Showing posts with label History repeating itself or at least rhyming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History repeating itself or at least rhyming. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Monday, June 22, 2026
Saturday, June 22, 1946. History rhyming
U.S. Senator Theodore G. Bilbo of Mississippi, a former Governor of that state, running for re-election in the Democratic primary, said in a radio broadcast that he was calling on every "red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means to keep hundreds of Negroes from the polls in the July 2 primary.And if you don't know what the means, you are just not up on your persuasive measures.
He won the primary and the generals, but the Senate would refuse to swear him in due to his racist comments.
Today he'd be a Republican, they'd excuse his comments, and he'd be sworn in.
Bilbo retired and wrote a book entitled; Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization. He died in 1947.
Last edition:
Thursday, June 20, 1946. Allied withdrawal.
Labels: 1940, 1946, 1950s, 1955, 1957, 1960s, 1962, Allied Powers, Allies, Bulgaria, China, Italy, Manchukuo, Monarchy
Saturday, March 21, 2026
King Donald the Unready* plays emperor without thinking and now there's no good way out.
An interesting one from TNR:
Trump Erupts in Fury Over His War Failures—and Exposes a Big Weakness
His rage at NATO is actually an admission that he needs our allies’ help—and that he wants somebody to blame as his war goes from bad to worse.
Somewhat related, I had a conversation with my MAGA associate, whose been pretty quite recently (he has five boys that are all old enough to have his own views and who are sick of the US supporting Israel on everything. . . I bet this war has been interesting at home. . .). He noted, however, "I almost feel sorry for those mullahs, hiding in caves".
Now, he's never served in the military and doesn't know much about military matters, at all. I noted that must be pretty bad, and then the fortunes of war became the topic. I.e., how will this war end.
"We've already lost" was my statement.
He looked stunned.
We have already lost. When you launch a war with war aims that are based on your experiences as a real estate developer, you are a fool.
Trump has no real world experience in anything. He's just been a real estate developer, and that's not much. That's based on money.
An existential war, and that's what a war between Israel and Iran is, isn't based on that. It's based on two fundamentally opposed world outlooks. Israel's war aim is to end Iran as a military threat forever, and under Netanyahu, it's been willing to commit genocide in order to achieve security. Nobody is looking at Gaza anymore. Nobody is looking at Lebanon either. Basically, Israel is fighting the war, with the US as a mercenary dupe, quite frankly, the way the mob war is depicted in the Godfather.
Trump stupidly thought that the Iranians, who have a theocracy, think like he does. He'd give them the dope slap and they'd give up, or if they didn't, there'd be a January 6 type revolution in the streets. Nope, nothing like that has happened or is going to. Even the Kurds, who would like to be independent, have so little faith in King Donald that they're not rebelling.
Now a series of really horrific choices are before him. For one thing, under the War Powers Act, he's running out of time to submit this to Congress and it appears fairly certain that there's a real chance that Congress would say "nope". He's running out of money quicker that that, and is going to have to go to Congress and ask for $200B, with some Republicans already indicating they won't support that.
It's clear, moreover, that he can't bomb his way into victory. That's never worked, and it isn't working here. Indeed, not only is it not working, the limits of airpower are really showing. We've done a massive aerial assault and yet the Iranians keep hitting back.
And the Iranians have hit on the idea of waging an economic war, which is a strategic use of airpower, missiles in the air in this case, knowing that there's little support of the war anywhere, and that people now get to think about how foolish King Donald is every time they go to the pump. Indeed, an economic war against the US as an Islamic warrior concept has been around for a long time, and is actually what Osama Bin Laden had in mind when he staged the Twin Towers attacks. Bin Laden turned out to be an economic moron as that had no effect on the economy at all, but this is.
And the Iranians have shown themselves to be able to effectively close the Straits of Hormuz, locking up 20% of the globe's oil supply. Wharton School of Business graduate Trump (I'm now at the point where Wharton ranks in my mind with correspondence courses in the back of cartoon books) apparently has no grasp at all on how the global oil market works.** His stupid, and it was stupid, reply is "well we have lots of oil". Yeah., we do, in a global market.
J. D. Vance, or whatever his name is, had the comment "well other people are suffering more than we are", which is also moronic. That's saying that yes, you are suffering.
The only way to open the Straits of Hormuz back up is to land Marines on the north shore of the Straits and make a broad beachhead. A broad beachhead is subject to broad attack, which in turn requires a deeper beachhead. Choose the analogy that you want, but pretty soon you are looking at either Da Nang in 1965, in which we went from Marine beachhead, to expanded perimeter, to full intervention in the Vietnam War, or Anzio in 1944, which turned into a man eating mess. Optimistically, a Marine force to open the Straits of Hormuz would have to be backed up, in the end, by a two division commitment form the U.S. Army, and that would be just to hold on to some real estate, not to win the war.
