Patterico's Pontifications

1/14/2019

Trump: You Know, That Hitler Lover Had a Pretty Good Point About the Border

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:12 am



Ah, the famous Welsh poet Patrick Buchanan. I’m with Michael McKean:

Unlike Trump’s usual bizarre early-morning tweets, this pair of tweets came yesterday evening. After all, old age should burn and rave at close of day.

One thing about Patrick Buchanan: in addition to being “one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century” he is also a “Hitler lover.” Wait, who called him that nasty thing? Haven’t you already guessed?

In 1999, Trump called Buchanan a “Hitler lover” and said it was “incredible that anybody could embrace this guy.” Buchanan, who has often been accused of expressing racist and anti-Semitic views, at the time was seeking the Reform Party’s nomination for president.

“Look, he’s a Hitler lover,” Trump said on “Meet the Press” in October 1999. “I guess he’s an anti-Semite. He doesn’t like the blacks. He doesn’t like the gays. It’s just incredible that anybody could embrace this guy.”

Anyway, should we be taking a hint from Trump when he quotes a poem about impotently raging against the inevitable?

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

137 Responses to “Trump: You Know, That Hitler Lover Had a Pretty Good Point About the Border”

  1. Hey, stop knocking Trump. Because of Trump, it’s now 2019. That’s the highest year ever. A much higher year than we ever saw under Obama.

    Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71)

  2. Mr. Buchanan’s a good advocate for border security

    very articulate on the subject

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  3. Given the punctuation, I’m not fully convinced that Trump was citing Patrick Buchanan. He may have just thrown the name in there at random. And policy-wise, Trump is Buchanan, except that Trump likes Jews.

    Paul Montagu (b02105)

  4. Should old curmudgeons be forgot and never brought to mind? — Edgar Buchanan

    nk (dbc370)

  5. Ah nigel tufnel, dont dial to eleven.

    Seeing that were on our third caravan in as many months, some urgency might be considered

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  6. Numbers from the column are misleading also.

    But maybe this is a case where we’re supposed to take him seriously but not literally?

    Time123 (80b471)

  7. Hitler’s a very controverisal figure from historical times

    i started watching A Bridge Too Far last night

    i might start over so i can watch it all the way through

    it seems like they did a pretty nice job on it

    so far Hitler hasn’t really made an appearance but he’s an important figure in the background for sure cause of his role as the leader of Germany

    there’s lots of other Germans just not him so far

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  8. Yes I’ve seen it, see that was a clear failure in strategic planning as connerys character specifically points out. Market garden was a legendary fustercluck.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  9. *controversial* figure i mean

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  10. The problem with Hitler is there wasnt a full rearmament campaign until after he swallowed up countries and provinces, that would have ended the depression faster as well.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  11. I liked how they portrayed the British as almost heterosexual.

    nk (dbc370)

  12. Well creative license, could they do a movie like that today, I dont think so,

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  13. Is there an irony in your statement?

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  14. The problem was the America first movement was part of the Republican coalition that wasnt in power, but the communist were in the democratic party, yet thanks to molotov pact rhet were as silent as basenghis

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  15. No. In particular, I have in mind the young intelligence analyst who tries to warn the general and is called a nutjob, and the same general who, having called the analyst a nutjob, ends the movie with the fruity “I always said it was a bridge too far”.

    nk (dbc370)

  16. I’m sure the first was not a sexual reference, when you’re going to attack a target you need an accessible entry and egress when you’re not going to get slaughtered.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  17. So this was a haberman paint by numbers exercise, leaving out all context.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  18. I know the actual history. The intelligence failure, that the analyst tried to warn the British about was an underestimate of the German forces. Specifically, that II SS Panzer Corps — comprising the remains of 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions — had moved into the area north of Arnhem to refit and reorganize after Normandy, under the command of Maximillian Schell (actor in movie). That made the difference.

    nk (dbc370)

  19. Much like the tet offensive that Sam Adams tried to warn Westmoreland about (that was the subject of the libel suit)

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  20. pretty sure Ryan O’Neal’s character’s gay

    jury’s still out on the Sean Connery one

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  21. Both arguments hold out:
    https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/market-garden

    This was five years in, no need to underestimate the enemy.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  22. That was still down the river from the German border, they were lucky they didnt have a fickle populace as would happen 20 years later.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  23. ***SPOILER ALERT***

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  24. Nah, that was just Ryan O’Neal. Jumping Jim Gavin liked women enough to stay married to one for 42 years, until his death, and have five kids with her, and was a very remarkable guy in other respects too.

    nk (dbc370)

  25. oh.

    i had to google the one called J.O.E.

    i didn’t get that at all

    i guess all these people were famous at one time

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  26. J.O.E. ended up living out his days at like Downton Abbey or whatever

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  27. Buchanan is a brilliant guy. Maybe too wonky and edgy to ever be President, and too nice. Used to catch him on the McLaughlin group quite often. Stopped watching after the eponymous host died: I wonder if Buchanan is still on there?

