Meet the 2016 Republican Nominee

(American Thinker) – How does the Republican Party establishment choose its presidential candidate?  Typically, constitutionalists accuse their establishment rivals of being moderate, risk-averse, stubborn old fools who lack faith in conservative principles.  This is a soothing interpretation, as it begins from the hypothesis that the contest between conservatives and the GOP elite is a family feud.

But there is another hypothesis — less soothing, but, at least from an outsider’s bird’s-eye view, more reconcilable with the facts.  This hypothesis is that America has reached a stage of progressive soft despotism in which the only important family feud in national politics is between the fundamentally allied factions of the Washington establishment itself.

The great advantage of despotism is its predictability.  In nations whose leaders have forsaken the manners and morals of representative government, the future can mean only two things: the present, continued, or the present, escalated. Thus, if my alternative hypothesis is correct, it becomes possible to identify the 2016 Republican presidential nominee “a priori,” if you will, with no need for rumors or speculation.

My only proviso is that we keep in mind the central difference between traditional despotism and progressive soft despotism, namely that in traditional despotism, the personal character and whims of the man with the fancy title are paramount, whereas today’s is a ruling establishment game, in which major directional decisions are made by committees of mutual back-scratchers who outlast any of the figureheads they prop up to front the organization for a while.  Thus, whereas in a monarchy, popular democracy, or old-fashioned tyranny, the particular identity of the leader is everything, in soft despotism the standard-bearer is less significant for who he is than for which interests he advances for his handlers.

By “interests” here I mean only “specific agenda items.”  Of course the true, fundamental interest of progressive establishmentarians, all German philosophical rationalizations aside, is simply to control and stabilize the masses, i.e., to maximize their usefulness while minimizing their threat.  This essential goal is as invariable as the feelings that fuel it, namely fear and greed.  Thus to predict the establishment’s practical moves is as simple as looking away from the increasing artificiality of electoral politics — polls, “momentum,” “electability,” and well-timed scandals — to observe the broad pattern of outcomes that remains consistent through successive campaigns.

That pattern, in American politics, is as obvious as it is unspeakable in polite society, namely the gradual imposition of a permanent progressive authoritarian state with unlimited executive power, answerable to no imperatives of human nature, and administered by unelected technocrats.

America’s national political establishment is factionalized along lines that correspond to what remains of the nation’s unofficial “two-party system.”  But what the competing factions lack in uniformity of emphasis and vocabulary — “polite society” means different things to different men — they more than make up for in unanimity of overarching purpose.

Let’s be clear: we are not talking about lizard-men meeting in a vat of jelly in the White House basement.  These are ordinary men with ordinary moral weaknesses who, having in one way or another found themselves within reach of the world’s biggest cookie jar, developed an irresistible habit of dipping in — for financial advantages, regulatory favors, careers, self-importance, and in general for the means to permanent, risk-free status as kings of their various little hills.  In other words, they are men who have found, on the “honor among thieves” principle, that they have more in common with one another than with the cookie bakers they are robbing blind, and therefore a greater vested interest in covering for one another than in defending the rights of bakers.

By induction from the major public policy initiatives these men actively or passively promote, we may conclude that, surface frictions aside, the American ruling class seeks: (a) to shrink the range of unregulated human action; (b) to narrow men’s moral horizons in order to foster conscienceless resignation to their parasitocracy; (c) to reduce citizenship to compliance and conformity; and (d) to promote “security,” variously defined, as a primary social goal that trumps all considerations of self-determination, human dignity, and private property.

These goals are embodied in various forms by the elite, and then either trumpeted as “idealism” (Democrats) or finessed as “realism” (Republicans) via the elite’s kabuki theater of competing electoral dummies, dhimmis, and dandies.  In short, these men have turned electoral politics into the comforting charade of which Tocqueville wisely forewarned, in which “the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again.” (Democracy in America, Bk. IV Ch. vi.)

As is well known, the Democratic Party takes the lead on the goals cited above, continually shifting the vanguard just a little farther towards the socialist tyranny with which their leading lights always sympathized internationally, and which they now advocate boldly at home.  In our quest for the establishment’s current mainstream, however, we ought to think conservatively, and look not to the daring vanguard, but to those points of alliance between the establishment’s two public faces.

