Elections are supposed to be rigged!

Adapted from my post of October 2016 

The Hill, yesterday after President Biden's two-hour press conference: Biden says elections might not be legitimate if reform bills aren't passed.

President Biden on Wednesday said the legitimacy of the upcoming midterm elections could depend on Democrats passing voting rights legislation. 

“I’m not saying it’s going to be legit. The increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is in direct proportion to us not being able to get these reforms passed,” Biden said during his second solo press conference at the White House, referring to the 2022 election. ...

The president responded that it “depends” earlier in the press conference when asked if he thinks the upcoming election results will be legitimate if voting rights legislation doesn’t pass. 

“Well, it all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election,” he said.

I have posted to some extent on how American elections are rigged.

Just before the 2016 election, George Will, a solid member of the Political Class, albeit mostly on the Right, saying that rig attempts are well known: "Trump Has Point That Elections Are Rigged If He Would Just Make It More Clearly."

Then there is long-time DNC operative Bob Creamer explaining how any why the Democrats rig elections, on camera (warning, frank language). He clearly says that law and ethics have nothing to do with Democrat campaigns, the only point is to win, period. Nothing more, but absolutely nothing less.

By the way, How deeply in the middle of Democrat party operations is Bob Creamer. Well, he ...

... has visited the White House 342 times since 2009, White House records show.

Robert Creamer, who acted as a middle man between the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee and “protesters” who tried — and succeeded — to provoke violence at Trump rallies met with President Obama 47 times, according to White House records. Creamer’s last visit was in June 2016.

During Obama's entire term until June 30, 2016, there were 2,717 days. That is equal to 388 weeks. That means that Creamer went to the White House almost every week of Obama's entire tenure until the end of last June. And this guy's main mission in life, if not his only one, was to use violence and otherwise corrupt and influence elections outside the law.

But as I have pointed out already, in Marxist, which is to say Democrat, theory, elections are supposed to be rigged.

What is the purpose of this elaborate extravaganza? Marxists have long noted that insofar as its stated purpose is concerned–determining the question of political power in modern society–it is no more than a charade, a political sleight of hand in which the more things seem to change, the more do they remain the same. But Marxists do not deserve any special credit for making such an observation. One hardly has to be a Marxist to grasp the fact that bourgeois elections do not, in any way, impinge upon or alter questions of power. The general cynicism among the masses toward politics and politicians–a cynicism which runs far deeper than can be measured solely by noting the large numbers of people who do not bother to vote in elections–is itself proof that the futility and corruption of bourgeois politics has become a part of U.S. folklore.

(Paul Saba, 1980, "Reaffirming the Marxist Theory of the State")

Here is the George Will transcript:

When Mr. Trump talks about it being rigged, he sweeps all his grievances into one big puddle. He talked about the media. He talked about the primaries. He talked about the polls. Talked about the Republican National Committee. I think when most persons hear that an election is rigged, they think of government action to rig the election. And there Mr. Trump has a point if he would just make it more clearly.

It is hard to think of an innocent reason why Democrats spend so much time, energy and money, scarce resources all, resisting attempts to purge the voter rolls, that is to remove people who are dead or otherwise have left the jurisdiction. It's hard to think of an innocent reason why they fight so tremendously against Voter I.D. laws. They say, well that burdens the exercise of a fundamental right. The Supreme Court has said that travel is a fundamental right and no one thinks that showing an I.D. at the airport burdens that fundamental right.

We know -- we don't surmise -- we know that the 2010, '12 and '14 elections were rigged by the most intrusive and potentially punitive institution of the federal government, the IRS. You can read all about it in Kim Strassel's book Intimidation Game. She's familiar to all Wall Street Journal readers and FOX viewers. This is not a surmise. I have talked to lawyers in a position to know they say it's still going on. The IRS is still intolerantly delaying the granting of tax exempt to conservative advocacy groups to skew the persuasion of this campaign.

In Marxist theory the whole point of elections is to give the proles the illusion that they have a say in the outcome and how the country is run. But they don't and they shouldn't. At least, not by the bourgeois world view.

