"What Trump offers is permission to conceive of an American interest as a national interest separate from the “international community”."
Sept. 2015 article:
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9/7/2015, "Traitor to His Class," Julius Krein, Weekly Standard
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"Nothing is more terrifying to the elite than Trump’s embrace of a tangible American nationalism."...
"The
critical question, however, is not the source of Trump’s popularity but
rather the reason his popularity is so shocking to our political
culture. Perhaps Trump’s candidacy threatens a larger consensus that
governs our political and social life, and perhaps his popularity
signifies a profound challenge to elite opinion.
Why is Donald Trump so popular? Explanations range from
mere celebrity, to his adoption of extreme positions to capture the most
ideologically intense voters, to his explosive rhetoric. These
explanations are not entirely wrong, but neither are they entirely
right.
To begin with, his positions, as Josh Barro has written in the New York Times,
are rather moderate. As Barro points out, Trump is willing to
contemplate tax increases to achieve spending cuts. He supports some
exceptions to abortion bans and has gone so far as to defend funding
Planned Parenthood. He has called for protective tariffs, a position
heretical for Republicans, who are typically free traders. Although
opposed to Obamacare, he has asserted that single-payer health care
works in other countries. Even on the issue of immigration, despite his
frequently strident rhetoric, his positions are neither unique—securing
the border with some kind of wall is a fairly standard Republican plank
by now—nor especially rigid.
With respect to his rhetoric, whether one characterizes
his delivery as candid or rude, it is hard to ascribe his popularity to
colorful invective alone. Chris Christie, who never misses an
opportunity to harangue an opponent, languishes near the bottom of the
polls. Or ask Rick Santorum, as well as Mitt “47 percent” Romney,
whether outrageous comments offer an infallible way to win friends and
influence voters. Trump’s outré style, like his celebrity, helps him
gain attention but just as certainly fails to explain his frontrunner
status.
Most candidates seek to define themselves by their
policies and platforms. What differentiates Trump is not what he says,
or how he says it, but why he says it. The unifying thread running
through his seemingly incoherent policies, what defines him as a
candidate and forms the essence of his appeal, is that he seeks to speak
for America. He speaks, that is, not for America as an abstraction but
for real, living Americans and for their interests as distinct from
those of people in other places. He does not apologize for having
interests as an American, and he does not apologize for demanding that
the American government vigorously prosecute those interests.
What Trump offers is permission to conceive of an American interest as a national interest separate from the “international community” and permission to wish to see that interest triumph. What makes him popular on immigration is not how extreme his policies are, but the emphasis he puts on the interests of Americans rather than everyone else. His slogan is “Make America Great Again,” and he is not ashamed of the fact that this means making it better than other places, perhaps even at their expense.
His least practical suggestion—making Mexico pay for the border wall—is precisely the most significant: It shows that a President Trump would be willing to take something from someone else in order to give it to the American people. Whether he could achieve this is of secondary importance; the fact that he is willing to say it is everything. Nothing is more terrifying to the business and donor class—as well as the media and the entire elite—than Trump’s embrace of a tangible American nationalism. The fact that Trump should by all rights be a member of this class and is in fact a traitor to it makes him all the more attractive to his supporters and all the more baffling to pundits....
(p. 2) Conservative pundits have complained for years about the base and its desire for “ideological purity.” Trump shows that what is most in demand, however, is not ideological purity but patriotic zeal. Only a fool would believe that the fate of the Export-Import Bank could motivate millions of voters. It is not a minor and complicated organ of trade promotion that motivates but whether the ruling elite is seen to care more about actual national interests or campaign dollars and textbook abstractions like free trade.
What Trump offers is permission to conceive of an American interest as a national interest separate from the “international community” and permission to wish to see that interest triumph. What makes him popular on immigration is not how extreme his policies are, but the emphasis he puts on the interests of Americans rather than everyone else. His slogan is “Make America Great Again,” and he is not ashamed of the fact that this means making it better than other places, perhaps even at their expense.
His least practical suggestion—making Mexico pay for the border wall—is precisely the most significant: It shows that a President Trump would be willing to take something from someone else in order to give it to the American people. Whether he could achieve this is of secondary importance; the fact that he is willing to say it is everything. Nothing is more terrifying to the business and donor class—as well as the media and the entire elite—than Trump’s embrace of a tangible American nationalism. The fact that Trump should by all rights be a member of this class and is in fact a traitor to it makes him all the more attractive to his supporters and all the more baffling to pundits....
