Some Clarity

Observations and thoughts about how things are going with MAGA.

Whatever the Reason

Whatever the reason that Trump isn’t get most of what he said he wanted to do get done, he isn’t.  Whether he wants to but can’t, or if he doesn’t want to and never wanted to, it doesn’t make a difference.  It just proves, perhaps more powerfully than ever – given the wave of support Trump had – nothing meaningful will change based on who you vote for.

The best way to kill a movement?  Give it what it wants.  Trump, with a majority in both houses of congress; some of the best anti-war / pro-transparency people in his cabinet.  Then prove that nothing important changes; they laughingly put your impotence right in your face.

But, a reminder to not forget what has changed.  Yes, the border seems to be reasonably closed – except for more H1-B visas and more foreign college students.  And yes, we don’t hear as much openly about how terrible you are if you are a straight white male.  So, that’s something.

Civil War

It was clear all along: supporting genocide was sure to split the republican base, just as it did the democratic elite from their base.  Note the difference: on the democrat side, the split is fundamentally between the elite and the base.  On the republican side, the split is in the base.  For both the democrat and republican elite, there is no split – they are all in.

It is tough to keep in mind, but while the people vote for revolution (e.g. Trump three times, Bernie Sanders in 2016, Mamdani today), the elite want civil war – keep the plebes fighting against each other, and that way they won’t revolt against the elite.

Problem Solved

In the first few months of Trump’s presidency, I wrote something about not being sure what to make of Trump 2.0.  The answer has become clearer to me, and not because I have deciphered his 17-D chess moves or anything like that.

When you want Thomas Massie out, and when Marjorie Taylor Greene is a traitor and resigns (read her resignation statement here, and see if this isn’t more like what people thought they voted for with Trump), and throw Rand Paul in there as some other kind of bad guy, there is no cause for confusion.  The most “America First” people in congress are enemy number one for Trump.

Need more be said?

Go Along to Get Along

 

A topic I have been thinking about for some time, motivated by an episode in my life a few months ago.  Why is it coming out now?  I guess I have stewed on it long enough, but also because regular commenter Roger posted something at his site, “How to Get Along in Five Easy Steps”.  To be clear: both his context and mine regards those we know, those we interact with – friends, family, neighbors. 

Roger’s first step:

Examine yourself and admit that you might have something to do with the problem. Identify those areas within your own life which make it hard for other people to get along with you. (Notice that the thrust of the argument has been flipped. It’s not that you find it hard to get along with others, but that they find it hard to get along with you. If this rings true, then Step 2 should be easy for you to figure out.)

This is so right.  How much of our conflict and disagreement is rooted and perpetuated in a lack of self-reflection?  This is evidence of pride – a lack of humility.  It is contrary to a fundamental teaching of Jesus Christ:

Matthew 7: 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Roger’s following four steps are left blank, to be customized by you and me – according to where we are and regarding the specifics of the issues.  He does suggest using the Beatitudes as a guideline for this, and I wholeheartedly agree.

With that said…

There is so little left available to us to discuss openly and freely even with friends and family, where a difference of opinion does not result in an opportunity for growth but instead a certainty of disdain.  This hit me with full force recently, with a group who is very important to me.  Not that there is a surprise, as there have been clear signs and comments – but reality has a way of using a two-by-four upside the head when replacing what was likely with what is certain.

Matthew 22: 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Am I loving my neighbor if I am not presenting Christ to him?  Yet, it is right here, where conflict rises to the point of disdain – because almost every subject is now considered in such an extreme manner, and the worst of these subjects are so contrary to Christ – sinful, and unrepentantly so.  In fact, presented as if somehow what is plain in Scripture is not really there.

In other words, while society has watered down the meaning of “love” to be something like “affirm,” this is not true love, not the love we are called to. 

I would like to go back to the passage in Matthew 7, with what immediately follows Jesus’s teaching about planks and logs in eyes:

Matthew 7: 6 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.”

