Tag Archive for: American nationalism

Imagining Donald Trump’s Future for America

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Anyone who thinks Trump’s victory is inevitable in 2020 is not paying attention. The entire weight of America’s profiteering elites are arrayed against him. But what if he wins anyway? What if enough voters realize they’re being conned by the Democrats? What if enough voters decide they don’t want to feel like unwanted usurpers in their own nation? What if voters of all ethnicities and genders realize that despite the unrelenting avalanche of lies coming from the Left, America is a welcoming and inclusive nation, and that the only way a society can stay healthy is by rewarding personal initiative?

What if a critical mass of independent voters conclude that, despite his pugnacity, President Trump cares about all Americans, and actually holds moderate, compassionate, common sense positions? If these things happen, and they very well might, not only will President Trump get reelected, but control of the House of Representatives will pass back over the GOP. And if these sentiments sweep across the land, then politicians of both parties will realize it is time to stop fighting and get back to serving the American people.

The first thing to understand is that Trump’s policies have a coherence that is denied by the Left and not sufficiently acknowledged by the Right. They rest on the premise that if America prioritizes its own economic and social welfare, that not only benefits the American people, but it makes America more capable of influencing events around the world.

In the process of prioritizing America’s interests, Trump’s policies demolish two pieties currently deployed by the Left to sabotage virtually everything that might advance those interests. Those are identity politics and climate change alarmism. In both cases, Trump has reopened vigorous debate as to the legitimacy of these pieties. Identity politics, at the core, has a corrosive impact on character, by providing excuses for personal failure. Climate alarm, at its core, hands the instruments of progress and wealth creation over to a clerisy of self serving profiteers and misguided fanatics.

So how might we envision the next few decades in an America shaped by the vision and courage pioneered in this century by Donald Trump?

Trump’s 2020 Reelection Ushered in a Long Boom of Economic Growth

When Trump took office for another four years, presiding over a GOP controlled congress, sweeping, transformative legislation was passed, often with significant support from Democrats.

  • Massive public/private infrastructure partnerships were funded, not only rebuilding America’s interstates and railroads, but also investing in revolutionary 21st century infrastructure such as desalination plants, state-of-the-art nuclear power stations, and underground transportation conduits for cars to bypass congested city streets.
  • Federal energy subsidies of all types were ended, with much of the savings plowed into basic research into, for example, fusion power, electricity storage, and space transportation technologies.
  • America’s military was disengaged from tactical conflicts around the world at the same time as spending was significantly increased on reestablishing technological supremacy. In a related development, the American Space Force was permanently deployed on the water rich south pole of the Moon.
  • Federal funds were cut off to all institutions of public education unless, at the K-12 level, they prioritized basic learning skills and eliminated curricula that had become nothing more than Leftist political indoctrination. In higher education, federal funds became contingent on admissions being based on SAT scores and grade point averages, and nothing more.
  • Immigration laws were reformed and enforced, the border was secured, and legal immigration was limited to individuals who had much needed skills, spoke English, and loved America.
  • Extreme environmental laws and regulations were repealed, allowing cost-effective development of land. Housing became affordable.
  • America’s Homeless Industrial Complex was broken. America’s homeless were relocated to tent cities on the fringes of urban areas, where the money saved was used to treat them.

American Culture Realigned to Embrace Traditional Virtues

Amazingly, the power of the Left withered away as prosperity swept across the nation. Grateful Americans embraced patriotic themes again, and recent immigrants of all backgrounds enthusiastically assimilated into the American mainstream.

Conservative, patriotic spokespersons for various identity groups – especially African Americans and Mexican Americans – stepped forward in growing numbers to extol the virtues of individual freedom and personal responsibility. Even environmentalists became realistic again in their priorities, and hearkening back to their illustrious roots, refocused on the universal and compelling goals of clean water, clean air, sustainable deep sea fishing, practical forest management, fighting poachers, getting plastic out of the ocean.

