I understand you’re angry. I understand you’re disappointed. I understand you feel like you don’t know your country anymore. But I need you to understand something.
It’s how I felt when you helped elect Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Believe it or not, I thought he was pretty-dangerous too. I thought he held some pretty radical points of view, too. Most of all, I dreaded what he had in mind for our country’s direction. And you know what? He succeeded in fomenting, presiding over, and implementing so much of what I feared.
My sister-in-law called two days before the election devastated her family of five’s private health insurance policy jumped $500 a month.
I’ve watched cops protested and assassinated while American cities roil and burn. I’ve watched people tie up traffic and “occupy” streets and places of business.
I’ve seen a chicken sandwich restaurant attacked because its founder supports traditional marriage and a beer company attacked because its owner supports a Republican candidate.
Some of my favorite comedians have complained their comedy is no longer welcome on college campuses because what was once a punch line is now “dangerous speech.” My favorite entertainers suggest because I don’t support their candidate, I’m somehow a racist, sexist, or a homophobe.
I’ve been told tougher screening of certain groups tied to terrorism and more secure borders is somehow anti -American while watching our citizens gunned down by radical jihadists is dismissed as “random acts” of “workplace violence.”
It took hacked emails to discover the nation’s media works directly with one of the nation’s major political parties to manipulate coverage of their opponents and curry favor for their chosen nominee.
College students now account for over a trillion dollars in student loan debt, while job prospects for them remain slim and low paying.
I’ve watched an IRS targeting certain political groups., an EPA that’s made our energy more expensive, a DOE which created a one-size-fits-all curriculum for my kids who all learn differently, a Veterans Affairs scandal that’s treated some of our heroes worse than animals, and a Secretary of State who created an illegal secret means of communication to enrich herself and provide favors with her office.
Perhaps worst of all, I’ve watched an FBI, DOJ, and Supreme Court become completely compromised by the politics of the day and not follow the Constitution and the rule of law. Without equal application of the law, we have no nation.
And you know who presided over all of these things? The man who made me feel for the last 8 years just the way you Hillary voters feel today. But here’s my promise:
My vote for Trump yesterday was to undo all of the things I just listed. I couldn’t care less about Trump the man. I’m not invested in him. I’m not wearing him on my shirt like you did Obama. I want Washington DC, corruption, bullying, chaos, and stagnation in this country to stop. I want to be left alone. I want you to be left alone, too.
I want my government to provide for the common defense and help put more disposable income in my pocket – that’s it. Leave me, my neighbors, my church, my community, and my state to run our own lives. That’s what I expect from Donald Trump. I don’t want and won’t support him “doing” anything to you or me.
Barack Obama, Washington D.C., and the elites of political parties, entertainers, and media companies have been dictating the terms of, and mocking American’s lives long enough. I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with you in fighting Donald Trump should he engage in the same behavior.
But for now, understand this election symbolizes a nation full of people like me who feel like we’ve been getting the back of our presidents and government’s hand for eight long years.
Donald Trump is the response. He wasn’t elected to punish you, or judge you, or jail you, or mock you, or ridicule you if you disagree with him. That’s what the last 8 years have been.
I voted for him with the hope he moves Heaven and Earth to leave you and me alone to lead our lives as we see fit. If he strays from that, I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with you to stop him.
I didn’t vote Trump because he’d inspire me or raise my kids or take care of me or influence my life in any way.
Donald Trump didn’t win because his voters thought he’d govern as a Republican Barack Obama. His voters hope he’ll govern just the opposite. If he’s successful and does it right, you shouldn’t know he’s there.
Every cell in the human body marks individuals as either male or female, with males bearing an XY and females an XX chromosome. Sex is not “assigned” at birth. It is identified anatomically when an infant is in the womb and then confirmed at birth. “In mammals such as humans, the female gestates offspring and the male impregnates the female,”
"“Hardwired to Connect” warns that American children are facing a “crisis” of “mental and behavioral health.” Young people are struggling with anxiety, depression, alcohol abuse, behavioral challenges, and thoughts of suicide, all at unprecedented levels, the report’s authors say. According to one study, by the 1980s, U.S. children as a group reported more anxiety than did children who were psychiatric patients in the 1950s. The report attributes this, mostly, to the breakdown of the family and other fundamental social institutions, which has weakened moral and behavioral norms and deprived young people of the “authoritative communities” that have traditionally provided security, meaning, and purpose.The modern project of the destruction of God, family, community and interpersonal relationships (via social media, cell phones, games, internet, etc) had already made our youth by the 1980's to be equivalent to mental patients 30 years before. These are of course issues far less likely to be studied by our "science" than say the "crisis" of Global Warming, but I can't imagine that anyone over 50 doesn't realize that today's youth are conservatively 2-3 times worse off than the youth of the '80s.
I don't call "progressivism" regressivism as a joke, I call it that because that is what it is. It makes knowledge once accessible to grade school children into breakthrough ideas from PHDs. What is more, the reason why this is so is also obvious to grade school level thought.
