theamericanconservative--2020-09-02--Another Opinion Columnist Pushing War With Iran Who Doesn’t Actually Exist

Maryam Rajavi , the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ) holds a statement signed by 31 U.S. dignitaries and former officials in support of the NCRI and its fight for freedom in Iran on July 17 , 2020 , in Ashraf-3 , Albania .
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ( LED screen ) one of the signatories , presents it to Ms. Rajavi .
( Photo by Siavosh Hosseini/NurPhoto via Getty Images ) There is at least one more foreign policy opinion writer from the Mujahideen-eKhalq ( MEK ) whose existence is dubious , based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and statements from a defector from the group .
Amir Basiri , who contributed to Forbes 9 times , the Washington Examiner 52 times , OpenDemocracy , Algemeiner , and The Hill once also appears to be a fabrication .
The MEK is an Iranian exile group for which John Bolton , Rudy Giuliani , and other foreign policy luminaries have given paid speeches .
Dems like Joe Lieberman and Howard Dean have also spoken on their behalf .
But the group has American blood on its hands , has been accused of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system has been described as a mixture of Marxism and Islamism .
Its supporters claim they , and their front group the National Council of Resistance of Iran , are a sort of government-in-exile , despite nearly nonexistent support for the group within Iran .
They also have waged a substantial disinformation campaign in the Western press , in particular targeting conservative media .
“ Amir Basiri and Heshmat Alavi are two fake accounts , ” Hassan Heyrani , an MEK defector told TAC .
“ At Camp Liberty , near the BIAP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the political unit of the organization with some of the persons who grew up in America and Canada .
We worked as a team to write the articles analyzing the Iranian regime .
The MEK put them in The Washington Post and all the newspapers in Western countries.
” Basiri ’ s op-eds focus on the need for regime change in Iran which he claimed is “ within reach.
” The thrust of Basiri ’ s writing – last placed at the Examiner in October of 2018 – is to encourage American readers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the plight of Iranian protesters and dissidents .
Basiri consistently argued against the Iran nuclear deal , downplayed terrorism against Iran , called for tougher sanctions as a method of regime change and highlighted the necessity of Trump working with the Iranian opposition .
“ We are currently looking into the matter , so I won ’ t comment on this specific byline , ” Philip Klein , Executive Editor and Commentary Editor of the Washington Examiner told TAC .
“ But I will say that we have recently instituted more rigorous vetting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limited to asking for photo identification if necessary .
We are especially on guard when it comes to unsolicited foreign policy commentary.
” A request for comment from OpenDemocracy , a site greatly concerned about disinformation campaigns , has not been returned as of press time .
Basiri ’ s articles on Forbes are no longer online .
The list of MEK disinformation tactics also includes fake online since-deleted sites such as PersiaNow and ArabEye and questionable sites such as Iran Focus whose domain was formerly registered under the name of an NCRI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ MEK ’ s recent influence campaign on Facebook spearheaded by the National Council of Resistance of Iran ( NCRI ) was recently reported on last year by Lachlan Markey at the Daily Beast .
Markey explained how NCRI lobbyist Soheila Aligholi Mayelzadeh has helped place paid ads on Facebook reaching between 500,000 to 1.4 million users as part of the campaign to sway US public opinion in favor of MEK and intervention in Iran .
The list of outright fakes recently in the realm of foreign policy analysis is significant : there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ MEK sock puppet Alavi , first revealed by The Intercept , to deepfake non-existent anti-Palestinian activist Oliver Taylor , whose work was placed at highly-respected publications in the United States and Israel .
As Adam Rawnsley wrote for the Daily Beast , “ Badani is part of a network of at least 19 fake personas that has spent the past year placing more than 90 opinion pieces in 46 different publications .
The articles heaped praise on the United Arab Emirates and advocated for a tougher approach to Qatar , Turkey , Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lebanon.
” Geoff Golberg is the founder of Social Forensics , which tracks and monitors online social media networks and disinformation campaigns .
Golberg ’ s run-in and exposure of various pro-MEK personas , sock puppets and boosters came just prior to his Twitter suspension in July of 2019 , the official reason for which was calling an account he believed to be fake and interfering in Canada ’ s elections a “ moron.
” “ Rather than suspending accounts that blatantly violate Twitter Rules , Dorsey instead opted to silence my voice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ along with The Intercept , I helped out ‘ Heshmat Alavi ’ as a sockpuppet propaganda operation run by the MEK .
Remarkably , despite initially suspending the fake account , ‘ Heshmat Alavi ’ has been reinstated by Twitter and continues to disseminate propaganda , ” Golberg said , adding that Basiri – whose account is currently suspended by Twitter – is another fake persona which has been on his radar for some time .
He produced the following graphic demonstrating the interconnectedness of the two accounts : Golberg said he knows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was led to investigate sock puppet accounts fomenting war with Iran because he noticed many oddities about their networks , followers and tweeting patterns .
His further research and analysis led him down a rabbit hole of connections and resulted in death threats , mass reporting of his account and accusations that he sympathized with the Ayatollah ’ s regime .
Rather than the hype over Russian bots , the real danger on platforms like Twitter is fake accounts and troll farm accounts which amplify hashtags , spread lies and bolster the desired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Despite media coverage that tends to focus on ‘ bots , ’ which simply means fully-automated accounts , Twitter ’ s much larger problem is actually fake accounts .
There are more than 100K fake accounts that exist solely to create the illusion of widespread sentiment that the US should go to war with Iran , ” Golberg told TAC , adding , “ Take ‘ Sheldon , ’ @ patrick_jane77 , for example , an account that reflects having nearly 120K Followers .
Very few of the account ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Twitter refuses to enforce their own rules , it is easy to mistake “ Sheldon ” for being a popular account .
Twitter ’ s entire platform is propped up by misleading or inflated Followers/Following counts .
Twitter ’ s CEO , Jack Dorsey , has built a house of cards and continues to commit ad fraud at a massive scale.
” Golberg sued Twitter earlier this year , alleging that the platform engaged in “ deceptive practices ” and hasn ’ t stood by its own terms of service .
Accusations from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conservative itself and senior editor Daniel Larison act as a mouthpiece for the mullahs are part of a broader campaign aimed at maligning the reputation and integrity of anyone who opposes regime change in Iran .
Tweets calling for investigations of TAC also came from noted MEK sock puppet Alavi , MEK spokesman Shahin Gobadi and NCRI ’ s Ali Safavi .
A barrage of accounts retweeted Jazayeri ’ s accusations , many with only a few followers and which solely tweet boosting the MEK and supporting regime change in Iran .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was following Amir Basiri prior to his suspension , as were others closely connected to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies such as Jerusalem Post Iran hawk Seth Frantzman , @ sfrantzman , Jazayeri and a number of other pro-MEK shills .
It is a hall of mirrors amplifying the case for war with Iran , and the ad money from NCRI and pro-MEK accounts seems to have dampened Twitter ’ s desire to crack down .
A request for comment from Twitter was not returned as of press time .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engaging in systematic dishonesty like this has provided a very good reason to blacklist them .
Failing to do so will encourage other foreign interests to do the same in the future , so conservative publishers should decline all content and interviews from the MEK in the future .
This is not a matter of foreign policy differences : if you wish to see the U.S. pursue regime change in Iran , the MEK does not help make that case .
Any publishers or think tanks who are aware of this dishonesty and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group should be considered part of a campaign not wholly different from the last time we were lied into a Mideast war .
Arthur Bloom is the managing editor of TAC .
Paul Brian is a freelance journalist .
He has reported for the BBC , Reuters , and Foreign Policy , and contributed to The Week , The Federalist , and others .
You can follow him on Twitter @ paulrbrian or visit his website www.paulrbrian.com .


theamericanconservative--2020-09-03--Not Weimar America, But Dark Times All the Same

