RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Here we are in early December, almost a quarter of the way through the 21st Century. Growing up in the mid-part of the 20th Century, I thought I was living in the future. The 19th Century – the past – was ever-present in grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and older neighbors. The “future,” foretold in books like The Time Machine, Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 and movies like The War of the Worlds and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, provided fanciful entertainment, but hardly accurate predictions.

But the world does move on, and change is one constant we can count on.  Politically things change. The Party of Lincoln lost the black vote. The Party of segregation became the party of civil rights. Today we are going through another political change, as the Party of the working class is becoming the Party of elites, and of those dependent on government, and the mindless woke. And the Party of Lincoln, the Party of opportunity, is beginning once again to make inroads among the nation’s minorities.

Mr. Trump’s victory on November 5th may have marked the end of identity politics as we know it. Economic class, the election showed, mattered more than ethnicity, race or gender. Identity politics is based on the natural tendency for people of a specific race, ethnicity, gender, cultural, or religious group to band together, in friendship and to rectify past injustices. But that tendency has been employed and advantaged by politicians who, with the assistance of allies in the media, have divided people into oppressors and oppressed. Identity politics has led to an absence of focus on issues more relevant to individuals.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/vast-invisible-power/

As the name implies, the Supreme Court of the United States is the nation’s highest judicial body and Chief Justice John Roberts is the highest ranking judge. Behind the scenes in recent years, a secret court has usurped SCOTUS and a person outside of that body became the most powerful judge. If that seems a stretch, consider James Boasberg, Chief Judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

The San Francisco native moved to Washington as a child when his father accepted a position in the Office of Economic Opportunity, which administered many of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” programs. So Boasberg fils is something of a “Great Society” diaper baby. The Yale law alum rose through the ranks and in 2011 president Obama, the composite character formerly known as Barry Soetoro, appointed Boasberg to the DC District Court.

In 2014, Chief Justice John Roberts tapped Boasberg for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, better known as the FISA court, established in 1978 during the administration of Jimmy Carter as part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. From January 2020 to May 2021, Boasberg served as that court’s presiding judge, a powerful position with important distinctions. The FISA court operates in secret, no advocates for the accused are present, and only the government’s arguments are considered. This is basically a deep state star chamber, but there’s more to it.

Unlike Supreme Court justices, the presiding FISA judge is not subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate. That invites a look Boasberg’s treatment of Kevin Clinesmith, Assistant General Counsel in the National Security and Cyber Law Branch of the FBI’s Office of General Counsel. Clinesmith was assigned to the case of Carter Page, an American citizen and U.S. Navy veteran who worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and had also served as an asset for the CIA. Clinesmith altered an email to show that Page was not a CIA asset, subjecting the American citizen to surveillance under FISA.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/12/01/americas-working-class-is-taking-back-control/

For a generation, America’s working class, as well as much of its middle class, lost political power. Rather than build their appeal on class interests, politicians kowtowed to Wall Street, Big Tech elites, university ‘experts’ and identitarian interest groups. But, as the 2024 presidential election clearly showed, the working class still has the clout to decide who gets put into the White House. Their choice of Donald Trump was a slap in the face to the ruling class.

The shift of working-class voters to the right, particularly those who work with their hands, has been developing for almost half a century. It accelerated during the pandemic, when their work largely kept the country functioning.

Although the number of college-educated voters has expanded, at least until recently, those without degrees still constitute around 60 per cent of the electorate. These are the voters most responsible for electing Trump, the first Republican nominee ever to win among low-income voters. In 2024, he won among non-college voters by 13 points. He even won over 44 per cent of union households, a proportion not won since former trade-unionist Ronald Reagan did so in the 1980s.

Perhaps most important in the long run, Trump also did well among Latinos, winning upwards of 40 per cent of their vote as a whole, and a majority of males. Many working-class Latinos preferred the immigrant-bashing Trump, because they are the ones who compete with and live in the same neighbourhoods as illegal migrants. His support won him formerly Democratic strongholds, from Texas’s Rio Grande Valley to California’s largely Latino interior. He also made major gains among African American males.

This working-class discontent is not unique to America. Similar patterns can also be seen in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Immigration has become a primary concern among these voters across the EU as well as Canada. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who wish to reduce immigration has soared. Roughly 60 per cent of Americans and a majority of Latinos support even ‘mass deportations’. Much the same shift of opinion has occurred in Europe.