Translating deep thinking into common sense
Will We Go Under This Year?
By Walter Donway
July 29, 2020
SUBSCRIBE TO SAVVY STREET (It's Free)
If you are my age, you may catch yourself saying: I’m glad I won’t be alive …
If you are of a philosophical or historical bent, then periodically in times of chaotic uncertainty—violence in the streets, rising totalitarian ideology and politics—you stop to assess. If you are my age, you may catch yourself saying: I’m glad I won’t be alive …
You might be amazed at the individuals steeped in a positive philosophy like that of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism—metaphysically optimistic, rationally assertive, pro-mankind—who express this sense of pessimism.
Nothing about history is inevitable. Human history is a drama of human free will.
No, Ayn Rand wrote repeatedly: Nothing about history is inevitable. Human history is a drama of human free will. But still, we know that great civilizations, rooted in reason (Ancient Greek) and law (Ancient Roman) have gone down before rising empires or the barbarian night. The last holdout of Roman civilization, the eastern Roman Empire, its capital Constantinople, resisted the Islamic onslaught for several times the entire length of the existence of the United States of America. Constantinople finally fell in 1453 to slaughter, sack, and rapine of the Muslim hordes.
Oh, ancient history! But in the time of my father, a glorious European-based civilization had emerged from the rise of nineteenth century capitalism, liberalism, and republicanism. At its height in the last quarter of that century, it was worldwide. But two closely related ideological destroyers had arisen. Both were rooted in Germany in what is now called the anti-Enlightenment. Beginning with Immanuel Kant (1724 –1804), but also his philosophical successors, the English and French Enlightenment ideas—reason, science, individual rights, limited constitutional government, and the worldwide regime of trade—came under attack from philosophical skepticism (denial of the possibility of knowledge), irrationalism (the claim to knowledge by a leap of intuition to a higher realm), collectivism (the German volk), racism (the German “race”), and the statism and welfare state of Otto von Bismarck.
This admittedly brilliant, celebrated rise of German anti-Enlightenment philosophy, driven by worldwide imitation of German scholarship and universities, led in the nineteenth and early twentieth century to two philosophical progeny that would make the twentieth century a hell of (world) wars and totalitarianism for much of mankind:
- The philosophy of socialism, or communism, by the German philosopher, Karl Marx 1818 –1883).
- The philosophy of National Socialism (Nazism) by Adolf Hitler (1889 –1945) and sundry German thinkers and supporters such as existentialist and Hitler-supporter Martin Heidegger (1889 –1976).
By the 1940s, these two ideological manifestations of the anti-Enlightenment philosophy in Germany had engulfed Russia, which had been on the very verge of liberalism and constitutional republicanism, into a totalitarian socialist dictatorship that murdered some 100 million of its own citizens in purges and concentration camps spread across Siberia.
The same anti-Enlightenment philosophy caused Germany to slip into one of history’s most nightmarishly evil and brutal totalitarian dictatorships, National Socialism, which with deliberation and efficiency murdered six million Jewish people and countless others.
By the 1940s, just before I was born, German National Socialism had the world at war, the most costly war in all human history. It had been enabled, in part, by the agreement of Soviet Russia to a non-aggression pact with the Nazi Germany. That liberated Hitler to turn all his forces against the West. Until, of course, he had the opportunity to attack his socialist rival, Russia.
By the war’s end, one of these dictatorships had been defeated—National Socialist Germany. The other, Soviet Socialist Russia, used the postwar period to conquer and enslave Eastern Europe. At the same time, the Soviet counterpart of Hitler, Joseph Stalin, enabled the communists in China to take over that country. The world’s most populous nation under yet another mass murderer, Mao Zedong, adhering to Marxist principles, became the world’s single most murderous regime. Supported by both Soviet Russia and communist China, the cadres of Marxist Pol Pot killed between two and three million Cambodians—one third of the population.
The United States of America, the world’s freest, most productive, most stable nation, brought to bear freedom’s unstoppable power of production, patriotism of a free people, and loyalty to its ideals to put down Nazi Germany in my father’s time and Soviet Socialist Russia in mine.
