The morning after
I believe this election demonstrates the CNN-effect. Their 24/7 anti-Trump pro-Democrat rhetoric has flipped suburban areas, because that’s where there are college-educated white people who listen to CNN and read the similarly biased mainstream papers like the NY Times.
Unfortunately, not everyone goes online and reads tweets and Breitbart. Many people just have always watched CNN and they take whatever they give without seeking other points of view.
The Democrats in the house HATE Trump, and not only will never cooperate on any bipartisan legislation, they will use their subpoena power to go after Trump associates, maybe they will impeach Justice Kavanaugh and other Trump appointees, who knows what they might do.
The only upside is that there are more Republicans in the Senate so Trump will have an easier time appointing judges and high-level government officials.
Lion of the Blogosphere 
Good election for Trump in my opinion. Increased Senate majority to the point he shouldn’t have to worry much about Judicial nominations or Cabinet nominations. R’s weren’t going to do anything productive with their House majority in the next two years anyway. We got rid of a ton of Never Trump R’s and are set up well to retake the House in 2020. The optics of Nancy Pelosi and Low IQ Maxine Waters launching investigation after investigation against Trump will work to our advantage greatly.
For the second election cycle in a row, the Florida Keys went Republican, indicating an increase in racial solidarity among white Floridians. DeSantis won with a nice cushion, but Rick Scott won by a single vote, meaning at the county level, my vote was the deciding factor in coloring our part of the map Red.
PerezHBD
November 7, 2018 at 7:38 AM
Well it’s the end of #MAGA. Trump will never get any legislation that he wants. Wall, Immigration, no matter what, he won’t get it. His legacy will be courts and the administrative changes he made. All of those actions, just like Obama’s, will be washed away, like tears in the rain (heh!) when the next (Democratic) President is elected.
Mike Street Station
November 7, 2018 at 7:49 AM
“Trump will never get any legislation that he wants. Wall, Immigration, no matter what, he won’t get it.”
Correct, at least for the next two years.
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 7, 2018 at 10:38 AM
I have been wondering if Trump’s sending of troops to the border for the caravan was to prepare for using the army to build the wall.
chris
November 7, 2018 at 11:23 AM
His legacy will be courts and the administrative changes he made.
Seems to be how things are done today. Other than the Affordable Care Act, it seems that all Obama’s changes were by executive order. Even by legislation, so much is determined by the scribes buried in the bureaucracy and on congressional staffs who write up these massive bills that no one reads and the bureaucrats interpret and enforce.
bomag
November 7, 2018 at 2:06 PM
Right. And what’s left of Obama’s legacy? Just the Affordable Care Act. What will be Trump’s legacy? Likely less than that once he’s out of office.
Mike Street Station
November 7, 2018 at 4:06 PM
Trumps legacy will be his judicial nominees. Delivering goods long after he is gone.
wt
November 7, 2018 at 7:49 PM
A 54/46 Senate is a huge asse
A Republican Congress wouldn’t have provided tough anti-migrants laws and senate wouldn’t either, even in the new configuration, because most of them wants cheap labour
A republican congress would have moved for more money for billionnaires, less money for healthcare, privatization of penitentiary system, crazy anti-abortion stuff, etc…
Trump is freed of all cuckservatives pushes and has shown he is the master of the party because he gave the win. The cuckservatives who were hoping for a senate defeat have been killed. So he has reinforced the control of the party.
The only thing is to know if he will fall with Graham moderation and pause on migrants or stick with miller and Sessions minded people …
Bruno
November 7, 2018 at 7:58 AM
Serious question: could someone explain to me what the difference is between the House and the Senate that causes these different outcomes in elections? For example, in the run-up to the election, people were predicting that Republicans would keep the Senate but Democrats might take the House, or that Democrats would gain a bunch of seats in the house but hardly any in the Senate, or whatever. Unless they’re looking at local polling in each district nationwide, how would they know? Or, why would what Lion is calling the CNN effect cause the House to flip but not the Senate?
Hermes
November 7, 2018 at 8:01 AM
In the senate, a small population Republican state like Wyoming has the same representation as a huge-population Democratic state like California.
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 7, 2018 at 10:39 AM
Don’t forget Senate is up every 6 years instead of House 2, so the two parties have different numbers of seats up for election in Senate. This time Dems had to defend 23 Senate seats vs. Republicans only defending 8, which is historically an extremely tough ratio. Next two Senate elections will favor Dems (though not by so tough a ratio).
