Abstract: President
Trump has been in office for a year already.
Despite a growing economy and better labor numbers, the political elite
have doubled down on their mission to oppose President Trump’s agenda for
Making America Great Again. Today’s segment
on NBC’s Meet the Press provided more evidence.
Disturbed by some of the themes—the political capital of DACA and insinuations
of a post-heroic period—it was not until I read a well-timed email from my
uncle that I more deeply understood the political elite’s mind set. They do not understand the difference between
pragmatism and politics. Politics
requires glibness and visceral emotions; pragmatism requires reason
unconstrained by “looking good” and “feel good” language.
Old
Gadfly: Gentleman,
did you watch NBC’s Meet
the Press this morning?
IM: Yes. Amazingly, there was no mention of the
Top Secret memo circulating within the halls of Congress about Department of
Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance System Act (FISA) system (see here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
and other non-mainstream media sources).
Rather, Chuck Todd and four panel members pontificated on the government
shutdown, mostly blaming President Trump for injecting chaos into this week’s
deliberations focused mostly on the unconstitutional executive order by the previous President called the Deferred for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Todd
later showed some polling to show why DACA is so critical to elections in
districts along the southern border, Florida, and some districts elsewhere in
the United States. It was clear from a
Democrat perspective that DACA is critical to their political fortunes by
showing “empathy” for those brought illegally to the US by their parents.
Old
Gadfly: So, if I
understand the implications of Todd’s analysis related to DACA and political
fortunes, we can infer that the political elite see DACA as really a political
opportunity tied to their political fortunes.
So much for the “Dreamers”—they are mere instruments in the action for
political power.
AM: Even Peggy Noonan ventured to claim that
President Trump represents the “post heroic” period in American history. Here is an excerpt from today’s transcript:
Look, as for the presidency, we just past one year
anniversary two days into the second year. I think what we are seeing up close
every day relentlessly is a post-heroic presidency. A presidency for a
post-heroic era. People don't have illusions about how high and upstanding and
rigorously upholding of values that the president is. And at the same time
everybody in politics around him sees it, sees that it plays fairly well for
him, that he is sometimes gross or abrupt or rude in his terminology. So they
do it too. It does lower everything. We are living through a cultural lowering.
Old
Gadfly: As a credentialed
psychologist, from a psychological perspective I do not believe Noonan truly
understands what she is revealing when she says, “what we are seeing up close
relentlessly.” What we are “seeing” is social
constructivism by a progressive elite who control the public narrative and
the desire to create a culture based on their values. For example, race is a socially constructed
concept that has been very useful for political purposes. Racism is therefore an inevitable socially
constructed concept as well. Islamophobia,
homophobia, xenophobia, misogynist, and the entire litany of similar terms are
other examples. More importantly, regarding Noonan’s claim
about a post-heroic period, what do you infer from this?
AM: Obviously, the implication is that Trump
represents the antonym of heroic. Think about this. By implication, Noonan places the previous
president (not mentioning him by name to honor his current practice of not
mentioning President Trump by name when being critical of him during evening
talk shows) in the heroic category. According
to Thesaurus, here are
synonyms for heroic: bold, courageous, daring, epic, fearless, gallant, grand, gutsy,
noble, valiant, classic, elevated, bigger than life, dauntless, doughty,
exaggerated, fire-eating, grandiose, gritty, gutty, high flown, impavid,
inflated, intrepid, lion-hearted, mythological, stand tall, stouthearted,
unafraid, undaunted, valorous.
Certainly, the previous President can be described with some of these
terms. Yet, pigeon chess master is not
one of them—but that would fit more under a psychiatric manifestation of delusions
of grandeur, not heroism. On the other
hand, Thesaurus lists the following as antonyms of heroic: afraid, cowardly, fearful, meek, shy, timid,
and weak. Strangely, none of these terms
fit for either the previous President or President Trump.
Old Gadfly: Ironically, after
watching Meet the Press, I opened an
email from my uncle. He forwarded a
reflection by Mychal S. Massie, who “is an
ordained minister who spent 13 years in full-time Christian Ministry.
Today he serves as founder and Chairman of the Racial Policy Center
(RPC), a think tank he officially founded in September 2015. RPC advocates for
a colorblind society. He was founder and president of the non-profit ‘In His
Name Ministries.’ He is the former National Chairman of a conservative
Capitol Hill think tank; and a former member of the think tank National Center
for Public Policy Research. In his official capacity with this
free-market, public-policy think tank, he has spoken at the U.S. Capitol, CPAC,
participated in numerous press conferences on Capitol Hill, the National Press
Club and testified in private session concerning property rights pursuant to
the “Endangered Species Act” before the Chairman of the House Committee on
Resources.” Massie explained why
President Trump is such a mystery to the establishment in Washington DC and
other political elite in political parties, the media, academia, and
Hollywood. President Trump is neither
liberal nor conservative—he’s a pragmatist.
He further contends President Trump has risked a hard earned fortune to solve
problems both political parties have created, let alone solve. Sounds heroic to me. Here is Massie’s article. I now
more deeply understand the political elite’s mind set. They do not understand the difference between
pragmatism and politics. Politics
requires glibness and visceral emotions; pragmatism requires reason
unconstrained by “looking good” and “feel good” language. Meanwhile,
those who earn good livings based on ideological politics, glibness, and
visceral arguments, will continue droning on and demonizing President Trump
while he keeps moving forward pragmatically Making America Great Again.
IM: Doesn’t President Trump need
some help in this process?
Old Gadfly: Yes, he
does. Help may be on the way in the form
of the Article V (of the US Constitution) movement. Here is an excellent observation from Bob
Berry (author and economist), one of the pioneers in the movement:
[Thomas] Paine’s
words ring especially true regarding our present situation. As he observed, “there is something very
absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.” How much more absurd is it today, the whole
of our country’s land-mass and its 310 million inhabitants is ruled with an
iron fist from a 68-square mile swamp along the Potomac. Excerpt from Amendments
without Congress: A Timely Gift from the
Founders (2012) by Bob Berry
The nearly miraculous part of this movement is that it is
nonpartisan. It avoids political agendas
in favor of restoring the sound governing principles of a Constitutional
Republic gifted to us by heroic and pragmatic Americans. Unfortunately, opponents tend to base their arguments
on political agendas. See for example
the excellent analysis provided by Dennis Haugh in Political
Vertigo and other postings at his website.
While the political elite play their political games, let
me know if you want to learn more about this self-governing citizen effort (Old Gadfly at oldgadfly@gmail.com)