Of course, it'd help in the current pseudo chief executive had cracked a history book from time to time, but Trump just isn't that smart.
Winning the war would actually require a full scale ground invasion. We could probably pull that off, but it would require an investment of manpower on a scale not seen since the Vietnam War. The Korean War would be a good analogy, actually. It'd require a full scale call up of the National Guard and Reserves, and the standdown would not come for many years. It'd cost something like 20,000 men killed, optimistically, and accelerate inflation at an unsustainable rate under the current tax structure. In other worlds, unlike the Cold War in which budgets were less out of control, we couldn't keep this running long and would actually have to raise taxes, and massively, something that should be done in any event.
So, here we are. Israel got a a war that Bibi wanted, although winning that war now depends more on Dick and Jane in Hastings, Nebraska, than it does on anyone in Israel. The US got into an illegal war it didn't want at all, and which nobody can honestly state has a goal that makes sense. Pete Hegseth and his Evangelical friends got a fever dream in which they bring about the end of Islam, which isn't going to happen.
Well, if its any consolation, Trump gets bored pretty easily. Marco Rubio probably still wants to invade Cuba. There's a fairly good chance that Trump will just pull the U.S. military out of the war, effectively surrendering to Iran but without his pen on anything. We'll go on to invade Cuba with just as little grasp of what that will take. Republicans in Congress will still sit around acting like they're getting paid to do something.
Sic transit Gloria Mundi.
Footnotes:
*Recalling Æthelred the Unready, the terrible Saxon king, whom after his death was lampooned as being "unready", i.e., "ill advised".
Æthelred the Unready, whom in spite of being a terrible king, was the Saxon king for 38 years, a remarkably long time.
**A very respected cousin of mine went to Wharton and went on to a fantastic career in business. He was the sort of person who was simply a natural businessman from day one. Indeed, I always though him a fish out of water in Wyoming where he really didn't fit in.
Anyhow, we were all so impressed that he went to Wharton.
My mind has really changed on Wharton, and frankly a lot of the big name schools. Both Donald Trump and Wyoming's Secretary of State, Chuck Gray, are Wharton graduates which says a lot, and not in a good way, about Wharton. Gray, at least, is clearly smart, indeed smart enough to dupe a lot of Wyomingites into voting for him. Trump appears to me to have a very modest intellect.
Pete Hegseth is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, which is even more amazing. Hegseth simply doesn't appear to be that smart.
All of this calls for a separate thread, but clearly the level of prestige these institutions have traditionally held simply isn't warranted today.
Saturday, February 14, 2026
Sunday, February 14, 1926. The Bamberg Conference.
Nazi Party members attending the Bamberg Conference approved Hitler's motion to make his position absolute, thereby establishing the Führerprinzip.
The Trump administration essentially operates under the same principal, and indeed is run in much the same way.
The conference also ended inter party feuding, which had existed up to that point and which in fact would for some time.
The conference also confirmed its 1920 twenty-five point program.
Translated, it stated:
The program of the National‑Socialist German Workers’ Party is a schedule. The leaders refuse to draft new goals after the ones listed in the program are achieved, solely for the purpose of enabling the party to continue to exist by artificially increasing the dissatisfaction of the masses.
1. We demand the union of all Germans to form a Greater Germany on the basis of the people’s right to self-determination.
2. We demand equality of rights for the German people with other nations; and abolition of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
3. We demand land and soil (colonies) for the sustenance of our people and settlement of our surplus population.
4. None but members of the Volk (a people; large tribe) may be citizens of the state. None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the Volk. No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the Volk.
5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest and must be regarded as being subject to foreign laws.
6. The right of voting on the state's government and legislation is to be enjoyed by the citizen of the state alone. We demand therefore that all official appointments, of whatever kind, shall be granted to citizens of the state alone. We oppose the corrupting custom of parliament of filling posts merely with a view to party considerations, and without reference to character or capability.
7. We demand that the state commit itself to providing, first and foremost, opportunities for its citizens to earn a living and make a life for themselves. If it is not possible to feed the entire population of the state, then members of foreign nations (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.
8. All further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the Reich.
9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work, either mentally or physically. The activities of the individual must not conflict with the interests of the general public, but must be carried out within the framework of the whole and for the benefit of all. We therefore demand:
11. Abolition of work-free and effortless income. Breaking of interest-slavery.
12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice of life and property that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment due to a war must be regarded as a crime against the people. Therefore, we demand ruthless confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand nationalization of all businesses which have been up to the present formed into companies (trusts).
14. We demand that the profits of large companies shall be shared out.
15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the state, county or municipality.
