Morning in America!

Hats off to all the patriots who did their civic duty.  But this is no time to gloat over the defeat  of our enemies. They will not give up or give in. For these totalitarian dogs, the political is everything.  They do not suffer, as we do, from The Conservative Disadvantage.

The war is just starting and the national sanitation project will take at least a generation to accomplish.  To give you a taste of what we are up against, here is David Frum writing in The Atlantic this morning:

Donald Trump has won, and will become president for the second time. Those who voted for him will now celebrate their victory. The rest of us need to prepare to live in a different America: a country where millions of our fellow citizens voted for a president who knowingly promotes hatred and division; who lies—blatantly, shamelessly—every time he appears in public; who plotted to overturn an election in 2020 and, had he not won, was planning to try again in 2024.

Above all, we must learn to live in an America where an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens have chosen a president who holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, even our military in contempt. Over the past decade, opinion polls showed Americans’ faith in their institutions waning. But no opinion poll could make this shift in values any clearer than this vote. As a result of this election, the United States will become a different kind of country.

In a post from January of this year, Dueling Articles, I arrange a confrontation between Frum and Steve Cortes. The comment thread is a very good one, featuring contributions by the most distinguished among the MavPhil commentariat.

World leaders congratulate Trump.

UPDATE 3:42 PM

Leftist incomprehension:

Jonathan Chait, Americans Didn’t Embrace Trump, They Rejected the Biden-Harris Administration

But Lanny Davis, remember him? displays some self-awareness:

The Morning After: Lessons to Learn -- and not to Learn

Comments

[Dmitri]

Good morning for America and the West! My favourite quote of the day belongs to an astute Kamala voter:

I voted for her. I think he’s a bad guy. But if you lose the senate, house, electoral college AND popular vote, and you think the lesson is half the country is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and stupid… wrong lesson. And the same thing will likely happen in 2028.

https://x.com/intentionally/status/1854021021617066431

[Kurt Schneider]

I have political and moral disagreements with others where I can understand my interlocutor and he can understand me even though we disagree. Increasingly, I have no idea what the far left is talking about. The passage you quoted has absolutely no basis in reality. I can only conclude that Frum is delusional or lying. Is that too harsh?

[Joe Odegaard]

Trump plays by the rules, runs a campaign, and wins the popular vote, and Frum says

"our fellow citizens have chosen a president who holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, even our military in contempt."

These leftists only care about "Democracy" when it gives them power to lord it over others.

Beware of them, they are so evil.

[BV]

Dmitri,

You're right: This was not just a victory for the USA, but for the West, and indeed for the whole world. Trump understands and more importantly, can implement, the principle of peace through strength. Harris neither understands it nor could implement it. No foreign leader takes her seriously.

She is a cackling clown, an utter joke. She is far worse than pre-dementia Biden.

The Kamala voter is right. But if he is sharp enough to make the statement you quote as making, why isn't he sharp enough to see that Trump is a good guy? And sharp enougth to see that Kamala's policies are disastrous?

[BV]

Kurt,

No, you are not being too harsh. Frum's outburst has no basis in reality. It is pure psychological projection. I'll be charitable and say that the man has temporarily lost his mind out of rage at the outcome.

[BV]

Joe,

Two possibilities: Frum is a good man who has lost his mind, or an evil man who knows exactly what he is doing.

[Joe Odegaard]

Brother Bill, maybe there is a third possibility regarding Mr. Frum; C.S. Lewis remarked, in Mere Christianity, I think it was, that whereas an ordinary bad person knows that he is bad, a truly evil person thinks themselves to be good. Thus it may be that Frum lacks self-awareness about exactly what it is that he is doing. This would lead into a discussion about possession, which might be appropriate here.

[Ingvar]

Humor,

When you use AI to change 'democracy' to 'bureaucracy' in a bunch of quips.

ubtaVuNWjjQzKt_T.mp4

[Dmitri]

Hi Bill

I don't know what many Kamala voters thought. In fact many friends of mine in California are such voters and they are absolutely cognitively impenetrable to counter arguments. Some of them can't stand Trump's personal traits and manners and can't think straight above these largely irrelevant considerations given the choices US voters have had. Some of them tacitly adopted, or absorbed, the politically correct views of their high-tech environments and local friends.

