RUTHFULLY YOURS

A White House spokesman said Monday that President Trump is “evaluating the situation” regarding national security adviser Michael Flynn over his pre-inaugural contacts with Russian officials. (See the editorial nearby.) While the President is at it, how about asking if the spooks listening to Mr. Flynn obeyed the law?

Mr. Flynn is a retired general who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency, so surely he knew that his Dec. 29 call to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak would be subject to electronic surveillance. U.S. intelligence services routinely get orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor foreign officials. But under U.S. law, when they get those orders they are supposed to use “minimization” procedures that don’t let them listen to the communications of Americans who may be caught in such eavesdropping. That is, they are supposed to protect the identity and speech of innocent Americans. Yet the Washington Post, which broke the story, says it spoke to multiple U.S. officials claiming to know what Mr. Flynn said on that call.

The questions someone in the White House should ask the National Security Agency is why it didn’t use minimization procedures to protect Mr. Flynn? Or did it also have a court order to listen to Mr. Flynn, and how did it justify that judicial request?

If Mr. Flynn was under U.S. intelligence surveillance, then Mr. Trump should know why, and at this point so should the American public. Maybe there’s an innocent explanation, but the Trump White House needs to know what’s going on with Mr. Flynn and U.S. spies.

In case you’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about all of the different genders, and wondering if any of your or your friends’ many genders might be cultural appropriation, there’s a piece making the rounds on Social Justice Internet that’s here to help.

In a piece titled “What Does Multigender Mean? 10 Questions You May Be Afraid to Ask — Answered,” Jenny Crofton explains that there’s “an infinite diversity of genders in the world” and “at least as many genders as there have been humans who lived.”

“I say ‘at least’ because as it turns out, people can embody more than one gender in their lifetime,” Crofton writes. “We can even embody more than one gender at once.”

“We can experience them as full and independent, or as partial and mixed,” Crofton continues.

A few examples of possible gender identities offered in Crofton’s article include “amorgender,” which is “gender that changes in response to a romantic partners,” “mirrorgender,” which is “gender that changes to reflect those around you,” “chaosgender,” which is “gender that is highly unpredictable,” and “gendervex,” which is “having multiple genders, each of which is unidentifiable.” Genders can also be negative instead of positive — something Crofton calls “antigender.” For example, some people might identify as “antigirl,” and that’s not to be confused with identifying as “male.”

Now, lest you think that all of this sounds too simple and restrictive, Crofton also clarifies that your gender absolutely does not have to be something that’s included on this or any list, because even though “dominant culture wants us each to conform to a single gender,” you are totally allowed to have as many genders as you want, to change your gender or genders as often as you want, and to identify as a certain gender or genders like only a little bit instead of completely. Basically, anything goes — except, of course, for cultural appropriation.

Yes, that’s right. According to Crofton, certain gender identities can be appropriation, such as “the Two-Spirit genders of some North American Indigenous groups” and “autigender and fascigender, which are exclusive to people with autism.”

“Because it’s impossible to access these genders without being part of a specific cultural context, it’s inappropriate for outsiders to claim any Two-Spirit gender,” Crofton writes, adding that if even one of your genders is “culturally appropriated,” then your whole “overarching identity also becomes problematic” — a situation that can be an issue for “pangender people.”

“Pangender people, in a literal sense, identify as all genders,” Crofton writes. “The problem is that ‘all genders’ includes culturally specific genders that must not be appropriated.”

Populism of the center (as opposed to Bernie Sanders’s socialist populism) has received a bad media rap — given that it was stained in the past by xenophobic and chauvinistic currents. Who wishes to emulate all the agendas of William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, or Ross Perot? Yet there were some elements of Trump’s populist agenda — mostly concern for redeveloping the industrial and manufacturing base of the American heartland, and with it creating better-paying jobs for globalism’s losers — that were not only overdue but salutary for the Republican party. His idea that broad-based prosperity could diminish tribalism and racial fault lines sought to erode traditional Democratic support.

Populism is certainly identified with lots of grassroots movements, from far left through the center to far right. The common tie is that ordinary voters feel estranged from an elite class in politics, government, the media, and entertainment — a phenomenon that dates from the Solonian crisis at Athens and the Gracchi of Rome to Ross Perot, the Tea Party, and Donald Trump.

Often prairie-fire outrage manifests in emotional responses to existing affronts rather than carefully crafted policies designed to remedy perceived grievances. (One can remember Al Gore’s 1993 pompous but undeniable evisceration on CNN of a stuttering, ill-informed populist Ross Perot, on the NAFTA treaty.).