Today’s transgender crusade can be seen as the latest manifestation of this denial. It is inherently authoritarian, as other latter-day Gnostic projects have been, because it has to be. Nature and common sense oppose it. In the “Gnostic dream world,” as Eric Voegelin once put it, “non-recognition of reality is the first principle.” Critics who persist in drawing attention to reality must be discredited or silenced. Otherwise, the Gnostic fantasy world crumbles.
The Judeo-Christian vision, which shaped Western civilization for 1,600 years, holds that God created man—body and soul—with purpose and meaning in an ordered universe. But the post-Christian worldview fast replacing it has no place for God, and perceives no purpose in nature. Christian man has become “psychological man” and the soul has become the self, in the words of Philip Rieff. The free-floating self—unconstrained by reality—is now believed to forge its own “identity” through a creative assertion of will.
Over time, public policy making will become impossible if new interest groups attempt to piggyback on the transgender movement’s success, as seems likely. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch now insists that schools accept a kindergarten boy’s self-understanding and treat him as if he is a girl. What happens when an individual suffering from body integrity identity disorder identifies as disabled and applies for federal disability benefits? What if a white male business owner identifies as black and seeks to participate in a federal contract set-aside reserved for minorities? What if a forty-year-old woman regards herself as a senior citizen and demands Social Security benefits? How can policy makers logically deny their claims? As we enter the world of fantasy—when reality ceases to matter—it is impossible to predict where our society will crash against nature, as it inevitably will.
It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing. There’s been some sympathy from the press, sure: the dispatches from “heroin country” that read like reports from colonial administrators checking in on the natives. But much of that starts from the assumption that Trump voters are backward, and that it’s our duty to catalogue and ultimately reverse that backwardness. What can we do to get these people to stop worshiping their false god and accept our gospel?For most Christians, HOPEFULLY, such is very close to an act of DAILY contrition. If not daily, then at least every couple of weeks as we contemplate taking the body and blood of our Lord at the altar in communion with our fellow penitent sinners.
Almighty God,I personally know of no way forward but FAITH, but if the attitude of humility and love can be found in other ways, then I applaud them as well. If 2008 and 2012 were not enough to show everyone that America was broken, then surely 2016 has at least brought more to realize the fact of our abject failure as a people?
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
maker of all things, judge of all men:
We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness,
which we from time to time most grievously have committed,
by thought, word, and deed, against thy divine Majesty,
provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.
We do earnestly repent,
and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings;
the remembrance of them is grievous unto us,
the burden of them is intolerable.
Have mercy upon us,
have mercy upon us, most merciful Father;
for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
forgive us all that is past;
and grant that we may ever hereafter
serve and please thee in newness of life,
to the honor and glory of thy Name;through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The big issue in MSM in '08 after the election was if Obama would be more like Lincoln or FDR, but most thought probably greater than both.
After reading "Team of Rivals," Obama called Goodwin. The senator wanted to talk about Lincoln, so the author met him in Washington. "You really could see even then a kind of confidence and a thoughtfulness," she said of Obama. (Goodwin's book is back on the paperback bestseller list, although she wonders whether it would have caught on in 2005 had she chosen one of the other titles she was considering: "The Great Unifier," "The American Colossus" and "Master Among Men." She said she always wanted a title more poetic than "Team of Rivals," and was fond of "Master Among Men," but quickly realized "we couldn't use 'Master' because of slavery.")
But in the aftermath of the Clinton loss, SNL couldn’t find a way to discover even one comedic moment in their cold opening? It’s fair to say that the creative staff at SNL, the writers, the actors and the producers, as well as the executives at NBC Universal who oversee the program, found more sorrow and despair and less humor in Hillary Clinton’s loss than in the loss of 3,000 lives at the hands of radical Islamic terrorists.As this blog as often pointed out, this is NOT surprising. The loss of power for the left is THE WORST. 9-11 did not affect their power holdings, so it was just "an event". Election 2016 did cut into their power, so it was a DISASTER!
According to an email from Marissa Astor, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook’s assistant, to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, the campaign knew Trump was going to run, and pushed his legitimacy as a candidate. WikiLeaks’ release shows that it was seen as in Clinton’s best interest to run against Trump in the general election. The memo, sent to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) also reveals the DNC and Clinton campaign were strategizing on behalf of their candidate at the very beginning of the primaries. “We think our goals mirror those of the DNC,” stated the memo, attached to the email under the title “muddying the waters.”
All the Clinton campaign had to do was push the mainstream media in the general direction of covering and attacking Trump as though he was the star of the Republican presidential primaries. As the presumed Democratic nominee, whomever she decided to dignify by responding to—whether the comments were directed at her or not—would be presumed to be the spokesperson, or nominee, of the Republican Party.This time, the "deplorable" pawns beat the queen.
Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah ........
