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Well, well, well, on Tuesday, February 12, 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded there is ‘no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia’.
NBC News intelligence and national security correspondent Reporter Ken Dilanian broke the story in his article, ‘Senate has uncovered no direct evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russia’.
This is a bipartisan finding, by the way.
Later, MSNBC interviewed Dilanian:
NBC has a summary on Twitter:
This finding comes after the Senate Intelligence Committee spent two years on an investigation involving 200 interviews and 300,000 documents.
Their investigation has not yet concluded, but its end is nigh, according to Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), the chairman. Dilanian’s article tells us:
“We know we’re getting to the bottom of the barrel because there’re not new questions that we’re searching for answers to,” Burr said.
On Tuesday, Burr doubled down, telling NBC News, “There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
It could take the committee several more months to produce a written report of their findings, which, even with this news, could be inconclusive:
The final Senate report may not reach a conclusion on whether the contacts added up to collusion or coordination with Russia, Burr said.
Democrats told NBC News that’s a distinct possibility.
“What I’m telling you is that I’m going to present, as best we can, the facts to you and to the American people,” Burr told CBS. “And you’ll have to draw your own conclusion as to whether you think that, by whatever definition, that’s collusion.”
The Senate investigation is separate from the Mueller probe, which trundles along.
Also, the House of Representatives, now Democrat-controlled, is planning to conduct a separate investigation:
that will go beyond the 2016 election to examine whether any foreign government has undue financial influence on Trump or his family. And New York federal prosecutors are pursuing their own criminal inquiry related to hush-money payments to women. The investigations into Donald Trump, therefore, are far from over.
Nonetheless, the Senate news puts a dent in Big Media’s anti-Trump narrative.
ZeroHedge reports that when Dilanian appeared on MSNBC (see video above, bold emphases in the original, those in purple mine):
MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson and her guest panelists’ faces looked visibly confused and uncomfortable as they learned the Senate report is going in the opposite direction of everything MSNBC and other mainstream outlets have been breathlessly reporting on a near 24/7 basis.
More importantly, if this is a precursor of what the Mueller report concludes in a few weeks/months, the TV station that built its current reputation on the premise of Russian collusion, may have no option but to go on indefinite hiatus.
Watch the segment … with host Hallie Jackson appearing to grow exasperated by the 2:20 mark:“If and when the president, as he may inevitably do, points to these conclusions and says look, the Senate intelligence committee found I am not guilty of conspiracy… he would be correct in saying that?”
Dilanian noted that while the Republican chair of the committee made what he characterized as “partisan” comments the week prior, it turned out be unanimous fact. “What I found,” he said, “is that Democrats don’t dispute that characterization.”
But perhaps sensing how “contrary” to the network’s own hysterical ‘Russiagate’ coverage his reporting was, he tried to soften the blow, saying, “But, again, no direct proof of a conspiracy. As one democratic aide said to me, ‘we never thought we were going to find a Democrat between Trump and Vladimir Putin saying let’s collude, but the question is how do we interpret all these various contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.’”
Hallie Jackson followed with further probing: “Not to put too fine a point on it, but I want to make sure I’m understanding this…” and asked “If and when the president, as he may inevitably do, points to these conclusions and says look, the Senate intelligence committee found I’m not guilty of conspiracy… he would be correct in saying that?”
Her face looking rather incredulous at this point, Dilanian responded by invoking the Meuller investigation, reassuring her his inquiry is not complete and likely could uncover more information. But then the bottom line: “That said, Trump will claim vindication through this, and he’ll be partially right,” he said.
President Trump tweeted his thanks:
Some readers might be sceptical.
However, an investigative journalist who has no ties to Trump and is not a supporter — Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept — agrees with him:
Greenwald’s readers were not happy.
On another tweet, Greenwald still had to repeat himself:
More angry readers tweeted here.
Let’s remind ourselves of what Big Media have been foisting on us since 2017: ‘bombshell’, ‘tipping point’, ‘beginning of the end’, ‘Trump will resign’:
Big Media’s narrative is ‘too big to fail’:
Trump supporters, understandably, are sick and tired of it all, because the Democrats started this narrative shortly before the 2016 election:
This chap meant ‘wielded’, but his point still stands. I hope he is correct:
Here are a few suggestions for President Trump on how to wield that hammer:
As for Robert Mueller and his team, the same day NBC’s Ken Dilanian filed his report, President Trump’s former attorney John Dowd gave an interview to ABC News (full transcript).