Ending the culture war got decisive help from the U.S. Supreme Court, which tilted firmly to the right with the retirement of Chief Justice Ginsberg. With five or six reliably conservative justices in place, issues where the Left had continuously used the court to encroach on traditional American values were either overturned, or, wisely, leftist litigants no longer advanced these cases. And in a sweeping ruling in 2023, the court outlawed any preferences in hiring, promotion, college admissions, or government contracting – ensuring Americans of all ethnicities would have equal opportunities.

In 2024, Mike Pence was elected president, continuing the policies of his predecessor. Those who remained of America’s recalcitrant Left were pleasantly surprised. This kind, exemplary man was not only an effective, moderate conservative in the policies he championed, but showed himself to be an ecumenical, compassionate ambassador for Christianity. Some of America’s most polarizing social issues subsided, as the values of forgiveness, charity and love once again dominated American culture.

The Long Boom Extended Around the World

With the long arm of American influence no longer discouraging the development of cheap and clean fossil fuel, economic development surged across emerging nations in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. International charter cities were established that became magnets for investment, education, and economic growth, and spreading from these cities, prosperity reached into every corner of these developing nations.

The most dramatic benefit was to women in these nations, who no longer had to spend their days foraging for fuel and pumping water. Rates of literacy soared at the same time as, without coercion, birthrates fell. By the early 2030s, fulfilling the most optimistic scenarios, global population peaked at only 8.2 billion.

America’s economic vitality was contagious. Everywhere on Earth, governments and citizens emulated America’s example, encouraging capitalism, reforming government, rewarding individual initiative. The dividends of technology continued to sweep the world, as high-rise agriculture, animal free meat, aquaculture, and high-yield crops allowed a wealthier global population to consume richer food even as the footprint of agricultural land got smaller and smaller.

Eventually, redirecting money from energy subsidies to energy research yielded dramatic results, and commercial fusion power became a reality. In the early 2030s, led by American companies, fusion reactors began to completely transform the global energy landscape. Along with commercially viable breakthroughs in solid state battery technology, the electric age finally became feasible. Not through mandates, but through competition, fossil fuels swiftly became obsolete.

America’s Strategic Military Supremacy Enabled a 21st Century Pax Americana

While the policy of principled realism and selective involvement of America’s military required difficult choices, the benefits were readily apparent. America’s surging economy, its pool of scientists recruited from around the world who were motivated by freedom, and its reduced need to spend budget dollars on overseas deployments translated into a torrent of research and innovation in strategic military technology. Not even China was any longer a match for the United States in any of the new domains of military competition – cyber, cyborg, electronics, AI, energy weapons, avionics, nanotech, advance space technologies, and defense against pathogens, genetic weapons, and chemical weapons.

As the United States contained despotic, aspiring superpowers, China in particular, the nations of the world fitfully emulated America’s example. While America’s success and America’s culture was irresistible to most people around the world, tribalism and religious fanaticism did not disappear overnight. But America’s example emboldened moderates everywhere, most particularly in the reformations, often led by women, that swept the Islamic world in the late 2020s and 2030s.

This glowing scenario is the vision embodied in President Trump’s policies. While bigger than any one individual, President Trump was the first American politician with the courage to actually fight for this vision. It rests on a recognition that America is indeed exceptional, but cannot effectively set an example for the world unless it first secures its own national interests.

Equally significant, it recognizes both identity politics and climate alarmism as dangerous hoaxes, promulgated by fraudsters and promoted by fanatics. Hopefully Trump’s supporters will assert not only their allegiance to him as a political leader, and not only challenge the premises that Trump has dared to challenge. Hopefully they will also evangelize, to all the skeptics and undecideds, the wonderful future that can be had if the polices pursuant to patriotism, energy freedom, and individual initiative, are given full expression.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Political Realignment is Coming to America

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Just over three years ago, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, speaking at a fundraiser in New York City, characterized half of Donald Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” And for over three years, Trump, along with everyone who supports him, has been subjected to passionate hatred from nearly everyone who would rather have seen Clinton elected.

It’s therefore tempting to return the favor, and hate back, but that would not only be a tactical mistake – since you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar – but also inaccurate. There are a surprising number of liberals, progressives, and even socialists, who are not only anti-Clinton, but are begrudgingly, and increasingly, capable of seeing positive sides of the Trump presidency.

