No, the Military Dragged Itself in to Politics

Every few years another article comes up concerned about the politicization of the military. Throughout human history this has been a “concern” – and rightfully so. In the founding of our own republic this was a top concern to the point we are not really supposed to have a standing army (though we do), we put a civilian at the head of it, and … well, here’s the applicable part;

Article I, Section 8, Clause 12(AKA “The Army Clause”: “The Congress shall have Power To . . . raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years,”

Our standing Army is still too large, but that is a topic for another day.

It is welcome and good that we have these conversations with each other on a regular basis, as no good comes to any republic when the military leadership decides they can do a better job than civilians.

When one of our favorite thinkers weighs in on the topic, Kori Schake, it deserves a good read over at War on the Rocks. (NB: on the same topic and also at WOTR, a 2020 article by David Barno and Nora Bensahel is also worth a read). There are some gaps in her discussion that I’ll get in to in a bit, but let’s look at her solid opening;

American respect for its military is plummeting. It has dropped by 30 points in the past five years in surveys conducted by the Reagan Foundation. In their recently released poll, less than half of respondents have a great deal of trust and confidence in America’s military. Unless both civilian and military leaders take corrective actions to repair the breach, this will impede recruiting, diminish unit cohesion, and damage the bond between the military and the public it serves.

As concerning as the drop itself is the reason. 62 percent of respondents said they were losing trust and confidence because the military leadership is becoming overly politicized. Nor is the attitude partisan: 60 percent of Democrats gave that answer, as did 60 percent of Independents and 65 percent of Republicans. Only 35 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the military’s ability to act in a professional and nonpolitical manner.  

Even though the American public has greater trust in their military than most nations have in theirs – and there is a lot of institutional capital there to burn through – the drop along all political persuasions is significant. As reported by Gallup, they are returning to levels not seen in over 35 years as it recovered from the decade after the fall of Saigon.

Note the most dramatic fall is from what traditionally been the “pro military” side of the spectrum. That is where the story is.

Military leaders should stick to the core functions of the profession and master saying “that’s a more appropriate question for the secretary of defense.” Politicians should stop hiding behind uniforms when enacting unpopular policies, and expend their efforts on passing relevant legislation in areas urgently in need of attention.

Yes, they should. However, in the last few years we have seen the most senior uniformed members of the military from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, USA and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gidlay, USN happily jump forward to weigh hip deep in to the most divisive domestic political cultural war topics – specifically racial essentialism.

While Schake does mention this later in the article obliquely, it is important to understand when in front of the people’s elected representatives, Milley expended substantial institutional and personal capital arguing about how critical it was to his job to understand, “white rage.”

Gilday on multiple occasions promoted and defended the cancerous racial essentialism of Ibram X. Kendi. Taking that example from his boss, the Chief of Naval Personnel let one of the worst kept secrets out and, well, let’s let him speak for himself and the institution he serves.

“I think we should consider reinstating photos in selection boards,” Nowell said Tuesday at The Navy League’s 2021 Sea-Air-Space Exposition. “We look at, for instance, the one-star board over the last five years, and we can show you where, as you look at diversity, it went down with photos removed.”

Telling a large portion of the people who would serve that you will not only judge them first by the color of their skin, but then determine – in the zero sum game that is promotions – what their career progression would be by the same – how does that make the military as an institution look good or having a promising future?

We have to understand that too much of our defense nomenklatura have become “of” DC, and not just stationed “in” DC – absorbing all that comes from that isolated and unbalanced intellectual environment. Outside the beltway, racial essentialism is seen for what it actually is – racism – something that is rightfully disgusting to Americans of all stripes. Part of the military’s problem is classic elite capture by an unaware and pliable leadership.

Perfect example;

Military leaders worry about veteran political activism reflecting on the active-duty force. But they don’t believe public concerns about politicization of the military are affecting the force. Gen. David Berger, the commandant of the Marine Corps, recently said that “I don’t see and hear a conversation or an impact of woke-ism in the rank and file, at all.” The Army’s head of recruiting believes the concerns are having no effect on Americans’ willingness to serve.  

That is the least shocking news in the article and does not speak well to the Army's head of recruiting or General Berger’s breadth and depth of independent reading or their social circle. They should talk to members of Congress about the communications they receive from serving members on the topic. 

If Berger had not heard anything, it is because it is clear to everyone who works for him that he does not want to hear it. Anyone who has been a staff officer on a major staff knows that dynamic.

I have active duty officers and enlisted reach out to little ‘ole me almost daily on what some now call “woke-ism.” A plurality of each emphasized how closed the discussion space is. You are told and you nod and comply. There is no conversation. There are no alternative perspectives. There is diktat. 

A few years ago I even had a serving 4-star via a rather strange cloak-and-dagger operation have an intermediary he discovered knew me IRL deliver to me, by hand, a written on dead tree outline of his concerns – what I had right, what I was a bit off frequency on, and what I was missing on this very topic. The request was to "not stop." 

“No effect?” Sorry, that simply is not true. The parents who are rebelling against “woke-ism” in their local school boards over the last few years will look to a military supporting “white rage” research and Kendism with a not sympathetic eye with their children’s future.

The crossover is there and if senior leaders would wander out of their bubble, they would hear it.

It is much more than that. The American public see senior leadership who refuse to defend their own institution. Our military reflects its nation, so of course will have many of the same ills. There are the usual suspects who will use any topic to bash the military they will never like and will attempt to paint the military with a very thick and broad brush – often using questionable metrics to describe a military full of racists, sexists, and rapists – and when confronted our senior leaders either remain silent or accept the worst descriptions of the personnel they lead.

Service members see that. Family members see that. 

They also see a senior uniformed leadership who will discipline enlisted personnel, company grade and field grade officers with aplomb, but do nothing but defend, excuse, or even look the other way from abject failures from fellow General and Flag Officers (GOFO).

The greatest national humiliation of our nation since the fall of South Vietnam was only 15-months ago, and yet who has taken responsibility or been held accountable? It was at best a negotiated surrender and retreat under fire – and yet in front of the people’s elected representatives we made excuses, fudged, or made the farcical claim that Kabul was a successful Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO). (see 2:38)

The whole disaster was treated like the weather. No one was to blame. It just “happened.”

Nothing hurts confidence more than failure ... compounded by refusal to accept responsibility for it.

