RUTHFULLY YOURS

Tens of thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators (and in some cases rioters) have ‎taken to the streets to protest Donald Trump’s victory last Tuesday. The protesters ‎seem to be a collection of those who supported Bernie Sanders and those who show ‎up for Black Lives Matter demonstrations. If more of these two groups had shown ‎up to vote in a few key states, Hillary Clinton might now be working on the Clinton restoration project at the White House. ‎

While there are still several million mail-in ballots to be counted in California and a ‎few other states, which will certainly add to the popular vote margin for Clinton, ‎the fact is that American presidential elections are decided in the Electoral College, and Trump appears to have won more electoral college ‎votes (306) than any Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988. In other words, ‎in the arena that mattered, Trump’s victory was decisive. No Republican had won ‎Michigan or Pennsylvania since 1988, or Wisconsin since 1984. ‎

Of course, with Clinton’s majority in the popular vote, some of her supporters ‎are now demanding that the “national will” be honored, and that electors from states backing Trump should vote for Clinton. This, of course, will not happen. So, ‎too, none of the Hollywood personalities who promised to move to Canada if ‎Trump won have yet chartered flights to Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. ‎One wonders why these people never threaten to move to Mexico.

The Trump victory, accompanied by sweeping Republican victories down-ballot in ‎the Senate and House, state legislatures and governors’ races, provides hope to conservatives and Republicans for a reversal ‎of much of what they believe has been the damage done by the Obama administration ‎in its two terms.‎

One area where the tone of the administration should change immediately is U.S. ‎relations with Israel. On the day after his victory, Trump spoke with Israeli Prime ‎Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and invited him to Washington. Netanyahu seemed pleased that Israel once again would have a friend in ‎the White House. Contrast this with the posture of ‎President Barack Obama, who set the tone on his first day in office by making his first call to a foreign leader to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.‎ Later, Obama helped organize a boycott of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in ‎‎2015; walked out on him during one meeting in Washington; made sure his State ‎Department offered up strident condemnations either through press secretaries or ‎top administration officials of every bit of news from Israel on any construction ‎project across the Green Line; and blamed Israel for the lack of progress in the ‎peace process.

“Trump’s Victory Challenges the Global Liberal Order”

Headline, “Financial Times”

November 10, 2016

Methinks the FT got it backward. The headline should have read: “Trump’s Victory May Restore the Global Liberal Order.” Because the “global liberal order” has eroded. Slowly, insidiously but certainly, individual liberties have diminished, as the state has assumed increasing responsibilities and as more people have become dependent on it. The inference is that the FT would have been pleased to have seen a continuation of the Obama policies of greater government involvement in the economy, and a concomitant decline in freedom – usurped by regulatory agencies, Executive Orders and political correctness. The headline reflects the failure of elites to understand why they lost. This decline in liberty is sad, for it was in Britain that modern liberalism first appeared – Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill – all men from whose message we have strayed.

While classical liberalism is fundamental to our success as a nation, economies have undergone a seismic shift. Technology, communication and globalization have fundamentally changed the way goods and services are produced, delivered and consumed. For a large number of Americans, certainty has been replaced with uncertainty, optimism by pessimism, hope by fear. Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” has done enough damage to the economy without making it worse with putative regulations. While progressives concern themselves with issues like protecting students from uncomfortable speech, transgender bathrooms and an elusive and amorphous desire for equality, millions of Americans are focused on surviving. It is not only roofs to protect them and food to sustain them that are needed, it is the sense of dignity and self-sufficiency that comes from work. It is not that the foci of progressives are unimportant, but that their priorities pale in comparison to the more fundamental need of people – jobs.

Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
It is painful to see Anti-Defamation League (ADL) president Jonathan Greenblatt engaging in character assassination against President-elect Trump’s appointee Stephen Bannon and Mr. Bannon’s company, Breitbart media. ADL/Greenblatt essentially accused Mr. Bannon and his media company of “anti-Semitism” and Israel hatred, when Jonathan Greenblatt/ADL tweeted that Bannon “presided over the premier website of the ‘alt right’ – a loose-knit group of white nationalists and anti-Semites.”
In fact, as pro-Israel writer (and orthodox Jew) Joel B. Pollak wrote, Mr. Bannon is “an American patriot who defends Israel & has deep empathy for the Jewish people.”
ZOA’s own experience and analysis of Breitbart articles confirms Mr. Bannon’s and Breitbart’s friendship and fair-mindedness towards Israel and the Jewish people. To accuse Mr. Bannon and Breitbart of anti-Semitism is Orwellian. In fact, Breitbart bravely fights against anti-Semitism. Here are a few of the many examples:
Stephen Bannon joined ZOA in fighting the anti-Semitic rallies at CUNY by requiring his Breitbart reporters to call CUNY officials and Gov. Cuomo aides urging them to do something about it.
Breitbart courageously publishes articles reporting that the Palestinian Authority defames Israel with blatant falsehoods. On November 13, 2016, Breitbart reported that:

Stephen Bannon joined ZOA in fighting the anti-Semitic rallies at CUNY by requiring his Breitbart reporters to call CUNY officials and Gov. Cuomo aides urging them to do something about it.