Wency
November 7, 2018 at 11:22 AM
Gerrymandering.
Sgt. Joe Friday
November 7, 2018 at 10:48 AM
Democrats performed so well in the 2006 and 2012 Senate races that they were overextended, which is why the GOP made gains in an otherwise bad year. D’s still won a higher percentage of Senate seats than House seats.
Richard
November 7, 2018 at 11:04 AM
Each state has 2 senators. And everyone in the state gets to vote on them. But representatives are apportioned based on population size. And the only people who can vote for them are the people in the districts they represent. So a red state might elect a GOP senator while blue districts elect mostly Dem representatives.
Generally rural areas and suburbs vote Republican while cities vote Democrat. So, if a lot of urban districts were up for election then they’d likely elect Dem representatives even though the state was majority Republican and elected a GOP senators. It all depends on which districts are up for election and timing. Since some years are better than others.
There’s also a random factor involved in terms of which seats are up for election. For example, I think there were more Dem senators and GOP representatives up for election. So, if the elections broke 50-50, then the GOP would pick up senate seats while the Dems picked up house seats.
destructure
November 7, 2018 at 11:50 AM
Netflix people budget is 13bn per year . They have a huge impact on framing people vision of the world and normative values. It’s a global infrastructure, not just a cable news channel.
Bruno
November 7, 2018 at 8:08 AM
Notice that 8 out of 9 House rep most hardliners against migration (100% numbersusa) kept their seat. All except Dave Brat.
Bruno
November 7, 2018 at 10:35 AM
That’s true. But if a hardliner was reelected then it was probably in a district that would have never gone Dem anyway. That same hardliner would have been destroyed in a more moderate district.
destructure
November 7, 2018 at 11:55 AM
It’s not merely CNN, which has less of an effect than you think. The Dems have always had an organizational advantage to get out the vote. This election was a “do-over” for 2016 for them and their motivation was otherworldly. America’s love of a GOP congress is going to wax and wane. Frankly, they aren’t very good at accomplishing anything. Don’t forget that, in spite of being a “referendum on Trump”, many of these elections are primarily based on individual candidates, whose local popularity is going to vary wildly.
Absent ideal conditions, I expect the party in power tends to lose seats in elections like this.
Lastly, the demographics are baked into America’s cake and this is what we’re going to see going forward.
Trump’s agenda will stall, but he go hard on executive orders, with court that’s more sympathetic than it was. Who knows, maybe RGB will expire.
SWPL2
November 7, 2018 at 8:14 AM
“It’s not merely CNN, which has less of an effect than you think. ”
If CNN can flip 5% of the people in suburban districts, it makes a huge difference.
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 7, 2018 at 10:45 AM
“Lastly, the demographics are baked into America’s cake and this is what we’re going to see going forward.”
Retroactive removal of citizenship for people born of illegal immigrants or tourists once the 14th amendment case is brought before the Supreme Court would help a lot of this.
chris
November 7, 2018 at 11:27 AM
So what? Fox News more than cancels that out. Fox News viewers are far more loyal in my experience than CNN viewers.
Peter Akuleyev
November 7, 2018 at 2:56 PM
Something that was brought home to me in this election is that people are always talking about how if you live in a state that is overwhelmingly blue or overwhelmingly red, your vote doesn’t count in the presidential election, but no one ever talks about how if you live in a county or township that is overwhelmingly blue or red, your vote essentially doesn’t count in Congressional elections. My state went for Trump in 2016, but my congressional district is so overwhelmingly Democrat that the Republican gave up on campaigning the last few weeks and it was a foregone conclusion that the Democrat would win in a landslide.
Hermes
November 7, 2018 at 10:54 AM
I didn’t bother to vote, and Dems won every election I could have voted in by MASSIVE margins.
Your vote only counts if you live in swing districts.
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 7, 2018 at 11:54 AM
Not only did the Democrat running for US House win in a landslide, but in many local elections like judgeships or County Commissioners, there weren’t even any Republicans on the ballot.
Hermes
November 7, 2018 at 12:17 PM
“they aren’t very good at accomplishing anything.”
HA! They’re not trying to accomplish what their voters want or what they promised. They’re trying to accomplish what the big donors, special interests and lobbyists want. And that nearly always gets accomplished.
destructure
November 7, 2018 at 12:02 PM
It seems to me a big part of the story is that the Midwest flipped back to the blue column, for one reason or another. It even kicked out its Republican governors. Did the white working class not show up, or did it actually vote against Trump? I don’t personally know anyone who voted for Trump and then went D this election, so I don’t know what’s motivating them. My own district voted the same as the straight R ticket that I submitted.