In what really should be a separate article and given more space, Schake mentions a problem that has gotten much worse the last decade;

But there have been a number of developments over the past several decades that have contributed to the perception of the military’s politicization. Veterans’ endorsement of presidential candidates has been an escalating arms race since retired Marine Commandant Paul X. Kelly endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980. Presidential campaigns now routinely roll out lists of hundreds of retired flag officers and include uniformed military in campaign ads. The Bush administration left it to the military to persuade Congress to support the Iraq surge. In 2016, retired Gen. John Allen spoke at the Democratic National Convention to endorse the Democratic candidate while, in a more egregious move, retired Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn led chants of “lock her up” at the Republican National Convention.  

Little correction here, Kelley (with an e) endorsed Bush41 in ‘88, not Reagan in ‘80, but he isn’t really “Patient Zero” in the modern iteration of retired GOFO injecting themselves in to national politics for fun and clout.  Kelley did not get any “reward” for the endorsement. When Bush41 became CINC, Kelley worked as a lobbyist and the Chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

The real “Patient Zero” was Admiral William J. Crowe, USN. Unlike Kelley whose terminal position was Commandant of the Marine Corps, Crowe was the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was appointed by Clinton to the Ambassadorship to the United Kingdom.

Crowe’s relief as CJCS was General Colin Powell, USA who served until 1993. As most recall, he was considered a possible Presidential candidate in 1996, was Secretary of State for Bush43 and became a high profile supporter of President Obama.

So, there’s a template for you – and more have followed.

Kelley, Crowe, and Powell’s political actions are not seen as exceptionally poor, they were rather tastefully done – but that flavor has changed significantly, especially the last decade. 

While Flynn's behavior mentioned by Schake did not help the military’s reputation on the left side of the political spectrum, retired USAF General Mike Hayden continues to be one of the most red in tooth and claw left wing partisans in the public space, including heading the now disgraced list of 51 intelligence professionals who tried to cover-up the release of the content of Hunter Biden’s laptop after years of almost Hale-Bopp conspiracy beliefs about Russia. His over the top partisanship soured many on the right against what they saw as a growing DC GOFO leftism that advanced with each year.

Popping up on a regular basis about whatever was "the latest thing" was the comically vicious presence of retired Army Lieutenant General Mark (full semi-auto) Hertling. Both Hayden and Hertling continue to lead with their status as a general officer - retired or not.

That makes an impact.

In this stew of the last decade you could not turn your head without the gratuitous use of a person's status as GOFOs to promote the most contentious domestic political issues. A textbook example would be retired Army Generals David Petraeus, Stanley McCrystal, and Martin Dempsey, along with retired Admiral William McRaven, USN diving into, of all things, domestic gun control.

You also have people like retired Vice Admiral Mike Franken, USN, who ran for Senate in Iowa. Just look at his campaign page. His first three pics are of him with a “Navy” hat, him in choker whites, then a DDG. He does have a disclaimer at the bottom, 

“Vice Admiral Franken (Ret) is a former member of the U.S. Navy. Use of his military rank, job titles, and photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement from the Department of Defense.“

That’s nice, but everyone who voted against him was, at least subconsciously, voting against a man in uniform. Again, in a 50/50 nation whose founding documents are suspicious (rightfully) of senior military leaders, it's not a good look. 

As a guy whose “Mark Twain” is “CDR Salamander” & dabbles in politics more than I should – I’m not against mentioning your military rank after you retire … but a middling field grade officer is not a GOFO and if done deftly isn't a problem at all.

None of those GOFO mentioned above have been very deft in their high profile partisanship. That makes an impact, and no one is forcing them to do it.

Indeed, if anything, we have fewer politicians with military backgrounds than before, covered again in WOTR, this time by our friend Claude Berube;

Retired military getting in to politics is just part of our republic. Retired GOFO, due to their unique position in our culture, have a special responsibility retired E5 and O5 do not. We cannot/should not outlaw it ... but likewise, neither should they be treated with deference or kid gloves. 

Welcome to the rice fields, sir.

So, where does it go outside the lines?

Well, we’ve been living in a master class of wrongness as of late;

…the serving chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff marched with the president in battle dress through a public square that had been forcibly cleared during the 2020 social justice protests.  Gen. Mark Milley admirably apologized, but the image is likely to be what most in the public remember long after. Milley has leaned into other political controversies too: offering his view of critical race theory during Congressional hearings and backgrounding virtually every journalist’s account of the Trump administration in order to cast himself as the savior of the republic.  

As I mentioned earlier this year, the rapid fall in the reputation of our military has accelerated under Milley’s watch under two administrations. While it is comfortable for some on both sides of the political spectrum to try directly or indirectly make this a political issue – indeed this entire article is about politics – at its core it is a problem with our uniformed leadership and their view of themselves and their position.

It did not start with Milley – but he piled worse on top of bad.

Milley clumsily engaging on political topics has made it fair game for Congress to press him and other military leaders — including every flag officer that is put forward for three-star promotion — on political issues.  

As Congress should. Milley has been the most overtly political CJCS since the equally misaligned-with-mission Admiral Mike Mullen, USN. If the uniformed senior leadership is going to be political, then the actual political bodies in our nation will react to them like antibodies to a foreign object. This is good, and healthy - and well deserved. If the institutional military does not like it, then they need to promote different people or better police their own.

If they need help, call the Australian military for some peer guidance. 

The overwhelming majority of the military — including and especially its leadership — are pleading to be left out of the febrile partisan politics of the moment. For the good of the country, politicians should heed that plea.

I disagree strongly here. Nope. No one gets out easy like that. The uniformed military leadership does not get to dive in to politics and make excuses for politicians on one side of the spectrum, and then get upset when the other side of the political spectrum calls them in to account.

If you play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. The military suffers as a whole, yes, because these leaders decided to spend the institutional capital of their services in support of domestic political fights or their personal political futures. 

There is serious work to be done to defend America. Politicizing the military will make it weaker — not stronger.

Yes there is, and it starts with having GOFO depoliticize themselves. That won’t happen if their actions are allowed to go unchallenged.

Milley, Gilday and others are already political. Reset with new leaders who understand that they need to take us in a healthier direction, and the rest will follow. 

If not, then either the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch should bring them to heel.

If they do that, then the Judicial Branch won’t have to step in at the last minute - no one wants that.