All that said, these periodic uprisings in consensual societies are needed to disabuse an insular governing class of its sense of entitlement and privilege.

The spark that ignites populist movements is not so much disparities in wealth and status (they are not always French Revolution or Bolshevik-like class-driven attempts to grab power) as rank hypocrisies: Elites condescendingly prescribe nostrums to hoi polloi, but always on the dual premise that those who are dictating will be immune from the ramifications of their own sometimes burdensome edicts, and those who are dictated to are supposedly too dense to know what is good for them. (Think Steven Chu, the former energy secretary, who either did not commute by car or had a short drive to work, while he hoped that gas prices for the nation’s clueless drivers might climb to European levels of $9–$10 a gallon.)

We’ve already seen Trump’s anti-doctrinaire approach to jobs, trade, and the economy: his notion that the free-market in reality can often became a rhetorical construct, not a two-way street when it comes to trading blocs. Free-market purists might see the outsourcing of jobs and unbridled importation of foreign subsidized products as a way to toughen up the competitiveness of American companies and trim off their fat; but people who take this view are usually the ones who benefit from globalism and who are in little danger of having their own job downsized, eliminated, or shipped overseas. Few of us often ask whether full professors are very productive, whether op-ed writers are industrious and cogent, whether Hollywood actors are worth millions per picture, whether politicians are improving the nation’s lot, or whether journalists are disinterested and competent. Instead, we assume that because they all have well-compensated jobs, they are qualified, essential, and invaluable to the economy.

Investors get what they want (deserve?) from market pundits. If one is bullish, an expert is found who concurs. If one is bearish, a market seer will be uncovered. But the future is, at best, a guess. We can look to the past for guidance, but none of us are clairvoyants, especially in this “brave new world.”

The two decades that ended in 2000 were some of the best in stock market history, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average compounding at 14.0% over those twenty years. Since, the Average has compounded at 3%, a consequence of a difficult first nine years, followed by a big bounce off the 2009 lows. Multiples are high, but the euphoria of the late 1990s is gone.

Markets are deciphering what is happening globally, geopolitically, economically and technologically. One thing we do know is that the past few decades have not been good for large segments of the population. Since 1970, on an inflation adjusted basis, stocks, including dividends, have compounded at 4.3% and home prices at 2%. However, median incomes have compounded at only 0.5%. In the past ten years, these variances have widened. Since 2007, stock prices are up 60%, median house prices are up 30%, while median incomes are unchanged. Incidentally, over the last decade college tuitions have risen 40%. Labor force participation, over the last decade, declined four percentage points – a cost of six and a half million fewer jobs. Working Americans, who find dignity in what they do, are understandably upset.

There are many reasons for their angst: Immigration policies have let in cheap labor. Globalization has provided benefits to consumers, but at a cost of jobs. Politicians have provided entitlements to the nation’s poor and have focused on pet projects for the wealthy (like solar panels and Teslas), but have ignored the plight of the American worker. A politically-driven fixation with environmental issues has come at the expense of economic growth. Complex tax and regulatory rules have helped rich individuals and big businesses, but have hurt small companies and caused a net decline in new-business start-ups for the first time ever. And a technology boom, equal to the Industrial Revolution in impact, has obsoleted jobs.

There are still other reasons for their concern: Social Security and Medicare are at risk; an absence of defined benefit retirement plans and an aging population mean that millions are retiring without the ability to support themselves. The moral values that most Middle-American families grew up with are dismissed by coastal elites. Public schools cater to unions, not students and parents. Low interest rates have helped speculators, but have hampered savers. And, of course, 9/11 exposed a vicious and and different enemy – Islamic extremism – an enemy Obama’s Washington was unwilling to call by name.

Is there a way forward? Yes. There are things government should let alone, but there are steps they can take. Among the former is: Don’t impede technology, even though change is taxing, especially to the age-challenged. When Einstein uttered his famous quote, he was thinking of the Atomic bomb, but his words apply today. Robots have replaced factory workers and algorithms have replaced Wall Street traders. Doctors in Houston, using robots, can perform surgeries in remote New Hampshire towns. Hoteliers can deliver room service using robots. During the holidays, as many shoppers bought gifts online as went into stores – good for consumers and a blessing for truckers, but bad news for store clerks. And, when Drones and/or self-driving vehicles drop packages on our doorsteps, delivery drivers will be affected. Wireless communication has had a negative impact on copper producers and linesmen. Approximately 30% of the roughly $100 trillion in U.S. equity and bond markets are now managed passively, reducing management fees by perhaps $150 billion. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are changing the way we learn. Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” is affecting multiple sectors of the economy. And, such changes have a draconian impact on labor. Snapchat, Instagram and other forms of social media mean that we are, for good or bad, continuously connected. In the military, Drones are doing the jobs of manned aircraft and “boots on the ground.” Through our smart phones, we are trackable. But the internet also allows terrorist organizations to recruit and plan operations anonymously. Do we understand the full consequences of this revolution? I would guess not, but we cannot discourage innovation.