About two hundred persons protesting police brutality spray graffiti and start fires at the Portland Police Union building , in Portland , Oregon , United States on August 28 , 2020 , the 93rd day of consecutive protests .
( Photo by John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images ) There ’ s a scene in Christopher Isherwood ’ s novel Goodbye to Berlin where the author goes to visit Bernhard Landauer , the owner of a prosperous department store in Germany .
The year is 1933 and Bernhard shows Christopher a vicious message he ’ s received , threatening to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Bernhard shrugs this off but Christopher insists he go to the police : “ The Nazis may write like schoolboys , ” he says , “ but they ’ re capable of anything .
That ’ s why they ’ re so dangerous .
People laugh at them , right up to the last moment… ” Here in America , it ’ s been easy to laugh at those who have threatened political violence over the past four years , and even at those who have carried it out .
Their rogue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of a campy video game : ninja-like black masks who run through the streets LARPing revolution ?
Mostly white college students screaming “ black lives matter ” ?
I still haven ’ t figured out exactly what a boogaloo boy is supposed to be .
Even after the horror in Charlottesville , the white supremacists yodeling about “ the Jew ” on their way back from the latest Wolves of Vinland potluck come off as more sad than dangerous .
It ’ s easy to laugh at these people , to dismiss @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s easy to laugh until it isn ’ t , until your cities are burning , until you look down and realize you ’ ve been dancing on a volcano .
So it ’ s gone in America today .
Our fraught and volatile political climate has even led some to compare us to the Weimar Republic that Isherwood was chronicling .
The term “ Weimar America ” has come into usage , popularized by writers like TAC ‘ s own Rod Dreher .
Just as in pre-Nazi Germany , these thinkers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now roiled by unrest perpetrated by extremists who have no respect for mediating institutions and view violence as just another necessary means of political expression .
The left is mostly responsible for this chaos , though the right has also gotten involved , at Charlottesville , in Kenosha and Minneapolis , and in Portland where rioters shot and killed a Trump supporter last weekend .
There are other similarities too : hedonism , decadent elites , the so-called center falling away .
Certainly illiberal left-wing militants clashing with illiberal right-wing militants is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And certainly , too , as Michael Davis has pointed out , if society ’ s traditional elements feel threatened by bullies , they ’ re more likely to unite behind a bully of their own , a Hitler or a Franco .
There are also parallels between America and Weimar at the ideological level .
One of the aptest descriptions of Weimar , attributable to the academic Finlay McKichan , is that it was “ a republic nobody wanted ” —and since its ideologues didn ’ t want it , they didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to dream of an abstract and supposedly stronger polity .
Likewise have some American thinkers come to see their own republic as indefensible and sickly .
On the left , this strand has existed for decades , mostly among Marxists who see the United States as too capitalist and imperialist .
On the right , it can be found among the postliberals , who view our Enlightenment roots as withered and who , at their edges at least , long for a monarchy or a Catholic integralist state .
These schools are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ re also hardly representative of America today .
Outside of the ivory tower and Twitter , few Americans deplore their founding or want to see their nation radically overhauled .
The recent Democratic and Republican conventions , star-spangled affairs in their own ways , were evidence enough of that .
Contrast that to the Weimar Republic , whose very formation was opposed by powerful societal factions ( including the military ) .
Demonstrating the lack of public buy-in , before the Weimar constitution was even signed , Bavaria broke away and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years later , right-wing forces under Wolfgang Kapp briefly overthrew the government ; three years after that , Hitler tried something similar in Munich with the Beer Hall Putsch .
In Goodbye to Berlin , Bernhard says to the author , who is English , “ You , Christopher , with your centuries of Anglo-Saxon freedom behind you , with your Magna Carta engraved upon your heart , can not understand that we poor barbarians need the stiffness of a uniform to keep us standing upright.
” That might seem like an amusing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the German military , but it also gets at an important truth about the British and their American cousins .
Even if we now seem to be coming apart , even if our Overton Window is widening , we have centuries of liberal democratic practice behind us , civic traditions and attitudes that can ’ t just be rolled up like a carpet .
These have weathered chaos before and may yet again .
They ’ re at least still sticky enough that even in these frenzied times , we don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the streets , frequent uprisings by communists , regular assassinations of politicians .
One reason for this is yet another important distinction between America and Weimar Germany : we are not an economic basket case .
Though it briefly stabilized during the mid-1920s , Weimar was for much of its existence plagued by unemployment , as well as hyperinflation , which debauched the Reichsmark .
This was a result of both war debt and promiscuous money printing by the government , which under the Treaty of Versailles owed steep reparations to its former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debilitation became intertwined with civic grievance : the treaty was viewed as a national humiliation , and all the more so after Germany defaulted on its payments and French and Belgian troops occupied its industrialized Ruhr region as punishment .
Such deprivation and wounded pride further discredited the government and drove people to the margins , as they sought sweeping answers to sweeping problems .
The result was a political scene that , by the early 1930s , was dominated by Nazis and communists .
America , needless to say , has nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is bleeding at the moment thanks to coronavirus restrictions , but it doesn ’ t compare to Weimar ’ s protracted woes , and while our national debt is a disgrace , there is no hyperinflation to speak of , at least not yet .
We will have to deal with all this eventually , of course , and rehabilitating our economic fundamentals ought to be a priority once the coronavirus recedes .
Cannonball a full-scale and long-term economic meltdown into our current political waters and you could very well set off a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all things considered , I would respectfully disagree with the Weimar America characterization .
The differences are too stark , and given the potency of the metaphor , that ought to matter .
But if we ’ re not Weimar , then what are we ?
One of my favorite books about the Civil War is This Hallowed Ground by Bruce Catton .
Published in 1955 , it begins in the year 1856 with the Bleeding Kansas crisis and the caning of Senator Charles Sumner by Congressman Preston Brooks .
Catton writes : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that doesn ’ t mean there aren ’ t dark clouds gathering on our horizon .

There’s a scene in Christopher Isherwood’s novel Goodbye to Berlin where the author goes to visit Bernhard Landauer, the owner of a prosperous department store in Germany. The year is 1933 and Bernhard shows Christopher a vicious message he’s received, threatening to kill him and all his fellow Jews. Bernhard shrugs this off but Christopher insists he go to the police: “The Nazis may write like schoolboys,” he says, “but they’re capable of anything. That’s why they’re so dangerous. People laugh at them, right up to the last moment…”
Here in America, it’s been easy to laugh at those who have threatened political violence over the past four years, and even at those who have carried it out. Their rogue’s gallery can look like something out of a campy video game: ninja-like black masks who run through the streets LARPing revolution? Mostly white college students screaming “black lives matter”? I still haven’t figured out exactly what a boogaloo boy is supposed to be. Even after the horror in Charlottesville, the white supremacists yodeling about “the Jew” on their way back from the latest Wolves of Vinland potluck come off as more sad than dangerous. It’s easy to laugh at these people, to dismiss them as dorks and thumbsuckers; it’s easy to laugh until it isn’t, until your cities are burning, until you look down and realize you’ve been dancing on a volcano.
So it’s gone in America today. Our fraught and volatile political climate has even led some to compare us to the Weimar Republic that Isherwood was chronicling. The term “Weimar America” has come into usage, popularized by writers like TAC‘s own Rod Dreher. Just as in pre-Nazi Germany, these thinkers say, America’s streets are now roiled by unrest perpetrated by extremists who have no respect for mediating institutions and view violence as just another necessary means of political expression. The left is mostly responsible for this chaos, though the right has also gotten involved, at Charlottesville, in Kenosha and Minneapolis, and in Portland where rioters shot and killed a Trump supporter last weekend. There are other similarities too: hedonism, decadent elites, the so-called center falling away.
Certainly illiberal left-wing militants clashing with illiberal right-wing militants is a portent right out of the 1930s. And certainly, too, as Michael Davis has pointed out, if society’s traditional elements feel threatened by bullies, they’re more likely to unite behind a bully of their own, a Hitler or a Franco. There are also parallels between America and Weimar at the ideological level. One of the aptest descriptions of Weimar, attributable to the academic Finlay McKichan, is that it was “a republic nobody wanted”—and since its ideologues didn’t want it, they didn’t hesitate to look beyond it, to dream of an abstract and supposedly stronger polity. Likewise have some American thinkers come to see their own republic as indefensible and sickly. On the left, this strand has existed for decades, mostly among Marxists who see the United States as too capitalist and imperialist. On the right, it can be found among the postliberals, who view our Enlightenment roots as withered and who, at their edges at least, long for a monarchy or a Catholic integralist state.
These schools are on the rise among intellectuals, but they’re also hardly representative of America today. Outside of the ivory tower and Twitter, few Americans deplore their founding or want to see their nation radically overhauled. The recent Democratic and Republican conventions, star-spangled affairs in their own ways, were evidence enough of that. Contrast that to the Weimar Republic, whose very formation was opposed by powerful societal factions (including the military). Demonstrating the lack of public buy-in, before the Weimar constitution was even signed, Bavaria broke away and formed its own socialist state. Two years later, right-wing forces under Wolfgang Kapp briefly overthrew the government; three years after that, Hitler tried something similar in Munich with the Beer Hall Putsch.
In Goodbye to Berlin, Bernhard says to the author, who is English, “You, Christopher, with your centuries of Anglo-Saxon freedom behind you, with your Magna Carta engraved upon your heart, cannot understand that we poor barbarians need the stiffness of a uniform to keep us standing upright.” That might seem like an amusing observation today, given the paltry state of the German military, but it also gets at an important truth about the British and their American cousins. Even if we now seem to be coming apart, even if our Overton Window is widening, we have centuries of liberal democratic practice behind us, civic traditions and attitudes that can’t just be rolled up like a carpet. These have weathered chaos before and may yet again. They’re at least still sticky enough that even in these frenzied times, we don’t have rogue bands of Freikorps roving the streets, frequent uprisings by communists, regular assassinations of politicians.
One reason for this is yet another important distinction between America and Weimar Germany: we are not an economic basket case. Though it briefly stabilized during the mid-1920s, Weimar was for much of its existence plagued by unemployment, as well as hyperinflation, which debauched the Reichsmark. This was a result of both war debt and promiscuous money printing by the government, which under the Treaty of Versailles owed steep reparations to its former World War I enemies. This economic debilitation became intertwined with civic grievance: the treaty was viewed as a national humiliation, and all the more so after Germany defaulted on its payments and French and Belgian troops occupied its industrialized Ruhr region as punishment. Such deprivation and wounded pride further discredited the government and drove people to the margins, as they sought sweeping answers to sweeping problems. The result was a political scene that, by the early 1930s, was dominated by Nazis and communists.
America, needless to say, has nothing that even approaches this. Our economy is bleeding at the moment thanks to coronavirus restrictions, but it doesn’t compare to Weimar’s protracted woes, and while our national debt is a disgrace, there is no hyperinflation to speak of, at least not yet. We will have to deal with all this eventually, of course, and rehabilitating our economic fundamentals ought to be a priority once the coronavirus recedes. Cannonball a full-scale and long-term economic meltdown into our current political waters and you could very well set off a tidal wave. But right now, all things considered, I would respectfully disagree with the Weimar America characterization. The differences are too stark, and given the potency of the metaphor, that ought to matter.
But if we’re not Weimar, then what are we? One of my favorite books about the Civil War is This Hallowed Ground by Bruce Catton. Published in 1955, it begins in the year 1856 with the Bleeding Kansas crisis and the caning of Senator Charles Sumner by Congressman Preston Brooks. Catton writes:
Angry words were about the only kind anyone cared to use these days. Men seemed tired of the reasoning process. Instead of trying to convert one’s opponents it was simpler just to denounce them, no matter what unmeasured denunciation might lead to. …He had not been trying to persuade. No one was these days; a political leader addressed his own following, not the opposition. Sumner had been trying to inflame, to arouse, to confirm the hatreds and angers that already existed.
We may not be Weimar, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t dark clouds gathering on our horizon.