Post-Election Natsec Hotwash - on Midrats

 

Every election cycle provides a preview of what advocates for national defense and sea power will have on their side - or not on their side - in the next Congress.

New people arrive, experienced people leave, and priorities, agendas, and advocacy will shift change with them.

What can we expect in the next Congress based on changes we see and those national security issues waxing or waning in the mind of legislators and their counterparts in the Executive Branch?

Politics matter.

Our guests for the full hour Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss the implications of this years election in the national security arena, will be Claude Berube and Derek (Dirk) Maurer.

Claude Berube, PhD, is the author of “On Wide Seas: The US Navy in the Jacksonian Era” and several other books. He has worked on Capitol Hill, in the defense industry, and the Office of Naval Intelligence. A Commander in the US Navy Reserve, he is currently assigned to a unit with Navy Warfare Development Center. Since 2005 he has taught in the Political Science and History Departments at the US Naval Academy.

Dirk Maurer currently is Vice President at Layer 8 Security, & a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School. He is the Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Defense Continuity and Mission Assurance and as DASD for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. and was DASD for Defense Support and Civil Authorities during the George W. Bush administration

Mr. Maurer has served on multiple Senate committees and in the personal offices of three Senators. He retired from the Marine Corps Reserve after twenty years. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center.

Join us live if you can, but it not, you can get the show later by subscribing to the podcast. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here. You can find us on almost all your most popular podcast aggregators as well.

On the Storming of The Hill

We are a nation of laws.  That is, at the core, what we are. What we saw today was what happens when the Chief Executive actively incites a mob against the government he leads. None of this is American, in the American tradition, or can be defended by well meaning people. Full stop.

There will be more to follow that will lay out what happened today, but we had an unprecedented attack on the Legislative Branch by a mob incited by the Chief Executive, The President of the United States.

I’m really not interested in shades of grey or whataboutisms here, there are no shades. Lucky for us, the balance of the American people are sound and the founders set a very solid set of checks and balances in place that will get us to through the next two weeks until we have a new President. 

I feel no need to do a play by play; I’ve been up since 4am and am about spent (apologies for grammar etc, I am bone tired). Everyone should know the details; Trump whipped up the fringe of his supporters who he lost control of - I actually don’t think he knew or cared the power of his words in the wrong ears could do - and then when it was clear what was going on, he spoke late, he spoke off topic, he spoke weakly, he spoke in a manner that only validated his worst critics.

A woman, Ashli Babbit, was shot and killed because of it. 

Trump betrayed his country, his followers, and the institution that he will soon leave. He also left absolutely no reason for any reasonable person to offer him any support in the future. I know some of you here are Trump people. This isn’t your fault ... but here on out, your efforts are better spent elsewhere.

As I have said here and elsewhere, mostly to people who were anti-Trump and checked out, if you are angry at what is happening at the federal level, focus on the local and state political action.

If you are not happy with how some states ran this election - and you live in one of those states - then fix your state. I live in Florida. After 2000, we fixed ourselves. We have not been an issue in any election since - and except for the perpetually conspiracy minded, citizens here have confidence in our system. Some of your states have garbage systems - fix them so no one can use it as a reason to incite people as was done in this election.

Bad people will take legitimate issues and use them as a way to get good people to follow them down a dark path.

That is enough of my tired mind, but I’ve been out of pocket this week and with this event felt I should drop my readers a note.

A better summary of what happened today is below; a statement by the 43rd President of the United States of America, George W. Bush.

I stand with him.

Laura and I are watching the scenes of mayhem unfolding at the seat of our Nation's government in disbelief and dismay. It is a sickening and heartbreaking sight. This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic -- not our democratic republic. 

I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement. The violent assault on the Capitol -- and disruption of a Constitutionally-mandated meeting of Congress -- was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes. 

Insurrection could do grave damage to our Nation and reputation. In the United States of America, it is the fundamental responsibility of every patriotic citizen to support the rule of law. To those who are disappointed in the results of the election: Our country is more important than the politics of the moment. Let the officials elected by the people fulfill their duties and represent our voices in peace and safety. 

 May God continue to bless the United States of America.

Crossposted on substack. 

So, We Had an Election

Everyone should just let the system work out. There is a lot of emotion on all sides, but don’t assume the worst of your fellow neighbors.

There remains a lot of slop and imperfection in our voting system. If you are unhappy with what your state does, then change it. Florida did over the last two decades after the 2000 debacle, your state can too.

It appears that there was no big wave or endorsement of either side, but hopefully we’ll have an answer by the end of the week at latest … worst case by Christmas. What we will have is an incredibly divided government – as close to a 51/49-49/51 nation as you can get. That can be a feature or a bug, but what it isn’t is a mandate for anyone. That doesn’t mean someone won’t claim one, but there isn’t one.

Irrespective, neither side, especially in the House and Senate campaigns, ran on larger defense budgets or any real unified military related strategic direction. Sure, if I tilt my head a bit, I could see with the right people a naval emphasis if Trump should pull a rabbit out of a hat, but just barely and a lot of other cards would need to come out of the deck.

Should Biden’s apparent advantage as of noon on Wednesday hold, there are two things in the natsec arena we could see come to the front:

1. Neo-internationalists will come back to State and DOD to pick up where they left off. Pressure on NATO nations will lessen, approaches will be made to Iran and other projects well in work prior to 2016. Mindlessly obtuse agreements that would never by passed as a treaty in the Senate will be signed and rejoined that are to the advantage of everyone but the USA/West.

2. One of the central philosophical underpinnings of the Democratic Party will come again to his Pentagon; identity politics. To the great shame of the Trump administration, until the last few months very little was done to dismantle the diversity nomenklatura. The commissars have just been hunkered down, waiting for a better environment. In the absence of important things to work on – and a Biden administration is void of such and Congress will be focused on their own issues – a Biden Pentagon will focus on those things it can do by fiat. All the social tinkering that has been in mothballs for the last three years will come back with pent up energy.

Trump or Biden – what you need to watch centers on this; people are policy. 

Should Trump squeak in a “W,” there will be changes in the natsec senior leadership. Who moves where will inform where DOD will go in a variety of areas. This holds true for Biden as well. I am of the school that Biden will be a weak executive and much of administration policy will come from his cabinet. Watch who goes where and practice your Kreminology of who sits and travels where after a year – that will help. Either way, natsec and FP were not part of the election and won’t get top billing should Biden hold.

