Bread and circuses and the subsequent darkness

Well, it's quite a juncture at which we find ourselves in post-America on this Friday on late April 2016, isn't it?

In case you still, at this late date, had any doubts that the Most Equal Comrade's agenda was one of planned decline and not good intentions paired with misguided policy, consider the facts as laid out in this IBD editorial. Key line: "Delusional doesn't begin to cut it." Well, that and the line toward the end that I have put in boldface:

The same day the 0.5% GDP growth came out, President Obama is quoted in the New York Times saying the country has done “better” than “any large economy on Earth in modern history.” Delusional doesn’t begin to cut it.

The only real problem with the economy, as far as Obama is concerned, is that he hasn’t been selling his successful policies aggressively enough.

“We were moving so fast early on that we couldn’t take victory laps. We couldn’t explain everything we were doing. I mean, one day we’re saving the banks; the next day we’re saving the auto industry; the next day we’re trying to see whether we can have some impact on the housing market,” he told the Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Never mind that Obama didn’t “save” either industries. Obama’s only contribution to GM and Chrysler’s bankruptcy process was to protect union interests at taxpayer’s expense. Dodd-Frank didn’t save banks; in fact it’s killed multitudes of community banks. His stimulus was a massively expensive bust.

The rest of Obama’s boasts aren’t on any firmer ground.

Obama talks about 14.4 million new jobs since 2010, without noting that working age population grew by 15.8 million over those same months.

He touts the 5% unemployment rate, but fails to mention that it would be more like 10% if millions of Americans hadn’t given up looking for work altogether.

Obama does admit the recovery has been sluggish, but when he isn’t blaming Republicans he says blames the “wrenching financial crises,” saying it inevitably lead to unusually slow growth.

Obama might think that, but a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta analysis concluded that “U.S. history provides no support” for such a claim.

Even Sorkin, who is clearly trying to help Obama burnish his economic legacy, notes out that Obama’s two biggest legislative achievements — ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank — hurt economic growth. He also pokes Obama for his green energy policies, noting that the heavily subsidized Florida battery factory where Obama recently gave a speech is 100% foreign owned and losing money.

More remarkable is the disdain for the public that Obama unintentionally reveals in the Times piece. Basically, he thinks that people can’t be trusted to form their own opinions about the economy based on their own experiences.

In that sense, Obama is like Chico in the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup, who when caught red handed in a lie said: “Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

Granted, most of the post-American cattle-masses still don't like economic malaise, deliberate or otherwise.

So, it would stand to reason that they would be focusing on which of the presidential candidates has the clearest understanding of how to reverse all this damage. Wouldn't it?

Alas, with Cruz still not sealing the deal in his upcoming Alamo primary in Indiana, that appears not to be the case. You are an LITD reader. You know that none of the others has even a foggy, faint glimpse of what economic liberty is and how it is the only economic model that can remedy our situation.

Hopefully, adding Carly to his arsenal can turn that around, but I full understand that I may be hoping against hope.

No, the front-runner in the party that ostensibly stands for economic liberty, as well as a foreign policy based on an understanding of the indispensable role of the United States in preserving the West, not to mention ostensibly being based on Judeo-Christian values, is a guy who, no sooner than he engenders consideration of the possibility that he might have a subatomic particle of seriousness in his makeup with his foreign-policy speech, turns around and obliterates that possibility with this:

During one of his abrupt verbal asides on the political stump Wednesday night in Indianapolis, Donald Trump proudly noted another endorsement from the sports world.

Mike Tyson.

The former heavyweight champion, of course, has a history in Indianapolis. It was here where he was convicted of raping beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington in 1992 — and subsequently spent three years in prison.

"Mike Tyson endorsed me," Trump told the crowd. "I love it. He sent out a tweet. Mike. Iron Mike. You know, all the tough guys endorse me. I like that, OK?

"But Mike said, 'I love Trump. I endorse Trump.' And that's the end. I'm sure he doesn't know about your economic situation in Indiana. But when I get endorsed by the tough ones, I like it, because you know what? We need toughness now. We need toughness."

Trump was a supporter of Tyson's after the conviction, saying that "to a large extent" he was "railroaded." Trump had a financial interest in the case because Tyson's fights made money for his hotels.

In an NBC News interview from Feb. 21, 1992, obtained by Buzzfeed and posted recently, Trump described the case this way: “You have a young woman that was in his hotel room late in the evening at her own will. You have a young woman seen dancing for the beauty contest — dancing with a big smile on her face, looked happy as can be.”

Yes sir, all the tough guys endorse him.

Tell it to Greg Garrison, Indianapolis talk show host and former prosecutor. He came to national attention as the guy who sent Tyson away for that rape, and he was pretty steamed and disgusted on his show the other day.

Speaking of talk shows, in a recent post here at LITD, I discuss how I am fed up with talk-show hosts assuming the pose of the oh-so-objective analyst when discussing Trump, when by definition they are in the business of opining, of taking definite stances.