17. We demand land reform adapted to our national needs, the creation of a law for the expropriation of land for public purposes without compensation. Abolition of land tax and prevention of all land speculation.
18. We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
19. We demand the replacement of Roman Law, which serves the materialistic world order, with a German common law.
20. In order to enable every capable and hard-working German to attain higher education and thus enter into leading positions, the state must ensure the thorough expansion of our entire public education system. The curricula of all educational institutions must be adapted to the requirements of practical life. An understanding of the concept of the state must be achieved from the very beginning of schooling (civics). We demand that children of poor parents who are particularly gifted intellectually be educated at the expense of the state, regardless of their parents' social status or occupation.
21. The state must ensure the improvement of public health by protecting mothers and children, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by promoting physical fitness through the legal establishment of compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by providing the greatest possible support to all associations involved in physical education for young people.
22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
23. We demand legal action against deliberate political lies and their dissemination by the press. In order to enable the creation of a German press, we demand that:
a. All editors and employees of newspapers published in the German language must be members of the race;
b. Non-German newspapers be required to have the express permission of the state to be published. They may not be printed in the German language;
c. Non-Germans are forbidden by law any financial interest in German publications or any influence on them and as punishment for violations the closing of such a publication as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-German concerned. Publications which are counter to the common good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life and the closure of events that violate the above demands.
24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and outside us and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our people can only come about from within, on the basis of:
Public Interest Over Self-Interest
25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unconditional authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general. The formation of corporative chambers and professional chambers for the execution of the laws made by the Reich within the various states of the confederation.
The leaders of the party promise to stand up for the execution of the above points ruthlessly, if necessary at the cost of their own lives.
Munich, February 24, 1920 — signed Adolf Hitler.
In 1928 an item that was causing controversy was amended:
In response to the mendacious interpretations of point 17 of the NSDAP program by our opponents, the following statement is necessary:
“Since the NSDAP stands on the principle of private property, it goes without saying that the passage ‘expropriation without compensation’ refers only to the creation of legal possibilities to expropriate land that has been acquired unlawfully or is not managed in accordance with the interests of the people, if necessary. This is therefore directed primarily against Jewish real estate speculation companies.”
Munich, April 13, 1928 — signed Adolf Hitler.
It's interesting reading in that you could see where the NASDP was headed, but they were not there yet. It's also interesting to read how much of MAGA would be comfortable with this, although they wouldn't be comfortable with all of it. The NASDP was a populist party.
At this point, I frankly don't think a lot of the MAGA rank and file, and even some of its upper ranks, would really disavow association with the Nazis all that much.
Last edition:
Saturday, February 13, 1926. Calles attempts to end Catholic education.
Labels: 1920s, 1926, Aircraft, Art, Catholic, Christianity, Education, Mail, Mexico, Plutarco Elías Calles, Post Office, religion, Valentine's Day
Sunday, January 11, 2026
Split Screen
This past week gave us a tragedy which shows how divided, by way of the country's reaction to it, the United States really is. Oddly, it gives me a little hope that we're now at the point where we're going to start the process of overcoming it as well.
I'm writing, of course, about ICE agent Jonathan Ross's killing of immigration protester Renee Nicole Good.
Body cam footage of Renee Nicole Good seconds before she was shot by ICE Officer Jonathan Ross, a ten year veteran of ICE. Prior to ICE, he served with the U.S. Border Patrol from 2007 until 2015, and before that he served in Iraq in the Indiana National Guard. Contrary, therefore, to my suspicions, he wasn't a new or green officer.
Or, at least, I'm writing about it, somewhat. What I'm more particularly writing about is the reaction to the killing and the instant polarization surrounding it.
Let's start with the killing itself and what we actually know if it.
Good was killed by Ross on January 7, 2026, a few days ago. ICE was operating in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a quite liberal Minnesota city in which ICE was undoubtedly wholly unwelcome. Donald Trump has used ice in various municipalities, but he's sent it into liberal bastions as what may be regarded as a sort of taunt. ICE, moreover, has acted like a pack of Brownshirts everywhere it's gone. Not only as militarized police, but as Sturmabteilung, stormtroopers really, for Trump.
Good was there as a protestor, and she was blocking their way with her car. To the extent we know much about her, she was a classic Minneapolis lefty. Apparently originally from Colorado, she was graduate from Old Dominion with an English degree, she was a poet. She had a daughter who was 15 years of age and sons who were 12 and 6. While not alway so identified, she presently identified as a lesbian and was "married" to another woman.
On January 7, what was known to Ross was none of this at all, other than that she was blocking the road. Another ICE officer went to confront her in the typical heavy handed ICE fashion, a fashion that no trained municipal force, and I've worked a lot with municipal police forces, would have used. A trained municipal force would have, rather, simply walked up and said, "ma'am would you move your car?" Based on her last words, she would have.