A very early indication of this was in back in October 2016, when John Pilger published in the London Progressive Journal an influential article entitled “Why Hillary Clinton Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump.” Pilger, notwithstanding his socialist leanings, is a world renowned journalist and filmmaker of undeniable courage and integrity.

In an eloquent tirade notable for its many, many examples of how Hillary Clinton is a murderous establishment puppet, this observation by Pilger summed it up, “She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted ‘exceptionalism’ is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face.”

Sound familiar? And wow, how that system has tried, and continues to try to take down Trump. Pilger saw this coming. About Trump, he wrote, “In the circus known as the American presidential campaign, Donald Trump is being presented as a lunatic, a fascist. He is certainly odious; but he is also a media hate figure. That alone should arouse our scepticism.”

A “media hate figure.” Ain’t that the truth. And liberals eat it up. And along with Trump, they hate us. Or do they? John Pilger isn’t alone. There are millions of liberals, progressives, Democrats, and even socialists who have seen through the establishment’s programmatic hatred, despite (or perhaps because of) it coming from every quarter – entertainment, academia, corporations, politicians, and all mainstream media, online and offline.

Their skepticism is indeed aroused, and not just over Trump.

Loving the Bull

Many Trump supporters cheered his election not because of his pugnacity (about time), or his policies (also about time), but because when you hate the China Shop, you love the Bull.

Trump has exposed the Democrat vs Republican, right vs left, liberal vs conservative paradigms as, if not obsolete shams, at the least, models that have lost most of their dialectic vitality. They remain real and represent important differences, but they are overshadowed by a new political polarity, worthy of urgent and vigorous dialectic, globalism vs nationalism.

Until Trump came along, the globalist agenda crept relentlessly forward under the radar. Issues that can now be explicitly framed as globalist vs nationalist – immigration, trade, foreign policy, even climate change – found deceptive expression when shoehorned into the obsolete paradigms.

It suited the uniparty establishment to engage in phony, ostensibly partisan bickering to keep up appearances. It suited them to pretend that immigration and “free” trade bestowed unambiguous global economic benefits, while claiming that to oppose it was economically ignorant and “racist.” It was convenient to pretend ceaseless foreign interventions were based on moral imperatives, while silencing the opposition as “isolationists.” It was easy to get away with promoting climate change policies based on supposedly indisputable scientific evidence, while stigmatizing opponents as “deniers.”

Suddenly all of that is revealed as almost Ptolemaic in its contrived complexity. Here is Trump’s Copernican breakthrough: if you want open borders, absolutely free movement of capital and jobs, and an aggressive international “climate agenda” enforced by the American military, you are a globalist. If you do not, you are a nationalist.

The impact of the globalist agenda have been acutely felt in America already, but the pain is spreading and intensifying. Unskilled immigrants are taking jobs away from the most vulnerable Americans, and every year, they continue to arrive by the millions. Manufacturing jobs which are vital to America’s economic vitality are being exported to any nation with cheaper labor, costing Americans still more jobs. Policies that are supposedly designed to save the planet have made it virtually impossible to cost-effectively build anything – houses, roads, reservoirs, power plants. In states where the globalist agenda is well advanced, the gap between rich and poor is at record levels, and the cost-of-living is prohibitive.

The rest of the world faces the same onslaught from globalists. With rare exceptions, such as the administrative clerisy and the minute fraction of economic refugees for whom the rudest of welfare benefits in developed nations far exceeds their lot in their nations of origin, the only beneficiaries are the investor class and multinational corporations. Economic development, utterly dependent on cheap fossil fuel, is denied because fossil fuel is denied. African cities that might become inviting metropolises fueled by natural gas and nuclear power are instead hellholes of misery, as a burgeoning population forages into wilderness areas for food and fuel, stripping it of life.

The problem with the globalist vision isn’t just that it denies people their cultural identity as it MacDonaldizes the world. The problem is that it’s not working economically or environmentally. It is an epic disaster, unfolding in slow motion. If globalism isn’t stopped, it will engulf the world in war and misery.