I didn’t have much hope for Trump winning in 2020, but that hope is incrementally lower with the Midwest turning against him, since the only path to a Republican winning the Presidency is the Trumpian path of a massive popular vote loss but squeezing out narrow wins in the Midwest.
But for now, the only thing accomplished in D.C. for the next four years will be naming justices that can perhaps incrementally slow the inexorable decay of this republic. The House will produce a whole lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Wency
November 7, 2018 at 8:22 AM
“Did the white working class not show up, ”
Possibly. They have not been reliably Republican voters if they are not into evanglical Christianity anti-abortion stuff.
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 7, 2018 at 10:46 AM
I don’t get the sense that abortion was super-important this election. Assuming WWC (if defined as whites without a college degree) remains the most Republican group, and also one of the groups that is least likely to show up to vote, Reps need to find a way to get them to the voting booth, the same way Dems spend disproportionate effort getting blacks to turn out.
Reps are not institutionally set up for this the way Dems are. They’ve historically relied heavily on middle to upper-middle class whites, which have a tendency to vote without being asked.
Wency
November 7, 2018 at 11:12 AM
An interesting tidbit from the exit poll is that rich people voted more R than poor people, and the richer they were the more R they voted. Lion hardest hit.
snorlax
November 7, 2018 at 11:04 AM
That poll isn’t breaking down income by RACE. If you looked only at WHITE voters it would be different, but throw in poor blacks and Hispanics and that’s what you are seeing.
White college graduates, who are on average wealthier than white non-college-graduates, voted Democratic.
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 7, 2018 at 11:57 AM
A significant amount of “rich” people are successful tradesmen and small businessmen and vote Republican like their poorer working class brethren.
“Rich” is shorthand for upper middle class professional, people who typically have a personal income in the top 5% or top 1%. Doctors, lawyers, engineers (engineers are lowest prestige because they make things), bankers, scientists, academics, surgeons. “Coastal elites”.
Of these, only surgeons vote GOP.
Monsieur le Baron
November 7, 2018 at 1:08 PM
The Midwest has been see-sawing back and forth for the last 10 years. Obama won it both times even though it went GOP in his midterms.
Richard
November 7, 2018 at 11:10 AM
It’s a significant upside! Those Senators are there for six years, the House can be re-contested in two.
IHTG
November 7, 2018 at 8:23 AM
It should be entertaining. The Democrats in the House will go wild, holding lots of stupid hearings and maybe even impeaching Trump. That will only be for show – there’s no way the GOP-controlled Senate will convict him. I think this buffoonery will infuriate the Republican base and guarantee Trump’s reelection.
Black Death
November 7, 2018 at 8:41 AM
Your comment about CNN’s viewership is BS and you know it. High IQ, educated people don’t watch TV at all. What makes you think all the SWPLs in the suburbs with their Master of Fine Arts degrees from Columbia are watching CNN? I don’t know anyone who watches TV news anymore.
SC
November 7, 2018 at 8:42 AM
” What makes you think all the SWPLs in the suburbs with their Master of Fine Arts degrees from Columbia are watching CNN?”
The average person in the suburbs has a degree from a state school in some business subject. The number of people with MFA degrees from anywhere are tiny. (And anyway, everyone knows that YALE has the MFA degrees, not Columbia.)
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 7, 2018 at 10:49 AM
I think lion is right about this. Smart older people I am related to, while they denigrate anything online because it is on the “internet” and could be written by crazies (even when it is pointed out that MacArthur grant Stanford economists write in the internet too), somehow watch cnn and other news channels and give them credence because it is the “news.” It’s a generational thing, but soon we will be a county that considers twitter “news” and worse off for it.
Joe
November 7, 2018 at 12:13 PM
My wife has an MFA from U.T. Austin and an IQ of 139 and she’ll watch CNN – but alas she votes Republican. I love her anyway.
Mister Triple 800
November 7, 2018 at 1:08 PM
A high school classmate of mine, asian, got an MFA from Berkeley. I hadn’t seen her in almost 15 years when I ran into her at the law school just before the ‘88 election. She started talking anout how evil George Bush was. I assured her it woukdn’t be that bad, and she never spoke to me again. Her hobby was belly-dancing.
Marty
November 7, 2018 at 2:01 PM
Most SWPLs and white-SJWs are not super-elite. For a great number of them, adopting the CNN agenda is a way to differentiate themselves from their childhood peer group.
