As posted on the legacy site last Saturday:

To be clear from the start, the high inflation, border crisis, war brewing on three fronts (all by design) world of corruption (to the core) that I now observe from this keyboard leaves me with very little “give a $&!#” about the “no mean tweets!” crowd. So, whether it is the condescending overnight guys on the AM radio or a polite, well-meaning on-line neighbor, when I hear about how undecided and independent voters despise Trump’s nastiness or how women especially dislike Trump’s meanness and – despite the far-from-perfect but generally corrective agenda and policies that naturally flow from his pores – how Trump must change his mean ways to earn their votes…well, I generally just check out. In the world of 2024, if they don’t “get” what is going on, if they are fine with the path we are on, if they still need to be “gotten”…then I don’t want them. 

At this point in my friendly rant, I will once again return to an old favorite (The Soul of Governance: Trump in Context, November 25, 2019) to frame the current situation in appropriate context through the mindset established by Victor Davis Hanson in The Soul of Battle. In it he presents the concept of an “Army of a Season” and how certain times and events in history may dictate that such an entity emerge from the people and fight back the evils that threaten that people. As for the leaders of such entities (Think: Sherman and Patton):

These marchers of a season must be led by ruthless and gifted men who are often of little use in a peacetime democracy but find their proper authoritarian and aristocratic calling only as absolute rulers of an armed citizenry. Yet much of their bluster and avowals to make the enemy “howl,” to turn the countryside into a “sheep-walk,” to kill the “bastards,” was the necessary veneer to their more subtle strategy of indirect approaches… …a strategy…so misunderstood by fellow commanders and politicians weaned on [more typical] Western tradition…” (Page 11, emphasis added)

I will let you translate terms like “peace time” and the examples of “bluster and avowals” to our more current example on your own. If you are not the type to take the Democrat impeachment narrative as dictated from their script at face value, I think you can handle it.

If second term Trump is going to be anything but another four-year pause in the progressive march into the abyss, then he must win and “President” his way. More importantly, if second term Trump is going to be anything but another four-year pause in the progressive march into the abyss, then he must exit at the end leaving a solid voting base that is faithful to the Constitution, American Liberty, and the Republic regardless of the narrative-of-the-day. To me this means the exact opposite of the big-tent-ism pushed through the first decade or so of this century by the Party Class. A big tent filled with fickle voting blocs that operate in the unintellectual world of “feelings” and virtue-signaling “independence” does little good against the pseudo-event/mass formation machine that has evolved to near perfection on the American Left. I would prefer to travel on from this point without them. 

Eighty-Seven days out from Election Day (whatever that even means in this unserious, rotting husk of a Republic) and our Maverick is in the arena. He has been well aware of the war he is in since (at least) the day he was told that Trump Tower was “bugged” in 2016…and fully engaged in the war against America being waged from the inside every day since. I’m fine with him calling the plays from here on out and tuning out the noise from the cowardly crowd. 

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The following post from early 2020 may provide some additional useful context to the above friendly rant. Enjoy:

The Rebel in Chief – Real Mavericks Never Surrender

January 24, 2020

“Understanding” is the key to an anxiety free existence in these crazy, unserious times in modern America.

…among them there is only one hatred that is not disarmed: the hatred of the man alone, of the individualist outside of all parties. – Page 99

He may occupy the office of the President of the United State of America but that’s not really the job We the People hired him to do. Additionally, he was elected under the Republican banner – to hell with your beloved brand you statist tool – but, again, he was hired specifically because he is a man of no party, an individual, an individualist. His job is not to “act Presidential” (and expectations for him to do so are misplaced and witness a certain ignorance about the situation at hand). His job is to be himself and this he does with a natural effortlessness few can comprehended…it is who he is. And for this he is hated by the corrupt-o-crats of both parties. It is their reaction, their expanded temper tantrum, that is most telling. For the prescription ordered up by We the People appears to them as unadulterated anarchy. And, to an extent, in the proper context, I guess that is what it is.

It is thus true that most men don’t exist. At the very most they are number-fragments of the crowd. And crowds don’t think: they believe what others long dead impose on them. They are dominated by the dead. Crowds don’t reason; they become irritated, exasperated and enthusiastic depending on the leader; they are dominated by the swindlers and megalomaniacs. Crowds don’t understand; they admit, and prestige blinds them just as vehemence frightens them. Crowds don’t want, they obey. They are fearful, cowardly, happy only in the beatitude of apathy.

At a certain moment every man has to face the same question: either you will have the strength to be a categorical “self” or you will disappear in the innumerable rabble of vague humanity.