ICE, however, does't operate that way. Like SA in German streets in the early 30s, or, if you prefer, like strikebreakers at Ludlow in 1914, they hit or strike first and ask questions later, having been given license to do just that.
This always leads to the loss of innocent life sooner or later. Good had no legal right to block ICE, but what she was doing is a time honored, and mild, form of protest.
Good appears to have turned her car wheel to the right, in compliance with ICE's wishes, but not in compliance with being drug out of her car, which an ICE agent was stupidly, but typically, trying to do. I wouldn't have done that either, and frankly I have actually been in a vehicle, by accident, at the wheel, in the midst of a huge urban protest. I wouldn't have gotten out my truck in that for anyone, including the police.1 Ross, inexplicably, got in front of her car. He drew his sidearm, and as she moved forward, armed as he was with a 9mm, a fine police weapon, he shot her three times, exhibiting the training that's carried over from the Armed Forces where the anemic 9mm is a known complete dud, necessitating multiple shots to kill.2 As a police weapons, supplaning the old .38 revolver round, which doesn't kill either, it was perfectly adequate.
Shot three times, she died, probably instantly.
There's a lot to break down here. 3
The thing, however, it reminds me of, is Kent State, in 1970.
Which might give us a slight bit of hope.
For most Americans today Kent State doesn't mean anything at all, or if it does, that's because they're a student of history. For some of us yet, however, Kent State is both a prescient moment in history, and a personal memory.
I was only seven years old or so when Kent State happened. I feel like I can remember it, but that may be a false memory. In 1970 we had a television and my father and mother watched the news every night. The television, which we had only had for two years, was by that time located in the kitchen, moved from the living room in our 1958 vintage house which was not designed to house a TV. It seems to me that I can recall this event from them, but I might not be able to. Having said that, I can remember seeing some of the rioting of the 1960s on television, and seeing Jimi Hendrix on the news on the last morning of Woodstock, so my memory goes back to my early years.
Kent State was a pivotal moment in the Vietnam War and in the ushering in of the liberal 1970s.
The real lynchpin in the decline of American support of the Vietnam War was the Tet Offensive of 1968. The American military reacted to the Tet Offensive brilliantly and completely crushed the North Vietnamese effort. NVA and VC gains were temporary and despoiled by atrocity. Only in Hue did the NVA hang on, and to their everlasting discredit by their horrific actions against the civilian population there, which should disqualify the current regime in Vietnam from evcen existing. But in spite of that, the American public was shocked and horrified, feeling, really, betrayed by promises and assurances broken.
Much like some are now about the end of "forever wars" when the regime that promised the end to them kills Venezuelans for some reason, and then entertains oil executives in the White House shortly thereafter, while also acting as Putin's agent, for one reason or another, in making claims against a NATO Ally.
1968 saw the American public abandon support for the war in Vietnam, but not for the American soldier. A new Republican President came in promising to end the war with a secret plan. Richard Nixon was going to make things better in some vague, undescribed, way.
The war hung on and 1970 arrived. By that point college campuses were solidly opposed to the war. The working class, in contrast, remained behind it, sort of, with it supplying the troops. University students who didn't want to serve in Vietnam found ways towards deferrements, with people like Dick Cheney, and Donald Trump, finding ways not to serve. Working class people, on the other hand, largely served, and in many instances joined the National Guard and ARmy Reserve, something that rich people like Donald Trump would not condescend to do.
This was the situation in Kent, Ohio, in 1970. Often missed in the analysis of the terrible events that happened there, the students at the university were neither serving in Vietnam, or serving in the National Guard. Those in the Ohio National Guard were from the town. Blue collar men who didn't go to college, and because they were in the Guard, were not in Vietnam. They were likely in the Guard as they didn't want to go to Vietnam, although that wouldn't univerally work for everyone who joined the Guard, contrary to what's commonly imagined.4
The Cold War National Guard was trained for the Cold War, not riot patrol, and in 1970 it would have had a lot of older soldiers in it who had served in World War Two and Korea. Even when I joined the Guard a little over decade later we still had one soldier who had served in World War Two, and a lot who had served in Korea. Soldiers do not make very good policemen as they aren't trained to be police and are trained to react to a threat with aggression.
Perhaps for that reason, it's always surprised anyone familiar with this role of the Guard that the Guardsmen at Kent State had been issued ammunition That alone would have predisposed them to believing that they were going to need it. What occurred such that they used it has never been clear, and there are of course conspiracy theories associated with it. What's clear is that rocks were thrown and shooting started. Allison Krause, age 19, an honors college student and anti-war activist, Jeffrey Miller, age 20, a psychology student who was participating in the protest, Sandra Scheuer, age 20, a speech and hearing therapy student who was walking to class, and William Schroeder, 19, a psychology student and ROTC member, also walking to class, were all killed by National Guard bullets.
