America’s Authoritarian Regime

by

Gadfly

           Today, House Managers conduct their closing arguments to convince the U.S. Senate to convict President Trump based on two Articles of Impeachment passed in the U.S. House of Representatives without a single Republican vote.  In a calculated strategy by Speaker Pelosi to wait a month to send the “urgent” Articles to the Senate, Managers cry foul because the Senate will not allow additional witnesses, even though they chose not to pursue them during the House’s proceedings.  Following a consistent pattern, Managers cite a New York Times article that says a leaked manuscript by former National Security Advisor John Bolton asserts quid pro quo in the infamous July 25, 2019 telephone call between President Trump and the newly elected Ukrainian President.  The manuscript is still embargoed by the National Security Council pending a security review to prevent disclosure of classified information while also allowing Bolton to tell his story.  Who leaked the manuscript?  How come the Times provided no direct quotations from the manuscript?
  

If the House Managers’ argue that the public should hear from witnesses, then why has Congressman Adam Schiff prevented the public release of the transcript from a hearing where the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) testified?  There were 18 witnesses.  Seventeen transcripts have been made public—and President Trump’s defense lawyers cited several of these transcripts to provide to the Senate a clearer perspective and arguably weaken impeachment arguments.  Schiff refuses to make public the IG testimony; yet, he argues that the President is not allowed executive privilege.  Schiff forgets the President is not a  prime minister in a parliamentary government.

  

What is so damaging about the ICIG’s testimony?  This is where the IG provided information about the leaker (called a whistleblower in order to legitimize a kangaroo court carried out in former President Obama’s terms, “by the book.”).  The picture about how this “trigger” for an impeachment came about is not one Adam Schiff, on behalf of his coconspirators, want the public to know.

 What are the implications?

On Friday, The New York Times published an opinion by David Leonhardt,  “L’état, c’est Trump.”  The title borrows from a French expression, “l’état, c’est moi,” which translates into English, “the state, it is I” or “I am the state.”  The historical context relates to King Louis XIV, who held absolute power for 72 years.

           Leonhardt alleges Trump wields similar absolute power because the Republican majority in the Senate, apparently intimidated by Trump’s power, refused to go along with the tyrannical power exercised by the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives.


           Leonhardt’s first paragraph states (bold italics are mine): “The United States is not an authoritarian country. President Trump has failed to carry out many of his authoritarian impulses — like, say, banning Muslims from entering the United States or jailing his political opponents.”  Contrary to Leonhardt’s framing, the travel ban was against specific countries of the world that are known for Islamist terrorism and poor security screening practices.  President Trump had his Constitutional legal authority blocked multiple times and through multiple courts, which he honored until the US Supreme Court ruled that the ban was legally authorized.  An authoritarian (such as a predecessor who ruled by “a pen and a phone” and defied court rulings) would have ignored the judicial pushback.  President Trump honored ALL court injunctions (over 40 so far) while appealing lower court rulings.


           As for jailing political opponents, who has been jailed by President Trump’s Administration?  No one.  Yet, members within President Trump’s political orbit have been jailed—all stemming from the Democrat-fueled witch hunt called the Trump-Russia collusion:  George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen.  Carter Page escaped prosecution and now has his own lawsuit underway for being the victim of illegal surveillance.  Lieutenant General Michael Flynn is still battling his own prosecution and has already been financially destroyed as he has had to finance his own legal defense.  Roger Stone has also suffered prosecution after a CNN-aired raid on his home in the darkness of night by two dozen, heavily armed FBI agents.  Leonhardt’s imagined “l’état, c’est Trump” was unable to thwart these efforts.


           Leonhardt then says the following in his second paragraph:

And yet, the events that have taken place in the Senate this week would nonetheless have been unimaginable for most of our modern history. They are the makings of authoritarianism — in which the party in power decides it can reject democratic principles for the simple reason that it holds power.

Many Americans in today’s America have not been taught lessons of our modern history.  Hitler and Mussolini did not seize power.  They exploited conditions in democratic societies.  They amplified conditions (like identity politics, propaganda similar to today’s privileged versus oppressed, etc.) to promote agitated populations while promising hope and change.  As I have written in previous articles, the Soviet Communist International promoted democracies in Eastern European nations because they could then use the weaknesses of democracy to “democratically” advance socialism as the necessary transition to communism.  None of these developments were advanced by an educated general public.  They moved forward by political elite.