“The Palestinian Authority’s official TV network has been airing a video several times a day baselessly accusing Israel of poisoning former PA President Yasser Arafat and further claiming that Israel is targeting current President Mahmoud Abbas next. Arafat died at the age of 75 on November 11, 2004, just outside of Paris. A French forensic team examined his remains and concluded that there were no traces of poison in his body. Nevertheless, every year around the anniversary of his death, the PA disseminates the libel that Israel murdered him.” (Emphasis in original.)
On November 14, 2016 Breitbart reported the human cost and pain to a Jewish student at the New School of finding a swastika scrawled on her dorm room door.
Breitbart bravely publicizes Iran’s violations of the Iran deal – which pose an existential threat to Israel. On November 13, 2016, Breitbart reported that “Despite a finding published by the UN’s atomic energy agency this week that Iran has — for the second time — stockpiled more heavy water than permitted under the terms of the nuclear agreement it reached with six world powers last year, the US State Department is declining to acknowledge this as a violation of the deal.”
Breitbart also sympathetically reports on the scourge of anti-Semitic anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS). On November 2, 2016, Breitbart reported that: “Reports of anti-Semitic incidents on US college campuses have increased, much of it attributed to the rise of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, a new report has found.”
ZOA President Morton Klein stated: “The ZOA welcomes the appointment of Stephen Bannon as chief strategist to the incoming Trump/Pence administration. We wish Mr. Bannon every success in his new position. We urge Jonathan Greenblatt/ADL to withdraw and apologize for their inappropriate character assassination of Mr. Bannon and Breitbart Media.”
Would Trump’s extraordinary pro-Israel advisors such as Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence, Sheldon Adelson, and Orthodox Jews Jared Kushner, David Friedman, and Jason Greenblatt ever allow an anti-Semite/Israel-hater to work with them? Would Trump’s Orthodox Jewish daughter Ivanka, whose children go to an Orthodox day school, ever allow an anti-Semite to work with her father? And, remember Donald Trump’s platform on Israel was the strongest pro-Israel platform ever. I’m also forced to ask – why didn’t ADL and other Bannon bashers complain that Hilary’s advisers included some very anti-Israel people starting with major donor to Hillary, the Israel-hating, George Soros? Where were ADL’s complaints then?

Historians will be writing for decades about how Donald Trump improbably became president. Here’s one angle I hope they don’t ignore. Hillary Clinton’s 2008 supporters set in motion Trump’s candidacy when they began spreading rumors that Barack Obama had been born in a foreign country. It wasn’t until 2011 that Donald Trump picked up that bizarre torch and ran with it, only to finally drop it in September when it was clearly a spent flame.

The same mainstream media that slammed Trump for his birther obsession has long failed to properly mention its origins in the “dark ops” wing of the 2008 Hillary campaign. As Britain’s Telegraph reported in 2011: In April 2008, “an anonymous email circulated by supporters of Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama’s main rival for the party’s nomination, thrust a new allegation into the national spotlight — that he had not been born in Hawaii.” The first lawsuit to make birther claims was filed by Phil Berg, a Democratic attorney and a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Hillary herself has dismissed claims that her campaign had anything to do with spreading the birther rumor. She told CNN that the suggestion was “ludicrous,” saying, “I have been blamed for nearly everything, that was a new one to me.” But the Clintons rarely leave fingerprints of their own involvement in skullduggery. Last September, former McClatchy Newspapers Washington bureau chief James Asher revealed the role that Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal played in stirring up the birther scandal. “He strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama’s birth, which he suggested was in Kenya,” said Asher, who at the time was McClatchy’s investigative editor and in charge of Africa reporting. “We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false.”

Denials of the Clintons’ involvement in the original birther controversy come from the same aides who denied that their candidate had personally approved trolling against the Trump campaign even though an undercover video by James O’Keefe confirmed that. Other O’Keefe videos showed that operatives linked to Hillary’s campaign paid people to disrupt Trump rallies and plan voter-fraud schemes.