It's the reaction to the event that causes our long winded recollection of it here.
In 1970 Americans were still divided over the Vietnam War, but the mass of American people had pulled away from strongly supporting it. The 1968 Tet Offensive had been an American tactical victory and a NVA disaster, but the public was so shocked it no longer supported the war or trusted the Government. In the 1968 Election the Democrats paid the price and Republican Richard Nixon, with a "secret" plan to end the war came into power.
If Nixon ever had a "secret" plan to end the war, we don't know what it was, but it quickly became pretty unmanageable for him. His basic strategy seems to have been to turn the war over to the South Vietnamese, and let them fail, which he ultimately did, but in trying to get breathing room to do that he ended up having to occasionally expand the war or the war's violence. The Kent State protests were over the invasion of Cambodia, which had just occurred.
Young college bound people had turned against the war. Middle Americans, however, were hoping in Nixon to find a way out. Kent State turned a lot of those people against the war as well. Americans moved to the left. By 1972 and 1973 they'd moved substantially to the left. The collapse of the Nixon Administration with Watergate brought a wholescale distrust of the Republican Party that had come in to power as it was perceived that the Democrats had no solution to the war.
Sort of like Donald Trump and the GOP coming in as it was perceived that Biden was senile and Harris a bad candidate, and they were all responsible for COVID era inflation. . .
The shift was massive. Large elements of the American population went from weakly opposing the war to strongly opposing it, and strongly backing an increasingly left wing Democratic Party. The military, both active and reserve, was held in open disdain. Law enforcement also was. The active duty military would not recover its reputation for well over a decade and the Guard for two decades. Contempt for policemen remained widespread into the 1980s.
On the other side, however, right wing Americans backed cracking down on protestors and what happened at Kent State, regarding the use of arms as justified. I can remember this still being discussed in the 1980s. The right's hard drift in this directly helped shit it out of politics for the rest of the 1970s. The pre 1973 Republican Party never fully recovered and in order to come back into power in 1980 the Republican Party had to seduce Southern Democrats who were hardcore right wing populists, thinking that they could control them. The entire event went a long ways towards giving us the modern Democratic and Republican Parties.
We are starting to see history rhyming right now.
Donald Trump was elected in no small part because most Americans eligible to vote, don't. He's massively unpopular with large elements of the American public. While his supporters do not like to acknowledge it, and some cannot believe it, the majority of Americans do not like or support him. Trump himself, who is not a smart man, and whose been coddled by wealth his entire life, can't grasp why he isn't loved.
But there is no doubt that the Democrats helped bring his rise about due to ignoring many issues that we've referenced here for years. Immigration is certainly one of them. In reality, even though nobody wants to portray it this way except for those on the Republican hard right, most Americans have had enough of largescale immigration. Frankly, most Americans would like to see the country have a smaller population than it does. It's not just illegal immigrant that upsets people, it's immigration.
People wanted something done about that, but they did not want the Sturmabteilung in their cities, just as people wanted an end to the Vietnam War, but didn't want to bomb Hanoi and invade Cambodia to get there, and they didn't want National Guardsmen killing college kids on campus. In short order, they'd make it pretty clear that they didn't want a President who covered up a paranoid breakin, although they did return him to office in 1972.
We're seeing the same thing now.
People don't want militarized police at all, and they don't want masked policemen patrolling their cities dragging people out of cars. They don't want men who have been trained as part of ICE special units shooting women in the street. No amount of excuses as to why this occurred are going to matter at all. Middle American started shifting this past week, which it already was doing.
The right in turn is making the classic mistake on doubling down on the shooting, trying to justify it. The officer had PTSD, we are told in which case he shouldn't have been there and in which case it means, implicitly, if he had fully had his faculties he wouldn't have shot. The shooting was justified as it wouldn't have occurred if she wasn't there protesting, which is true but is true about every government act of violence wherever it occurs, from Tehran to Kent State. The film shows he was justified, just as, we were told at the time, the film at Kent State, which is in fact much more dramatic, shows that the Guard shooting was justified. No, it shows the opposite.
And finally, and not too surprisingly in our current era, there's the character attacks, which nobody who has participated in this discussion here has engaged in. Renee Nicole Good was a lesbian flake. She was woke. Well, she was a lesbian and she may have been a flake, but that doesn't mean, as is implied by those statements, that it was okay to kill her.
Nixon's managed to get elected, and handily, in 1972. Part of the reason for that is that the Democrats, as they tend to do, just flat out botched the election. They botched the election of 1968, and they did it again in 1972, although their 1972 candidate was better than 1968. Had they run from the center, Nixon may well have lost. It was all unraveling already however, and by 1973 he'd bring himself down in scandal.
