Often when reading or listening to two Lefties talking about political opponents is like listening to twelve year-olds talking about another early adolescent more popular than they are. They share nonsensical comments that both know are not true. The nonsense binds them together, taking on perverse meaning in their silly, little lives.
And so it is most mornings when I plug into the media to check on my Lefty counterparts. This morning I read an article so devoid of reality I had to share it with you. It’s in a Washington Post column called Today’s WorldView by Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall. In it, Tharoor interviews Jacob Heilbrunn, historical revisionist of the first order - and all around middle school mean girl.
But don’t worry. The delivery is tarted up to be quite august and intellectual. But it’s as substantive as Harvey the Rabbits fuzzy ears.
I don’t have the time or space to pick it all apart here. Like many Lefty articles, as they list myth after myth to meet their fantasies, it would take a small book to completely and factually refute. I’ll hit some of the most ridiculous points.
Right out of the gate is the episode title: Trump, Orban and the GOP’s deep obsession with foreign demagogues.
Hmmm. Biden is the MOST powerful demagogue in the world right now.1 What, with his Nuremburg rally in front of Independence Hall or that circus stunt SOTU on Thursday - that was top-shelf demagoguery. I had four pages (8 1/2 x 11) of shorthand notes. There couldn’t have been more than three full thoughts in the whole speech that were fact or reason-based. And I’m pretty sure the GOP isn’t obsessed with him. And Trump is only obsessed with sending him back to Wilmington.
But this is the second most common theme in Lefty propaganda, isn’t it? They USUALLY can’t form a cogent argument against people working in their own best interests, so they need to toss out labels. For the record, I doubt the average WAPO reader can define demagogue without a dictionary. Tharoor surely knows this. But it’s a snappy epithet and he backs it up with the number one label Lefties hurl around at their peril - racist.
Yeah, we’ll see that here too.
Tharoor’s first use of the term demagogue (I’m already tired of using the word here) is directed at Victor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary. He is referred to as the “bete noir” of the EU. Do you see the mean girl oozing out there?
But why is his noir so bete? Well, they are glad you asked. The point of the article is the GOP’s obsession with dictators. The implication here is that Orban is a dictator and Trump and the GOP are obsessed with him. And Jacob Heilbrunn is hawking a book, absurdly entitled America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators. The premise in the title is wildly removed from reality. More about that in a minute or two.
From ALL evidence, of course, Orban is nothing of the sort. He is a duly elected Chief Executive with a clear majority in parliament. He is clear-minded in what he wishes to accomplish in office.
If there is a weakness in Hungarian politics it is that there Supreme Court is elected. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the folly in that.
But that wasn’t Orban’s idea.
The offense Orban is most guilty of is putting the interests of his citizens above that of the EU, as does Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Greece (when they have two pennies to run together) and the UK before Brexit.
BUT…stand by for the R word…his biggest snub of the EU is Orban digging in his heels against the free-flow of foreign Muslims into his country. And THIS is where the charge of racism comes in. Leave aside that fact that Islam is a religion, not a race. Leave aside that the countries sending the hoards are geographic entities. Leave aside that many pouring over the borders2 have declared that they are colonizing Europe to bring their backward religion to the infidel. It is the backward cultures, crime, crowding and primarily the Dark Ages version of the religion he wants to keep out of his country. Where race factors into any of those considerations, he has the guts to say he doesn’t give a shit.
And it would appear that propagandists, like the “conversants” in the WAPO article, have not gotten to the Hungarian people. They agree with Orban and rewarded him with an election. So much for demagoguery and racism and the dictator nonsense.
So here I am, about five minutes into a critique of an article it took me less time to read. I’ve barely progressed beyond the intro. That is what worries me about modern “journalism” and what people see. This is a perfect example of throwing out talking points, invective and outright falsehood (usually just strongly implied, so it can be denied later) and it washes over the busy reader, who shakes his head and worries - oh my! The GOP likes crazy dictators! That’s what rags like WAPO see as victory - the furtherance of your ignorance.
People like Tharoor know the pace of life. They know you’re skimming information. His guest, Heilbrunn hopes you’ll react to a splashy title and might even buy his book. You don’t have time to digest and thwart this kind of garbage.
But I do. It’s what I do. Always check in with the skeptic. This is especially true when breathy, agitated “liberals” are screaming “racist” or “dictator” or “do it for the children!” Always follow up with a skeptic. You will almost always find real truth there. At least you’ll have a balanced view upon which to make a more sound assessment.
There are others who fill this role nicely. But I am the most handsome, and know Ron Cori, so that makes me sort of important.
Does size matter?
In what other ways does the WAPO article toy with perception? Well, it seems Tharoor has confused political acumen with…size.3 Right out of the gate Tharoor tells us that Hungary is a small country, with a small population. In context it is crystal clear that he is disparaging Orban’s worldview because he’s from a small country.
Dear reader, he is saying, only people who live in large countries with HUGE populations and strong central governments can possibly understand the complexities of life. What, with all the planning and controls and regulation the MUST be maintained… Who is this uppety central European to make decisions for his own people. Thank GOD Americans and Western Europeans are so docile! And look at the size of their countries! Their Lefties must be brilliant!