What Marxists should do about this was debated quite a bit before the Russian Revolution. On the one hand, a faction believed that once the workers had cast off their chains and appropriated the means of production (the industrial plant), then the proletariat would be able to vote truly and well because the capitalist bourgeoisie would not be allowed or able to blinker them and the natural purity of their proletariat hearts. Hence, right away elections could continue to be held and this time, dadgummit, they actually would mean something.

The competing view, held by the Russian Bolsheviks, was that they were the "vanguard of the revolution" and that therefore Marx's instruction of the necessity of a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat -- meaning by Lenin and his gang, not the general proletariat - was the key to bringing forth True Communism.

In Marxism-Leninism, true communism was a state in which material production was so great that all human needs were met without shortage. Greed would therefore disappear and the inherent but capitalist-suppressed natural nobility of men and women would emerge. They would be transformed into true communists - altruists who worked each day for the good of the people, not for crass, selfish profit. 

The vanguard revolutionaries understood that to leap from workers in chains, unaware of how deluded and ignorant they really were, and in political infancy, to the status of the True Communist Man was stupidly unrealistic. So their own dictatorship was a deplorable but critically-important step to bring the long-oppressed and unenlightened proles to political maturity and understanding. Truly fair, honest and meaningful elections certainly would be held - eventually. Just not yet. But trust us, it's right around the corner, any day now. Forever.

Remember, the point of Marxist revolutions is not to empower the people, it is to brings the reins of state power to the Marxist revolutionaries. Which always means the Vanguard because for the proles' own good the vanguard of the revolution (maybe in its fifth generation by now!) must also be the conservators of the revolution. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

Sadly, very sadly, all of this was foretold by American statesmen and observers more than 150 years ago:

"I shall assume the privilege of advancing years in reference to another growing and dangerous evil. In the last age, although our fathers, like ourselves, were divided into political parties which often had severe conflicts with each other, yet we never heard until within a recent period of the employment of money to carry elections. Should this practice increase until the voters and their representatives in the State and National Legislatures shall become infected, the fountain of free government will be poisoned at its source, and we must end, as history proves, in a military despotism. A democratic republic, all agree, cannot long survive unless sustained by public virtue. When this is corrupted, and the people become venal, there is a canker at the root of the tree of liberty which will cause it to wither and to die."

-- Charles Mackay, 1858: “A corrupt republic is tainted in its blood, and bears the seeds of death in every pulsation.” Read the whole thing.

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." -- Joseph Stalin.

Or nowadays, the people who hack the votes decide everything.

The Pew Center says, in masterful understatement, that "America’s Voter Registration System
Needs an Upgrade."

Update:

Watch it here.

Update: Actually, Democrats have a long history of saying the elections they lost are illegitimate: 

Biden Is Not Alone. Democrats Have Been Delegitimizing Elections for Years.

And this:

Monogamy and chastity: keys to national prosperity, and more

Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important than You Ever Thought

Unwin found that when strict prenuptial chastity was abandoned, absolute monogamy, deism, and rational thinking disappeared within three generations.

But we lost that battle when the Pill was invented. And it will not be turned back, ever. And so here we are: "New York public school rejects student Christian club, OKs LGBT Pride Club"

An Open Letter to Greta Thunberg

You are not a moral leader. But I will tell you what you are.

By DePaul University philosophy Prof. Jason D. Hill

You have stated that you want us to panic, and to act as if our homes are on fire. You insist that rich countries must reduce to zero emissions immediately. In your speeches you attack economic growth and have stated that our current climate crisis is caused by “buying and building things.” You call for climate justice and equity, without addressing the worst polluter on the planet China; the country that is economically annexing much of Africa and Latin America. You dare not lecture Iran about its uranium projects -- because that’s not part of the UN’s agenda, is it?

-----------------

And now Virginia is on its way back to solid red:

'The law is the law': Virginia Democrats float prosecution, National Guard deployment if police don't enforce gun control

This will be a major factor in giving Virginia to Trump next November.
-----------------------------

As I have posted before, for the Left violence always underlies their means. Now apparently even Newsweek is catching on.

