Jeb was an exceptional administrator, when you met with him he knew 80 percent of what you did about the subject at hand. Everyone had to bring their A game when meeting with him. He generally surrounded himself with others who were skilled at government operations, and asked the hard questions at every turn. I think, based on his talent for governing rather that talent for politics, he was the best choice for president at the time.
I can respect this, as I’ve wondered myself if the stable neocons or even the Democrats are just the better option in favor of stability of the Empire. But I can’t really bring myself to back a group that actively wants to see me destroyed.
Trump may be a charlatan, but I’d back the charlatan over the people actively trying to obliterate the values and identity of my people.
I think of Trump as always being more transitionary in character as far as politics goes. He shakes up the cart for better options in the future. Without him, I don’t think people would take half of the shit on the right seriously. Him and his movement have bulldozed ideas into the mainstream. Something that the disenfranchised electorate could never dream of seeing happen before.
My hope has always been looking at a post-trump, but a post trump defined by his success; if it is defined by his failure, I fear we will have to wait another generation for this to be taken seriously, which honestly may be too late.
I agree that there are plenty of reasons to not like Trump, but I'm always curious who or what the alternative is supposed to be. Do we really think Jeb! would have been better? I don't. What did the pre-Trump GOP have going for it over Trump? From where I'm sitting, not much, if anything.
I have a hard time getting worked up over “chaos”, when the alternative is rule by people who hate me and who believe that the experiment in Western Civ in North America is illegitimate.
Best of luck with your neat and orderly transition to a decentralized and multipolar power structure that makes room for pluralism and ordered disruption.
Blaming Trump for the political chaos is like blaming Judge Bork for the political chaos, or Justice Thomas for the political chaos. Trump is no more the author of this insanity than either of those gentlemen.
Would Jeb Bush have been a better President than Trump? Could he have beaten Hillary? Blaming Trump is just too easy, lazy even. Make a case for someone else, if you have someone. Or just go public as a Biden supporter. Contribute something.
That’s all very well but contrary to Bush’s claims ISIS was in fact destroyed under the Trump Administration. That tells you something about the deep structures of order in American government. Trump and the response of his enemies did bring chaos, but to the ceremonial function of the presidency, not the functions of government.
You want to eat your cake and have it. Politics is just frenemy theatre for the doling out of entitlements, the collection of revenue and the debasement of the currency. You have to pick a side b
All ordered societies descend into chaos on a long-enough time frame. Trump is inevitable because Jeb is a pampered aristocrat, and eventually pampered aristocrats become literally incapable of governing. Not because they aren't smart enough, but because they no longer have any credibility with the people. They have Lost the Mandate of Heaven, and they cannot get it back.
The genie's out of the bottle, old sport. Trump cannot be un-Trumped. The Bushes and the Clintons cannot be un-humiliated. They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, and they deserved it anyway. That civic society you yearn for is on the other side of the Kali Yuga.
I think Trump in 2016 was regrettable yet necessary. He broke the neo-con / Christian right monopoly on the GOP, while massively expanding the Overton Window. Unfortunately in power he was, yes, a "velvet fist in an iron glove". I was really hoping for Ron DeSantis in 2024, but at least Trump's campaign has been run by more disciplined people this time around...
Perhaps because my introduction to anarchy was through anarcho-capitalism, I never really associated anarchy with chaos. Rather, I perceive the state as an artificial structure impeding the machinations of spontaneous order that would otherwise result in organic structures well-suited to the circumstances of the time. Even if there is a period of tumult, people tire of it because it is costly in nearly every sense of the word. And seeing as human populations (some to greater extents than others) have effectively been "domesticated" by evolution (both biological and cultural), any appetite for chaos and strong men will be relatively short-lived once it actually comes to fruition. The state is humanity's attempt at forcing human behavior and organization towards human ideals. My evidence that none of them have yet been able to conform to human nature, including its tendency to phenotypically fluctuate in response to external stimuli, is the fact that it has always been necessary to tax, i.e., expropriate at the threat of violence rather than raise funds voluntarily — which shouldn't be so hard if, as is so ubiquitously asserted, those services were in fact desirable as they manifested.
On the matter of Trump, I've always seen him more as a bumbling oaf rather than a credible threat or "strong man." And while plenty of people I respect claim that he is a political genius, I personally never quite got that and instead think that his mannerisms just happen to appeal most to that faction of people who felt most left behind by the rest of the nation. Yes he's chaotic and speaks a big game, but he was relatively impotent in office relative the strong assertions he made about shaking up Washington. Just as Rajeev mentioned in his review of Monkey Man, presidential figures rarely have much power amid the entrenched interests in government. So on the one hand, I don't fully blame Trump for his impotence; his selection of advisors was strongly swayed by who the RNC made available to him, which is on top of the checks and balances already present within our system of governance. But at the same time, had he deployed tactics similar to Milei, or even Bukele, like his rhetoric at times suggested, then he likely would have been more effective. That said, it probably is necessary for the "Trump train" to peter out as you say through his ascendency to the presidency again to become incontestably ineligible for future interference.