Oh, but are these Lefties brilliant? Are the Europeans still so docile? More on those questions in a future article.
The “history” here is just laughable!
In an effort to CREATE the illusion of a pattern here, regarding populism, and racism and love of dictators among whom Heilbrunn calls the “right” he has made a hash of history, often making it up out of whole cloth, at least in this interview.
He says that the “right”,4 going back to 1920 and before were enamored with the Kaiser, and the “rising of tide of color”. Perhaps Heilbrunn might endeavor to study history before presuming to write about it.
From the Civil War through the 1960’s the greatest concern for the “rising tide of color” was among what we now call the American Left. From the KKK to Woodrow Wilson and FDR’s progressives to labor unions, the people who openly exhibited their fear and/or loathing of other races were Democrats.
Heilbrunn conflates business men with political figures and ethnic Germans, three distinct entities with different motivations as being enamored with the Kaiser. For the Germans the Kaiser may have meant something. But he didn’t mean the same thing to “conservative” politicians or businessmen. The businessmen wanted business. Pre-WWI, the racist Wilson was quietly working AGAINST the wishes of the Amercian “left” and “right” to get us into a war we didn’t REALLY need to fight.
Wilson had hegemonic international ambitions. Right or wrong, he knew if we flexed our industrial, and thereby military muscle on the European continent we (meaning he) would become the dominant power in the Western World over many nations broken by war. FDR would follow the same logic with even better results 20 years later.
And THAT boys and girls was the mind of the “Progessives” before and during WWI. THAT is why American boys died on European soil TWICE. And if you were against that, you were labeled a “Kaiser lover” or later, “pro-Hitler.” If Heilbrunn would like an example of history repeating itself in a way that caricatures the modern divide, look at what the loony Left says about ANYONE who says we need to worry more about the US than Ukraine.
Is what is happening in Ukraine right? No, of course not. But to imply that Ukraine is as important as the Southern border or fentalyl or the streets of our cities in pure nonsense.
You might want to peruse The Forgotten Man, by Amity Schlaes. The people MOST enamored with Hitler, pre-Austrian annexation, and Mussolini even as hostilities broke out between Germany and France, were the ENTIRE FDR administration. People on the Left were pronouncing the inadequacy of democracy. The term “strong man”, to the American Left at the time, was a good thing. It was a man proving that you can centrally plan a national economy and grind the citizens into submission. Klaus Schwab and his band of loony tunes, liberals to a man, are attempting to do the same things today.
When things became less clear, it would be people like Joe Kennedy and Charles Limbergh who would end up eating dirt. Good progressives, they said the quiet part out loud, while FDR was trying to throw in fully with France and England. They either didn’t get the memo, or they still thought they were supposed to still support Hitler and Mussolini - or isolationism.
While the author draws a distinction between the Right “favoring Hitler” and the Left “favoring Stalin”, history insists that it was the Left who adored both men equally. It was only DURING WWII that we were instructed to believe there was a shred of moral difference between the two men. Then after the war, Stalin was the new bad guy and Hitler was the guy who was like the American Right, ALL evidence to the contrary.
Remember, post WWII it was still Democrats who uniformly thought big government was the answer and non-white races, especially the Black race were to be kept down. It was a WWII general, and Republican president, who would author the Civil Rights Act that Johnson would finally get passed.
Johnson would say to Democrat congressmen, fighting for passage, pass this bill, “and I’ll have these niggers voting for us for the next 200 years.” So much for racism and it’s connection to “Left” and “Right”. As I said in my book, the Billy Bobs seen at Charlottesville and Skokie were throw backs from when Robert Byrd was a Klan leader and Strom Thurmond was a democrat. That the Billy Bobs followed people some of the Blue Dogs into the Republican party doesn’t tar the GOP with any sort of traditional racism or love of dictators. This is all revisionist history.
The article in question tries to make the point that Trump and Orban are kooky outliers in a world of Left-wing, political placidity. Well, there’s Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland,5 Bolsonaro of Brazil,6 Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, Melei of Argentina and Le Pen of France, just to name a few who are power players in world politics. They have struck a nerve in people who don’t give a shit about Left or Right. They only know common sense when they see it. They are tired of supporting a political elite class of screw ups, like the Biden, Bush, Clinton and Obama families - and all the hangers on there upon.
So far, none of these “POPULISTS” listed earlier have shown themselves to be dictators or strong men or central planners. They most assuredly are populist. That is not a political philosophy. And in the case of all these people, and Trump, and Orban, they have simply taken a common sense stand that is popular. They’re direction is for the most part the right thing for their countries.
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Let’s pick up the pace.
This is a finite podcast. I have been getting detailed. But that is what’s needed if you are to dodge the damage of Lefty propaganda that dominates the information cesspool. But I will try to stick to bullet points from here on out.
