The Populist Far Right and their goal to touch Social Security.

 

Eh?

I know, you're thinking, I voted for Don Trump and I sure didn't vote to eliminate retirement.

Well, first of all, Donny isn't exactly dialed in most of the time.  He's out golfing.  

That he wouldn't be dialed was obvious to those who had eyes to see.  And likewise was that the Project 2025 cabal would be running the show.

Barely noticed in all of this are the statements by far right punditry that are outright hostile to retirement, but they're there.  Comments about how "nobody should retire".  Not there?  Consider this:

And let's be real about this - it's insane that we haven't raised the retirement age in the United States. It's totally crazy. Joe Biden -- if that were the case, Joe Biden should not be running for president. OK? Joe Biden is 81 years old. The retirement age in the United States, at which you start to receive Social Security and you are eligible for Medicare, is 65. Joe Biden has technically been eligible for Social Security and Medicare for 16 years, and he wants to continue in office until he is 86, which is 19 years past when he would be eligible for retirement. No one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old. Frankly, I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem. Everybody that I know who is -- who is elderly, who has retired, is dead within five years. And if you talk to people who are elderly and they lose their purpose in life by losing their job and they stop working, things go to hell in a handbasket real quick.

Ben Shapiro.

Now, Shapiro was largely populist babbling, so there's an extra element of stupidity in what he said.  In the Trump era, saying really stupid stuff as a populist has become almost mandatory for that class.  But is there something to what Shapiro said?

Well yes and no.

On the yes side, a fair number of men in particular become their jobs, their souls basically a burnt out husk with nothing left, and they slip into missing their job or depression  It happens.

But like the polls that deal with lawyers who hate practicing law (a surprisingly high percentage), I suspect the figure are weighted towards confirmation bias.

Lots of people retire and love it.  

And exactly what retirement is, isn't the same for everyone.  By retirement, what quite a few people actually have is time to devote to something else they've always wanted to, but couldn't.

And that gets to this.  The current crop of Cultural Calvinists don't like the concept of retirement, as all they value in the world is work. That's it.  Work makes them part of the Elect and without work, they'd have to be human beings.  They don't want that.

So they're attacking retirement itself.  

It'll be hard to pull that off, so what they'll do is push the retirement age up closer to death.  Project 2025 would like the "full" Social Security age to be 69, up two from 67, which was up two from 65.  At some point they'll start moving the bottom age upwards.  And their argument, which at least makes fiscal sense, is that this is necessary to save the fund.

My guess is that within a decade the full will be 70, and the lower something like 67.

The dirty little secret, however, is that starting in a person's late 50s, an increasingly number simply can't carry on at work.  The average retirement age in the US right now falls between 61 and 64, with layoffs and health playing into that.

And a good argument can be made that for some jobs, those requiring a license, the retirement age really ought to be something like 60.

A gentle moment. The old rural Catholics. A bit much. The old age refuses to yieldeth. The stubborn German.

A gentle moment

I was standing in the confession line behind her.  A young man came up behind me.  I realized, as I'd come in and went straight into line (I'm now 62, and well aware of my sins) I'd cut him off, as he came up from praying in the back of the church.

I immediately said "I cut you off, you can go in front of me", but he smiled and said "It doesn't matter".

She was nicely dressed, wearing a full length skirt and a nice one.

He reached around me and handed her something, which I thought was a handkerchief (she did in fact have a cold).  It wasn't, it was her mantilla She put it on.

I thought they were likely brother and sister.  He was very nicely dressed and they were both young, in their early 20s.

When I left, they were in different quarters of the church praying.  I recognized her now that I could see her face.  She's one of the "Mantilla Girls", but one I see rarely.  I didn't recognize him.  They were in fact, not together.  He just noticed she'd dropped her mantilla.

The old rural Catholics

I was wearing, on the day of confession, Carhartt trousers and my very old Carhartt jacket.  I hadn't shaved.  

It was Saturday.

I don't like shaving.  I started shaving when I was 13, and by that, I mean at some point when I was 13 I was shaving every day.  Next year I will have been shaving for 50 years.

When I was 13, I learned to save with a "safety razor".  I, in fact, owned a safety razor at age 13.  I first shaved with disposable head razors in basic training.  It was only a few years later, but there's a lifetime between 13 and 18.

I've recently received, in one fashion or another, a couple of reminders to Catholics in general that they ought to dress appropriately at Mass.  It is, I'd note, sort of a Catholic thing in a way, in some areas, kind of not to.  Not that we're intentionally dressing down, but for a lot of us going to Mass is so common that we in fact dress down, as its Sunday.  In some regions, we don't dress up and indeed, as we're used to going to Mass with college students, blue collar workers, sheepherders, ranchers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, well, we don't.

The local Priest suggested we ought to dress nicely.  He's from a farm and had a conversation with me regarding sheep on the way into Mass recently.  Fr. Joseph Krupp, who himself often looks a little like a guy who might ride a Harley, and I think at one time did, suggested the same.

They're right of course.

Well, it was Sunday today.  I went to Mass wearing Carhartt trousers and my very old Carhartt coat.

The coat is warm.

A bit much

I sometimes see comments about yoga pants.

I don't pay much attention to such comments.

I ran into the very nice, and quite Catholic, son of a person I know very well the other day.  He's a nice young man.  He was with his girlfriend, who is probably a nice young woman. She is the daughter of an Assemblies of God minister.

