It’s time for me to take off the gloves. No more Mr. Nice Keln. I’ve been incredibly patient with the stupids this entire election season, especially up to the point where Donald Trump was the nominee and the stupids continued to cry about it like babies that didn’t get their blankie and their nappy.
I’ve delicately tried to lay out a reasonable argument as to why they should just go along with it and focus on the greater threat here, which is Hillary Clinton. I was being diplomatic.
No more. It’s now time to explain to these infantile, deluded ignoramuses what the real deal is. From this point forward, I’m going to be tossing out bricks of truth. And I don’t care who gets hit in the blankie.
The Conservative Well has been poisoned. And it’s been poisoned over a long period of time by two primary actors. This poisoning of the well has been a concerted effort to twist and distort conservatism away from the Reagan vision of a Shining City on a Hill into this ideology of corporatism and globalism that exists today…Neoconservativism.
We’ve been told since about the mid-80s that free trade at all costs is somehow a conservative virtue. That it shall not be questioned. That somehow, what is best for the corporate elite is best for us. Never mind that these neocons consider Reagan a hero. And never mind that Reagan used tariffs to balance trade and protect US manufacturing. This was a new model…their model. It led to NAFTA. It has led to an expansion of the WTO. And it has led to ignoring the stipulations of our trade deals, including NAFTA, with respect to currency manipulation and basic cheating.
And it is leading to TPP.
And what now do we have to show for this so-called golden “conservative” virtue of free trade at all costs? An economy on a downhill, crap-coated Slip’N’Slide to Hell. There are no jobs. Let me repeat this for you peons: THERE ARE NO JOBS.
Here’s what happened. Back in the day, the United States was a manufacturing-based economy. Main Street held political power, people had jobs, growth was through the roof, and life was good, for it’s time.
Then some people had the bright idea that they could make a crap ton of money through investment banking. However, the Glass-Steagall Act of the 30s kept such banking separated from the capital-commercial banking industry. Basically, these would-be paper-traders had no real capital to risk. And without all of that capital, they couldn’t make all of that money in the paper market.
So they eroded the Act, using the courts, mainly in the 1970s-1990s. Eventually, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed (under Clinton of course). Investment banking combined with the commercial banks and the ginormous banks we see today (that are “too big to fail”) were born. The predominant market shifted from a tangible market to a paper market…or a Shadow Market.
As such, the political power shifted from the industrialists and manufacturers to the corporate investment bankers. And so the focus shifted from maintaining a manufacturing powerhouse in the US to buying power on the global market. Great for the traders, but a death knell for US manufacturing.
With all of that money, you can see now how political power was suddenly in the hands of banks and investment firms. And you can now see why these corporatists wouldn’t give a rodent’s posterior about American workers or really even the American economy. They were Global now. They have transcended borders. And to them, borders are really an obstacle.
I’m sure you can fast-forward along those lines from the late 80s until now and see how we have come to the point we are now in. If you can’t…well you are a really slow learner, and I’ve not the time to explain it to you. I can’t type that slowly.
It would be easy to blame the Democrats for all of this, considering the worst steps were all signed into law by Bill Clinton. But in reality, both the Democrats and the Republicans were at fault here. There is really very little difference between your average Democrat and Republican. Their checks are written by the same investment firms. They are visited by the same K-street pimps.
If you really want to shift blame around, you need to look at the two primary actors behind twisting Conservatism into something that would allow this to happen: Conservative punditry and Conservative Think Tanks.
For decades, Conservative punditry has been vastly controlled by one man: William Kristol. It sounds crazy, even conspiracy theorish…except that books and articles have for years been written about his singular influence on Conservative media. The Wall Street Journal, as an example, used to chase stories based merely on where Kristol’s finger happened to be pointing. That’s a lot of power vested in one man.
And of course Kristol is literally owned by Wall Street. He’s worked hard to warp conservatism in an effort to gain his power, influence, and especially all of that money. Another guy in this lollapalooza of nefarious punditry is Charles Krauthammer. As I like to say about these two gentlemen, I’ve become pretty regular as I’ve gotten older. I flush a Krauthammer every day, and when I eat Tex-Mex, I get a bad case of Kristol. But I digress.
The other actor, Conservative think tanks, are really little more than pseudo-academic conglomerates paid for by grants from….ta da! Wall Street. Their entire purpose is to continue to push the “free trade at all costs” agenda. Keep the borders open, eliminate tariffs, and make it as easy as pie for companies to relocate to countries where labor is almost slavery and importing into the US doesn’t cost anything.
