VDH:
The problem with the election of President Donald J. Trump was not just that he presented a roadblock to an ongoing progressive revolution. Instead, unlike recent Republican presidential nominees, he was indifferent to the cultural and political restraints on conservative pushback — ironic given how checkered Trump’s own prior conservative credentials are. Trump brawled in a way McCain or Romney did not. He certainly did not prefer losing nobly to winning ugly.
Even more ominously, Trump found a seam in the supposedly invincible new progressive electoral paradigm of Barack Obama. He then blew it apart — by showing the nation that Obama’s identity-politics voting bloc was not transferrable to most other Democratic candidates, while the downside of his polarization of the now proverbial clingers most assuredly was. To her regret, Hillary Clinton learned that paradox when the deplorables and irredeemables of the formerly blue-wall states rose up to cost her the presidency.
And now?
We are witnessing a desperate putsch to remove Trump before he can do any more damage to the Obama project. Political, journalistic, and cultural elites of a progressive coastal culture aim at destroying the Trump presidency before it can finish its full four-year term.
The branches of this insidious coup d’état are quite unlikely anything our generation has ever witnessed.
I. Political and Judicial
a. Warping the Electoral College. As soon as Trump was elected, progressives mobilized to overturn the very architecture of the Electoral College. They organized efforts to persuade delegated electors not to vote according to their own state results — as they were legally or informally pledged to do so. Had the effort succeeded, it would have destroyed the entire constitutional notion of an Electoral College.
b. Challenging the 2016 Vote. Simultaneously, we saw another failed insurrectionary effort, through the stalking horse of failed leftist candidate Jill Stein, to sue on false grounds of voting-machine fraud that would have required recounts in three swing states that Trump won.
c. Delaying, Stalling, and Accusing. Then Democrats in the Senate systematically delayed customary approval of dozens of key appointments of the newly inaugurated president. Obama holdovers such as Acting Attorney General Sally Yates sought to oppose Trump initiatives while political appointees such as Obama federal attorney Preet Bharara complained of inordinate pressures to step down. The normal assumption is that a new president appoints key federal officials of his own party; liberals abandoned this custom and depicted Trump’s staffing efforts as some sort of insurrectionary subversion of the federal government.
d. Recusal. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress orchestrated false charges of “Russian collusion” against Trump himself, based on leaks of false information and fake-news stories, some of them originally orchestrated by Never Trump primary opponents and the Clinton campaign.
No evidence emerged of Trump’s culpability. But investigations were aimed at diverting attention from, and thereby stalling, the Trump legislative agenda. Again, the goal was driving his popularity ratings down to levels that would advance the cause of future impeachment should the Democrats ride the anti-Trump collusion hoaxes to midterm victory in the House.
An effective way to emasculate Trump was to demand recusals, supposedly due to some sort of hyper-partisanship on the part of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes. No sooner had each agreed to step aside from some limited aspects of their investigations than Democrats insisted that their magnanimous recusals were both proof of guilt and yet too narrow — as they pressed on to seek recusals from ever more Trump White house officials.
e. The 25th Amendment. A few of the more desperate in the progressive resistance were calling for Trump to be removed due to supposed physical or mental incapacity — a trial balloon sent up that quickly imploded when only a few op-ed writers and fringe talking heads seconded the idea.
f. Justice-Shopping. To stop Trump’s plan to temporarily suspend immigration from war-torn Middle Eastern nations unable to establish proper vetting procedures, attorneys and activists sought out liberal justices on the federal bench. Such judges in some cases extra-judiciously sought to cite Trump’s campaign statements as proof that his orders were unconstitutional, when the law did not provide them with the necessary progressive ammunition.
g. “The Resistance.” Democratic politicians and media figures announced that they had formed a “Resistance” to thwart all initiatives by Donald Trump. The nadir of this movement came when failed candidate Hillary Clinton announced that she too was officially enlisting — as if Trump were some sort of Hilterian or Vichy figure that required Hillary, as a freedom fighter of the Maquis, to metaphorically go up into the scrub with beret and Sten to ambush and harass.