In her seminal work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt devoted a chapter about cronyism: “The Political Emancipation of the Bourgeoisie.”  Do we see our nation’s billionaires and social media giants aligning with Donald Trump?  Hitler and Mussolini’s agendas benefitted from what is called corporatism, where money and political power align for self-interest.

Leonhardt continues the morally superior smearing in his third paragraph:

A majority of senators, all Republican, are not interested in hearing evidence of presidential wrongdoing. Many are on the verge of accepting Trump’s argument, made by his lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, that any action a president takes to help his chances of re-election is, by definition, in the national interest. The nation, according to this argument, is indistinguishable from the president.

     

To suggest Republican Senators are not interested in hearing evidence of wrongdoing is slanderous because Leonhardt presumes he knows what these Senators believe.  The problem with presumption is that it is not based on known facts, but on one’s predisposition and all its inherent biases.  Those closely following these political actions can see that the left is trying to prove James Carville’s assertion in the Clinton impeachment effort that “a good prosecutor can get any grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.”  In my opinion, a fair trial would start with the testimony, under cross examination, of the plaintiff’s allegation of a crime.  Yet, the so called whistleblower has been put into the witness protection program.  Republican Senators are fully aware of this maneuvering; yet are made to feel guilty by House Managers if they don’t go along with their tactics.

Rarely have I heard, but it more accurately identifies the real crime for which President Trump is being impeached, he was not ordained to win the election.  If they can’t remove him now as a “clear and present danger” (according to the left), then they will keep doing whatever they can to keep him from being reelected.  Only the left can influence elections.

Leonhardt and his anti-Dershowitz faction distort Dershowitz’s argument.  First, he completely supports the President’s Constitutional authority under Article II to carry out the political agenda for which he was elected but not free to engage in bribery, treason or comparable crimes called high crimes and misdemeanors.  Second, the President campaigns and conducts his agenda for what he believes is in the national interest.  If his reading of that national interest is correct, then it bodes well for his political support.  Call it self-interest, if you insist.

  

Does anyone know of a politician that does not campaign or perform based on self-interest?  I know there are exceptions, such as voting one’s conscience, knowing he or she may pay a price in their next election.  Colorado Senator Corey Gardner is such an exception.

  

Today, one of the House Managers spoke about the courage of a West Point graduate and his testimony that was critical of President Trump.  I wrote about the irony of the West Pointer’s role in this article:  “’Duty Honor, Country’ versus Justification.”  As a Service Academy graduate, I would be interested in meeting with this West Point graduate to learn more about his motivations.  Of course, Service Academy cultures have evolved over time.  More recently, West Point exposed cadets to toxic masculinity.  Of concern, the injection of this type of social engineering is what C. S. Lewis wrote about in the 1940s in his book, The Abolition of Man, where he talked about “men without chests,” eunuchs, and the conditioners and conditioned.  Of course, Lewis’s backdrop were the authoritarian regimes that had emerged during this era.

      

As the impeachment episode approaches its finish on Wednesday, let us not forget actions taken before the 2016 presidential election to facilitate desired outcomes and efforts since:  the Steele Dossier, FISA warrants to indirectly spy on Trump through associates, and the Mueller investigation.  We now know, based on Department of Justice Horowitz’s investigation, that President Trump and those in his political orbit were targeted and punished by members of our government and media (Lee Smith’s The Plot Against the President provides detailed evidence of collusion between government individuals and journalists to advance fake news).

Pundits predict President Trump will be found not guilty by the Senate.  Yet, this will not bring justice to the President or America.  The left will argue that the Senate’s Constitutional obligation to try the case did not reflect a fair trial, and this will be enough to raise funds for the 2020 Democrat elections at all levels.  The Mueller investigation drew out its proceedings, which was successful in turning the House of Representatives in 2016.  Are there enough registered Democrats with the capacity and prudence to understand what is at play in America?

As much as leftists like David Leonhardt want us to believe President Trump is an authoritarian ruler, there is no evidence to support this belief.  On the other hand, there is a concept that we typically hear about as it relates to other nations, such as North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and so forth:  regime change.

  

It seems bizarre that an individual who the left believes to be an authoritarian apparently lacks the power to reign in leaks and other efforts by members of his Administration to undermine his authority. American Administrations have always theoretically been a regime that reflects values of the public interest.  In his book, The Plot Against the President, Lee Smith concludes his investigative journalism with this observation:

“Deep State” is another way to describe what classical philosophers meant by the word “regime.”  It refers not only to a form of government but also to the values and virtues that form of government prizes and the leading persons who embody them.  Thus, many of the leading persons of the United States’ political bureaucracy had starring roles in the coup (p. 333).