As for Jeb, I honestly know next to nothing about him. Seeing as I wasn't even out of high school when all that went down, I just wasn't keyed into politics at all. Someone could object that, if he was as knowledgeable/competent as claimed, then that should have rescued him from his fate on those debate stages. But as a person who most would consider to be thoughtful but also wouldn't do well on a debate stage, I'm aware that that is not a strong objection. But even if you grant that he was competent, it is worth considering that he comes from a political family. Just as in the times of hereditary monarchs, their progeny were reared for a life of statecraft and governance, and the hereditary aspect likely developed because the children of a good ruler likely shared some of the attributes that made him a great ruler (royal blood). Obviously we don't buy the justifications for monarchy anymore, but the persistence of political families belies the same phenomenon. And given the "leakiness" of power in democracies (cf. Hoppe, Yarvin, de Jouvenel), those kinds of people will naturally end up soaking up a lot of it relative to your everyday chap.
I'm in the process of reading Rauch's "The Constitution of Knowledge," and I think the perspective forwarded by the book that we need all these various institutions that existed before we were even born to be the arbiters of the "reality-based community" because of the process employed to vet claims is particularly germane to this post. Jeb represents the polished, "did everything right" sort of guy who has legitimate bona fides to his name through many years of "trusting the process" while Trump would play dirty to get what he wanted, his father notwithstanding. These are two very different strategies of ascending to power, and most people in the bureaucratic state followed a path more closely resembling Jeb's, which I would say is more feminine in nature given the high conscientiousness it demands. Even within business these days, the kind of people who succeed aren't as risky and dynamic as I think they were in the past. I think on a subconscious level that this more masculine approach spooks or at least repulses those in the managerial classes, as indicated by Jeb's premonitions of chaos. The "rule of law, "democracy," and "constitution of knowledge" are basically just code for the status quo these days because the only institutions able to meet the prohibitively high procedural standards are those legacy institutions which have been unfortunately been captured.
Jeb was an exceptional administrator, when you met with him he knew 80 percent of what you did about the subject at hand. Everyone had to bring their A game when meeting with him. He generally surrounded himself with others who were skilled at government operations, and asked the hard questions at every turn. I think, based on his talent for governing rather that talent for politics, he was the best choice for president at the time.
I can respect this, as I’ve wondered myself if the stable neocons or even the Democrats are just the better option in favor of stability of the Empire. But I can’t really bring myself to back a group that actively wants to see me destroyed.
Trump may be a charlatan, but I’d back the charlatan over the people actively trying to obliterate the values and identity of my people.
I think of Trump as always being more transitionary in character as far as politics goes. He shakes up the cart for better options in the future. Without him, I don’t think people would take half of the shit on the right seriously. Him and his movement have bulldozed ideas into the mainstream. Something that the disenfranchised electorate could never dream of seeing happen before.
My hope has always been looking at a post-trump, but a post trump defined by his success; if it is defined by his failure, I fear we will have to wait another generation for this to be taken seriously, which honestly may be too late.
A vote for Bart is a vote for Anarchy
I agree that there are plenty of reasons to not like Trump, but I'm always curious who or what the alternative is supposed to be. Do we really think Jeb! would have been better? I don't. What did the pre-Trump GOP have going for it over Trump? From where I'm sitting, not much, if anything.
I have a hard time getting worked up over “chaos”, when the alternative is rule by people who hate me and who believe that the experiment in Western Civ in North America is illegitimate.
Best of luck with your neat and orderly transition to a decentralized and multipolar power structure that makes room for pluralism and ordered disruption.
Orange Man Bad, we get it.
Blaming Trump for the political chaos is like blaming Judge Bork for the political chaos, or Justice Thomas for the political chaos. Trump is no more the author of this insanity than either of those gentlemen.
Would Jeb Bush have been a better President than Trump? Could he have beaten Hillary? Blaming Trump is just too easy, lazy even. Make a case for someone else, if you have someone. Or just go public as a Biden supporter. Contribute something.
That’s all very well but contrary to Bush’s claims ISIS was in fact destroyed under the Trump Administration. That tells you something about the deep structures of order in American government. Trump and the response of his enemies did bring chaos, but to the ceremonial function of the presidency, not the functions of government.
You want to eat your cake and have it. Politics is just frenemy theatre for the doling out of entitlements, the collection of revenue and the debasement of the currency. You have to pick a side b
You can't ensure this never happens again.