And so I review the historical record, the philosophical trends, the politics of our day, and I wonder. For me, it is too easy to be glad I am not going to live to see the final triumph and catastrophe of what today is called “postmodernism”: the name today of the German anti-Enlightenment philosophy that devastated the twentieth century. And that today utterly dominates American universities and with that decisive position also American politics, intellectual life, culture, and media.
She wrote at one point: “a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.”
How bad is it? Following the 2016 election, in America’s “newspaper of record,” a few editors at the New York Times insisted that the newspaper’s reporting and opinion had been totally out of touch with most Americans. They had been speaking only to a narrow audience of what might be termed “liberal-leftists.” These editors had the clout to hire a few special editors to try to bring some mainstream, even conservative, voices into the Times. One was journalist Bari Weiss. Recently, she resigned with an astoundingly powerful, courageous letter of resignation. One could quote every paragraph, but her most quoted comment was that the Times and others in its liberal-left universe were in the grip of a “new McCarthyism,” a “postmodern” (my term), politically correct orthodoxy. She wrote at one point: “a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.”
Ouch! That is from family. And how about this: “My work and my character are openly demeaned on companywide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.”
Ayn Rand, who hardly was an ideological fan of the Times, seldom quoted any other publication.
Should we crow at this discomfiture of the mighty New York Times, which Allen Drury satirized “The Greatest Publication that Absolutely Ever Was” and Gay Talese wrote about in “The Kingdom and the Power”? Sorry. I would like to join you, but I can’t. I grew up with the Times. Every noon at Brown University, the alma mater of the Times’s present publisher, I sat in the Faunce House student union—eating my sandwich and reading the Times. Ayn Rand, who hardly was an ideological fan of the Times, seldom quoted any other publication.
The 1,500-word letter was reported in a story in the Times of less than a half-dozen sentences, although linking (in the online version) to the letter. The brief story mentioned only the issue of workplace harassment.
And this final quote from Ms. Weiss’s letter: “What rules that remain at the Times are applied with extreme selectivity. If a person’s ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinized. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome. Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets.
I can’t dismiss the future as someone else’s problem. I have a son. And the world in which he will live never is far from my mind.
The German philosopher and advocate of Nazism, Martin Heidegger, was a powerful influence on the chief founder of postmodernism, Michel Foucault (1926-1984).
In what form does German anti-Enlightenment philosophy, postmodernism (“modernism” denoting the heritage of Enlightenment ideas and values), dominate American public life?
- It is the philosophical skepticism, and the nihilism, that dominates our universities in the humanities and social sciences and makes their students prime recruits for socialism.
- It is “identity politics”—the equivalent of German race conflict and Marxist class conflict.
- It is the furious rejection in the academic and the intellectual world-at-large of capitalism, free markets, industrial technology, and, increasingly, science.
- It is the interpretation, today, of the meaning of all politics as “oppressors versus oppressed.” In this context of understanding, America’s ideals, principles, and ideology are dismissed, out of hand, as rationalizations of the oppressor.
- It is the resort to violence in the streets as the logical outcome of dismissing arguments and appeals to reason as mere “power politics.” In the postmodern view, discussion is a power play, so let’s get right to the “power”—in the street.
- It is the predominance of insult and invective in public life as politicians, Hollywood stars, and sundry celebrities hurl insults unimaginable even a decade ago. In politics, today, it is only the media and political impact of words that have any significance. The words have no meaning in fact, only as propaganda.
So, take to the streets, hurl insults, manufacture scandals, and attack, attack, attack: If you largely control the media as do the postmodernist leftists, that is the best strategy.
So, take to the streets, hurl insults, manufacture scandals, and attack, attack, attack: If you largely control the media as do the postmodernist leftists, that is the best strategy. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joseph Biden, supports and advocates every element of the postmodernist political agenda. That includes not only fully socialized medicine and elimination of coal, oil, gas and other carbon-based energy, but lionizing the violent protestors and cheering defunding of the police. His only politics are identity politics and stirring up racial conflict. His is obedient to the socialist policy proposals of the left. And early predictions (likely just propaganda) are that he can beat President Trump easily.
Tell me where an old man finds hope. Yes, I have something to weigh against the bitter rise of resignation:
- Ayn Rand, who has inspired my thinking, and whose philosophical analysis first fully illuminated the evil of the German anti-Enlightenment—and its stranglehold today on American universities and intellectual and political life. In her novels and nonfiction are the full refutation, reply, and alternative to postmodernism at every level. More than 60 years have passed since these ideas joined the philosophical and intellectual fray.