theamericanconservative--2020-09-03--The Anarchist Case for Small Business

The Anarchist Case for Small Business

It ’ s been a brutal year for locally owned shops and restaurants .
The COVID-19 outbreak and the accompanying lockdowns shuttered storefronts and exiled customers .
Pandemic relief efforts aimed at small businesses were ruthlessly exploited by big corporations .
According to the New York Times , a third of New York City ’ s locally owned businesses may never reopen after quarantine is lifted .
Then came the riots .
From Minneapolis to Portland to Kenosha , small business owners have borne the brunt of recent disorders .
According to a lawsuit , armed vigilantes in the short-lived @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Tearful day-after videos from dispossessed restaurateurs and clips of violent confrontations between shopkeepers and looters routinely circulate on social media .
Many independent stores will never reopen .
Target has the financial and logistical wherewithal to rebuild , but your local bakery or takeout place may not be so lucky .
Media coverage of small business losses has been largely unsympathetic .
CNN chyrons characterize violent protests as “ mostly peaceful.
” Property damage , even the wholesale destruction of shops and restaurants , is disparaged as trivial compared to police killings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ destruction and violence go hand in hand ) .
National Public Radio recently published a credulous interview with the author of In Defense of Looting , who seems to think that vandals carefully distinguish between independently owned shops and national chains when running riot through a neighborhood .
This barely concealed disdain for small businesses has deep roots among the intelligentsia .
Start-up entrepreneurs and titans of industry are relentlessly celebrated by the American Right , but shopkeepers and small business owners are notably lacking in sex appeal .
And despite their precarious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left-wing street cred of the working class .
As the idiosyncratic academic James C. Scott writes in Two Cheers for Anarchism , the petit bourgeoisie have long been despised by Marxists as unreliable allies of the proletariat .
They are also disfavored by the state .
Scott notes that small property owners are more agile than big businesses , and thus more likely to evade extractive agencies .
One more reason why both the left and the right prefer Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to the little shop around the corner .
There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for defending small businesses on the grounds of autonomy and human flourishing .
Scott writes from an anarchist perspective , but his view of the much-maligned petit bourgeoisie is about as far as you can get from the self-described anarchists of Antifa .
Owning a small shop or restaurant , writes Scott , is a zone of personal autonomy in a world dominated by large institutions .
For many , the chance to set your own hours and be your own boss is considerably more attractive than taking orders from a manager .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that smallholders and business owners often cling to independence in the face of financial hardship .
Thriving small businesses also provide benefits that are almost impossible to quantify in purely economic terms .
A locally owned coffee shop , bakery , or restaurant knits a community together by providing space for casual human interaction that is too often lost at a big box store , with its high employee turnover and single-minded focus on efficiency .
Drawing on the work of urban theorist Jane Jacobs , Scott also notes that small businesses help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and providing “ eyes on the street ” to informally monitor public spaces .
In Eastern Europe , people joke that nosy grandmothers peering out from balconies are the local equivalent of closed circuit TV surveillance .
Beneath the humor lies an important insight into the nature of urban society .
This last point raises a worrying possibility about the future of American cities .
As crime spikes and shop fronts are boarded up , the decline of small business may drive a continuing spiral of lawlessness and disorder .
Fewer shops mean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the street ” to monitor public safety .
As disorder spreads and neighborhoods are progressively deserted , more small businesses will permanently close or relocate .
Shop and restaurant closures may do as much damage to public safety as cuts in police funding .
The lack of sympathy for independent owners is particularly strange given the near-universal appreciation for the aesthetic benefits of a thriving small business community .
Before the riots , cultural tastemakers conspicuously celebrated neighborhood restaurants , locally sourced produce , and independent bookstores .
The economic impact of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ financial support for struggling restaurateurs .
In the wake of the riots , however , condemnations of looting and arson have been strangely muted .
As consumers , it ’ s easy to appreciate the atmospheric benefits of locally owned shops and restaurants , but we are increasingly detached from the day-to-day realities of small business ownership .
From academia to multinational corporations to the administrative state , consolidation , bureaucracy , and bigness are the order of the day .
Even before the riots , entrepreneurship and small business creation was on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have insurance , ” a common response to property damage from the online left , is only persuasive if you ’ ve never actually wrangled with an insurance company .
The institutional convergence of big business , academia , and government has created a culture inimical to the character of the independent business owner .
This is a troubling development .
As Scott writes , citizens in Western democracies experience “ a relatively open public sphere but a quotidian institutional experience that is…encouraging and often rewarding caution , deference , servility , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seminars , and monthly performance reviews are unlikely to produce bold and independent thinkers .
In short , the norms of obedience bred by our most important institutions are at odds with the habits of self-reliance vital to our democracy , habits that are also instilled by small business ownership .
Thomas Jefferson believed that a society of independent farmers was best for the preservation of republican virtue .
“ [ A ] lthough [ small business owners ] might not quite measure up to the Jeffersonian democratic ideal of the self-confident , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writes Scott , “ they approach it far more closely than the clerk at Wal-Mart or Home Depot.
” Or , for that matter , the federal subcontractor , the harried adjunct professor , the mid-level corporate manager .
These hidden cultural costs to a declining small business sector are worth considering the next time NPR wishes to entertain the benefits of looting .
Will Collins is an English teacher who lives and works in Eger , Hungary .

It’s been a brutal year for locally owned shops and restaurants. The COVID-19 outbreak and the accompanying lockdowns shuttered storefronts and exiled customers. Pandemic relief efforts aimed at small businesses were ruthlessly exploited by big corporations. According to the New York Times, a third of New York City’s locally owned businesses may never reopen after quarantine is lifted.
Then came the riots. From Minneapolis to Portland to Kenosha, small business owners have borne the brunt of recent disorders. According to a lawsuit, armed vigilantes in the short-lived Seattle autonomous zone threatened local shop owners. Tearful day-after videos from dispossessed restaurateurs and clips of violent confrontations between shopkeepers and looters routinely circulate on social media. Many independent stores will never reopen. Target has the financial and logistical wherewithal to rebuild, but your local bakery or takeout place may not be so lucky.
Media coverage of small business losses has been largely unsympathetic. CNN chyrons characterize violent protests as “mostly peaceful.” Property damage, even the wholesale destruction of shops and restaurants, is disparaged as trivial compared to police killings (never mind the fact that property destruction and violence go hand in hand). National Public Radio recently published a credulous interview with the author of In Defense of Looting, who seems to think that vandals carefully distinguish between independently owned shops and national chains when running riot through a neighborhood.
This barely concealed disdain for small businesses has deep roots among the intelligentsia. Start-up entrepreneurs and titans of industry are relentlessly celebrated by the American Right, but shopkeepers and small business owners are notably lacking in sex appeal. And despite their precarious existence, this group also lacks the left-wing street cred of the working class. As the idiosyncratic academic James C. Scott writes in Two Cheers for Anarchism, the petit bourgeoisie have long been despised by Marxists as unreliable allies of the proletariat. They are also disfavored by the state. Scott notes that small property owners are more agile than big businesses, and thus more likely to evade extractive agencies. One more reason why both the left and the right prefer Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to the little shop around the corner.
There is, however, a strong case for defending small businesses on the grounds of autonomy and human flourishing. Scott writes from an anarchist perspective, but his view of the much-maligned petit bourgeoisie is about as far as you can get from the self-described anarchists of Antifa. Owning a small shop or restaurant, writes Scott, is a zone of personal autonomy in a world dominated by large institutions. For many, the chance to set your own hours and be your own boss is considerably more attractive than taking orders from a manager. Indeed, the idea is so attractive that smallholders and business owners often cling to independence in the face of financial hardship.
Thriving small businesses also provide benefits that are almost impossible to quantify in purely economic terms. A locally owned coffee shop, bakery, or restaurant knits a community together by providing space for casual human interaction that is too often lost at a big box store, with its high employee turnover and single-minded focus on efficiency. Drawing on the work of urban theorist Jane Jacobs, Scott also notes that small businesses help keep neighborhoods safe by attracting foot traffic and providing “eyes on the street” to informally monitor public spaces. In Eastern Europe, people joke that nosy grandmothers peering out from balconies are the local equivalent of closed circuit TV surveillance. Beneath the humor lies an important insight into the nature of urban society.
This last point raises a worrying possibility about the future of American cities. As crime spikes and shop fronts are boarded up, the decline of small business may drive a continuing spiral of lawlessness and disorder. Fewer shops mean less foot traffic and fewer “eyes on the street” to monitor public safety. As disorder spreads and neighborhoods are progressively deserted, more small businesses will permanently close or relocate. Shop and restaurant closures may do as much damage to public safety as cuts in police funding.
The lack of sympathy for independent owners is particularly strange given the near-universal appreciation for the aesthetic benefits of a thriving small business community. Before the riots, cultural tastemakers conspicuously celebrated neighborhood restaurants, locally sourced produce, and independent bookstores. The economic impact of lockdowns provoked an outpouring of sympathy and financial support for struggling restaurateurs. In the wake of the riots, however, condemnations of looting and arson have been strangely muted.
As consumers, it’s easy to appreciate the atmospheric benefits of locally owned shops and restaurants, but we are increasingly detached from the day-to-day realities of small business ownership. From academia to multinational corporations to the administrative state, consolidation, bureaucracy, and bigness are the order of the day. Even before the riots, entrepreneurship and small business creation was on the decline. “At least they have insurance,” a common response to property damage from the online left, is only persuasive if you’ve never actually wrangled with an insurance company.
The institutional convergence of big business, academia, and government has created a culture inimical to the character of the independent business owner. This is a troubling development. As Scott writes, citizens in Western democracies experience “a relatively open public sphere but a quotidian institutional experience that is…encouraging and often rewarding caution, deference, servility, and conformity.” HR workshops, corporate sensitivity seminars, and monthly performance reviews are unlikely to produce bold and independent thinkers.
In short, the norms of obedience bred by our most important institutions are at odds with the habits of self-reliance vital to our democracy, habits that are also instilled by small business ownership. Thomas Jefferson believed that a society of independent farmers was best for the preservation of republican virtue. “[A]lthough [small business owners] might not quite measure up to the Jeffersonian democratic ideal of the self-confident, independent, land-owning yeoman farmer,” writes Scott, “they approach it far more closely than the clerk at Wal-Mart or Home Depot.” Or, for that matter, the federal subcontractor, the harried adjunct professor, the mid-level corporate manager. These hidden cultural costs to a declining small business sector are worth considering the next time NPR wishes to entertain the benefits of looting.
Will Collins is an English teacher who lives and works in Eger, Hungary.


