Friendly reminder that the Cold War is over

It made sense to oppose Russia with all our might when the Cold War was actually a thing. Cold Wars are nasty affairs that involve things like your enemy saying they will bury you, enslaving whole nations under a totalitarian government, exporting revolutionary ideologies to the far corners of the earth, and placing nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of troops in a country 100 miles from your own coastline. But given that Russia no longer does any of these things and has not made aggressive moves on anyone since it gave up control of 700,000 square miles of territory and 180 million people in what was widely believed to be the end of the Cold War, one might reasonably conclude that the Cold War is, in fact, over.

This isn't very complicated.

Twitter's massacre of the innocents

Why is Twitter silencing its most interesting accounts?

This week, Twitter locked, suspended, or terminated the accounts of at least 10 prominent users. All affected accounts, as far as I’m aware, were critical of contemporary society and attacked it from the right. They included a fringe continental philosopher, a YouTube pundit, and six leaders of an influential Twitter clique known as frogtwitter. 

Despite journalists breathless attempts to label frogtwitter as neo-Nazi, white supremacist, anti-democracy, Alt-Right, and “NRx,” it’s in reality just a small group of young, vaguely right-wing intellectuals interested in critiquing Western life. They aren’t all white (not even close), nor are they all American. It has an internal list serve, internal communications, and recognized leaders who offer their critiques through tweets and organize via DMs. It’s not a mass fascist movement, it has nothing to do with Richard Spencer, and most traditional conservatives either hate it or don’t understand it. It’s opposed by an equally intellectual and anti-PC group, the Dirtbag Left, though the two sides often share the same ideas and memes. That is, until one side was banned.

The banning of these irreverent and largely apolitical (and hilarious) accounts indicates that Twitter has shifted into a new phase. No longer content merely to silence influential pro-Trump and alt-right voices, Twitter now seems intent on stamping out any form of intellectual edginess. Political bias has mutated into a war on challenging ideas, even if those ideas are expressed in a non-abusive, Terms of Service-compliant way.

By the new rules of the game, if Socrates, Shakespeare, or Orwell lived today, they would all be - to varying degrees - unwelcome on Twitter.

It's a shame, really, because the authors of the banned accounts have clearly put a great deal of time and effort into crafting their tweets, many of which are absolute classics of the medium. To the extent that art can live on twitter, these anonymous posters are artists. They will now have to find a new medium to express their creative vision.

As it happens, I am aware that Twitter is a corporation and that corporations have the right to ban anyone from their platforms for any reason. I'm not making an argument about free speech or censorship or any of that crap. I am simply pointing out, because I find it noteworthy, that the world's ninth-largest social network, with an active user base as large as the US population, seems to have decided to make itself as boring as humanly possible.

Why Twitter is doing this to itself and what this means for the future of the internet, I have no idea. But one thing seems clear, that it heralds a richly-deserved future of lingering decline and probable death for what used to be a great platform.

More on this from Anatoly Karlin.

Don't worry, it'll get worse

Steve Bannon, Evil Counselor to the God-Emperor of Mankind, weighs in on what the future holds for the administration's war with the establishment:

SCHLAPP: [...] What is it that they keep getting wrong and do you think it ever gets fixed? What does the media keep getting wrong about this Trump phenomena and what's happening out there in the country? And is there any hope that this changes? 

PRIEBUS: I think there's hope that it's going to change. I mean we -- we sit here, every day and -- and the president pumps out all of this work and -- and the executive orders and the punching through of the promises that he made to the American people. So we're hoping that the media would catch up eventually. [...] 

BANNON: The reason Reince and I are good partners is that we can disagree. It's not only not going to get better. It's going to get worse every day. 

(LAUGHTER) 

And here's why. By the way, the internal logic makes sense. They're corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed -- adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has. President Trump really laid this out, as Reince said, many years ago at CPAC. It's really CPAC that really originally gave him the springboard. It's the first time at Breitbart we start seeing him, and saw how people, you know, his speeches resonated with people. 

And then he would go out to these smaller town halls later and really he got traction with the same message he's bringing today. Here's the only -- here's why it's going to get worse: Because he's going to continue to press his agenda. And as economic conditions get better, as more jobs get better, they're going to continue to fight. If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken. Every day -- every day, it is going to be a fight. And that is what I'm proudest about Donald Trump. All the opportunities he had to waiver off this; all the people who have come to him and said, "oh, you've got to moderate." Every day in the Oval Office, he tells Reince and I, "I committed this to the American people; I promised this when I ran; and I'm going to deliver on this."