How do they make it so easy to convince manufacturers (that these investment types bet on) to leave the US? Taxation and Regulation. Makes it pretty hard to keep operating here when you have to pay all of those costs. And starting a new business? Fuggifaboudit.
That is your modern conservatives for you. And hence, your modern conservative party. Last year, about 17 Republicans stepped forward to run for President. Of the 17, only two had no connections to Wall Street, and only one had no reason to accept a dime from Wall Street. The one guy was Donald Trump. He represents the old, almost now defunct, Main Street. The old industrialists who no longer have much power. The other outsider, Ben Carson, never had the kind of capital (or charisma) to mount a serious campaign.
The Federal Government loves to issue unemployment numbers that have no basis in reality. “Unemployment”, according to the government, means people who are literally on unemployment benefits. Once your bennies run out…you are now no longer “unemployed”. This in no way represents the true unemployment figures (1 in 5 households have 0 adults with a job).
Manufacturing is all but gone. And the so-called service economy is not, and never will be, big enough to make up for it. And the service economy is by-and-large composed of minimum wage jobs. The American Dream is not about flipping burgers at McDonalds or stacking shelves at WalMart. Those are supposed to be teenager jobs.
Adult jobs were supposed to be working at factories, making THINGS. Now China, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and others make all of those things. All we do is buy them. That is an untenable situation. It is only a matter of time before our entire economy collapses on itself. We’re screwed unless we can change back to a Main Street economy. The very economy that created the middle class.
Enter Trump. He has literally been talking about all of this since the 1980s. For all of you morons saying “oh, he’s really a Democrat, mer mer mer”…shut your whorish mouth. He has been saying the same doggone thing for decades. He saw what would happen, it happened, now he is saying “I told you so”. And not only that, he is saying “and we can fix it”. He’s pretty optimistic. I don’t know if I am as optimistic, but at least not continuing to dig a hole is a step in the right direction.
My point is, and this is for the stupids (those who call themselves “Never Trump”), the well was poisoned, even before Reagan left office. And it has poisoned your thinking. You have a definition of “Conservative Principles” branded into your hide that you just cannot shake off. And you have been listening for decades to punditry who have reaffirmed these so-called principles so long, you are not willing to accept you could have been wrong.
The difference between you and a lot of us is this: We can admit we were wrong. Gloriously wrong, and I am OK with that. I still consider Reagan my hero. It’s easy…because he wasn’t a part of that neoconism in the first place.
But your pride has you so latched onto that, because you invested so many years into that thinking, that you cannot let go, and to Hell with the world before you will let go. Arrogant pride, nothing more. That is all you are reduced to.
It’s time to let go. It’s time to look around and see who all of these people supporting Trump are. No, many might not have been staunch conservatives in the past. Some were even Democrats (shudder). Some of us have been super-staunch conservatives all of our lives. But we all have a common bond…we love our country. And we see it going down the tubes. And out of all of these political candidates and pundits we’ve listened to over the years, Trump is the first in a position to win that is actually speaking to the real problems in this country. He is not so fascinated with social issues, which are used to divide us every election.
He is going back to the old “it’s the economy, stupid” motto. And he’s right. It really is the economy. From economic security, national security is assured. And everything else is possible once those two are fixed.
People aren’t supporting Trump because he had a reality show (which I never actually watched), or because he has a giant ego or a line of ties or wines or steaks or hotels. We’re supporting him in spite of a lot of that stuff. It’s the message we’re interested in. And God save Trump if he were lying, because this movement behind him will not stand for it. We want America First, and we want to change the political climate. NOW.
Call it Populism if you like. I’m sure you had some professor tell you that “populism is bad mmkay…because Nazis”. Well, professors are usually leftist stupids, so keep that in mind.
But the message of Trump isn’t all that populist. It’s simply sensible. Our economy sucks. People are out of work. The reasons why are definable. And the solutions, while maybe not as easy as he says they are (or are they?), are definitely doable.
And his message is not demagoguery. Saying such is a nice intellectual-sounding argument without any substance. Trump doesn’t play on fears: he points out reality. Literally nothing he points out is anything everyone doesn’t already know. It is just that he points it out without apology or sugar-coating. We already know Islamic terrorism is a serious threat to our existence. We already know that unmitigated immigration is a recipe for disaster, both from an economic and security standpoint.
And the argument that Trump is a racist: leftist projection. Trump is big tent. He has even stated he is big tent. He doesn’t pander. The left panders. Hillary panders. She labels everyone. And depending on what your label is, you get a different speech. Trump gives everyone the same speech. His ideology: Make America Great for Everyone.
It isn’t racism. It is indifference to race. It isn’t sexism, it is indifference to gender. The man who broke racial barriers on golf courses and gender barriers in the construction world cares about one thing only: can you do the job? Your race or your gender don’t matter.
