Trust, Religion And Institutions

I like this post, especially this excerpt:

The soft, feminine authoritarianism we see in the West is a free rider. It is possible because of the inertia from the old high trust societies that came before it. If Finland faced a real crisis, one that threatened its existed, the first thing that happens is their pixie of prime minister is replaced with a serious person. The same would be true in Canada, where their gender fluid prime minister is mostly a luxury item.

Which leads me to a tangential point.  Generally speaking, if Z-man is correct, weak rulers are an indulgence during times of peace and/or prosperity in democratic societies.  Harsh times, as he indicates, call for strong leaders — Churchill in 1940, De Gaulle in 1959, Pinochet in 1973 and Reagan in 1981.  And taking Canada as an example, they have been able to elect essentially weakling prime minister pretty much forever  (e.g. Trudeau Mark I and II in the 1970s and 2010s, respectively), living as they do under the protection of the United States.  I refer to them (and that Millennial Finnish premier) as “dilettante” leaders because in good times, they are not really harmful and can play at being leaders.

Now ask yourself these two questions:

• Is the United States in such a position of peace, prosperity and security that we can afford to indulge ourselves with a weak leader?
• Is there a single  Democrat presidential candidate that can not be described as a dilettante leader?  To put the question into perspective:  in any negotiation with China’s Xi, Russia’s Putin or even Iran’s Khameini, would the putative Democrat president (i.e. from any of the current candidates) emerge as the victor?  Put another way:  can any of the above candidates be favorably compared to, say, a stronger Democrat president such as Harry Truman?

Every leader in the world knew who was the stronger adversary when faced with Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan.  And they all likewise knew who was the stronger when the U.S. President was Jimmy Carter — who, by the way, is an absolute colossus compared to Buttigieg, Biden, Warren and the other socialist stooges.

I also think that most Americans who don’t believe in pixie dust, unicorns and Communism understand this concept absolutely;  which, by the way, explains why Republican voters chose Trump over the other Republican candidates in 2016, and why Ted Cruz — who is not a dilettante candidate — was their second choice, albeit a distant second.

Given the current state of the world and our position in it — and thus understanding that the United States cannot really ever indulge itself with a weak president — the choice facing us in Election 2020 is quite clear.  This is no time for a boutique president — it’s never a good time for a Marxist president — and I’m pretty sure that we Americans know it.