{"id":1292078,"date":"2023-05-21T18:13:10","date_gmt":"2023-05-21T22:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/abandon-the-swamp\/1292078\/"},"modified":"2023-05-21T18:13:10","modified_gmt":"2023-05-21T22:13:10","slug":"abandon-the-swamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/abandon-the-swamp\/1292078\/","title":{"rendered":"Abandon The Swamp"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Abandon The Swamp<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Suppose a document drops in the wilderness and no one is around to hear it. Does it make a sound?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I submit that John Durham just tested this Bishop Berkeleyesque query. The special counsel spent four years beavering away in the forests of the deep state and what did he produce?<\/p>\n

Three hundred pages telling us what, for the most part, we already knew and with the result that exactly nothing, apart from a little hand wringing, will happen.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We already knew that James Comey, Robert Mueller, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, John Brennan, Susan Rice, Michael Sussmann, Kevin Clinesmith, and all the other characters in and around the Russia Collusion Delusion had fabricated the story of Trump\u2019s supposed connection with Russia out of whole cloth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We already knew that they had gone out of their way to protect Hillary Clinton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We knew that there was no predicate for obtaining a FISA warrant against Carter Page (one of many thousands of such warrants), thus opening a back door into the Trump campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We knew that the surveillance apparatus of the regime had been weaponized to prevent Donald Trump from being elected and then, when he surprised everyone by winning anyway, to taint his administration and render him radioactive.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What should we make of Durham\u2019s non-revelatory revelations? I think that, wittingly or not, they were just a big exercise in track-covering, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Well, nothing beyond the sound and fury, anyway.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Still, Durham\u2019s bulletin is useful as a marker of the futility in which we labor.<\/strong> Andr\u00e9 Gide touched on this point when he reminded us that \u201cToutes choses sont dites d\u00e9j\u00e0, mais comme personne n\u2019\u00e9coute, il faut toujours recommencer<\/em>.\u201d Over the past five or six years, virtually everything that Durham said in his report had already been said. But because no one was listening, it is necessary to start again and say it once more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In this spirit, I am going to say again some things I have said elsewhere, beginning with what has become my ritual invocation of British Prime Minister Harold Wilson\u2019s observation that a week is a long time in politics. That\u2019s time enough, as T. S. Eliot said in another context, \u201cfor a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until the night of March 5, 2023, I suspected that \u201cThe Donald Trump Show,\u201d which has been such blockbuster entertainment, might have entered its final season. That\u2019s still possible, of course. The people clamoring for its cancellation are many and vociferous. Moreover, they have another concession with which they propose to entertain us: \u201cThe Ron DeSantis Deliverance.\u201d Someday, I\u2019d like to see that show myself.<\/p>\n

I wonder, though, about the most profitable time to air it. 2024? Perhaps. But I think the jury is still out on that. We\u2019ll know more after DeSantis finally announces what he has already made clear, namely that he, too, is running for the presidency in 2024. He will, if the past is any guide, get a bump in the polls. But at the moment, anyway, I am inclined to think that 2024 belongs to the Donald. Why? There are many reasons.<\/p>\n

One vivid reason was vouchsafed us during the final hours of the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) program in National Harbor, Maryland, in March. It was then that\u00a0Trump addressed the crowd<\/a>. C-SPAN described the speech as \u201cremarks.\u201d To me, the word \u201cremarks\u201d suggests something brief and casual. Trump\u2019s performance was long and, for Trump, well-prepared.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As usual with the former president, the talk was peppered with digressions and offhand observations. But he was clearly following a script. Chris Christie, formerly an ally, sighed that the room was only half full (was it?) and that Trump was \u201cnot what he used to be<\/a>.\u201d Opinions about that vary. I thought the talk bristled with rhetorical electricity. And in terms of substance, it was one of the most forthright and powerful political speeches I\u2019ve heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier that day, Trump had won the\u00a0CPAC straw poll<\/a>\u00a0with 62 percent of the vote. DeSantis was the runner-up with 20 percent. As of May 19, with a half a dozen Republican candidates in the field,\u00a0Trump leads by 42 points<\/a>. Is that significant? I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s early days. DeSantis hasn\u2019t even officially declared yet, A week is a long time, etc., etc.<\/p>\n

But right now, as of May 20, I would say this about the 2024 race on the Republican side: There are two plausible candidates: Trump and DeSantis. <\/strong><\/p>\n

DeSantis has the blessing of the donor class and Conservatism, Inc. He\u2019s a great governor and would probably make an effective president.<\/p>\n

Trump has the unwavering support of the MAGA millions and most allotropes of the dissident Right. There\u2019s plenty of exasperation about Trump, not least among those who worked with him in his first term. He\u2019s a difficult, demanding, and mercurial person.<\/strong> But his CPAC speech (and, more recently,\u00a0his performance\u00a0<\/a>at a CNN \u201ctownhall\u201d with Kaitlan Collins) demonstrated why he\u2019s beloved by his supporters and feared and hated by his opponents.<\/p>\n

Trump said many bold and controversial things in the course of his speech. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll concentrate on two themes.<\/p>\n