That is not racism nor is it sexism. And those calling him such are the same who call anyone they disagree with sexist or racist. Those words have lost their power when coming from the left.
I will never ask anyone to like Donald Trump. But I will ask you to let go of your pride and stop being such a rube. Politicians and media have been playing us all for decades. I’ve fallen for a lot of it myself, with McCain followed by Romney as wake-up calls that all was not well in modern conservatism. It turned me real cynical. I’m still a cynic, but I am taking a chance here.
Might as well. The alternative is…Clinton.
Cross-posted at NukingPolitics.com
Go Keln! I was making politically incorrect comments (funny) at work today, and mentally calculating my chances of being escorted off the premises by HR. I’ll bet you felt the same way after hitting “Post”.
IMHO, Donald Trump is an a**, but he is the only hope we have of not losing the Bill of Rights. I mean that literally. Cheers,
HCG
Bravo!
I’m glad Trump supporters are doing their best to make sure I won’t miss the Republican party when Hillary destroys it.
It’s almost as nice as how they make it clear that America’s already been destroyed, no matter how much they pretend otherwise.
Amen Keln. Now if you could just get these simple facts through Frank J’s thick head (and to a lesser extent, Harvey’s) all would be well at this site.
Our money is fiat, i.e., fake, Half our population works for government. American grown corporations have moved overseas. Entitlements will get you $56,000 of income without lifting a finger. Our $20 Trillion national debt is a mere drop in the bucket when compared to future unfunded liabilities (that are so large, no one can agree on a number). 94 million Americans have dropped-out of the workforce, And our media and politics are controlled by global money…
The United States is now just a temporary consumer market for the globalists. We’ve been harvested,
Nice post, Keln. But remember, Frank’s first concern is that Trump is a “clown.” Kind of like how Democrats use their “feelings” to determine their politics.
As a Cold War vet, I fully embrace the “he’s our SOB” realpolitik.
[ref link http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/general-somoza-takes-over-nicaragua%5D
He’s still an SOB, though.
Personally speaking…I’d rather have the SOB in office than the B.
“Manufacturing is all but gone.” Not really, we still make about the same amount of stuff. Thing is, we use a lot less people and a lot more automation. Better to say “Manufacturing jobs are all but gone.” And it’s only going to get worse as stuff gets smarter. Just driving, for instance. We’re on the verge of driverless cars. That alone will kill a crapload of jobs, all those truckers, taxi drivers, UPS/FedEx drivers, pizza delivery guys, etc. And all relatively low-skill, easy entry jobs.
Take the job of a McDonald’s cashier. WTF do they need more than one? They could roll out an app for your smart phone, you walk up to the store, place your order, payment is handled over the app. You get an order number and pick it up when it is ready. Easy Peasy. Even better, the app can give you an estimate of when it’ll be ready. Wouldn’t that be great? You are walking to McDonald’s for lunch, you place your order using your phone. It tells you what time lunch’ll be. You never have to stand in line, not to order, not to wait on your food.
They’ll still need somebody around for questions or problems, but they won’t need a bank of four cashiers. One will do quite well.
Not debating the general point of the article, though. The GOP and the DNC are twin arms of the same group. They are much more alike than they are different, and they both are trouble for the average citizen.
Manufacturing output numbers look as if we make a lot, but the vast majority of it is materials processing, food processing, drug manufacturing, and oil refining. Textiles, electronics, appliances, etc, which were what much of our manufacturing made, are mostly produced overseas now. We do still make a lot of vehicles and aircraft, but that stuff is leaving as well.
It’s also important to note that our population has increased by a lot since 2000, yet (I’m working from memory here because I read this a few days ago somewhere) during that time total manufacturing output decreased by about 0.2-0.3% per year.
You’re correct about automation, and that is an issue that will become much larger over the coming decades. When a factory, for instance, is completely automated (as in, manual labor jobs are replaced by mobile robots), how many technical and engineering jobs will that create? I doubt enough. And what happens when AI catches up to what we can physically engineer into a robot? A very uncertain future lies ahead, no matter what we do.
But then, I suppose it’s always been that way.
Good job, Keln! Well put!
Rumor has it that our whole predicament has given Basil… “Opus Indigestion”
Nice speech.
Still not voting for him.
The flaw in your thinking is in that last line: “Might as well. The alternative is…Clinton.”