(p. 2) Conservative pundits have complained for years about the base and its desire for “ideological purity.” Trump shows that what is most in demand, however, is not ideological purity but patriotic zeal. Only a fool would believe that the fate of the Export-Import Bank could motivate millions of voters. It is not a minor and complicated organ of trade promotion that motivates but whether the ruling elite is seen to care more about actual national interests or campaign dollars and textbook abstractions like free trade.
Trump’s critics misunderstand his political appeal just as
they fail to comprehend his business appeal. Indeed, Trump is almost
certainly not as rich as he claims he is, nor is his record as
glittering as others’, nor is his a rags-to-riches story....For Trump,
business is about winning and losing, and for real human beings, that’s
what gives it life....
“Serious politics” is believed to be the politics of rational beings on the path to perpetual peace—not men, and certainly not Americans, with real interests that sometimes conflict with those of other nations. Questions of basic policy, if not argued from some victim narrative, are inevitably situated in arcane disputes over economic theory. The words victory and defeat have been banished from our discourse. “Serious politics” is now confined to detached rationality.
Trump, however, is eros and thumos incarnate, and his very candidacy represents the suggestion that these human qualities should have a role in our political life beyond quivering sentimentalism. Trump alone appears to understand that politics is more than policy and ideology. Beneath the bluster, he offers an image of Machiavellian virtù long absent from American politics.
Nothing in our politics seems worthy of being taken seriously anymore. The White House takes to Twitter with Straight Outta Compton memes about the Iran deal....This is precisely the precondition for Trump’s popularity, and his unapologetic mockery of more conventional forms of political theater makes him in some ways the most serious candidate in the race."
........
"Julius Krein is a writer in Boston."
.............. “Serious politics” is believed to be the politics of rational beings on the path to perpetual peace—not men, and certainly not Americans, with real interests that sometimes conflict with those of other nations. Questions of basic policy, if not argued from some victim narrative, are inevitably situated in arcane disputes over economic theory. The words victory and defeat have been banished from our discourse. “Serious politics” is now confined to detached rationality.
Trump, however, is eros and thumos incarnate, and his very candidacy represents the suggestion that these human qualities should have a role in our political life beyond quivering sentimentalism. Trump alone appears to understand that politics is more than policy and ideology. Beneath the bluster, he offers an image of Machiavellian virtù long absent from American politics.
Nothing in our politics seems worthy of being taken seriously anymore. The White House takes to Twitter with Straight Outta Compton memes about the Iran deal....This is precisely the precondition for Trump’s popularity, and his unapologetic mockery of more conventional forms of political theater makes him in some ways the most serious candidate in the race."
........
"Julius Krein is a writer in Boston."
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3/6/16, "German minister calls Trump a threat, Merkel lauds Clinton," Reuters, Michael Nienaber, Berlin
"German Economy
Minister Sigmar Gabriel has branded leading U.S. Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump a threat to peace and prosperity while
Chancellor Angela Merkel said it had always been a pleasure to work with
Democrat Hillary Clinton.
........
The comments by Gabriel, Germany's vice chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats, are the clearest sign yet that ruling politicians in Europe are increasingly worried about the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections."...
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Tony Blair and other "European observers" apparently thought we'd agree to our own genocide as readily as Europeans have to theirs:
3/6/16, "Tony Blair: Europeans anxious about a Trump presidency," The Hill, Harper Neidig
"Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed concern about the United States' presidential race on Sunday, saying that European observers are anxious about the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House.
In a radio interview with John Catsimatidis, Blair was asked his opinion on the presidential race and responded by laughing. Catsimatidis asked if he was laughing because of the "entertainment value" of Trump's candidacy."...
........
The comments by Gabriel, Germany's vice chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats, are the clearest sign yet that ruling politicians in Europe are increasingly worried about the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections."...
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Tony Blair and other "European observers" apparently thought we'd agree to our own genocide as readily as Europeans have to theirs:
3/6/16, "Tony Blair: Europeans anxious about a Trump presidency," The Hill, Harper Neidig
"Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed concern about the United States' presidential race on Sunday, saying that European observers are anxious about the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House.