None of this excuses Trump’s decision in 2011 to stoke the birther controversy and demand a copy of Obama’s birth certificate. (“But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”)

Trump’s attacks clearly irked Obama, and in April 2011, Obama released a copy of the long-form version of his Hawaii birth certificate. The annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner was three days later, and Obama knew that Trump would be in attendance as a guest of the Washington Post. Obama made a point of strolling onto the stage to the strains of Rick Derringer’s “Real American” and later “revealing” his “long-form birth video,” which ended up being a clip from The Lion King. Obama then proceeded to fillet Trump like a master sushi chef:

I know that he’s taken some flak lately, but no one is happier — no one is prouder — to put this birth certificate issue to rest, and that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter: Like, Did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?

When a fabulously wealthy entertainer claims victimhood purely on the strength of her skin’s melanin content and a very shady lady extols XX chromosomes as a prime qualifier for the White House, PC orthodoxy needed a good kicking. The incoming president just administered one.
In the July, 2016, edition of Quadrant I agreed with the notion that for many Americans their country now felt like an express train speeding toward the abyss. Donald J. Trump was the fellow bold enough to propose pushing the Emergency Stop button in a carriage full of frightened and cowed passengers. Trump was the anti-PC candidate in a nation ruled over by a P.C. Establishment.

The concept of Political Correctness is something weightier than mere annoyance or absurdity. It is the ideology of a Left Power Elite (LPE) – to echo sociologist C. Wright Mills’ 1956 critique of the United States – and has long held sway over the American people. The LPE itself is a caste of notable families, CEOs, celebrities, mainstream media operators, state mandarins, “progressive” lobby groups, academics, key members of the federal government and so on. PC ideology reflects the worldview and self-interest of members of the LPE and also serves to obscure or disguise their positions of advantage relative to ordinary people (or “the deplorables” as Hillary Clinton would say).

The 2016 US election cycle exposed the LPE as never before. The case of the pop music celebrity Beyoncé might seem trivial and yet it is far from that. During the 2016 NFL Super Bowl halftime show, for instance, the 36-year-old African-American singer-songwriter celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party. Beyoncé, perhaps the highest profile celebrity – amongst a plethora of high profile celebrities – to lend their glamour to the Clinton campaign, later claimed her halftime show had not been “political” (and against NFL guidelines) but instead “cultural”. In a year that would see the rise and rise of the Malcolm X-inspired Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, not to mention the New Black Panther Party, Beyoncé’s rationalisation should be considered disingenuous at best.

Hillary Clinton and Beyoncé share more than an antipathy to Donald Trump. PC Identarianism allows Beyoncé, one of the more dazzling and venerated celebrities on the planet, to play the victim card. This no-expense-spared woman, who inhabits the rarefied air of global superstardom, might have been listed by Time magazine in 2013 and 2014 as one of the most influential women in the world and by Forbes in 2015 as the most powerful female in entertainment, she might even possess a net wealth of as much as $US450 million, and yet Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter self-identifies as a victim. The melanin in her skin allows this revered idol to pose as a member of the modern-day Left’s rainbow of discontents. It is not so much a matter of “white skin privilege” holding Beyoncé back as “black skin privilege” shielding her from accusations of extreme privilege.

The story of Hillary Clinton is a parallel one. She, too, enjoys a privileged life. Politics and public life have been rewarding – in every sense of that word – for Hillary and Bill Clinton. Public financial disclosure reports put her net worth at $31.3 million and Bill’s at $80 million, not bad for a couple in serious debt at the conclusion of their time in White House. Much of that debt, we should mention, was the cost of the legal team – organised by Hillary – to keep Bill at arm’s length from the law during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the latter stages of his presidency. Hillary Clinton was subsequently rewarded with a seat in the Senate (2001-09) and the role of secretary of state in the Obama administration (2009-03).

Thousands of anti-Trump protesters marched up New York’s Fifth Avenue on Saturday afternoon, completing a two-mile journey from Union Square to Trump Tower. The march followed days of similar rallies in Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago and elsewhere. Donald Trump has tweeted that he loves the demonstrators’ passion, while accusing many of being professional protesters.

But why protest at all, given the unambiguous results of Tuesday’s election? The demonstrators’ signs offered a few clues. The “F” word was ever-present: as in “F—”—take your pick—Trump, Giuliani, the police, family values, that guy, the electoral system, Newt, Arpaio, Trump’s Amerikkka, and even “you.” One woman carried a sign pledging that she would pay taxes only when Mr. Trump does. Other placards derided “Adolf Trump” and the new “groper in chief,” warning “tiny hands off.”