Before he finally resigned, those around him were extremely concerned by his mental state. He was drinking heavily and impairing himself accordingly. Trump's becoming impaired quite rapidly by dementia.
Trump is unraveling, politically as well as mentally, right now. Americans are already upset by his continual weirdness, and a man elected on the promise of no more wars seems really eager to start them, while openly admiring some of the worst foreign powers that exist. Sending Guardsmen into the streets, as he has done, has been no more popular in 2026 than it was in 1970, and the same thing is beginning to occur. A National Guard that worked hard to avoid the errors of the 1960s and recover its reputation is finding it besmirched, and ironically by one of the very people who didn't serve in the 1960s. ICE and the Border Patrol, which most Americans had no opinion on before 2025, are regarded, and rightly, with suspicion. Now they're going to be disdained.
If there's any hope in any of this, it's this. The country did get over the events of the 60s and 70s and start to recover, although it would really take into the mid 1980s to do it. Looking back, almost everyone agrees that both sides were too extreme at the time. Part of the reaction in 1970s was that Americans didn't want a government that would kill American kids, and after the completion of the Nixon regime it didn't want one that foreign kids either. We're probably headed in the same direction.
Footnotes:
1. In my case I happened to accidentally drive right into the middle of a Nation of Islam protest on Martin Luther King Blvd in Denver. It was large and I was the only person of my demographic on the street, and was driving a pickup truck with Wyoming plates at that.
I'll say, however, that the protestors were very gracious. I could see them looking at me, but as Wyomingites often find, I was protected in part by my cluelessness.
2. People hate it when this is stated, but the 9mm is a worthless military round.
A military sidearm serves one of two purposes, use or ceremony. If its to be used, it actually should stop the opponent immediately, keeping in mind that an armed combatant in war is a much different target than those the police normally face. Most of the time when a policemen uses a firearm a single bullet from a light weapon will stop the opponent who is much less motivated than a soldier in war.
For that matter, in most trained police forces the first resort anymore is to a taser, not a sidearm.
9mms were a Continental European round in armies which at first used pistols as sort of a gentleman's thing. Officers carried them, and rarely used them. By World War One that had changed, but the 9mm had set in. By World War Two any soldier who had the option to carry a .45 ACP rather than a 9mm did, which is why you see British Airborne so frequently armed with M1911s.
The 9mm hung on, however, and by the 1980s those armies used them had gone to the multiple shot, "double tap" technique, acknowledging its deficiencies. The round spread to the U.S. at the instance of NATO which wanted the service to play nice on this topic.
3. Ross wasn't green, so that doesn't explain what occurred. What might, however, is that he's seen too much service, quite frankly.
4. For much of the Vietnam War the National Guard was hard to get into.
The history of this isn't very well remembered. The Vietnam War was a big war, for the U.S, from 1965 until 1972. Contrary to what's popularly imagined, the majority of soldiers who served in Vietnam were volunteers, which is in fact somewhat complicated by the fact that people facing conscription often volunteered prior to being drafted. Conscription itself had been in place since about 1948, after briefly terminating after World War Two. Setting that aside, the U.S. had conscription pretty continually since 1940. Most men expected to be conscripted form 1940 forward and therefore, for that reason, they planned on military service as an aspect of their immediate post high school life. Those going to college and university obtained deferrements, up until the late Vietnam War period, which were just that, deferrements. They entered the service after they were done with university, which was the case for my father and two of my local uncles. Usually, although not always, that meant that they entered the service as officers and chose their branches, none of which was the case for men who were simply conscripted. Added to that, as conscripts only served two years, the service often assigned them to Reserve units following their active duty service, which was the case for one of my uncles. Indeed, men who were part of ROTC units often found that they were assigned to hometown Reserve units rather than active duty units, which was often to their frustration as it mean six years of Reserve duty rathe rather than two years of active duty.
As a lot of working class men who didn't intend to go to college didn't want to do two years away from home and disrupt their post high school lives, the Guard and Reserve were already popular options before the Vietnam War. That meant that it was nowhere near the case that men who were in the Guard were avoiding Vietnam. At the time a hitch in the Guard for an enlisted man was at least four years (it might have been six). Therefore, men who joined the National Guard as late as 1965 and prior to the Marines being deployed at Da Nang were still in the Guard in 1969. The war itself did not really start being unpopular until 1967 meaning that somebody joining the Guard in 1967 was still it at least until 1971. And the war would have had no impact on retention as the service was never going to call up anyone who had completed Reserve or Guard duty.