Trump will not slow down, and he will not moderate. The battle will intensify. Buckle up.

Nationalism trumps ideology

Libertarians, who never mattered much, are finding they matter even less in Trumpmerica:

The "Stand With Rand" shirts were out and the "Make America Great Again" hats were in among the younger crowd at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference.
Libertarians, who normally make up the loudest and most vocal faction at the annual nationwide gathering of conservatives, had a noticeably diminished presence at the 2017 political confab. 

"I think it's disheartening," said Michael Hall, a spokesperson for Students for Liberty. "I'd like to see more libertarians here." 

In previous years, armies of supporters swarmed the conference halls championing Sen. Rand Paul — and formerly Ron Paul — as the future of the Republican Party. These attendees argued that an embrace of libertarianism would usher in a wave of youth support and rescue the GOP from assured death. 

But, after President Donald Trump's surprise November victory, the CPAC program conspicuously changed, underscoring nationalistic ideals while tepidly moving away from principles of small government that were popular among conservatives during President Barack Obama's eight years in office.

Good riddance. Without a doubt, big government needs to be killed with fire - and it's heartening that Steve Bannon understands this, with his "deconstruction of the administrative state" - but this laudable goal is decidedly no longer attached to an ideology that preaches that the personal freedom of the individual is the be-all and end-all of the universe. Thus, immigration and trade are to be tolerated only insofar as they enrich and strengthen the United States; the libertarian belief that everyone has the right to buy anything from anyone in the world at any time, for example, is losing its hypnotic appeal to Republicans as the disastrous effects of free trade on the US economy become increasingly apparent, and will likely go the way of the belief in open-borders immigration. (Libertarians: "But it's good for the Global Economy™!")

I am sympathetic to some libertarian ideas, but the fact of the matter is that libertarians are basically godless leftists who are in thrall to a simplistic, unworkable ideology. All my adult life I've been hearing about libertarians, but they've accomplished precisely nothing. The Republican George W. Bush increased the federal budget by 53%. Libertarians are completely useless.

We should certainly seek to reign in excessive government power, but first things first. It's a new era and our priorities have changed.

The new priority: national survival.

Not as catchy as "MAGA"

The education of Donald Trump

Despite his ruthlessness in business, Donald Trump is no sociopath, and it remains to be seen whether he possesses the icy resolve to comprehensively destroy his enemies in Washington. For they are powerful and merciless, and will neuter his presidency, and possibly impeach him and throw him in jail, if he does not act quickly and firmly to crush them all. His skills have brought him unimaginable fame and riches in the private sector, but the government is a different world, and the waters he has waded into run very, very deep. I wonder if he is just beginning to grasp the immensity of what is required of him:

President Trump may have been wounded more badly than he expected by the Flynn affair. Mr. Trump is, after, a rather decent man. He has no military experience, and as far as I know not much familiarity with military history. His instinctual reaction when an enemy is wounded is to stand back and end the fight. This is the civilized way of doing things, and in civil life it is much to be preferred. 

The military know better. Battles may be won by valor; wars are won in the pursuit. When the enemy is down is the time to put the boot in. Relentless pursuit, slaughter of the retreating enemy, kill them all, take no prisoners because prisoners need guarding and care and reduce your strength; wars are won or lost in the pursuit. [...] 

Valor wins battles; wars are won in the pursuit. Mr. Trump’s enemies know that and believe it. Perhaps Mr. Trump is learning it.

Trump will grow in office, I predict. He will learn to give his enemies no quarter, to show them no mercy, to strip them of all power using every legal means at his disposal. He will learn to ignore their lying shows of friendship and their appeals to fair play, "norms" and other abstract concepts they never gave the slightest shit about as he purges them with fire from a vastly corrupt, out-of-control government.

The alternative is Trump in prison or worse; government of, by and for the National Security State; and the extinction of the republic. Simple choice.

This is an encouraging sign. The showdown continues:

President Trump plans to assign a New York billionaire to lead a broad review of American intelligence agencies, according to administration officials, an effort that members of the intelligence community fear could curtail their independence and reduce the flow of information that contradicts the president’s worldview. 

The possible role for Stephen A. Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, has met fierce resistance among intelligence officials already on edge because of the criticism the intelligence community has received from Mr. Trump during the campaign and since he became president. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump blamed leaks from the intelligence community for the departure of Michael T. Flynn, his national security adviser, whose resignation he requested.

