How stupid are people? How utterly blinded by bias is the media? Comey has reopened the Hillary email case – the leftists are enraged – Comey’s motivations are political! Yes, they certainly were when he originally refused to recommend charges by interpreting the applicable statute in a way that was not only highly contrived but also contravened a Supreme Court ruling that said he couldn’t do what he did. Clearly Obama had told him that he had no intention of prosecuting Hillary so Comey could either resign or fabricate some phony conclusion that ‘exonerated’ Clinton – Comey chose the latter, but then blasted her in a news conference that made it clear he didn’t agree with his own recommendation. If liberals were worried about the political corruption of the FBI they had ample opportunity to do so in July – instead they copiously praised Comey for being such an honorable public servant.

But now they’re beside themselves with contempt for the man – and what I keep hearing is since Comey doesn’t have permission yet to read the Weiner emails how can he possibly know they’re relevant? Is this stupidity or just a willingness to prevaricate without remorse? This is what seems clear to me: the FBI has had Weiner’s computer for almost a month now – they obviously have permission to look at certain digital correspondence because they’re looking for evidence that the perv was soliciting sexual favors online from underage girls – the FBI may indeed not have the right to look at other emails – but agents will have surely seen the subject titles of other emails – it seems like a safe bet that what’s happened here is these agents recognized subject titles that mentioned something that looked classified or that were the same as subject titles from classified emails that they already have from Clinton’s server – or both – either that or Huma had sworn that she had turned over all relevant email and the agents now had good reason to believe that might have been a lie. They then alerted Comey. That’s my guess as to what’s going on here – yes, there’s no proof yet that the FBI now has evidence that Hillary knowingly compromised national security or that she lied about who had access to classified material or that these new emails will damage her in any way whatsoever [although I’m guessing Huma’s in a shit load of trouble] – but to think Comey has done this without some strong indication that it’s legitimate doesn’t seem credible to me – and that strong indication could easily be gleaned simply from the subject titles of the relevant emails or the mere presence of emails to and from Hillary – indeed, the agents combing through Weiner’s digital perversions may have had instructions to do precisely that: look for stuff that might be applicable to the Clinton case [although instructions like that may be unconstitutional, dunno].

It just seems highly improbable that Comey would reopen the case without having a good reason to believe that he now possibly had evidence of a crime committed by either Hillary or Huma that he didn’t have in July – and that crime would have to be more serious than the one of ‘gross negligence’ he refused [clearly under pressure I’d say] to pursue earlier – it just doesn’t make sense otherwise, at least to me.

It’s I guess symptomatic of how fucked up this election is that what Trump is being ridiculed for now is in fact true – ie that the election is rigged. Understand, I think Trump is a buffoon who is saying this for merely rhetorical reasons that may indeed be legitimately considered dangerous and who would gladly accept the results of a rigged election if they favored him, something which in his profound stupidity he has openly admitted to. Regardless of all that - he’s right in a sense – and all on the left rising up in outrage about what he said are disingenuous hypocrites.

The history of democracy is littered with malfeasance – the founding fathers were clearly acutely aware of how vulnerable the system was to being hijacked by unreasonable, undemocratic forces and thus our checks and balances which perch over the Republic as if fully expecting bad things to happen. Rigged, depending on how you want to define it, is not absurd – rather the possibility is indeed baked in – Trump himself is a manifestation of this insomuch as he’s where he is because of stupid voters, stupidity amounting here to malfeasance once removed – stupid voters enabled Sanders, they gave us eight years of an awful Obama, they will give us at least four years of an awful Hillary and they made Trump possible. That may not be rigged in the sense that Trump means it – but I see it as rigged all the same.

Democracy is what Churchill said of it – crap until you compare it to the alternatives. This is true for one reason: the average voter is not a reliable bastion of knowledge and common sense and therefore is highly susceptible to being ‘influenced’ in negative ways and therefore the system is vulnerable to being corrupted by cunning operatives looking to further an agenda that the electorate is unable to perceive or even if it does ‘see’ it either cannot understand it or lacks the motivation or foresight to care about what it ultimately means. Obama’s opposition to the Iraq war is a perfect example of this. His opposition was not based on any foreign policy logic – we’ve seen eight years of Obama foreign policy malpractice and so to think his opposition was the result of some brilliant insight is absurd - it was all about political calculations – his political fortunes at the time were utterly dependent on left wing ideologues who opposed the war and therefore he had to oppose the war, which was conveniently easy to do since he’s a leftist ideologue himself who as a matter of course echoed their thinking. Thing is, in 2008 many Americans were tired of war and therefore were willing to give credit to Obama for having opposed the war without having any understanding of why he opposed the war – and there ya go, low info voters being guided by their emotions concede to an Obama far left agenda to curtail and diminish American power that they don’t even perceive – and that’s how you get eight years of a complete clusterfuck of a foreign policy.