I personally agree with the late left-anarchist anthropologist David Graeber who after Trump's 2016 victory explained in 3 minutes how such voters think and why they do so. They would disagree of course...
https://x.com/davidwengrow/status/1854125093221282014

[BV]

Hi Dmitri,

>>Some of them can't stand Trump's personal traits and manners and can't think straight above these largely irrelevant considerations given the choices US voters have had.<<

But that is just as irrational as voting against Kamala because of her extremely annoying, hyena-like laughing, or her hair-do.

>> Some of them tacitly adopted, or absorbed, the politically correct views of their high-tech environments and local friends.<<

This doesn't speak well of them either. They need to reflect on their suggestibility and ask themselves whether the beliefs they have uncritically imbibed from their social environment are true or at least reasonably held.

I take it you are talking about infotech colleagues. These people are extremely sharp and competent in their field, but their thinking skills seem not transferrable beyond these fields.

I know chess players like that. Victor Reppert, an acquaintance of mine is near Master strength and a good philosopher in his specialty. But outside of thpse two areas, he degenerates toward the level of a barroom bullshitter.

[BV]

Dmitri,

Thanks for the reference to David Graeber. Here is a Guardian piece about him: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/07/david-graeber-optimistic-anarchist-rebecca-solnit

I'd like to know what he understands by 'anarchism.' This is insufficient as a definition:

>>And then he argues that anarchism was not, by comparison, an idea created by a few intellectuals; instead, “the basic principles of anarchism – self-organisation, voluntary association, mutual aid” – have been around “as long as humanity.”<<

Now I am all for voluntary association, and mutual aid, things which are undermined by Kamalist wokery. But we need limited gov't, where gov't is by definition coercive.

In other words, good social order, social order that engenders and sustains human flourishing, cannot arise spontaneously. There are evil people who need to be suppressed, kept in check, incarcerated, and sometimes put to death for the sake of the health of the social whole. For that suppression, etc. to be achieved in an orderly ways, a state apparatus is necessary.

Of course, this gives rise to a nasty phil problem, the fundamental problem of political philosophy: how justify even a limited state/government?

I don't know how morally to justify the state, but I do know that we need a state. Compare: no one has definitively refuted Zeno's arguments against motion, and yet we know there is motion. People like Wesley Salmon only think they have refuted them.

[BV]

To the extent that the RCC supports Kamalism, it needs to be defunded.

Tony Flood, anarcho-capitalist, sends this: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/11/no_author/extraordinary-ministers-wear-kamala-harris-shirts-while-distributing-holy-communion-at-dc-parish/

Disgusting! The RCC is in dire need of fumigation to remove Bergoglio the termite and all the subaltern termites. Figuratively speaking of course.

[BV]

When I was a boy Scientific American was well worth reading. I learned a lot from it. But it has gone woke.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/scientific-american-editor-blast-f-ing-fascists-who-elected-donald-trump

There can be no peace with a sick Kamalist bitch like this. This is a war, and we had better start it treating as a war.

[Tom T.]

A good post and comments. But I don't want to turn too quickly to the "national sanitation" project Bill speaks of. It is important, I think, to take a moment to recognize the true measure of what Trump accomplished. His was not just a great victory in a single campaign for President, but an epic eight-year struggle against the most powerful forces in the most powerful country in the world. And he beat them all Tuesday night.

Here is Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to Trump and Founder of American First Legal, last night on X/Twitter, summing up nicely the unimaginable scope of Trump's victory.

