The Raj tries to explain why God-Emperor Trump should try to heal the nation and bring its fractured pieces back together again (cf. Humpty Dumpty):
America, right now, despite the aforementioned affluence and peacefulness, is a truly unpleasant place to live. We are not loving our neighbors.
The unfortunate result of this, despite its being inherently unfair, is that Trump alone can and must lead the way in curing this condition. No one else is in a position to do it and he cannot expect his enemies to help him, if past performance is any indication.
In order to really “make America great again,” so we can indeed live with each other, even if Durham indicts half a dozen of his opponents, even if he wins a smashing victory in November, the president must resist two powerful temptations: vengeance and gloating.
He should be “the good father,” which he evidently is to his own children, not the angry or cheated man, which he is to his political opponents, justifiably or not.
Sorry, but that’s just not gonna happen, Rog, despite the noble intent. For two opposing factions to come together, there has to be some common ground and some comity on both sides.
We conservatives have tried both (bipartisanship, polite grassroots movements like the Tea Party, and moderate Republican presidents like George W. Bush), and the fucking Commies have responded with feral intensity to trash all of it.
Unity can only come under three sets of circumstances: a common basis for society, a shared enemy, or a desire to be united. We have no common ground between Left and conservatists; in fact, we’re diametrically opposed.
Actually, we do have a shared enemy, all right, except we conservatives are becoming united against the Commies (they’ve always been united against us), and the common enemy we now have is each other.
We’re way past wanting to be united. The Left has called us every epithet under the sun; they’ve started treating us conservatives like we’re totalitarian Nazis not worthy of even being allowed to eat dinner in peace; and if we dare to express opposition to them, we’re attacked either literally by their Pantifa goons, or in the media by the shouting heads at CNN et al. It takes two sides to want to be united, and the Left isn’t interested because they’ve begun to believe their own insane propaganda.
So no, I don’t think President Trump should try to bring the two sides together. In the first place, such an effort will fail because the Left (and their Never-Trumper noch schleppers) absolutely hate his guts and will repulse (not would — there’s no conditional circumstance) and revile any of his approaches. Secondly, even moderate conservatives are starting to learn what we ultra-conservatives have known all along: no matter how much we try, the only time the Left will accept us is when we do precisely what they want, and only then. “Bipartisan” to the Left, in other words, means “we’ll agree to do something with you only as long as you’ll agree to do exactly what we want”.
Frankly, I’m sick of it. There are two socio-political groups in this country, and each one has a diametrically-opposite idea to the other of what this country should look like and how it should be governed. Our Humpty-Dumpty nation has fallen off the wall and is finished, over, done with.
There are two solutions: geographic partition, and actual civil war. (If this sounds similar to 1860, it is. People always wonder how things could come to such a pass back then; now it should be quite apparent. The problem now is that the Left is trying to paint Middle America as the slave owners, when in fact the opposite is the case.)
I would prefer the first solution — even though partition itself would cause violence to break out as the details became known and acted upon. As for the second solution: frankly, I’m getting to the point where I think I’d just have to handle whatever a genuine civil war might bring, and let the chips fall where they may. One thing I do know is that I will be the last to start it, but once engaged I will do my level best to finish it.
You see, I’m not interested in living the rest of my life in a California- or New York-type of society. That’s not what I signed on for when I immigrated, back in the mid-1980s. I suspect that there are lots more immigrants like me, and still more people among the native-born population who have seen their civil rights eroded and their society turning more into Southern California.
I’m not the only conservative who feels this way, if the events in Virginia are any kind of portent.
The Virginia situation might yet be averted at the next election, by the way, which should see the Commies kicked out of statewide office. And we as a nation might still get another five years of grace when Trump is reelected later in 2020. After that, however, all bets are off. I don’t think conservative people are going to go adopt the “reconciliation” that Roger Simon is advocating — there is no longer a future for gentleman-Republicans like George W. Bush in our polity. I also know that the Left always needs an enemy, and if there isn’t one, they’ll create one. Which, right now, is us: Middle America, Flyover Country, the White Patriarchy, Western European culture, Christians, the Deplorables, or any and all of the above.
So here we are. Good luck to us all.