And the key ingredient to this mess? The media – you simply cannot conceive of a functioning democracy without an objective and critical voice bridging the gap between the cunning operatives and the naive, low info electorate. And we don’t have that. I’ve been saying for a long time that a biased media will undermine the legitimacy of a democracy because those on the side not favored by the bias will come to believe that they have no chance to win and for democracy to work both sides need to believe they have a legitimate chance to win. The media is not an objective voice – it has a preferred outcome – which means the democracy cannot function as it was intended to function.

Add to this legitimacy crisis how the media directly effects the election itself by influencing, one might say manipulating, how people perceive things – and of course this is all done to serve the specific agenda of a favored ideology. This election in particular has emphasized this dynamic – a professor at I believe NYU specializing in media studies has broken down the key role media played in building Trump up during the primary, disadvantaging his opponents severely, and tearing him down now that the media’s favored candidate needs protecting. A plurality of foolish GOP voters and now Trump himself played right into this game – I remember marveling at how Trump’s supporters were naively thrilled by his supposed ability to ‘control’ the media during the primary without it seems ever stopping to imagine how that supposed control would be entirely reversed once Hillary was the opponent.

I’d say that all adds up to a de facto rigging of elections – not in the sense Trump and his delusional supporters mean it – but as a war on conservatism in general. As institutions increasingly lean left, as left leaning media increasingly saturates the culture, as demographics change to favor ethnicities inherently inclined to view the world and the role of government in ways that suit the progressives’ agenda, so to does the war open itself up to increasingly effective rigging by the left. No doubt the stark rise of polarization is a result of this ‘momentum’ – studies have shown how social media is feeding that fire – the thing to understand about polarization though is that, bad as it is for the country in objective terms, the left doesn’t think in objective terms and so polarization serves the interests of the left much more than it serves the interests of the right – this is because, as Alinsky preached, polarization will promote ideological purity, an intolerant disease which clearly infects progressive thinking, allowing the negative forces named above to prosper until the country is irrevocably driven to the left. You can see this in the way Obama governs – he clearly has no problem with polarization and indeed as a no doubt true blue Alinskyite acts to serve the cause in any way he can. The far right and Trumpsters, as ideological purists themselves, may think they want polarization – but that’s just playing into the left’s hands [Trump of course is only an ideological purist in the sense that as a narcissist he himself is the ideology he prays to – Trump has no political ideology per se other than one that serves his interests].

The startling thing about this is how progressives think and act as if splitting the country into two camps that hate and mistrust each other in order to make room for the eventual rise of a leftist oligarchy is a process immune to failure, immune to engendering actions and outcomes antithetical to and disdainful of their presumed utopia. Very shortsighted – although history clearly demonstrates that ideological purists are consistent in their embrace of foolishness. Thing is, we have currently on display two glaring examples of how foolish and misguided this thinking is: the Obama presidency and the EU. Both profound failures riven with flaws and incompetence and naïve thinking that have engendered reactionary forces that threaten the tranquility of their progressive ideal – and both in denial of this fact. But then that’s idealists for you - not people prone to imagining themselves wrong – they’re builders of glass houses who simply refuse to believe in the possibility of an exterior reality tossing stones their way.

[I suppose one could argue that the far right or alt right realize they can’t win this media war and therefore a leftist oligarchy is inevitable and therefore too a reactionary push back is inevitable – and then a civil war or possibly a junta? I suppose that’s how they might view things and thus don’t see themselves as being played for fools by the left – indeed, given those terms, it’s the left being play for fools since if the worst case scenario plays out the military will then be the key to what happens and we all know who they’ll back. Pretty gloomy stuff – but I tend to think the dire precipice awaits if the GOP can’t hold onto the House and hopefully too the Senate – and then maybe you see the rise of an effective GOP leadership that has learned important lessons from what has happened and starts the task of rebuilding the party – a good start would be to get rid of Preibus and replace him with a smart moderate who is a very good in front of the cameras – Carly Fiorina maybe? She’d be a very good foil to Hillary leaving Ryan free to heal congress]

It’s truly laughable all the Trump supporters damning the perfidy of the conservative intellectual elite and blaming them for their hero’s demise – Trumpism isn’t populated by people who spend much or any time reading Krauthammer or George Will or Jonah Goldberg or the many lesser known right wing commentators – never mind the more erudite musings of the Edmund Burkes etc etc. I doubt if even Limbaugh reads or has read these people - probably just has an assistant browse what the perfidious rascals are up to and if something can be worked into his usual anti-establishment rant it’s spun accordingly. Krauthammer et al are just props in the ‘conservative’ infotainment’s rhetorical rampage – Trumpsters don’t support the man because they’re pissed off at George Will – they support him because Limbaugh and Hannity etc etc have told them the establishment is corrupted by self interest and therefore complicit in the left’s ruining of America and only a tough guy – ie someone who doesn’t play by the rules – can put an end to this menace. Intellectuals support the rules therefore they’re with the enemy.