Immediately after Jesus teaches to focus on self-reflection, the gospel writer Matthew records this.  It is interesting: as Roger notes, self-reflection, then work through the Beatitudes. 

I think one could consider the entirety of the Beatitudes an exercise and growth opportunity in self-reflection.  So, after such self-reflection, it seems Jesus suggests we stop dealing with our neighbors in the same way.

Conclusion

At some point, loving my neighbor by presenting the Gospel to him comes to an end.  And at that point, I know how to go along to get along: stick to sports and music.  Thus far, these subjects are not so tainted that they result in disdain.

A Turning Point for the USA

There have been several, just in my lifetime.  The assassination of JFK is probably the most important one, because it opened the way for the others: September 11 and the nothing-to-see-here Epstein files are two other rather obvious such turning points – maybe better to call these inflection points of greater acceleration…but that would kind of mess up the use of my title to this post.

Charlie Kirk was assassinated.  Did I even need to write that this event is what has prompted this post, given the title?  Many thoughts come to mind, but I will stick to a couple of quotes from Angelo Codevilla, who I have written about often over the last several years – even before Trump’s first election nine years ago.  So, here goes.

This he wrote even before Trump’s first victory in 2016:

We have stepped over the threshold of a revolution. It is difficult to imagine how we might step back, and futile to speculate where it will end. Our ruling class’s malfeasance, combined with insult, brought it about. Donald Trump did not cause it and is by no means its ultimate manifestation. Regardless of who wins in 2016, this revolution’s sentiments will grow in volume and intensity, and are sure to empower politicians likely to make Americans nostalgic for Donald Trump’s moderation.

This from a few weeks after Trump’s first inauguration:

Hear me…you see the entire ruling class essentially rejecting the Constitution, the American way, rejecting the legitimacy of elections.  There can be no mild response to that, and there isn’t one.  Trump’s voters want certain results and they don’t particularly care how they get them.  The ruling class wants its power and doesn’t particularly care how it holds on to it.

This also from around the same time:

In short, the P.C. “changes in law and public norms” (to quote Galston again) that the ruling class imposed on the rest of America, rather than having “gradually brought about changes in private attitudes across partisan and ideological lines” as the ruling class imagined (and as Gramsci would have approved) have set off a revolution—of which we can be sure only that it won’t be pretty.

What do all of these have to do with Charlie Kirk?  (Oh, and let’s not forget the image of a young Ukrainian female refugee knifed while on public transit in Charlotte, and the reaction this has caused.)

Charlie Kirk was just talking.  He held no involuntary authority over anyone.  No one was forced to do as he said, or even to listen to him.  He was not a politician; he did not manipulate the suffering masses to be pawns in his game. 

He was just talking.

No, I didn’t agree with him on everything, but he moved the conversation in America in a better direction, and he did it the way it should be done – by just talking.

Charlie Kirk was to be just such a voice for the next forty years.  Now?  We get to hear mainstream media talk about how he supported gun rights so he kind of deserved it, just a few days after they told us that the system failed the black man who came up behind a white woman and stabbed her.  And, by the way, here is the background of the system that failed him.

Someday, true conservatives (not the ones who merely wear the “R” label out of convenience, or the ones that support some tiny speck in the Middle East no matter what) are going to decide that Trump’s “moderation” is not going to get the result they want, and they want their results and don’t particularly care how they get them; it most certainly will not be pretty.

They know how to shoot back, and they are way better at it.  And, even though much of what they do is destructive, most people in the military and in law enforcement lean conservative and not kooky.

With that said, all of us are being set up by the elite written of by Codevilla. 

Conclusion

A 31-year-old young man, a husband, a father of two, was assassinated for talking.  This word combination can’t be real, but it is.

Christ or chaos.  We each face this choice in our personal lives, and as a society the choice is no different.  I pray we move toward Christ, but it seems we are being ever-increasingly pushed (manipulated) toward chaos.

Can America be MGA*?

 

*Made Great Again

There are two, only two, dynamics at work here: the truth and its opposite, pragmatism, or whatever works.