    JRH (fe281f)

  28. As they say, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

    Ingot9455 (985c4f)

  29. plus Michael McKean’s lying through his dirty liar teeth about “treasuring” his Pat Buchanan book

    here’s Mr. Buchanan’s bibliography and guess what

    he never even wrote a book of poetry

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  30. Halberstam who couldn’t find his keester without a flashlight tried to dragoon general gavin into his Vietnam critique 10 years earlier.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  31. He’s liable to have said just about anything in the course of his 70+ years. Example #174

    I enjoy McKean’s acting, but would place more value in the political opinions of our gardener, our plumber or the trusted mechanic who works on our cars. IOW, real people…

    Colonel Haiku (f8bfb8)

  32. #4… ha! Petticoat Junction?

    Colonel Haiku (f8bfb8)

  33. “Anyway, should we be taking a hint from Trump when he quotes a poem about impotently raging against the inevitable?”

    Are the votes in? Where can I click and cast my vote?

    Colonel Haiku (f8bfb8)

  34. Best soundbite from A Bridge Too Far:

    James Caan (Macho American Sergeant): “Where’s the Lieutenant?”

    Sobbing Private: “He’s Dead!”

    James Caan (annoyed): “I didn’t ask ya how he was, I asked ya where he was.”

    Gene Hackman, as the only (Allied) general in the entire film who knows WTF he’s doing, steals the picture though.

    We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog post, to which I reply:

    Orange man bad.

    Dave (1bb933)

  35. Connery was a general too, hence the argument.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  36. I always like Edgar better than Pat.

    Pat Buchanan was an albatross around the neck of the Republican Party.

    nk (dbc370)

  37. And I don’t know about “Hitler lover”, but it was revealed, in the middle of his “Buy American” crusade, that he drove a Mercedes.

    nk (dbc370)

  38. And I don’t know about “Hitler lover”, but it was revealed, in the middle of his “Buy American” crusade, that he drove a Mercedes.

    Well there you go – so did Hitler!

    Dave (1bb933)

  39. Donald Trump was spot on about Pat Buchanan, even to the point of noting that Pat Buchanan was more a Hitler lover than he was an anti-semite, in 1999. (Well he was trying to be accurate.)

    Of course, Trump is going to now support Pat Buchanan, and he didn’t then, because he had a different position about immigration then.

    Now maybe his citing Pat Buchanan, and the fact he has to tell lies about illegal immigration to make his case, should tell you something about the validity, and yes morality, of his argument.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  40. BTW, Trump was right about Buchanan’s coziness with Hitler, which makes his current adulation for the guy seem a little more than hypocritical. Buchanan was sacked by MSNBC after he came out with an article basically said that Hitler really didn’t want war and that the Poles had it coming.

    Paul Montagu (6b2ce7)

  41. 28. JRH (fe281f) — 1/14/2019 @ 9:29 am

    Used to catch him on the McLaughlin group quite often. Stopped watching after the eponymous host died: I wonder if Buchanan is still on there?

    When the host died, the show ended. I think they has maybe one show without John McLaughlin while he was sick but still alive.

    I think someody wanted to bring it back under a different name.

    I used Google and I see they did:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_McLaughlin_Group

    The program was revived on January 7, 2018 with Tom Rogan as the host,[1] on one station, WJLA-TV, in Washington, D.C., on Sundays at noon, as well as online.[2] Sinclair Broadcasting, which airs the show, hopes to syndicate the show in the 2018-19 season, most likely in a news block also featuring Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson. Despite McLaughlin’s death, the revival retains his name in the show’s title.

    I see that according to https://www.mclaughlin.com/where-to-watch it is still on only locally on Wsshington, D.C. at 12 noon Sundays on WJLA (Channel 7 ABC affiliate) and is also viewable online, but that website is maybe not kept updated. People are cutting the cord – television viewing hit its peak in the 2009/2010 season.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/when-did-tv-watching-peak/561464

    It took expensive cable and availability of most shows by streaming, to do it.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  42. nk (dbc370) — 1/14/2019 @ 10:45 am

    39.And I don’t know about “Hitler lover”, but it was revealed, in the middle of his “Buy American” crusade, that he drove a Mercedes.

    Pat Buchanan was close to followers of Ukrainian allies of the Nazis, and besides, had a general taste for cruelty and sadism, whcih seeped through everywhere.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  43. 44)You mean like the ones in the current Ukrainian govt, under the swoboda banner, sammeh

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  44. Just read the offending Buchanan piece on Danzig, in which he suggests that perhaps Hitler didn’t want world domination.