She was wearing yoga pants.

They were so tight that, frankly, they left nothing to the imagination.  Absent wearing bikini bottoms, there would have been nothing less appropriate to wear in mixed company than I could imagine. 

And its January.

Makes me appreciate the Mantilla Girls all the more.

The old age refuses to yieldeth

At Mass, to my massive discredit, I ran into somebody, but only remotely, who generally irritates me.

That's probably sinful on my part.

I've known said person my entire professional life.  I knew his sister when we were in high school by which time I'll note he was already a lawyer.  She was a great person and I still lament her tragic death as a passenger in an automobile when it wrecked.  I knew, but less well, one of her sisters who died in the same wreck.

Horrible.

Anyhow, the person in question must have graduated high school nearly a decade in advance of me, which means that he must be over 70 years old now.  He's still actively practicing law.

I've concluded that this is toxic, if you are doing it full time, to your personality.

I also don't like that he holds his hands in the air when certain prayers are said, and he's huge so its hard to ignore.  That's the orans position, and in actuality there's good reason to do that.  That's what the early Christian faithful, who were all Catholics, did when the Lord's Prayer was said.

Well, I don't like it.

And that means I need to work on this.

I'd note that his fellow doesn't particularly acknowledge me at Mass, but then I don't go out of the way to acknowledge him either.  If we run into each other in Court, well. . . we're old pals.

The Mantilla girl and the young man, and the cowboy couple I noted several weeks ago, are better than either of us.

The stubborn German

Germans, it appear, have a reputation for being stubborn.

I have what people perceive as being a very German last name.

I have a very Irish first name.

I've never thought this odd, but then, who thinks their own names odd. For one reason or another, I've always considered myself an Irish American.  

My father didn't like anyone considering himself this or that.  No Hyphenated Americans.  He thought we were all Americans. He'd grown up, I'd note, while World War Two was on, when nobody considered themselves German Americans.

Some people are really proud of that now.

Well, by decent today, I'd be 1/4 German. But genetically, due to the weird way that works, I'm more Irish than a lot of people who live in Ireland.  And for that matter, I'd further note, my father's mother was of 100% Irish extraction, and in Irish American household even when my father was young, the mother's ruled the abhaile.

Father's sacrificed for their families, particularly in Catholic families.

The last name, fwiw, is Westphalian.  A person with it is just as likely to be Dutch, as German.  I was once asked by an Albertan if my ancestors were Dutch, for that reason.  Westphalia became a Prussian possession in 1807, much to the discontent of Catholic Westphalians, who weren't keen in being ruled by a Lutheran emperor. After the revolutions of 1848 a lot of Westphalians departed for the United States, sick of being rules by an undemocratic Prussian.

My Westphalian ancestors left about that time.  I don't know why, they didn't write it down.

Anyhow, genetically, I'm Irish.  

And in my ancestor there were those Irish who, given the choice between converting to Protestantism and keeping their occupation, ro being exiled, chose exile.

Stubborn?

I don't think I am, but I guess people perceive me that way.  I've been told that more than once.

German?

Not really.

Blog Mirror: Being Old In Washington Got Very Old in 2024.

 Being Old In Washington Got Very Old in 2024.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 69th Edition. TDS, Vance in the wings. Our geriatric oligarchy. Immigration spats. Banning puberty blockers. Mjuk flicka and the Mantilla Girls.

The really ugly American

Trump’s win shows us who we really are

An excellent, and exactly correct, article.

And who we are isn't very pretty.

Many people worried that the election of Donald Trump, a thoroughly reprehensible man, would mean the end of the American democracy.  It probably won't, but it does mark the complete end of the United States as a great nation in every sense. 

We have no claim, as of this last election, to any sort of exceptionalism.  A certain moral status, hard won and defended in the Civil War and the wars of the 20th Century has been forfeited, and for blisteringly limited self interest.  Indeed, much of the electorate, frankly, proved themselves ignorant, choosing the interests of billionaires over their own, based on mean and vindictive promises and a false vision of the past.  Others, limited in their  minds to a binary choice in which they felt compelled to choose between the threat of progressivism in the Democratic Party, which never saw a gender perversion or mental illness it didn't want to glorify and demand you do too, and a GOP which at least looked to some sort of sanity on such issues.  Yet others chose a narrow issue, gun control, abortion, which they highly valued and made the leap.  Others were simply mad about being lied to for decades by the Democrats and pre Trump Republicans on matters like job exportation and immigration.

Not all Trump voters are alike by any means.

But there's only one Trump.

Since being elected he's insulted Canada repeatedly in a childish manner.  On the day I'm typing this out (originally), he's threatening Panama, suggesting we're going to demand a return of the Panama Canal.  Since then he's been demanding Greenland.

The amazing thing is that in spite of the utter lunacy of these ramblings, plenty have signed on board to back them.  People who wonder how the absurdities of the Nazi Party found acceptance after 1932 now know.

I don't expect Trump to serve out his term.  Behavior like this shows that the nation's incoming Chief Executive is returning to his middle school years, years which caused his parents to send him to military school, and that return is probably organic in a man who is flabby and ancient.  We'll see, of course, but it appears to at least me that the dementia train has left the station, as it earlier clearly did for Joe Biden.  

Merely having a chief executive this age is, frankly, dangerous.

At any rate, I suspect that backers of J. D. Vance are just wanting to give things a decent interval before a cabinet finding of non compos mentis is delivered.