All ordered societies descend into chaos on a long-enough time frame. Trump is inevitable because Jeb is a pampered aristocrat, and eventually pampered aristocrats become literally incapable of governing. Not because they aren't smart enough, but because they no longer have any credibility with the people. They have Lost the Mandate of Heaven, and they cannot get it back.
The genie's out of the bottle, old sport. Trump cannot be un-Trumped. The Bushes and the Clintons cannot be un-humiliated. They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, and they deserved it anyway. That civic society you yearn for is on the other side of the Kali Yuga.
I think Trump in 2016 was regrettable yet necessary. He broke the neo-con / Christian right monopoly on the GOP, while massively expanding the Overton Window. Unfortunately in power he was, yes, a "velvet fist in an iron glove". I was really hoping for Ron DeSantis in 2024, but at least Trump's campaign has been run by more disciplined people this time around...
Baited by an April Fools’ joke.
Perhaps because my introduction to anarchy was through anarcho-capitalism, I never really associated anarchy with chaos. Rather, I perceive the state as an artificial structure impeding the machinations of spontaneous order that would otherwise result in organic structures well-suited to the circumstances of the time. Even if there is a period of tumult, people tire of it because it is costly in nearly every sense of the word. And seeing as human populations (some to greater extents than others) have effectively been "domesticated" by evolution (both biological and cultural), any appetite for chaos and strong men will be relatively short-lived once it actually comes to fruition. The state is humanity's attempt at forcing human behavior and organization towards human ideals. My evidence that none of them have yet been able to conform to human nature, including its tendency to phenotypically fluctuate in response to external stimuli, is the fact that it has always been necessary to tax, i.e., expropriate at the threat of violence rather than raise funds voluntarily — which shouldn't be so hard if, as is so ubiquitously asserted, those services were in fact desirable as they manifested.
On the matter of Trump, I've always seen him more as a bumbling oaf rather than a credible threat or "strong man." And while plenty of people I respect claim that he is a political genius, I personally never quite got that and instead think that his mannerisms just happen to appeal most to that faction of people who felt most left behind by the rest of the nation. Yes he's chaotic and speaks a big game, but he was relatively impotent in office relative the strong assertions he made about shaking up Washington. Just as Rajeev mentioned in his review of Monkey Man, presidential figures rarely have much power amid the entrenched interests in government. So on the one hand, I don't fully blame Trump for his impotence; his selection of advisors was strongly swayed by who the RNC made available to him, which is on top of the checks and balances already present within our system of governance. But at the same time, had he deployed tactics similar to Milei, or even Bukele, like his rhetoric at times suggested, then he likely would have been more effective. That said, it probably is necessary for the "Trump train" to peter out as you say through his ascendency to the presidency again to become incontestably ineligible for future interference.
As for Jeb, I honestly know next to nothing about him. Seeing as I wasn't even out of high school when all that went down, I just wasn't keyed into politics at all. Someone could object that, if he was as knowledgeable/competent as claimed, then that should have rescued him from his fate on those debate stages. But as a person who most would consider to be thoughtful but also wouldn't do well on a debate stage, I'm aware that that is not a strong objection. But even if you grant that he was competent, it is worth considering that he comes from a political family. Just as in the times of hereditary monarchs, their progeny were reared for a life of statecraft and governance, and the hereditary aspect likely developed because the children of a good ruler likely shared some of the attributes that made him a great ruler (royal blood). Obviously we don't buy the justifications for monarchy anymore, but the persistence of political families belies the same phenomenon. And given the "leakiness" of power in democracies (cf. Hoppe, Yarvin, de Jouvenel), those kinds of people will naturally end up soaking up a lot of it relative to your everyday chap.
I'm in the process of reading Rauch's "The Constitution of Knowledge," and I think the perspective forwarded by the book that we need all these various institutions that existed before we were even born to be the arbiters of the "reality-based community" because of the process employed to vet claims is particularly germane to this post. Jeb represents the polished, "did everything right" sort of guy who has legitimate bona fides to his name through many years of "trusting the process" while Trump would play dirty to get what he wanted, his father notwithstanding. These are two very different strategies of ascending to power, and most people in the bureaucratic state followed a path more closely resembling Jeb's, which I would say is more feminine in nature given the high conscientiousness it demands. Even within business these days, the kind of people who succeed aren't as risky and dynamic as I think they were in the past. I think on a subconscious level that this more masculine approach spooks or at least repulses those in the managerial classes, as indicated by Jeb's premonitions of chaos. The "rule of law, "democracy," and "constitution of knowledge" are basically just code for the status quo these days because the only institutions able to meet the prohibitively high procedural standards are those legacy institutions which have been unfortunately been captured.