That is, if you want to gauge the long-term trajectory of the ruling class, listen to the Democrat professors and activists who are calling for the criminalization of non-progressive opinions, the confiscation of all firearms, or the regulation of journalism based on socialist-defined “critical information needs.”  But if you are seeking a snapshot of today’s ruling class status quo, with a view to what they plan to accomplish in 2016, watch the GOP establishment.  For they — and by “they” I mean the party elders, corporate insiders, and pandering “conservative media” fixtures — show us precisely where the Democrats and Republicans are essentially allied on current objectives.

Therefore, if one gets over the mental habit of imagining presidential politics are what they were when Calvin Coolidge won, or even when Ronald Reagan won — after a war against the establishment, which learned a lesson from this defeat that it would never forget — one can fairly certainly identify the next Republican nominee.

The trick to reading the Washington elite is to avoid overemphasizing the differences between Republicans and Democrats, which are minimized when the GOP establishment gets its way.  A great egret has a longer neck than a little egret, but we call them both egrets because what unites them is plainly more essential than what distinguishes them.  The same goes for great progressives and little progressives.

(The current Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue is often cited as an exception, even by establishment standards.  Obama represents the lawless vanguard, to be sure.  But if he is so far away from the mainstream establishment, then how do you explain all those cheerful Boehner-Obama photo ops, his signature power-grab being upheld as constitutional by a Republican-appointed Chief Justice, or all the establishment “conservative” pundits fawning over him in 2008 as though he were a combination of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Cary Grant.  My hypothesis, by contrast, explains these seeming incongruities very neatly.  Obama is not the establishment mainstream — yet.)

A thought experiment: try plotting U.S. presidential politics on a Venn diagram.  I provide a template below.

 

Populate the two circles with the major policy positions and of any plausible Democrat and Republican presidential candidates.  Policies that fall within the intersection of the two circles represent what the two sides of the ruling class substantially agree upon right now, thereby revealing the heart of today’s Washington establishment.  The GOP faction of the establishment, therefore, can be counted on to promote the candidate they regard as falling most reliably within that intersection.  (Notice that this means the candidate himself need not be a full-fledged member of the establishment; they are merely looking for the man whose positions most closely match their priorities.)

For example, the left circle alone will contain the terms “transgender rights,” “federally funded abortion,” “gun confiscation,” and “tax increases.”  The right circle alone will contain “religious freedom,” “anti-abortion,” “gun rights,” and “tax cuts.”

The intersecting area will contain several items which, whatever else the candidates who embrace them may say, will truly define those candidacies, in the sense of revealing why the ruling elite favor those men as presidential nominees.  (For example, Mitt Romney was the only candidate in the 2012 primaries who was hopelessly compromised on ObamaCare; thus, on my hypothesis, he was the obvious choice for an establishment that intended not to challenge that most unpopular lurch towards authoritarianism too vigorously.)

Anything else the establishment candidate may represent, beyond the items in that intersection, will be useful optics for idiosyncratic purposes, and something for conservatives to cling to. This is not negligible, but its role is mainly aesthetic, putting a partisan face on an establishment agenda.

Nevertheless, the surest window to the establishment’s “soul” is that middle section of your Venn diagram, where we find the “bipartisan” goals the Republican candidate will most assuredly stand for.

So here he is, the 2016 GOP nominee:

He supports a “path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants. This drops anchor for the progressive captains of the ship of state, eventually inflating the electorate with millions of people lacking education or cultural heritage related to individualism and property rights, while deflating manufacturing costs with low-skill, low-literacy workers.

His position on manmade climate change is “evolving,” drifting and shifting somewhere along the continuum from “climate change may be real” (Jeb Bush, 2011) to “when you have over 90 percent of the world’s scientists who have studied this stating that climate change is occurring and that humans play a contributing role it’s time to defer to the experts” (Chris Christie, 2011).

He criticizes ObamaCare as “failed legislation” (who could call it anything else?) but finesses any concrete talk of fundamental reversion.  He advocates a watered-down version of the establishment’s thin gruel of “Repeal and Replace” — something along the lines of “Tweak and Touch-up,” with “free market solutions” as a euphemism for a heavily regulated pseudo-market analogous to cap-and-trade.