John Dowd does not believe the report of Mueller’s findings will be released to the public. He thinks there will simply be an announcement that the two-year investigation has ended.
Dowd says that Mueller had all the information he needed nearly a year ago (emphases mine):
In my opinion, on March 5th, we were done. He had everything. He said he had everything. He told me that no one had lied. He told me they had every document we asked for. He told me that it was nothing more. He told me that the president was not a target. That is, he did not have any exposure, that he was a witness subject, which is perfectly normal for someone’s conduct you’re looking at, but they don’t have exposure.
Dowd later said the same thing and says Mueller should have admitted that he was being pressured to find something by a ‘cabal in the FBI’:
There’s no exposure. It’s been a terrible waste of time. What’s worse is let’s get on the other side of this, how it all happened. This is one of the greatest frauds this country’s ever seen. And I’m just shocked that Bob Mueller didn’t call it that way and say, “I’m being used.” I would’ve done that. If I were in his shoes in this thing, I’d have gone to the– I’d have gone to Sessions and Rosenstein and said, “Look. This is nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the F.B.I. to get even.”
President Trump has co-operated with Mueller, responding to requests that no other president has never had to endure (source):
Note the third paragraph in that last tweet. Had Trump agreed to an interview with Mueller:
it would set a precedent that would open the current president and future presidents to this kind of interview.
Given the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings, it will be interesting to see how much longer the Mueller probe lasts.
David A Clarke, Jr, the most famous retired sheriff of Milwaukee, has an outstanding Twitter feed.
He tells it like it is.
A selection of his recent tweets follows.
On the December 26 murder of the on-duty police officer, Corporal Ronil Singh, in California:
On the Wall:
On Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California), who spent her Christmas holiday in Hawaii (while President Trump worked in the Oval Office):
On feminism:
On self-defence:
On voter fraud:
On police killed in the line of duty and policing policy:
On Obama:
On the media:
On Mitt Romney:
On the Democrats’ hypocrisy:
If you enjoyed those, there is more at his website:
Sheriff Clarke has views on a wide range of topics. His site is definitely worth visiting.
Over Christmas, I received one message from a loved one worried that President Trump will lead the US into war.
It was a bit surprising, as he had already laid out his policy to withdraw from Syria and would begin a troop draw-down in Afghanistan. That said, my loved one is a faithful MSNBC viewer. I have tried but cannot persuade her to get news from other sources.
As the American president noted yesterday:
As Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of Turning Point USA — an organisation for university-aged Trump supporters — says, President Trump had a very successful 2018 despite his opponents’ best efforts to thwart him:
As an article in today’s Tennessee Star (initially posted on ConservativeHQ.com) pointed out:
President Trump’s been remarkably successful in a short time — through legitimate means. Democrats and the media relentlessly peck at him for his brash personal style and reflexive tendency to punch back via tweet, but if the success of a president is measured in actions performed, Trump rates extremely high.
It’s important to look back at Donald Trump’s personal history through his outstanding career in real estate. He knew anybody who was anybody. He went to all sorts of parties and receptions. People told him all manner of secrets in conversation.
The important thing to remember here is that Donald Trump does not drink. Nor has he ever used drugs. So, he remembers all sorts of details about what people — his friends, at the time — told him.
Shortly before the election on November 8, 2016, he held one of his many campaign rallies. At this particular one, he explained why his notional friends hated him for running for president:
He won the election he was not supposed to win. He became the leader of the free world, in traditional parlance.
It was more than just the media who had it in for him. A coup of sorts has been going on ever since he was elected, so please read the text inside the box:
At some point, however, one has to question the abject hatred. Is it just about President Trump — or is it about something more?
Because it’s about more than Trump.
This visceral hatred from the Left — media included — is also aimed at half of the US population:
President Trump spent all of Christmas and New Year at the White House:
All of the legislators have been on holiday, except for one, a Republican.
President Trump — and this Republican legislator — were hoping for an early return of senators and congressional representatives in order to press ahead with urgent legislation regarding the southern US border. But to no avail. Here is the Speaker-Designate of the House of Representatives:
Meanwhile, the First Lady hosted the Trumps’ New Year party on her own:
So, when the Democrats rail against President Trump come January 3, remember why the media and political elite — including his own Republicans — are doing so. They are being duplicitous in their rants.