ANTIFA'S DEADLY YEAR SHOWS THE EXTREMISM ON THE FAR LEFT | OPINION

Democrat Rep: We cannot trust voters

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) has dismissed concerns the American public should have a say over the impeachment of President Trump, admitting she is “worried in general about 2020” and angrily declaring “if we wait for an election to settle this, then we will have waited too long." ...

Rep. Escobar is not the first Democratic member of Congress to express the view that American voters must not be allowed to re-elected President Trump in 2020.

In fact, Escobar seems to be taking her lead from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who angrily dismissed concerns during the impeachment inquiry that the American public should have a say over the impeachment of President Trump, angrily declaring “the voters are NOT going to decide.”

The rest at, "Democrat Rep: American Voters Must NOT Be Allowed To Decide If Trump Should Be POTUS."

Related: "The Danger of Making Ruthlessness Seem Reasonable"

These people are dangerous.

So when I hear Nancy Pelosi say, “Civilization as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly, our planet,” I don’t laugh. When I hear Greta Thunberg say, “For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis, but we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer,” I don’t just roll my eyes. When I hear AOC say, “There’s no debate as to whether we should continue producing fossil fuels. There’s no debate,” I don’t wonder what she’s been smoking.

These people are dangerous. They make ruthlessness seem reasonable.

The "We Hate Liberty" Party

The real problem with America is that ordinary people have too much freedom that they use to make too many stupid decisions about how to spend their money and live their lives. And the only solution is to make sure that self-appointed, know-better elites, and the richer the better, take power so they can wrench the deplorables' money and freedom away from them.

For their own good, of course. Always.

Update: Commentary, "The Confiscation Is the Point," by Noah Rothman.

Warren is too politically savvy to admit it outright, but her allies are clear: Universally beneficial economic growth is neither a priority nor is it particularly desirable. The objective is to mete out a comeuppance to the Americans who they believe deserve it. In that sense, the cruelty is the point.

Xi promises "smashed bodies" - and delivers

The promise: Xi warns any effort to split China will end with 'bodies smashed and bones ground to powder'

Chinese President Xi Jinping cautioned over the weekend that any effort to split with China will result in "bodies smashed and bones ground to powder" amid ongoing unrest in Hong Kong.

The Chinese leader made the warning while visiting Nepal, the Hong Kong Free Press reported.

“Anyone who attempts to split any region from China will perish, with their bodies smashed and bones ground to powder," Xi reportedly said.

The promise fulfilled: Jimmy Sham, leader of Hong Kong democracy group Civil Human Rights Front, attacked on Mong Kok street

• Sham is smashed in the head with hammers and spanners by at least four assailants who then flee in a car
• The activist’s pro-democracy group has been responsible for some of Hong Kong’s biggest protest marches in recent years

The leader of a pro-democracy group responsible for some of the largest peaceful protest marches in Hong Kong was attacked on Wednesday, four days before another planned mass rally.

Jimmy Sham Tsz-kit, convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front, was set upon by at least four non-ethnic Chinese assailants on Arran Street in Mong Kok at 7.40pm, a police source said.

The attack was the second against Sham in less than two months.

The Civil Human Rights Front said Sham had been smashed over the head with hammers and spanners but was conscious when sent to Kwong Wah Hospital in Yau Ma Tei. He was understood to be in stable condition.

The real question for Xi, as for any totalitarian, is "How many bodies is he willing to smash" to enforce his will? For Chairman Mao, the answer was, "As many as it takes." Mao killed 100 million. Will Xi go that far, or will he draw up short?

Because the answer to how many bodies he is willing to smash is somewhere between 1 (and done) to unlimited. And no one, including Xi, knows in advance what that number will be

Right now, Xi is in the preliminary stages of intimidation rather than military crackdown. As the WSJ reports, "Beijing hasn’t sent tanks into the streets. It’s trying to do the job with criminal gangs and technology."

The Chinese crackdown here is under way. Tanks haven’t rolled into Hong Kong à la Tiananmen Square in 1989. But Beijing is carrying out a subtler, though often still violent, effort to suppress dissent, hoping the world won’t notice. Ask Stanley Ho Wai-hong of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions.