- With no remote equation of importance, I also view President Donald Trump as the locus of an American reaction against the grotesque conceits of political correctness, lame-brained Sanders-Biden socialism, and the amazing herd of sacred cows in politics from global warming (a.k.a. climate crisis) to racial quotas, to violence in “good” ideological causes, to socialized medicine, to immigration as a Democratic political strategy, to exploitation of the justice system to attack individuals and ideas. Writing in Breitbart News, reporter John Nolte says of the new draft of the proposed Democratic national platform for the 2020 election: “All Democrats (and their propagandists in the corporate media) have left is the un-American poison of identity politics, which means they have to keep us divided, keep us at each other’s throats, and even go so far as to declare Rev. Martin Luther King’s vision of a colorblind society “racist.” Specifics? The draft platform refers some 15 times to “whites,” each time in a damning content.”
- The American sense of life—the emotional equivalent of the philosophical foundations of Enlightenment America—has given Americans an almost infallible guide to rejection of ideas, policies, and cultural trends that overturn American ideals. See the landmark 1971 essay “Don’t Let It Go!” in Philosophy: Who Needs It by Ayn Rand.
Such as they are, these are grounds for optimism. Certainly, the promise of Objectivism will live if men read and think—and the cultural record survives.
Trump is a powerful short-term force because the strength of reactionism has defeated and reversed many a revolution.
And, finally, the American sense of life, is even now a powerful antibody to the plague of postmodernism in academia, the media, and politics.
Tell me then, because I genuinely do not know: Will we want to live in the future that faces us, now? What will we tell our children to prepare them?
Yes, in the timeframe of centuries, eons, mankind will endure and prevail. But what of the future for us and our children? How do you see it?
-
Can We Profoundly Affect Other Souls in Brief Interactions?
-
Can Social Planning Enhance Individual Flourishing?
-
Has Australia become “Authorataria?” (An Audio Podcast)
-
Freedom in a Global Context: What Japanese Individuality and American Groupism...
-
Ayn Rand’s Aristotelian Philosophy of Human Flourishing
-
Ayn Rand, Aristotle, and the Ethics of Flourishing
-
Could This Be the Most Startling News of the Pandemic Yet?
-
How the Destruction of Property Rights Made Indigenous People Vassals of...
-
Geologist Ian Plimer On the Science and Politics of the Anti-Scientific...
-
Is Chinese Culture Opposed to Individualism?
You illustrated your article with the sinking Statue of Liberty and, of course, this reminded me of the final scene on the original 1968 Planet of the Apes.
Back in the 60s we worried about the death of America, but it was a clean swift death by atomic bombs. Look how far we’ve come in fifty years. Today, as we watch America die, it’s a process of slow, stinking, intellectual rot. Rather than the merciful bullet to the head, we get to observe the flesh-eating open soars, the diarrhea, the vomiting, and organ failure that accompanies the Ebola of the mind as insanity leads western civilization to tear itself limb from limb.
Having been born in 1954 in America, I have always considered myself to be extremely fortunate. Coming after the depression and WWII, and being just young enough to escape the Vietnam war, I have lived through the truly golden age of human civilization, experiencing both maximum peace and prosperity. It is depressing to see how that greatness has been squandered by so many fools that are easily manipulated by a death-cult philosophy and the handmaidens who serve it up. Like you Walter, I also find myself sometimes considering it to be fortunate that I will not have to hang around for the final death scene.
Overall very good piece. I differ from your perspective in two ways:
1. It is very possible that sometime during the 21st century our country will be torn apart because of the rabid socialism being advocated and racism/tribalism that has taken over the Left. The freedom fighters for capitalism have to face the fact that this is really likely. And that it will lead to a civil war. We’ve done that once before — to eradicate real racism that the South was never going to give up volitionally. It was horrible and terribly deadly, but it wasn’t the end of the world. And it needn’t be this time either, if it happens again. There are some reasons to hope what will come out of it will be a resurgence of the original philosophy that the Declaration and the Constitution were based on. Jefferson may have been right that keeping a free country is a difficult thing to do, and may result in deadly conflict in the future.