[True Mavericks] are those who don’t hesitate between the two possibilities. They remain those who have enough strength to resist the assault of the mob and…are true to themselves: …outsiders, rebels. – Page 70

A particularly sober reading of recent history would recognize that corrective signals were sent to our Ruling Class (i.e. the crowd) by the modern Tea Party of nearly a decade ago. That polite, orderly uprising was condescendingly brushed aside in short order and then – please excuse the completely appropriate and accurate expression – its memory was pissed on over and over again by that same Ruling Class for the next handful of years. Finally, enough was enough. The voters and the (Constitutional) system sent a corrective…disturptive…tour de force. (For the record: that is a proper, contextual use of that final term. Contrary to the inappropriate, erroneous, and forced attempted application to Adam Schiff (Eunuch-CA) by others on this bandwidth.) This “The State” – both deep and otherwise – just could not allow.

Indeed! In trying to bend men animated by the firm will to be free they will only succeed in creating more ferocious rebels. – Page 97

So “The State” set out to bend The People’s Man Trump. And I reiterate my informed observation/opinion again:

Absent the irrational, hyperbolic, persistent opposition we have witnessed, I can imagine a first term President Trump checking off several important agenda boxes (while being shepherded into mediocrity by the Republican caucuses) then declaring victory after one term and easing into a retirement of bragging about how much more he could have done if he had chosen to run again. Instead, the irrational, hyperbolic, persistent opposition has not only energized the man and his base but made him largely politically anti-fragile. That will be a useful and interesting superpower at his disposal during the second term. The results just may be what you propose.

Thus, the rebels, from the top down, have been hardened. The country is sitting on a powder keg. And yet half of the Ruling Class is still determined to bend The People into submission. They are Progressive, it is what they do.

…Monsieur B. Palante wrote: “… Despite all the optimistic utopias, every society is and will be exploitative, dominating, and tyrannical. It is so not by accident, but by essence.” – Pages 78-79

…the cowardly and rotten mass which, in any case, hates those who rise above it. … For the crowd the enemy is the individual. Renan said, “The great men of a nation are those it [destroys].” – Page 69

Truth be told, past electoral support or non-support aside, history has not provided any other viable individualist, rebel…True Maverick…at this moment to do our work. Nothing short of the future of American Liberty is riding on his political survival. As such, I do not now, nor will I when the smoke clears, count those acting on the other side as my countrymen. With a nod to one of the first Revolutionaries on these shores…collectively they are the modern American Cataline and my contempt for them is total.

I hope this helps. That is all.

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All page numbered quotes in this piece come from Anarchists Never Surrender (Victor Serge). The two indicated edits changed the word “Anarchists” to “True Mavericks” and “kills” to “destroys,” respectively, in order to be more accurate per the modern vernacular and to be more sensitive to the fragile sensibilities of most in this neighborhood. Also, I use the expanded term “True Maverick” to denote the true nature of a being as opposed to the marketing gimmick of Presidential candidates now mostly lost to (i.e self-soiled by) history.

Versions of this started as comments in response to a couple of other ongoing Ricochet conversations (here and here) but it grew to big so I chose to let it stand on its own.

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ADDED COMMENTARY

The following added context was made in the comments over there when a member intentionally misunderstood the “big-tent-sim” reference in order to spin off topic with strawmen and continued jousts with the voices in his head. (Turns out he is a complete dolt…the added context did no good there but it may be useful here):

For the record, a big tent is fine. However, the big-tent-ism of the GWB years and the resulting hangover is nothing short of an embarrassment of conspicuous political whoredom but was also ultimately as destructive in the medium to long term of the party as it was touted to be a boon in the short term.

For far too long anyone who could almost spell “Reagan” correctly – at least getting the first letter right – was happily ushered into yet another annex to the Big Tent. Many were used to showcase the diversity of the party with prominent positions at the RNC or the GWB White House while others were given makeovers to the FOX News style and thrown on the air…how many of them can you now find on the airwaves as overt lefties or have faded into irrelevance after opening their mouth just enough to expose the fact that they hadn’t a clue what “conservatism” meant…not even of the “compassionate” variety.

Such an overstuffed “big tent” slowly pushes those actually true to the cause out the back in favor of the watered-down show pieces being welcomed on the red carpet in the front. At some point the effect of diluting the cause is maximized when the exchange ratio reaches one-to-one or greater. 

A similar effect can – and I suspect would – happen to the Trump voting base…much of which has been described as “willing to crawl through broken glass to vote for him.” That is the kind of enthusiasm Trump has created by being Trump. If Trump became “Boring Trump” for the next eighty-six days to court those “feeling” undecideds and “virtue-signaling” independents, only an oversimplified (and erroneous) analysis would presume that there is not a trade-off with respect to True Base Enthusiasm for every one of these fickle voters gained. I do not know the “exchange rate” (and neither does anyone else) but I do know it is greater than zero and I posit that the impact is not easily reversible in the time frames now at play. The net effect may or may not be a growing base, but it is certainly a weaker base. I’ll stick with the stronger version and win or lose with that team, please. (I’ve seen the true value of the watered-down Big Tent Party over the last decade and a half or so…no thank you.)

Lastly, I am not-so-much telling the stubborn “feeling” undecided and “virtue-signaling” independent class to “go to hell” (as suggest above) as telling them to GROW THE HELL UP. That message still stands.