He is insistent that no one should impugn the motives and patriotism of the Democrat candidate — any Democrat candidate — and that “we all want what’s best for America.”  When asked during a presidential debate whether his Democratic opponent would make a good president, he says “Yes, but….”

He supports the Common Core agenda for nationalizing education standards, claiming that this is necessary to keep America “competitive,” and to ensure that “everyone has a fair chance to learn the skills needed in today’s economy.”  He plays to conservatives by saying the problem with education is the teachers unions and “lack of choice.”  Improving quality and providing choice are his euphemisms, just as in healthcare, for standardizing methods and outcomes to the point where every American child’s fate will henceforth be molded by a centralized spiritual death panel — this will be called “equal opportunity.”

He supports the “vitally important” work being done by the “patriots” at the NSA, while promising “vigorous safeguards” to ensure that none of their top-secret methods of collecting every scrap of electronic communications data and other private information ever overstep the bounds of “legitimate” privacy concerns — where no concern voiced to date meets the threshold of legitimacy.

He is absolutely silent on the question of whether the federal government has any responsibility to abide by its constitutional (i.e., legal) limits, and indeed rarely mentions the Constitution at all, and never as an essential concern.

There he is, your next GOP presidential candidate — a man the establishment can live with.

Am I cheating by not providing an exact name?  But what’s in a name, when that name is attached to a man who is, for all practical purposes, merely a vessel for an agenda devised by self-seeking manipulators behind the scenes?  An agenda designed to concentrate more power within the federal government, and ultimately within the executive branch.  Not the constitutional agenda for which the president was meant to be a vessel, but a “transformative” agenda designed to protect the social position and wealth of the permanent ruling class America was never supposed to have.

Might events falsify my hypothesis?  Unlike the global warmists, I hope so.  Failing that, might constitutionalists find a way to slay the monster at last?  That doesn’t seem likely, to be honest.  More realistically, perhaps they can minimize the damage pre-emptively during the 2014 congressional primaries and elsewhere.  The establishment, a centralized authority monster, will be weaker in those areas it considers less vital.  Their attention and resources cannot anticipate and repel every “minor” challenge — at least not until they have finished apportioning all practical authority to themselves.

Whatever you do, don’t assume that any candidate who espouses a few items on the Republican side of your Venn diagram is satisfactory.  That section then becomes the ruling class’s shiny distraction.  Keep your eye on the intersection of the circles, where the two mildly competitive factions of the progressive elite follow their bliss together — at their nation’s expense.

[H/T AmericanThinker: Daren Jonescu]

Bundy Ranch Protesters Force Feds To Stand Down: Prevent Cliven Bundy’s Son From Being Arrested

A group of 15 to 20 people banded together to stand up to the police preventing the arrest of Cliven Bundy’s son. The police were confronted by angry friends and neighbors which eventually forced the police to stand down and leave the area.

[H/T BeforeItsNews]

Nevada Governor Blasts Feds’ ‘First Amendment Area’ in Bundy Dispute

(InfoWars) – “Constitutional rights sacred to all Nevadans”

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval has inserted himself into the escalating standoff between cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and federal officials by blasting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over their creation of a ‘First Amendment Area’ outside of which free speech is banned.

The ‘First Amendment Area’ set up by BLM agents is a crudely taped off piece of land inside which supporters of Bundy, who is engaged in a long running dispute with feds over grazing rights on a 600,000 acre expanse in northeastern Clark County, are allowed to express their free speech.

However, protesters have completely ignored the area, instead staging large demonstrations on Bundy’s ranch. The only presence inside the ‘First Amendment Area’ are signs which read “1st Amendment is not an area” and another that states, “Welcome to Amerika – Wake Up” alongside a hammer and sickle logo.

“Most disturbing to me is the BLM’s establishment of a ‘First Amendment Area’ that tramples upon Nevadans’ fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution,” said Sandoval in a statement. “To that end, I have advised the BLM that such conduct is offensive to me and countless others and that the ‘First Amendment Area’ should be dismantled immediately.”