2020 elections will reflect to what extent an unelected authoritarian regime remains in power.  In the meantime, many Americans wonder what will happen with the Barr-Durham criminal investigations—surely some known members of the leftist regime should be held accountable to ensure justice.  It is quite possible that Attorney General Barr will be constrained by potential accusations of political bias and thus will wait until after the 2020 elections to press forward with indictments and trials.  The risk in waiting is that if Democrats are successful in securing power in the Executive and Legislative Branches, a new Attorney General may find ways of making Barr and Durham investigations go away.

What I am suggesting by the above paragraph is that the stakes are very high.  Our Constitutional Republic remains on thin ice because we clearly have an authoritarian regime:  Democrats, an unelected bureaucracy, and an echo chamber media.  To this regime, power is more important than truth and justice, even the public interest.         

Noble Lies

by

Gadfly

In his The Road to Serfdom chapter, “The End of Truth,” F. A. Hayek explains how totalitarian leaders create “myth” to justify action.  For example,

The totalitarian leader may be guided merely by an instinctive dislike of the state of things he has found and a desire to create a new hierarchical order which conforms better to his conception of merit; he may merely know that he dislikes Jews who seemed to be so successful in an order which did not provide a satisfactory place for him, and that he loves and admires the tall blond man, the “aristocratic” figure of the novels of his youth. So he will readily embrace theories which seem to provide a rational justification for the prejudices which he shares with many of his fellows (bold italics added for emphasis, p. 173).

Five days before presidential elections in November 2007, Barack Obama announced “We are five days away from fundamentally changing the United States of America.”  He explicitly promised new policies to create a new hierarchical order.  He was explicit about more aggressively taxing the top 1% of income earners in America because there was no satisfactory place for them in his vision of America.

We see now the significant effect narratives (novels or otherwise) have had on our youth when a presumably innocent and still naïve teenager can get an international platform to pontificate about the existential crisis of climate change.  She has an enthusiastic choir that not only spontaneously reacts to and rejects opposing arguments, they want to punish nonbelievers.

  

Complementing this phenomenon are prejudicial theories that have so painfully afflicted so many fellow travelers.  Universities now teach, as if scientific fact, the injustice of privileged versus oppressed classes (see Vanderbilt University handout here and Scripps College presentation here).  As a Christian, traditionally married, father, senior, white male, I am privileged (thus an oppressor) in at least seven ways:  (1) a Christian, (2) a heterosexual, (3) a believer in traditional marriage between a man and a woman, (4) a prolife advocate, (5) who is old, (6) white, and (7) male.  I had no choice in three of these circumstances and a choice in four.  The crime in my choices is that they represent values that are contrary to the progressive left; therefore, not only are they wrong, they are immoral.  Leading progressive University of California-Berkeley Professor George Lakoff argues for such a conclusion in his book, Moral Politics:  How Liberals and Conservatives Think.  But Lakoff goes beyond mere analysis and pseudoscience in advancing his prejudices regarding political values.  He developed a handbook, Thinking Points, to train and guide progressives to in turn shape the masses through manipulative narratives and story-telling.

  

Has it worked?  Absolutely.

  

In Jeffrey Feldman’s book, Framing the Debate, George Lakoff authored the introduction.  Here is what Lakoff said:

For most of the past forty years, conservatives have had a clear field, as progressives did little or nothing to counter the ongoing conservative framing of issues.  That began to turn around in 2004, with the work of the Rockridge Institute and the publication of Don’t Think of an Elephant! and has continued with the publication of Thinking Points, Rockridge’s handbook for progressives.  Progressives throughout America have begun the reframing process and it showed in the 2006 election (p. xii).

What are key implications from this short quote?

1.               The difference between conservatives and progressives (liberals) in the forty year period was the differences in their ideas regarding governance and political values, not in the “framing” of issues.  This difference has been magnified now during the Trump administration and it represents what Professor Victor Davis Hanson describes in a recent eBook, Dueling Populisms.  According to Hanson, “Trump has revived the ancient tension between urban radicals who seek equality and rural conservatives who seek liberty.” 