Regardless, 2019 promises to be a ‘fantastic’ one for the United States, and, by extension, the world!
Perhaps less so for the president’s detractors.
If we want peace in the world, we need to continue to pray for President Trump’s safety and well-being.
Many thanks to Martin Geddes for coming out with two very important graphics explaining the Democrats and the media.
I am unfamiliar with Mr Geddes but appreciate the time he put into them. (Click on each one to enlarge.)
Outside of The Daily Caller, Gateway Pundit and Breitbart, most of the heavy lifting for President Trump and his MAGA agenda is done by citizen journalists, everyday people like you and me, whereas the Democrats have most of Big Media at their beck and call:
Note the colour codes. Twitter gives everyone in Big Media a pass. Citizen investigative journalists, not so much.
And it’s not just citizen journalists who are banned. On November 26, 2018, The Daily Caller reported that Twitter permanently banned an American veteran who had a radio show (emphases mine):
Conservative veteran and radio host Jesse Kelly was permanently banned from Twitter on Sunday for allegedly committing multiple violations of the Twitter terms of service.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller’s Amber Athey, Kelly said Twitter informed him that he was banned with no warning and no explanation of what rules he allegedly broke.
That day, Kelly appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight (Fox News):
The article says that Twitter banned a feminist, too:
Last week, the tech giant banned feminist Meghan Murphy for questioning the ideology behind the transgender movement.
The good news is that Kelly’s Twitter account appears to have been reinstated. Result! Thanks go to the senators who support freedom of speech:
Despite that success and a few others, Twitter can and does stifle those who do not support the leftist agenda. On July 29, The Daily Caller reported that Republican legislators also fell foul of the social media giant:
Twitter’s censorship problem looks like it’s here to stay.
The company faced a sharp backlash last week after a Vice News investigation revealed that Twitter was hiding several prominent Republicans from its search bar.
Those affected included four House Republicans: Rep. Devin Nunes of California, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina. All four are members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Democrats weren’t affected in the same way, Vice found.
Interesting, especially when the four who were censored are relatively young supporters of President Trump and MAGA. It’s as if Twitter doesn’t want Americans to know that younger legislators support the president. Why, that might influence others in that same age bracket to jump aboard the Trump Train.
The article says that Twitter claims their shadowbanning — hiding the congressmen’s accounts from the search bar — wasn’t to do with anything the congressmen tweeted, but rather their followers. Does the following sound totalitarian?
At the center of the company’s censorship problem is its decision to penalize “bad-faith actors,” who aren’t actually in violation of any rules but still threaten “healthy conversation.”
Much the sorting between good and bad actors on Twitter is done by an algorithm which takes into account criteria like whom you follow and tweet at, and who follows and tweets at you.
Twitter didn’t penalize the congressmen because of anything they said, but because the “wrong” accounts were engaging with their tweets, two Twitter executives conceded in a blog post Thursday. The Republicans were guilty of being followed by the wrong people.
Twitter has since restored the congressmen’s visibility on Twitter, but the underlying issue remains.
The company is still burying accounts it deems “bad-faith actors,” while remaining opaque about who does or doesn’t fit that classification — and which accounts follow or retweet you are still part of the criteria.
The Daily Caller attempted to find out more from Twitter, but the company did not reply.
Remember back in the old days, not so many years ago:
Twitter … once described itself as the “free speech wing of the free speech party” …
Earlier this year, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey:
sparked controversy in April when he endorsed an article calling for a total Democratic victory the “new civil war.” He similarly raised eyebrows in June by apologizing for the sin of eating at Chick-Fil-A.
Moving along, the next graphic from Martin Geddes outlines the fundamental differences between the Democrats and Trump supporters:
Most people following my site will know that Q is a person or small group of people who probably work for President Trump. For over a year now, Q has asked readers via the Socratic method to analyse what has actually been happening in the United States behind the scenes over the past few decades.
Q’s slogan is ‘Where We Go One, We Go All’: WWG1WGA. In other words, we’re all in this together!
By contrast, the characteristics of the Democratic Party are all too destructive, corrupt — and, sadly, real. Please read them carefully.
The MAGA agenda welcomes everyone, regardless of race, colour or creed.