theamericanconservative--2020-09-07--After Trump Loss, ‘Deplorables’ Will Be the Democrats’ First Target

If President Trump loses his reelection bid in November , as appears likely , the greatest victims of his presidency will have been his own constituency—the Americans who have given him his consistent but sub-par approval rating of between 39 percent and 43 percent throughout his tenure .
And when the new Democratic regime takes over , those people will become its target of choice .
We know who they are : largely white , more male than female , generally older than 45 , largely blue collar , educated through high school but not much beyond , agitated particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few decades , with widespread feelings that their financial standing in the country has been increasingly constricted .
They are nationalist in outlook , not globalist , with strong feelings of traditional patriotism of the kind that guided their parents and grandparents .
They believe the nation ’ s elites—those with the power and money , who dominate the political discourse and set the national agenda—look down on them with contempt and view them as “ deplorables , ” in Hillary Clinton ’ s famous epithet .
Many of them don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A Pew Research Center study during the 2016 primaries revealed that fewer than half of Trump supporters ascribed any favorable traits to him .
Many didn ’ t consider him well informed , admirable , or even honest .
But , based on their consistent support for the president over the past four years , it seems that they view him as standing between them and an emerging Democratic coalition , whose policy prescriptions pose an economic threat to them and would otherwise marginalize them in American society .
They see the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know that , should the Dems take complete power over the federal government in January , it will go even worse for them than it has over the past quarter century .
U.S. borders will become more porous , largely through executive action .
Asylum policies will be loosened up .
Pro-immigrant legislation , such as free medical care for illegals , will serve as an enticement for greater illegal entry .
A path to legal status , or even citizenship , will be pushed through .
All this will devastate wage rates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Trump constituency .
It also will serve over time to generate millions of new Democratic voters who will overwhelm the beleaguered white middle class .
The Democratic elite will resuscitate the free-trade policies of recent decades , thus reviving the deterioration of industrial America that Trump sought to reverse .
The further evaporation of working-class industrial jobs will deliver another financial blow to his constituency .
A likely return to humanitarian interventionism , meanwhile , will lead to new foreign wars , sap the nation ’ s resources , stir internal frictions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Middle America into the maw of conflict .
Then there is the cultural onslaught in store for Trump voters when the Democrats take over .
The brutal enforcement of political correctness has escaped the campus and invaded everyday America .
This poses ominous implications for Trump voters , whose political leanings , though largely defensive in nature , are widely equated with racism , the most dangerous epithet that can be hurled at anyone in today ’ s America .
Trump supporters can see the shape of things to come when they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in restaurants and bars , yelling “ silence is violence ” into their faces and demanding gestures of support .
They can ’ t miss the implications of protests turning into violent riots , with property destroyed , businesses obliterated , downtowns turned into war zones , even violence perpetrated on innocent people with the wrong views—all while police forces in cities throughout America , hobbled by anti-police zealotry ( or intimidation ) on the part of liberal local officials , stand by and watch .
The Trump voters know that these small-business @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no doubt with a higher proportion of immigrants ) , whose security and livelihoods matter not at all to the cadres of destruction .
These people may not be as well-educated as the folks of the top 10 percent that constitute the core of the elites , but they ’ re not dumb .
And they know that they represent the ultimate target , the final hardcore opposition to the globalist , open-border , free-trade , American exceptionalism , BLM , power-hungry elites of America .
And , when they see windows smashed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cities in chaos , and Democratic politicians ignoring all of it , they can ’ t help taking it a bit personally .
What went wrong ?
Trump went wrong .
He built his constituency by exposing to America the fundamental political reality of 2016—namely , the widening chasm between Middle America and its bicoastal elites of big media , government officials , think tanks , big tech , burgeoning financial institutions , the federal deep state , and mavens of popular culture .
He pulled his voters together into a tight knot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intimidation and self-interest .
But then he couldn ’ t build on it .
He could never take his 43 percent support and find a way to add another 10 percent by devising policies designed to operate on the political margin .
Bill Clinton had a word for it— “ triangulation , ” meaning the art of building coalitions of people and institutions that constitute majority sentiment on well-chosen issues .
A well-crafted grand strategy on immigration probably could have served the purpose , had there been sufficient compromise involved .
A success @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helped .
A big factor could have been a foreign policy success fulfilling the president ’ s promise of reducing America ’ s military footprint overseas .
A use of language and a comportment signifying a sense of national unity , at least to the point of creating a majority coalition , could have helped tremendously—and would have been easy to do .
But Trump couldn ’ t do any of it .
The result was that he couldn ’ t get beyond his core constituency and hence probably can ’ t be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ core constituency in the lurch as the nation continues the politics of rancor , recrimination , and abuse under a new Democratic regime .
Robert W. Merry , longtime Washington , D.C. , journalist and publishing executive , is the author of five books on American history and foreign policy .

If President Trump loses his reelection bid in November, as appears likely, the greatest victims of his presidency will have been his own constituency—the Americans who have given him his consistent but sub-par approval rating of between 39 percent and 43 percent throughout his tenure.
And when the new Democratic regime takes over, those people will become its target of choice.
We know who they are: largely white, more male than female, generally older than 45, largely blue collar, educated through high school but not much beyond, agitated particularly by U.S. immigration policies of the past few decades, with widespread feelings that their financial standing in the country has been increasingly constricted. They are nationalist in outlook, not globalist, with strong feelings of traditional patriotism of the kind that guided their parents and grandparents. They believe the nation’s elites—those with the power and money, who dominate the political discourse and set the national agenda—look down on them with contempt and view them as “deplorables,” in Hillary Clinton’s famous epithet.
Many of them don’t much care for Trump as a person. A Pew Research Center study during the 2016 primaries revealed that fewer than half of Trump supporters ascribed any favorable traits to him. Many didn’t consider him well informed, admirable, or even honest. But, based on their consistent support for the president over the past four years, it seems that they view him as standing between them and an emerging Democratic coalition, whose policy prescriptions pose an economic threat to them and would otherwise marginalize them in American society.
They see the Democratic Party lurching to the left and know that, should the Dems take complete power over the federal government in January, it will go even worse for them than it has over the past quarter century. U.S. borders will become more porous, largely through executive action. Asylum policies will be loosened up. Pro-immigrant legislation, such as free medical care for illegals, will serve as an enticement for greater illegal entry. A path to legal status, or even citizenship, will be pushed through. All this will devastate wage rates, thus harming the economic wellbeing of the Trump constituency. It also will serve over time to generate millions of new Democratic voters who will overwhelm the beleaguered white middle class.
The Democratic elite will resuscitate the free-trade policies of recent decades, thus reviving the deterioration of industrial America that Trump sought to reverse. The further evaporation of working-class industrial jobs will deliver another financial blow to his constituency. A likely return to humanitarian interventionism, meanwhile, will lead to new foreign wars, sap the nation’s resources, stir internal frictions, and pull the sons and daughters of Middle America into the maw of conflict.
Then there is the cultural onslaught in store for Trump voters when the Democrats take over. The brutal enforcement of political correctness has escaped the campus and invaded everyday America. This poses ominous implications for Trump voters, whose political leanings, though largely defensive in nature, are widely equated with racism, the most dangerous epithet that can be hurled at anyone in today’s America.
Trump supporters can see the shape of things to come when they witness Black Lives Matter protesters accosting people in restaurants and bars, yelling “silence is violence” into their faces and demanding gestures of support. They can’t miss the implications of protests turning into violent riots, with property destroyed, businesses obliterated, downtowns turned into war zones, even violence perpetrated on innocent people with the wrong views—all while police forces in cities throughout America, hobbled by anti-police zealotry (or intimidation) on the part of liberal local officials, stand by and watch. The Trump voters know that these small-business owners are people like themselves (though no doubt with a higher proportion of immigrants), whose security and livelihoods matter not at all to the cadres of destruction.
These people may not be as well-educated as the folks of the top 10 percent that constitute the core of the elites, but they’re not dumb. And they know that they represent the ultimate target, the final hardcore opposition to the globalist, open-border, free-trade, American exceptionalism, BLM, power-hungry elites of America. And, when they see windows smashed, businesses destroyed, cars ablaze, cities in chaos, and Democratic politicians ignoring all of it, they can’t help taking it a bit personally.
What went wrong? Trump went wrong. He built his constituency by exposing to America the fundamental political reality of 2016—namely, the widening chasm between Middle America and its bicoastal elites of big media, government officials, think tanks, big tech, burgeoning financial institutions, the federal deep state, and mavens of popular culture. He pulled his voters together into a tight knot of political support born of fear and intimidation and self-interest. But then he couldn’t build on it. He could never take his 43 percent support and find a way to add another 10 percent by devising policies designed to operate on the political margin.
Bill Clinton had a word for it—“triangulation,” meaning the art of building coalitions of people and institutions that constitute majority sentiment on well-chosen issues. A well-crafted grand strategy on immigration probably could have served the purpose, had there been sufficient compromise involved. A success on the health care issue would have helped. A big factor could have been a foreign policy success fulfilling the president’s promise of reducing America’s military footprint overseas. A use of language and a comportment signifying a sense of national unity, at least to the point of creating a majority coalition, could have helped tremendously—and would have been easy to do.
But Trump couldn’t do any of it. The result was that he couldn’t get beyond his core constituency and hence probably can’t be reelected. That likely will leave that core constituency in the lurch as the nation continues the politics of rancor, recrimination, and abuse under a new Democratic regime.
Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington, D.C., journalist and publishing executive, is the author of five books on American history and foreign policy.