    Question: Why *did* Hitler let the Brits go at Dunkirk? Because he wanted them as allies and because they were genetic kin, I guess. My pet theory has always been: because he liked playing at war and didn’t want it to be over. I think he was surprised to be as successful as he was and wanted to keep playing. Big mistake, whatever the reason. (feel free to laugh at me, y’all know military history way better than I).

    JRH (fe281f)

  45. Well he wanted to conquer by force only necessarily hence the molotov pact, but he clearly wanted to conquer the east.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  46. Yeah but a final and decisive blow in the West could have freed him up to focus on the East maybe.

    JRH (fe281f)

  47. His virulent jew and slavic hatred doomed thankfully, he made the Manhattan project possible with the former, and conquest of Russia impossible with the latter.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  48. Herr stark (who wasn’t an untalented physicist, insisted on aryan science hence the best and the brightest were left out of the program.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  49. Dave (1bb933) — 1/14/2019 @ 10:49 am

    In Joplin’s immortal words,
    “Oh Lord, wontcha buy me a …”

    Tillman (61f3c8)

  50. Re: Pat Buchanan and poetry:

    “Americans will not go gentle into that good night” may well be a genuine quotation from Patrick Buchanan, * but if so, as people do, Pat Buchanan was slightly adapting something somebody else said.

    “Do not go gentle into that good night”, along with “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” are key phrases of a poem by Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) and mostly refers to not dying quietly.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  51. 48. Hitler needed to conquer the east if he was to get on with the business of killing the Jews. It would be futile for him to kill only the Jews in territory he occupied before June 22, 1941.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  52. Trump is a little like Tom Buchanan, interesting in the latest version of the great Gatsby the novel is presented as a diary type exercise for carraway to deal with his issues. Maguire being perhaps the worst carraway yet.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  53. 53… she bought the farm instead.

    Colonel Haiku (f8bfb8)

  54. A little before the events of market garden you have the ardennes, and you see how Hollywood paved over one character hessler played by Robert shaw, who is clearly based on skorzeny which is problematic for a number of reasons

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  55. 54. “Americans will not go gentle into that good night”

    * In fact it is in Pat Buchanan’s Thursday, January 10, 2019 column blog post, posted online at 9:20 pm that day.

    You can see it here, in the 14th of 29 paragraphs:

    https://buchanan.org/blog/memo-to-trump-declare-an-emergency-135677

    Pat Buchanan gave so little thought to what he was saying in his screed that he accused the Democratic Party of wanting to increase the number of women!

    The only way to greater “diversity,” the golden calf of the Democratic Party, is to increase the number of women, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, and thereby reduce the number of white men.

    First of all, it’s not “number of white men” but “proportion of white men” or “relative number of white men” Second I don’t think Pat Buchanan is talking about opposition to female infanticide. You might want to accuse Pat Buchanan of that since he sometimes likes war and wants only men to fight.

    Pat Buchanan was accusing the Democratic Party of wanting to increase the number of their voters in the American population so that’s why he threw in women. Of course, some of these populations tend to be anti-Republican only because Republicans have declared war on them.

    And if you oppose abortion, then you want to increase the number of African Americans, and vice versa, although Pat Buchanan could say he’s talking about Haitians and people from Africa – and indeed Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are sensitive to the accusations, coming from black politicians in Congress, that they might reduce the proportion of blacks in the American population if they enacted certain changes in immigration law, so they sort of have to be sure that doesn’t happen.

    Buchanan wanted Trump to declare an emergency to, not only start building a wall, but also, it seems, (it’s not clear) fund the government, which, by any stretch of the imagination, Trump he can’t do, because he can’t spend more total money than what was appropriated.

    Trump has decided against declaring any kind of an emergency because he wants more from Congress than merely an apprpriation, as people would discover if they offered to include that ina continuing resolution, and because there would be an injunction aaginst it so he wouldn’t get to start a wall for close to a year at least.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  56. One he was on the run nearly 20 years later training everyone from the PLO to Nasser’s missile force 2) he was a mossad asset

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  57. Yeah, if we could just push this guy out the door about now, that’d be great:

    Agent Orange Chaos: “They’ve got nothing.”

    “(The 192 criminal counts, 36 people and entities charged, seven people who have pleaded guilty, the four people sentenced to prison and the one person convicted at trial as a result of the Mueller probe make clear, of course, that Trump is wrong.)”
    https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/14/politics/trump-russia-mueller/index.html

    Tillman (61f3c8)

  58. How’d that ‘Atlantic Wall’ work out, Captain, sir? Still, Hitler had a ‘pretty good point’ about borders, too: cross them.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  59. 44. 46. Narciso (40ef5a) — 1/14/2019 @ 11:09 am

    44)You mean like the ones in the current Ukrainian govt, under the swoboda banner, sammeh

    Pat Buchanan is against the Ukrainian government, and he seems to have no criticism of the Svboda Party, or thinks other people don’t – in 2014 he’s citing them as the leaders of the Maiden Revolution.