h. “Special Investigator.” The crown jewel in the Democratic efforts to overthrow the Trump administration was to replay, endlessly, the golden moment of Watergate. Here the playbook was to shout out so many purported transgressions — collusions, obstructions of justice, profiteering, etc. — that their sheer number would demand a special prosecutor, who through months of endless and always expanding inquiries could effectively enervate the Trump administration. By first demanding a special prosecutor, Democrats were able to negotiate downward to a special investigator. Former FBI head Robert Mueller —long a close friend to Trump nemesis James Comey — almost immediately staffed his team with a number of Democratic kingpins. And on cue, “unnamed sources” almost immediately leaked news of renewed and expanded investigations to the appropriate progressive papers.
i. Nullification. Following the model of 1860s South Carolina, a number of states declared that Trump’s efforts to enforce federal immigration law were null and void within many of their own counties and cities. California went so far as to pass a bill in its Senate that blacklists any employer contracting with the federal government to complete the border wall. Governor Jerry Brown announced that he would be forging special climate-change agreements with foreign government — as if his state was a sovereign nation. Nullification was based on the premise that liberal progressivism trumped existing federal law — and that no conservative state or local jurisdiction would ever dare to employ the same extra-legal strategies to nullify federal progressive statutes.
j. Emoluments. A final rearguard effort brought lawsuits by various Democrats under the so-called emoluments clause found under Article 1 of the Constitution. Forbidding federal officials from receiving foreign titles, perks, and profits, the clause was originally intended to prevent the creation of an entrenched nobility. Democrats are suing Trump on charges that some overseas holdings of his business, now put in a trust, are unconstitutional and grounds for impeachment — although not in the sense that Bill and Hillary Clinton profited enormously via honoraria and cash payments to their foundation, while Hillary was secretary of state.
II. Media and Popular Culture
a. Fake News. At the same time of the political putsch, the mainstream media outlets, in particular the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and the major networks, via broadcasts and social media, began an orchestrated campaign of defamation and delegitimization.
The crazier and more diverse the media mythologies, the better. Melania Trump was a former call girl and illegal alien. Ivanka Trump was peddling her business wares from the West Wing. Jared Kushner was a profiteering collusionist. Steve Bannon was a racist, Sebastian Gorka an unrepentant Nazi. Baron Trump was a spoiled, autistic child. The late elder Trump had run a racist campaign for mayor. And on and on.
Simultaneously, there were the daily Trump false buffoonery stories: Trump had screamed at the Australian prime minister. He had leaked Israeli intelligence. He had removed Martin Luther King’s bust from the White House. He greedily ate two ice-creams scoops while selfishly offering his guests only one.
This is the main organizer of Antifa. OOPS! Too general!
This is:
https://twitter.com/vilevillainess/status/877270276978995200
Is there irony that he’s yet another wimpy white dude?
Nah.
The violence his site (itsgoingdown.org) promotes he excuses as necessary to get rid of President Trump.
But he won’t be arrested for violence.
That’s reserved for his useful idiots.
Paid agitators.
And not all of them get favored treatment by their “backers.”
See the box here:
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/anti-trump-inauguration-bully-whines-when-facing-jail-time
so does the left realize that there will not be another election until 2020? have always wondered it jerry brown had secondary syphilis. nullification does not exist under the Constitution. Heraclitus noted that: “eyes and ears are poor witness form men if their souls do not understand the language.” never cut a big one in a hot shower if one is not prepared to put up with the stench. Arron James address at “new style of assholes” that masturbate their egos only to spread quasi-literate semen on paper, the media and in congress.
Learning nothing when 3 of his followers turn violent.
From a FB live interview he addresses one of his kooks.
“Mary, stand up and fight back in every way that you can,” Sanders said.
Last week, a reported Sanders supporter opened fire on Republicans practicing for a charity baseball game.