I'm not a Vance fan, but the sooner, the better.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

One of our dear readers, who has I might note a truly excellent blog I keep meaning to link in here, gently noted that this blog suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It's a fair accusation.

As is evident, I just can't grasp why a thoughtful highly intelligent person like our reader would vote for Trump.  I  know plenty of them I might add.  Highly educated, very well spoken, very well read, individuals who voted for a person I find nearly loathsome.

I wish they could explain it to me.

I wonder too if they fear for the nation the way that those of us who recoil form Trump do.

I will note that I perfectly grasp why people didn't vote for Harris, and wouldn't have for Biden.  Biden's descent into incapacity aside, the Democratic Party has just become, well, weird in many ways.  I noted at the time that Obergefell was decided that disaster loomed, and frankly, I was spot on.  Contrary to Kennedy's naive assumptions about his legally bankrupt ruling, Obergefell really opened the doors of a sexual and sexually perverse pandora's box, although frankly that box had been unlocked in the post war by Kinsey and Masters.

By the way, there's actually an article in Psychology Today about TDS.

Anyhow, for the Trump supporters who are routinely insulted by my posts regarding Trump, but stop in to read anyhow, thanks for doing so, and if you can explain your support for the man, I'd appreciate your doing so.

I'll confess.  I feel that Trump should have been tried for sedition and should be in prison, so my view is indeed harsh and unyielding on him.  I hope I'm proved wrong, but I expect him to be a disaster.

Waiting in the wings

Vance in uniform, and not that of a military prep school

As noted, I'm pretty confined J. D. Vance is waiting in the wings, and isn't much more of a Trump fan than I am.  I also think as a National Conservative, he's the real deal.

Love him or hate him, Vance would have made a much better contrast to Harris than Trump.  Vance actually has an intellectual concept of where he wants the country to go, and it doesn't appear in any fashion to depend on Elon Musk personally arresting the decline in the North American birth rate.

Must is a National Conservative, as noted.  He couldn't have been elected in a race against Harris.   The National Conservatives, who ranks are filled by some real intellectuals, know that they have a very limited time to get in their man.. That time is limited to the next four years.  Vance won't be able to pull off a post Trump win in 2028, and they know it.  In order to make the reforms they want, and they are genuine and massive, they need to get Vance in before then, and that depends on Trump being gone.

Age may very well remove Trump, through death.  If it doesn't, my guess is dementia will.  Then we will have Vance, and that will be quite interesting.

Oligarchs.

Drone Bee.  By Guillaume Pelletier - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59927223

A really interesting thing about the incoming Trump administration is the now open and obvious influence of the mega rich on it.  The most obvious example is the overarching presence of the world's most wealth many, South African Elon Musk, but he's far from the only one.

It wasn't all that long ago that Republicans continually suggested that mega rich Hungarian George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg were a big problem.  Even now, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray wants to do something about "Zuck Bucks".

Love of money, as we know, is the root of all evil, and and one thing it does is to buy power.  Absolute power, we're told, such as the U.S. Supreme Court has pretty much handed over to the Executive Branch, corrupts absolutely.

Something needs to be done about this and what that something is, quite frankly, includes taxation.  Populists have to decide if they want to be drone servants of their party, or the owners of their party in this regard.

So far, it looks like the drones have it.

The immigration spat

The best argument for doing away with H1B I can imagine.  Also, not only a crude dip into vulgarity, but an unfortunate sexual insult by a man who clearly knows that's now how that actually works, given his many progeny by many willing women.  And explain to me how Evangelicals feel that this camp is moral?

It is interesting, however, how a fight has suddenly broken out in the MAGA camp which is related to this.  The GOP campaign against immigrants in the general election blurred the lines between legal and illegal immigrants.  It was relatively clear that basically many hardcore Rust Belt and rural Trumpies didn't like immigrants in general.

There are, I'd note, real reasons to be concerned about the American immigration rate.  But for immigration, the US population would be falling, which contrary to widespread belief would frankly be a very good thing.  But demonizing immigrants is flat out wrong, and we're not actually having the conversation we should be, which would have a lot more to do with conservation, economics, and yes, culture, than whatever it is that we are arguing about.

One thing now that we are arguing about is H1B, a visa program.  I've seen an immigrant Pakistani Trumpy robustly claim that this program lets in illiterate people who can't speak English in Italian restaurants to, in contrast, Elon Must backing it on the basis that that he came in the country that way and as the world's richest sperm donor, he loves himself, and everyone else should too, as he's good for the country.

He's not good for the country.

Interestingly, there's some lingering questions if Musk violated the country's laws when he came in.  He probably didn't, but it's interesting.  If he did, and I'm not saying he did, that would make him one of those super nasty law breaking immigrants who should be back up and returned to their land of origin.

On other ironies which are worth noting, this spat has really taken weird turns.  Ann Coulter told Vivek Ramaswamy that she wouldn't have voted for him as he's of Indian extraction, which is as racist as can be, but at least honest.  Some Republicans are defending H1B, others are condemning it.  Steve Bannon called Musk a toddler.  Vivek Ramaswamy fought back and claimed American culture worshipped mediocrity, implying foreign cultures do not, which is ironic given that the Freedom Caucus tends to have a deep suspicion that education in general is bad.