Rush Limbaugh was up to this again yesterday, when, at the end of an overly-long, vacuous buildup, he came to what he sees as the only relevant line of Squirrel-Hair's foreign policy address:

But as usual there's just way too much analysis.  People overanalyze this and apply their own biases, prejudices or whatever to what Trump is doing, and there's just really one takeaway.  If you want to know whether or not Trump's speech yesterday was a hit with the voters that he has energized, all you have to know is Trump said the following:  We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism.  That's it.  Everything before and after is irrelevant.  That line made the speech one of the greatest ever. 

That line, as far as Trump supporters are concerned, was all they needed to hear. That was awesome. That was right on the money. We're gonna take it to 'em. We're not gonna play second fiddle anymore. We're not gonna sell American interests out. We're gonna put America first. We're gonna get rid of the globalists.  And I guarantee you that's all they needed to hear. 

Of course, what he's saying is that rank populism - disdain for "pointy-headed wonkery and theory" - has supplanted fealty to conservatism among the crucial crucial mass of Republican voters.

Mona Charen, at a Townhall column column today entitled "Reaganism Is Dead," comes to the same conclusion, but she doesn't try to be the objective analyst about it. She laments it openly:

Republicans are not voting on issues; they are voting on personality and attitude, and thus revealing themselves to have fallen for one of the worst errors of the left: the progressive belief that all will be well provided the "right" people, the "best" people, if you will, are running the government.

"This is the end of Reaganism," former Sen. Tom Coburn, a conservative hero, told me. The three-legged stool of strong defense, small government and conservatism on social issues has been smashed. Republicans, or at least a plurality of Republican primary voters, no longer distrust government per se; they simply distrust this government. They dislike Obama and the Republican leadership. But they're ready to believe that an outsider will be able to bring his annealing touch to the economy, to the culture and to national greatness. If a Republican politician today were to tell the joke about "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" -- a reliable punch line in the Reagan repertoire -- he or she would be greeted by incomprehension. This is a signal victory for the left: the triumph of faith in the state. Trumpites are reprising Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" with a new lead. 

This is why I have recently openly expressed my doubts that this nation still has God's blessing. The one obvious way out of our grim state of affairs is not only getting its typical short shrift, it's disappearing.

We are truly on our own.

The danger-fraught path to saving this nation

The Pub field narrowed significantly today. Fiorina has suspended her campaign, as has Christie.

Let's take a paragraph or so to do a post-mortem. Of the two, Fiorina was the far more desirable presidential candidate. While Christie's prosecutor background has given his stint as governor and prez candidate a bracing doggedness, it also made the tactic of going after fellow candidates his stylistic centerpiece. Florina, who really didn't distinguish herself ideologically when she ran against Boxer for the Senate, early on in this race employed a unvarnished defense of three-pillared conservatism combined with a razor-sharp command of the facts on any issue. It's really too bad she never got the traction of the upper-tier contenders, much as the great Bobby Jindal never did.

So now all eyes turn to South Carolina and the big questions of whether Rubio stays viable as a third figure at the top level, and of whether there's ongoing life in the Jeb and Kasich campaigns.

Unless something way out of the realm of expectations occurs, LITD will not spend a great deal of time on those question, however.

They're interesting, and at this late date, getting mired in the interesting is a distraction that a dying post-America cannot afford.

The only two serious contenders on the Pub side are Ted Cruz and Squirrel-Hair. And Ted Cruz is the only hope that post-America can remember what humanity, character, faith, fealty to the Constitution and the free market, consistency in foreign policy, and the chops to articulate all of the above, can survive as generally held values. Squirrel-Hair would be as catastrophic for this nation as the election of a Democrat.

Which brings us to the Freedom-Hater side of the race. The only two contenders are both radical leftists, and one is up to her eyeballs in very serious legal trouble over her reckless handling of top-secret classified information during her stint as Secretary of State.

The path to avoid either totalitarian socialism or the impulsive oligarchy of a rudderless, petulant self-aggrandizer is steep and narrow.

It requires the courage to speak out - no easy thing, given that poll numbers mean that among people you personally know and associate with are supporters of Squirrel-Hair, Hillionaire and Bernie Sanders. But speak out you must. Any of the three spells the final knife in the heart of a civilization that has blessed humankind uniquely and immeasurably.

Second debate first impression

Too long!

Carly prevailed.

Everybody - except one, and more about him in a moment -  had moments that could make any Republican viewer feel proud that this was his or her party, that it embodies great principles.

Carson's best moment was the "you're a pretty good doctor" line. His shakiest moment was on the minimum wage question. Very disappointed that he didn't provide a solid denunciation of the very concept, which is kind of a litmus test of mine.

Rubio was the second most rocking person up there after Carly.

Cruz was third.

Jeb handled himself admirably on the matter of his wife when that came up between himself and Trump, and a few other moments where he was able to put forth something a little more solid than a RINO persona, but he certainly didn't look consistently like a fighter.

For my money, Trump came off - pretty consistently like an ill-prepared goofball. Sweeping generalizations about policy, irrelevant attacks on other candidates, the ultra-lame "you're-very-pretty" attempt to back away from "look at that face." He truly came off like the least serious person on that stage.

Now it will be interesting to poke around and avail myself of others' assessments and see if my thoughts are shared.