I had this same conversation with a guy yesterday. What you said there… I mean, you may as well say to us, “Take this gun and shoot that baby, otherwise Hillary Clinton.” We’re not going to shoot the baby, Keln. If that means we have to resign ourselves to putting up with Hillary, fine. We won’t like it, we will fight however we can against it, but Trumpers are the one that put us in this situation. It’s not that we stubbornly won’t be persuaded; it’s that we can’t. It’s not some “option” that we’re choosing. We could no more vote for Trump than we could shoot the baby. It’s an affront to everything we stand for. Just like Hillary Clinton is.
The “alternative” is illusory. We get the same thing with both candidates. You just don’t see it because you’re terrified of Hillary Clinton, when you should be terrified of both of them.
You can whine about how pundits and think tanks all day long, but at the end of the day Donald Trump – like Hillary Clinton – does not stand for the things we stand for. He supports gun restrictions. He supports Planned Parenthood. He supports nationalized healthcare. Those three things alone are enough to disqualify him from my vote (and if you want more, I’ll give them to you). My voting for Donald Trump would mean my voting in favor of those things. I’m not doing that anymore, on the empty promise that he might maybe kinda sorta may throw me a table scrap of something I do like. That’s been the GOP playbook for decades. They stick us with an anti-Conservative on the lie that he might throw us a conservative bone. We’re done falling for it. And it’s why my #NeverTrump comes with a big fat #GoodbyeGOP.
Don’t like it? Tough. Trumpers built this dumpster fire, throwing all their blind (and largely uneducated) support behind an orange lunatic dancing around like Buffalo Bill wearing the skinned flesh of the GOP’s corpse. You wanted that? You got it. But you own the consequences. And the consequences are Hillary Clinton.
Then let the economy crash! The liberals, and apparently the Trumpers (whom I’m starting to have a difficult time discerning from the left), are never going to get it. You can put live feeds of Venezuela on their televisions and their smartphones, and they STILL won’t get it. They’re going to have to learn the hard way. The crummy part is that the rest of us have to suffer with them while they do. We can take consolation in the fact that we see it coming and can prepare accordingly.
What the Trumpers and the liberals fail to realize is simple: you CANNOT FIX bad government with MORE government. And that is precisely what both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are promising to do. It’s the cosmic joke of socialism – “It’ll work if we just do it right!”
No, it won’t. And more authoritarian big government elitist aristocracy solutions won’t either, regardless of who’s in charge of them.
Don’t like Trump or Clinton? Perhaps you should consider the Libertarian candidate.
AT< your opinion of Trump is based on lies and ignorance. Lets look at your “three things alone”.
1) He supports gun restrictions. So does everybody. Do you think convicted felons should be able to buy and conceal weapons? Do you think everyone should be able to buy automatic machine guns, rpg launchers, manpads, ect.? Do you think the severely mentally ill should be able to own and use guns? So tell us exactly why his supporting “gun restrictions”, like every other sane, non-anarchist in the world does, is a disqualification. And there is not one thing that a patriotic American would find wrong with his official position on Second Amendment rights. He does not call for a single new restriction at the federal level and in fact calls for seriously expanding gun owner rights.
Now the rapist’s wife, on the other hand, wants to end private ownership of guns. Do you think there is no difference between supporting some minor restrictions on gun ownership and outlawing private ownership of guns? Are you an idiot? Ever hear of the Heller Decision? We are 1 Supreme Court judge away from loosing the Constitutional right to keep and bare arms and that seat is ALREADY OPEN. It will be filled by either Trump or the rapist’s wife. Do you want the rapist’s wife to fill that seat? You think there will be no difference between the rapist’s wife’s pick and Trump’s (who’s already clearly indicated the type of judges he would pick- conservative constitutionalists)? Do you think there is no difference between a conservative judge and a leftist, activist, living-breathing-fundamentally-transforming-Constitution judge. Are you an idiot?
2) He supports Planned Parenthood. Well you got me there. His position on PP is at best murky. He called for defunding them then backed off on that position. However if you’re anti-abortion you are a compete idiot for supporting the rapist’s wife (and if you don’t support Trump you are supporting the rapist’s wife, plain and simple fact). Again this issue comes down, not to elected law makers, but to un-elected black robed fascists on the Supreme Court. If you let the rapist’s wife put more extremely far leftist judges on the Court they will strike down every single law that places any restrictions at all on abortion. If you don’t vote for Trump the blood of all those dead babies will be on YOUR hands.
3) He supports nationalized healthcare. Here you’re either an idiot or a F-ing LIAR. He did once, several decades ago, make a vague comment along those lines, but his current, official position on the issue is 100% against nationalized healthcare. Does this sound like nationalized healthcare to you:
“However, it is not enough to simply repeal this terrible legislation [Obamacare}. We will work with Congress to make sure we have a series of reforms ready for implementation that follow free market principles and that will restore economic freedom and certainty to everyone in this country. By following free market principles and working together to create sound public policy that will broaden healthcare access, make healthcare more affordable and improve the quality of the care available to all Americans….