Frankly, this debate, if it heads in the direction Ramaswamy is taking it, might be a good thing for the populists.  Populism right now does exalt the stupid and vulgar over the educated and erudite.  He used the example of the "prom queen", which is probably misplaced, unless we regard the Hawk Tuah Girl as the nation's prom queen, which right now she frankly is..  

Ramaswamy has a point.

Trump clearly is okay with some immigrants, such as ones he'll marry.  It makes me wonder what dinner talk is like at the old Trump homestead.

When things hit the news.

On this story, I had the odd experience of having somebody say the other day "I see you are now having trouble up there with immigrants too". They were from Texas, and this was a phone call.

I had to ask what he meant, but apparently the arrest of an illegal alien here made national news.

It's interesting in that this isn't all that newsworthy here.  I don't know why people would think otherwise, but rural states like Wyoming have had illegal aliens just as long as anyone else, and given the blue collar nature of work here, probably longer.

Gerontocracy

Not only are we developing an oligarch problem, it has a gerontocracy problem as well, which this past election certainly pointed out.  We have an ancient (and seemingly impaired) President, and an ancient, and rather odd acting, President Elect.

Trump is 78 years old, of course.  Locally, one of our Senators is 72, and the other 70.  Not young.  Our Congresswoman is a comparatively youthful 62.

Texas Republican Congresswoman Kay Granger is 81, and is now living in a memory care facility.  She hasn't cast a vote since July, which of course makes sense.  

Of note, she spent a year, starting in January 2023, as the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.  That says something, and what it says is that mental decline can really be rapid.

Why, as a nation, are we comfortable with this?

On a positive, if perhaps sad note, she did not seek reelection.

The UK bans puberty blockers

The US should follow suit.

The entire "trans" movement is really based on an illusion of epic proportions.  We are, truly, born male and female while some are more masculine than others, or more feminine than others, boys are boys, as they say, and girls girls.  People who are confused on this point are, in reality, very few, and those who persistently are mentally ills.  Almost all teens who claim to be "trans", aren't and the overwhelming majority of them come out of it relatively quickly.  For that matter, adults who claim to be "trans" aren't.  

Puberty blockers are child abuse on the Aktion T4 and there's no excuse for it.

Back to the populists for a second, it's insanity like giving children puberty blockers that helps explain their rise.  In future years this behavior will be regarded the same way eugenics in Nazi Germany is now.  How mass lawsuits have not broken out is beyond me.  

Mjuk flicka.  Soft Girls, Kept Women, Feminist Women, and a More Natural Life.

ICELANDIC MILKMAID ON HER MORNING ROUND

This is a fine, sturdy pony standing so stockily for his photograph, and he can make light of his burden of buxom beauty with her heavy can of milk. She cares not for saddle or stirrups, for most of these island people are born to horseback, and her everyday costume amply serves the purpose of a riding-habit for this strapping Viking's daughter, with her long tresses shining in the breeze.  

(Original caption, of interest here I wouldn't call this young lady "buxom" or "strapping", but just healthy.  This might say something about how standards have changed over time.)

Mjuk flicka a Swedish term for "a kind pleasant" girl, but it sort of translates as "soft girl".  In this context its a bit of a trend, and one that's worrying feminist.

It probably should.

We've had other threads along these lines, but its fairly clear that a fair number of women have come to the conclusion that the push into the business and working world that came along in the 1970s hasn't really done them as much as a favor as the propaganda then and now would have it.  This recalls the TikTok breakdown some young woman had that's discussed here:

Women at work. "Whoever fought, for women to get jobs. . . . why?. . . . why did you do that?" Looking at women (and men) in the workplace, and modern work itself, with a long lens.

And also here:

A lamentation. The modern "world.*

One of the odd things that the "soft girl" is exhibiting is that she's an example of reinventing old social norms backwards and highly imperfectly, and that is concerning.  Rather than acting as a very traditional wife, she's essentially reduced herself to concubinage.  Her male supporter could sever ties at the drop of a hat.  She's serving in the traditional concubine role, free of any children or responsibility, and providing what we might charitably refer to as companionship.  This is bound not to go well, which reaching back to tradition without the duties of responsibilities associated it, usually does.

I can't help but note the contrast to the Mantilla Girls I continue to run into at Mass, including Christmas vigil. Due to being in a packed church, combined with my wife' s decision making process, we ended up in the cry room.  This followed a brief pre Mass trip to the balcony, where there was room, but then the long suffering spouse brought up 200 other options which sent us back down.  Anyhow, there was room in the cry room, which also contained one extended family with a baby.  The baby never cried.  One of the parishioners in the room was a Mantilla Girl, quite attractive and very nicely dressed.

Its interesting for a variety of reasons, including the contrast to the soft girl.  The Mantilla Girls have a much more realistic grasp of the world.

Mehr Mensch sein.

Related threads:

What the Young Want.* The Visual Testimony of the Trad Girls. The Authenticity Crisis, Part One.

i nolunt

Young Diognetus in the modern world.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 67th Edition. So you say you want a revolution?

Labels: 2020s, 2024, Aktion T4, Capitalism, Civil Unrest, Corporate Capitalism, Crime, Distributism, Distributist Lament, Donald Trump, Narodnaya Volya, Populism, Terrorism, The wealthy, Zeitgeist

On the same day the budget CR passed, a bill to raise the Social Security eligibility age to 70 failed.

From when Social Security was new.

A poster from 1935.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Rand Paul and failed 3-93.