Until the media is held accountable for it’s lying behavior nothing worthwhile will change. IT is the enemy to all no matter where you stand. It goads, denigrates, infers, and outright lies at will and I;m pretty certain none of those things can be considered 1st amendment worthy. Lying is not a right.
Pretty much the same thing with the lying, stealing politicians. People practicing criminal behavior with no means of accountability in sight.
The rest of us would do pretty good if those 2 things were eliminated.
My wife and I have this “family issue” with some other members of our family, which leads to lots of upset feelings, fights, separation, silence (my preference!), and so on. My wife keeps insisting that if we can all just sit down and talk, maybe we can resolve the problems and put them behind us.
I keep telling her, to the other members of this little issue, there is no problem. This is what they want, they like it this way, and they don’t see any need to change it. We can talk all you want, do whatever they ask, and it’ll never change and we’ll just look pathetic trying. Things won’t change.
Now just expand that from one little family to the entire fricking country. Some people just want to watch the world burn, liberals just want another cause to go riot in the streets and call it a protest.
The Left and Right in this country differ on fundamentals, there can be no discussion between the two EXCEPT on those fundamentals, and there can be no compromise EXCEPT on those fundamentals.
Oh, the Left is very good at pretending to compromise (“No one wants to take your guns”) until they get the power (“If I had the votes, turn them in Mr and Mrs America”, “Hell yeah, we’re gonna take your AR-15”).
Geographic partition is pretty much what we have, with the Left clustered in the cities and the Right in flyover country, and the Right is pretty OK with that, let the cities go to Hell in their own way. Problem is that the Left ISN’T OK with that, they don’t just want to control their own little hunks of the nation, they want to inflict their philosophy on everyone else too. Funny thing ain’t it? The LEFT ALWAYS invades other places to take them over and control them, while freedom-loving people are plenty content to mind their own beeswax, let people see how they live, and let those who choose to do so join them.
I suspect a Civil War, if it comes (I’m not confident, but I believe in miracles) will be short and brutal. The big cities of Leftism are vulnerable because they’re not self-sustaining. They get their necessities shipped from the very flyover country that’s the bastion of Right-wingers. Manhattan, for instance, has at any given time about a 24 hour supply of everything, food, medicine, about the only things they don’t need to import are assholes (although they do). Stop producing, stop shipping, and in a couple days the people of NYC will be eating their pets, in a couple weeks they’ll be eating each other.
While Atlas Shrugged was pretty unrealistic, it DID give a realistic picture of what would happen if the productive members of society go in strike.
Those of you who are readers of Thomas Sowell will recognize this concept:
It’s the battle of visions: constrained versus unconstrained.
And the problem is there’s no real way to meet halfway between them. At least, not that I’ve seen.
> That’s not what I signed on for when I immigrated, back in the mid-1980s.
So, Kim, why did you choose America?
Land of the free.
Amen! And we’re better for you being here. Happy and safe for 2020, y’all!
Well it used to be. There is a glimmer left out there, but I think it is in danger of going out.
Good Sir Kim, do you remember a dinner we had together in Dallas? As we were walking out, Obama was on the television. I said to you then, “He’s going to be our next President.”
You said, “Nonsense. We don’t elect communists in this country.”
I so wish more native borne citizens had your faith in our polity.
Corsair, The Mostly Harmless
Excellent. I can’t think of anything I would quibble with in your analysis. I have been a long time advocate of the National Divorce as an alternative to CW2 or surrender. I have been feeling pretty lonely though I am less so after reading your piece and the comments. I still think CW2 is the most likely outcome but a disastrous one. And unlike CW1, the loser won’t go home and try to rebuild but will engage in guerrilla actions that will sputter on forever. And they will have lots of experience at this since the whole war will be irregular rather than the set piece battles of CW1.
I was wondering if you had any thoughts about the failed partition in South Africa. It always struck me as conceptually the right idea but executed poorly and probably disingenuously. In other words, it wasn’t real partition that created actual sovereign entities in the Homelands which were not economically viable in the first place. Thus it was never accepted, the pot was kept boiling and eventually the whites surrendered. I ask this because the one criticism of the National Divorce that worries me is that the leftists will eventually come out of their cities and we will have war anyway. But you are a lot closer to that situation than I and I think your insights would be valuable.