We need to raise our sights, to stop being obsessed with what is happening right now, and to see the future of mankind: peace, prosperity, and love on a world-wide scale because we have been influenced by His Spirit to treat our neighbor as we would wish to be treated BY our neighbor.

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. There is no other way.

-          Roger

I have been thinking about this comment from Roger to my post, Quo Vadis MAGA? In that post, I discussed what is happening geopolitically through the lens of the Heartland Theory posited by Halford Mackinder about 120 years ago, and I used that lens to consider which way America is going under Trump and just what does he mean by “Make America Great Again.”  (Go back to the post to see what might be meant by this phrase that can mean almost anything.)

I used the post to take a step back, considering the confusion that is the Trump presidency.  And, by stepping back maybe getting some clarity – or at least reminding myself of the geopolitical lens through which I see world events playing out.

Roger’s comment has me thinking that I need to take a further step back – call it the ultimate step back – and ask: Can America be Made Great Again?  And to answer this question – to offer the ultimate and unassailable answer, there is only one source to use.

Jeremiah 18: 11 “Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.”’” 12 And they said, “That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.”

This sounds like America today.

17 I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face in the day of their calamity.”

God showing the back and not the face is one of the most damning statements He makes.

2 Kings 17: 14 Nevertheless they would not hear, but stiffened their necks, like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God.

This also sounds like America today.

18 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone.

Being removed from God’s sight.  Also one of the most damning statements God makes.

2 Kings 24: 3 Surely at the commandment of the Lord this came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, 4 and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, which the Lord would not pardon.

Again, removed from His sight. 

Quo Vadis MAGA?

Which way are you going, MAGA? 

Trump is the most confusing president in my lifetime (just see my last post, and compare it to several of my earlier posts).  Some people see him playing 4-D chess or call it his negotiation strategy, others just see it for chaos.  He regularly says things the opposite of each other and regularly does things at least seemingly the opposite of each other or opposite of something he just said three minutes before.  I won’t rehash these here, I think the evidence is clear enough.

I have been thinking through how I might best understand what is going on.  At times like this, I think it is best to go back to some fundamentals; call these the lenses through which I see the political world.

There are two fundamental lenses through which I see the geopolitical landscape.  Now, I often forget these, and when this happens, I find myself swaying because of allowing myself to be unrooted.  Having said this, I am not completely married to these two lenses – these may not play at all.  However, until I see actions clearly in contradiction to the lenses…well, the lenses stand for me.

So, what are these lenses?

The Geographical Pivot of History

Also known as the Heartland Theory.  Halford Mackinder gave a talk in 1904 to the Royal Geographic Society in London.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s start with a picture.

 

 

To summarize his thesis: whoever controls the Pivot Area controls the world.  Britain at that time, and the United States certainly since World War Two, have controlled the seas – the Lands of the Outer Crescent.  But this will be irrelevant to whoever brings under control and tames the Pivot Area.

I ask you, therefore, for a moment to look upon Europe and European history as subordinate to Asia and Asiatic history, for European civilization is, in a very real sense, the outcome of the secular struggle against Asiatic invasion.

For a thousand years, Europe dealt with hoards coming from Central Asia – the Pivot Area, or Heartland. 

To the east, south, and west of this heart-land are marginal regions, ranged in a vast crescent, accessible to shipmen. 

The margins, or Inner Crescent, are key.  A buffer for the Pivot Area and a source of chaos for the Outer Crescent to use against the Pivot Area.  And, guess what?

 

 

Mackinder identifies the key players of his time.  Little has changed:

Outside the pivot area, in a great inner crescent, are Germany, Austria, Turkey, India, and China, and in an outer crescent, Britain, South Africa, Australia, the United States, Canada, and Japan.

I would only comment that western China is certainly in the Pivot Area, making China a key Pivot Area player.  Otherwise, take a look at the list: the Outer Area was at the time all allies of Britain (with South Africa more recently becoming iffy).  Those in the Great Inner Crescent are seen as where the game is to be played.