Paul, who is part of the gadfly libertarian father/son duo, was probably thinking this would boost SS solvency, which it would, as quite a few people would die before being eligible, and of course, everyone would die before they took their now full eligibility term of years.

That takes us, sort of, to life expectancy.

Notice how its increased, everywhere, over the years.

Notice also how first world nations with the dreaded "socialized medicine" have higher life expectancy than the US.  Not by much, but higher.

Related threads:

"We keep you alive to serve this ship", Dying lashed to the oar. Part 2 of societal institutions and work.

A Civics Lesson

And now he's proposing buying Greenland.

Seriously, this absurd proposal that Greenlanders do not desire, coming hard on the heels of a threat against Panama, after serial insults to Canada.

Trump isn't okay.  

That's been obvious for quite a while, but there's something wrong with him.  He spouts every stupid idea that comes into his head.

Elon Musk, not attempting to be ironic, suggested this week that office holders take a competency test.  Trump is publicly failing one right now.

Blog Mirror: Walking home from Sunday church

 Walking home from Sunday church

The 2024 Election, Part XXVI. The Early Voting Edition.

October 8, 2024.

Early voting starts today in Wyoming.

October 11, 2024

I have more complaints on grocery. The word grocery. You know, it's sorta simple word, but it sorta means like everything you eat. The stomach is speaking. It always does. And, uh, I have more complaints about that. Bacon and things going up.

Donald Trump.

I could be right now in the most beautiful ocean, on the sand, exposing my really beautiful body - so beautiful - to the sun and the surf…

Donald Trump.

Danica Patrick is going to moderate a J.D. Vance Town Hall.

cont:

Primary results: Eastern Shoshone Business Council and Entertainment Committee

October 21, 2024.

Arnold Palmer receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George Bush.

Donald Trump started off a campaign rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, with a ten minute surreal ramble a out Latrobe native son, Arnold Palmer, stating as part of them:

Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women — and I love women.  But this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough. And I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, "Oh my God, that's unbelievable".

He also included vulgar comments about Kamala Harris.

You have to tell Kamala Harris that you've had enough, that you just can't take it anymore, we can't stand you anymore, you're a shitass vice president. The worst. You're the worst vice president. Kamala, you're fired. Get the hell out of here.

This is, to say the least, vulgar and odd.

Indeed, while it'll sound like a conspiracy theory, at  this point I'm fairly convinced that National Conservatives have backed Trump so that they can get one of their own, J. D. Vance, in a position to take over once Trump is declared mentally in competent early in a second Trump administration, should it occur.  There's no way that they could elect a candidate as President on their own, but with a weirdly acting Trump, they may very well get one in this fashion.

Cont:

Two of the panelist on This Week openly stated that the Arnold Palmer comments are due to a mental decline in Trump.  One stated it was age related, and certainly they both implied it.

Cont:

Tapper: Is the closing message you really want voters to hear from Donald Trump stories about Arnold Palmer's genitals?

Johnson: Let's put the rhetoric aside

Tapper: People have concerns about his fitness and stability. Why is he talking about Arnold Palmer's genitals in front of Pennsylvania voters?

Johnson: Don't say it again we don't have to say it

October 22, 2024

Barrasso Joins Trump At Steelers Game; Crowd Gives Ex-Pres Thunderous Welcome

Primary results: Northern Arapaho Business Council sees some shake-ups moving into the general

Cont:

I just went down and voted.

I also didn't vote for the GOP or Democratic candidates for Senate and House.  The Democrats stand no chance at either office, and they keep nominating candidates too far on the progressive scale.  The GOP Senator up for reelection is shamelessly supporting Trump even though its highly unlikely he really agrees with him on much, which makes it all the worse. The House candidate up for reelection seems to have fully adopted the populist viewpoint. 

I'm a conservative.  I wrote a couple of actual conservatives in.

I voted for the measure to allow the state constitution to be amended to add a new category for residential property, even though I'm very unsure about it. And I voted for all the city optional tax measures.

The whole time I was there some ancient man with a MAGA hat was wondering around ambushing people waiting in line with his far right populist views.  He really hit some poor coal miner hard who clearly just wanted to be left alone to vote.

One of his points was that the United States didn't invent transgenderism.  Somehow, in his mind, this assertion was a reason to vote for Trump.

Cont:

It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!  Don’t pay it!

Trump's reaction, reportedly, to a bill received from the family of  Pvt. Vanessa Guillén after he had offered to pay funeral expenses.

Why can’t you be like the German generals?

Trump to John Kelly in showing frustration about their independence. Trump was apparently unaware of the July 20 plot, according to Kelly, and not aware that Erwin Rommel killed himself. 

Last edition:

The 2024 Election, Part XXV. The GOP yells "get off my lawn" edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2024 Election, American Solidarity Party, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Immigration, J. D. Vance, Kamala Harris, Mental Health, Politics, Pope Francis, Populism, Republican Party

Bookends

I probably should have guessed, but I didn't.

I'd never met him before, and couldn't even place him in the set of people related to people I knew.  He was, or is rather, the grandson of a rancher I've known for eons, but I'd never seen him at a rural gathering.  He was dressed in a rural fashion, with the clothes natural to him, but wearing a ball cap rather than a cowboy hat.  I probably was too.  It was unseasonably cold, I remember that.

He was holding forth boldly on what was wrong on higher education.  All the professors were radical leftist.  