MAGA is a bit old school — a compliment — in that regard. We believe in freedom, duty, sacrifice and the ideals upon which America was founded. We remember and appreciate our history, good and bad. We like tradition and beauty.
Unlike the Dems, we’re not out to destroy. We’re out to conserve and, where necessary, rebuild with care and attention, in the way the Founding Fathers would have wanted.
Let’s hope the following video still shows by the time this post appears:
On Thursday, October 18, 2018, Tucker Carlson featured a video of a crazed leftist ripping up Ted Cruz (R-Texas) campaign signs in Houston’s middle class Montrose neighbourhood. The guy was jumping around and screaming directly into the camera.
There is a ‘zombie’ virus infecting raccoons in the US at the moment. Tucker asked whether it made its way to Texas.
Then he discussed the attacks — verbal and physical — on Trump supporters. Dan Bongino, a former NYPD policeman and retired Secret Service agent joined him. Tucker rolled footage of CNN’s discussion of the ‘bullying’ tactics of Trump supporters with mugs that read ‘Liberal Tears’ then showed a video of left-wing violence in Portland, Oregon. The two men wondered how CNN could be complaining about mugs when Antifa are tearing up the streets of a major American city.
Bongino says that the media are complicit in this crazed violence and the attacks on Trump supporters. The chyron at the bottom of that segment reads:
MEDIA: IF YOU DON’T BACK DEMS, YOU’RE EVIL
Seriously, the Dems are unhinged. They don’t mind Antifa. Legislators such as Maxine Waters and Tim Kaine encourage leftists to harass decent Americans minding their own business. The decent Americans’ sin? Supporting President Donald Trump.
This madness has been going on for two-and-a-half years, since Trump was running for president.
It started in Chicago, where Trump’s scheduled rally had to be abandoned in March 2016.
Democrats are the party of crime and crazed violence. Stop voting for them.
On Wednesday, October 10, 2018, President Trump appeared at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, in support of Republican candidate for Senate, Lou Barletta:
It was yet another high-energy Trump rally, inside …
… and outside:
Fortunately, jumbotrons were provided for those who could not get in:
Trump always thanks the crowds via Twitter:
This year, he is emphasising the importance of voting in the mid-terms (content — Trump’s speech — will be available if you click on the tweet, which will open in a new tab):
This is one of Trump’s new angles:
Millie Weaver of Infowars interviewed several self-proclaimed ex-Democrats after the rally. This is an instructive 10-and-a-half minute video, especially for my readers who do not live in the United States:
Most of the people interviewed had voted Democrat in several elections, had voted for Obama at least once and came to realise the Democrats were not making America great again. They came to realise that Donald Trump was the only candidate who spoke out and up for them. One teenage girl noticed that Erie was starting to look better again since he became president.
A union man said he supports Trump because the unions weren’t preserving American jobs for their members. He said that he had seen more and more jobs go overseas.
A teenage girl, possibly just out of high school, said that she started to research Trump because the negative coverage about him piqued her interest. She discovered that Trump wasn’t at all the person the media portrayed. Her mother says she managed to ‘red pill’ the whole family.
Others reported that they lost close relationships with family and friends for supporting Trump. How sad.
A black man said that he was sick of the identity politics that the Dems go in for; he judges candidates by what they say and do and refuses to support Democrats just because he is an ethnic minority.
A young university student says that he was left-wing until he started looking at the Dem stance on gun control. He says that the Second Amendment is fundamental to American rights as citizens.
More and more people are waking up to the dirty tricks that the Democrats play. On Thursday, October 11, The Hill reported that Tucker Carlson’s book, Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution, toppled Watergate journalist Bob Woodward’s Fear from the top spot on the New York Times best-seller list. That is excellent news indeed.
The president tweeted his congratulations at the weekend:
The Hill noted:
Carlson consistently finishes in the top 3 from a ratings perspective in the cable news race along with Fox’s Sean Hannity and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. In the third quarter of this year, Carlson averaged 2.78 million viewers.
Carlson’s one of the good guys. Unfortunately, most pundits, presenters and reporters in Big Media are anything but. LoveBreedsAccountability says that most media people are helping to inflame violence against respectable Americans:
The violent, angry grassroots Democrats we’re seeing attack people and break laws, are inspired and enabled by the media. And because they’re liberals, they’re that awkward combination of ridiculous, terrifying and hilarious that make for great campaign ads. So President Trump and the GOP are using those mobs as evidence of why you should vote Republican in the midterms. And it’s working. The midterms are shaping up to be a lot more competitive than anyone thought, and so the media is pushing back hard against the “mob” characterization.