Also a fair number of them chose to major in “sociology” (or psychology if they were more messed up) because it was easier than the STEM majors. When I was in college, a bunch of people changed their major from “biology” to “sociology” because sociology was way easier. Only one person I know was honest/shameless enough to admit this. The rest came up with elaborate justifications. When I told this to my wife, she started laughing. The exact same thing happened in her country when she was in college.
When these people come from a patriotic, trailer-park dwelling, “USA USA” chanting background, and then they get out of college, and get a white collar job that pays way less than what a plumber makes, they have a real chip on their shoulder about being smarter and better than where they came from.
Between them and the Ivy graduates, there are many shades of white.
MoreSigmasThanYou
November 7, 2018 at 12:06 PM
I never thought of the “sunken cost” of worthless degrees held by mediocres who were sold on the idea that if they went to college they were de facto exceptional. But it’s consistent with their dogmatic worship of university talking points – it’s a form of mass movement identity.
A Dilettante
November 8, 2018 at 12:59 AM
Maybe Trump should re-institute the fairness doctrine for televised media? He doesn’t have the house now, so policy would be the only way he could change it.
chris
November 7, 2018 at 8:42 AM
I thought the R’s would comfortably hold the House and gain more than 4 seats in the Senate so I was wrong. The one silver lining that immediately jumps out is that Trump now has something tangible, that he wouldn’t have had otherwise, to hang the blame on for any economic correction.
Andrew E.
November 7, 2018 at 9:15 AM
The other upside is the the blue wave mostly bypassed Trump states. In other words, Trump states held strong with the exception of PA. And blue wins in Trump states were some of the very smallest margins. Last I checked, >1% in a couple of cases, an VA district being one of them. Small margin districts are easy to flip back. Someone should tally the total # of very small margin wins. These will be the targets in two years following D craziness.
Now, time to elect a new media and ruling class.
Curle
November 7, 2018 at 9:29 AM
Yesterday Politico was highlighting that congressional wins in the Midwest would signal Trump weakness for ’20. This morning media is trumpeting that gubernatorial and senate wins in a few Midwest states signaled that Trump would struggle in ’20. The congressional district baseline has been replaced with a more believable baseline. This is how the media rolls. The message ‘Trump will struggle in ’20’ has been baked into the media narrative, now to find the evidence, any evidence, to prop it up.
Curle
November 7, 2018 at 10:40 AM
The other upside is the the blue wave mostly bypassed Trump states.
We lost governorships in Kansas, Wisconsin and Michigan, and multiple House seats in Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Texas. We even managed to lose a House seat in Oklahoma, which hasn’t had a single county vote Democrat for President since 2000. We got drubbed.
Richard
November 7, 2018 at 11:24 AM
No we didn’t.
The original analysis was to congressional races because those were the more closely related elections and more granular. Look at Realclear Politics Midwest section and you’ll see how much the Ds underperformed re: prefictions. This is why the story changed to governors. See through the hype.
Curle
November 7, 2018 at 4:25 PM
9 congressional losses in 12 states with six of those losses in 3 states (and one of those states is IL another IA) is not bad for a year like this especially given the size of states with no losses (like WI, OH, IN and MO).
Curle
November 7, 2018 at 4:38 PM
Your statement was factually incorrect no matter how you define it. And if you can’t see that losing 35 House seats and the majority constitutes a drubbing there’s no use discussing terms with you. In my lifetime there have been only two elections (1994 and 2010) with more movement in the House. Our one bright light is that we gained a few upper chamber seats, which we achieved by losing a mere 66% of the Senate races despite a majority being in Trump states.
Richard
November 7, 2018 at 8:19 PM
“if you can’t see that losing 35 House seats“
35 House seats was the projection on election night. Drudge headlined that number but the actual number of D gains was 28 according to Real Clear politics. No wonder you’re so worried, you inflated R losses by 25%.
Curle
November 8, 2018 at 12:37 AM
Politico puts the # of D gains in House at 29. RCP at 28. None put it at 35 which seven seats more than actual wins according to RCP.
Curle
November 8, 2018 at 1:10 AM
Even when there are junkies and illegals crawling onto their door, the SWPL cannot bring himself to vote with Cheetoman, because ew, he proletalk, gold toilets, etc etc.
People finally saw what the white deplorables have been putting up with for years. There were poop-flinging hoboes giving their kids infectious diseases and #vibrantdiversity in the school bathroom.