Thing to understand about this argument is that it may be substantially ludicrous but is not entirely wrong – under Obama the idealist progressive world view and agenda has been pushed forward regardless of ‘the rules’ and Republicans for a variety of reasons can’t seem to figure out how to effectively push back. For this reason, the frustrations driving Trump supporters are understandable and it would be a big mistake for conservative intellectuals not to acknowledge this – just because the average voter tends to be quite naïve and highly susceptible to buying the snake oil doesn’t mean that there isn’t a very good reason why they want to buy the snake oil – they’re sick and tired and looking for answers.

A perfect example of this was the Gang of Eight bill – in an attempt to fix an obviously broken immigration system while making yourself more palatable to Latinos it may have indeed been good policy, I don’t know – but here’s the problem: there’s absolutely no way you could trust Obama or the left in general to honor the agreement because for them more Latinos and more right wing grousing about more Latinos means more left wing voters and that’s all they really care about. Limbaugh understood that inherent weakness in the deal and milked it to death making it sound like the bill was just one more capitulation by the wussy right wing establishment to the America destroying left. Add to that fact that the right simply does not know how to address the problem of big business wanting immigration reform because it wants cheap labor and how that too can be milked by the Limbaughs etc etc and you’ve got the whole Trump phenomenon in a nutshell.

I was listening to Hannity talk about the debate – one only listens to this annoying person in order to better understand what motivates those who esteem Trump, are enthused by him – I get when people support him because they feel it’s the best of two bad choices, and have myself flirted with that viewpoint in a desperate attempt to avoid contemplating how much ruin 12 years of Obamaism can sow– what one wonders about though is what’s motivating those who think Trump is great regardless of circumstances – and from Hannity’s over the top review of Trump’s debate performance as one for the ages what becomes clear is these people are motivated by anger pure and simple, an often incoherent, irrational, near primal anger – they loved Trump’s performance for the simple reason he attacked Hillary – doesn’t matter if there was substance to the attack, or competence in its execution, or involved any connection to intelligent policy ideas whatsoever – all that mattered was the anger being expressed. That’s Trump – and that’s why he can get away with outrageous behavior, with giving voice to insubstantial, incoherent ideas and thoughts. It’s all about the anger and a near hatred of the conservative elites’ inability to stop what the liberal elite is doing to the country – a hatred that has convinced itself that therefore the conservative elite must be complicit in what’s happening.

I get the anger – I can listen to Hillary or Obama, hear absolute nonsense if not outright lies being spoken, watch the media scurry to protect them from the consequences of it, and get angry myself, fearing how it is the republic survives this kind of corruption. But when anger becomes the prime consideration of your politics, that’s bad – and the GOP is in a bad place – and since the Hannitys of the world aren’t going away and the fortunes of the aggrieved are not likely to improve anytime soon, I don’t see what can be done about it. Normally, if a candidate is routed, that would cause a rethinking of things and the beginning of a renewal. But if Trump loses, we already know what’s gonna happen because it’s happening now – Trump and his supporters will not accept blame and in order to keep this illusion or delusion active outrage will be spewed against anyone who did not ignorantly bow down before Trumpism – the GOP will be broken and I don’t see how you fix it.

Maybe it’s not feasible or just nuts, but I would dump Trump now, concede the presidential election which one assumes will drive down liberal turnout and then put all your focus on the down ballot races. If Trump can’t win he’s just gonna spend the next month doing nothing but harm to the GOP – why keep him around? Or why can’t you go to Trump and say: you have two choices – step away and hand it over to Pence – or we’re gonna drop you as our candidate and concede the presidential race? Where’s the logic in riding this disaster to the bitter end? End it now. Or are they worried that would harm turnout? My point is, if you dump Trump now, that allows you to turn the election into one that is all about turnout in support of down ballot races in order to keep Hillary in check. And look what else you gain by dumping Trump: with Trump gone the media may actually be forced to pay attention to the corrupt disaster that is Hillary – all these damaging emails are coming out and no one is paying attention because they’re watching the Trump train wreck – get rid of the guy for god’s sake!

I suppose the problem is he’s already on the ballot and this late in the game it’s impossible to get him off the ballot – but certainly if defeat is inevitable and he’s doing nothing but harm to the party you can disavow him as your candidate. At this point you have to look upon Trump as a cancer that must be excised before it becomes terminal. It may already be too late, but you have to at least try.