The post included a video clip from the Washington Free Beacon‘s Andrew Kugle who observed that the media are now trying to excise the word ‘mob’ from their coverage:
There’s also this comment from another Twitter user:
Indeed.
Eric Holder, Obama’s first attorney general, is the latest to suggest violence against Republicans:
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), who was shot and seriously injured at a practice session for the annual Congressional baseball game in June 2017, tweeted:
It took months for Scalise to recover from the injuries inflicted upon him by a shooter from Illinois. Therefore, he knows whereof he speaks.
The GOP has released a new ad with a montage of left-wing violence against not only Americans but also Canadians. Breitbart reports:
The new GOP ad also features a recording of a leftist man attacking a woman demonstrating against abortion in Toronto, Canada.
Democrats and their news media allies took umbrage with Trump’s aforementioned description of them, expressing support for left-wing and partisan Democrat activists who harass Republican politicians and their supporters.
However, this year has been very bad for Republicans, including women (emphasis mine):
Various Republicans have accused Democrats of inciting politically motivated violence — deliberately or negligently — through rhetoric. Sen. Rand Paul’s wife, Kelley Paul, recently told Breitbart News that she now sleeps with a loaded gun by her bed as a security precaution following threats against her husband, herself, and her family.
It cannot be emphasised how important it is for decent Americans to go out and vote in the mid-terms.
Vote Republican: the future of the United States and the world depends on it.
Yesterday’s post was about the Kavanaugh nomination and ritual defamation.
Ritual defamation is a term coined by Laird Wilcox, who researches political fringe movements and is the founder of The Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, in the Kansas Collection of Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
If you think this is being hypersensitive, here is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) explaining that the Democrats ‘merchandise’ lies to the media about Republicans. Of the Wrap-up Smear, she says, ‘It’s a tactic’:
This is what Pelosi says in the video (emphases mine throughout):
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You demonize, and then you — we call it the ‘wrap up’ smear, if you want to talk ‘politics’. We call it the ‘wrap-up’ smear.
You smear somebody, with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you ‘merchandise’ it. And then you (pointing to the press) write it, and they’ll say “See, it’s reported in the press, that this, this, this and this…” so they have that validation, that the press reported the ‘smear’, and then it’s called ‘the wrap-up smear’.
Now I’m going to ‘merchandise’ the press’ report, on the smear, that we made.
And it’s, it’s a tactic. And it’s self-evident.
Today’s post looks at Wilcox’s list of extremist traits, which the Democrats and others on the Left, including media, have been displaying since Donald Trump won the 2016 election. One can only hope that, with all its madness, it climaxed with the Kavanaugh nomination to the US Supreme Court, because it really does seem as if demons are everywhere across the pond at the moment.
All of Wilcox’s listed traits are pertinent to the climate in America at this time. I have supplemented them with illustrations from the Kavanaugh nomination process. Excerpts follow, so please be sure to read his essay in full:
1. CHARACTER ASSASSINATION.
Extremists often attack the character of an opponent rather than deal with the facts or issues raised. They will question motives, qualifications, past associations, alleged values, personality, looks, mental health, and so on as a diversion from the issues under consideration …
2. NAME-CALLING AND LABELING.
Extremists are quick to resort to epithets (racist, subversive, pervert, hate monger, nut, crackpot, degenerate, un-American, anti-semite, red, commie, nazi, kook, fink, liar, bigot, and so on) to label and condemn opponents in order to divert attention from their arguments and to discourage others from hearing them out. These epithets don’t have to be proved to be effective; the mere fact that they have been said is often enough.
3. IRRESPONSIBLE SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS.
Extremists tend to make sweeping claims or judgments on little or no evidence, and they have a tendency to confuse similarity with sameness. That is, they assume that because two (or more) things, events, or persons are alike in some respects, they must be alike in most respects …
4. INADEQUATE PROOF FOR ASSERTIONS.
Extremists tend to be very fuzzy about what constitutes proof, and they also tend to get caught up in logical fallacies, such as post hoc ergo propter hoc (assuming that a prior event explains a subsequent occurrence simply because of their before and after relationship). They tend to project wished-for conclusions and to exaggerate the significance of information that confirms their beliefs while derogating or ignoring information that contradicts them. They tend to be motivated by feelings more than facts, by what they want to exist rather than what actually does exist. Extremists do a lot of wishful and fearful thinking.