Poor kids having the attention span of a flea the should resist the DNC that stole their socialists chance away and he traded it for a very nice house on the lake.
OK, so tell me then: What was the intended purpose of the Electoral College to begin with?
Recounts are not “insurrectionary efforts.” There are perfectly sound reasons why there are provisions in state laws allowing for recounts. They allow questionable outcomes to be more closely examined. By the way, Jill Stein wasn’t part of some nefarious plot to keep Trump from being elected. If she hadn’t run at all, Trump might not have won to begin with.
Yeah, right. Shall we talk about the republican Senate’s refusal to allow discussion or a vote on Merrick Garland’s nomination for an unprecedented 293 days? It’s currently not so much that Senate democrats are “delaying customary approval.” Trump has been slow with nominations. He’s also been nominating people with questionable credentials in record numbers. Bear in mind that republicans changed the Senate rules so that a 60 votes are no longer required for approval. Obviously the difficulty doesn’t lie exclusively with democrats, because with the rule change republicans have enough Senate votes to approve whomever they wish.
Which party is it again that controls both the House and the Senate? Apparently democrats aren’t the only ones who realize there’s something that warrants full investigation. And you, Mr. Hanson, don’t know what evidence is under consideration any more than I do, because the central facts of the situation have not yet been made public.
Nunes is out because he’s a Trump tool. Sessions is out because he may himself be under investigation.
I have indeed wondered about Trump’s mental stability. It seems like a reasonable thing to quietly wonder about, given his behavior, his impulsiveness, and the fact that the nuclear button may be on the nightstand beside his Twitter phone. I’m not sure any one man should even be in a position to make certain decisions.
Republicans did none of that in connection with any of President Obama’s immigration directives, did they? Nor, I suppose, did they attempt to block any aspects of the Affordable Care Act through the courts.
That’s part of the constitutional checks and balances system, Mr. Hanson. I would have thought you knew that.
Yeah. We have freedom to express our views in this country, both individually and in groups. Many people really, really don’t like some of the things Trump is doing, or the way he’s trying to do them. They’re letting it be known.
Yeah. The sheer volume of the bullshit, and the potential seriousness of it, demands a close look, without the administration involved being able to shut down the examination. Deal with it.
Jeff Sessions would bust marijuana dispensaries for providing state-legal products to cancer patients. Take a hike, Beauregard. The pier is that way.
Entrenched nobility? That may actually apply.
@Greg: You know why there is an electoral college, unless you are a stump. The popular vote came directly from California, and looking at the policies of that state I dont want them choosing the President.
NY also has a high population of democrats, they get their fair share, as does Cali, of electoral votes.
The states that have a lower population should not be smothered by over populated cities.
It also protects us from the appointing of a candidate which the DNC did and screwed all democrats , how can you want to have an alliance with a party that does that?
@kitt, #5:
Alexander Hamilton, writing in The Federalist:
In other words, it was to provide a safety mechanism, should the popular vote somehow misfire. The Electoral College, being chosen and assembled only on the occasion of each election, would make the process of selecting a president less vulnerable to outside manipulation, and would provide a safety against the selection of unqualified persons by a misguided or misinformed populace. It wasn’t intended only or primarily to be an equalizing mechanism, just to increase the power of small and less populated states.
The left almost had full control to eliminate Constitutional protections. They lost that chance, due to believing in the WORST candidate ever put forth for the office of the Presidency and now they are PISSED.
Liberals are dangerous, as they respect no laws, no rights or no freedoms and we see that clearly now.
@Greg: Its well founded answers like you just posted that make me wonder how you could fall for the progressive agenda… Damn Greg sometimes….I think you are sane, then you show a multiple personality by thinking MSNBCs personalities make any sense at all.
Thus is one difference between a fully blown democracy (none survive long) and a protected Republic. If only the progressives believed more in self reliance and not a nanny state existance, where they joyfully give up freedoms and personal responsibilities to be ruled over by an ever growing leviathan of total control.