Heilbrunn refers to the “Great Replacement warned about by Trump’s followers.” First he’s got the Replacement Theory, proposed originally by people like Chuck Schumer, who now say it doesn’t exist, and the Great Reset being pursued by the Davos/WEF cult and their drones throughout Western governments. The P4B is dedicated to the destruction of the latter. We have railed against the former.
The term ethno-nationalist is employed. Both men, and the people listed previously are nationalist. The “ethno” part is thrown in because Lefties like to keep the “racist” smokescreen front and center. They have no other argument.
“Today we are told ad nauseam that Ukraine is a lost cause and should simply surrender and that globalist elites are miring us in a fresh, senseless conflict.” That’s a quote from the Jacob Heilbrunn. I am sure there are people out there who feel that way. It’s the ad nauseum part that is the lie. NO politician in prominence has said, or even implied that. What you’ve heard from the GOP is don’t jerk us off about caring for Ukraine when you refuse to secure our border. Don’t lecture us about saving the West when you are inviting every diseased, unvetted, possibly criminal bozo from around the world to stroll through that gaping hole!
Another quote from Heilbrunn: "The number of Democrats who worshiped at the Stalinist altar was never more than a sliver of the party. By contrast, the conversion of the GOP en masse into Putin fanboys is definitely an unprecedented development in American political history, and Trump deserves much but not all of the credit.”
Both of those statements are outright lies. From their tours in the Potempkin villiages in the ‘20s, right up through the Truman adminstration, the vast majority of the Dems in Congress and certainly in the White House were 100% Stalin apologists - if not outright agents in his employ. Check the Venona Cables. These are the real facts. And anyone who has ever pointed this out has been called a conspiracy nut. I happily add my name to the list.
And as I point out earlier, look at how Heilbrunn labels ANYONE who shows the least doubt about the wisdom of “saving Ukraine”. They’re Putin fanboys. For the record, you can check, I have always referred to Putin as the Little Russian Jerkoff. I have been saying to anyone who would listen that Putin didn’t get the memo that the Cold War was over. No one listened. And I question the wisdom of investing too blindly in Ukraine. Ukraine too, is a nation of corrupt scumbags. The two assertions are not mutually exclusive.
There is much more to the article. I’ll leave a link to it and to books on the Venona cables along with our regular book list in the text below the audio line.
Footnotes below links.
The WAPO completely skewers history in the article discussed here.
The P4B Book List
A strong P4B recommendation: The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius Power and Deception on the Eve of WWI by Douglas Brunt A real-life murder mystery.
An easy, fun read with lots of follow-ons: After Dunkirk by Lee Jackson. Part 1 of a WWII historical fiction series.
A studious and interesting study. Excellent reading. Jefferson's Godfather, the Man Behind the Man: George Wythe, Mentor to the Founding Fathers by Suzanne Munson. See Suzanne’s appearance on the P4B here.
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk This the first in a two part epic. Like After Dunkirk, it is a WWII historical fiction. But it is a much deeper dive. Very well written. You will get lost in it. I will do a complete review here later. But I’ll cut to the chase…*****The P4B Book List
A strong P4B recommendation: The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius Power and Deception on the Eve of WWI by Douglas Brunt A real-life murder mystery.
An easy, fun read with lots of follow-ons: After Dunkirk by Lee Jackson. Part 1 of a WWII historical fiction series.
A studious and interesting study. Excellent reading. Jefferson's Godfather, the Man Behind the Man: George Wythe, Mentor to the Founding Fathers by Suzanne Munson. See Suzanne’s appearance on the P4B here.
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk This the first in a two part epic. Like After Dunkirk, it is a WWII historical fiction. But it is a much deeper dive. Very well written. You will get lost in it. I will do a complete review here later. But I’ll cut to the chase…*****
Apple Podcasts: Search Party Pooper Play Book
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Substack: www.streetpolitics.us
Just to be clear, being a demagogue doesn’t imply competence. Biden doesn’t even run anything.
There are fewer now than before. But how long can you keep the numbers of such motion up. I guess we’ll find out on our southern border if Biden wins another term.
Hmmm. What does that say about Ishaan’s sex life?
The terms Right and Left were not widely established in 1920. Liberal and Conservative were not used as we use them today either. These terms contrived by the FDR camp, and stupidly accepted by both sides of the political spectrum, were established as labels to pin on freinds of FDR (Liberal/Left) and enemies of FDR (Conservative/Right). That’s how Hitler, head of the BIGGEST big government, socialist movement in Europe got the term Hard Right applied to him AFTER he made himself an enemy of America, but more specifically of FDR.
Keep in mind, that Cordell Hull, the leading FDR Democrat in Congress, in 1933 said Hitler was a man who could get things done, a man he could work with. No talk of Conservative or Right Wing then. Hitler was recognized as a Liberal strong man.
Voted out after a full court press by Soros, the EU and the WEF he kept Poland free of illegal immigration. Crime was low and the country was wildly succesful. Good luck doing without all that, Poland.
Also voted out after China, who owns most of Brazil, created a propganda blitz in support of Lula promising everything to Brazillians. They will deliver only centrally planned misery.
Shaking My Head Reading WAPO