And guess what? There are liberals, progressives, and socialists, who get it. The see how their lives are being destroyed. They see through the platitudes, they see the hypocrisy. They can tell that globalism is not working. They’re looking for new ideas.

Modern American Nationalism Transcends President Trump

Donald Trump may have accelerated nationalist movements around the world, but how they find expression in the decades to come depends on how they are shaped by his followers, including belated, reluctant followers, including many who had been his critics. For many years, there are a lot of smart Democrats who have been rejecting the tactics of globalists, even if they have not been critical of globalism itself.

In California, a crucible of American culture, two respected Democrats offer examples of brave commentary that constitutes rank heresy to establishment globalists. In Berkeley, of all places, Michael Shellenberger, a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment” and co-writer of the EcoModernist Manifesto, has worked through his organization Environmental Progress to tirelessly campaign for reviving nuclear power in America. Shellenberger in recent years has turned his attention as well to California’s homeless crisis, calling for emergency measures that cut through a web of stultifying, counterproductive laws that have prevented effective solutions.

Another Californian, quite possibly the most intelligent Democrat who’s ever lived, is Joel Kotkin, a fellow in urban studies at Chapman University, described by the New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer.” For over a decade, Kotkin has patiently explained how urban containment (because suburban sprawl supposedly causes excessive “greenhouse gas” emissions”) is strangling our cities and preventing equitable economic growth. Backing up everything he writes with data, Kotkin has exposed the hidden agenda behind extreme environmentalism, and how it benefits a coalition of special interests – investors, tech billionaires, the professional consultant class, and public sector unions – but condemns everyone else to a feudal existence.

Nationalism Can Be a Model for World Peace and Prosperity

What is nationalism? Why does that word have to connote something extreme? Why can’t it simply acknowledge the practical reality of borders, language, culture and history, and the ongoing right of citizens to determine their own destiny and compete in the world?

Why is it that to the establishment in America and throughout the western democracies, “globalism” is still held up as an ideal, and the inevitable destiny of humanity? Why can’t that inevitability be restricted to the technical facts of globalization – communications, transportation, trade, finance – without also requiring a surrender of national sovereignty? Why can’t nationalism be compassionate, benevolent, economically enlightened, and inclusive?

Nationalism can be all those good things. It can be a model for world peace and prosperity.

As for “climate change” mitigation, why are rational criticisms such as those produced by the luminous Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg castigated as denying reality? Shall the reasoned skeptics of the world be swept away by an orchestrated crusade fronted by children? Shall the 16 year old schoolgirl Greta Thunberg’s vapid denunciations of world leaders actually be taken more seriously than Bjorn Lomborg’s impeccable cost/benefit analyses?

Although mass movements of people proceed more slowly, a philosophical realignment is arguably already upon us. In terms of applied political theory, the prevailing opposition today is nationalism vs globalism. Like all polarities, these labels are fraught with ambiguities and contradictions. For that reason, there are virtues to some aspects of globalism just as surely as there is a dark side to nationalism. Moreover, the 20th century polarities of Left vs Right and liberal vs conservative are still potent. But to have a meaningful political discussion today, those 20th century labels are subsumed within the new model.

To be a left wing socialist liberal, most of the time, is to be a globalist. But not always. Not any more. Remember this, the next time hatred comes your way. Realignment is coming.

Don’t recriminate. Recruit.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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Defining American Nationalism

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The Make America Great movement confronts hostility from nearly every establishment sector in American life; legacy media, social media, academia, entertainment, big corporations, big labor, big government, all Democrats, and a sizable percentage of the Republican elites.

Decrying the movement as “nationalism,” the establishment offers endless cautionary comparisons to nationalistic movements in history, condemning nationalism as tribal, racist, reactionary, hateful. The response to this relentless condemnation is an understandable belligerence, manifested all the way from Presidential tweets to Tea Party Facebook pages.

Belligerence is a justifiable reaction. The establishment has imposed a double standard that should infuriate any member of MAGA. Imagine if black-clad flash mobs of “nationalists” took over the streets of Portland, while police did nothing? Substitute hundreds of Antifa thugs and their sympathizers for nationalists, and that’s life in Portland today. Why isn’t that, and topics like that, the top story on ABC nightly “news,” night after night, forever?