2. Your list of three items had item 2 as Trump as some kind of foil to the socialism and tribalism and general statism on the Democratic side. However that is wrong. He is the king of the nihilists, and his mind and actions are full of incoherent tribalism, racism, statism, and anti-capitalism, which is not in opposition to the Left’s grotesque ideas. Your position is analogous to the Italians of the 1920’s who were fighting off the communist ideology of that era, and said: “Let’s go with Mussolini who isn’t a communist”. Yet all they got was a devastating strong man perfectly willing to destroy his own country because of his tribalist and anti-capitalist version of statism.
Attached below is an extract from Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore on July 4. Yes, words are not actions, and Trump is far from perfect. But this does not look like a Mussolini to me. No American president has so expressly articulated the enemy before. Ever. And Postmodernism began in the 1960s.
“1776 represented the culmination of thousands of years of Western civilization and the triumph of not only spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason. And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure.
Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.
Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they’re doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing.”
“They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive. But no, the American people are strong and proud and they will not allow our country and all of its values, history, and culture to be taken from them. One of their political weapons is cancel culture, driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees. This is the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and to our values and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America. This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty must be stopped and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life.”
“In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us.”
“Make no mistake. This left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage. Not on my watch.”
One judges a person’s reputation on his life actions, primarily. Trump has spent about 40 years using government largess in an attempt to increase his large inheritance (largely unsuccessfully).
Since he has no clear political philosophy, the closest one can come to divining one from his past 40 years, is that he believes in business being supported by government and intertwined with it. His first major project in NYC was full of money from the City and State to help him build a hotel on 42nd St. He knew how to “play the govt. money game”. He is a strong advocate of using govt power to take other people’s property via eminent domain. He has sought special favors and licenses from state governments to run (money-losing) casinos. These facts and many others indicate he really does have a political-philosophy connection to Mussolini. Il Duce, as a journalist and writer, was the practical creator of “Corporatism”, the melding of corporate groups in the economy with government power. (This is what fascism originally meant.) And the senior “partner” is, by definition, the government — having ultimate control over the corporations.
We have clearly seen throughout the past 3.5 years, in Trump’s words and deeds, that he really believes that the govt, and specifically the President, can dictate everything to any given company or group of companies in America. He threatens companies and individual CEOs in a way that Teddy Roosevelt would have been embarrassed to attempt. So, to then offer up his July speech, while neglecting that whole history, is not correct. The fact that he parroted some statements of our founders (supplied by some anonymous speech writer, since Trump doesn’t read much), is really dropping a lot of factual history. Why use that speech as a representative of Trump? Why not one of hundreds of stream-of-consciousness talks he’s given over the past few years as he trashes genuine corporate heroes who actually power the American economy, while he praises murderous dictators as great men?
I chose Mussolini as a suitable analogy in response to Walter’s article that seemed to argue that trump is an antidote to the Left. Analogies are always approximate, but in this case it actually is a pretty close match in their actual political beliefs as expressed in action over a lifetime.
ARI (presumably the premier objectivist organization) applied for and received a PPP “loan” (translation: taxpayer gift) of between $350K and $1M. Does this “life action” by them wipe out all they have contributed to life-affirming, objectivist ideas? Why is Trump “Mussolini” for his part in crony capitalism, but ARI is not? Is Trump perfect? Of course not. Is ARI perfect? According to your argument above, apparently not. If Trump is not a foil to the far-left, who would you suggest replace him? What I read above is you damning everyone in sight, but offering no alternative. Smacks of armchair philosophy and self-appointed supreme court judgeship.
I advocate voting, if there is a reasonably good third candidate, when the two major parties promote two evil choices. For example, Gary Johnson was a good choice last time. He actually advocated free market ideas and had a reputation for acting on them, as opposed the corporatist “ideas” of trump. To vote for an evil choice is to sanction that choice. Your attempt to attack me as “armchair” (for not voting for trump) fails, because I am not responsible for the errors of the two major parties. And it is not a requirement of being practical to be forced to choose, when there are two terrible choices. “None of the Above” would be a better choice if it was on the ballot, as it should be.