Take a deep breath

John Podhoretz in Commentary:

I am myself unnerved by the evidence of high-level lawlessness in the Flynn matter, but a “coup d’etat” refers specifically to a military ouster of a leader, not a leak-driven campaign using the press to nail someone. This is sure to persist, though, if the Flynn-Russia matter accelerates—and if the reluctant House and Senate do begin investigating the matter in earnest. If the language surrounding the investigation remains florid and purple, if Democrats try to please their Trump-hating constituents by screaming impeachment and liberal media tries to garner audience by jumping openly and vociferously on the bandwagon, the Trumpians will respond in kind by stirring the pot through their media and their argumentation.

The result might well be violence. Not rhetorical violence. Actual violence. Actual political violence. Actual conflicts between anti-Trumpers and Trumpers. At demonstrations. In the streets. Of our cities. Political violence of a sort we haven’t seen in 50 years, and maybe haven’t really seen in this country in the modern era. Those who believe Trump is a unique menace whose threat to our democratic way of life will be met with those who believe the elites are using illicit means to oust the legitimately elected president of the United States.

Podhoretz is right about this, and right about the amplifying effect of social media on public hysteria. This situation is getting dangerous, folks.

Time for everyone to take a deep breath and relax...

The Flynn affair

Some noteworthy articles about the Flynn affair:

Eli Lake: The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn

Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do. 

In the past it was considered scandalous for senior U.S. officials to even request the identities of U.S. officials incidentally monitored by the government (normally they are redacted from intelligence reports). John Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was derailed in 2006 after the NSA confirmed he had made 10 such requests when he was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control in George W. Bush's first term. The fact that the intercepts of Flynn's conversations with Kislyak appear to have been widely distributed inside the government is a red flag.

Mike Cernovich: What General Flynn’s Resignation Means for America

Tonight the fake news media landed a tactical nuke on America. The line has been broken, and the media now knows Trump is far more sensitive to bad press than he seemed to be during the campaign. [...]

When Trump fires or forces someone to resign, he has given power to the media. [...]

Flynn was always a target because only he, Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and Stephen Miller are in touch with Trump’s base.

Trump should have disbanded the White House Press Corps, as I advised. This lack of access would have put CNN on the state playing field as an ordinary blog. They’d be starved for ad revenue.

Tonight was a major stategic defeat. The fake news media and so-called #TheResistance are inspired.

Vox Day: National Security Adviser Flynn resigns

That's exactly what I said that he should do [resign] if the reports that he had lied were true. And, as I also mentioned, I don't see it as a loss to the God-Emperor at all, because Flynn was heavily influenced by the neocons, and by Michael Ledeen in particular. With him out, and Eliot Abrams being rejected, I anticipate that some of the pressure to instigate trouble with Iran will be reduced. 

The opposition media will consider this a scalp and will try to make the most of it, and they will fail to recognize what I pointed out before the inauguration, which is that the Trump administration is almost certainly going to have record turnover, as the God-Emperor will quickly remove subordinates in whom he loses confidence or trust. It worked for him during the campaign and it will work for him in office.

Vox Day: Curiouser and curiouser

The Saker: The Neocons and the “Deep State” Have Neutered the Trump Presidency, It’s Over Folks!

The Saker: The Anti-Flynn ‘Deep State’ Coup – Spelling It Out in the Clearest Way Possible

And some tweets from John Robb:

The big reason Flynn was the #1 target of the #deepstate : he was rumored to be the point man on plans to reform the Intel Community.

— John Robb (@johnrobb) February 15, 2017

#Deepstate to @realDonaldTrump

"You will die in jail"

Definitely nuclear. https://t.co/LkYVIhcaAD

— John Robb (@johnrobb) February 15, 2017

All of the things we were worried about re: political use of #deepstate surveillance is proving true. The genie is out of the bottle.

— John Robb (@johnrobb) February 15, 2017

Honestly, I can't make heads or tails of this. The situation is far too complex, fluid, and shrouded in secrecy for all but the most informed observers to have a meaningful opinion on it.

My intuition tells me this is a Bad Thing for us Trump supporters. I liked General Flynn and thought he would do a good job of reforming the intelligence agencies and bringing some measure of sanity back to our foreign policy. Also, this is looking more and more like a Deep State coup against the POTUS, in which case, sayonara, America - you were fun while you lasted.

