or so conservatives must think.
Donald Trump has been invited to speak at CPAC in Orlando, this Sunday.
Why would they do this? This will confirm Democrats and Independents, and traditional Republicans, in their choice not to go with the GOP this year, further decrease its influence, and make it harder for those who hold populist views seriously without it looking like simply Trump worship.
People like Victor David Hanson like to speak of "Trump Derangement Syndrome". While that may be worth talking about, the fact is that Trump didn't win the popular vote by any measure either time he ran. He's not a popular man with the majority of Americans and by inviting him, the issues that concern populist Republicans are being fused to Trump in a way that will guaranty their electoral decimation in upcoming elections.
This is a serious matter. Populists do have a collection of valid concerns and valid points about them. But Trump's effort at overturning the election and failure to distance himself from extremist are tarring all of them and the entire movement with the same brush. The tighter the grip Trump has on any section of the GOP, the less likely it is to win anything at the national level going forward, and the more likely that the result will be a permanent shift of the American political center to the left.
McCarthy may have been right about most of the things he was complaining about in the 1950s. But he was easy to dislike and has become permanently disliked. There's a lesson from history here and we all know what happens to people who fail to listen to history.
Nonetheless, what is clear at this point is that the traditional conservative wing of the party is now in full retreat. Mitch McConnell, who only a couple of weeks ago sounded like he wanted to have Trump arrested, has stated he'd vote for him if he ran in 2024. And right now, quite frankly, it looks like such a run is really likely, something that even a few weeks ago would have been regarded as highly unlikely. As it remains unlikely that Joe Biden will run again, that would likely pit Trump against Kamala Harris, if . . .
Doesn't anyone notice how old these people are?
If, that is, Trump hasn't passed on simply due to old age, or become mentally feeble due to the same reason.
It's bizarre to see how even at this late state of the Baby Boom generation, people remain seriously entrenched in the seeming view that only they can lead the nation. A person would have had good reason to believe that Joe Biden would have been the last Boomer President. Now, that's not all that certain, as nothing in this political climate is very certain.
Restricting Balloting.
In Wyoming, legislators have a couple of bills floating on the topic. Senators Barrasso and Lummis have signed on to a Federal bill that will fail which will basically prevent States from making the reforms they did to address the still ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic. The law proposes to eliminate unmonitored ballot collection boxes (one of which I saw in Rawlins just last week) and to require states to send absentee ballots only to those requesting them.
This is another issue that will come to haunt the GOP. There's no evidence of widespread ballot fraud at all, and this plays into the Democratic claim that the Republicans are seeking to restrict the vote. While this will play to the Trumpite base, it won't play to the traditional wing of the party, which is now simply leaving it.
XX Chromosomes and Scouting
The first group of female Eagle Scouts received that status this week.
First of all, that's great for this group of young women. Achieving Eagle Scout status is hard to do, and they deserve praise for their accomplishments.
But it's also sad in a way in that its a further erosion of, well dare we say it, manliness.
Girls can be girls, but boys can't really be boys anymore, even virtuous boys, which was what the Boy Scouts were all about originally.
Let's be honest. Because human nature remains human nature no matter how woke some may be and wish for everything to be, there are fundamental differences between men and women, and boys and girls, at every level. Scouting recognized that, and hence that's why there was a Boy Scouts and a Girl Scouts.
While I note that I'm not an adherent every time I cite them, and then I go on to cite them, Strauss and How, in their generational theory (there's a category link to it below) argue that the character of men is different in different cycles as a whole (not necessarily individually) due to the views of women in any particular period. So, for a lack of a better way to illustrate it, in some eras women want a bunch of touchy feely wimps such as featured on This Is Us. In others, they want Ethan Edwards from The Searchers.
This makes sense from a evolutionary biology prospective, as women's role in elemental societies is, well, more societal than men's. But rather crudely, if you live in a society that's about to be attacked, you want guys who are capable of handling that. If you live in one where there's no risk of being attacked, you might now want guys who are looking for fights.
There's a lot more to this than that, but we live in an oddly emasculating era which has superseded a highly masculine one. If Strauss and How are right, generational succession goes from Hero, Artist Prophet to Nomad. They also figure the categories of generations by years a bit more differently, which is to their credit, as they would have the Baby Boom Generation ending earlier than some others do. You can read all about that elsewhere, but they also have a concept of cyclical crises and periods of stability that impact generations, with women generally being the cultural influencers that impact male character patterns, if not necessarily individual males, at any one time.
Okay, so what?
Well, we are living in a very female influenced era culturally. One that has even seen the intrusion of women into roles that are not only traditionally male, but arguably biologically male, from an evolutionary biological prospective and even attacks on the concept of gender itself, biologically unsounds though that may be. And part of what occurs, when this occurs, is that men, and before that boys, really have no refuge in which they can be just guys.