theamericanconservative--2020-09-07--If Trump Pardons Snowden, He Will Have My Vote

Until recently , I planned to vote for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen for president in November .
But I have had second thoughts after President Donald Trump recently put something on the table that virtually no other president would : Pardoning Edward Snowden .
As diverse voices from the ACLU to Republican Senator Rand Paul have noted , Snowden is a whistleblower hero who made our republican democracy better by warning Americans in 2013 that their government was spying on them en masse at a time when government officials insisted they were not .
Not only was Snowden right , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even appears to have included illegal government surveillance of Donald Trump .
In fact , after seven years , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has now concluded that the surveillance program which Snowden revealed was in fact unlawful .
Pardoning Snowden would be a game changer for me , and likely would be for many more libertarians .
Two libertarian-leaning Republican congressmen have already encouraged Trump to issue Snowden a pardon .
Unless a similar liberty-minded Republican or a principled progressive in the mold of Democratic Reps. Tulsi Gabbard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ libertarian Senator Ron Wyden , is ever elected president , it is hard to imagine another president in my lifetime even considering allowing 37-year-old Snowden to return to the United States from Russia , where he remains in exile .
Most establishment Republicans would never consider pardoning Snowden .
Democratic President Barack Obama not only refused to do so four years ago , but his former United Nations Ambassador and once rumored vice presidential pick for Biden 2020 , Susan Rice , cemented where the centrist Democratic establishment lands on this issue in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Just .
Can ’ t , ” Rice tweeted in mid-August .
“ Congratulations GOP .
This is who you are now.
” Rice ’ s tweet included a link to a video clip of President Trump being asked be a reporter , “ Do you want to give Edward Snowden a pardon and bring him back ?
” President Trump replied , “ I ’ m going to look at it.
” That exchange is what sent Rice over the edge to condemn Republicans wholesale—merely considering pardoning Snowden .
I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t voted for a major party candidate for president since my first eligible vote for Bob Dole in 1996 .
As in past elections , casting my 2020 presidential ballot for the Libertarian this year was going to be merely a vote of conscience .
I ’ m glad third parties exist for this reason alone .
My many third party votes have never been about requiring a perfect candidate .
There is no such thing .
I generally vote third party in presidential elections because most major party candidates give me few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not to .
Pardoning Snowden would give me a considerable reason to vote for Trump .
I disagree with Joe Biden on most issues and particularly fear what a Democrat-controlled White House and Congress might do to the economy .
There was no chance I would vote for him and his choice of ruthless authoritarian Kamala Harris as his running mate only solidified this .
I have praised President Donald Trump on a number of fronts .
Calling out George W. Bush ’ s foreign policy disaster during the 2016 Republican primaries was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a major accomplishment for modern presidents .
Trump ’ s “ America First ” foreign policy positions , even if they haven ’ t always been put fully into action , are laudable , as is the president ’ s willingness to meet with dictators in the name of peace .
Signing major criminal justice reform legislation was monumental .
These are just a few examples of Trump ’ s positive accomplishments .
Yet , how we on the right talk about immigrants today , legal and illegal , does not sit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led some of that trend , intentionally or not .
The trillions in debt and deficits this administration has encouraged Congress to rack up is indefensible from a fiscally conservative standpoint , even in these COVID-19 times .
These are a few among other concerns I have had about this president .
Still , Edward Snowden is the greatest defender of constitutional privacy protections of this generation or any .
He risked it all to warn us of a looming danger that will only grow as technology progresses and the U.S. government increasingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proposition of Snowden becoming a free man again in his country of birth , where he can conceivably continue to warn for decades about what our government has done , and continues to do , to undermine American liberty is of considerable value .
That message from that messenger could be of significant value long after the Trump era .
Edward Snowden also deserves his freedom .
President Trump might be his only hope .
This president is uniquely not beholden to the same Washington forces most conventional presidents are , or at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In fact , a Snowden pardon could also be the most swamp-draining act to date of Trump ’ s presidency .
The “ deep state ” that is protected by both parties—and that would be protected by a President Joe Biden—will never give Snowden a chance to return to his home country .
After the president teased a pardon , establishment politicians predictably said it would be a mistake and that Snowden should have come to Congress , as if they would have actually listened to his concerns .
If Snowden had chosen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ channels , ” the American public would have never learned what their government was doing to them and who knows what kind of isolated prison the North Carolina-born whistleblower would have ended up in .
Daniel Ellsberg , the hero whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to the New York Times and Washington Post , helped turn the tide of public opinion on the Vietnam War once Americans heard the dismal truth about that failing war and what their government had been hiding .
Like Ellsberg , Snowden went to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ due diligence in not releasing information that would harm U.S. national security , but would still alert Americans to the massive trampling of their rights that was occurring on a daily basis .
Not surprisingly , Ellsberg believes that Snowden made the right call .
“ Snowden believes that he has done nothing wrong , ” Ellsberg wrote in the New York Times in 2013 .
“ I agree wholeheartedly.
” Snowden , like Ellsberg , is a quintessential whistleblower .
To say what Edward Snowden did was wrong is to essentially say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whistleblowers .
Libertarian-leaning voters are admittedly a small minority of the electorate .
Principled progressives who would champion Snowden ’ s freedom over partisan Trump-hatred might be an even smaller one .
But Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson still received nearly 4.5 million votes in 2016 and some have argued that third party voters helped swing the election to Trump .
Jill Stein of the progressive Green Party received 1.4 million votes in 2016 .
According to Snowden himself , Joe Biden once threatened countries not to give him asylum .
Now , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same privacy champion Biden allegedly went out of his way to punish .
Susan Rice said derisively that considering giving Edward Snowden a hero ’ s welcome home is “ who ” Republicans “ are now.
” I hope so .
And if that ’ s who President Trump is , he will have my vote .
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Senator Rand Paul .

Until recently, I planned to vote for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen for president in November.
But I have had second thoughts after President Donald Trump recently put something on the table that virtually no other president would: Pardoning Edward Snowden.
As diverse voices from the ACLU to Republican Senator Rand Paul have noted, Snowden is a whistleblower hero who made our republican democracy better by warning Americans in 2013 that their government was spying on them en masse at a time when government officials insisted they were not. Not only was Snowden right, but this reckless and warrantless spying on citizens even appears to have included illegal government surveillance of Donald Trump. In fact, after seven years, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has now concluded that the surveillance program which Snowden revealed was in fact unlawful.
Pardoning Snowden would be a game changer for me, and likely would be for many more libertarians. Two libertarian-leaning Republican congressmen have already encouraged Trump to issue Snowden a pardon.
Unless a similar liberty-minded Republican or a principled progressive in the mold of Democratic Reps. Tulsi Gabbard or Ro Khanna, or Democratic civil libertarian Senator Ron Wyden, is ever elected president, it is hard to imagine another president in my lifetime even considering allowing 37-year-old Snowden to return to the United States from Russia, where he remains in exile.
Most establishment Republicans would never consider pardoning Snowden. Democratic President Barack Obama not only refused to do so four years ago, but his former United Nations Ambassador and once rumored vice presidential pick for Biden 2020, Susan Rice, cemented where the centrist Democratic establishment lands on this issue in a tweet last month.
“I. Just. Can’t,” Rice tweeted in mid-August. “Congratulations GOP. This is who you are now.” Rice’s tweet included a link to a video clip of President Trump being asked be a reporter, “Do you want to give Edward Snowden a pardon and bring him back?” President Trump replied, “I’m going to look at it.” That exchange is what sent Rice over the edge to condemn Republicans wholesale—merely considering pardoning Snowden.
I’m a libertarian conservative who hasn’t voted for a major party candidate for president since my first eligible vote for Bob Dole in 1996. As in past elections, casting my 2020 presidential ballot for the Libertarian this year was going to be merely a vote of conscience. I’m glad third parties exist for this reason alone.
My many third party votes have never been about requiring a perfect candidate. There is no such thing. I generally vote third party in presidential elections because most major party candidates give me few reasons to support them and far more not to.
Pardoning Snowden would give me a considerable reason to vote for Trump.
I disagree with Joe Biden on most issues and particularly fear what a Democrat-controlled White House and Congress might do to the economy. There was no chance I would vote for him and his choice of ruthless authoritarian Kamala Harris as his running mate only solidified this.
I have praised President Donald Trump on a number of fronts. Calling out George W. Bush’s foreign policy disaster during the 2016 Republican primaries was glorious. Not starting any new wars is a major accomplishment for modern presidents. Trump’s “America First” foreign policy positions, even if they haven’t always been put fully into action, are laudable, as is the president’s willingness to meet with dictators in the name of peace. Signing major criminal justice reform legislation was monumental. These are just a few examples of Trump’s positive accomplishments.
Yet, how we on the right talk about immigrants today, legal and illegal, does not sit well with me. The president has led some of that trend, intentionally or not. The trillions in debt and deficits this administration has encouraged Congress to rack up is indefensible from a fiscally conservative standpoint, even in these COVID-19 times. These are a few among other concerns I have had about this president.
Still, Edward Snowden is the greatest defender of constitutional privacy protections of this generation or any. He risked it all to warn us of a looming danger that will only grow as technology progresses and the U.S. government increasingly ignores the Constitution at will.
The proposition of Snowden becoming a free man again in his country of birth, where he can conceivably continue to warn for decades about what our government has done, and continues to do, to undermine American liberty is of considerable value. That message from that messenger could be of significant value long after the Trump era.
Edward Snowden also deserves his freedom. President Trump might be his only hope. This president is uniquely not beholden to the same Washington forces most conventional presidents are, or at least not to the same degree.
In fact, a Snowden pardon could also be the most swamp-draining act to date of Trump’s presidency. The “deep state” that is protected by both parties—and that would be protected by a President Joe Biden—will never give Snowden a chance to return to his home country. After the president teased a pardon, establishment politicians predictably said it would be a mistake and that Snowden should have come to Congress, as if they would have actually listened to his concerns. If Snowden had chosen that route, the mythical “proper channels,” the American public would have never learned what their government was doing to them and who knows what kind of isolated prison the North Carolina-born whistleblower would have ended up in.
Daniel Ellsberg, the hero whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to the New York Times and Washington Post, helped turn the tide of public opinion on the Vietnam War once Americans heard the dismal truth about that failing war and what their government had been hiding.
Like Ellsberg, Snowden went to the press and trusted journalists to do their due diligence in not releasing information that would harm U.S. national security, but would still alert Americans to the massive trampling of their rights that was occurring on a daily basis.
Not surprisingly, Ellsberg believes that Snowden made the right call. “Snowden believes that he has done nothing wrong,” Ellsberg wrote in the New York Times in 2013. “I agree wholeheartedly.” Snowden, like Ellsberg, is a quintessential whistleblower. To say what Edward Snowden did was wrong is to essentially say there should be no such thing as whistleblowers.
Libertarian-leaning voters are admittedly a small minority of the electorate. Principled progressives who would champion Snowden’s freedom over partisan Trump-hatred might be an even smaller one.
But Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson still received nearly 4.5 million votes in 2016 and some have argued that third party voters helped swing the election to Trump. Jill Stein of the progressive Green Party received 1.4 million votes in 2016.
According to Snowden himself, Joe Biden once threatened countries not to give him asylum. Now, President Trump says he is pondering pardoning the same privacy champion Biden allegedly went out of his way to punish.
Susan Rice said derisively that considering giving Edward Snowden a hero’s welcome home is “who” Republicans “are now.” I hope so. And if that’s who President Trump is, he will have my vote.
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Senator Rand Paul.