On the other hand, I wouldn't sell Trump short. He has proven himself to be a lot smarter and more strategic than virtually anyone gave him credit for during the campaign, and it strikes me as premature to second-guess every single decision he makes on a daily basis. Trump is playing a long game, and, as Marco Rubio infamously claimed about Obama, he knows exactly what he's doing...

Our president is fighting an array of extremely powerful enemies in the Deep State, the permanent bureaucracy, Congress, the judiciary, the media, academia, the "international community"... it's basically just him and a half-dozen advisers, and his basket of deplorable supporters... versus THE WORLD. He made it this far - let's have a little faith in his judgment and abilities.

And Flynn is problematic, for the reasons Vox points out. I found his neocon growlings about Russia and other alleged enemies in his book The Field of Fight, co-authored by Michael "[Bomb Iran] Faster, Please" Ledeen, disturbing. Also, Flynn apparently misled Mike Pence about his phone call with the Russian ambassador, an offense that I would not expect the God-Emperor to take lightly, much as he may otherwise value Flynn.

The issue with Flynn may simply be that he is a born rebel. As he wrote in his book:

I was one of those nasty tough kids, hell-bent on breaking rules for the adrenaline rush and hardwired just enough not to care about the consequences. [...] 

My rehabilitation was the fastest in adolescent history. I had it coming, and it taught me that moral rehab is possible. I behaved during my term of probation and stopped all of my criminal activity. But I would always retain my strong impulse to challenge authority and to think and act on my own whenever possible. There is room for such types in America, even in the disciplined confines of the United States Army.

But not, perhaps, in the disciplined court of the God-Emperor.

The Left and violence

In case you think I've overgeneralized in calling out the Left's propensity to advocate violence against heretical thinkers, as witnessed by the strange online reaction to the punching of Richard Spencer, consider what this liberal has to say:

I made a miscalculation earlier today. I suspected that many of the people cheering Spencer’s attack did so innocently, and by minimizing the assault– that is, they think that’s okay to hit him but not go much further than that. I made a pretty simple point on Twitter: even a single punch can disable or kill a man, and therefore Spencer’s attacker conceivably could have killed him.

The tweet took off, and not in a good way. Literally hundreds of people responded, all saying that they would have loved if the attacker had killed Spencer. Some went further, calling for the extrajudicial killing of all Nazis.

...

I honestly don’t have room for all the responses along these lines. These are also the polite responses, not the ones calling me a Nazi or calling for my death.

It was an eye-opening reaction. The reason I penned the tweet was because I thought the liberal consensus that serves as the bedrock of the American society was intact. I had this whole spiel planned about how if we as a society endorse violence against one Nazi, we’re responsible if it leads to worse violence, maybe even murder, where do you draw the line, blah blah blah. I thought it was more or less self-evident that you don’t murder people on the street for expressing views you don’t like. I thought we were all the same page, and I was wrong.

What was most depressing is that the pro-violence responses came almost uniformly from liberals. I suppose that isn’t that shocking: 51% of modern Democrats believe the government should ban hateful speech entirely. The more intelligent responses phrased it this way: Nazis are so violent, so dangerous, so outside the mainstream, they don’t deserve the usual protections afforded to political speech, including protection from violence. Still, it is sad to see so many liberal Americans abandoning one of the founding suppositions of liberalism at the dawn of an administration where it will be more necessary than ever before.

The undead

From Politico:

Hillary Clinton will run for president. Again. 

No inside information informs this prediction. No argument is advanced as to whether her run is a good or a bad idea—there are many ways to make a case either way. Instead this is just a statement of simple facts (if facts mean anything anymore, that is). And the facts are clear that the former secretary of state is doing everything she needs to do to run for the White House one more time. If she finds a path to do so, she will take it. And I can prove it. [...]

At the moment, of course, the idea of another Clinton presidential campaign—what would be the fifth since 1992—seems outlandish, even exhausting. Who’d want to go through all that mess again? But four years is plenty of time for memories to subside. 

And it’s true that in another era, a candidate Clinton’s age might have been deemed too old for the presidency. But in 2020, Hillary Clinton will be 73, one year younger than the incumbent seeking reelection. 

Also in another era, her political career might have been seen as having passed its expiration date. She’s twice run for the White House—and lost. But Ronald Reagan didn’t think that way. He ran in 1968, and again in 1976, nearly beating the incumbent Gerald Ford for the GOP nomination, before his ultimate victory in 1980.