    Pat Buchanan is explicitly against any consideration of morality in foreign policy, and critizies Reagan for it. He seems to praise Jimmy Carter for removing the moral dimension by saying “We have gotten over our inordinate fear of communism.” and critized Ronald Reagan for calling the soviet Union an “evil empire.”

    He’s against – or so he says – seeing deep moral dimensions is foreign policy, but actually, he’s in favor of whatever he sees as more evil.

    Here he is in 2014 about Ukraine vs Russia:

    https://buchanan.org/blog/neds-chickens-come-home-roost-6360

    Compared to the Jacksonian, James Polk, Vladimir Putin is Pierre Trudeau. [Pat Buchanan mentions James K Polk because he tends to be ranked high about American historians. Abraham Lincoln, for one, didn’t think he was a good guy.]

    Even in Eastern Ukraine, it is hard to see a moral issue.

    For the Kiev regime is loudly denouncing as “terrorists” the Russians who are taking over city centers by using the exact same tactics the Maidan Square demonstrators used to seize Kiev.

    If it was heroic for the Svoboda Party and Pravy Sektor to fight police and torch buildings to oust Viktor Yanukovych, the elected president of Ukraine, upon what ground do the usurpers who inherited his power bewail the same thing being done to them?

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  60. I think they got the wrong 8 track tape then, he was against Carter and for Reagan at that time, I imagine that Putin’s cultural conservatism re the eus diversity ethos has a lit to his perspective

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  61. The more I read of Buchanan today the more I regret calling him “Brilliant.” Maybe “once-brilliant” would have been better. Noting that Breitbart’s got a story on the decline of the white birth rate, I sense a theme. The comments are. About what you’d expect. Very ugly.

    JRH (fe281f)

  62. He was then driven by a strong anti communist sentiment with cultural conservatism, after the cold war he was more pronounced in the latter front and less against free trade issues somewhat more sympathetic to the arabs

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  63. A little before the events of market garden you have the ardennes

    The Ardennes (aka the Battle of the Bulge) started three months after Market-Garden.

    Dave (1bb933)

  64. I remember conservatives denouncing buchanan for opposing iraq war and supporting phil donahue when phil was fired by msnbc for also opposing iraq war.

    lany (637bee)

  65. A fair point, just goes to show about the learning curve.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  66. JRH @47: Napoleon was more like someone who was interested in playing at war. Hitler wanted to rule the world. But because he was also a health crank, he thought he had to accomplish it all before the age of 56 (when Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, surrendered power, delcaring he was too old.)

    Most other dictators with ambitions of conquest keep on pushing things off because they always think they have more time, and when their health and vigor declines, it drops suddenly, so they get caught by surprise. Also they have family. Churchill always thought hereditary monarchies were better than dictatorships.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  67. 64. Pat Buchanan was against Carter and for reagan at the time, but now (or in 20124) he was praising Carter for taking the issue of morality out of the matter of dealing with the Soviet Union, and criticizing Reagan for putting it back in.

    (Carter did support the idea of “human rights” but that was only because it wssd what was making Daniel Patrick Moynihan popular because of what he was saying while ambassador to the United NAtions – and eventually a United States Senator. But Carter was always pretending, as I knew.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  68. Pat Buchanan opposed the Iraq war because it was largely a crusade against evil. Well, there was the matter of the national security threat, but it wasn’t much, so long as sanctions remained. Which wsas indeed a question. If they would persist. W revived the sanctions, but they would have been at risk of going away again.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  69. As I interpret things at this point, Hitler had three prime goals in life: Create monuments that outlasted him, rule the world, and kill the Jews (because Jews, of whatever flavor, were the source of the idea of right and wrong – the idea of a conscience – particularly the idea that killing people was wrong – and would bring it back after his death if left alive, and then people would smash his monuments, and he’d be despised like the first emperor of China.)

    Or maybe worse than the first emperor of China since there were no Jews in China at that time.

    Maybe he was particularly worried about how Jews would affect his legacy.

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  70. Market garden was a legendary fustercluck.”

    Even if the plan had succeeded they were still screwed until they cleared the approaches to Antwerp.

    Things like delaying the Canadian army from moving fast to secure the approaches and over a thousand British trucks with defective pistons stalled the job and ended up costing thousands of lives.

    harkin (e6b10c)

  71. In the cold war, Buchanan would side with the lun nationalists who were influential in rfe/el. Even African nationalists like tsombe.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  72. He wanted to kill Jews because of this nordic hangup he wasnt too keen on Christians either muslims would ultimately be on the chopping bloc.