2.              The Rockridge Institute, a 501c3 claiming to be nonpartisan, was essentially one person—George Lakoff.

3.              The books were both authored by George Lakoff.

4.              In 2006, George W. Bush was in his second term.  When 9-11 took place in his first term, Democrats joined Republicans in supporting Bush’s response.  His approval rating reached 90%.  Recognizing no political capital in supporting a successful Bush agenda, Democrats turned against him and campaigned vigorously through Lakoff-style narratives in the media (the Democrat agenda was arguably focused on pollical power, not what was good for America or the free world).  In 2007, Democrats took command of both houses of Congress and laid the groundwork and sustained their momentum in getting Obama elected President in 2008.

  

More recently, Democrats repeated their “framing” to achieve victory in the House in the 2018 midterm elections.  They did this primarily by falsely telling voters Republicans wanted to take away medical insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions while trying to remove a duly elected Republican president through a concerted false narrative campaign.  Lee Smith’s book, The Plot Against the President, should scare the s*** out of every law-abiding, truth loving American. Of course, as I have previously written, the Communist Party USA took credit for generating 12 million more votes for Democrat House races and 11 million more for Democrat Senate races.

Perhaps the best Lakoff-style framing was most recently demonstrated by Congressman Adam Schiff.  I think most objective observers were not only shocked, but terribly disappointed, by his theatrics during a public hearing on September 25, 2019.  Schiff blatantly and grossly distorted the conversation between President Trump and the newly elected President of Ukraine that took place on July 25, 2019.  In his Committee report, “The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report,” dated December 2019, Schiff proclaimed

Our investigation determined that this telephone call was neither the start nor the end of President Trump’s efforts to bend U.S. foreign policy for his personal gain.  Rather, it was a dramatic crescendo within a months-long campaign driven by President Trump in which senior U.S. officials, including the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Acting Chief of Staff, the Secretary of Energy, and others were either knowledgeable of or active participants in an effort to extract from a foreign nation the personal political benefits sought by the President (p. 9).

  

What was the “personal political benefit”?  In Adam Schiff’s words, “dirt on a political opponent” (i.e., Joe Biden).  Nowhere in the telephone transcript is this made known, explicitly or implicitly.  The day before the call, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller had testified before Congress regarding the Mueller Report.  It did not produce any smoking guns for Democrats in their pursuit of “dirt” on President Trump.  After over three years of being under a spotlight for conspiracy theories about collusion and obstruction, President Trump had every right, personally and especially constitutionally, to get to the bottom of the conspiracy against him.

According to Democrats, Biden’s presidential candidacy became a shield against any investigations, even though he is widely known to have bribed the Ukrainian government to the tune of $1 billion to fire a prosecutor who was investigating a company that employed his son.  President Trump was denied any such shield during his candidacy, transition, and incumbency.

Lakoff and fellow progressives (i.e., the Democrat Party) strongly believe in “framing” issues.  From their perspective, the masses are not smart enough to weigh the merits of ideas and policy proposals.  This notion shines a light on the real issue:  the nature of governance.  The left believes in rule by men:  governments (i.e., ruling elite or central planners) govern the masses.  The right (i.e., the Republican Party) believes in the rule of law:  we the people establish governments and delegate enumerated powers to protect our inalienable rights.  The sovereign is “we the people.”  Governments are their instrument in protecting institutions (i.e., “rules of the game”) established to protect our God-given rights.

The left’s moral justification for its “framing” of issues takes on the force of a doctrine.  In F. A. Hayek’s chapter, “The End of Truth,” he explained

The need for such official doctrines as an instrument of directing and rallying the efforts of the people has been clearly foreseen by the various theoreticians of the totalitarian system.  Plato’s “noble lies” . . . serve the same purpose as the racial doctrine of the Nazis or the theory of the corporative state of Mussolini.  They are all necessarily based on particular views about facts which are then elaborated into scientific theories in order to justify a preconceived opinion (p. 174).

  

While Hayek’s use of Plato’s “noble lies” gets an important point across about shaping public sentiment, there is a deeper distinction to be made about lies and doctrines.

  

Simon Fraser University Professor Christopher Morrissey teaches philosophy, Greek, and Latin.  At Voegelinview.com, he recently posted an article,  “The Truth About Plato’s ‘Noble Lie’.”  Morrissey explains that the mainstream understanding of the “noble lie” concept is incorrect.  A proper translation of the original Greek text in Plato’s Republic includes “noble” but not “lies.”  Over the years, “lies” has been inferred as the subject.  Morrissey also argues that an understanding of the context is critically important.  As Plato is putting words in Socrates’ mouth, Socrates is attempting to explain that government guardians will use untruths, even lies, in advancing their agendas, and that it would be better to advance doctrine that represents the truth and wisdom of tradition.  In other words, Socrates argued for noble doctrine (based on truth and wisdom, not untruthful framing) in advancing political agendas.  As we know, the government guardians rejected Socrates’ appeal for noble doctrine, and he was put to death.