I think Matt Latimer could well be right about the gruesome prospect of Hillary running again in 2020 - something that had not even occurred to me until now. Whether she could actually win is another matter. I strongly suspect the public will be clamoring for a continuation of the God-Emperor's reign in 2020, and perhaps even a repeal of the 22nd Amendment in time for 2024. On the other hand, Hillary has an opportunity if an open-source revolution such as described by John Robb sweeps the God-Emperor from his throne before then.

Even if that happens, I don't see Hillary as a likely candidate to succeed/replace Trump. She is a political dinosaur with a tin ear for the forces that are remaking our political system. Her abysmal social media campaign in 2016 provided constant, hilarious evidence of that. But who knows, maybe she could learn from her mistakes. Despite her all-around terrible campaigning, she did come close to winning the election, probably with the help of evil behavioral scientists handling her messaging; maybe the second time's the charm. She would need to hire someone with a profound grasp of social media and open-source tactics.

We have entered the realm of chaos, and anything is possible.

"You still don't get it, do you? She'll run for president again! That's what she does! That's ALL she does! You can't stop her!"

Civil war watch

The verdict is in: Political violence is cool!

The major student-run paper of UC Berkeley ran five op-eds Tuesday defending the riots on campus, and arguing that violence was an acceptable response to a speech from Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos. 

The Daily Californian editorial board published five op-eds from five students and former students, who uniformly believed the riot was justified.

I read the op-eds. That is an accurate summary. Here is one example:

In light of recent events, there has been a resurgence of the belief that in order for a protest to be effective, it must also be nonviolent. This belief especially plagues liberals, who are talented in drafting long Facebook posts about how they are down with the cause, but not really because windows were broken and some white nationalists got their asses beat. Here’s looking at you, Berkeley.

I’m here to explain to this particular segment of the “jolted from a coma, but went back to bed” crowd that they are wrong. Listen closely, because if I have to hear this flawed, problematic and deeply cowardly line of reasoning the next time some people invite a violent fascist-endorsing hate monger to UC Berkeley, we’re fighting.

From another op-ed, hilariously titled "Violence helped ensure safety of students":

Arguments on campus, on the other hand, revolve around students defying the acts the AntiFas  —  an anarchist and anti-fascist group that uses black bloc techniques to meet its ends  —  took that night. They want to ensure that there is a distinction between the rioters and the students who were there to protest peacefully. 

Well, I’m here to thank the radical measures the AntiFas took to ensure my safety.

Unfortunately for these psychos, the violent protests at Berkeley (which included such heartwarming acts of anti-fascist street justice as macing a woman wearing a Trump hat) caused pre-order sales of Milo's book to surge 12,740% overnight, making it once again the #1 Amazon bestseller.

Unfortunately for America, the violence and thundering lack of condemnation of it from the Democratic elite - which California-based Scott Adams has correctly described as the Democrats failing to "police their own ranks" - is pushing us closer to the brink of civil war.

Fortunately for America, we have been blessed with a POTUS who has a fucking pair of balls and isn't afraid to call out these vicious animals for what they are - and, it seems likely, TAKE ACTION to roll back their reign of terror:

If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017

It's safe to say that most Americans are behind him on this. Deny funding to the forces of anarchy and terror. Stop supporting and associating with the people who are tearing our country apart. That means you, and the federal government, and everyone who cares about protecting what remains of our sacred liberties.

Iran toning down the hate

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE to discover that the despots of Iran have decided to stage a kinder, gentler anti-America hatefest on this year's national holiday:

Iran marked its national holiday on Friday with nationwide rallies with far less of the usual vitriol for the United States, in what seemed a move calculated to avoid further inciting President Trump.

Many observers had expected Iranian leaders to take aim at Mr. Trump during rallies celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

The stacks of posters handed out by state organizations largely avoided mentions of Mr. Trump. Anti-American slogans, usually printed in English in the past for the international news media to see, were mostly in Persian. Most notably, there were no missiles on display, as had been customary in previous years, to show off Iran’s military capabilities. 

Tensions between the United States and Iran have surged in recent weeks, after Mr. Trump blocked citizens of Iran and six other predominantly Muslim nations from visiting the United States, and he called Iran “#1 in terror.” His national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, put the country “on notice” after it conducted a missile test late last month. 

There were examples of anti-American sentiment on view, however: [...] But given the size of the rally in Tehran, the usual anti-Americanism appeared less noticeable than in previous years. 

“Today’s rally shows that the government does not want any confrontation with the U.S.,” said Farshad Ghorbanpour, an analyst who is close to the government of President Hassan Rouhani. “Don’t be surprised, we have no interest with tensions.”

