China, Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, General, Immigration, Politics

Obama Redux

On its face, this quotation from Theodore Roosevelt would seem rather obvious. Indeed, the legitimacy of American democracy rests on the theory that our elected leaders will pursue policies roughly matching their political rhetoric. This honesty requires not just avoiding outright lies, but also hypocrisy, i.e., saying one thing and doing the opposite.

In fact, our recent experience in America shows TR’s principle to be regrettably revolutionary in practice.  Donald Trump’s crude and divisive lies plumbed new depths of political dishonesty. However, the glib hypocrisy of the Obama Administration was the catalyst for the Trump revolution of 2016.   Obama was a master of the art of eloquently claiming one goal while pursuing manifestly contradictory and damaging policies at the same time.  The American people might not always have been able to put their finger on the lie itself but could see how the rhetoric clashed with the policy realities in their daily lives. It is why, contrary to media claims, Obama had the lowest average approval rating of any post- Cold War President prior to Trump.

Sadly, the Biden Administration is adopting the same strategy of dissemblance and hypocrisy. Like Obama in the middle of the 2008 Great Recession, Biden seeks to restructure the American economic system in a way that imposes sacrifices on average Americans but enables the globalist elite to escape similar sacrifices.  Its climate change policies would have the effect of not only eliminating thousands of jobs, but, as this article suggests, appeasing China. It makes the disturbing claim that Biden’s climate change ambassador Kerry is willing to compromise on American security and economic interests in exchange for unlikely and unenforceable carbon emission reductions by the Chinese.  When confronted with the effects of such policies on American workers, he showed his elitist callousness by claiming that oil & gas workers can simply build solar panels. He conveniently ignored the fact that solar industry jobs pay about 20% less than equivalent petroleum industry jobs.

Meanwhile, Biden’s immigration proposal would legalize our de facto policy of unrestricted immigration at the expense of low-income and technical workers, who are disproportionately women and minorities. Many of those are the same heroes and heroines who kept our nation going during the coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, the Administration is pursuing a policy that would continue the kind of wage slavery and economic inequality Biden campaigned against (see this previous article). His only response is to invoke the divisive rhetoric of woke politics and income redistribution.  Even longtime liberals are questioning the honesty of these policies in light of the inequality crisis in California.

Loyal readers of this blog will quickly recall my vote for Biden expressed last year and ask if it was worth it. I still believe he was the best of a painful choice, which was confirmed by the Capitol riot and Trump’s petty sabotage of the Republican campaign in the Georgia runoff elections. The Democrats’ narrow control of Congress still gives nationalists a realistic chance to highlight Biden Administration hypocrisies so the American people can weigh in and decide if this is really what they voted for.  This site will try to help by analyzing and publicizing the contradictions and hypocrisies, concentrating on three areas – infrastructure, especially related to climate adaptation, immigration and political reform.  Please let me know of any other issues you would like to see covered as well. 

2020 Election, General, Politics

Whither American Nationalism Now?

As we move on after the wreckage of the Trump administration, this call to courage from Theodore Roosevelt is both sobering and hopeful.  Nationalists made a mistake in putting their hopes in Donald Trump.  He damaged the nationalist brand, but not irreparably. The occasional successes of the last four years point the way to repairing the damage and rebuilding it on a positive policy platform. 

First, we have to accept the reality of the damage. True American nationalism seeks to build a common American identity across cultural and other boundaries. Instead, Donald Trump associated it an ugly white ethnic nationalism that fed identity politics, rather than fighting it.  A movement to create a progressive conservatism that strengthened America and the middle class instead enacted a major tax cut that benefited globalist corporations without requiring any corresponding investment in the nation. (see this previous post). Worse, it ended, not with a celebration of American culture and symbols, but with a sickening attack on the Capitol building, one of the citadels of American freedom itself.

However, there are unmistakable signs of success amidst these failures. The blue wave anticipated by Democrats never really materialized.  As this article illustrates, Trump’s nationalist trade and immigration policies were popular not only with white voters, but also minority voters. The shift towards a realist foreign policy and the withdrawals from Afghanistan and the Middle East caused heartburn among mainstream neocons and liberal hegemonists, but fulfilled Trump’s major foreign policy promises. All of this forced candidate Biden to talk about buying American, creating good jobs and getting tough on China. Thus, while Trump’s rhetoric often failed to meet the reality, there were still solid accomplishments.