That leaves Congress. After this election, I see no bi-partisan critical mass for significantly larger defense budgets. I most certainly do not see a strong enough navalist caucus to do what needs to be done – a barfight for a larger Navy.

If navalists want a larger Navy, they will need to fight for a larger piece of what will probably be a smaller defense budget pie. This will not happen overnight. This is a long struggle that needs a fighting force built for extended conflict. There needs to be a cadre of elected and appointed officials, of both parties, who are willing to rip through decades of habits, adhesions, an accretions. Enemies will be made, nasty political games will be played once the effort is made to attack entrenched positions decades in the making. 

It is a battle that needs to be joined if you believe the next big war is on the other side of the Pacific.

Let’s see whose banners, if any, are brought on to the field. My skirmishers and I are waiting in the swamps for an allied army to show up, but so far the field of battle is bare except for intermittent reconnaissance parties on horseback.

Regardless of who wins, the republic will be fine. If you are angry about the results, then move your anger in to action to get people you like elected to office. Work for the rule of law and accountability in elections. Ask hard questions.

If you don’t give a damn about politics, but what is going to happen in our national security arena … then watch people.

People make policy. It seems simple, but it is true.

You Know the Drill

OK folks, today is the day. You know what you need to do.

I already voted last week, so I've already checked the block. If you have not, go out and vote today.

I won't tell you who to vote for. Every man and woman needs to make that choice themselves ... and anything I may say won't change your mind one way or another.

We have issues with our voting here, that is true. Shame on our political class and self-identified "experts" that they - in their cowardice - have not implemented a voting system here that would meet international standards when it comes to voter rolls and vote counting.

That is immaterial. Such problems have been with us for decades and is on the margins anyway. If anything, it should make you want to vote more.

We may not know who was elected for days, weeks, or even months. I remember 2000, as do many of you. 

All I would ask is that everyone remain cool and kind with each other. 

If you haven't yet, vote. Too many have died to give you that simple act - and billions of our fellow humans on this little wet ball floating around the universe are denied it by force of arms.

As a side-note, I am checking out at noon Eastern Time. I won't be back online here or anywhere else until tomorrow AM.

Good luck everyone ... and we'll see you tomorrow.

The Civilian Side of the Terrible 20s

I'd love to bring you good news to help you try to move pass this horrible year, but that is not to be.

I posted on this topic back in June at USNIBlog, but I re-read it again last night and it seems to have become even more clear and I wanted to bring it back here.

You all know the warning I gave a decade ago about the upcoming "Terrible 20s" for our military, well it appears that there is a similar issue on the civilian side, the ‘Turbulent Twenties’
 

Read again Jack Goldstone and Peter Turchin's observations; 

Top leadership matters. Leaders who aim to be inclusive and solve national problems can manage conflicts and defer a crisis. However, leaders who seek to benefit from and fan political divisions bring the final crisis closer. Typically, tensions build between elites who back a leader seeking to preserve their privileges and reforming elites who seek to rally popular support for major changes to bring a more open and inclusive social order. Each side works to paint the other as a fatal threat to society, creating such deep polarization that little of value can be accomplished, and problems grow worse until a crisis comes along that explodes the fragile social order.

These were the conditions that prevailed in the lead-up to the great upheavals in political history, from the French Revolution in the eighteenth century, to the revolutions of 1848 and the U.S. Civil War in the nineteenth century, the Russian and Chinese revolutions of the twentieth century and the many “color revolutions” that opened the twenty-first century. So, it is eye-opening that the data show very similar conditions now building up in the United States.

In applying our model to the U.S., we tracked a number of indicators of popular well-being, inequality and political polarization, all the way from 1800 to the present. These included the ratio of median workers’ wages to GDP per capita, life expectancy, the number of new millionaires and their influence on politics, the degree of strict party-line voting in Congress, and the incidence of deadly riots, terrorism and political assassinations. We found that all of these indicators pointed to two broad cycles in U.S. history.

In the decades following independence, despite growing party competition, elites in office often compromised and voted together, and rising national prosperity was broadly shared. But that wave of positive conditions peaked around 1820; from there, political polarization and economic inequality rose sharply in the years leading up to the Civil War. The crisis indicators peaked in the 1860s but did not fall sharply after the war; instead, they remained high until 1920 (the years of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Gilded Age and violent labor unrest, and the anarchists).

Then, the tide shifted, and a second wave of greater unity and prosperity began to gather strength. Contrary to expectations, World War I and the Great Depression did not produce a rise in political instability indicators. Instead, the country pulled together. The reforms introduced during the Progressive Era and clinched in the New Deal reduced inequality and strengthened the economic share of workers; during and after World War II, the country agreed on new tax policies and increased spending on roads and schools.

The 1950s were a golden age of worker progress and party cooperation; even in the 1960s and 1970s, despite serious racial conflicts, the country’s leaders were able to agree on remarkably far-reaching reforms to improve civil rights and environmental protection. However, the 1960s were a high point in our indicators of political resilience; in the 1970s and 1980s, things began to turn, and by the 1990s, a new wave of rising inequality and political divisions was well underway, exemplified by Newt Gingrich’s policies as speaker of the House. In the next two decades, the crisis indicators rose just as sharply as they had in the decades before the Civil War. It was not just that by the late 2010s, overall inequality was rising to the levels not seen since the Gilded Age; median wages in relation to GDP per capita also were falling to historically low levels.

If you think anything will get better after the NOV election, you haven't been paying attention.

 This has already been, and will continue to be, a violent year in America. We need to brace for post-election violence and prepare bipartisan methods to ensure that the election outcome will be widely regarded as fair and legitimate. It will take heroic efforts to rebuild the political center, to join businesses and workers in partnership and consensus, and to restore fairness in both taxation and public spending. Only if all sides can again recover a stake in our government, no matter which party controls it, can we avoid sliding into a crisis that will undermine our Constitution and pit Americans against each other in a way we have not seen for generations.

From Aircraft to Dikes ... Pick Your Election Analogy

I don’t do as much politics here as much as I used to – though some of you, especially those who follow me on twitter, may think I still do too much.

The general feelings outlined in my October 2015 post still apply, and I still keep track of things, vote, and have my opinions. I just keep them more to myself.