It's almost as if taking a hard line with avowed enemies, and acting scary and unpredictable... tends to strike the fear of Allah into said enemies, with a salubrious effect on their behavior? Hold on, someone from the Harvard Kennedy School is here to explain why I'm wrong.

As a side note, I love the phrase "to avoid further inciting President Trump." Just smile and nod, and back away slowly...

The Dark Enlightenment comes to the White House

Much has been written recently about Steve Bannon, former head of Breitbart News who is now serving as chief strategist and Evil Mastermind to the God-Emperor Donald J. Trump. And what a fascinating character he is.

I was delighted to read that Bannon is a fan of unconventional writers, like the pseudonymous Mencius Moldbug, a notable voice in the dank corner of the internet known as the Dark Enlightenment or the alt-right:

Bannon, described by one associate as “the most well-read person in Washington,” is known for recommending books to colleagues and friends, according to multiple people who have worked alongside him. He is a voracious reader who devours works of history and political theory “in like an hour,” said a former associate whom Bannon urged to read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. “He’s like the Rain Man of nationalism.”

The Rain Man of nationalism! Come to think of it, that may have been a better title for this post.

Bannon’s readings tend to have one thing in common: the view that technocrats have put Western civilization on a downward trajectory and that only a shock to the system can reverse its decline. And they tend to have a dark, apocalyptic tone that at times echoes Bannon’s own public remarks over the years—a sense that humanity is at a hinge point in history. His ascendant presence in the West Wing is giving once-obscure intellectuals unexpected influence over the highest echelons of government.

The punch heard round the world

We'd rather punch him in the face. Because we're "better"

Maybe I've had a few too many, but I'm starting to regard the sucker-punching of Richard Spencer last Friday as an epochal cultural moment. Before I explain what I mean by that (and why it's not completely insane and/or the whiskey talking), here's a bit of background courtesy of the Gray Lady:

Is it O.K. to punch a Nazi? 

That is not a brainteaser or a hypothetical question posed by a magazine on Twitter. It is an actual question bouncing around the internet after an attack on a well-known far-right activist, Richard B. Spencer, in Washington after the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president on Friday. 

Mr. Spencer, who is credited with coining the term alt-right and describes himself as an “identitarian,” was punched in the head on Inauguration Day by a person clad in black as he was being interviewed by a journalist. At the time of the attack, Mr. Spencer was explaining the meaning of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon figure adopted as a mascot by the alt-right, a racist, far-right fringe movement that is anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-feminist. Video of the attack shows Mr. Spencer reeling to one side under the force of the blow and his attacker darting through a crowd after landing the punch.

Watch the video, and understand that someone could have been severely injured or even killed by that punch:

Video of @RichardBSpencer getting punched by protester. pic.twitter.com/zx0UAX0Yaj

— The Current Year (@TheeCurrentYear) January 20, 2017

So? Violence happens at large gatherings, especially when politics is involved. It's a part of life, inevitable, like the movement of the tectonic plates. There was plenty of other violence during the inauguration, committed by all shades of the political spectrum.

Conservatives rioting during the inauguration

Victim of angry Republican mob

Trump supporters expressing their dissatisfaction with the police

Right-wing activists attacking symbols of American capitalism

So the punch is par for the course, yawn, nothing to see here. What interests me is the reaction to it all over the internet, namely... laughter. What? Yes.

Ok, the meme is funny. And why should I give a shit about 66,000+ randos on the internet laughing at a guy getting punched in real life? I'll explain, but first this:

I don't care how many different songs you set Richard Spencer being punched to, I'll laugh at every one.

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) January 21, 2017

Jon Favreau was Barack Obama's speechwriter from 2005 to 2013. In other words, he had the ear of the most powerful man in the world for five years. I'm not sure what he's up to today, but anyway he has a third of a million Twitter followers (a rough proxy measure of social influence). Favreau also made this fascinating comment:

@Cato_of_Utica @ablemansy I also didn't think breaking windows was the gravest problem we faced today or something we should flip out about

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) January 21, 2017

Meh, just some mild politically motivated violence and property damage, nothing to see here...

And there's this from a journalist for Vulture.com (48K+ followers):

"If we punch Nazis in the face we're no better than they are."

Checking...

Yeah, we're still better.

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) January 21, 2017

And this.

And this:

Newsweek apologized Tuesday for publishing a story that praised an assault on white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was punched on video on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration.