1.Completely repeal Obamacare…
2. Modify existing law that inhibits the sale of health insurance across state lines…
3. Allow individuals to fully deduct health insurance premium payments from their tax returns under the current tax system…
4. Allow individuals to use Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Contributions into HSAs should be tax-free and should be allowed to accumulate…
5. Require price transparency from all healthcare providers, especially doctors and healthcare organizations like clinics and hospitals…
6. Block-grant Medicaid to the states…
7. Remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper products….”
So which is it? Are you a liar, or an idiot, or both?
Educate yourself. Don’t believe anything the media is telling you. The oligarchy that has had complete control of our government (both the Democrat and Republican Parties) and 95+% of our media is 100% anti-Trump and will do anything to stop him. That alone should be reason enough for anyone who is a patriotic American and who believes in liberty and right of a people to govern themselves to vote for Trump.
Your post above makes you seem like you’re a completely ignorant tool of the ruling elitists, or you’re actually a leftists concern troll. It has to be one or the other. There was nothing intelligent, honest, or reasonable in what you posted.
Not sure why you’re leaving long angry essays in the comments section of a political humor site. Weird place for a tirade, don’t you think?
What was humorous about the post I was replying to? What is humorous about Keln’s post that started this thread?
Nothing.
Which means that Keln was having a bad day, and we should try to cheer him up.
Like… How many NeverTrumpers does it take to change a light bulb?
Shut up! That bulb has been incandescent since Reagan was President and you can’t make me put a CFL in that socket! I don’t care if the darkness wins!
Lol
Anytime I see people who are at least right-leaning, if not outright conservatives, regurgitating obvious lies about Trump I have a bad day, too. If you want to call Trump an orange clown with bad hair that’s fine. He is orange and has been having a bad hair life, and while I don’t personally think he’s a clown I can see how others might find some of his antics clownish.
You don’t, however, say evil lies like he’s for nationalized healthcare, or an idiot, or a gun grabber, or a life long democrat, or no different than the rapist’s wife, or a lot of the things Frank J says in his random musings. Doing those things will only aids the rapist’s wife’s chances of getting elected.
Again, we are only ONE VOTE from the Supreme Court ending liberty forever. That seat is already open and likely 1 or 2 more will be before 2021. The former Republic of the United States has been in critical condition for decades now but If the rapist’s wife wins it’s all over. Those are the stakes here. It’s nothing to joke about.
And for God’s sake, Frank J has 2 little kids who he’s (possibly) unwitting helping to condemn to a lifetime of slavery and suffering under the Marxist oligarchy. It just blows my mind that he’d be doing so much to help the rapist’s wife.
Maybe he’s bitter that his preferred RINO poser lost the nomination to Trump as most never-Trumpers are. Get over it. No one’s pride is worth giving 2-3 Supreme Court picks to the rapist’s wife and ending the American Experiment forever.
Actually I think there’s less than a snowball’s chance in hell the the rapist’s wife will win in November, but it is still disgusting how much so many alleged conservative bloggers are trying to help her do just that.
Ok, you’re still grumpy and need cheering up. Try this one:
Why did the NeverTrumper cross the road?…
How about this one: Did you hear the one about the guy who testified against the Clintons? No, he committed suicide/ died in a plane crash/ dropped a barbell on his neck/ was killed in robbery even though the robber never stole anything/ etc.
And this made me LOL today.
“Why did the NeverTrumper cross the road?…”
Because it was his way or the highway, and he’d made his choice?
To avoid being on the same side as the “NeverHillary”s?
Because from his position he couldn’t read the writing on the wall?
Because it was a one way street, and it didn’t matter which side he was on.
Don’t like Trump or Clinton? Perhaps you should consider the Libertarian candidate.
The libertarians are running Gary Johnson. Might as well vote for Hillary as they are pretty much the same on most issues.
YOu could always write in a name. All the illegal immigrants already have their ballots filled out.
Donald Trump, last night on Hannity, as Bootlicker Sean tries to blame Trump’s inevitable failure on anyone other than Donald and his Trumpers:
TRUMP: [#NeverTrump voters] are terrible people! Look, these are terrible people. They’re not endorsing because I don’t want them. The people that are there now, I don’t want.
Deal, Donald.
There you go Keln. He doesn’t WANT our votes. He has unequivocally told people like me not to vote for him. Fair deal – but what that means, in rejecting my vote, is that he can’t blame me for Hillary Clinton. And neither can you. Not our dumpster, not our fire.