That being said, traditionally the Labor Day Weekend kicks off the political season, but this year I don’t think the political season ever ended since 2016. Anyway, I will use this as an excuse to bounce something off the front porch.

Over the weekend I had two people drop me a line. One very reluctantly voted for Trump in 2016, and the other voted 3rd party. Unsolicited, they both came out to state they reluctantly are going to vote for Trump this November.

The one who voted 3rd party in 2016 simply refuses to play the game of voting for Biden when it is clear he won’t/can’t do the job – but the real power will be with Harris. A Harris-Schumer-AOC (he sees AOC as the future power broker in the House) as just too much for him.

The one who reluctantly voted for Trump has nothing positive to say about Trump, but reading between the lines, he’s more of a policy vs. personality type, and sees nothing but a horror show of unified (D) government.

I think both are valid arguments for people in the center, and fit in to a larger theme of those who, once again, do not feel the (D) have given them a valid option to Trump.

Take a look at Angelo Codevilla’s 31 AUG 2020 bit over at Claremont Review of Books on Michael Anton’s new book, “The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return.”

Yes, it is that Anton, the author of 2016’s essay, “The Flight 93 Election.”

Especially for my fellow brethren of 2016’s NeverTrump brigades who still hold the banner high, this argument holds no water and brings nothing but contempt and bile – and I understand that – but they can’t deny the importance this line of thinking has to many in the center to center-right of the country.

Will it be enough to bring Trump enough in the Electoral College? I have no idea. After 2016, I am out of the predictions business (my "unrealistically optimistic" COA for a Trump victory was actually close … so much for my view of what is “unrealistic.”)

Back to Anton’s argument. He starts somewhere everyone here is familiar with – a topic I have been making since before even Obama was President – that of the goal of weakening voting requirements to enable voter fraud. Yes, that is the goal from universal mail in voting to ballot harvesting. You only need a small percentage to move close elections.

Anton’s commentary on the 2020 election does not belabor the obvious: it is a binary choice. The unprecedented level of opposition President Trump has faced explains, but does not excuse, some of his shortcomings. As Anton puts it: “[t]here’s little wrong with President Trump that more Trump couldn’t solve.” Then he adds what is really radically new about the 2020 election: should the Democrats win, the ruling Left—which includes just about everyone who controls American government and society’s commanding heights—is ready, willing, and eager to implement plans that would make it virtually impossible for conservatives ever to win national elections again. These plans include the importation and counting of non-citizen voters. Elections-by-mail would shift power from voters to those who count the votes, just like in Venezuela. Though reelecting Trump makes the republic’s survival possible, and preserves all manner of good options, it guarantees nothing. Trump’s defeat guarantees disaster—like in 2016, only much more so.

What was the old Tory line from the Thatcher years? “We have to be in power until Labour regains its sanity.” I think this is in the same line of thinking. One would think that fair and secure elections would  be a bi-partisan thing, but it isn’t – and that is a shame. Many elections in the USA would be considered corrupt by international standards. 

As it is 2020, the flood of leftist violence in (D) controlled cities has to be a top concern. My take is that a decision was made that the chaos would be a plus to (D) as they assumed the Trump would overreact (which he almost did) and it would be to the advantage of the (D). However, Trump held back his worst instincts and (D) lost control of the monster they created. Now there is a blowback that is helping Trump. As such, cities are – here and there – trying to regain control. Much of the damage is already done, both real and political.

That is a tactical issue that does not seem to be much of Anton’s book (perhaps much of it was done before this summer’s events). He is looking at larger issues indirectly related to the ANTIFA shock troops; 

They do not believe they have to worry about controlling their own violent troops because they are sure that they have nothing to fear from conservatives. That is because conservatives have continued to believe that the United States’s institutions and those who run them retain legitimacy. Conservative complaisance made possible a half-century of Progressive rule’s abuse. The War on Poverty ended up enriching its managers while expanding the underclass that voted for them. The civil rights movement ended up entitling a class of diversity managers to promote their friends and ruin their opponents. The environmental movement ended up empowering the very same wealthy, powerful folks while squeezing the rest of America into cookie cutter living and paying inflated energy prices. The feminist movement delivered divorce and abortion—far from benefiting women, it has made millions dependent on ruling class favor. The COVID-19 pandemic has had almost nothing to do with public health and almost everything to do with separating, impoverishing, and disconnecting people inclined to vote against the ruling class. As leftist judges rule, conservatives respond by appointing judges who pledge not to rule. As leftist governors establish their brand of effective sovereignty by decree, conservative ones obey court orders. So long as, and to the degree that, the illusion of legitimacy stands—so long as the Right obeys while the Left disobeys and commands—there is no end to what the Left can do because there is so little that conservatives do to fight back.

Now we look to what is in front of us. Codevilla does not leave on a happy note. I remain firmly in the camp that all this “second civil war” talk is unhelpful, unrealistic, and dangerous, but on both sides it is creeping up. I do think that unless there is a clear blowout for Biden and the (D) that they will not go quietly in to the sweet night. They’ve already signaled that. It would make FL 2000 look like a bingo parlor.

Consider the 2020 election. In July, the Democratic National Committee engaged some 600 lawyers to litigate the outcome, possibly in every state. No particular outcome of such litigations is needed to set off a systemic crisis. The existence of the litigations themselves is enough for one or more blue state governors to refuse to certify that state’s electors to the Electoral College, so as to prevent the college from recording a majority of votes for the winner. In case no winner could be confirmed by January’s Inauguration Day, the 20th Amendment provides that Congress would elect the next president. Who doubts that, were Donald Trump the apparent winner, and were Congress in Democratic hands, that this would be likelier than not to happen?

Before or afterward, were conservatives not unanimously to roll over, and were a few incidents to result in loss of life and conflict between police forces on opposite sides of the affairs, America might well experience an explosion of pent-up rage less like the American Civil War of the 19th century and more like the horror that bled Spain in the 20th.

Welcome to the official start of the 2020 political season.

A final note: don’t worry, I won’t be doing much political stuff from here on out. I just won’t. I also won’t tell you who to vote for – unlike what I did here in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 elections. I’ll just ask you to vote. 

Fullbore Friday

In a time when political violence is running at a pace not seen in generations, it is helpful to remember why well meaning people should push back hard against agitators from all sides. 