Newsweek published a since-deleted story titled, "The Infinite Joy of Watching a Nazi Get Punched to Music," by culture editor Joe Veix.

"On a day when many Americans were despairing over what they see as the transition of power to a fascist demagogue, it was a small moment of reprieve. It was possibly the first entertaining day on the internet since the election," Veix wrote.

You get the point, I hope. Now, out of morbid curiosity I read through many of the replies to Favreau's mocking tweet. The majority of them are either laughing along with Favreau, or outright defending the idea that it's cool to punch Nazis. It makes for an amazing study of human moral reasoning. The most common argument goes like this: "Normally I don't condone violence, but I'll make an exception for Nazis." There are a lot of people on the internet who share this exact view.

There is also the popular meme that punching Nazis is a heroic, all-American act. (Should I bother pointing out that the US in 2017 isn't a war zone and Spencer isn't a uniformed soldier of an enemy nation?)

Then you have the people who claim punching him only makes his movement stronger. In other words, it's wrong, but for tactical reasons. Not many people argue that assaulting Spencer is wrong because it's "wrong" or "illegal." Even the world's leading media organ shied away from this position, framing the issue as if there is a reasonable case to be made for sucker-punching Spencer. (Journalistic neutrality!)

This suggests that casual acceptance of extreme violence to make a point has become entrenched among a large segment of educated, liberal America. Ridiculous? Why? Consider if the reverse were true. The video of Spencer getting punched would trigger widespread condemnation, rather than mockery and ambivalence. If you doubt that, consider how Twitter would react to a video of a feminist getting sucker-punched at the Women's Marches. It's entirely possible that I'm drunk right now, but where's the hole in my logic?

Notice, I have not attempted to define, criticize, or defend Richard Spencer's views. Because that's 100% irrelevant. If you're googling Spencer's background to figure out how you feel about him getting slugged, you're already lost, there is nothing I can do for you. The only thing that matters is that Spencer was not breaking any laws, was not hurting anyone, and was not threatening anyone when a masked thug tried to educate him with his fist.

The reason I'm viewing the Punch Heard Round the World as a cultural inflection point is not so much that left-wing violence is a novelty in America. (Q: How many domestic terrorist bombings did the FBI record in 1970-71? A: More than 2,500. No, that's not a typo, see here and here for details. The Seventies were nuts.)

You might say it's as American as apple pie. No, the real game-changer will be the reaction from the right. If Spencer and the various factions and flavors of the right are learning any lesson from his very tactile encounter with the left, it is that the right's traditionally hands-off approach to political disputes may be a non-starter in 2017 and beyond, for the simple reason that it will eventually get them murdered.

So expect politics to start getting a bit crunchier over the next few years. And pour me another one.

"Not my president"

There are a lot of angry Americans who apparently believe that Donald J. Trump is not their president.

If you are one of them, you may have been misinformed. Here's a handy-dandy flowchart that should help clarify the issue:

All snark aside, it's distressing that so many of my fellow citizens believe that Mr. Trump is not what he actually is, namely, their president - or maybe they just think Trump is so radically unrepresentative of everything they believe, that he's not their leader - not "their" anything - in any meaningful sense. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that's how they see it.

But maybe that's naive of me, because here's a Guardian columnist writing in The New York Times:

Mr. Trump isn’t my president. I don’t mean it emotionally; I mean it literally. It’s not sloganeering; it’s observable truth. 

Mr. Trump has no intention of representing me, my family, the people I care about, or the majority of Americans, from the imperiled to the comfortable. It is a stretch to call him anyone’s president but his own.

Wait, literally? Hmm. And what's this about Trump not being anyone's president now? Not even the 63 million people who voted for him? My head, it hurts. But there's more:

Those who believe that straight, white men have a mandate to burn the rest of us as fuel, to sell us for parts, to mow us down and climb up the pile, never truly conceded that war. They have been biding their time, and this is their last great gambit. But I live in the America that won — the America with art and empathy and a free press and fierce protest. Not my president, not now, not ever.

Ok, but-- wait WHAT? Read that first sentence again - WTF does that even think it means?

For the record,  the writer also claims:

“Not my president” was a favorite refrain of the Tea Party, a fundamental buttress of the racist delegitimization of Barack Obama, an incantation that, in retrospect, recalled some of the first stirrings of Mr. Trump’s rise to power.