As for the Ayn Rand Institute and their taking of government money. I’m not their spokesman or I don’t know exactly what the deal is, but as Ayn Rand pointed out in her essay on each of our relationships with an imperfect (mixed-economy government) that it is not immoral to take a “gift” from the government as long as you are *explicitly advocating against* such giveaways. Trump is the opposite of ARI in that he *advocates* for such giveaways, while ARI advocates more strongly than any institution out there, against such giveaways.
John, I wrote a long reply to your comment above, but then lost it before sending (BTW, I simply was asking rhetorical questions). So, here’s the abridged version: First, I’m not attacking you. The biggest problem with remote communication is the inability to communicate. Body language, intonation, facial expression, etc., all disappear on the written page. As for my comment, today everyone can make an argument that they’re entitled to reclaim what they were forced to give up to redistribution policies, so to condemn one person or group on that basis is a weak argument. As for the “none of the above” vote, well that suggests objectivist virtue-signalling, not an effective antidote to today’s political danger.
If you think that voting for trump is an “effective antidote to today’s political danger”, you are mistaken.
Here’s an idea:
Write down in advance your convictions about what makes the difference between a moral and an immoral action. Write down in advance what attributes and content of character constitutes the difference between a good and a bad person. Then apply those values objectively to all situations and see what falls out.
I know that ,”but you are dropping context,” may be the probable response; I’ve heard it over and over. I’ve decided that that is the greatest excuse for rationalization that has ever been invented. In day-to-day life, the context for morality is a constant.
John, I agree with both of your points.
Regarding #1, I know that there is a quiet underground of people who still support the idea of freedom, and they may even be a slight majority, but I am pessimistic regarding the coming civil war because, first, those supporting freedom are so willing to sit back and take the abuse heaped upon them (although they will eventually fight back) and second, we have relinquished the majority of institutions (politics, education, media, art, communications, energy, etc.) to the postmodernist Marxists. This leaves our side crippled severely in the coming battle. I’m not saying it’s hopeless, just that every day that goes by is another day where inaction strengthens the enemy and makes actually winning a more remote possibility.
Regarding #2, I’m in complete agreement with your assessment. Vinay posts Trumps speech (obviously written by others as Trump could never string together these thoughts) as evidence of Trump’s true character. How is this supposed to counter all the actions taken and statements made that occur twenty times a day? If there were ever a poster child for the incoherent, it is Trump. Trump is apparently a symbol for some, but he is not a symbol promoting a positive ideology. Instead, he is a symbol of the negative; he is the anti-left, and apparently the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We have seen how that works repeatedly throughout history. It’s not that Trump doesn’t do some beneficial things, it that he cannot be relied upon to do them, or anything else. And it is in this sense that I agree that he is ultimately nihilistic. Trump has definitely derailed the left’s agenda by falling as a huge boulder on their tracks, but his disruption is only temporary. Once cleared away, it will be full steam ahead for the left because Trump will have built nothing positive of lasting value to act as a bulwark against them.
CJ, I like your observations (especially since they certainly fit with mine). In my original post, my item #1 could certainly be seen as significantly pessimistic, but I regard it as potentially positive. You sense that too many good people will sit back and keep getting trashed by the Marxists, no matter what happens. But I brought up the likelihood of a civil war because I think it has a connection to our Revolutionary war as well as our past civil war. It took decades of abuse by Great Britain to bring the founders (who were all loyal British subjects originally) to start to face the fact that the only way out of the tyranny they were experiencing was to stand up and fight. That’s what may have to happen in our 21st century, if persuasion and intellectual change doesn’t come about the way we all hope it will. The Founders each had to, over time, come around to the hard truth that they couldn’t sit back and take it anymore, and they had to issue the Declaration of Independence, which explicitly pledged their lives and wealth to their cause of freedom. A new book out “America’s Revolutionary Mind”, by Thompson delves into this change in mindset over time during the 1750’s to 1770’s.
John, like you I hope for persuasion first and revolution second. As with our Revolution and in WWII, it is possible for the good to sit it out until it’s almost too late and then come back and win the day, but there are also many examples such as the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia and Hitler in Germany, where being complacent is just an invitation for evil to gain enough overwhelming power to become an unstoppable force. That’s my concern for America. As with the Roman Empire, we are disintegrating from the inside. If liberty-minded people don’t get organized and fight back with action, not mere words, we are just going to sink into the mire. As I watch the complacency to the current authoritarian edicts issued by governors, I have less and less expectation that there is enough fight left in us to resist things much worse that are coming.