The reason may be as simple as this: The Left invariably speaks with moral authority, whether they deserve it or not. The Left has managed to rhetorically out punch the MAGA movement because they’ve been able to associate MAGA with hate. In response, MAGA complains bitterly, instead of focusing on the optimistic, positive, inclusive, practical, solutions-oriented, wondrous hopeful future it imagines for America and the world. Until that alternative is presented, relentlessly, with enthusiasm and attention to detail, the establishment will continue to condone if not actively support the American Left. They will do this despite the contradictions inherent in the agenda of the Left that will destroy America as we know it.

Fundamental Contradictions in the Agenda of America’s Left

  • Mass immigration of unskilled people cannot be reconciled with socialism, because the ability of government to provide welfare and other entitlements to its citizens requires the percentage of productive taxpaying citizens to remain sizable enough to fund those benefits.
  • Mass immigration of unskilled people cannot be reconciled with ethnic quotas in all hiring, promotions, and academic admissions without undermining, perhaps fatally, the ability of corporations to operate competitively and universities to produce a critical mass of employable graduates.
  • Achieving 100 percent “renewable” energy cannot be reconciled with prosperity, or even with environmental protection. Renewable energy requires expensive backup power, and its environmental “footprint” is orders of magnitude greater than conventional or nuclear energy.
  • Mitigating “climate change,” even if you believe that anthropogenic, catastrophic climate change is imminent, cannot be reconciled with survival of human civilization, which cannot possibly wean itself of fossil fuel in the time span supposedly remaining.

These contradictions are beyond serious debate, yet serious people on the Left ignore them. Because these leaders on the Left are too intelligent to miss the huge contradictions in their logic, as noted, their goal can’t possibly be to help Americans, or even recent immigrants to America. The only logical conclusion must be they want to destroy, or perhaps just “fundamentally transform” America.

American Nationalism is not Belligerent

The biggest mistake the MAGA movement can make is to fight hatred with hatred. In between the emotion-driven irrationality of the many passionate foot soldiers of the Left, and the cold calculations of the nihilists at the top, are millions of people with common sense. If you can separate these people even for a moment from the propaganda of the panopticon, they will see the contradictions that discredit Leftism. They will walk away.

The greatest fear of the Left is that the MAGA movement will begin to attract everyone, regardless of their individual “identity.” This process has already begun. A telling example is to be found in California, where the Republican party recently held its state convention. Despite the MAGA grassroots members narrowly losing their battle for control of the party to establishment consultants and their uniparty donors, the energy was all with the MAGA contingent.

The most noteworthy, and very encouraging sign at California’s state GOP convention was how diverse the attendees have become. These were confident, self-sufficient individuals, who value the opportunity to compete and succeed on their own merits. There were hundreds of them; Latinos, Sikhs, Hindus, African Americans, Asians. More of them than ever, they came to Sacramento to be among fellow Republicans. Nearly all of them were enthusiastic Trump supporters.

If you had attended California’s recent state GOP convention, you could have talked to a Latino whose cousin has a ranch in the Rio Grande Valley. He would have told you why we need border security. You also could have talked to an African American grandmother who has watched hope return to members of her extended family, because they have good jobs in the Trump economy. These people are proud Americans. They don’t want to be patronized or appeased, and more and more, they’re seeing right through the Leftist con. They want the tough truth. Because honest hard work, reckoned by immutable and evenly applied standards, is the only true pathway to achievement.

It is vitally important for MAGA supporters to understand the significance of this trend. Some of Trump’s most enthusiastic fans are not angry old white men, but people of color with most of their lives in front of them. They are the vanguard of a new America that believes in the values of the old America. These are the allies that will help define American nationalism as embracing the English language, and the universal truths embodied in the values of the European enlightenment.

Maybe this is hard to fathom until you meet someone born in Bangalore, who is talking with irrepressible, well informed passion about the Federalist Papers, personally identifying with the founders of America, and making America’s founding ideals part of their own moral and intellectual identity. These people are out there. Their numbers are growing. They are going to save help our nation. Welcome them.