American nationalists now need to hold President Biden and Vice-President Harris accountable for results that matches their rhetoric. Biden’s Democratic Party is still led by a Senate majority leader that represents Wall Street and a Vice President and Speaker of the House from the headquarters of Silicon Valley and Big Tech. Their goal of union-wage level jobs is commendable, but will be worthless if companies shift production to China and elsewhere overseas as they did during the Obama Administration. Calls for unity are nice, but are hypocritical if they result in a new woke identity politics that essentially is a left-wing echo of Trump’s ethnic nationalism.

In order to recover from this setback, American nationalists need to highlight our common concerns by building coalitions across party and other boundaries. If Biden pursues policies that really create secure good-paying jobs that strengthen America, we should cheer for and support such policies.  We also should remember the old maxim that all politics is local and start to build grass-roots organizations at the city, county and local level. Finally, we should avoid social issues so long as tolerance is observed on both sides.  

TR’s life was a study in indomitable courage against seemingly insurmountable odds, whether political, intellectual or military.  He experienced numerous failures as well as historic successes. As fellow American nationalists, we are called to pick ourselves up and continue the fight for a strong America and the American Dream for all.    

2020 Election, Politics, Uncategorized

Donald Trump, Meet William of Occam

Living with uncertainty is a constant in life. We calculate and live with risk every time we step out of the door. One of those uncertainties comes from the practicality of relying on fallible human beings to operate mechanisms with which we have insufficient personal experience while we deal with other risks more within our control.  

During the Middle Ages, an English monk and philosopher named William of Occam formulated a famous axiom of epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge) for dealing with such uncertainties. Known as Occam’s Razor, it states that if there are two or more potential explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest explanation is the most likely.  Conspiracy theories rarely meet this standard since they require a geometric complexity of meetings, agreements and people to achieve the goal, which must all be accomplished in secret.  There is inevitably a simpler and more direct explanation for the result.  

Now, let’s apply this analysis to the results of the presidential election. We’ll start with the RealClearPolitics tabulations, which has not yet called the election for Biden. On their site, Biden has 259 electoral votes to President Trump’s 214. They awarded Nevada and Wisconsin to Biden, but still show Alaska, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania undecided. If we award him Alaska and North Carolina (where he is currently leading), it brings him to 232 electoral votes. In order to win, Trump must then prevail in a Wisconsin recount and overcome Biden leads in Pennsylvania and either Georgia or Arizona. Alternatively, he can lose the Wisconsin recount and win if he wins in Pennsylvania and both Arizona and Georgia. This requires him to find or invalidate at least 76,000 votes in three states with different voting systems and in multiple counties. Any fraudulent conspiracy that could have produced those votes would require an interstate series of agreements and the cooperation of tens, if not hundreds, of people in each state.  Moreover, the vast majority of those involved would have to keep the scheme a secret. Even if you believe the gap was caused by a series of election defects or mistakes, it would require different sources of malfunctions in multiple jurisdictions that would result in a 76,000 vote difference. 

There is no question that voting irregularities or mistakes should be investigated and rectified. However, the likelihood that irregularities occurring across multiple jurisdictions and using different voting methods produced a gap of over 75,000 votes is extremely small. There is a much simpler explanation – that the votes were cast by voters who indeed voted for Biden.  The results were close and not the “blue wave” the Democrats expected.  It would not be the first time significant numbers of voters split their votes for President and Congress between the parties and disappointed both sides.  But it is a well-known electoral phenomenon and the simplest and most likely explanation of the election results. 

It is thus time for all Americans to congratulate former Vice President Biden and Sen Harris on their victory and give them the titles they have won – President and Vice President-elect.  Republicans should insist on an investigation of any irregularities, but not expect a miracle. America needs to move on and American nationalists need to begin building and advocating their inevitable policy differences with the new administration.  If we do so positively and intelligently, we can still win important battles in the next four years and beyond.