FRIDAY short TAKES.

A lot can happen in a week.  "After the incident in Pennsylvania, even Trump’s worst enemies cannot deny that some would rather see him dead than re-elected."  I thought Rush Limbaugh used the expression "drive-by media" ironically.  "The same media that tried to place at least some blame for Gabby Giffords being shot on Sarah Palin because Palin’s PAC used crosshairs to say they were targeting various vulnerable candidates cannot try to pretend that they played no role in suggesting Trump was dangerous."  What goes around ... "Well, New Republic, recently someone took you up on your argument that Trump was “damn close enough” to Hitler and so he likewise chose to “fight”— albeit with a semi-automatic rifle."

Assassination Porn and the Sickness on the Left

If we were leftists and we were to use leftist tropes to editorialize the recent attempt on Trump’s life, then we would frame the assassination attempt in the following way:

We have witnessed for years blatant exceptions to the…

— Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) July 14, 2024

Bourgeois norms mean calling individuals to account.  "Routine accusations that such-and-such political leader is a fascist, or Hitler, or a communist, or a dictator are not making things better for anyone. But words do not have some hypnotic power to induce others to commit violence. As always, when a deranged person takes up a gun and attacks someone, we should blame that individual—not other people's words."  Once the punishment cycles of a grim strategy outcome begin, restoring a state of good repair is hard.  "One senses that perhaps various authorities are belatedly sensing danger and deciding that perhaps better to dial it back, before going too far in outraging the normies. Straws perhaps … but is the cold fury of normal citizens finally being felt?"

The weekly round-up of mostly pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

1.  Those three strikes.  Ya think?  "Even at the cost of the government’s legitimacy. Maybe it’s not democracy they’re guarding. Maybe it never was."  Normals are noticing.  "Everywhere you look in America, you see the failures of the Democratic establishment."  It's time for the bipartisan establishment to learn a hard lesson.  "Let the party go down so it can be purged of Green Woke Satanic mentally-ill communists and reorganized on a sane and decent basis."

2.  Truly, truly, I say unto you:  "The U.S. political system runs on the fuel of euphemism—the ability to conceal nefarious aspirations beneath the facade of idealistic slogans."

3.  Their incompetence is their diversity.  "In our Soviet Union, as in the original, senior government officials are basically zampolits, political officers selected for loyalty, not ability. The DEI ideology, which guarantees incompetence, is basically a proxy for fidelity to Joe Biden."  We're tired of failure.  "When institutions are headed by Kendi-obsessed quota queens selected for their adherence to Marxist ideology rather than competence, and when they prioritize their ridiculous ideology over the job the institution is supposed to do you’re going to get failure."

4.  Restoring comity?  "Despite gaslighting to the contrary, there is no contradiction between condemning the attack and saying that Trump is an authoritarian, an enemy of fundamental liberal values, and a menace to democracy."  Here we go again.  "When leftists start prattling on about 'democracy,' or more commonly, 'our democracy,' they mean their own hegemony and dominance of the American public square."  Which is to say, a different manifestation of that enmity toward fundamental liberal values and that menace to democracy.

5.  The punishment cycles commence.  "The Democrat-media complex has chosen the method of its destruction, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine anything other than a Trump restoration in November."

6.  Cheer up, it could get worse.  "Despite these echoes, anyone familiar with the horrors of 1968 would have thought things were much worse in that year of street battles and riots than today."  Yes, it's getting worse.  "The choice is between the rancid, arrogant dispensation of the 'woke' elite and the rough-hewn, America-first populism of Donald Trump."  How bad can it get?  "The stakes are too high, so I'll keep popping migraine pills and reporting on this stuff."