The first\u2014it was the thing that really set heads spinning\u2014revolved around the word \u201cretribution.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2016,\u201d he said, \u201cI declared, I am your voice. Today, I add, I am your warrior, I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And just in case you missed that last bit, he repeated it. \u201cI am your retribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pundits love-hated that, just as they were appalled by this promise: \u201cI will totally obliterate the deep state.\u201d I think he meant it, too. \u201cI will fire the unelected bureaucrats and shadow forces who have weaponized our justice system. . . . I will put the people back in charge of this country again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2019Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.<\/p>\n

Could he actually do it? <\/strong>That\u2019s a very good question. His track record during his first term was impressive but not dispositive, partly because he was surrounded by the swamp and its denizens. Really, he didn\u2019t know any better. He came to office as an outsider, a na\u00eff. He actually thought that Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson were on his side. Imagine that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He has been disabused of those sentiments, though who exactly he can rely on as allies remains an open question. Personnel will once again be a critical problem for Trump were he to reoccupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a bit of unsolicited advice that I have for the former president should he be elected again: Stay out of Washington as much as you can. Stop the newspapers. Have your mail forwarded.<\/p>\n

Washington really is a swamp and it will consume you. And here are a few particular bits of advice:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

1) Have the inauguration in Mar-a-Lago.<\/em><\/p>\n

2) Govern from Florida as much as you can.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

3) If you decide to indulge in the theater of the State of the Union Address as it has evolved, deliver it from, say, Kansas.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

4) Disband the FBI. We should never have allowed a national police force to come into being.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Move the bits of the government you can\u2019t actually destroy to other parts of the country.<\/p>\n

Do these things instantly\u2014the day you take office. The deep state will howl. The bureaucrats will oppose you. The lawyers will sue you. Do it anyway. Act first, deal with the consequences later.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conduct metaphorical dawn-raids on their people and institutions just as they weaponized the Justice Department against you and your supporters. That would not only be the retribution you seek, it would also be reciprocity. Speed and thoroughness will be of the essence. If you hesitate, if you are half-hearted, you will be lost.<\/p>\n

These are points\u00a0I have made before<\/a>. The focus should be on eclipsing Washington, D.C. as the seat of government. It has long been obvious to candid observers that there is something deeply dysfunctional about that overwhelmingly Democratic, welfare-addicted city. It is a partisan sinkhole. Jefferson wanted the capital moved from New York to Washington in part to bring it closer to the South, but also to place it somewhere that was officially neutral. There is nothing neutral about Washington today. The city has some impressive architecture and urban vistas. They should be preserved and staffed as tourist attractions. But the reins of power should be relocated.<\/p>\n

The more I think about our situation, the more I believe the only hope for the republic is to downgrade the place of Washington in our public life. The business of Washington is to make government bigger\u2014forever. That is not what the people, who pay for it, want. Legitimacy is draining out of our governing institutions at an alarming rate. Stanching that debilitating flow requires that we redirect our attention away from the greedy puppet show in Washington to the true source of legitimacy, which is with the people.<\/p>\n

Trump is one of the few people with the temerity to attempt such a thing. Perhaps he can appease some of his critics by proposing we rename Washington to George Floyd City. I would be OK with that. In any event, the actual government of the country should be moved to some neutral ground, out of the overwhelmingly corrupt cesspool that is Washington.<\/p>\n

The other bit of Trump\u2019s CPAC speech that I want to mention concerns NATO. <\/strong><\/u>Trump did not, as some commenters asserted, \u201cmuse about Russia blowing up the NATO headquarters.\u201d Rather, he talked about the folly of NATO spending billions to construct a huge headquarters for itself. Would they not have been better advised to construct a hardened bunker? After all, Trump pointed out, Russia could destroy the shiny new headquarters with a single missile.<\/p>\n

Bill Kristol, seizing on the idea that Trump was musing about blowing up NATO headquarters,\u00a0took to Twitter<\/a>\u00a0to make \u201cthe most obvious point: This man cannot be our next president.\u201d Kristol was also aghast at Trump\u2019s call for an \u201call-European NATO, with the United States as an ally but not a member.\u201d \u201cOne of the problems with the involvement of the United States in NATO,\u201d he said, \u201cis that it dilutes the nationalist impulse.\u201d Can you believe that? He actually praised \u201cthe nationalist impulse.\u201d How Hitlerian can you get?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Bill Kristol, though, those last observations come not from Trump (though he would probably agree with them) but from someone else named Kristol:\u00a0Irving<\/em>\u00a0Kristol, Bill\u2019s father, who in 1983 wrote an essay called \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong With NATO<\/a>?\u201d After the Soviet Union fell, Irving Kristol went on to\u00a0express doubts<\/a>\u00a0about the future role for NATO in European politics altogether.<\/p>\n

If that seems surprising, it\u2019s only because you have failed to appreciate just how long a week in politics can be.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 05\/21\/2023 – 21:30<\/span><\/p>\n

From:Zerohedge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abandon The Swamp Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness, Suppose a document drops in the wilderness and no one is around to hear it….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-5q7Y","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1292078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1292078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1292078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1292078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}