Enlightened college students carried apologetic messages: “Sorry for the inconvenience, we’re trying to change the world” or “I’m sorry my country is racist.” And “Not my president,” was a fan favorite, though many went with “Never my president.” Other slogans didn’t really add up, such as “You can’t drink oil” or one calling for Vice President-elect Mike Pence to be thrown over a fence.

It was difficult to find a unifying theme, since there was something for almost everybody: POWs are heroes, Black Lives Matter, Family MDs for ObamaCare, Steve Bannon must go.

The crowd’s chants were equally confused. Many simply expressed strong disagreement with Mr. Trump’s policy pronouncements and personal style. “Say it loud / Say it clear / Refugees are welcome here,” they shouted. Men declared, “Your body, your choice,” and women responded, “My body, my choice.” The policy-oriented crowd wasn’t entirely humorless: “Hands too small. He can’t build a wall.”

Flags—rainbow, Puerto Rican, anarchist, Socialist Alternative, Mexican, U.S. (sometimes desecrated, sometimes not)—were all present. But what unified banner were the protesters marching under?

It wasn’t a rally in support of Mrs. Clinton. Yes, her supporters made their presence known by holding up “#ImStillWithHer” signs. Referencing Mr. Trump’s “nasty woman” insult at the third presidential debate, many women affirmed that “We are nasty, yes we are.” They also chanted “We’re with her,” though that one died down quickly.

Any criticism of Mrs. Clinton’s role in losing to Mr. Trump was absent. The crowd was happy to chant, rather than ponder how Mrs. Clinton cleared the field in her primary or why the Democrats lost to one of the most disliked presidential candidates in U.S. history. CONTINUE AT SITE

In the machinery of politics, all cycles are spin cycles. And once the centrifugal force takes hold, the whirlwind will not easily come to an abrupt halt. So it is not surprising that after the most contentious presidential election in recent history, a lot of disgruntled Americans can still be seen spinning out of control.

The protests – some of them morphing into riots – were not unexpected. They have become a popular activity enjoined by mostly younger people who some suspect may not even have voted. Yet the irony of this is as lost on them as is their carrying placards saying “Love Trumps Hate” while they shout obscenities and make mischief.

In the past, protests and marches were staged with the expectation of achieving some kind of tangible result. Workers went on strike and picketed for higher wages and better working conditions. The disenfranchised marched for the freedom to vote. Protests and the like took place in order to right unconstitutional wrongs.

But the 2016 post-election protests haven’t a prayer of changing anything. As one wag put it, you cannot question American democracy. Trump won this election fair and square. Nobody in authority contends otherwise. Yet despite the fact that both Obama and Clinton have urged a peaceful transition, the devastated liberal mob heeds only the call of the wild.

These are the whiners who sorely suffer from what I call “Post-Trumpmatic Stress Disorder,” a self-induced disease that is void of physical manifestations other than those that spring like evil dreams from hyperventilating imaginations: coat hangers becoming the only obstetrical tool available in back-alley abortion abattoirs, same-sex unions dissolved; sick Americans, deprived of health insurance, untreated and dying on our streets; polluted air and water killing off the rest of us; hordes of hardworking immigrants hustled across the border, never to return.

Perhaps the protesters are too young and politically naïve to understand that election outcomes in America are the result of our democratic process. Trump is not a banana republic dictator foisted on the people. He cannot be driven into exile by a chorus of shouted insults. Nevertheless, protests, per se, have become courts of first resort for many young people, even if participation in them leads to nothing more than national press attention and a party atmosphere with the like-minded. Their generation, after all, has been encouraged by role models to protest wherever and whenever possible, in the belief that unified venting, in itself, is a noble end.

Early on in their pampered lives, modern protesters learned the nature of parental indulgence. Their temper tantrums were endured, and even rewarded if thrown in public. Their progressive parents, harboring angst of their own, found it convenient to avoid disciplining their offspring lest it breed resentment. So if Junior felt in any way thwarted, he vigorously protested until some placating action or reward shut him up. Distraught parents learned quickly that the humiliation of a child’s meltdown could be eased by a piece of chocolate melting in his mouth. They wanted their way and made trouble if they didn’t get it!

Twenty or whatever years later, these disgruntled whiners are still up to their old tricks, even if there are no treats. As long as they can have their expensive smartphone on hand when they high-mindedly trot off to a protest, they can brave anything. And since they can expect little to change as a result of their action, they find satisfaction in thinking of themselves as a concerned part of history. Besides, isn’t there safety in numbers? Well, at least until the shouting turns to shooting