7.  If we knew what we were doing ... “I was surprised when my own research did not find such a neat picture.”

8.  That man of system will get it wrong.  "These three strands of the libertarian synthesis—the moral argument, the knowledge problem and the public choice problem—can be summarized simply: You have no right to run my life; you don’t know how; and if you try, you’ll mess it up. And these ideas are not the fruit of any abstract 'ideal theory,' but represent the hard-learned lessons of centuries of oppression and inefficiency at the hands of bullies, busybodies and bureaucrats, who continuously claim they can fix our problems, if only we obey."

9.  You hamburger!  "It’s hard to think of a phrase more condescending than 'big boy' when referring to the 81-year-old commander-in-chief."

10.  Politics divides.  "The Democratic Party was so invested in addressing the challenges of girls and young women that it has become politically difficult to address, or even acknowledge, the growing problems facing boys and young men."  Ya think?  "Biden’s campaign has 'overindexed on the views of leftist progressive activists.'"

11.  How is that hopey-changey stuff working out?  "Since the Nineties, America has morphed from a sprawling, continent-sized democracy to a more European-style centralised federal state with a ruling class of coastal billionaires serviced by a unitary national elite."  We're not going to take it.  "The fallout from the permanent bureaucracy’s war on Trump has turned millions of Americans into combatants in a conflict started by Democratic Party bosses and spy masters. Trump’s followers aren’t brainwashed cultists for believing attacks on him are assaults against them, too—the political and legal establishment describes them as domestic terrorists to designate them as targets of counterinsurgency warfare tactics developed during the global war on terror. It seems that Washington is breeding at home what it nurtured in the Middle East—civil war."

12.  Those unalienable rights.  "Any time the government gets put in its place while attempting to imprison a citizen via misconduct is a good day."  There's more work to do.  "We have to stop the lawfare. We need to return to being a functioning Constitutional Republic. We need to put a nail in the coffin of MSM credibility. "

13.  A gentleman is never unintentionally rude.  "Anyone watching heard speaker after speaker purposely mispronounce Kamala Harris’s first name."  Punishment cycles include repaying contempt with contempt.

14.  Say what?  "Now, if Grothman wants to return to 1960s economics, where one adult salary could support a family of four, he would probably find plenty of support from Democrats, but probably none from Republicans."  Chortle.  What was the labor force participation rate of married women in the early 1960s, and what happened?

15.  The presidential cult is real.  "The American public believes that everything is at stake in Presidential elections and no sacrifice is too great in order to bring to power the one critical figure of American governance -- the Bully Pulpit President. The public and the experts need to reign in this false view of the Presidency if we are to reduce the partisan wars that increase with every election cycle."  Pay attention to who is the school superintendent, the selectman, the dog-catcher.

16.  Perhaps the cult has become farcical.  "Biden seeks to turn his own mediocrity into a strength.  It worked last time."  The correlation of forces was different last time.

17.  Continue with the cult, reap what you sow.  "When people are literally worshiping images of a leader, or are engaged in political idolatry, oppression and war are predictable corollaries."

18.  Political correctness kills.  "In a sane presidential administration, Cheatle would have already been fired."

19.  Bidenomics.  "The rising costs of basic goods has left low-income households forced to decide between paying for food, energy, rent, and other essentials such as medicine, the report says.  Despite the increased need, federal funding to help low-income Americans cover their energy costs declined in fiscal year 2024. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program budget was cut significantly—from $6.1 billion to $4.1 billion—and only 12% is estimated to be allotted to summer cooling initiatives." There they go again, creating shortages, then exacerbating them by subsidizing demand.

20.  There is no such thing as a, singular noun, national interest.  "Americans have strong disagreements on what 'when we must' means."

21.  Marshallian improvements.  "The polio vaccine wiped out lots of jobs in factories making wheelchairs, leg braces, and crutches."

22.  Emergence supported by bourgeois norms for the win.  "One of the things America is awfully good at is locating bright, intellectually inclined young people in modest circumstances and helping them along. Terrible, dysfunctional families can make that a lot harder—I know whereof I write—but three cheers for our institutions of higher education and our ruthlessly efficient labor market."