Is that true though, or is she just making shit up? I don't remember that phrase being a favorite refrain of anyone. But my memory is notoriously terrible, so I did a Google News search for "Obama" and "not my president," date range 2008-2015, and came up with... a quote from Sean Hannity, a quote from Mark Levin, and that's pretty much it. Also, I did a Google Image search for the same terms, and found a bunch of internet memes to that effect. No photos of anyone holding signs with the phrase, and zero evidence that it was ever a favorite of the Tea Party, let alone a "fundamental buttress" of anything. (I welcome correction on this.)

But I digress. It would be unfair to take one pundit's incontinent rantings as representative of the majority of non-Trump voters. And most Hillary voters of my acquaintance do not seem to think that Trump is literally not their president. Which is a start.

But the underlying problem, which is that a vast portion of the electorate is deeply hostile to Trump and feels he does not represent them in any way, is a huge one, and it raises a number of salient questions, among them: Whatcha gonna do about it? No, I'm not being snarky again. I want an answer.

Protesters on the streets of our major conurbations are chanting: "Hey ho, hey ho, Donald Trump has got to go." What exactly do they mean by that? Maybe they want the POTUS to resign? I'm sure the new occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will be happy to consider that, as soon as he gets done apologizing to Rosie O'Donnell.

So if he doesn't resign, how exactly is he going to "go"? Impeachment? You can bet there are already plans in the works for that.

I don't see a third option that isn't horrible to contemplate.

Which brings me to John Robb.

John Robb

Robb, author of Brave New War, is a deep thinker on warfare, terrorism, and the emerging chaos that is being created by runaway globalization and technological change - its dangers as well as opportunities. Presciently, back in February 2016 he described Trump's presidential campaign as an "open source insurgency" and explained why it could take the White House.

After that, Robb kind of shut up about Trump for a while. Then, after the election, he wrote this:

This year, an open source insurgency formed in the US and it took control of the White House.  I didn't write much about it this fall because it hit too close to home.  I knew what would happen.

What is an open source insurgency?  An open source insurgency is how a very large and very diverse group of people empowered by modern technology and without any formal organization, can defeat a very powerful opponent. ...

Open source insurgencies and protests can arise spontaneously and they are very hard to stop once they get going since they are impervious to most forms of repressive counter-attack and political subversion.  For example, the open source movement propelling Trump forward made him impervious to attacks on his character.  It also eliminated any need for "ground game" or standard political organization and obviated any need for information disclosure and detailed policy papers.

Other examples of open source insurgencies include post-war Iraq and the Arab Spring which toppled governments in North Africa and the Middle East.

The trouble with open source insurgencies is that they work, so they get replicated. Again and again. Theoretically.

One implication is that Trump could be swept from office by the same type of insurgency that he rode to power:

This suggests that the next open source protest we are likely to see will form to force Donald Trump from the Presidency before the next election -- a Tahrir square moment in cities all across the US.  A massive and diverse open source protest that has one simple goal: the immediate removal of Donald Trump from office. 

Unfortunately, an open source insurgency that forces a sitting President from office without the benefit of an election could result in the same outcome as Egypt (or worse Syria).

Which brings us back to this:

And this:

And this:

So here's Robb again on January 21, the day that hordes of women took to the streets in the name of "resistance" (to what?), "self-determination," and a laundry list of progressive causes that I didn't get around to reading in full, though in fairness I'm pretty sure most of the protesters didn't either:

The massive, anti-Trump women's march swept every major US city makes it [i.e. a Tahrir Square moment in America] possible. 

Of course, the people who went to this march don't agree on all of the issues.  In fact, I'm not sure they agreed on most issues.  They did, however, all agree on one simple thing:  Trump shouldn't be President. 

This agreement and huge size of the protest is what I call the plausible promise of an open source protest.  It demonstrates, to many of the people attending the protest and many on the sidelines, that removing Trump from office through protest may actually be possible.

Indeed. The Women's March on Washington manifesto devotes a bullet point to "LGBTQIA Rights." How many of the protesters even know what that "I" and "A" stand for? (Intersex and Asexual, fwiw.) But it hardly matters, that's not why they're marching; they're marching because they want Trump gone. Outta here. Skedaddle.

It's probably wise that Robb doesn't go into detail about how this particular goal might be actualized. I have some ideas, which I'll share later. But the point is that, like it or not, we may be staring down the barrel of an endless series of disruptive political movements in America. Trump let that particular genie out of the bottle, and it's almost certainly not going back in. The danger is that its next manifestation may make Trump's rude tweets and lewd wisecracks seems positively genteel.