I’ll check out the book. Thanks
Well, John! It has been a while! So great not only to hear from you, but to know, as a result, you are healthy, as intellectual acute as ever, and still in the fight! I hope that Cynthia is well, too.
Only Donway connection to Brooklyn, today, is my son, Ethan, who lives in Brooklyn. I have published two books explaining and justifying my support of Donald Trump: One is Donald Trump and His Enemies: How the Media Put Trump in Office and, just this month, another book, Why Trump’s Enemies Fail–and 2020 Looks Worse.
Donald Trump is the American sense of life in full-scale reaction against “postmodernism”–the fundamental rejection of the values and principles that gave birth to the United States. In fact, since the American sense of life, as Ayn Rand characterized it, rests on Aristotelian logic and Locke’s political principles–with a strong shot of frontier resourcefulness, independence, and sheer fight—it is the diametric opposite of postmodernism.
It is disturbing to contemplate, for those of delicate disposition, but Donald Trump is the rallying point, the magnetic North, of the American sense of life, today. He is the first genuine businessman to be President; he inherited wealth but ran very hard to build on it, He had to do nothing, given his inheritance. Instead, he grappled with the regulations, zoning, and whole horror of trying to build in New York City. He built outstanding building after building. Top quality, unashamed “gold gilt” and luxury. And the same with Atlantic City. It is not a wonder, after dealing with NYC government, regulations, zoning, unions, community boards..he is a tough, outspoken, give-as-good-as-you-get guy.
He is the first businessman to be president of the United States. Add to that, he triumphed in the regulatory, tax-heavy, crony-laden world of NYC real estate. Do you wonder that as he has been attacked, vilified, smeared, ridiculed–as no other U.S.President–he has given as good as he got?
The American sense of life? He has added no new regulations, only repealed them. The anti-Industrial Revolution of climate change and Paris Accords? It loomed as dominant, the crisis of our age, the next world cause…and Trump came in and said, “You know, climate changes over eons..” And there has been NO US Government attention to that issue.
When Black Lives Matter sought to ignite national revolution in response to police brutality, Trump said: there will be law and order in the cities or the federal government will ensure it.
In issue after issue, I find Trump reflects the American sense of life.
Did the July 4 speech reflect Trump’s ideas? He did not write it. One of the great hopes I see is that someone in that administration is mainlining Objectivism, including “far-left fascism”–pure Ayn Rand.
Okay, he didn’t write it? At a moment of high crisis, vicious attack, brutal pressure on his administration, he delivered that speech as the best defense, the best expression, and, yes, the best politics he had to offer. You think Obama or Biden would give that speech? No president in the last century would have given it.
That is the Trump sense of life. That is what he loves. That is what he feels made possible his glorious success, wealth…
I think there are two key ideas:
Donald Trump is the lodestone of the American sense of life at this moment of crisis.
The American sense of life underlies a powerful reactionary response to liberalism that has gone to its logical extreme, totalitarian socialism. And Donald Trump is the focus of that American reaction.
Salvation? No, reaction is never salvation. It is a struggle to reestablish standards swept away by revolution–revolution that has evolved into the Terror. But Trump’s role in history is to lead the reaction. Our role is to identify and advocate the vision of a new world.
That Trump did not write the Rushmore speech is both obvious and irrelevant. He agreed to deliver it. All heads of state have speechwriters and research staff. Obama has been delivering the same Marxist speech for 12 years now. Yes, the Rushmore speech does not absolve Trump’s prior sins or his mishaps.
But then we have the mixed-up libertarians all spruiking nuclear power. They forget: the energy market should be free. But they market nuclear power, because they are brainwashed by the climate fraud. Ending fossil fuels will end civilization. And Jorgensen also promoted BLM, a terrorist, Marxist outfit. Unknowingly, but that’s what makes it worse. Libertarians are naive. A party that not only gets only 1% of the vote, but has never understood the real NEW Left is not an alternative. Gary Johnson also lost it when he tackled the climate fraud without recognizing that it IS a scam. Anyone who falls for the climate scam is not a friend of liberty.
