The Unhinged Opposition To Trump : P.J. O'Rourke

I think O'Rourke are spot on here. What is scary are those screaming, tearing their clothing and gnashing their teeth really have no good idea why they are so angry, but are still willing to go into the street destroying private property.

History is riff with examples of such criminal activity that always turned out poorly for everyone.

There is more scary stuff in that these thousands of people that are willing to commit destruction for no reason, will also be easily be lead into doing things that are far worse. These unhinged and unbalanced are easily directed to function as willing surrogates for crimes against the country under the guise of doing ''the will of the people''.

Anyone that refuses to recognize that maybe they are wrong headed when they are smashing windows and lighting cars on fire. will recognize them is a threat to civil society.

My Worries About the Opposition to Trump – Part II

By P.J. O'Rourke

As I said in my previous column, the election of President Trump has provoked a worrisome hysteria among some Trump opponents.  Not that some Trump supporters haven't also been acting giddy and frantic...You may cheer the man or you may boo him, but no one applauds hysteria overrunning the body politic.

It's like rats overrunning Hamelin. That didn't turn out well for anyone in the old folktale. The Pied Piper didn't get paid. The burghers of Hamelin lost their children. Those children were led away to a place that I doubt was ideal for getting a good education and maturing into responsible adults. Plus, the rats drowned.

But besides the hysteria, Trump's election has also fostered a rise in fanaticism. I'm not talking about neo-Neanderthal alt-right loonies or black-clad anarcho-dipsticks...

I'm not talking about the kind of fanaticism that takes possession of crazy people. It is possible to be perfectly sane and still be too much of a fan of certain ideas or concepts (a problem not unknown in the investment world). And this is what I think has happened to some Trump opponents. Although I'm not letting Trump's fan base completely off the hook. Some of his boosters have shown elements of the kind of unreasonable over-enthusiasm that can wreck a downtown after a city's sports team wins a championship.

Fortunately, in the case of those Trump boosters, I'm speaking in a metaphorical way: vehicles of civility overturned, windows of communication broken, cans full of common sense thrown into the air... You know what I mean. However, many of Trump's otherwise reasonable opponents have also shown fanaticism... a different kind of fanaticism... one that doesn't really have that much to do with Trump himself, let alone his ideology. (Which, personally I'm still trying to figure out. And I bet I've got a lot of company.)

It's a strange sort of fanaticism. It's not politically partisan, per se. It's a fanaticism of attitude.The attitude the fanatics have is a fanatical obeisance to politics, an absurd reverence for the state, a belief that government is the Alpha and the Omega.

There are two basic attitudes toward government. First, there's the attitude we have. We regard government simply as an organization. And I say "we" because I think I'm speaking for most Stansberry Research subscribers. (And I know I'll hear about it in the mailbag if I'm not.)

We regard government as a big organization, a powerful organization, and, sometimes, when enemies attack or when the potholes in the Interstate system get so large we can lose Buicks in them, an important organization. But it's just an organization. Like any organization it has conflicting objectives. (Spend nonexistent money or tax until no money exists?) It has confused priorities. (Undercut domestic manufacturing or make $1,000 toasters in Cleveland?) It has bureaucratic muddles. (Name any three letters of the alphabet and get an acronym for a federal agency.) And it has personal rivalries. (Steve Bannon versus the world.)

As far as we're concerned government is a kind of business, albeit a business in which we invest involuntarily through our tax dollars. Sometimes it succeeds and we get peace and prosperity (for which government takes the credit). Sometimes it fails and we get terrorism and 2008 (which government blames on somebody else). And we never know what we're getting next.

It's probably just as well that Americans can't trade the business of government on the stock exchange, because everybody would be trying to go short and long on it at the same time, and the stock exchange floor would be chaos. But what Americans can do with the business of government is change its senior management. And this is what Americans have done.

We – the people who regard government simply as an organization – are just waiting to see how the change in management works out. But other people have a different attitude toward government. They regard government as something more than an earthly system run in a fallible manner by ordinary mortals. They believe government is the entity "from whom all blessings flow."

They think government created the heaven and the earth, or at least the heavenly parts of the earth (Brooklyn, Berkeley, Ann Arbor). They think government will lead them to the land of locally sourced unpasteurized raw milk and honey produced by free-range bees gathering pollen from flowers upon which no pesticides have been used.

They think government watches over them at all times – for which they rejoice when it comes to social services, though they tremble before the NSA. They believe government will come to judge the living and (in the case of college curriculums dominated by dead white European males) the dead. Not a sparrow falls without government knowing, as long as it's an endangered species of sparrow.

The people with this attitude have turned government into a religion.

Our President who art in Washington,
sensitive, caring, inclusive, and progressive be thy name.
Thy Congress cooperate,
thy entitlement programs operate,
in the United States as it is in enlightened Nordic countries with comprehensive social welfare systems.
Give us this day our daily seven-grain bread, subsidized housing, single-payer medical care, and free college tuition,
and forgive others their implicit racism,
as we forgive those who are vegetarians, but not vegans, and who don't ride a bicycle to work.
And lead us not into exploitation by the 1%,
but deliver us a $15 minimum wage.
For thine is the coastal elites, the mainstream media, the liberal-arts faculties, and Martha's Vineyard when the Clintons are vacationing there, forever.
Amen and Awomen.

You can understand the consternation that such people feel when they're bowing down to a golden calf and the calf in question swats them with its Twitter tail, kicks them with its cabinet appointment hooves, and leaves a cow pie of loose talk on their altar.