As Good a Time as Any

 

I have been thinking about this post for a while.  Given the most recent events, now is as good a time as any.

What to make of Donald Trump?  Well, that isn’t really my question, but something like that.  More like, now that we have had five months’ experience with Trump 2.0, where do we stand?  Are we headed toward an off-ramp, or are we still going full speed toward a head-on collision?

BTW – for purposes of this post, I don’t care if Trump is unwilling or unable or disallowed.  It makes no difference to answer the question: off-ramp or head-on collision?

The Good

Let’s talk about the good – none of which would have happened with anyone else as president.

Stopped the border – he seems to have done this effectively

Stopped DEI – yes…and no (more on the “no” in a minute).

MAHA – perhaps the brightest spot so far.

The Bad…or Ugly

Now for the bad / ugly – which is equal to or worse than what anyone else as president would have done.

I will end that war in one day - The only way to have done this – stop the funding, write an order stopping all aid, stopping all involvement by US personnel.  Anyone with half a brain knew this was the only way to end the war in a day.  So, I guess I assumed Trump had half a brain.

That war would never have started if I were president – you mean like Israel and Iran?  Let’s just say it really turned out to be great news that Trump didn’t bring back Bolton and Pompeo.

Reduce spending – Musk was right to call out Trump on this.

Free speech – a new DEI now aimed at protecting the most privileged group in all of the United States.

Conclusion

When Trump 2.0 began, I wrote that we would know which way we would head within 12-18 months (or I wrote something like this).  I think it is safe to say, there is no off-ramp. 

A couple of months’ ago, I asked some friends: in four years, do you think we will be in worse shape than today because Trump was president?  I think the answer is a clear YES.

Whatever comes after Trump, it will be tyranny.  Trump has further opened that door for the left, if the left wins; and if the right still doesn’t get what it wants from Trump, and the right wins, they will want an absolute tyrant.

Watching a Marriage Destroy a Career

Reflections on Paul VanderKlay’s video, “Has Jordan Peterson become Fat Thor?”  But, really, it is on more than this.  For example, Peterson’s discussion with Joe Rogan about cancelling certain guests, his co-authoring a paper attacking those who proclaim “Christ is King,” things like that (this last one has opened a bit of a rift with Peterson for Jonathan Pageau). 

In other words, Peterson is just another free speech advocate who no longer supports free speech – a move that basically defines the Daily Wire, for whom Peterson happens to work.

Apparently, in Peterson’s recent appearance on Joe Rogan, Rogan began by asking something about picturing a Hollywood man in a marriage to a difficult woman, and how through this the marriage destroyed the man’s career and, eventually, the man.  I say “apparently,” because I almost never watch anymore anything involving Peterson – this was per VanderKLay.

Now, when I heard of this open, I thought this is why Rogan makes a lot of money; it was a brilliant open for a discussion with Peterson – not because Peterson is a psychologist, but because Peterson is the man about whom Rogan is asking.

Peterson changed the subject – of course he would.  In no way does he want to deal with this subject.  He is the Hollywood man married to the Daily Wire, and this marriage is destroying Peterson’s career and will soon enough destroy Peterson.  What is tearing him apart is the same thing that is tearing the (political / republican / Trumpian) right apart. 

You lose all credibility when you are one who has been advocating for free speech and against cancel culture and then, on a dime, call for cancel culture and come out against free speech.  Peterson isn’t the only one.  We saw this with Douglas Murray on Rogan with Dave Smith, and we see it with other high-status individuals on the political right.

The only way to salvage this for Peterson – his career and maybe his sanity – is to leave the Daily Wire and not worry about being cancelled or losing status. 

Others have done it successfully.

Bring Your Friends Close…

 

…and your enemies closer.

Referring back to my post, wondering why the billionaire, oligarch class appears to be on the side of exposing the corruption in the federal government:

But why?  That’s the question I keep asking myself.  Why this effort?  Why now?  Why is it happening?  Why, so relatively speaking, quietly?

But why are they doing it?  They have never done so in my life.  And I have lived a pretty long life.

My conclusion: without the United States as their foundation and defender, and offering a projection of power and control, their wealth and control are lost.  And, unless the United States changes its ways from ruling the world to watching out more for the interests of the country, the United States will be lost.

I have started seeing and reading much more along these lines – these people are not our friends, that kind of thing.  Yes, they may be sincere about reducing government waste and spending, but they are doing it only to have the vehicle (the US government) to exercise ever-greater control over us.

In fact, this answer was given back in early November:

Well, just as I figured:

For more than a month, Elon Musk has been eyeing a position leading a task force under a hypothetical Trump administration. Now, it appears his role has been downgraded to “writing software” to help slash the federal budget, according to Former President Donald Trump’s transition team co-chair.

“He’s going to be adjacent to [the government]. I think adjacent to it and writing software for the government and then giving the software to the government and helping the government,” Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick told CNN Wednesday evening. “It’s going to be amazing.”

This would be the worst possible outcome….

So, why am I starting here, repeating that which I have covered before?  I remember the positive vibe I felt, seeing the many out-of-the-norm nominees Trump named for various cabinet and department positions: Gabbard, Patel, Noem, RFK, jr. even Hegseth, etc.

Now, a few of these were, and remain, neocons.  But Gabbard did not talk or act that way at all.  And RFK, jr., even though he clearly had a strong leaning in this regard, was named to a cabinet post that seemed irrelevant to his neocon-ish sentiments.

Well, Gabbard has completely flipped (have you seen her defend the bombings in Yemen, and her nonsensical comments about Signal-gate?), and RFK, jr., it seems, posts primarily about how antisemitism is a health crisis.  Meanwhile, Patel and others are rounding up individuals for speech, carting them off to prison, with who knows what fate, and when.