This does not mean that nobody joined the Guard to avoid Vietnam. I know at least one person who in fact did just that. But getting into the Guard was hard. Getting into the Reserve also was, although I know one person who joined the Reserve in order to avoid going to Vietnam.
People who really wanted to avoid joining the service, however, were better off finding a doctor who would qualify them as medically unfit, or, up until the end when conscription deferrements changed, staying in university.
Finally, contrary to what people imagine, some Guardsmen in fact served in Vietnam. Not many, but as the war went on some Guard units were called up and deployed to the war.
Related Threads:
In Memoriam. Renee Nicole Good.
Labels: 2020s, 2026, Homicide, In Memoriam, police, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Zeitgeist
Additional Labels:
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Seventh Edition. Night of Camp David
From Amazon:
Sound sort of familiar?
December 12, 2025
And then there's this:
Q: Can you explain what's going on with the bandages on Trump's hand?LEAVITT: We've given you an explanation. The president is literally constantly shaking hands.
Machinegun Lips Leavitt's statement is a dog that doesn't hunt. At this point, it's clear that there's something going on. The constant bruising on the hand suggest pretty strongly that Trump is frequently getting a picc line to his hand. He's getting IVs, probably, but for what?
He also recently had an MRI, and speaks of getting cognitive tests. Somebody is monitoring him pretty closely medically, and Trump himself doesn't seem to know fully why.
Cont:
A blog entry on the same topic:
The Alarming Signs of a President in Decline
December 15, 2025
Trump's a complete a**hole.
cont:
Q: A number of Republicans have denounced your statement on Rob Reiner. Do you stand by it?
TRUMP: Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned.
December 17, 2025
The National Review:
The president of the United States is a hateful raging lunatic with all the empathy of Jeffrey Dahmer.
A prediction:
I stated here before that Trump would only last 18 months in office. He hasn't even made 12 yet, and his mind is complete mush. He has a television address tonight I'm unlikely to watch, but my first prediction, not the one I created the subtitle for, is that it'll be full of rambling praise for himself and blame upon Joe Biden.
It'll also be jam packed with lies.
The bigger prediction, however, is this. I'm going to restate the 18 month prediction as an outer date. He's really declining rapidly. He'll make it to 2026, probably, but my guess right now is not past the end of March. Part of this will depend upon how close he gets us to war with Venezuela and how utterly unhinged he becomes regarding his domestic opposition.
My next prediction is that this will completely shatter the GOP. The GOP is going to get pounded in the 2026 election and become utterly unglued. It won't go away, but it'll take it three or four years to rebuilt itself into something.
December 21, 2025
Trump: I took cognitive tests. By the way, not easy. The first question is like what is this and they show a lion, giraffe, fish and a hippopotamus. And they say which is the giraffe.
Hmmmm. . .
I don't follow Rod Dreher because I think he slipped off the rails some time ago, but there's no real denying he's one of the real intellects of the National Conservatives/Christian Nationalist whom I think largely have the levers of power in the Trump Administration right now. So I was surprised when I ran across something he posted on Twitter.
Dreher hasn't changed his views on things, and he defends Trump on some thing I think Trump is actually completely wrong on, such as the recently released National Security Strategy (which makes sense form Dreher's point of view, because of his beliefs), but regarding Trump himself, after his comments on Rob Reiner:
Something is very, very wrong with this man. A father and mother were murdered by their son, most likely, and Trump makes it about himself.
Its been obvious for years that something is deeply wrong with Trump. Indeed, given his overall character, something has been wrong with Trump for decades, but his earlier character flaws are now being overtaken by his dementia.
I note Dreher here as I think what we can begin to see pretty clearly is the move to replace Trump with Vance. We predicted that Trump would be out within 18 months, and its starting to happen right now.
Dreher, who was one of the first Christian Nationalist and National Conservatives, is outright stating that Trump is mentally ill. He's also attacking the MAGA public figures like Fuentes. Erika Kirk is endorsing Vance for President in 2028. Mitt Romney, whom conservatives regard as the last real conservative Republican candidate for the White House, is writing op eds urging taxation.
Now, not all those things are related, but some of them are. It's clear that Republicans are beginning to maneuver for the 2028 election and they're leaving Trump behind. Romney is old at 78, but he's not demented and he's younger than Biden was when he ran for reelection and he's younger than Trump, whose most radical MAGA base is urging to unconstitutionally run again in 2028.
Related to that, Vance is only in the administration as he wants to run in 2028. He's tainted with his association with Trump and the stench that creates is getting worse and he knows it. He's also the only real National Conservative who stands a chance of being elected in 2028. Indeed, there were never any others who stood a chance. Marco Rubio is a conservative, but not a National Conservative. Elise Marie Stefanik is a conservative, not a National Conservative, as well. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who doesn't stand a chance, is a far right wing populist. Kevin Roberts, who is behind the scenes and somethat close to Vance, is definitely a National Conservative but he has no chance. Stephen Miller is loathsome.
