Zman on Trump

And Sallis on Trump and Der Movement’s Quota Queens.  In all cases, emphasis added.

First, this is a statement that Trump needs to make:

I would like to respond to some of the childish and threatening comments made by members of Biden’s staff about having me physically “removed” from the White House in January. Consider this as a statement of my intentions as we await the outcome of the legal challenges to the corrupt election fiasco. I am confident that an honest examination of widespread voting fraud will result in me being confirmed as having legitimately won re-election. However, in the event that the Electoral College does the wrong thing and affirms His Fraudulency Joe Biden as the next President, then the Trump White House will perform its obligations with respect to the transition and I will vacate the White House on the appropriate date. But I will not – repeat not – concede an election that I fairly won. In the event that Biden is allowed to steal the Presidency, what I say to my voters, to the seventy million Americans who supported me, is that any election outcome that elevates Biden to the Presidency is completely illegitimate, and that they should consider a Biden Presidency to be completely illegitimate, the election stolen from the American people, and it would be an illegal occupation regime in power in the United States. I am fighting against this outcome, and if the worst happens I will continue to fight for the American people and will do all I can to ensure freedom does not die under an illegitimate Biden occupation government. Thank you.

This Zman essay on Trump is more or less on target (but nothing you haven’t been reading here for the past four years).  But let us extend the analysis a bit.

An old bit of wisdom is that you should never try to con a con man. This advice is not aimed at con men, of course, but at honest people. Grifters are intuitively dishonest, which means they instinctively work every angle to some advantage. Normal people are simply unable to think like this, even when they are trying to do it. Their scruples get in the way of their scheming. 

This is why it is so difficult for otherwise intelligent people in the “movement” to understand, and deal with, the likes of Johnson, Brimelow, et al.  Well-meaning but pitifully naïve Type I rank-and-file activists are simply unprepared to deal with the “operators” in the “movement” who manipulate the masses of activists as easily as a smooth-talking con man fools his mark.  Endless decades of failure, and still the marks send in the “D’Nations.”  

This is something that Trump should have had in mind when he took office four years ago. It was his first mistake.

First, isn’t Trump at least in part a grifter and con man himself?  And second, what does it say that a New York billionaire real estate mogul is so easily fooled? Isn’t this more evidence that Trump rose to his position in life with the strong headwinds from his father and his family’s connections?  Based purely on merit and “picking himself by his bootstraps” Trump may have been, at most, an effective used car salesman.

Trump came to Washington thinking he was smarter, more clever and more resilient than the people he had mocked for so long from his couch. There’s no question that most people in politics are stupid. Without a government grift, they would end up peddling replacement windows door-to-door. But politics in a liberal democracy does not select for smart people. It selects for clever and ruthless people. Washington is the major leagues for the most clever and ruthless…

Oh, yes, but can’t the same be said about Der Movement’s “leaders?” Unimaginative dullards, comical incompetents, clownish buffoons, idiots with piss-poor judgment – but canny, shrewd political operators who know how to “play the game” to safeguard their personal perks and privileges.

…Playing by the rules, especially their rules, is a sucker’s play, one Trump never figured out in his four years…

This is something random bloggers knew from day one of Trump’s Presidency, but the God Emperor couldn’t figure it out for four years.

…By the election, all of the classified information should have been leaked and revealed. This would have kept Washington petrified about what he may release if they got too aggressive with him…

He could release it now.  Instead, he tweets.  Surprise!

…The trouble was, he kept selling his voters after he had won….

Con man.  Who identified Trump as a fraud more than four years ago?

…The great lesson to learn from the Trump era is that winning the crowd is useless if you don’t have a plan to put it to some purpose. Trump is not an ideologue, which allows him to be pragmatic. That’s a great asset in politics, as long as you have the secret list in your head of things you want to do in office. This is what makes the Left so powerful as a social force. They never lose focus on their goal. They know why they seek power, so they adapt and keep moving forward…

And that is exactly what I have been writing about the Left from the very beginning of the EGI Notes blog. And this ineptness of Trump is not limited to him, but infects the entire Mainstream Right.  To them, winning election is not a means to an end, but an end to itself. They win, then do nothing, and just sit back and watch the relentless Left make continuous progress.

…There are many other things that can be put in the list of mistakes by Trump over the last four years, but the overriding theme is this. Trump never rose above the petty and practical to grasp his historical moment. Like everyone else is Washington, he had no vision of the future. As a result, he got bogged down into the swamp he promised to drain, playing petty politics, squabbling over small issues. The moment called for a man of vision, but instead got a pitchman from Queens.

And in Der Movement, the moment called for men of vision, but instead got a pair of feuding Quota Queens from Montana.

The essence of Trump:

Several thousand supporters of President Donald Trump in Washington protested election results and then hailed Trump's passing motorcade before nighttime clashes with counterdemonstrators sparked fistfights, at least one stabbing and at least 20 arrests…Trump himself had given an approving nod to the gathering Saturday morning by dispatching his motorcade through streets lined with supporters before rolling on to his Virginia golf club.

His supporters get beaten, stabbed, attacked – he gives an “approving nod” and then goes to his “Virginia golf club.”  MAGA!  Pepe!  Kek!

Greg Johnson expresses himself.  That’s great.  How exactly do you think this is going to be achieved?  Even if, somehow, Trump convinces the Supreme Court to throw out all the fake ballots, and he assumes the Presidency 2021-2025 – and how likely is that? – what about the election of 2024? 2028? Mid-terms in between?  It is inevitable that those vindictive leftists will come to power at some point, either sooner or later. What’s your plan for that, other than “more of the same?”

Or do you think Trump will seize power as a dictator and then set up a hereditary monarchy? – with Kushner as court Jew of course.

These guys are all, in a political sense, criminally negligent.  Do any  of them have any plan other than stupid tweets?