I figured he was probably right out of high school, in part no doubt as I'm a very poor judge of younger ages.  It was silly, so I just ignored him, although I found his speech arrogant.  The sort of speech you hear from somebody who presumes that nobody else has experienced what you have. ¹  I.e., we were a bunch of rural rubes not familiar with the dangerous liberals in higher education.

I figured he'd probably get over it as he moved through education.  

Yes, there are liberals in higher education. Frankly, the more educated a class is, the more likely that it is at least somewhat liberal.  That reflects itself in our current political demographic.  The more higher education a person has, the more likely they are to vote for the Democrats.  It's not universally true, but it's fairly true. And the Republicans, having gone populist, which is by definition a political stream that simply flows the "wisdom of the people", is a pretty shallow stream.  Conservatism isn't, but it's really hard to find right now.

I heard earlier this year that he'd obtained a summer position in D.C. with one of our current public servants there, and thought that figured, given the climate of the times.  Recently, his grandfather told me he'd just taken the LSAT.  

I didn't quite know what to say.  

I didn't have any idea he was that old.  And I didn't realize that was his aspiration.  I asked his progenitor if being a lawyer was his goal, and was informed that it was.  I did stumble around to asking what his undergraduate major was, thinking that some have multiple doors to the future, and some do not.

"Political science".

"Well, he doesn't have any place else to go then".²

Not the most encouraging response, I'm sure.

I've known a few lawyers that were of the populist political thought variety, but very, very few.  Of the few, one is in office right now, but I didn't know that person had that view until that person ran.  One is a nice plaintiff's lawyer who holds those views, but it's not his defining characteristic, like it tends to be with some people, and he's friends with those who don't.  One briefly was in the public eye and has disappeared.

He's going to find that most law professors, if you know their views at all, and most you won't, aren't populists.  Some are probably conservatives, and most are liberals.  A defining characteristic of the Post GI Bill field of law is that it's institutionally left wing.  As I've often noted before, there are in fact liberal jurists, but there really aren't "conservative" jurists in the true sense, in spite of what people like Robert Reich might think.

I suspect politics is the ultimate goal. By the time he's through with law school, and has some practice under his belt, the populist wave will have broken, a conservative politics will have reemerged and liberals will be back in power.³

So I hope that he likes the practice of law, as that's what law school trains you to do.  Not to save the world.  Not to "help people".  Not to provide opportunities for people who "like to argue".⁴ 

I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

Recently, I ran this:

June 25, 2024

An article on Hageman's primary challenger in the GOP:

Democrat-turned-Republican challenges Wyoming’s Harriet Hageman for U.S. House seat

Helling has a less than zero chance of unseating Hageman.  What this item really reminded me of, however, is just how old these candidates are.  Helling is an old lawyer.  His bar admission date is 1981, which would make him about 70.  Hageman's is 1989, which I knew which would make her about 61, old by historical standards although apparently arguably middle-aged now.

Barrasso is 71.  Lummis is 69. John Hotz, who is running against Barrasso, has a bar admission date of 1978 which would make him about three years older than Helling.  Seemingly the only younger candidate in the GOP race this primary is Rasner.

This isn't a comment on any of their politics, but rather their age.  Helling is opposed to nuclear power, a very 1970ish view.  With old people, come old views, quite often, even if they're repackaged as new ones.

Right after I ran it, I went to a hearing where one of the opposing lawyers is approaching 70 and supposedly is getting ready to retire, but doesn't seem to be.  Right after that, I was in a court hearing in which there were two younger lawyers, but a host of ones in their late 60s or well into their 70s.  One of the late 60s ones appeared to be stunned and noted that there was at least 200 years of legal experience in the room.

I was noticing the same thing.

Lawyers have a problem and that's beginning to scare me, not quite yet being of retirement age.  I'm not sure if they don't retire, can't retire, don't think they can retire, or something else.

It's not really good for the profession, I'm sure of that.  While it's a really Un-American thing to say, a field being dominated in some ways by the elderly pushes out the young.  And it's also sad.

It's sad as it's usually the case that younger people have wide, genuine, interests.  Lawyers often, although not always, give a lot of those up early on to build their careers. Then they don't go back to them due to those careers.  By the time they're in their late 50s, some are burnt out husks that have nothing but the law, and others are just, I think, afraid to leave it.

I think that's, in part, why you see lawyers run for office.  Maybe some are like our young firebrand first mentioned in this tread.  But others are finding a refuge from a cul-de-sac.  A lawyer who is nearly 70 should not become a first time office holder, and shouldn't even delude themselves into thinking that's a good idea (or that it's feasible).  They should remind themselves of what interested them when they were in their 20s.  The same is true of office holders in general who are in their 70s, or older.  

Footnotes:

1.  I've often seen this with young veterans and old ones.  Some young veteran will be holding forth, not realizing that the guy listening to him fought at Khe Sanh or the likes.

2.  That wasn't the most politic thing to say, but I was sort of hoping that the answer was "agriculture" or something, that had some more doors out.  

Political science really doesn't.  Maybe teaching.  But if our young protagonist graduates with a law degree and finds himself not in the world of political intrigue making sure that the American version of Viktor Orbán rises to the top, but rather whether his client, the mother of five children by seven men gets one of them to pay child support, which is highly likely, he's going to have no place to go.

3.  Bold prediction, I know, but probably correct.

Right now, I suspect that Donald Trump will in fact win the Presidential election, and the country will be in for a massive period of turmoil.  By midterm, people who supported Trump will be howling with rage about the impact of tariffs and the like and demanding that something be done.  The correction will come in 2028, but by that time much of the damage, or resetting or whatever, will have been done.  The incoming 2028 Democratic regime will set the needle more back to the center.