This doesn't mean there's some previous era in which everything in regard to male/female roles was perfectly defined, although in a lot of ways that changes much less than people like to imagine, and perceptions of change have more to do with economic changes in broad economies at any one time then the do with actual changes in cultural views. And it doesn't mean that there should be some sort of strict segregation between boys and girls at all times. Indeed, at least in my view, strict segregation at the primary school level actually tends to encourage vices, and the societies that practice that usually see the results later on in men and women who never learned about the others in their formative years with resulting permanent impacts on their characters.
But it does mean that there ought to be at least some places where boys can go just to be boys, and to learn, well, many things. And the same is true in the opposite direction for girls. And indeed, for girls, it still is. There's been no male penetration into deeply female roles or organizations in any meaningful sense. Find a boy in the Girl Scouts and chances are high that you are going to find an odd storty behind it, and one that is probably vested in that person's parents.
Find a girl in the Boy Scouts, or now just the Scouts, and what you'll find is high achieving girls. You'll also soon fine less manly boys in the same organizations, which have been having troubles recently anyhow, and soon just fewer boys in general. Some will remain, but they won't be the same group that would have been there otherwise, and those who are there, aren't going to learn the same lessons they would have otherwise. Overall, everyone will suffer for that.*
They forgot what society they lived in
Lindell is the founder of the My Pillow company. I don't know anything about the pillows and not that much about Lindell, other than his personal story is really a classic rags to riches type tale.
In the U.S., that's enough to cause people to love and hate you, which is something to keep in mind. He's also a vocal Evangelical Christian, which also will draw praise while drawing some dislike as well. None of that, however, is what he's now in trouble for.
Lindell has been sued by Dominion Voting which is sick and tired of its voting machines being slammed. Lindell made claims that Dominion rigged the election for Joe Biden, a statement for which not only is there no evidence, it's demonstrably false. Dominion is a business and they don't like their product being hammered by falsehoods, no deeply believed by those who are asserting those falsehoods.
People like Victor David Hanson like to talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome which they claim causes people on the left to be completely irrational about Donald Trump. An argument can be made that some of that did in fact exist during the Trump Administration, particularly early on. The problem is that the same term can also apply to Trump's diehard supporters.
One of the things about Trump is, quite frankly, that while he had real accomplishments he has major character defects. He's boorish, crude, and has had a history of questionable behavior with women. He's also a prima donna and narcissist who simply can't stand the thought of public criticism or losing.
In normal US politics that would doom a person, but it didn't with Trump. A lot of his base supporters originally didn't care about any of that as long as he acted as a wrecker. Over time, he's developed a personality cult that nearly worships him, in spite of all of his obvious faults. People in that category suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome as well as they can't be objective at all about Trump.
This doesn't apply to every Trump supporter by any means. But it applies to some. Guys like Lindell and Patrick Coffin seem to have simply fallen off the reality wagon and are willing to endorse all sorts of conspiracy theories about one thing or another. Coffin, who used to be an objective conservative religious voice now hosts people who see Bill Gates conspiring to create a pandemic in order to create a new world order. Lindell boosted the Dominion nonsense.
Lindell is now one of several figures getting sued by Dominion. Dominion no doubt doesn't hope to be reimbursed by them for their losses, whatever those may be, but is out to repair its reputation through litigation. The litigation will achieve that.
Dopey New Jersey
Not that New Jersey is by any means alone in this, to be sure. It's just following the pack.
It does say something that in early 21st Century America, however, one of the biggest movements of the day is one that allows people to be oblivious.
Exit Franco
A statute honoring Francisco Franco's role as a commander in the Rif War, put up in 1978 was taken down this past week. Apparently it was the last one, which is remarkable in part as it was put up in the 1970s.
Franco had his supporters in Spain during his long dictatorship, as well as his supporters elsewhere. All that now seems definitively in the past. Having said that, this has been a strange trip. Franco had his supporters in the west during the civil war period that proceeded World War Two, and even had some after that. Indeed, quite a few. During much of the 30s he was, however, disdained by the American left including the popular media. World War Two certainly increased that disdain, and for good reasons, as he crept up on joining Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in the war. By war's end, however, he was courting the west. His regime died with him, which he was aware would occur, but he retained sufficient support for a monument to his command in the Spain's colonist Rif campaign was still erected, which is pretty amazing really. And we just passed the 40th anniversary of the attempted 1981 Fracoist coup, which of course failed.
Nobody in Span is going to try a Francoist coup now.
Streaming
Paramount movies has announced it will provide movies for streaming 45 days after their initial release.
Sign of the times.
Footnotes
*And, no, I wasn't an Eagle Scout.
I was in Scouting so briefly that I usually say I was never a Boy Scout. In actuality I was, but as noted, very briefly.
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