“No cow justifies the atmosphere of intimidation which currently exists nor the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to all Nevadans. The BLM needs to reconsider its approach to this matter and act accordingly,” asserted the Governor.

The Bundy family responded to Sandoval’s statement by saying they were disappointed that he didn’t take a more firm stance to back them in their dispute with the BLM, but they were pleased with his sentiments regarding the ‘First Amendment Area’.

“Whenever you designate an area, then you’re restricting it everywhere else. When you designate an area like that for first amendment rights, you [don’t] give the people any rights. You [take them] away, and every other location,” said Ryan Bundy.

The Bundy family came face to face with the consequences of violating the free speech zone on Sunday when Dave Bundy was arrested for taking video footage from a state highway of BLM agents rounding up his family’s cattle. Video footage later proved that armed snipers had their guns trained on the family during the incident.

On Sunday, Cliven Bundy promised to launch a “range war” on federal officials after they began rounding up his cattle. Authorities are justifying the move by pointing out they are simply enforcing a 1993 rule change which prevents Bundy’s livestock from grazing on the land in order to protect the endangered desert tortoise.

Bundy and his supporters see the spat as something entirely different, portraying it as a clash between out of control big government and patriotic American family farmers.

With Bundy’s ranch under constant surveillance from armed agents ensconced inside what Ryan Bundy described as a “military compound,” some fear the standoff could lead to a Ruby Ridge or Waco-style tragedy.

[H/T Infowars: Paul Joseph Watson]

Is Barack Obama a Psychopath?

(WND) – President Barack Obama

It is safe to say that most politicians these days could be diagnosed with a range of mental conditions, and many would likely be labeled sociopaths or psychopaths.

The terms psychopath and sociopath are often used interchangeably, even by mental health professionals. The symptoms are somewhat consistent between the two: lack of conscience, no moral compass, and manipulative, low range of emotions, inter-personally insensitive. The psychopath is deadly. He is well spoken, charismatic, fearless, controlling, socially potent, a habitual liar, calm to a disturbing degree in the face of chaos and cold hearted. He is a master at blaming others.

David Freeman, in a Huffington Post science piece, quotes clinical psychologist Dr. Stout, who points out that though the psychopath may not feel “higher emotions” like love and guilt, they may not have actual consciences, but they study those of us who do – and “simply pretend.”

Psychologists say early signs of psychopathy include compulsive lying, blaming others for any failures or shortcomings and often torture of animals for curiosity sake. Psychopaths tend to do things to study consequences, without concern for long-term impact. I know, it sounds like most politicians today. And it probably is, not to mention any names.

As Mr. Freeman points out in his article, psychopaths make a great first impression. He points to other characteristics, too. He points to the initial popularity of Pol Pot, Hitler, Ceausescu and others, but the golden boy image quickly fades to one of a ruthless, inhumane manipulator with very dark intentions.

No one can make a mental diagnosis from afar, and I am certainly not qualified to make that diagnosis. But it is interesting to consider some characteristics when combined with actions of President Obama since he took office. He certainly had the initial charisma and likability. He had the perfect-looking family with the perfect-looking face at the perfect time for America to fall for him. No matter what his opponents pointed to, no one questioned him for fear of being labeled racists.

Psychopaths often act audaciously, without regard for those affected. They get away with actions that others in their positions haven’t, because of their ability to remain calm even when committing atrocities, and their ability to manipulate whole groups of people.

Obama has taken more luxury vacations than any other president, and he has done so as the American economy was in collapse for his policies. He has taken his entire family and spent tens of millions of dollars in exotic, luxe locations like Hawaii, Vail, Europe and Africa. His predecessors made Americans increasingly familiar with places like Camp David and Martha’s Vineyard or their own vacation homes such as the Bushes’ Kennebunkport, the Kennedys’ Cape Cod, the Reagans’ Rancho Del Cielo in California or George W’s exotic locale, Crawford, Texas. Other presidents were exceptionally sensitive to the state of the American people, foregoing vacations when the American people were mourning or hurting economically – not the Obamas. When the economy was at its worst, gas prices were at record highs, and Americans were going without vacations and other needs, Obama extended his wife and daughters’ vacation in Spain.