"The electoral landslide achieved by @realDonaldTrump is not only the single greatest win in American Political history but in the modern history of civilization. Nothing else even comes close. This is unparalleled, unmatched, and unrivaled. He defeated the Bush Dynasty, Clinton Dynasty, Cheney Dynasty, Obama Dynasty, Biden Dynasty, and the entire corrupt machine behind Kamala Harris. He defeated every sinister Marxist prosecutor, every vile hoax, every DOJ witch hunt, every communist persecution, every illegal act of censorship and surveillance, and the ruthlessly politicized and weaponized justice system. He defeated the corrupt legacy media, the political class, the donor class, the pundit class. He defeated not one but TWO Democrat nominees and their rigged primary. He defeated the corrupt Democrat Congress. He defied death itself and survived multiple assassination attempts. Trump did the impossible over and over and over again. THE BIGGEST VICTORY EVER SEEN. No comparison."

[BV]

That's a good comment, Tom. DJT is the political phenomenon of our lifetime. He is donning the mantle of greatness. Depending on how he handles the time left remaining to him, he may be 'Mr Rushmore material.' He is something of a superman: few among us could survive the slings and arrows directed against him and emerge triumphant as he has.

If Stephen Miller exaggerates, it is not by much.

[BV]

Joe,

Frum is not possessed using the term correctly.

Demonic influence divides into extraordinary and ordinary, where 'ordinary' covers the temptations that we all succumb to from time to time. Note also that morally bad behavior may or may not involve demonic influence.

Extraordinary demonic influence divides into possession and oppression (vexation).

In a case of possession, a demon takes control of a human body, not a human mind. A case of full possession is one in which "the evil spirit completely takes control of someone, such that the victim has periods when he or she has no remembrance of such episodes." R. Gallagher, MD, DEMONIC FOES, p. 74.

From the quotation, there is no evidence that Frum is possessed by a demon or under any demonic influence at all. His condition may have a wholly psychiatric explanation in terms of projection.

Question: if a person engages in psychological projection is the person in every case morally censurable for so doing?

[Joe Odegaard]

Tom T.'s post is excellent. DJT, however, would credit the sum total of the American people who voted for him; such is explained well by Sebastian Gorka in his speech defending Trump before the Oxford Union: (paraphrasing) "... the American People said "Enough!"

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP08sIKXdLE

[Joe Odegaard]

Brother Bill :

regarding Frum, and the strict definition of possession, yes, obviously not; but still, I find it very hard to understand these extreme reactions to DJT other than as prompted by the goadings of some external force. I suppose that lets Frum and the Scientific American lady off the hook somewhat. And I suppose that I might be reading too much into these things.

[Dmitri]

Hi Bill

Graeber was a historically minded anthropologist and did not have a conceptually clear approach to anarchy as a political theory. He was one of the thought leaders of the Occupy Wall Street movement. He saw anarchism as a practice. If you have time you can look at his early work where he touches on the subject of anarchism directly: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-fragments-of-an-anarchist-anthropology

[BV]

Thanks for the link, Dmitri.

>>against policy (a tiny manifesto):

The notion of “policy” presumes a state or governing apparatus which imposes its will on others. “Policy” is the negation of politics; policy is by definition something concocted by some form of elite, which presumes it knows better than others how their affairs are to be conducted. By participating in policy debates the very best one can achieve is to limit the damage, since the very premise is inimical to the idea of people managing their own affairs.<<

The first sentence is plainly true. The first clause of the second sentence is question-begging: it presupposes an anarchist approach to politics, which is precisely what is at issue. The second clause is true, but justifiable, although I cannot go into the details now. The third sentence is also question-begging.

I hope Graeber can do better than this. But I should read some more.

His fundamental error may be this: he assumes, against all evidence, that people know what is in their own long-term best self-interest AND are ready, willing, and able to act on this knowledge. Both halves are plainly false.

Example. People drive drunk. Therefore, we must have laws against drunk driving that drunken anarchists won't agree to. These laws must be enforced. Therefore: we need enforcers, cops. They are part of the state apparatus. Therefore we need a state.

The state is coercive by definition.

How would this Graeber guy respond?

[BV]

A new comment from “Dmitri” was received on the post “Morning in America!” of the blog “Maverick Philosopher”.