    Narciso (40ef5a)

  73. everybody was so serious in ww2 times

    serious and sometimes kinda crabby too

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  74. It’s been a while since I visited this site. I see that some things haven’t changed. Our host doesn’t like Donald Trump. Okay. It will be another while until I visit again. Opinions are like noses, and we all have one.

    Skeptical Voter (9d65cd)

  75. The more I read of Buchanan today the more I regret calling him “Brilliant.”

    He had his moments. I remember when he called the Chinese communist leadership a bunch of “80-year old chain-smoking communist dwarves.” But it doesn’t take away that he’s an anti-Semite who was a little too cozy to Hitler. The sad part is that his political philosophy is present-day Trumpism.

    Paul Montagu (ed054d)

  76. Buchanan, was the only one in that cycle, who was concerned with the loss of blue collar jobs, I supposed Gephardt had been like that in 88

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/asylum-seekers-rampage-through-german-town-injuring-12/

    narciso (d1f714)

  77. Buchanan, was the only one in that cycle, who was concerned with the loss of blue collar jobs…

    Only if you define “concerned with the loss of blue collar jobs” as being for tariffs and against free-trade agreements.

    Paul Montagu (ed054d)

  78. blue collar jobs are responsible for too many carbon dioxides so buttboy obama did his best to eliminate as many as possible

    this is just how ivy league fascists roll anymore

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  79. David Cameron had nearly that keen an understanding

    Narciso (264203)

  80. It is interesting how today’s rhetoric from the Trump side on tariffs and free-trade agreements sounds exactly the rhetoric coming from the AFL-CIO. It is a new and strange world.

    Paul Montagu (ed054d)

  81. Mhitt Rhomney, a dirty u-tosser who grew up in a viciously racist and homophobic church that disallowed the ordaining of black people, is calling on Steve King to resign

    he thinks he’s the pope all a sudden!

    no sweetie you’re just dirty cowardly senate trash like John McCain before you

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  82. Trump is a demented clown. Impeach the mother______!

    nk (dbc370)

  83. Romney is like that big trouble in little China sequel, an answer to a question no one was asking

    Narciso (264203)

  84. There was a Big Trouble In Little China sequel? Nobody tells me anything!

    nk (dbc370)

  85. It’s in development,

    Narciso (264203)

  86. There was continuation in comic books including crossover with Escape From New York. I may have read all of them.

    You know how the movie ends with the orangutan monster-demon crawling on Jack’s truck as he’s driving through the night? Well, it’s because he thinks that Jack is his new master since he killed the wizard who summoned him. Jack dresses him up in a trucker cap and a t-shirt that says “BUY ME A DRINK AND I’LL TELL YOU I’M EIGHTEEN”.

    nk (dbc370)

  87. There were some Hope’s with Prometheus, which aere blown to bits with covenant

    Narciso (264203)

  88. “It’s just incredible that anybody could embrace this guy”

    Well most of Germany didn’t initially, but after Germany’s policy of letting Communists run wild in the streets, Weimar run wild in the sex trade, and bankers run wild on the currency, people were rather inclined to favor the guy with the extreme solutions.

    I mean it might have been better for Germany if the canny lawyers and politicians of the time to allow Paul von Hindenburg to enact a populist policy of deporting the obvious foreign agitators, reining in the obvious guilty speculators and insider traders, and obvious Weimar sex tradesmen rather than waiting and triangulating until most Germans were angry and whipped up enough to embrace a ‘kill all Jews and foreigners’ philosophy, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the past two years, it’s that nobody ever learns anything when it’s their own rents on the line until it’s far too late.

    Father Jerry (564b11)

  89. the people what do riddick bring more creativity to the table than Ridley Scott anymore

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  90. I can’t wait to watch this Big Trouble sequel. I hope it’s terrible!

    Dustin (6d7686)

  91. “Buchanan, was the only one in that cycle, who was concerned with the loss of blue collar jobs, I supposed Gephardt had been like that in 88”

    Yes, perhaps Gephardt was like that. But then the man lost his eyebrows in a tragic mishap…

    https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/richard-gephardt-former-us-presidental-candidate-and-majority-leader-picture-id115381641?s=612×612

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  92. Yes they were both John carpenter projects, he had clear sympathies for the terrorists in the first, and he wanted the second to be a western

    Narciso (264203)

  93. China is here, Mr. Dustin.

    nk (dbc370)

  94. Carpenter admitted this as part of an interview series on el rey.

    Narciso (264203)

  95. Speaking of Hitler, when Brazilian president recognized a legislator as the Venezuelan president, Maduro reacted to Bolsonaro by saying, “Bolsonaro is a Hitler of the modern era!” The flippant answer for Bolsonaro would be, “Yes, I am a Hitler of the moderan era, every bit as much as Maduro is the legitimate president of Venezuela.”

