Time to Pack Your Bags

 

OK, pre-trib rapture enthusiasts, those who pray for Israel’s destruction via Armageddon, who believe that 1948 can be found in Biblical numerology, who believe the promise of Abraham was aimed at a state who took the name of Israel a few thousand years later.  As Dave Smith said, if I named my son Jesus Christ, that wouldn’t make him savior of the world.

Pack your bags.  Or at least grab your oxygen mask for your high-elevation flotilla.  Jesus is coming to take you away…maybe today, maybe tomorrow…but before all the bad stuff that Trump just unleashed. 

Now, am I suggesting that the nukes are going to start flying before Friday?  No.  But Trump has made clear that there is no off switch, no off ramp, no making America great.  First, he exploded the budget, then he exploded World War Three.  This empire is going to die with the biggest bang ever, this is now perfectly clear.

Yes, WWIII started previously – say 2014, or 2001, or even at the fall of the Soviet Union.  But now it’s official.

Anyone still want to suggest that they hold on to Trumpian hope?  Look, I did, for about as long as anyone, so there is no shame in this.  But what is clear: our enemies were right about Trump, even though they were right for all the wrong reasons.

I mentioned that I asked several friends a few weeks ago if they saw the possibility that they would be sorry that Trump was president.  At least so far tonight, every one of them is silent.

Look, neither Biden nor Harris ever did such a devastating action.  Never.  And now, no one can say, “well, at least Trump never started a new war.”

So, pre-trib rapture buddies.  Pack your bags.  But…what happens if you get Armageddon but none of the good stuff?  Might you decide you have been on the side of Satan all along?  Might you decide that you took the mark of the beast?

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.