Maybe only recently, but Trump shows he now properly understands the New Left. The anti-industrial, terrorist left. And he’s willing to oppose it. And of course, hundreds like us, are, too, but we are not able to gain office, gain power, and stop the rising tide of nihilism on our standards. Biden as president will accelerate the death of Western civilization. Trump MAY slow it down. And those are the only choices.
We must prevail NOW!, not in centuries or in eons, but NOW! We must all prepare now, in case the barbarians get what they want out of the election this November. Those barbarians commit aggression, CRIME, just by going after what they’re going after, overtly, thru the mechanism laid down by our Founding Documents, that mechanism being for unalienable individual rights, not for their crime, just as surely as if they were going after what they’re going after covertly, like the criminals we normally think of.
Elections in the U.S. have become shams. They have come to put our rights and freedoms on the chopping block. The election this November puts the REST of out rights and freedom on the chopping block, subject to a majority vote. Elections are supposed to be for how best to keep and further unalienable individual rights during ever changing times wrought by their continuous exercise, not for how to displace them with crime and dictatorship. But, we must wait and see what happens in this election. We might win.
But, if the DEMOCRATS get what they want out of this election, we must wait for them to make their final, total, criminal assault on us under cover of the guise of the mechanism laid down by our Founding Documents. Despite that mechanism, and despite the Founding Documents, it will be a criminal assault taken out into the streets against us. THAT is where and when we must FIGHT BACK. That’s not being ‘sore losers’ like they were after 2016. Its taking back our rights and freedom, with public moral righteousness, from criminals. Arguments will be irrelevant. You don’t argue with criminals. Reason will demand violent physical action, lethal if needed. If we let it go for centuries or eons, it will still happen then. If the democrats win in November, let’s do it now, not centuries or eons later. There can be no majority vote on our rights and our freedom. Mike Kevitt
I don’t blame John Gillis–because the idea now is common currency among Objectivists–but it is slightly wacko to compare Donald Trump in any way with Benito Mussolini. The idea is supposed to be that Mussolini was viewed as the opposition to socialism, but, in fact, was a socialist who merely rejected communist internationalism. Mussolini was a lifelong, intellectual, activist socialist revolutionary, always committed to violence. He first joined the Italian Socialist Party, but was expelled for advocating Italy’s entry into WWI (opposed by the socialist international as using workers at cannon fodder and turning workers of one country against workers of another when the worldwide proletariat should unite). Mussolini studied every leading socialist philosopher, but most of all Marx and Engels. He translated some German philosophers into Italian. When expelled from the Italian Socialist Party, he eventually formed the fascist party, with explicit commitment to aggressive, all-out Italian nationalism. He became the youngest Italian Premier. Then, he promptly eliminated all political opposition using the secret police, he changed the laws and the constitution to create a one-party state, and he sent Italian armed forces rampaging around the Middle East and Africa and the Balkans seizing territories. Mussolini was a lifelong intellectual socialist; he never had any job but politics; from the earliest age, he engaged in violent revolution and was arrested again and again. It was he who inspired Hitler, Franco, and Salazar.
Sorry, but the fact that President Donald Trump opposes socialism, but not completely and in principle, does not warrant comparing him with Benito Mussolini. This is claptrap in an Objectivist wrap. EVERY president of our time has explicitly rejected socialism and adopted much of the socialist (interventionist-welfare state) agenda. What is notable about Mr. Trump is that he is a lifelong NON-politician, a highly successful New York City businessman, with NO intellectual roots in ANY socialism. He has NO known Marxist or socialist or other leftist ideological models. He is a product of the American capitalist system, a symbol of the American dream of productivity, wealth, luxury, and even high romance and beautiful women. He decided to run for President as a frank reactionary, although he would not call himself that.
Reaction against unlimited illegal immigration as a Democratic political strategy.
Reaction against the ideal of “colorblind” becoming racial quotas/affirmative action.
Reaction against environmentalism as clean air and rivers becoming global anti-Industrial Revolution.
Reaction against the Blacks as historic U.S. “victims” justified in revolution in the streets.
Reaction against the “cancelling” of American history’s ideals, achievement, leading the world toward freedom and capitalism.