4.  Being good at arguing, in a Socratic sense, makes you a good debator or speaker.  Liking to argue, however, just makes you an asshole.

Sunday, May 28, 1944. A Memorial Day Weekend.

It was a Sunday on a Memorial Day weekend in the US. What did that look like in Wyoming, I wonder?  

It wasn't a day off for SHAEF, as Sarah Sundin reports; Today in World War II History—May 28, 1944

The 1st Canadian Corps took Ceprano.

German 220 mm howitzer knocked out near Anzio.

The 8th Air Force attacked Leuna and Magdeburg

The 41st Infantry Division advanced against heavy Japanese opposition on Biak. At the same time, Gen. MacArthur declared the New Guinea campaign strategically won, while acknowledging that hard fighting remained.

Rudy Giuliani was born in Brooklyn.  His rise and fall demonstrates, in a way, how politicians born in the 1940s have been eclipsed by age, and should really no longer be seriously considered for office.

Gladys Knight was born in Atlanta.  

The late Sandra Locke was born in Tennessee.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, May 27, 1944. Landing at Biak.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Battle of Biak, Battle of the Atlantic, boats and ships, Indonesia, Infantry, New Guinea, Royal Air Force, World War Two

A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death, and the Good Life and Existential Occupations.

A really old friend of mine and I were talking about it just last week.

I had to catch up with him as he was working on something for me.  It was Friday, but I was fairly formally dressed and he noted it. The reason was that I had just come from my uncle's funeral earlier that day.  He extended his sympathies, but I noted that my uncle had lived a long and good life.  Not a life free of troubles, as no such thing existed, but a long life, that was well lived, and he'd remained sharp right up until the end.  His health had declined in recent years, but only in very recent ones.  It was the last few months that were rough.

My friend and I, who first knew each other as National Guardsmen back in the 80s, are co-religious.  Neither of us was married when we first met, but both of us have, and have seen our kids grow up since then.  And of course, we've seen our parents pass away, his before mine.  He has siblings, which I do not, and one of his brothers died, only in his 50s.  I noted that in the Middle Ages, people often prayed for good deaths, and he noted that a prayer group that he's in now does that every week.

Prayer for a Happy Death

O God, great and omnipotent judge of the living and the dead, we are to appear before you after this short life to render an account of our works. Give us the grace to prepare for our last hour by a devout and holy life, and protect us against a sudden and unprovided death. Let us remember our frailty and mortality, that we may always live in the ways of your commandments. Teach us to "watch and pray" (Lk 21:36), that when your summons comes for our departure from this world, we may go forth to meet you, experience a merciful judgment, and rejoice in everlasting happiness. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I'm constantly amazed by people who work into old age, as I'd judge it, and keeping working.  A dear friend of mine, now in his 70s, noted that just the other day.  He doesn't have to, he just is.  Likewise, I know a collection of lawyers who fit that description.  The law is a hard job, surrounded by hard facts, hard people, and difficult scenarios

I think they just know nothing else, their real personalities, perhaps, burnt to the core eons ago.

In contrast, I'm also constantly amazed by those who have extensive plans for their retirements well before they can retire.  Another friend of mine fits this category, but when I look at him, I can tell his physical condition is so poor it'd be amazing if he lives long enough to retire.  It's one of those things where you don't know what to say.  If you were to be blunt, you'd say that the dreams of early retirement are probably forlorn, but that his dreams of retiring at all may be foreclosed by a bad early death, if some correction isn't made soon, and those corrections are harder to make once you are past your 30s.

The call came to my wife on Saturday.  I could tell from the tone what the topic was, without even being told.  A relative of hers was on his way to the hospital by helicopter.  Even though he was being sent in, in that fashion, I knew, but did not say it, that he'd not make it.  I'm not even sure if he wanted to.

And so another death.

In this case, unlike my uncle, he was much younger.  My age, in fact.  I hadn't seen him for many years, and before his troubles really set in.  He hadn't been able to adjust to them well.  The most common comment from people, none of whom were surprised, was that his torment was over.

I don't have any big plans, like one of my friends, for retirement.  I hope to be healthy, and just become more of an agrarian-killetarian than I presently am.  Funny thing is that recently I've been running into people who claim "you're looking really good". Somebody asked me the other day, indeed at the funeral gathering, "you're working out", the question in the form of a statement.  Not really.

Indeed, I've gained some weight I seemingly just can't lose, which I think is the byproduct of my thyroid medicine, which has made me hungry, and I know that I'm not in the physical condition I was before my recent health troubles commenced.  People close to me just won't accept that, which brings me to the other side of the retirement coin noted above.  Some lawyers I know are already planning for me to work into my 70s, as that's the thing to do, apparently. Long-suffering spouse, for her part, won't say something like that, but from an ag family, she doesn't really accept the concept of retirement anyhow.  Having said that, I wouldn't plan on my retiring from the ag operation either.

It finally occured to me, however, what's different about agricultural jobs as opposed to others, at least if you are an owner of the enterprise or part of it.  The occupation itself is existentially human.  It is, if you will, an Existential Occupation, or at least it is right now. The mindless gerbil like advance of "progress" may ruin that and reduce it to just another occupation.