theamericanconservative--2020-09-08--How John Dos Passos Left the Left

How John Dos Passos Left the Left

The reputations of the writers who transformed literature during the Jazz Age , the so-called “ Lost Generation , ” have undergone some interesting up and downs .
Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis have largely disappeared from the canon .
Dreiser ’ s sludge-like prose doomed him among readers over the last half century , while Lewis , who achieved fame in the ‘ 20s , becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 , has seen his reputation sag .
None of his indictments of middle-class America have found an audience today .
Good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ college sophomores to read Main Street .
His last real success , It Can ’ t Happen Here ( 1937 ) , had a brief revival with the election of Donald Trump .
But no one reads Babbitt or Elmer Gantry anymore .
Hemingway ’ s name remains popular , though it is doubtful whether any of his novels are read today , other than The Old Man and the Sea , which is popular , I understand , in seventh- and eighth-grade language arts courses ( precisely where it belongs with its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I picked up The Sun Also Rises , which I ’ d first read in college and thought a fresh and wonderful book .
Now it seemed shallow .
Even the dialogue , which I thought so smart , sounded old hat .
Lady Brett came off as an adolescent ’ s dream of what sex could be like with an ever-willing woman .
If Hemingway is read today , it ’ s not for his novels but his short stories , which , at their best in “ Hills Like White @ @ @ @ @ @ @ River , ” remain sharp , hard-edged gems .
Scott Fitzgerald faired best of the ‘ 20s generation .
The Great Gatsby , the most popular of his novels , may be The Great American Novel of the 20th century .
It captures young readers of every generation .
But what of my personal favorite as a young man , John Dos Passos ?
Rereading him amid this terrible virus , I believe he holds up best .
During the 1930s , Dos Passos was as popular as any writer of serious fiction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breakthrough after World War I during which he served in the ambulance corps .
Two of his novels , Three Solders ( 1921 ) and Manhattan Transfer ( 1925 ) , “ changed the whole tone of opinion about the war , ” as H.L .
Mencken put it .
They reflected the attitude , also popular in England at the time , that the war was a worthless conflict imposed by heartless leaders that had wiped out a generation of young men .
But unlike Hemingway , Fitzgerald did not romanticize Europe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ view , America was all about the rejection of Europe .
Like Lewis and Hemingway , Fitzgerald was disgusted by the materialism and money grubbing of the America of Harding , Coolidge , and Hoover .
He supported various left-wing and radical causes and became particularly incensed over the treatment of Sacco and Vanzetti , the two anarchists accused of murdering a guard during a Braintree , Massachusetts , payroll robbery .
His epitaph on the case summed up what it meant to radicals and revolutionaries of his generation : “ All right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Soldiers and Manhattan Transfer , Dos Passos moved deeper into radicalism .
He denounced Franklin Roosevelt and voted for the Communist candidate , William Foster , in the 1932 presidential election .
He dismissed the New Deal for trying to save a corrupt capitalist system .
The depression pushed him further to the left .
For a time in the 1930s , he was associated with the communist journal New Masses , though he never joined the Communist Party and wasn ’ t even much of a fellow traveler .
In truth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the left .
Out of his anger , Dos Passos produced his greatest and most original work , the trilogy U.S.A. , which appeared between 1930 and 1936 .
U.S.A. is a big sprawling book of around 1,200 pages and his most original and influential work .
Building on some of the anti-capitalist themes he first outlined in Manhattan Transfer , Dos Passos set out to paint a broad picture of America in turmoil .
He used techniques borrowed from European modernists like James Joyce in a way no American author ever had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He sprinkled his text with brief biographies of famous and not so famous people : Rudolph Valentino , Thorstein Veblen , Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson ( a bête noire of his ) , and Henry Ford , among others .
In the “ Camera Eye ” sections , he created news items from a pastiche of newspaper headlines and stories .
The effect was to give the novel an immediacy and sense of dealing with the real world .
The technique has been copied since , but no one has done @ @ @ @ @ @ @ huge success and appeared just as Dos Passos ’ career took a dramatic turn .
In July 1936 , the Spanish Civil War broke out .
Dos Passos , like many of his fellow leftist contemporaries , most notably Ernest Hemingway , was drawn into the conflict .
He went to Spain to work on a documentary film , “ Spanish Earth , ” designed to promote the cause of the Republican forces .
Disillusion soon set in .
One of his friends , José Robles Pazos , was caught up in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ murdered by the communist secret police .
Like his contemporary George Orwell , Spain inaugurated Dos Passos ’ s distrust of communism and its fellow travelers and apologists .
His consequent drift to the right was rooted in one of the abiding themes of his career—a deep distrust of power , especially power in the hands of an elite .
Fear of unregulated capitalism and fascism now gave way to a conviction that the greatest threat to democracy was communist power .
World War II furthered these concerns , with Dos Passos increasingly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the war .
Dos Passos continued writing fiction and in 1962 published Mid-Century , a follow-up to U.S.A. , only now the villains were on the left—especially labor leaders like John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther .
Mid-Century lacked the creativity of his trilogy .
Instead of the “ Camera Eye ” and other unusual techniques that seemed fresh in the 1930s , Mid-Century featured long documentary sections interspersed among the text .
The book was a success , but the critics accused him of turning his back on his past .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ firm man of the left , wrote that Dos Passos had become “ a simple Republican , scared to death of Russia and Communism.
” The man who once had written for the New Masses now became a contributor to Bill Buckley ’ s National Review .
He came to view the American experiment through different eyes , even writing a highly sympathetic history of the Founding Fathers .
In 1964 , Dos Passos supported Barry Goldwater ’ s campaign for president .
That shocked many of his admirers but was a natural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that had begun in Spain .
Both men feared communism and unrestrained power .
In the 1920s , that power was in the hands of big business ; now it was found in big government and what President Eisenhower called “ the military-industrial complex.
” Maybe Dos Passos ’ journey wasn ’ t that strange after all .
John P. Rossi is professor emeritus of History at La Salle University in Philadelphia .