Citizens of good well should especially push back hard against irresponsible rhetoric from politicians. Unstable people are all around us, and they will take what a "leader" says and will run with it.

This week, I want to pull a FbF from just a few years ago when an unstable person decided that he needed to take out the leadership team of a political party ... and the two security personnel who rose to the challenge.

Stuff like that just happens to other people.

Just another trip.

Just another day.

I wonder when I can get another cup of coffee.

Then there is the sound of the guns, and the training kicks in.

There can only be one FbF today; two public servants who saved this nation from what could have been a massacre of political violence unseen in this nation's history.

No more words from me are needed. Their actions speak.

Capitol Police officers Crystal Griner and David Bailey are special agents on Rep. Steve Scalise’s security detail. Scalise was standing near second base in an Alexandria, Virginia park when the bullets began flying from behind the third base dugout, striking Scalise. While Scalise dragged himself to safety, Griner and Bailey lept into action. In an extended firefight, the two agents took down shooter James Hodgkinson while battling through injuries of their own. Both were taken to the hospital after the gunfight, and are recovering from their injuries, officials say.

Fullbore.

In DC, the Zombie INF Fight is Afoot

There are a few constants in the natsec environment we live in; elections have consequences, and nameless professional staffers with peculiar and questionable understandings of war have an unimaginable impact on our ability to have an effective military.

For you who were not around or interested in the Cold War, there was a very Eurocentric treaty that was/is almost a talisman to the established natsec cadres that infested the Beltway and still do - mostly interested in their personal egos, legacies, and pet fetishes. Of course, I'm talking about the INF Treaty of 1987.

The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty required the United States and the Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The treaty marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and utilize extensive on-site inspections for verification. As a result of the INF Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles by the treaty's implementation deadline of June 1, 1991.

The Soviet Union died over a quarter century ago, but to keep Russia from being too pouty, for decades we let it sit that they could pretend it was the mighty Soviet Union as we chased a Medieval death cult around the low-rent parts of the globe.

Russia, however, is Russia. So ...

The United States first alleged in its July 2014 Compliance Report that Russia is in violation of its INF Treaty obligations “not to possess, produce, or flight-test” a ground-launched cruise missile having a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers or “to possess or produce launchers of such missiles.” Subsequent State Department assessments in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 repeated these allegations. In March 2017, a top U.S. official confirmed press reports that Russia had begun deploying the noncompliant missile. Russia denies that it is in violation of the agreement and has accused the United States of being in noncompliance.

On Dec. 8, 2017, the Trump administration released an integrated strategy to counter alleged Russian violations of the Treaty, including the commencement of research and development on a conventional, road-mobile, intermediate-range missile system. On Oct. 20, 2018 President Donald Trump announced his intention to “terminate” the INF Treaty, citing Russian noncompliance and concerns about China’s intermediate-range missile arsenal. On Dec. 4, 2018 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States has found Russia in “material breach” of the treaty and will suspend its treaty obligations in 60 days if Russia does not return to compliance in that time. On Feb. 2, the Trump administration declared a suspension of U.S. obligations under the INF Treaty and formally announced its intention to withdraw from the treaty in six months. Shortly thereafter, Russian President Vladimir Putin also announced that Russia will be officially suspending its treaty obligations as well.

Well, hello everyone and welcome to the end of the second decade of the 21st Century. A lot has changed.

Russia, though a weak and tottering old bear up to mischief and still a bit dangerous, is not the Soviet Union. The threat as we move to mid-century is and will be China. China was not part of INF - again that was signed 32 years ago - so what has she been doing with what - on paper - is an incredible bit of tactical kit?

To achieve a preemptive strike against America’s military bases, China has procured a massive missile force. In fact, Beijing has the largest land-based missile arsenal in the world. According to Pentagon estimates, this includes 1,200 conventionally armed short-range ballistic missiles, two hundred to three hundred conventional medium-range ballistic missiles and an unknown number of conventional intermediate-range ballistic missiles, as well as two to three hundred ground-launched cruise missiles.

If we find ourselves at war with the rising power of China - and history shows we most likely will this century - their missile forces will be something we will have to address. By address, I mean fight. By fight, I mean destroy or be destroyed by them.

How do you eliminate them? Well, a defensive posture is not ideal, and we do not have enough ABM capability to counter that number inbound. We don't have enough TLAM either ... so what does that leave? TACAIR. Those are bodies. Expensive and hard to replace bodies.

You don't have to play too many rounds of this game to see the problem.

Let's back up a bit. What is the USA and Japan's comparative advantage over China? High technology, of course. The Chinese are very good at stealing other people's ideas and reverse engineering them - but that means as long as things advance, they are always going to be 1 to 2 generations behind the West and its auxiliaries. They also have a quality issue (more than we do) and an issue in running effective and coordinated operations.

Advanced technology and computing - and the multi-spectral targeting it enables - can translate in to incredibly accurate targeting without GPS or other external guidance. As such, in a conventional missile exchange, we just might have an edge to attrite their missile forces down before we have to commit additional forces that are harder to replace.

Outside China, there are other places high-precision conventional ballistic missiles would come in handy and would be very much in line with the American preferred way of war (ignore the foreverwars in Asia for a moment) - short, deadly, limited, and with low casualties.

Especially for punitive expeditions (Salamander's preferred approach to most affronts) - there is little not to like.

The world is not on a hair-trigger to global nuclear exchange any more, so that shouldn't be an issue either.

So, back to the point. We are out of INF. We have a modern problem that needs to be solved. One would thing that we would start to develop what China already has vast numbers of as they were never restrained by the INF - we need out own SRBM, IRBM and even MRBM forces.

No "missile gap" jokes please. 

You would think that this would be considered a serious shortfall in need of immediate action. It isn't like we have a bunch of Pershing II's waiting to be dusted off.

So, serious minds are turning-to in DC, right? 

Well, if you think that, you would be wrong. It would appear that the Majority Staff in Congress has decided that - for reasons best known to these unknown - they want our nation hobbled.

They are more in love with a dead treaty - or more likely just want to poke Trump - than they are with preparing for war.

For the details, I point you to Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) who got a sniff of what is going on and it running to the sound of gunfire.