Reaction against the politics of gutter-language, defaming, shaming, scandal, and idiotic scare attacks.
The July 4 speech Mr. Trump chose to give at Mt. Rushmore obviously was ghosted by someone who truly understands the idea of “far left fascism,” “hatred of American ideals,” and the total defaming of America–a world of difference from criticizing and improving and prodding ahead the country that you love in principle. And Mr. Trump wanted to say all these things at a time of street violence, revolutionary opposition to police, claims of fighting a “police state.” You think he can’t choose his speech writer?
Returning to Mussolini, Mr. Trump has shown NO tendency toward what defined Mussolini: immediate, activist, aggressive politics of international Italian territorial expansion. He has done NOTHING in that direction. NOTHING to use government to eliminate his political opponents. Instead, his entire four years have been about trying to achieve something for America in the face of endless political, legal, media, and street attacks. ENDLESS. And what has he done? Defended himself. Tweeted back at the tidal waves of smears: “Trump is Hitler,” “Trump is Mussolini,” Trump is a murderer,” Trump commits crimes against humanity (Paris Accords), Trump is an idiot, fuck Trump, fuck Trump, fuck Trump…. And so…he Tweets
Mussolini did not deal with political attacks (he did not permit any) by Tweeting.
And Trump carries on. And I now have been driven by anger and indignation and an outraged sense of fair play to publish two books. BOTH have the theme “Donald Trump and his enemies.”
On a Facebook discussion, I brought up the following point regarding the pro and con views of Trump among people who otherwise share a common set of principles — i.e., the audience here. I’ll summarize: I observe that there is a basic difference in perspective between the two groups.
Those that generally support Trump do so from what I will call a local or pragmatic perspective. They look at electoral politics, see two primary choices, and choose the better of the two, in this case Trump over Hillary or Biden. They look at Trump’s actions and see what they perceive as many good results: he countermands Obama’s bad EOs with his own; he reduces some taxes; he beats up on communist China; he supports pipelines and fracking; he installs conservative people on the Supreme Court; he extracts the US from the Paris accords and from the UN security council; and so on. These and other issues affect all of us directly or indirectly, so it’s certainly true that they matter. Furthermore, this group typically argues that we are always on the cusp of political disaster and that this next election will determine whether America has any hope of survival as a free country, or will sink into a totalitarian mire. Given all that, the pro-Trump people wonder why others are so blind as to not appreciate and speak out in support of these actions specifically, and Trump in general.
Those that, for the most part, do not support Trump operate from what I call a global or principled perspective. They (including me) see everything that the other group sees, but do not find it particularly relevant. This is because their goal is not some collective nationalism (to make America great again) but personal; to reassert their individual sovereignty and rights — not in words — but in reality. This is a completely different perspective which leads to radically different assessments of the concretes. From this viewpoint, most of what Trump does has nothing to do with increasing personal freedom. When Obama waves his hand and issues an executive order, that’s a case of a master commanding me. When Trump issues his own EOs, it’s just another case of him commanding me. The results are immaterial in the context of personal freedom; both further reinforce their control and my enslavement. When Trump or Obama set a new tax level, neither is showing any respect for my sovereignty or property rights. Both are saying that I’m their cattle, to be milked as desired. They set the tax level to further their own goals, not out of concern for the livestock. The same thing applies to most other issues. Trump is completely pragmatic. He has no knowledge of the principles of individualism and demonstrates every day that he cares not one whit for them. Trump isn’t even a capitalist. He’s fundamentally a statist, just with a different agenda and modus operandi than the other statists. It is from this position that people judge Trump to be fundamentally bad; not because he harms us in the short run, but because he is actually harming us most severely in the long run — and probably more so than Obama, Clinton or Biden, because he invokes his harm in the name of freedom and capitalism, utterly destroying any remaining meaning that either hold.
To get anywhere, one must first have a well defined goal. If one wishes to regain control over their lives, then reasserting one’s rights and placing government back in a very tight straitjacket must be seen as the endgame to which which every action must be dedicated. On the other hand, if staying afloat for four more years is the priority, then that calls for a radically different set of actions. I raise all of this not to criticize any particular approach since I understand both. I’m only interested in getting people to see the other side and consider it in the full context of their lives.