The reputations of the writers who transformed literature during the Jazz Age, the so-called “Lost Generation,” have undergone some interesting up and downs. Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis have largely disappeared from the canon. Dreiser’s sludge-like prose doomed him among readers over the last half century, while Lewis, who achieved fame in the ‘20s, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, has seen his reputation sag. None of his indictments of middle-class America have found an audience today. Good luck trying to get a class of college sophomores to read Main Street. His last real success, It Can’t Happen Here (1937), had a brief revival with the election of Donald Trump. But no one reads Babbitt or Elmer Gantry anymore.
Hemingway’s name remains popular, though it is doubtful whether any of his novels are read today, other than The Old Man and the Sea, which is popular, I understand, in seventh- and eighth-grade language arts courses (precisely where it belongs with its faux-biblical prose). During the virus, I picked up The Sun Also Rises, which I’d first read in college and thought a fresh and wonderful book. Now it seemed shallow. Even the dialogue, which I thought so smart, sounded old hat. Lady Brett came off as an adolescent’s dream of what sex could be like with an ever-willing woman. If Hemingway is read today, it’s not for his novels but his short stories, which, at their best in “Hills Like White Elephants” and “Big Two Hearted River,” remain sharp, hard-edged gems.
Scott Fitzgerald fared best of the ‘20s generation. The Great Gatsby, the most popular of his novels, may be The Great American Novel of the 20th century. It captures young readers of every generation.
But what of my personal favorite as a young man, John Dos Passos? Rereading him amid this terrible virus, I believe he holds up best.
During the 1930s, Dos Passos was as popular as any writer of serious fiction in America. He had made his breakthrough after World War I during which he served in the ambulance corps. Two of his novels, Three Solders (1921) and Manhattan Transfer (1925), “changed the whole tone of opinion about the war,” as H.L. Mencken put it. They reflected the attitude, also popular in England at the time, that the war was a worthless conflict imposed by heartless leaders that had wiped out a generation of young men. But unlike Hemingway, Fitzgerald did not romanticize Europe and flee to Paris. In his view, America was all about the rejection of Europe.
Like Lewis and Hemingway, Dos Passos was disgusted by the materialism and money grubbing of the America of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. He supported various left-wing and radical causes and became particularly incensed over the treatment of Sacco and Vanzetti, the two anarchists accused of murdering a guard during a Braintree, Massachusetts, payroll robbery. His epitaph on the case summed up what it meant to radicals and revolutionaries of his generation: “All right we are two nations.”
Following Three Soldiers and Manhattan Transfer, Dos Passos moved deeper into radicalism. He denounced Franklin Roosevelt and voted for the Communist candidate, William Foster, in the 1932 presidential election. He dismissed the New Deal for trying to save a corrupt capitalist system. The depression pushed him further to the left. For a time in the 1930s, he was associated with the communist journal New Masses, though he never joined the Communist Party and wasn’t even much of a fellow traveler. In truth, Dos Passos was an idiosyncratic man of the left.
Out of his anger, Dos Passos produced his greatest and most original work, the trilogy U.S.A., which appeared between 1930 and 1936. U.S.A. is a big sprawling book of around 1,200 pages and his most original and influential work. Building on some of the anti-capitalist themes he first outlined in Manhattan Transfer, Dos Passos set out to paint a broad picture of America in turmoil. He used techniques borrowed from European modernists like James Joyce in a way no American author ever had before to create a new reality. He sprinkled his text with brief biographies of famous and not so famous people: Rudolph Valentino, Thorstein Veblen, Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (a bête noire of his), and Henry Ford, among others. In the “Camera Eye” sections, he created news items from a pastiche of newspaper headlines and stories. The effect was to give the novel an immediacy and sense of dealing with the real world. The technique has been copied since, but no one has done it as well.
U.S.A. was a huge success and appeared just as Dos Passos’ career took a dramatic turn. In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. Dos Passos, like many of his fellow leftist contemporaries, most notably Ernest Hemingway, was drawn into the conflict. He went to Spain to work on a documentary film, “Spanish Earth,” designed to promote the cause of the Republican forces. Disillusion soon set in. One of his friends, José Robles Pazos, was caught up in the fighting among the various leftist factions and murdered by the communist secret police.
Like his contemporary George Orwell, Spain inaugurated Dos Passos’s distrust of communism and its fellow travelers and apologists. His consequent drift to the right was rooted in one of the abiding themes of his career—a deep distrust of power, especially power in the hands of an elite. Fear of unregulated capitalism and fascism now gave way to a conviction that the greatest threat to democracy was communist power. World War II furthered these concerns, with Dos Passos increasingly troubled by the power exercised by FDR during the war.
Dos Passos continued writing fiction and in 1962 published Mid-Century, a follow-up to U.S.A., only now the villains were on the left—especially labor leaders like John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther. Mid-Century lacked the creativity of his trilogy. Instead of the “Camera Eye” and other unusual techniques that seemed fresh in the 1930s, Mid-Century featured long documentary sections interspersed among the text. The book was a success, but the critics accused him of turning his back on his past. Dwight Macdonald, a former admirer and firm man of the left, wrote that Dos Passos had become “a simple Republican, scared to death of Russia and Communism.”
The man who once had written for the New Masses now became a contributor to Bill Buckley’s National Review. He came to view the American experiment through different eyes, even writing a highly sympathetic history of the Founding Fathers. In 1964, Dos Passos supported Barry Goldwater’s campaign for president. That shocked many of his admirers but was a natural outcome of his drift to the right that had begun in Spain. Both men feared communism and unrestrained power. In the 1920s, that power was in the hands of big business; now it was found in big government and what President Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex.”
Maybe Dos Passos’ journey wasn’t that strange after all.
John P. Rossi is professor emeritus of History at La Salle University in Philadelphia.


theamericanconservative--2020-09-08--The Atlantic Hit Piece Makes No Sense

The Atlantic Hit Piece Makes No Sense

Last Thursday the Atlantic ’ s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote and published a scathing expose of Trump ’ s alleged comments concerning veterans , in which Trump was cited calling them “ suckers ” and “ losers.
” Referencing multiple but unnamed sources , the article successively catalogued several years of Trump ’ s disparaging comments .
The Orange Man said mean things ?
What a scoop !
Like clockwork , the article ’ s publication sent shock waves across social media and primetime outlets .
NeverTrumpers like Joe Scarborough and Russia-gate grifters like Seth Abramson furiously tweeted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their TDS-positive followers .
The MSM predictably paraded former generals across their platforms , roundly condemning Trump ’ s alleged comments .
So egregious were his transgressions , that even the “ Hero of the Hudson ” , Sully Sullenberger , slammed Trump as “ selfish ” and a “ coward.
” The late baseball great Yogi Berra once quipped , “ it ’ s déjà vu all over again.
” While his humorous wisdom was in reference to back-to-back home runs off the bats of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris , his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ latest drama surrounding President Trump and his relationship to the military and veterans .
But what is happening all over again isn ’ t Trump and his controversial opinions , it is the efforts of the war state and their media allies to sink Trump ’ s presidential hopes by portraying him as unpatriotic .
Thing is , it hasn ’ t been working so well .
What was done to John Kerry in 2004 and Trump since 2015 are pages from the same rally-round-the-flag playbook .
But while John Kerry ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ veterans and his Iraq war flip-flop voting gaffe , the USS Donald Trump has so far proved to be unsinkable despite absorbing much more severe and frequent attacks .
What changed ?
Simply , the Blob ’ s narrative has been completely delegitimized by the passage of time and reality , and the average voter has taken notice .
In the presidential campaigning season of 2004 , the George W. Bush team formulated a brilliant attack line against Democratic challenger John Kerry .
The infamous gaffe , “ I actually voted for it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , would haunt his campaign and become the basis for his label as a flip-flopper on important issues .
The legislation in question , as most recall , was an $ 87 billion supplemental military appropriations bill for Iraq and Afghanistan .
Senator Kerry voted for an earlier version that paid for the appropriation by repealing certain parts of President Bush ’ s signature tax cuts .
He would later vote against the final bill in protest of military policy in Iraq .
As his campaign spokesman said in his defense , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy that has cost American lives.
” It didn ’ t seem to matter ; the label stuck .
And even more damaging was the emergence of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth .
Several veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam , with the financial aid of Republican donors , launched a political advocacy group to challenge Senator Kerry ’ s account of his wartime service , deny and correct his allegations of war crimes , and block his aspirations to become Commander-in-Chief .
Their television ads were political superweapons , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and militarily incompetent .
The tactics of these attacks operate via a simple rhetorical method .
Veterans represent the nation in challenging and difficult service and are considered noble for what they volunteered or were drafted to do .
Our culture traditionally exalts sacrifice and putting the nation before yourself .
It represents the ultimate virtue .
To oppose them in any way comes off as dishonorable and offensive to what they represent : not themselves , but the nation .
Transitive property , opposing the troops means opposing America , not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ office .
Kerry ’ s voting gaffe falls in this category , while the Swiftboater attacks combined appeal to authority , in the form of other veterans , with Kerry ’ s alleged disrespect for their service record .
This writer , for one , found this line of attack very persuasive as a first-time voter in 2004 .
I likely wasn ’ t alone , as George W. Bush easily won reelection .
Fast forward to the political candidacy of Donald Trump in 2015 .
As the Atlantic article revisits , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying he ’ s “ not a war hero.
” Then , as now , Trump was raked across the coals .
What would sink most presidential campaigns just became another daily dose of controversy from Trump ’ s unorthodox campaign .
Not only did he not apologize or repent , he continued his attacks .
Who can forget the presidential debate on the eve of the South Carolina primary ?
Prompted by the moderator , Trump doubled down on past comments he made about President Bush ’ s decision to invade Iraq @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mistake ” , Trump lamented the loss of lives and treasure , concluding that “ we should have never been in Iraq.
” Jeb !
countered with an awkward defense of his family , even bringing his sainted mother into the conversation .
Trump was met by jeers and Jeb by cheers , but when the votes were tallied it was a Trump landslide , winning 32 % of the vote to Jeb ’ s 7 % .
Questioning the Iraq war in 2004 was dangerous politically ; in 2016 it was advantageous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time , the average voter became of the same mind as Candidate Trump .
They witnessed more treasure squandered ( 6 trillion as of 2019 ) , more lives lost ( 801,000 ) , no stability or “ mission accomplishment ” , all the while being conditioned by the media to maintain course .
President Bush ’ s claim in late 2003 , that Iraqi democracy building was “ worth our effort and sacrifice ” turned out to be utterly false .
When democracy is handed to Islamic countries , they vote for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speech and consumption of alcohol .
Who could have thunk it ?
This change of heart was gradual .
Ron Paul enjoyed tremendous grassroots support in 2008 for his heroic stand against forever war , and then Candidate Obama appeared to be inclined towards peace .
The election of 2016 represented the tipping point , at least on the Republican side of the aisle .
That was Trump the candidate .
Five years later his record as President can be analyzed .
There is much to lament : U.S. troops are still in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two decades of nation building , U.S. support for Saudi Arabia ’ s barbarous campaign in Yemen has not ceased , and the defense budget is as “ yuge ” as ever .
However , as TAC columnist Peter Van Buren wrote recently , under Trump U.S. foreign policy is trending in the right direction .
In spite of both political parties , the beltway Blob , the media , even his own confounding choices like John Bolton , Trump has managed to deliver on his instincts towards de-escalation .
Troop levels are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new wars have been started , and most importantly , U.S. military fatalities have fallen from 1,912 under Obama to 123 under Trump .
How is it then , Mr. Goldberg , that fewer dead service members is proof Trump hates veterans ?
Is General John Kelly ’ s son Robert worth more to his country in his grave at Arlington or alive and well with his family ?
According to The Atlantic , it seems to be the former .
In 2004 the method was hiding behind the troops while they were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hiding behind the troops when they are dead .
The media is truly shameless .
As mentioned above , the virtue and selflessness our volunteers display is , in and of itself , noble .
But a critical distinction must be made .
It is the idea of sacrifice that is noble , not sacrifice itself .
There is nothing fundamentally good or desirable about young men and women being maimed and killed on distant soil .
Not in World War II , and not now .
Each death is the shattered life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mother ’ s son , a father ’ s pride , husbands , fathers , wives , friends , gone , forever .
While visiting Robert ’ s grave , Trump allegedly said “ I don ’ t get it .
What was in it for them ?
” The Atlantic presents Trump ’ s comments as proof positive he doesn ’ t understand or appreciate their sacrifice .
Support the troops or else .
But what worked magic in 2004 against John Kerry didn ’ t work in 2016 and it might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
The first reason is Trump himself .
Despite his crassness and superficial callousness , whether it was his own instincts , his transactional business worldview , or his political cunning in observing the electorate , Trump has done something remarkable .
He has shattered the narrative maintained by the war machine by redefining what it means to “ support the troops.
” At Dover Air Force base in 2019 , Trump hosted an emotional press conference where he claimed the “ hardest thing ” he had to do as Commander-in-Chief is sign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ showed us that it is possible to support them while simultaneously questioning the “ endless wars ” they have been engaged in .
The second reason is the electorate .
Upon hearing his peace-like message in 2016 , voters gave him a chance .
Hit pieces like those published by The Atlantic will continue , as recently promised by Mr. Goldberg himself .
Whether they will be enough to finally sink his movement will be known in just a few months .
As Richard Nixon said , the greatest title history can bestow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lose in 2020 , President Trump should be remembered not for being the perfect peacemaker , but for his genuine attempts at simply giving peace a chance against the overwhelming and well financed forces opposing him .
Jeff Groom is a former Marine officer .
He is the author of American Cobra Pilot : A Marine Remembers a Dog and Pony Show ( 2018 ) .
Follow him on Twitter @ BigsbyGroom .