Withdrawing from the INF Treaty is key to restoring a favorable balance of power in Asia. Yet hidden in this week’s spending bill is a provision that would strip R&D funding for conventional INF-range missiles. This is an awful idea and I’m introducing an amendment to push back. pic.twitter.com/PU3J9HXNge

— Rep. Mike Gallagher (@RepGallagher) June 11, 2019

I don't do this often, but who is your member of Congress? Have they looked in to this? Are they supporting Rep. Gallagher's efforts?

Call them and ask.

The Pirates of the Caribbean: the 200 Horses Indicator

Remember this guest post from Claude Berube last May?

In this highly-trafficked area, tourist destinations such as Aruba, Trinidad & Tobago, and Grenada are within two hundred kilometers of the Venezuelan coastline. At what point, however, would southern Caribbean piracy merit attention?

Well, like I tell everyone; if you want to know what will happen tomorrow, read CDRSalamander today.

Behold;

If your idea of a tropical paradise is based on what you've seen in tourist brochures, the coastline of south-west Trinidad will not disappoint. Golden beaches and coconut groves? Tick. Sleepy villages, full of fishermen snoozing under palm trees? Tick. A relaxed, laid-back vibe? Hmm. Actually, no.

Take a closer look in villages like Fullarton, and you'll notice a few things seem out of place. For one, why have so many of the fishermen got 200 horsepower engines on their boats, when 75 is more than enough? And why, when they go out fishing at night, do none of them put lights on any more?

When you have mouths to feed ...

The answer, as fisherman Gerry Padarath explains from his beachside hammock, is pirates.
...
He gestures out to sea, where across a stretch of mud-brown water another coastline can be seen. It's mainland Venezuela - which, at its closest point, lies just 20km (12 miles) from Trinidad.

In happier times, ferries used to bring groups of Venezuelan tourists to party in Trinidad. Today, though, as Venezuela slides further into all-out economic collapse, its impoverished coastal ports have become modern Hispaniolas - havens for buccaneers.

Socialism strikes again;

Most of the pirates are ex-fishermen, who used to make a good living catching tuna, octopus and shrimp in the Caribbean's warm waters. But under Venezuela's former president, Hugo Chavez, the fishing industry underwent a well-intentioned but disastrous nationalisation programme, prompting companies to relocate abroad.

With the added blow of hyperinflation, many of the fishermen now have no job and no way to feed their families. They do however have access to boats and to guns, which are in ready supply on Venezuela's increasingly lawless streets.

This is sad in so many ways.

How many more examples do people need that the false promises of socialism - really just a pitch to the poor in order to enable a power grab by a few - brings only poverty and strife?

Venezuela used to be the richest country in Latin America.

Bad governments run on bad theories lead to bad results.

H/t Claude Berube.

Just Vote

That is all today. If you have not already, vote.

I won't tell you who to vote for, just to vote for those who best reflect your policy views, or is the candidate of the two who is less corrupt or who leans towards individual liberty more than the other.

If you can vote but choose not to, then shut up.

Trumpism Without Trump? No. Trumpism-Light Without Hillary

Give a nod to Virginia Democrats. They had an exceptional get out the vote effort, were jazzed to get to the voting booth, and had a smart top of the ticket that jinked towards the center to bring in the big squishy middle.

Poor Ed Gillespie. Ed is a good guy and would have been a fine Governor. Why he picked 2017 to make a run? Who knows. It was a low-probability voyage of the damned the day a year ago that Trump won.

As I remain in many respects a Party unto myself – and not a Virginian – I’ve watched this race with a detached and neglected curiosity, mostly to see what kind of wreck it will be.

Between twitter and what few minutes of “the shows” I’ve been able to stomach, I’ve found the spin and hot takes to be less than convincing on both sides.

I do think there are some important lessons that both Democrats and Republicans should ponder.

1. Ed is about as establishment GOP (not that there is anything wrong with that) as you can get. He was never going to excite the Trump base to turn in numbers in the hinterlands as great as the pent-up frustrated Democrats within commuting distance of DC wanted to come out and rage-vote.

2. Ralph Northam is a good politician who offered an opportunity for the (D) to get a 1 in the “Win” column with style. He was always the favorite to win, and by shifting towards the right to even center-right in the general, he broadened his spread.

3. The pummeling the VA GOP got was well deserved and should be of no surprise. So much of it comes from the general confusion in the GOP establishment that is directly responsible for Trump being elected.

Let me take a bit to flesh-out that last bit, as it applies to the nation as a whole, and a bit to VA.

Exhibit A is Reince Priebus. He exercised even less control of the 2016 primary process than he did in his shambolic and abbreviated tour as Trump’s Chief of Staff. He allowed a huge clown car of Republicans to run and suck the oxygen out of the room, divide blocks, and created an opening for a neglected and scorned part of the GOP coalition to cleave almost in whole away from the rest the pack to Trump.

While Trump cultivated the part of the Republican Party that the establishment constantly took for granted – those who each election played Charlie Brown to the GOPe Lucy – those told to shut up and vote for the nominee given to them – the rest fed on each other.

Jeb! and his Alfrid Lickspittlesque partner Mike Murphy engaged over $100 million in a selfish personal vendetta against Marco Rubio from one side, while the unelectable Chris Christie came at him from the other. The professionals joined with the unelectable to eliminate the plausible, as the picayune egoists allowed to clutter the stage scampered about throwing glitter and smoke in the air. Ted Cruz? He was as confused as everyone else, and as he tried to position himself as best he could in the chaos, the table was already set.

As I mentioned as far back as 2015, Trump’s personality is exactly what he is; a New York City real estate developer. It isn’t a show, it just is. As the established coalition partners in the Republican Party were having slap fights over who was more entitled to what – Trump consolidated the neglected and scorned portions of the Republican Party together, welding them to him by constantly reassuring them he would not leave them.

How could a life-long Democrat, Clinton supporting, abrasive, womanizing, gun control supporting, single payer healthcare, crass Yankee get Evangelicals, gun owners, honor bound Southerners, nice Midwesterners and others to support him?

One person; Hillary Rodham Clinton. More and more people began to see that only one thing kept HRC away from the levers of power she lusted after. Sadly, that became DJT. Reince did not have the balls of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to do what needed to be done – so Trump hijacked the Republican Party.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The Republicans, on paper, have never been stronger – but there is a problem. That problem is Trump. He is toxic.

Yes, he as strong support, but 1/3 does not give you 50.1%. There are a lot of people who did not vote for DJT, but against HRC. That bolt is shot.