Then there is this:

This is what’s happened to American values.  The United States is supporting an apartheid state that’s engaged in genocide.  Do you need to know any more?

-          John Mearsheimer, on Judge Napolitano’s podcast

Conclusion

MAGA is going to be torn apart, and torn apart from within.  These issues divide very neatly the MAGA base: the Christian Zionists are, no doubt, a strong supporter of MAGA and many of these neocon actions – probably the most significant bloc of MAGA support.

Yes, they are also the most important bloc for fighting against the culture-destroying actions of the left.  So, there is that.

But there are other supporters of MAGA, who look and say: we didn’t vote for bombing Yemen, we didn’t vote for a war with Iran, we didn’t vote for continued support for Ukraine (yes, Trump owns this war now), we didn’t vote for deporting students for speech, we didn’t vote for turning weaponized government against some other group.  We voted to end all of this.

These two factions cannot co-exist.  The “enemies” of the neocons have been brought closer; some of the strongest public advocates for the second position – call it the Ron Paul large subset of MAGA supporters – have been effectively neutered by being brought into the inner circle.

I hope I am wrong (is Trump playing 8-D chess…will we fall for that notion a second time?), but it seems this is now the trajectory.

Jesus Christ: Social Influencer?

 Paul VanderKlay released a video, ARC2025 as Salvation of Western-Civ or the Rise of Anti-Christ

ARC is the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship.  It is fronted by Jordan Peterson, and is in some way supposed to be an alternative to the World Economic Forum.  From their website:

The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship is an international movement with a vision for a better world where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together to bring flourishing and prosperity to their families, communities, and nations.

Antichrist is…

1 John 2: 18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. … 22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.

The Greek word pseudokhristos is used here, by Jesus:

Matthew 24: 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

An antichrist is one who denies Jesus is the Messiah, and, in His stead or without submission to Him, is a savior or liberator.  In my view, and as the apostle John has written, there have been and are many of these.  Further, it seems to me that the antichrist is not limited to a person; an idea can be viewed as a savior or liberator.

ARC is struggling with this: there is a favorable bent toward Christianity in this organization and in the discussions; witness Jordan Peterson and many other atheists who find utility value in Christianity toward a stable and prosperous society.

At the same time, ARC is not overtly Christian – finding utility value in Christianity is not the same thing as humbly submitting to Christ.  Instead, if there is an overriding theme of ARC, it is that we must return to classical liberal values – recognizing that these values function best if a culture is nominally Christian.

Classical liberal values, if not place under submission to Christ, present an antichrist: a false savior.

In VanderKlay’s video, he referenced something written by Jonathan Pageau, struggling with just this question: ARC and antichrist.  I commented at VanderKlay’s site:

Pageau: ARC...antichrist?

Jonathan is right to consider this.  Healing will come with Jesus Christ at the center, not with Jesus Christ as a social influencer.

No doubt Jonathan will talk to his priest about this.  The fact that he publicly raised this concern suggests that we may soon see Jonathan changing how he participates in the Jordan Peterson corner of the internet.

Tyranny in Different Forms

 A couple of passages from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Things are otherwise with those who are higher up.  They, led by science, want to establish themselves in truth and justice with their minds alone, but now without Christ, as formerly, and they have already proclaimed that crime does not exist, that sin does not exist.  And they are right in their way, for if one has not God, then what crime can there be?

If God does not exist, there is no highest good, no thing above man and outside of man that man can aim for.  There is nothing to prevent man from developing his own rules – Nietzsche’s Übermensch comes to mind.  We have been living under the tyranny of this Übermensch for a few centuries now.  We see today this phase is coming to and end, one way or another, rationally or irrationally.

And no one bothered to reproach them anymore, no one put in a good word, which was positively strange, as the Elder’s devoted followers were after all in the majority within the cloister; but it seemed that on this occasion the Lord Himself had permitted the minority temporarily to gain the upper hand.

The Elder died, and his body began to give off a terrible smell.  This was taken as a sign by some that he was not acceptable to God, so a few started badmouthing the Elder.

As can be seen in this passage, a loud and forceful minority can shame or quiet a majority – just as can be seen in our society.

But Why?

 

Some speculation…

…and for the first time since before many, perhaps any of us were born, there is real desire to drag it into the light and expunge it from our lives.

This in regards to the effort of exposing, in more detail than ever, the corruption to be found in the spending of the United States government.

But why?  That’s the question I keep asking myself.  Why this effort?  Why now?  Why is it happening?  Why, so relatively speaking, quietly?

Not that I am complaining.  At least, not much.  For the most part, I am on their team…or, at least, I like what they are doing.

But why are they doing it?  They have never done so in my life.  And I have lived a pretty long life.

My guess…

Too many powerful people desire it.  And not for my benefit or yours, but theirs.  Too many powerful people have figured out that the only foundation on which they can stay on top is the good old U.S. of A.  Nowhere else.  On the global playing field, perhaps only China presents another long-term possibility, but no one in China cares about American billionaires; China is not a plausible option. 

The foundation has to be saved, no matter the cost.  Because it seems that there is no other foundation on which they can sustain and grow their own personal empires.

I think this is what’s happening.  It explains Musk and the rest of the gazillionaires perfectly.  There is no other foundation on which they can build their tower of babel, so they want to save the only one that will serve. 

Who will use their military to defend their intellectual property if not the USA?  Who will pay to launch their rockets if not the USA?  Who will ensure their social media and search engines and video channels will continue to grow if not the USA?  Where else other than the USA can they build and protect their wealth?  Who will protect the Zionist state if not the USA? 

The answer is simple.  No one else.

Conclusion

For once, we have the billionaires on our side.  Not strategically, but tactically.  And if that’s all I can get (as if I have a say in the matter), I will take it.  The next 12 – 18 months will tell the tale.