenda this week.

But the diplomats from 196 nations huddled in Bonn are keenly aware of the fact that the “The Donald” is now within spitting distance of the White House — and it is making a lot of them nervous.

It is not hard to see why.

The last Republican standing in the U.S. presidential race has described climate change as a hoax perpetrated by China to gain competitive advantage in manufacturing over the US, an eccentric theory even among climate skeptics.

More recently, he said he was “not a big fan” of the Paris Agreement, the fruit of two decades of stop-and-go (but mostly stop) wrangling between rich and developing nations.

“I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum,” Trump told Reuters in an exclusive interview last week, betraying an unfamiliarity with the U.N.’s consensus-based process.

“And at a maximum I may do something else.”

Let ’em worry

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From The Japan Times: Trump sends shivers down spines of nations trying to solidify global warming pact. Here I agree there is reason to worry, or there is reason to worry if you think global warming isn’t the greatest con job in human history, which it is. Future generations are going to look back at us in amazement. Meantime:

The talks in Germany to flesh out December’s historic global climate deal are probably not at the top of Donald Trump’s agenda this week.

But the diplomats from 196 nations huddled in Bonn are keenly aware of the fact that the “The Donald” is now within spitting distance of the White House — and it is making a lot of them nervous.

It is not hard to see why.

The last Republican standing in the U.S. presidential race has described climate change as a hoax perpetrated by China to gain competitive advantage in manufacturing over the US, an eccentric theory even among climate skeptics.

More recently, he said he was “not a big fan” of the Paris Agreement, the fruit of two decades of stop-and-go (but mostly stop) wrangling between rich and developing nations.

“I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum,” Trump told Reuters in an exclusive interview last week, betraying an unfamiliarity with the U.N.’s consensus-based process.

“And at a maximum I may do something else.”

Go for the max, I say, aim for the absolute full wreckage. So one more round from the report, just to cheer us up:

The prospect of a Trump presidency precisely at the moment when nations are inching toward ratification of the delicately balanced deal sends shivers down the spines of negotiators here.

When asked what worried him most at this stage, Seyni Nafo, climate ambassador for Mali and president of the Africa Group, snapped: “Trump winning the election.”

Ah, the global begging bowl will be taken away, or at least this one.

Practical politics and political opinion

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It is a fact that both Charles Murray and Jonah Goldberg have left me frigidly cold in almost everything they have written. I stopped reading both years ago and am not surprised to find that Goldberg had invented the #NeverTrump tag. Now Murray has lined up in the same way. And here in a single sentence he captures everything that is wrong with #NeverTrump:

While I am already on record with my sympathy for the grievances that energize many of Trump’s supporters, I am thinking about writing a book that is even more explicitly sympathetic with those grievances.

He has sympathy for such grievances and what does he intend to do: write a book. For some of us – me included – that is the best we can do. But for some of us, but not the #NeverTrump bozos, we are grateful that ever so often someone comes along who can turn our concerns into a practical political outcome. That Donald Trump is somewhat more risky than some others because he has never actually held office so has no record in dealing with political situations is a valid concern. But after that, you just have to look at what he says he wants to do, which are congruent with what he has said all his adult life. Meanwhile Murray writes:

In my view, Donald Trump is unfit to be president in ways that apply to no other candidate of the two major political parties throughout American history.

So therefore Hillary. Let us therefore go to the specifics as outlined:

But it’s worse than that. It’s not that Trump makes strategic decisions about what useful untruths he will tell on any given day — it looks as if he just makes up stuff as he goes along. Many of his off-the-cuff fictions are substantively unimportant: He says Rex Ryan won championships when he coached the New York Jets, when he didn’t.

You know, that being the first example of an untruth that came to mind portrays such a trivial mind that he ought to be embarrassed to the final degree by even bringing it up. But let them all reveal themselves and let their names be recorded. The list of political commentators we can forever ignore just keeps getting longer.