    Paul Montagu (ed054d)

  96. Trump can’t remember what he said or did yesterday. Remembering poets who someone told him about in college isn’t even fair. But, you know, maybe Buchanan paraphrased Thomas at some point, and that’s my story and I’m sticking with it. If you don’t like it I have others.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  97. Only if you define “concerned with the loss of blue collar jobs” as being for tariffs and against free-trade agreements.

    That’s pretty much how Gephart defined it. How would you do it? We’ll provide subsidized blue collar job simulators?

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  98. Only if you define “concerned with the loss of blue collar jobs” as being for tariffs and against free-trade agreements.

    I so wish there was a way to have immigrants and overseas job shops drive down the price of lawyering to $17/hour so that the really important people would see the problem that has pretty much destroyed US-born blue collar workers over the last few decades. If you don’t understand this, you really have no business speaking about economics.

    Circa 1970, about half of my high school cohort took classes like wood shop and auto shop and other trade-oriented courses. They really weren’t cut out for college and academic pursuits. They graduated high school and went off into pluming or mechanics or construction or similar traditional jobs for the high-school grad.

    Somewhere along the way, at least in SoCal where I lived until recently, each and every one of them was replaced by someone willing to work for less than half the pay and no benefits. Usually someone who only spoke Spanish. Now, particularly in construction, Spanish is the language used on the job. If you don’t speak Spanish, you are pretty much unemployable.

    Lately, this requirement has moved into retail, phone centers and virtually all jobs that contact the public. Considering that California is approaching 50% Hispanic, someone who doesn’t speak Spanish is at as severe a disadvantage as someone who knows no English.

    “Trump” is only the latest unintended consequence of a badly-thought out policy. The continued failure to address these issues will probably lead to something worse.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  99. If only Bush had wasted more time quoting “Hitler lovers” instead of signing MS-13 loving laws.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/13/unaccompanied-child-immigration-loophole-releases-/

    Munroe (b04614)

  100. *plumbing

    BTW, today, the people who cannot follow the academic route have no other options — all those shop classes are long gone many places and it’s all “college or bust.”

    So they drop out, as high school is now meaningless to them.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  101. Circa 1970, about half of my high school cohort took classes like wood shop and auto shop and other trade-oriented courses. They really weren’t cut out for college and academic pursuits. They graduated high school and went off into pluming or mechanics or construction or similar traditional jobs for the high-school grad.

    But I seem to remember that being a reflection of a trend that pushed everyone to attend college and join the middle class even if they weren’t fit for acadamics. The age ofbthe community college, the Pell grant, etc.

    Kishnevi (dce4ce)

  102. BTW, today, the people who cannot follow the academic route have no other options — all those shop classes are long gone many places and it’s all “college or bust.”

    Not quite. They finish 12th grade or get a GED, then attend vo-tech, technical school, or similar. My local community college with a flourishing avionics program for pilots, flight traffic controllers, and (most germane) aviation maintenance. The vocational training is delayed but not entirely lost.
    Another negative is that it is now often privatized and a heavy channel of student debt.

    Kishnevi (dce4ce)

  103. Kevin, what happens to a businessman who tries to sell the same product at more than double the price of his competition?

    Dave (1bb933)

  104. Whatever Trump said about Buchanan 20 years ago doesn’t mean a thing in the situation we are in now. Not a thing.

    DN (ebc982)

  105. “Kevin, what happens to a businessman who tries to sell the same product at more than double the price of his competition?”
    Dave (1bb933) — 1/14/2019 @ 7:56 pm

    He gets the government to sanction licensing or accreditation requirements and quadruples the price.

    Munroe (c2d58b)

  106. what happens to a businessman who tries to sell the same product at more than double the price of his competition?

    He becomes very rich and his competition goes out of business?

    nk (dbc370)

  107. Or maybe we can ask Nike and Michael Jordan for their opinions? Half-baked economic theory is like half-baked clay. It doesn’t hold water.

    nk (dbc370)

  108. Is that the way Rockefeller operated or Sam Walmart, no they undercut their competitors, putting them out of business.

    Narciso (264203)

  109. Kevin, what happens to a businessman who tries to sell the same product at more than double the price of his competition?

    Well, usually the government isn’t importing his competition as it is with foreign workers (even if the immigration is illegal, it’s official policy to allow it).

    This is particularly bad when it is short-term foreign workers and the Americans, with American costs, have to compete against a bare-bones tag-team, each individual working in short-term conditions for unsustainable wages that only make sense in terms of Bangalore real-estate.

    It’s more like the guy selling brand-name merchandise in store trying to compete with a series of people selling knock-offs out of a truck.

    In both cases you are driven out of business, and it pisses you off. Pissed-off people vote for people like Trump. Or Bernie. Or Kamala Harris. What do they have to lose?