Comment:
The problem of state is of course a classical problem for the anarchist. Similar in difficulty to the mind-body interaction for the Cartesian. I believe he makes two moves in that regard. One: he questions the definition of "state" and in particular its range of applicability in actual history. He has a brief discussion on the subject in a section called A THEORY OF POLITICAL ENTITIES THAT ARE NOT STATES. There he claims that Athens can't be properly called a city-state because it wasn't a state. Two: he mentions the need to research working alternatives for the state. A standard move for an anarchist thinker. But I don't know whether he managed to spell out the possibilities.

Commenter name: Dmitri

[Joe Odegaard]

Vigano writes about this sunrise in this article here.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/archbishop-vigano-some-considerations-after-election-victory-donald/

He calls out the now partially defeated evils in no uncertain terms.

[Hector]

Bill,

I’ve read some Graeber, though it was a few years back. This article will give you an idea of his anthropological thought and how it connects to politics:

https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/

The problem with Graeber and anarchists of his type is that while they can legitimately point to many stateless societies and even some arguably stateless proto-civilisations such as early cities in the Near East in the anthropological/historical record, as well as being correct in pointing out that statelessness has been more common than not in human history and is not necessarily required for an ordered society, they cannot (as far as I’ve ever seen) give good arguments for how a complex society can function without the state, especially our post-industrial societies. I don’t believe that areas of exception to be found already within the framework of states count as evidence for anarchism’s possibility, not to mention the issue of the fragility of an anarchist society against any state with advanced technology. Partly this is also a question of population size - how do you have order in a city of 15 million people, most of them unknown to one another, without a state? Of course, they usually maintain, absurdly, that crime is caused by the state and its maintenance of inequality. Everything will somehow be rearranged for the better without violence. Ted Kaczynski and anarcho-primitivists like John Zerzan are right about this issue of scale/technology/complexity etc as an insuperable barrier for anarchy but on other matters are, to put it mildly, barking mad.

It must be pointed out too that small stateless societies are just as capable of horrific brutality and slaughter as complex states - see Lawrence Keeley’s War Before Civilisation. He finds evidence of very few totally pacifist societies. Some of what Keeley documents, in terms of things like percentage of the enemy killed in combat, matches or exceeds some of the twentieth century’s worst atrocities. Add to this that some primitive stateless societies, such as the Tauade of Papua New Guinea, have among the highest homicide rates in the world. The Tauade have no word for ‘guilt’ in their language, and next to no way to socially defuse conflict. Their society lives in an endless cycle of violent revenge. They even recognise that this is not to their advantage but do not stop. Of course, there is a huge variety in primitive cultures, but the point is that it’s not obviously true that they are less violent or even more co-operative than our state-ruled societies. Selfishness among hunter-gatherers is not uncommon and many anthropologists report that they tend to cooperate out of necessity and social pressure and not out of kindness (‘mutual aid’ caused by social coercion is not quite the Kropotkin dream is it?). Graeber takes stateless societies as evidence that different political orders are possible - but those we know about do not resemble anarchist utopias.

[BV]

Thanks for dropping by, Hector. Good comments, as usual.

>>I don’t believe that areas of exception to be found already within the framework of states count as evidence for anarchism’s possibility,<<

That strikes me as clearly correct. Suppose six friends set up a chess club or hiking club or whatever. That can work for a while without a coercive state-type apparatus. But as the club grows, only the most assiduous vetting of new members could keep the thing going without coercion.

Suppose a new member starts to cause trouble. Then there will have to be either internal coercive enforcement of rules or appeal to an external authority. And we are back to the state.

>>not to mention the issue of the fragility of an anarchist society against any state with advanced technology.<<

Yes indeed.

>>Of course, they usually maintain, absurdly, that crime is caused by the state and its maintenance of inequality.<< Yes it is absurd. Some have actually argued that there would be no crimes if there were no state with its criminal code.

>>Graeber takes stateless societies as evidence that different political orders are possible - but those we know about do not resemble anarchist utopias.<<

'Utopia' is the right word. There's no place like utopia. It's like Nowheresville, man.

So, Hector, we agree that anarchism is a joke. But there remains the problem of the moral justification of the state. Go to my anarchism category and read my articles about Robert Paul Wolff. https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/anarchism/