In a radio interview with John Catsimatidis, Blair was asked his opinion on the presidential race and responded by laughing. Catsimatidis asked if he was laughing because of the "entertainment value" of Trump's candidacy."...
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More on Europe's elites who've launched Civil War against trusting citizens, Jan. 2015 article:
1/7/2015, "The European Civil War: Elites vs People in a Fight for Survival," Gerald Warner, Breitbart London
"Europe is in a state of war: specifically, a civil war between the self-appointed elites who have destroyed much of the continent’s freedom, culture and prosperity and the insurgent populations they have deceived and enslaved. This is a war to the death; only one side can survive the outcome....
The people of Germany, like those of many other European countries, are feeling increasingly desperate about the imposition upon them of mass immigration – an inflow that is unending and which is largely composed of Muslims who are hostile to Christianity and the indigenous culture.
Well, you might think, that is a serious situation; but fortunately Germany is a representative democracy and when citizens make their concerns known to their representatives, the government will surely take steps to help them. Not so. German Chancellor Angela Merkel used her New Year's Eve address to vilify her fellow citizens in the Pegida movement who are protesting against the Islamisation of the West.
According to their chancellor, these people who simply wish to live in a country that is recognisably Germany “have prejudice, coldness, even hatred in their hearts”. Yet the number of asylum seekers in Germany rose to 200,000 in the past year – quadruple the figure for 2012 – and immigration reached a 20-year high. There are similar situations across Europe.
But the governments of Germany, Britain and other EU states are not simply behaving incompetently and allowing their populations to be overrun through their ineptness. On the contrary, they are actively promoting the destruction of their own societies, in the interests of globalisation and the elimination of national identities and cultures.
Merkel has mobilised all the forces at her disposal in an attempt to suppress the incipient rebellion against liberal totalitarianism. All the usual suspects have rallied to the regime: the state broadcaster, Germany’s legacy parties, the financial establishment, the churches…The Catholic Church, whose adherents are the victims of mass murder in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria and every other country where jihadism is running rampant, switched off the lights of Cologne Cathedral to obscure the Pegida marchers who are trying to prevent a further influx of Muslims into Europe.
Turkeys voting for Christmas? Yes, because senior clerics in Germany are concerned only with trousering the massive handouts the government lavishes on registered denominations: rendering unto Caesar is the priority of organised religion in Germany. What Frau Merkel wants, she gets.
Naturally, Rentamob has organised counter-demonstrations, the ones that will be given prominence by the BBC. Violent leftists are trying to prevent the Pegida marches from spreading beyond Dresden to the rest of Germany, where polls show one German in three would like to join them. It is the Marxist and Anarchist thugs’ responsibility to prevent that, at all costs, by intimidation.
The establishment will try to laugh off the notion that such disparate elements as politicians, bankers and far leftists could be engaged in a joint enterprise – a crazed conspiracy theory, surely? Consider, then, the remarks made by Peter Sutherland, the “Father of Globalisation”, Bilderberg organiser and uber-Europhile to a House of Lords committee in 2012.
Migration, the Well-Lunched One declared, was a “crucial dynamic for economic growth” in some EU nations “however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states”. Declining populations in countries like Germany was the “key argument” for “the development of multicultural states”. He condemned Europeans “who still nurse a sense of our homogeneity and difference from others. And that’s precisely what the European Union, in my view, should be doing its best to undermine.”
That is plain speaking. A member of the innermost elite confirms the EU’s role as undermining homogeneity. Europe, formerly the most civilised entity in the world, is to be subsumed into a globalised pool of cheap labour exploited by large corporations and regulated by bureaucrats. All distinctive culture, national identity, the Judaeo-Christian ethic and everything that contributed so greatly to human civilisation are to be expunged in favour of profit for the few and state regulation for the many.
Such soft totalitarianism might seem less frightening than Nazism or Communism, but the end product will be in every way as nightmarish. It must be defeated. Until now, the populations of Britain, Germany and other EU states have behaved like somnambulists, passively accepting the projected New Order.
The one consolation is that some people, though still only a minority, are waking up. The movements expressing their concerns – Pegida, UKIP and others – are Davids facing the Goliath of EU totalitarianism. The forces ranged against them are massive and endowed with all the resources of the state and plutocracy. Yet they are the only hope of saving the nations of Europe from cultural extinction. Their one potential strength is popular support. Will you be with them?"
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