  

The left wants Americans to believe President Trump is a liar.  They have not ceased their efforts to politically kill him.  According to them (in particular, I think of The New York Times’ David Leonhardt), Trump not only tells lies but countless “ignoble lies.”

  

Aside from the tremendous volume of noise from a concerted effort by the leftist mainstream media, many Americans can appreciate the real signal at play, mostly through President Trump’s Tweets and a small number of credible news sources.

  

Who are we to believe?  What are we to believe?  In my opinion, we should believe the person who advances a populism that reflects the original idea of our Constitutional Republic.  Democrats have cited our Founders a lot lately even though their efforts are contrary to what the Founders intended.  Democrats argue for a populism of urban radicals seeking equality.  President Trump, on behalf of conservative Republicans, speaks for the populism of rural conservatives who seek liberty, which is most consistent with our Founder’s vision for a Constitutional Republic.  Moreover, President Trump champions liberty for all, rural and urban.

  

Believe it or not, like it or not, President Trump speaks noble doctrine.

Obstruction

by

Gadfly

            In today's version of Planet of the Apes, Congressmen Adam Schiff (House Intelligence Committee), Elijah Cummings (House Oversight Committee), and Eliot Engel (House Foreign Affairs Committee) represent the three Orangutan judges, while President Trump portrays American astronaut George Taylor (played by Charlton Heston in the 1968 movie).  As one may recall in this dystopian production, apes dominate humans that have been silenced by frontal lobotomies and/or severed vocal cords.  Taylor, who had not been surgically silenced, defies the judges.

            On numerous occasions this week, Congressman Schiff claimed that President Trump’s persistent refusal to cooperate with their “impeachment inquiry” (more accurately an ideologically-inspired inquisition) by not allowing witnesses or documents be provided is evidence of obstruction of justice.  There is no doubt that Trump is obstructing their efforts.  However, his obstruction is based on an abuse of power, which is unjust and unconstitutional.

            As I have asserted in previous essays, there can be no justice without truth.  Truth does not need to hide or conceal itself in secrecy.  Yet, an inquisition of a duly elected president proceeds based on anonymous hearsay from an apparent political adversary via secret hearings hosted and controlled by political opponents.  The inquisition-cabal is not limited to Congress.  Now federal judges are collaborating by directing the President’s tax returns be turned over to a politically-driven district attorney in New York and the House Ways and Means committee.  Arguably, these actions violate President Trump’s Fourth Amendment protection to privacy and due process.  It is of no consequence to this power-hungry cabal that Donald Trump has experienced intense scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service and has found no illegal activity.

            In our Constitution, two specific offenses justifying impeachment are treason and bribery.  Ironically, Trump asked the Ukrainian President for assistance in a previous investigation into possible bribery involving former Vice President Biden ($1 billion in loan guarantees in exchange for the firing of an investigator who was looking into corruption of an energy company that paid his son as a director).  The cabal’s framing this request as “asking for dirt on a political opponent” places Biden above the law.

            The more serious offense is treason because it is “the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.”  Those involved in this anti-Trump cabal have arguably committed treason, ostensibly based on displaced loyalty.  How does loyalty factor into this argument?  All the individuals involved, whether Congress, the unelected bureaucrats, or a few federal judges, swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.  Loyalty in this case is not to an individual but to the Constitution and its principles.  While journalists do not swear a similar oath, professional competence demands loyalty to the First Amendment, which is supposed to guarantee a free press.

Trump was Constitutionally elected.  Loyalty to our Constitution requires acceptance of his legitimacy and Constitutional authority.  Unfortunately, the anti-Trump cabal is displaying its loyalty to either an individual—Hillary Clinton or a Barack Obama doppelgänger—or to an ideology that seeks to counter or destroy Trump’s political agenda that aligns with an Electoral College-mandated public will.

This public nightmare may change when Attorney General Barr and Prosecutor Durham complete their investigation.  Hopefully, the results will shed important light on the actual truth.  Then justice may be pursued, and our Constitutional Republic may be refreshed.