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~ Thoughts on Red States and "Deplorables."

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Monthly Archives: November 2016

Are the Democrats the New Federalists?

09 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in U.S. Politics

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Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Election 2016, Elites, Federalists, Jim Langcuster, Urban Elites, Whigs

hamilton

Alexander Hamilton, Founder of the Federalist Party.

The prairie winds that swept across the great American heartland last night do not bode well for the future of the Democratic Party.

By becoming, however unwittingly, a bi-coastal party, the Democratic Party is arguably the 21st century equivalent of Federalists and their successors, the Whigs – an party of gentrified, well-educated urban elites. As my beloved 8th grade history teacher used to say, history has repeated itself. In a remarkable way, the 21st century American party system resembles the proto-party system that emerged in the years following constitutional ratification, pitting an upscale urban Federalist Party against a country party, Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans.

 

Earlier this year, a number of astute pundits pointed out that the Democrats would be in exceedingly dire straits if they lost, which,at the time, of course, was considered a far-flung possibility. I think that this is an important point to bear in mind. Things only worked for the Federalists when they wielded power and the political patronage that comes with it. Without this patronage and without a sufficient foothold within the vast American heartland, they will find themselves at an acute competitive disadvantage.

Three Radical Solutions for Reforming – and Downsizing – America

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in Uncategorized

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Boston Globe, California Independence Campaign, Election of 2016, Jim Langcuster, Nullification, secession, Texas Nationalist Movement

california_flagThe question has been raised more than once in this election: Given the deep, wrenching divisions in this country, is it possible that the 2016 election results, regardless of the victor, will draw some states closer to secession?

The Yes California Independence Campaign, whose Facebook page already has garnered 11,000  likes, announced that it will hold a get-acquainted session on the steps of the California State Capitol tomorrow, regardless of the election outcome.  Meanwhile, secessionist sentiment in Texas appears to be growing and will likely undergo a significant spike following a Hillary Clinton victory.

A Short History of American Secession

Of course, as a recent feature article in the Boston Globe observes,  there have been several notable precedents, one of which actually led to the formal secession of eleven Southern states and that culminated in the bloodiest war in U.S. history. But this only scratches the surface. Delegates to the Hartford Convention of 1814 vented their outrage over Virginia President James Madison’s signing of a highly restrictive embargo act, which rendered grievous harm to New England shipping interests.  Moderate delegates ultimately carried the day, though a few of the more hotheaded ones advocated secession and a separate piece with Britain.

Some twenty years later, South Carolinian rage over what they perceived as economically punitive tariffs led to the Nullification Crisis, which prompted  many to wonder if South Carolina and other Southern states ultimately would bolt the Union.

And in the years leading up to the Civil War, a number of abolitionists, claiming that U.S. Constitution amounted to a pact with the Devil, called for dissolution of the Union.

While I used to be favorably disposed to peaceful secession earlier in my life, I’ve reached the middle-aged conclusion vast advantages of the American market and the benefit of mutual defense significantly outweigh the benefits of secession.  But that’s not to say that wrenching, far-reaching reform in unneeded.

As I see it, the United States is in desperate need of thoroughgoing constitutional reform in at least three areas.

Downsize the U.S. Presidency

First, we are encumbered with a presidency that has grown far beyond the scope conceived by the Founders. It is bloated, politicized, imperial and demands a level of omnicompetence that is far beyond the capacity of anyone to supply. Sooner or later, the American presidency will have to be redesigned based on the ceremonial presidential models of Germany, Ireland or Israel or the hybridized French model in which the president is head of state and responsible for foreign affairs, leaving a prime minister (perhaps our case, the vice president) to manage domestic affairs.

Downsize the Federal Judiciary 

Second, in filling the breach left by the erosion of national consensus, reflected primarily in the erosion of congressional authority and effectiveness, the American judiciary has grown increasingly powerful and unaccountable – a development that the Founders scarcely could have conceived and undoubtedly would regard with profound alarm. This growth in the power and influence of the U.S. judiciary has produced several deleterious effects. For starters, the immense growth of the federal judiciary, which has occurred in tandem with the growth of the presidency, has created an unusually desperate high-stakes political environment evident in every presidential election cycle. Presidential elections are bound up not only in the selection of a chief executive but also in the judicial appointments that will be made over the next 4 to 8 years, which afford the chief executive a sort of second presidential life.

Scale Down the Federal Union 

Third, but certainly not least, this country is too damned big and diverse to govern from Washington, D.C. It’s growing increasingly impossible to govern this nation through a one-size-fits-all system. The current centralized federal system may have worked reasonably well a century ago when it was conceived by centralist progressives such as Woodrow Wilson, but it is ill-equipped to serve the increasingly diversified, digitized economic and political order that emerged in the late 20th century. This realization already is becoming evident among growing numbers of Americans, particularly in megastates such as Californiaand Texas that possess the people and resources to go it alone.

Much like the U.S. presidency, the federal system either must be scaled downed, or we will see increasing eruptions of popular dissent similar to those that gripped the country in 1814 and 1860.

Racism or Anti-Cultural Marxism?

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in U.S. Politics

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Civil Rights, Cultural Marxism, Donald Trump, Martin Luther King, Political Correctness

trump-rallyI’ve been intrigued by repeated media and social media outbursts about the racism in Trumpian ranks.  Certainly there is some racism in the ranks – I won’t deny that.

But much of what is perceived as racism isn’t about race per se but rather about how race and, for that matter, gender, have been used within the last quarter century as a principal weapon of cultural Marxism.

All revolutions and social struggles release a sort of nervous energy that never dissipates. The intense libertarian/Jeffersonian energy that was released during the American Revolution, while perhaps waxing and waning over the last quarter millennium, has endured and even mutated significantly. In a sense, the civil rights movement bears a striking resemblance to the libertarian/Jeffersonian tradition – not surprising given that the movement is partly the ideological offspring of this libertarianism – and, like its progenitor, released its own energy a half century ago.
To put it another way, the civil rights movement is mutating too, and one of the effect of this mutation is that racism and other forms of intolerance are being defined up, in a manner of speaking, to more ambiguous forms of human behavior. This is where it has taken on very palpable cultural Marxist hues. It’s no longer considered sufficient simply to accept Martin Luther King’s  expressed hope – now immortalized in high-school and college history textbooks – that all men and women one day will be judged by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin. One is expected to not only to tolerate but even to embrace a whole array of attitudes now days. Many see this as a form of proto-totalitarianism that is increasingly being expressed in unusually virulent and disturbing – not to mention, Kafkaesque – ways, particularly on many college campuses.
Are the vast majority of Trump voters aware of these cultural Marxist trends?  Of course not.  But they see these disturbing social and cultural trends unfolding in society, particularly on college campuses, and they’re screaming, “Enough!” And, predictably, they are met with the charges of intolerance and bigotry.
That is one factor among several that have accounted for the Trumpian revolution – or counterrevolution – or whatever one chooses to call it.
Call me a deplorable and irredeemable bigot or whatever other term the left develops to stock its rhetorical quiver, but the majority of rank-and-file Trump voters are seeing these cultural Marxist trends playing out in society, and they are concluding that this is not the way they define being an American and living in a free country. I believe that the vast majority of Trump voters are as committed to civil discourse as anyone else, but they refuse to submit to anything resembling an Orwellian social order.
They may not be as educated as the average Hillary voter, but  they perceive emerging trends that simply do not bode well for liberty, at least, as they have understood that term all their lives. And, predictably, they’re pushing back.

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03 Thursday Nov 2016

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03 Thursday Nov 2016

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03 Thursday Nov 2016

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