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  110. He gets the government to sanction licensing or accreditation requirements and quadruples the price.

    Pretty much what lawyers do, and wait, who writes those laws?

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  111. Is that the way Rockefeller operated or Sam Walmart, no they undercut their competitors, putting them out of business.

    I like Walmart. I have no problems with Walmart. But they are long-term players and they aren’t living off of externalities. Oh, yeah, they buy a lot of stuff from China, but so do all their competitors. Super-full-price companies like Apple do too. Which they didn’t, but this isn’t, itself, an area where Walmart is “cheating.” They get lower prices through efficiency, through scale and through being frugal. The one thing they are attacked on (worker pay) is pretty silly since they pay as well as similar employers with unions.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  112. *WISH they didn’t

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  113. Voc-ed programs went out in the 90s and early 2000s (mostly because whether or not a school was good was decided on the % of the senior class that went on to a 4 yr university), but the current trend is to bring them back into high schools.

    Nic (896fdf)

  114. That’s pretty much how Gephart defined it. How would you do it?

    I would recognize that the US had been long moving from a manufacturing economy to a tech economy and make policy decisions on that basis instead of Gephardt’s save-the-dinosaurs approach. His prescriptions then, and Trump’s today, may artificially help one segment for a finite period, but everybody else pays a higher price, both in tariffs and in not expanding free markets. This subject is so 28 years ago.

    Paul Montagu (d94790)

  115. Well, usually the government isn’t importing his competition as it is with foreign workers (even if the immigration is illegal, it’s official policy to allow it).

    The government allows Hondas and Kawasakis and Toshiba TVs and Sony Walkmen into the country too. Much more freely than illegal immigrants.

    This is particularly bad when it is short-term foreign workers and the Americans, with American costs, have to compete against a bare-bones tag-team, each individual working in short-term conditions for unsustainable wages that only make sense in terms of Bangalore real-estate.

    Menial labor is something people from anywhere in the world can do about equally well. Most of the world therefore has a huge comparative advantage over us in it.

    It’s more like the guy selling brand-name merchandise in store trying to compete with a series of people selling knock-offs out of a truck.

    If there were a difference in quality commensurate with the wages demanded, people would pay them. Unfortunately there isn’t.

    How many Asians have come to this country with little more than the rags on their backs in the last half century, and made it into the middle-class within a generation? They didn’t need overpaid construction jobs, did they?

    In both cases you are driven out of business, and it pisses you off. Pissed-off people vote for people like Trump. Or Bernie. Or Kamala Harris.

    Perhaps. Bright, industrious people will find a way to adapt and get ahead though.

    Since when does the government owe everyone who graduates high school a job? The government should create an environment where people can learn employable skills, businesses can thrive and wealth can be created to employ people. Success is not guaranteed and never has been. In the early days of the country, you had to trudge halfway across the continent on foot and build a farm or mill or mine with your bare hands to get ahead. Today it’s much easier, but it’s still ultimately up to the individual, not the state.

    What do they have to lose?

    The highest standard of living in the history of the world?

    Dave (1bb933)

  116. “Menial labor is something people from anywhere in the world can do about equally well.”
    Dave (1bb933) — 1/14/2019 @ 9:40 pm

    Only menial labor? You mean there aren’t at least a million engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors in, say, India who couldn’t compete with Americans? What prevents them from doing so? Just a quality difference? Is this the prevailing view from the world of theory?

    Munroe (46fb40)

  117. Only menial labor? You mean there aren’t at least a million engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors in, say, India who couldn’t compete with Americans?

    India, sure. I said anywhere in the world.

    What prevents them from doing so?

    Nothing. They do compete with us.

    Dave (1bb933)

  118. https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/14/smoke-out-resistance/

    Signed, David Dennison. Or maybe John Barron.

    Paul Montagu (d94790)

  119. I would recognize that the US had been long moving from a manufacturing economy to a tech economy and make policy decisions on that basis instead of Gephardt’s save-the-dinosaurs approach.

    There are plenty of non-technical roles in any society. We used to fill them with those of our citizens who were not suited for the cutting-edge jobs. Not everyone went to college (and they still don’t). Only thing now is that we IMPORT their competition, devalue them and wonder why they don’t vote for the things WE feel are important.

    Charles Bell had it dead-nuts. We are no longer a society, or a nation. We are a land of self-centered fools. Our leaders see nothing wrong with betraying us to make a faster buck overseas. Our best companies are so outwardly focused that they forget the foundation under their feet.

    And when it breaks, when those folks they marginalize rise up and find a champion, they do their level best to crush that, too. Forgetting that the fire next time might be worse.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  120. The unemployed can always be put to work building re-education camps for free traders.

    lany (9488dd)

  121. And when it breaks, when those folks they marginalize rise up and find a champion, they do their level best to crush that, too. Forgetting that the fire next time might be worse.