Last Thursday the Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote and published a scathing expose of Trump’s alleged comments concerning veterans, in which Trump was cited calling them “suckers” and “losers.” Referencing multiple but unnamed sources, the article successively catalogued several years of Trump’s disparaging comments. The Orange Man said mean things? What a scoop!
Like clockwork, the article’s publication sent shock waves across social media and primetime outlets. NeverTrumpers like Joe Scarborough and Russia-gate grifters like Seth Abramson furiously tweeted their outrage, delivering drug-like euphoria to their TDS-positive followers. The MSM predictably paraded former generals across their platforms, roundly condemning Trump’s alleged comments. So egregious were his transgressions, that even the “Hero of the Hudson”, Sully Sullenberger, slammed Trump as “selfish” and a “coward.”
The late baseball great Yogi Berra once quipped, “it’s déjà vu all over again.” While his humorous wisdom was in reference to back-to-back home runs off the bats of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, his observation could also be applied to the latest drama surrounding President Trump and his relationship to the military and veterans. But what is happening all over again isn’t Trump and his controversial opinions, it is the efforts of the war state and their media allies to sink Trump’s presidential hopes by portraying him as unpatriotic. Thing is, it hasn’t been working so well.
What was done to John Kerry in 2004 and Trump since 2015 are pages from the same rally-round-the-flag playbook. But while John Kerry’s campaign was torpedoed by the Swift Boat veterans and his Iraq war flip-flop voting gaffe, the USS Donald Trump has so far proved to be unsinkable despite absorbing much more severe and frequent attacks. What changed? Simply, the Blob’s narrative has been completely delegitimized by the passage of time and reality, and the average voter has taken notice.
In the presidential campaigning season of 2004, the George W. Bush team formulated a brilliant attack line against Democratic challenger John Kerry. The infamous gaffe, “I actually voted for it, before I voted against it”, would haunt his campaign and become the basis for his label as a flip-flopper on important issues. The legislation in question, as most recall, was an $87 billion supplemental military appropriations bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. Senator Kerry voted for an earlier version that paid for the appropriation by repealing certain parts of President Bush’s signature tax cuts. He would later vote against the final bill in protest of military policy in Iraq. As his campaign spokesman said in his defense, “better an inarticulate answer than an inarticulate policy that has cost American lives.” It didn’t seem to matter; the label stuck.
And even more damaging was the emergence of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Several veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam, with the financial aid of Republican donors, launched a political advocacy group to challenge Senator Kerry’s account of his wartime service, deny and correct his allegations of war crimes, and block his aspirations to become Commander-in-Chief. Their television ads were political superweapons, framing Senator Kerry as unpatriotic, dishonest, and militarily incompetent.
The tactics of these attacks operate via a simple rhetorical method. Veterans represent the nation in challenging and difficult service and are considered noble for what they volunteered or were drafted to do. Our culture traditionally exalts sacrifice and putting the nation before yourself. It represents the ultimate virtue. To oppose them in any way comes off as dishonorable and offensive to what they represent: not themselves, but the nation. Transitive property, opposing the troops means opposing America, not a good look for those seeking public office. Kerry’s voting gaffe falls in this category, while the Swiftboater attacks combined appeal to authority, in the form of other veterans, with Kerry’s alleged disrespect for their service record. This writer, for one, found this line of attack very persuasive as a first-time voter in 2004. I likely wasn’t alone, as George W. Bush easily won reelection.
Fast forward to the political candidacy of Donald Trump in 2015. As the Atlantic article revisits, Trump attacked John McCain’s record, saying he’s “not a war hero.” Then, as now, Trump was raked across the coals. What would sink most presidential campaigns just became another daily dose of controversy from Trump’s unorthodox campaign. Not only did he not apologize or repent, he continued his attacks.
Who can forget the presidential debate on the eve of the South Carolina primary? Prompted by the moderator, Trump doubled down on past comments he made about President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. Calling it a “big fat mistake”, Trump lamented the loss of lives and treasure, concluding that “we should have never been in Iraq.” Jeb! countered with an awkward defense of his family, even bringing his sainted mother into the conversation. Trump was met by jeers and Jeb by cheers, but when the votes were tallied it was a Trump landslide, winning 32% of the vote to Jeb’s 7%. Questioning the Iraq war in 2004 was dangerous politically; in 2016 it was advantageous.
Perhaps, with the passage of time, the average voter became of the same mind as Candidate Trump. They witnessed more treasure squandered (6 trillion as of 2019), more lives lost (801,000), no stability or “mission accomplishment”, all the while being conditioned by the media to maintain course. President Bush’s claim in late 2003, that Iraqi democracy building was “worth our effort and sacrifice” turned out to be utterly false. When democracy is handed to Islamic countries, they vote for sharia law, not for freedom of speech and consumption of alcohol. Who could have thunk it? This change of heart was gradual. Ron Paul enjoyed tremendous grassroots support in 2008 for his heroic stand against forever war, and then Candidate Obama appeared to be inclined towards peace. The election of 2016 represented the tipping point, at least on the Republican side of the aisle.
That was Trump the candidate. Five years later his record as President can be analyzed. There is much to lament: U.S. troops are still in Syria, Afghanistan is about to celebrate two decades of nation building, U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s barbarous campaign in Yemen has not ceased, and the defense budget is as “yuge” as ever. However, as TAC columnist Peter Van Buren wrote recently, under Trump U.S. foreign policy is trending in the right direction. In spite of both political parties, the beltway Blob, the media, even his own confounding choices like John Bolton, Trump has managed to deliver on his instincts towards de-escalation. Troop levels are down in Syria and Afghanistan, no new wars have been started, and most importantly, U.S. military fatalities have fallen from 1,912 under Obama to 123 under Trump.
How is it then, Mr. Goldberg, that fewer dead service members is proof Trump hates veterans? Is General John Kelly’s son Robert worth more to his country in his grave at Arlington or alive and well with his family? According to The Atlantic, it seems to be the former. In 2004 the method was hiding behind the troops while they were alive. In 2020 it’s hiding behind the troops when they are dead. The media is truly shameless.
As mentioned above, the virtue and selflessness our volunteers display is, in and of itself, noble. But a critical distinction must be made. It is the idea of sacrifice that is noble, not sacrifice itself. There is nothing fundamentally good or desirable about young men and women being maimed and killed on distant soil. Not in World War II, and not now. Each death is the shattered life of a grieving American family. A mother’s son, a father’s pride, husbands, fathers, wives, friends, gone, forever.
While visiting Robert’s grave, Trump allegedly said “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” The Atlantic presents Trump’s comments as proof positive he doesn’t understand or appreciate their sacrifice. Support the troops or else. But what worked magic in 2004 against John Kerry didn’t work in 2016 and it might now work again in 2020. Why? The first reason is Trump himself. Despite his crassness and superficial callousness, whether it was his own instincts, his transactional business worldview, or his political cunning in observing the electorate, Trump has done something remarkable. He has shattered the narrative maintained by the war machine by redefining what it means to “support the troops.”
At Dover Air Force base in 2019, Trump hosted an emotional press conference where he claimed the “hardest thing” he had to do as Commander-in-Chief is sign letters for Gold Star families. He showed us that it is possible to support them while simultaneously questioning the “endless wars” they have been engaged in. The second reason is the electorate. Upon hearing his peace-like message in 2016, voters gave him a chance. Hit pieces like those published by The Atlantic will continue, as recently promised by Mr. Goldberg himself. Whether they will be enough to finally sink his movement will be known in just a few months.
As Richard Nixon said, the greatest title history can bestow is one of peacemaker. Win or lose in 2020, President Trump should be remembered not for being the perfect peacemaker, but for his genuine attempts at simply giving peace a chance against the overwhelming and well financed forces opposing him.
Jeff Groom is a former Marine officer. He is the author of American Cobra Pilot: A Marine Remembers a Dog and Pony Show (2018). Follow him on Twitter @BigsbyGroom.