So now we're seeing the jockeying for position, but we're seeing more than that. Some Republicans are finally outright condemning Trump over things he says. Massie and Rand Paul are outright defying him with no real consequences. Republicans who don't want to be part of a 2026 and 2028 bloodbath are bailing out of Congress.
Behind the scenes, there has to be a raging debate about how much longer the GOP lets Trump carry on. He's been the functional equivalent of World War One naval dazzle camouflage which has served their interests well. . .up until now. Now he's drawing fire. He falls asleep in public. He rambles on and sounds rough, while making statements that are often downright weird. He insults vast numbers of people for petty reasons. He's causing inflation in many areas of the economy through his beliefs on taxes, while destroying the economy for those who supported him in other areas.
And he's on the verge of getting us into war.
While all that's going on, of course, his administration has now gone so far in trying to keep the government's files on perverted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein secret its reached the absurd level. Everyone knows that Trump and Epstein were friends. The lingering news story has served to remind people that Trump has a sexual track record which necessarily raises questions, given his association with Epstein, as well as John Casablancas. Old information that was re-released from the Epstein files serves to remind that one of Epstein's teenage victims ended up as a contestant in one of Trump's pageants. Trump sent Epstein, although he denies it a hand drawn birthday card featuring what appears to be the immature body of a teenage girl, with his signature drawn across where the reproduction organs are, and with a poem emphasizing enigma and shared secrets.
MAGA victims of TDS of course still desperately want to believe that there's no there, there, but something is there, if only the names of people who may have participated in the abuse of up to 1,000 girls and who are significant figures. Maybe Trump isn't listed amongst them, but there's some reason his administration is trying to desperately to keep this stuff secret.
My guess would be that Vance has no idea what it is. But Vance, Kirk, Roberts and Dreher all know that if Trump rides things out to 2028 his increasing dementia combined with the risk of scandal is just too high. If this blows up, and its starting to, it'll wreck the GOP so completely there won't be one in 2028.
Kirk and Dreher are preparing the groundwork now. Mentioning that what Trump is doing is vile is part of that. Mentioning that Vance should run in 2028 is as well.
Vance will be sworn in as the President before June.
December 22, 2025
These things are just nuts:
We need Greenland for national protection. They have a very small population…They say that Denmark was there 300 years ago with a boat. Well, we were there with boats too I’m sure.The United States isn't 300 years old. . .
And that small population comment is just the sort of thing a New Yorker would say . . .
Everyone knows they're nuts, and yet they allow him to just charge on with this lunacy.
The man is not well, and they know it.
cont:
It appears the battleships will not be battleships.
Still, Trump's absolute megalomania in which everything must be named for him is clearly a sign of mental illness.
December 23, 2025
We’re bringing down drug price by 1000%, 1200%, 1300%, 1400%. A drug that sells for $10 in London is costing $130 in New York. We are bringing it down to $20. You can do your own math. But it’s 2000%, 3000%
Donald Trump.
December 26, 2025
A Christmas rant from somebody who is clearly mentally unhinged:
By this point, it's clear that Trump, if not full blown insane, goes into fits of raving insanity. We should all be scared as there may come a day when he goes from ranting into action.
The real question at this point is why the cabinet has not removed him. His unfitness for office, or anything else, is completely apparent, so there's a reason behind that.
The reason might be J. D. Vance.
In spite of Trump's propagandized reputation, Trump isn't a lot of the things he's claimed to be. He's not smart, he's not an economic genius, he's not a conservative, and he's not a recognizable Christian. He is a good salesman, or was, who has made his name into a brand. He's also a self serving narcissists. As part of his branding, he's managed to convince a fair number of people that he is what he clearly isn't.
But he is useful for certain elements that back him. Once he's gone, the NAM, the NatCons, and the Dixiecrats really don't have everything in common by a long shot. Vance is a NatCon, not a Dixiecrat, and people like Miller might fear Vance coming in.
The mass defection from the Heritage Society suggests, however, that Vance may have lost his shot. If Trump is going to be retired people have to support Vance. The NatCons are falling apart.
December 31, 2025
Trump announced today that his dumbass triumphal arch will start construction in two months.
This likely needs to go up quicker than planned as the terminal limits of Trump's sanity/end of office/natural life are beginning to roar up into his view. This will add to the pile of rubble that will need to be hauled off and dumped in the Potomac when he's gone.
Related threads:
Our Petty, Hollow, Squalid Ogre in Chief
2028 Election, Part I. The Preview of Coming Attractions Editions.
Last edition:
The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Sixth Edition. The demented panicked Octogenarian edition.
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