This is what happened to an ordinary American, Thomas Wictor, who tweets on politics. The Left does not like what he has to say, so one or more of their number reported him to the FBI (‘thread’ should be ‘threat’). He’s still suspended on Twitter:
5. ADVOCACY OF DOUBLE STANDARDS.
Extremists generally tend to judge themselves or their interest group in terms of their intentions, which they tend to view very generously, and others by their acts, which they tend to view very critically. They would like you to accept their assertions on faith, but they demand proof for yours …
Robert ‘Beto’ O’Rourke is the Democrat candidate running against incumbent Ted Cruz for US Senate in Texas:
Now back to Judge Kavanaugh:
6. TENDENCY TO VIEW THEIR OPPONENTS AND CRITICS AS ESSENTIALLY EVIL.
To the extremist, opponents hold opposing positions because they are bad people, immoral, dishonest, unscrupulous, mean-spirited, hateful, cruel, or whatever, not merely because they simply disagree, see the matter differently, have competing interests, or are perhaps even mistaken.
7. MANICHAEAN WORLDVIEW.
Extremists have a tendency to see the world in terms of absolutes of good and evil, for them or against them, with no middle ground or intermediate positions. All issues are ultimately moral issues of right and wrong, with the “right” position coinciding with their interests. Their slogan is often “those who are not with me are against me.”
8. ADVOCACY OF SOME DEGREE OF CENSORSHIP OR REPRESSION OF THEIR OPPONENTS AND/OR CRITICS.
This may include a very active campaign to keep opponents from media access and a public hearing, as in the case of blacklisting, banning or “quarantining” dissident spokespersons. They may actually lobby for legislation against speaking, writing, teaching, or instructing “subversive” or forbidden information or opinions. They may even attempt to keep offending books out of stores or off of library shelves, discourage advertising with threats of reprisals, and keep spokespersons for “offensive” views off the airwaves or certain columnists out of newspapers. In each case the goal is some kind of information control …
Republican congresswoman Marsha Blackburn represents Tennessee’s 7th District and is running for US Senate, but a senior Google engineer deems her a ‘terrorist’ and ‘violent thug’:
9. TEND TO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES IN TERMS OF WHO THEIR ENEMIES ARE: WHOM THEY HATE AND WHO HATES THEM.
Accordingly, extremists may become emotionally bound to their opponents, who are often competing extremists themselves. Because they tend to view their enemies as evil and powerful, they tend, perhaps subconsciously, to emulate them, adopting the same tactics to a certain degree. For example, anti-Communist and anti-Nazi groups often behave surprisingly like their opponents. Anti-Klan rallies often take on much of the character of the stereotype of Klan rallies themselves, including the orgy of emotion, bullying, screaming epithets, and even acts of violence …
10. TENDENCY TOWARD ARGUMENT BY INTIMIDATION.
Extremists tend to frame their arguments in such a way as to intimidate others into accepting their premises and conclusions. To disagree with them is to “ally oneself with the devil,” or to give aid and comfort to the enemy. They use a lot of moralizing and pontificating, and tend to be very judgmental. This shrill, harsh rhetorical style allows them to keep their opponents and critics on the defensive, cuts off troublesome lines of argument, and allows them to define the perimeters of debate.
This is what happened. I feel sorry for the owner/executive chef:
12. ASSUMPTION OF MORAL OR OTHER SUPERIORITY OVER OTHERS.
Most obvious would be claims of general racial or ethnic superiority–a master race, for example. Less obvious are claims of ennoblement because of alleged victimhood, a special relationship with God, membership in a special “elite” or “class,” and a kind of aloof “highminded” snobbishness that accrues because of the weightiness of their preoccupations, their altruism, and their willingness to sacrifice themselves (and others) to their cause. After all, who can bear to deal with common people when one is trying to save the world! Extremists can show great indignation when one is “insensitive” enough to challenge these claims.