Nah, fuck it. Trump acts poor. #fuckblumpf
I’m disgusted with my home county right now.
White genocide is white suicide.
Monsieur le Baron
November 7, 2018 at 9:46 AM
I woke up refreshed and ecstatic and to a brightly shining sun! The Democrats now control Congress and all is right (or, rather, not Right) with the world! Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Affordable Care Act and much else that is good for America will remain intact for at least another two years. The Republican party – that unholy alliance of the evil and the stupid (or, to put it more charitably, a coalition of the greedy and the ignorant) – has been thwarted (but again, at least for now). Turkey-faced McConnell and that vile Paul Ryan with his Eddie Munster hairline and his dog-eared Ayn Rand Fan Club card must be scurrying about like rats in their cages for all the frustration that they must be feeling. Praise be to The Lord!
Mister Triple 800
November 7, 2018 at 10:12 AM
It’s not like they were ever gonna do any of that Ayn Rand crap. They’re dumb, but not that dumb.
Tanturn
November 7, 2018 at 12:44 PM
Meh. They get Fox News in the suburbs too. The likelier culprits are the cowardly House Republicans who retired rather than stay and fight.
Brendan
November 7, 2018 at 10:25 AM
If you look at the 2010 midterms for comparison, Trump did really well. The new senate means the rest of Trump’s judicial appointments will sail through, and if he gets another Supreme Court nomination we won’t have another Kavanaugh situation.
Alex
November 7, 2018 at 10:44 AM
Also democrats tried to run on their strongest issue – healthcare. The media doesn’t seem to care much about that issue since its full of elitists who probably don’t have to worry about healthcare. They are far more interested in social justice causes. But things like trying to get rid of preexisting condition protections really kill the popularity of the republicans with regular people. Medicare for all seems like a winning platform for the democrats.
Alex
November 7, 2018 at 10:52 AM
Why don’t republicans just support Medicare for all on the proviso it is financed by increasing taxes on their political enemies? i.e. Hollywood, BigTech, the swpl-rich? It takes Democrat leverage with the people off the table and harms their enemies while doing so.
chris
November 7, 2018 at 11:40 AM
At present count Ds have a fifteen point margin in the house (very small), they underperformed in the Midwest congressional elections (which is why they are diverting their commentary to the gubernatorial races) and to the extent they picked up seats many were with paper thing margins.
This was about as good a night as Rs could have hoped for.
Curle
November 7, 2018 at 11:24 AM
On average the party of the sitting president loses 30 seats in the house during the midterm elections.
Trump did better than average with regards to normal midterm results.
MKS
November 7, 2018 at 10:56 AM
What people also do not realize is that the MSM is, in effect, the 4th branch of government. Some say it’s a subsidiary of the Democrat party – Limbaugh says it’s the other way around – but the reality is that the media has just as much power to influence the direction of the government as the executive branch, Congress, or the Supreme Court. For example, absent the shrieking and pearl clutching of CNN, MSNBC, et al the caravan would be, to most people, nothing but a bunch of intruders and their kids trying to trespass on our property and help themselves to our stuff.
Sgt. Joe Friday
November 7, 2018 at 11:00 AM
“What people also do not realize is that the MSM is, in effect, the 4th branch of government.”
Reagan called it the Fourth Estate.
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 7, 2018 at 11:55 AM
Edmund Burke said it first in 1787.
MoreSigmasThanYou
November 7, 2018 at 12:07 PM
It is college educated white women leaving the Republican party that have flipped the suburbs. They don’t like how Trump talks about and treats women. They don’t like his immigration and anti-abortion polices. Some of these women were the security moms that switched to the Republican party over terrorism. Trump tried to appeal to them with scary stories of illegal immigrant gangs and crime, but that didn’t work very well.
The Republican party is also losing support among white non-college educated women who are not Evangelicals. The loss is not as big as among college educated women.
White Evangelical women are the one group that strongly backs Republicans.
The Republican mid-term campaign strategy and policy positions just don’t appeal to women.
MikeCA
November 7, 2018 at 11:13 AM
Women are psychologically geared to protect defenseless children from reptilian predators. The problem is they have decided that illegal alien gang members are defenseless children, and Republicans are reptilian predators.
MoreSigmasThanYou
November 7, 2018 at 12:39 PM
Women are psychologically geared to flee danger which is why media snarling works so well on them.
Curle
November 7, 2018 at 5:11 PM
We truly are living in a madhouse.
Oswald Spengler
November 7, 2018 at 5:45 PM
“It is college educated white women leaving the Republican party that have flipped the suburbs.”