During his campaign for the presidency Donald Trump frequently disdainfully scowled when he spoke about how most politicians were “All talk and no action.”

Candidate Trump promised that immigration would be a primary focus of his administration.

President Trump has indeed focused on multiple aspects of the immigration crisis that go well beyond building a wall along the U.S./Mexican border.

His selection of Senator Jeff Sessions to be his Attorney General was the best possible choice for this important position.

Sessions had chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest.

Consider that on February 25, 2016 that subcommittee conducted a hearing on the topic, “The Impact of High-Skilled Immigration on U.S. Workers.”

When the Obama administration conducted meetings for “Stakeholders” on the immigration issue corporate leaders were invited to attend as were immigration lawyers representing illegal aliens and special interest groups that advocate for illegal aliens.

However, no one in attendance represented the “average American.”

Even the union leaders representing the Border Patrol, ICE agents and the adjudications officers were barred from participating in those meetings.

On February 9, 2017 President Trump held a news conference in the Oval Office to conduct a public swearing in ceremony of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Immediately after Vice President Pence swore in Jeff Sessions, President Trump signed three executive orders:

Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing Federal Law with Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking

Presidential Executive Order on Preventing Violence Against Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement Officers

Presidential Executive Order on a Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety

President Trump promised to be the “Law and Order” President and he has certainly hit the ground running.

Karl Marx famously said that historical facts and personages are repeated, first as tragedy, then as farce. But Marx could not have foreseen that the ideology he birthed would experience a third phase as well: therapeutic parody. The juvenile hysteria, tantrums, inflated “resistance,” and pointless vandalism of the left-wing Democrats are signs of leftism’s last phase. But that doesn’t make the left any less dangerous.

The “tragedy” wrought by the left is evident in its blood-stained history. The 100 million people murdered by purges and engineered famines were the victims of regimes founded on gulags, show-trials, lies, persecution, “re-education,” and censorship. Their deaths are one of history’s greatest tragedies. No more successful were the attempts to give collectivism “a human face” by creating the “soft despotism” of technocratic bureaucracies and agencies embodied in the EU and American progressivism, both increasingly sclerotic, ineffective, and desperate.

The “farce” came in the sixties, as one French ’68 leftist admitted in the famous graffito, “I am a Marxist, of the Groucho variety.” In less than a decade, the New Left’s embrace of hedonism and identity politics transformed it into a life-style choice and New Age cult for the affluent, pampered boomers rich enough to postpone adulthood indefinitely, and to avoid the consequences of their utopian fantasies. After a few spasms of terrorist attacks by outfits like the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army, the tax-payer-subsidized graduate seminar and faculty lounge, not the factory floor or the terrorist cell, became the nursery of the “revolution.”

A booming economy subsidized whole hordes of such parlor pinks, caviar communists, and radical chic poseurs. They turned leftist slogans and symbols into status commodities that capitalists from Hollywood and Madison Avenue were eager to co-opt and profit from. “Revolution” meant wearing a Che t-shirt, rocking with The Clash, and reading Noam Chomsky, pop-cultural brands that camouflaged sexual hedonism, licentious individualism, and conspicuous consumption. Finally, the “long march through the institutions” created not the collectivist utopia, but privileged elites in media, academe, and government whose stock portfolios, bank accounts, affluent zip-codes, and tony life-styles were indistinguishable from those of the robber-baron capitalists they demonized.

Now farce has become parody. Despite its dominance of the media, academe, and popular culture, subsequent decades of politically correct commissars policing language and thought; coercive regulations and laws encroaching ever more insidiously into private life and civil society; and the monstrous hypocrisy of an “effete corps of impudent snobs” who exempted themselves from the intrusive big-government regime they imposed on others less privileged and connected, all led to the repudiation of farcical leftism.

By November 2016, the eight years of Obama’s lies and blunders pushed the left-wing farce to the breaking point. The failure of a leftist president’s hijacking of the economy, and his foreign policy disasters wrought by a stale “we are the world” internationalism finally roused our generation’s forgotten men and women to throw the lefty bums out. It did not help that the Dems’ anointed candidate was the epitome of the left’s hypocritical mash-up mixing worn-out leftist bromides and shibboleths, with rank ambition, unseemly money-grubbing, and entitled arrogance.