    Once we’ve driven out the Latinos willing to do menial labor for minimum wage or less, do we outlaw robots next?

    Dave (1bb933)

  122. Also, unemployment is near the structural minimum, and has been for a couple years.

    Labor force participation has stabilized in the last five years and is about the same now as it was in the late-70s (there are proportionately many more women and fewer men now, though). The recession, Obamacare and retirement of baby-boomers have depressed it to some extent, but it is still only a couple percent below the post-WWII maximum.

    Where, exactly, are these armies of destitute, out of work blue collar victims of globalism that we are supposed to impose protectionism on behalf of?

    Dave (1bb933)

  123. Labor force participation (63.2%) is currently 4% below the post-war peak (67.2% in the late 1990’s), not “a couple percent”. I was eyeballing a small graph.

    Dave (1bb933)

  124. labor force wage increases has always been the turd in the punch bowl. American construction workers wages have been stagnant due to so many illegals coming across the border and working for much less. Now we can read Dave and his rebuttal.

    mg (8cbc69)

  125. Charles Bell had it dead-nuts. We are no longer a society, or a nation. We are a land of self-centered fools. Our leaders see nothing wrong with betraying us to make a faster buck overseas.

    I don’t know who Charles Bell is, but I categorically reject the notion that it is “self-centered” or a betrayal of this country to oppose tariffs and favor trade agreements. Categorically. Tariffs are hardly different from an “industrial policy”, which Democrats clamored for in the 1980s and 1990s. Or, in other words, politicians wanted to play favorites with corporations and industries by giving them subsidies and tax incentives. I’m pretty sure that Trump supporters didn’t like it when Obama played favorites with companies engaged in renewal energy, and all it does is play into the pigs-in-the-trough mentality with the Peoples’ money.
    And economically, there is no evidence that tariffs are beneficial. They favor the targeted industry or company, and raise the costs of doing business for everybody else. Try to find a heralded economist in favor of the practice.
    Similarly, with free-trade agreements, depending on how much protectionism is baked into them. It’s not a coincidence that the countries with the most economic freedom are among the most prosperous.

    Paul Montagu (8fd371)

  126. Trump should just declare that the wall is built and that Mexico paid in cash. 99% of his followers will believe it. He can claim victory, and if the media disputes it, he can just claim that the damn dirty slicked up butt boy Lugenpresse fake news is spreading devilish lies. Everyone wins!

    JRH (fe281f)

  127. i like how you think

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  128. “I’m pretty sure that Trump supporters didn’t like it when Obama played favorites with companies engaged in renewal energy”

    (because there was no previous demonstrable need or capacity for the renewable energy boondoggles and most were literally just there to look good instead of turn a profit, and unlike with the steel and auto industries, there was no effective follow-up on what they did with the money.)

    “all it does is play into the pigs-in-the-trough mentality with the Peoples’ money.”

    Getting a lot of The People’s Money by selling off The People’s Manufacturing Capacity was the Russian policy that gave them PUTIN, and assuming/hoping that everybody we buy our materials from will totally stay friends with us for life is also not a policy.

    “economically, there is no evidence that tariffs are beneficial.”

    To whom specifically?

    “They favor the targeted industry or company, and raise the costs of doing business for everybody else.”

    Everybody else who isn’t America. Those with international holdings and interests (most economists) may feel the bite of people taking grown-up responsibility for their own country.

    Father Jerry (d01c24)

  129. 133. JRH (fe281f) — 1/15/2019 @ 8:01 am

    Trump should just declare that the wall is built and that Mexico paid in cash.

    Well, Obama said in 2011 it was built:

    https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/16/barack-obama/obama-says-border-fence-now-basically-complete/

    “The (border) fence is now basically complete.”

    — Barack Obama on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 in a speech in El Paso

    …In his speech in El Paso on immigration reform on May 10, 2011, President Obama declared that the fence along the border with Mexico is “now basically complete.”

    Still, he predicted that many Republican opponents won’t be satisfied…

    …But the same day as Obama’s speech, Sen. Jim DeMint penned an op-ed for National Review in which he countered that the Obama administration has “not done its job to finish the border fence that is a critical part of keeping Americans safe and stopping illegal immigration.”

    “Five years ago, legislation was passed to build a 700-mile double-layer border fence along the southwest border,” DeMint wrote. “This is a promise that has not been kept. Today, according to staff at the Department of Homeland Security, just 5 percent of the double-layer fencing is complete, only 36.3 miles.”

    So what gives? Is the border fence “now basically complete” or not?

    Not to go all Clinton on you, but it largely depends on how you define “fence.” …

    Sammy Finkelman (102c75)

  130. @132, 133, 134

    Probably the best three consecutive posts I can remember.

    Dave (1bb933)


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