Songwriters: Leonard Cohen
“Man was born for toil, since his perfection is always being actualized but is never actual,” he observed in an essay on frivolity. “And insofar as he attains perfection, something is missing in him.After 3 weeks of classes (over a week ago last Friday), where I told my story and listened to many others, this one last Cohen song has to be included .... It is also a long time favorite in which the speakers in my room dissolved and Jennifer was standing right in front of me.
So many hearts I find, broke like yours and mine
Torn by what we've done and can't undo ...
I'd say that there is a Christ shaped hole in every soul. We have lots of "cracks" -- and we do need to admit that -- frequently. On our knees at communion ... some of us have more cracks than others.
Leonard wrote and sung often about God, but I am not sure what he meant by it. Whatever it was, it inspired “If It Be Your Will,” his most exquisite song. He sought recognition for his fallenness, not rescue from it. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” He once told an interviewer that those words were the closest he came to a credo. The teaching could not be more plain: fix the crack, lose the light.
The very rich come under attack, as inequality becomes increasingly intolerable. Patriarchy is also dismantled: “We almost forgot to mention the extent of the law of equality and of freedom in the relations of women with men and men with women.” Family hierarchies are inverted: “A father habituates himself to be like his child and fear his sons, and a son habituates himself to be like his father and to have no shame before or fear of his parents.” In classrooms, “as the teacher ... is frightened of the pupils and fawns on them, so the students make light of their teachers.” Animals are regarded as equal to humans; the rich mingle freely with the poor in the streets and try to blend in. The foreigner is equal to the citizen.
And it is when a democracy has ripened as fully as this, Plato argues, that a would-be tyrant will often seize his moment.In some cases, (Sullivan doesn't seem to realize it), even a leader of such a rabble will declare himself "a citizen of the world" as opposed to the country he is ostensibly "leading" (maybe from behind).
And this year, the delegate system established by our political parties is also under assault. Trump has argued that the candidate with the most votes should get the Republican nomination, regardless of the rules in place. It now looks as if he won’t even need to win that argument — that he’ll bank enough delegates to secure the nomination uncontested — but he’s won it anyway. Fully half of Americans now believe the traditional nominating system is rigged.This was written before WikiLeaks exposed the fact that the Democrat nominating process WAS rigged, as were almost certainly the Republican and the general election -- sometimes, in a storm, even the rigging fails!
Politically, we lucked out at first. Obama would never have been nominated for the presidency, let alone elected, if he hadn’t harnessed the power of the web and the charisma of his media celebrity. But he was also, paradoxically, a very elite figure, a former state and U.S. senator, a product of Harvard Law School, and, as it turned out, blessed with a preternaturally rational and calm disposition. So he has masked, temporarily, the real risks in the system that his pioneering campaign revealed. Hence many Democrats’ frustration with him. Those who saw in his campaign the seeds of revolutionary change, who were drawn to him by their own messianic delusions, came to be bitterly disappointed by his governing moderation and pragmatism.Well, "the respectables" lucked out -- the "bitter clingers" and the "basket of deplorables", not so much. Ferguson, a member of the elite doesn't realize that Obama's constant rhetoric imploring the nation to "not generalize" on each act of Islamic violence, but to sternly wag his finger at Americans with guns and say things like "the NRA and and Americans that own firearms and are not in favor of "common sense gun controls" need to accept their responsibility for this tragedy". Indeed -- and the difference is the elites like Islamists a whole lot better than "deplorable bitter clingers". And it is a surprise that the deplorables didn't like their new name -- nor their lot in life?
The deeper, long-term reasons for today’s rage are not hard to find, although many of us elites have shamefully found ourselves able to ignore them. The jobs available to the working class no longer contain the kind of craftsmanship or satisfaction or meaning that can take the sting out of their low and stagnant wages. The once-familiar avenues for socialization — the church, the union hall, the VFW — have become less vibrant and social isolation more common. Global economic forces have pummeled blue-collar workers more relentlessly than almost any other segment of society, forcing them to compete against hundreds of millions of equally skilled workers throughout the planet. No one asked them in the 1990s if this was the future they wanted. And the impact has been more brutal than many economists predicted. No wonder suicide and mortality rates among the white working poor are spiking dramatically.
“It is usually those whose poverty is relatively recent, the ‘new poor,’ who throb with the ferment of frustration,” Hoffer argues. Fundamentalist religion long provided some emotional support for those left behind (for one thing, it invites practitioners to defy the elites as unholy), but its influence has waned as modernity has penetrated almost everything and the great culture wars of the 1990s and 2000s have ended in a rout. The result has been a more diverse mainstream culture — but also, simultaneously, a subculture that is even more alienated and despised, and ever more infuriated and bloody-minded.Take their church, their community, their jobs, largely their families (by divorce on demand, welfare, and telling their kids their parents are idiots to be maligned rather than respected) ... then call them all manner of names, and ... well, they maybe don't like the elites very much.