13. DOOMSDAY THINKING.
Extremists often predict dire or catastrophic consequences from a situation or from failure to follow a specific course, and they tend to exhibit a kind of “crisis-mindedness” …
14. BELIEF THAT IT’S OKAY TO DO BAD THINGS IN THE SERVICE OF A “GOOD” CAUSE.
Extremists may deliberately lie, distort, misquote, slander, defame, or libel their opponents and/or critics, engage in censorship or repression , or undertake violence in “special cases.” This is done with little or no remorse as long as it’s in the service of defeating the Communists or Fascists or whomever. Defeating an “enemy” becomes an all-encompassing goal to which other values are subordinate. With extremists, the end justifies the means.
15. EMPHASIS ON EMOTIONAL RESPONSES AND, CORRESPONDINGLY, LESS IMPORTANCE ATTACHED TO REASONING AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS.
Extremists have an unspoken reverence for propaganda, which they may call “education” or “consciousness-raising.” Symbolism plays an exaggerated role in their thinking, and they tend to think imprecisely and metamorphically …
16. HYPERSENSITIVITY AND VIGILANCE.
Extremists perceive hostile innuendo in even casual comments; imagine rejection and antagonism concealed in honest disagreement and dissent; see “latent” subversion, anti-semitism, perversion, racism, disloyalty, and so on in innocent gestures and ambiguous behaviors. Although few extremists are clinically paranoid, many of them adopt a paranoid style with its attendant hostility and distrust.
18. PROBLEMS TOLERATING AMBIGUITY AND UNCERTAINTY.
Indeed, the ideologies and belief systems to which extremists tend to attach themselves often represent grasping for certainty in an uncertain world, or an attempt to achieve absolute security in an environment that is naturally unpredictable or perhaps populated by people with interests opposed to their own. Extremists exhibit a kind of risk-aversiveness that compels them to engage in controlling and manipulative behavior, both on a personal level and in a political context, to protect themselves from the unforeseen and unknown. The more laws or “rules” there are that regulate the behavior of others–particularly their “enemies”–the more secure extremists feel.
Think Big Government. Now we know why we have so many nit-picking laws on the books!
19. INCLINATION TOWARD “GROUPTHINK.”
Extremists, their organizations , and their subcultures are prone to a kind of inward-looking group cohesiveness that leads to what Irving Janis discussed in his excellent book Victims of Groupthink. “Groupthink” involves a tendency to conform to group norms and to preserve solidarity and concurrence at the expense of distorting members’ observations of facts, conflicting evidence, and disquieting observations that would call into question the shared assumptions and beliefs of the group.
Right-wingers (or left-wingers), for example, talk only with one another, read material that reflects their own views, and can be almost phobic about the “propaganda” of the “other side.” The result is a deterioration of reality-testing, rationality, and moral judgment. With groupthink, shared illusions of righteousness, superior morality, persecution, and so on remain intact, and those who challenge them are viewed with skepticism and hostility.
We don’t need examples for this, do we?
20. TENDENCY TO PERSONALIZE HOSTILITY.
Extremists often wish for the personal bad fortune of their “enemies,” and celebrate when it occurs. When a critic or an adversary dies or has a serious illness, a bad accident, or personal legal problems, extremists often rejoice and chortle about how they “deserved” it …
In 2013, the Telegraph had an article detailing leftists rejoicing upon Margaret Thatcher’s death. People tweeted that she would burn in Hell, while others announced they were throwing parties.
21. EXTREMISTS OFTEN FEEL THAT THE SYSTEM IS NO GOOD UNLESS THEY WIN.
For example, if they lose an election, then it was “rigged.” If public opinion turns against them, it was because of “brainwashing.” If their followers become disillusioned, it’s because of “sabotage.” The test of the rightness or wrongness of the system is how it impacts upon them…
This last one cuts both ways and, today, is hardly extremist on either side. President Trump and his supporters believe that the 2016 system was rigged against him. Everyday Democrats largely believe the system is no good because they do not hold the majority at present. However, as we see from occasional reports on voter fraud, the Left do everything possible to flout voting laws (e.g. sending buses and vans of voters from polling station to polling station on election day).
But, that’s okay, because the Kavanaugh SCOTUS farce will wake up an important number of Democrats. The late Andrew Breitbart received a similar political epiphany nearly 30 years ago:
It’s important for all of us to identify extremism where it exists, no matter how downplayed it is.