But luxe vacations are just the beginning. Obama has golfed more than any other president. On days when America has been under attack, on days when military heroes have died, on days when the nation is mourning – still Obama finds time for a game of hoops with a hip-hop star or a round of golf with a key contributor. His advisers had to pull him off the golf course to talk him into taking out Osama bin Laden.

When conservatives decry this point, the statist media scoff. Tone deafness and personal excesses are only relevant when Republicans are accused. Remember the ridicule over the fake issue over Bush 41′s apparent introduction to the grocery store scanner? Such media protection emboldens.

Nothing has changed.

After the second round of murders of government-guaranteed defenseless Fort Hood soldiers last week, Obama mustered a tear or two for cameras before slipping out the back door to head to a $32,000-per-plate party for himself.

This pattern of in-authenticity would be very difficult, even debilitating for someone with an intact conscience, in my opinion.

But audacity is a manifestation of psychopathy, and Obama is a master of audacity. He has exacted more items into law by the capricious act of executive order than any other president in such a short period of time. Traditionally, this is only done in very rare instances, because presidents know that the American people will not stand for that sort of tyranny. In Obama’s case, it is explained away, if mentioned by media at all, with whining of “the other party’s obstructionist acts” or “someone else forced the president to act so cavalierly.”

That brings us to another habit of the psychopath – blaming others. First, Obama and his cronies blamed President Bush for just about everything. They blame the tea party for any bad press, the Koch brothers for any mishaps and Congress for Obama’s tyrannical executive orders and the removal of the filibuster as a means of defense against Obama’s imperial appointments.

The truly skilled psychopath can make his own biases look like they are the shortcoming of his opponent. When the New Black Panther thugs with clubs were intimidating voters during the 2008 election, those who voiced concern were called racist and alarmist for even bringing up the issue. Once elected, Obama had his attorney general, Eric Holder not only drop all charges but also drop convictions! President Obama accuses others of racial bias, when it is he who is one of the worst.

One of the psychopath’s favorite tactics is the pity party. In a recent interview with New Yorker Magazine, the president continued to complain about those who hate him for his race. The psychopath will use those who call them out for their actions to gain sympathy and President Obama is adept at using anyone who criticizes him to get the public to feel sorry for him. As mentioned earlier, he is able to blame his tyrannical abuse of the executive order power on those terrible obstructionist Republicans who hate him because he is black.

Another common trait of the psychopath is a mysterious and shady past. We know very little about President Obama’s formative years and little about his college years. Records are sealed or withheld, and requests for them are dismissed as ridiculous requests from paranoid detractors.

The psychopath is great at connecting personally with people and convinces everyone that he is just like them. President Obama is just a normal guy who likes movies, basketball, golf, and likes to play video games. Experts call it mirroring.

Perhaps the most frightening symptom of the psychopath is to kill while keeping his or her own hands clean. Obama takes full credit for killing Osama bin Laden to the point of both stealing the glory from our Navy SEALs and at the same time betraying the existence of SEAL Team Six and exposing them to unwarranted assassination risk – risk that resulted in the worst catastrophic loss of life in the history of the SEALs. Did Obama take responsibility for that? He certainly spent far less time mourning their loss or taking responsibility for their deaths than he did taking credit for being tough dealing with terror.

While he did take credit for bin Laden, he has not taken any responsibility for deaths resulting from Fast and Furious, the gun-running operation that has put guns in the hands of Mexican drug cartels that have most certainly cost American and other lives. He has never expressed any sense of responsibility for that; he has shown no remorse. And worse, he capitalizes on the situation by singing the praises of gun control.

Perhaps the most flagrant act of this president, if we are looking at evidence of psychopathy, is the lack of any substantive remorse, or responsibility shown for what happened to two Navy SEALs, an American ambassador and an information management officer, at the hands of vicious terrorists in Benghazi. The American public has repeatedly expressed outrage and fury for the lies and manipulations that cost these precious American lives, but the administration has arrogantly dismissed, excused and ignored any culpability or held anyone to account.

No one knew that Pol Pot, Hitler or Ceausescu were psychopaths until they knew. Could America be more perceptive, more insightful, and more predictive of a psychopath in leadership before it is too late?

[H/T WND: Gina Loudon]