"Sabotage - A Conspiracy of Dunces"

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Sabotage – A Conspiracy of Dunces[1]”

February 27, 2017

“I am learning that criticism is not nearly as effective as sabotage.”

                                                                                                            Anonymous

“Insane,” “Incompetent,” “Liar,” “Unfocused,” “Unhinged,” “Petulant,” “Disgraceful,” “Sexist,” “Misogynist,” “Xenophobic,” even “Hitlerian” according to one CNN reporter. The names Mr. Trump has been called and the charges against him are as relentless as they are incoherent. They culminate in the claim he is impeachable, according to Representative Keith Ellison. The New Republic suggested he is suffering from neurosyphilis, thus mentally unqualified for the office. Some, like the intellect-challenged Sally Kohn, a lawyer and community organizer, have called for a special election following the impeachments of both Trump and Pence. These are not protests. These are attempts to sabotage a duly elected President.

It is fine to disagree with Mr. Trump and the policies he was elected to pursue. It is okay to demonstrate and to protest. Civil disobedience is part of our history and culture. But to claim that the man who wants to shrink the federal government, who wants to emasculate the power of unaccountable federal agencies, who wants to ensure that Congress enacts laws, the Executive executes them and that the judiciary upholds them is somehow putting the nation on the path to authoritarianism is laughable. Over the past several decades, our federal government has become the Sheriff of Nottingham. Trump was seen by the millions who voted for him as Robin Hood, a man who would return power to the people. This is not to dismiss or minimize risks to democracies. They exist. But Mr. Trump wants to make government smaller and more accountable and the people more responsible – the opposite of authoritarian rule.

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t be surprised by the reaction to the President. Over the past two years, Mr. Trump alienated the establishment: Republicans in the primaries, Democrats during the general election, and throughout – the media, academia, public sector union heads, big banks and big business CEOs, federal bureaucrats, the intelligence community and supranational organizations. He upset illegal Mexican immigrants. He angered Muslims who refuse to admit the presence of Islamic extremists in their midst. He is enemy to elitists and to all who prefer the comfort of political correctness to the reality of truth.

What he attracted were the millions of Americans who believe in the dignity of work, but find opportunities limited. He appealed to those who see government as master and themselves as servant. He drew in those who believe in a Christian-Judeo culture, but whose moral sense has been belittled by condescending hypocrites of relativism. He bonded with the 63 million voters who felt left behind by a government focused on self-perpetuation, a government that had lost its sense of service.

The Left, looking to subvert Mr. Trump’s Presidency, may consider themselves followers of Nelson Mandela, who famously said about sabotage: “I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had risen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.”

But that does not describe the United States and it is not what the Left is doing. We are not an oppressive nation. We are a nation that has combined free-market fundamentals with democratic principles. We honor freedom, property rights and the rule of law. Despite deeply-held differences, we all know that the United States stands for those values and lauds that success. It is not the ends that separate us; it is the means to achieve those ends. Many of us disagreed with Mr. Obama from the start, but none of us tried to vitiate his administration. We didn’t write or speak of assassination, military coups or forced resignation. No members of the intelligence community withheld intelligence because they deemed him unfit. No federal employees, in agencies like the EPA, resisted his administration because they didn’t approve his policies.

There are radical extremists who are not called out by mainstream media – followers of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” which commands: “Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.” Alinsky instructed his followers to find a common enemy (like President Trump), increase the insecurity and anxiety of the people, use ridicule and never let up. These people have become masters of Goebbels’ edict: “If you repeat a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Those who are concerned about a rise in authoritarianism should keep an eye on Organizing for Action, a 501(c)4 group that emerged from the DNC’s 2008 Organizing for America, and that is now working closely with Mr. Obama. The group has access to the 13 million e-mail addresses that were compiled nine years ago, and is the beneficiary of George Soros and others. They plan to use the tactics and skills Mr. Obama honed as a community organizer in Chicago. While most ex-Presidents spend their retirement years out of the Washington spotlight, making innocuous speeches and establishing libraries, Mr. Obama is the first to set up a political organization deliberately aimed at undermining his successor. He will live in Washington, a few blocks from the White House. There is nothing to prevent a former Presidents from continuing to play in the political arena. John Quincy Adams served in the House of Representatives for eighteen years following his failure to win re-election in 1828, and William Howard Taft was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1921. But most ex-Presidents fade away, leaving politics for others to pursue.

It is the far Left that should give pause and cause us to remember President Truman’s warning about silencing opponents, that such action can lead to repressive measures. Keep in mind, it was Mr. Obama’s Justice Department that sought the phone records of the Associated Press, called Fox News’ James Rosen a “criminal co-conspirator,” and, according to James Risen of the New York Times, prosecuted more government “leakers” under the Espionage Act of 1917 than all previous Administrations combined. Mr. Trump may insult and disrespect the press, but he doesn’t muzzle them, as any reader of the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post and Financial Times knows.

Of course, none of the charges against Mr. Trump explain how an unhinged, sexist liar ran a successful real estate business and built a media career, nor do they make clear how someone “unfocused” and “insane” managed 500 separate business; nor do they describe how being “incompetent” helped him out-fox his Republican rivals for the nomination, nor explain how he out-smarted the Democratic establishment in winning the Electoral College. The accusers do not speak about why a “xenophobe” married an immigrant, nor do they explain why thousands of immigrants and foreign individuals are employed in his businesses, or why hundreds of women he has employed call him “supportive” and “encouraging.”

Global establishment elites listened to Barack Obama in 2008-2009 and gave him a Nobel Peace Prize. The same crowd listened to Donald Trump in 2016-2107 and blew him a raspberry. They were wrong about Obama and I suspect they are wrong about Trump. Regardless, saboteurs on the Left seem intent on taking the President down. It is a frightening prospect for democracy, freedom, our Country and the West.

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[1] The title is borrowed from John Kennedy Toole’s 1980 novel.