Although that may be true, right now we only have the exit polls to go by, and they have a pretty good track record of inaccuracy. So I’ll wait for better data on that. But if the GOP really did lose the white women vote, I wonder what changed? They voted for him, and against a fellow white woman, right after the Hollywood Access tape came out, so Trump hasn’t suddenly done anything differently.
Mike Street Station
November 8, 2018 at 6:20 AM
“But if the GOP really did lose the white women vote, I wonder what changed?”
Two more years of daily CNN talking heads saying Trump is racist.
Lion of the Blogosphere
November 8, 2018 at 8:07 AM
Lion, living in Manhattan as you do, one of the deepest blue areas of the nation, do you live in constant fear of being outed as a right-wing badthinker? I assume your family knows your political views but does anyone else in NYC, even close friends? Is living in a place like Manhattan akin to being a dissident in the old USSR? Do you just avoid all political discussions at work or do you “swear allegiance to the flag, whatever flag they offer” and “never hint at what you really feel”?
Oswald Spengler
November 7, 2018 at 12:21 PM
Your upside is irrelevant. Trump (or rather, Trumpism) is done. He didn’t get it done for the first two years for some reason (didn’t know how? distractions of Russiagate? He didn’t actually want to? Republican Congress didn’t want to? I don’t know). He won’t ever get it done.
What is ‘it’?
Build the Wall.
End foreign entanglements (get out of the Middle East. Reduce commitment to NATO. Stop preparing for war 6,000 miles away in the South China Sea, etc etc).
Reduce federal bureaucracy (when he campaigned, he mentioned eliminating the Department of Education. Happen yet?)
Drain the Swamp
Institute voter rules and regulations that would reduce election fraud.
Go after Clinton/Obama/FBI corruption (note: this was always a pipe dream-but with the Presidency and congress, at least it was a plausible pipe dream. Now its utter nonsense).
None of this will get fixed. It all depended on controlling Congress-even though he didn’t do it when he did control congress, he theoretically could have had he maintained control of congress. Now? Its all impossible.
He may get reelected, and remain a blustering contrarian-he may still fight with the MSM, and he may still spout off what we want to hear, but he simply has no power to do any of it. None. Zero.
Trump’s success depended on him being the head of a movement-not a personality. He wasn’t the head of a movement-he’s just a powerful personality. At best we have 6 more years of entertainment.
anon
anonymousse
November 7, 2018 at 1:20 PM
“remain a blustering contrarian”
Fighting an evil cabal is a little more involved than just being contrary.
Curle
November 7, 2018 at 5:09 PM
“Fighting an evil cabal is a little more involved than just being contrary.”
Not if he doesn’t actually accomplish anything.
anonymousse
November 8, 2018 at 9:25 AM
So while the country is in a state of chaos and remains ungovernable its destruction continues unabated as it did for the last 60 years. This system of government has lost its legitimacy and has to be replaced by a dictatorship. This is very simple.
Yakov
November 7, 2018 at 1:48 PM
Who is your ideal dictator or which dictator comes closest to your ideal — and why? Pinochet? Franco? Videla? Ataturk? Cromwell? Napoleon?
Oswald Spengler
November 7, 2018 at 5:43 PM
He hasn’t been born yet, because a dictatorship cannot be ideal, only a necessary call of the hour. Not Cromwell and Napolion – engaging in wars that exterminate your own best people is bad. Ataturk was sensible and had a national vision. Franco had restored law and order, was smart to keep Spain out of war and saved tens of thousands and Jews. Pinochet was excellent for bringing the country back from the brink of disaster. Kārlis Ulmanis was good for actually mplementing a populist nationalist program and transferring the control of the economy from Germans and Jews into Latvian hands. I would say that objectively Ataturk was the greatest.
America today needs someone very brutal to save it.
Yakov
November 7, 2018 at 6:43 PM
“This system of government has lost its legitimacy and has to be replaced by a dictatorship.”
“because a dictatorship cannot be ideal, only a necessary call of the hour.”
Yakov must be reading my mail. Because those are my thoughts exactly. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t want a dictatorship. It’s never the ideal situation. But under dire circumstances you simply don’t have a choice. When the alternative is collapse you do what you’ve got to do.
It’s important to note that national disasters are rarely the result of a single incident but decades of corruption and mismanagement. The single incident is merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. Only most people don’t see it coming because the camel’s back hasn’t broken yet.
destructure
November 7, 2018 at 10:13 PM