Making American Nationalism Benevolent

Just as there are contradictions in Leftist thought that render it a futile, nihilistic dead end, there are immutable facts that may inform American nationalist thought that make it a necessary and desirable path for Americans. Here are a few of them:

  • Globalization is inevitable, but no country is better able to manage that process than America. No other nation has America’s demonstrated commitment to individual rights, nor such an illustrious history of systematically eliminating racism and sexism.
  • The character of nationalism in many nations today is reminiscent of those forms of nationalism that darkened the early 20th century. China, in particular, is an ethnocentric, expansionist superpower that can only be contained by a strong America.
  • For America to remain powerful it must recognize that immigration henceforth has to be merit based. Similarly, for America’s institutions to stay competitive, they must become totally colorblind and gender-blind.
  • Merit based immigration of skilled professionals will enhance America’s workforce and its technological leadership. Restricting immigration of unskilled people will improve the job opportunities for lower income Americans already living here, and reduce demands on America’s welfare system.
  • Fossil fuel and nuclear power are necessary not only for America’s economic health, but for the economic health of every nation. Precipitously curtailing use of fossil fuel will cause more harm than good both to human societies and the environment.
  • The best way to help destitute would-be migrants is to assist the nations where they live to achieve stability. It is far more cost effective to use the money that might have paid for domestic resettlement for a few to instead invest in opportunities overseas for the many. For every million that come to the U.S., tens of millions are left behind.

The resentment MAGA supporters feel towards the Left is justified. The Left has the establishment on their side, and it’s not fair. But examining the ultimate source of this resentment reveals an encouraging truth: Where the Left is pessimistic about the future, MAGA is optimistic. As the Left predicts the end of the world, MAGA believes in progress and prosperity. When the Left finds overwhelming faults and failures in American society and American history, MAGA sees the inspiring, absolutely authentic upside. If the Left demands “diversity” which in practice results in new forms of segregation, MAGA supporters come in all colors and are unified as proud Americans.

This hopeful and positive form of American nationalism will not only attract American voters, no matter what their background, it will also attract corporate support. America’s multinational corporations condone the agenda of the Left, even co-opting much of it, because that’s what corporations do. They are politically neutral. In order to operate, they accommodate the dominant ideology, the dominant culture, and the dominant political power.

This explains why corporations indulge Leftist sentiments even while knowing that if those sentiments were ever taken to their logical extreme, their directors would be replaced by a politburo. America’s corporations need to be offered a coherent, benevolent vision of American nationalism. The rapidity with which corporations might then discover their enthusiasm for an inclusive, welcoming MAGA vision may surprise a lot of people.

Seizing the high ground of optimism, believing in a bright future, not only will win over many establishment and corporate elites, it will transform America’s political landscape. America today seethes as a purple battleground. Republicans and Democrats are evenly matched. Who knows how 2020 will turn out. But the moral worth of Democratic policies is shallow. In the name of earth justice and social justice, they are going to make life in America even harder for low and middle income residents. The Democrats are incapable of compromising on their rhetoric or their policies. They are locked into the ideological straight-jackets of climate change hysteria and identity politics.

Republicans must demonstrate their ability to find the balance that Democrats are incapable of finding.  There is a moral value to instilling pride by abandoning race and gender preferences. There is a moral value to embracing policies of abundance – by turning the private sector loose to increase the supply of housing, energy, water, et. al. – rather than creating politically contrived artificial scarcity. There is a moral value to being hopeful.

This optimism in the MAGA movement is what should be heralded at every opportunity. We are Americans. We can do anything. We will continue to set an example to the nations of the world and everywhere, people will continue to emerge, by the billions, out of poverty and oppression. We will continue to be practical stewards of the environment. We will develop radical new energy technologies – satellite solar power systems, fusion power. We will cure cancer and slow the aging process. We will colonize the solar system. We Americans will remain the strongest power on earth, fighting when we have to, and we will lead the way to a peaceful global civilization.

That is the nationalism that defines the MAGA movement, and demands expression.

This article originally appeared on the website American Greatness.

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