Existential Occupations are ones that run with our DNA as a species.  Being a farmer/herdsman is almost as deep in us as being a hunter or fisherman, and it stems from the same root in our being.  It's that reason, really, that people who no longer have to go to the field and stream for protein, still do, and it's the reason that people who can buy frozen Brussels sprouts at Riddleys' still grown them on their lots.  And its the reason that people who have never been around livestock will feel, after they get a small lot, that they need a cow, a goat, or chickens.  It's in us.  That's why people don't retire from real agriculture.

It's not the only occupation of that type, we might note.  Clerics are in that category.  Storytellers and Historians are as well.  We've worshiped the Devine since our onset as a species, and we've told stories and kept our history as story the entire time.  They're all existential in nature.  Those who build certain things probably fit into that category as well, as we've always done that.  The fact that people tinker with machinery as a hobby would suggest that it's like that as well.

Indeed, if it's an occupation. . . and also a hobby, that's a good clue that its an Existential Occupation.

If I were to retire from my career, which I can't right now, I wouldn't be one of those people who spend their time traveling to Rome or Paris or wherever.  I have very low interest in doing that.  I'd spend my time writing, fishing, hunting, gardening (and livestock tending).  That probably sounds pretty dull to most people.  I could imagine myself checking our Iceland or Ireland, or fjords in Norway, but I likely never will.

What I can't imagine myself doing is imagining that age and decline don't occur, and that I should be in court in my 70s.  I don't think that the lawyers who do that realize that younger lawyers don't admire that, and most of the lawyers I'm running into in court are younger than me now.  

And indeed, frankly, it isn't admirable.  People who work a hard non-existential job and keep at it into their advanced old age, or at least past their 7th decade, have just lost something they were when they were young, and much of that is themselves.  They've lost who they were.

AN ACT OF FAITH IN ANTICIPATION OF THE HOUR OF DEATH

From the works of St. Pompilio M. Pirrotti

On my journey toward eternity, dear Lord,

 

I am surrounded  by powerful enemies of my soul.

I live in fear and trembling,

especially at the thought of the hour of death,

on which my eternity will depend,

and of the fearful struggle that the devil will then have to wage against me,

knowing that little time is left for him to accomplish my eternal ruin.

I desire, therefore, O Lord,

to prepare myself for it from this hour,

by offering you now, in view of my last hour,

my profession of faith and love for you,

which is so effectual in repressing and rendering useless

all the crafty and wicked schemes of the enemy

and which I resolve to oppose to him at that moment of such grave consequence,

even though he should dare alone to attack with his deceits

the peace and tranquility of my spirit.

I N.N.,

in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity,

the blessed Virgin Mary,

my holy Guardian Angel

and the entire heavenly host,

affirm that I wish to live and die under the standard of the Holy Cross.

I firmly believe all that our Holy Mother,

the holy, catholic and apostolic Church,

believes and teaches.

It is my steadfast intention to die in this holy faith,

in which all the holy martyrs, confessors and virgins of Christ have died,

as well as all those who have saved their souls.

If the devil should tempt me to despair

because of the multitude and grievousness of my sins,

I affirm that from this day forth

I firmly hope in the infinite mercy of God,

which will not let itself be overcome by my sins,

and in the Precious Blood of Jesus

which has washed all my sins away.

If the devil should assail me with temptations to presumption

by reason of the small amount of good

which by the help of God

I may have been able to accomplish,

I confess from this day forth

that I deserve eternal separation from God

a thousand times by my sins

and I entrust myself entirely

to the infinite goodness of God,

through whose grace alone I am what I am.

Finally, if the evil spirit should suggest to me

that the pains inflicted upon me by our Lord

in that last hour of my life

are too heavy to bear,

I affirm now that all will be as nothing

in comparison with the punishments I have deserved throughout life.

In the bitterness of my soul

I call to remembrance all my years;

I see my iniquities, I confess them and detest them.

Ashamed and sorrowful I turn to you,

my God, my Creator and my Redeemer.

Forgive me, O Lord, by the multitude of your mercies;

forgive your servant whom you have redeemed by your Precious Blood.

My God, I turn to you, I call upon you, I trust in you;

 to your infinite goodness

I commit the entire reckoning of my life.

I have sinned greatly, O Lord:

 enter not into judgment with your servant,

who surrenders to you

and confesses his guilt.

Of myself I cannot make satisfaction to you for my countless sins:

I do not have the means to pay you for my infinite debt.

But your Son has shed his Blood for me,

and greater than all mine sins is your mercy.

O Jesus, be my Saviour!

At the hour of my fearful crossing to eternity

put to flight the enemy of my soul;

grant me grace to overcome every difficulty,

for you alone do mighty wonders.

Lord,

according to the multitude of your tender mercies

I shall enter into your dwelling place.

Trusting in your pity,

I commend my spirit into your hands!

May the Blessed Virgin Mary

and my Guardian Angel

accompany my soul into the heavenly country. Amen.

We should all hope and indeed pray for a happy death.  And perhaps we should pray for a happy life, which is one worthwhile.  That doesn't, quite frankly, include the "I'm going to work here at my desk until I die".  That's surrendering to fear or meaningless, in most cases.

Again, there are exceptions.  People with Existential Occupations, people who own their own special business, and the like.  The list can't really be set out in full.

That doesn't include pouring through the latest edition of the IRS code for deductions, or reading the Restatement (Second) of Torts, or engineering an oilfield implement.