The HRC dragon has been slain. That motivation is no longer there. Without it, there is DJT standing in the light. He is not an attractive figure for many that voted for him simply to keep HRC away from power.

Anti-HRC enthusiasm is gone.

The standard Conservative message is good – but it needs to get out from Trump’s shadow to survive.

There is no Trumpism, there is only Trump. Some of those specific issues that gained him legitimacy; anti-sanctuary cities and respect for our history for example, are issues that the Democrats adopted to win in VA.

Trumpism is Trump. The Republican Party cannot be Trump, because when he goes, so will the Party if they are yoked to him. Trumpism is a dead end.

The Democrats know this better than the Republicans, I think – or just have an easier job. They are going to continue to push (R) towards DJT to keep his stink on them. They don’t need Trumps 33.3%. They just need some of the other 16.8%+.

What they need to do is to not just capture some of that 16.8%, they need to depress and de-motivate the Trump base before the Republicans find a way to re-motivate them in a post-Trump world.

The Democrats are in the process of cutting the last strings to the Clintons. This will open all sorts of doors to them – and will remove a not insignificant motivation for Republicans that has powered many of for decades.

The Republicans need to regain the respect of the parts of their coalition that is loyal to Trump. They don’t need to be Trump – they just need to do show some respect for all parts of their Party. They also need to realize that they need to absolutely avoid the most toxic parts of Trumpism as it will kill them.

Can they do that? I don’t know. My inner-Eeyore thinks not in time. The Republicans will pay a price for having a NYC Democrat populist at the top of their ticket. How big will the price be? We’ll see.

There is great opportunity here for those who are fighting the good fight inside the Republican Party. As Trumpism takes its course, those who were steadfast yet out of the frag pattern will be able to step in and take power in the Party. Those who left or retreated from conservative principals by joining Democrats or fan-boi Trumpism? No. They will not be seen as part of the solution. There is not much time left to re-join the fight. Come back - we need 'ya.

A final note: no one born before 1963 should run for office as a Republican ever again. Those who are closest to the Reince/Mike Murphy part of the Party should be sent to lobbyist exile.

Trumpism, NeverTrumpism, and their Discontents

I haven't done much politics here over the last year - I keep that to twitter mostly. Today, I need some more space.

Indulge me a bit.

At one time, I was all about the #nevertrump hashtag army ... then faced with Hillary, I decided to stop sniping at both sides and retire from the field.

The Never Trump attitude post-election has not changed all that much, and the Trumpist base's attitude to the GOPe hasn't either. Some call it a "Republican Civil War" - but not really. This friction has existed in a variety of forms through the years. I still remember the GOPe attitude towards President Reagan during his Presidency. It was different in many ways, but only slightly.

Over at National Review, Victor Davis Hanson has put together one of the better outlines of this divide.

He picks up the "how you got Trump" track spot on;

Trump is a symptom of widespread disgust, not the head of a carefully crafted ideological movement with a checklist of issues. What created him was furor at a smug, entrenched Republican political establishment. In a bout of virtue-signaling, this cadre had deliberately conflated opposition to illegal immigration with supposedly racist resistance to legal immigration, while damning principled conservatives as “nativist” and “xenophobes” simply for wanting existing laws enforced. It had preached free-market economics without worry for the losers of globalization, while many of its megaphones cashed in on the government-corporate-media nexus. And its prior presidents and presidential candidates had been reduced to mushy punching bags, strangely bragging about their own virtue in not responding to invective while their own supporters and defenders were left to be smeared and defamed. Worse yet, they caricatured the base voters who used to defend them while they themselves went on to defend, even if indirectly, their erstwhile critics.

Trump won no more of the voters who turned out and who identified as “conservative” than did Romney. But again, Trump apparently did get Democrats, Independents, and lapsed and previously uncounted Republicans to vote in key states in a way that Romney and McCain did not. The few Republicans that Trump lost were more than made up by others who were won over. (This raises the question of whether there was a cause-and-effect relationship between the two phenomena. But I doubt that the reason working-class voters turned out to vote for Trump was that most writers at National Review and The Weekly Standard were against him.)
...
Never Trumpers now see the Trump base as prone to demagogic frenzies on immigration and trade; too monolithically white; often-angry blame-gaming losers of globalization; naïve rather than self-critical about so-called white pathologies; and in their populism too dismissive of the importance of political experience, impressive education, and the changing demography of the U.S. The far more numerous Trump base voters sees the Never Trumpers as too self-important; predictably bicoastal careerist; too quick to judge and write off their supposed ethical inferiors; too eager to get along with liberals within their own bubble; too wedded to traditional definitions of political qualifications and success; and more worried about decorum than winning. But all that said, most Republicans were in neither camp, and just voted for their party’s nominee, explaining a 90/10 percent split among Republicans on Election Day, which is proof of party unity. Do Never Trumper hold Trumpers in contempt more than vice versa? Each side counts its hate emails and claims to be the more aggrieved party and the more victimized. Each thinks voting for or against Trump revealed a darkness not noticed before in supposedly well-known colleagues and associates. Certainly friendships have been strained and lost, and invective and accusations leveled. Much on a personal level cannot be repaired. But more unites than divides. If one side is civil and respectful to the other, the other usually reciprocates — unlike what’s going on now in the streets and campuses of the progressive, Democratic left.

...the war is mostly infighting among politicos, pundits, politicians, and media people and so far does not necessarily change the realities of the voting public. We saw that reality in 2016 when the thunderous damnation Trump received from his own party had no profound effect on his candidacy.

His final call is why I walked away from my #nevertrump friends' club a bit over a year ago;

Meanwhile, the administrative state expands, the debt is headed for $21 trillion, crass identity politics tear the nation apart, the effort to restore deterrence abroad grows ever more dangerous, and the campuses, Hollywood, the NFL, and the media are reminding us that progressive politics are now our culture’s orthodoxy, vital for success in nearly all fields. And dealing with all that is the only conservative fight that counts.

Has my opinion of Trump changed all that much since I called "Peak Trump" after the McCain insult of 2015? No, but I'm ok, and so are you.

In the end, I am content with the following; I am more than happy to apologize to others for a President Trump; I could never forgive myself for a President Hillary.

We may have been hit with a baseball bat, but we missed a load of napalm. Bruises and breaks heal just fine.