The 35-year-old pro-democracy labor activist planned a community event Sept. 29 in Sai Kung, a fishing village in Hong Kong’s New Territories. But that afternoon, tens of thousands were rallying in the city against China’s human-rights abuses, so Mr. Ho canceled his event at the last minute. He was driving away when a stranger called him and asked him to come back so villagers could give him a gift. “It was a trap for murder,” he told me at the hospital earlier this month.

When he arrived back in Sai Kung, he says, three men ambushed him and bludgeoned him with metal rods. Mr. Ho fell to the ground and tried to cover his skull with his hands. It took only half a minute for bystanders to rescue him, but “30 seconds is a long time.” The attack left Mr. Ho with seven gashes in his head and five bruises on his back. His right thumb and three other fingers were broken, the left index finger so severely that he needed surgery.

So yes, Xi was serious about smashing bodies. We are not yet at the stage of grinding bones to powder. But it's coming.

Update: American Digest posts The Hidden History Of The Tiananmen Square Massacre, with many photos. "Massacre" is perhaps an understatement.

Friday Stuff Going Down

If you get it wrong predicting the end of the world, just predict it again. Doomsdays that didn’t happen: Think tank compiles decades’ worth of dire climate predictions. But this ain't all, because Environmental apocalypse predictions have failed for half a century and get a good dose of schadenfreude:

Al Gore predicted in 2009 that the North Pole would be completely ice free in five years. A U.S. Navy scientist in 2013 concluded that the Arctic’s summer sea ice cover would all be melted by 2016.

Bogus predictions confidently made are not always harmless. The Maritime Bulletin reported that on Sept. 3, 16 “climate change warriors” making a documentary film on the melting polar icecap had to be rescued by helicopter from their ship because it was stuck in the ice halfway between Norway and the North Pole.

And Time Mag has been on it from the beginning!

If you sin against the climate - and who doesn't? - you can now confess for all to see at NBC News. But who will there be to give you absolution?

Environmentalism is religion with sin but no salvation and now it wants confession with no pardon. In other words, it has become a cult.

Noted scientist Freeman Dyson wrote that, "Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion." I demur. Environmentalism has not replaced socialism at all. Instead, the old-line socialists, faced with decades of the failure of political socialism, have jumped on the environmentalist bandwagon to keep socialism alive.

I wrote that 11 years ago. Today, observe the Democrat candidates and discern how socialism and environmentalism have merged so that they are now the one and the same.

Because the Ruling Party there is really just a Destructor: Why California Keeps Making Homelessness Worse. In fact, half of all America's homeless people are in California.

No matter who wins next November, people will be killed in the civil unrest to follow.

Should Donald Trump prevail in his bid for a second term, the left will go insane, deploying every “insurance policy” weapon at their disposal to negate four more years of the Orange Man.  What Obama, Comey, and Brennan et al. did to Trump in his first term will seem mild in comparison to what the left is planning should he win.

If the Democrat wins,

Eventually, the president will overreach, signing an order for gun confiscation ... .

And for the right, that will be the last straw (plastic or paper). 

The left doesn’t understand that every gun owner is a single-issue-voter; millions will refuse to give up their guns.  And, many gun owners in this country will not go “meekly into the night,” there will be “rage” against what they will see as a usurpation of their constitutional rights. 

But as I explained in November 2016, we entered that month a low-intensity civil war in the true meaning of the term. After next November, it will not be low intensity any more.

Beto O'Rourke tore down the curtain concealing what Democrats really want ("First, let's shoot all the gun owners"), and now Senator Elizabeth Warren rips it to shreds: Sen. Warren Reveals Democratic Socialists' Hidden Agenda.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, made this quite clear on Wednesday when she introduced the "Accountable Capitalism Act." A more accurate name would have been the "First Step to Overthrowing Capitalism Act," because a long-term objective of the Democratic Socialists of America is crushing capitalism. They want an economy that isn't free and open but subject to their boot on its throat.

Under what we'll call Warren's Decree, "American corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue must obtain a federal charter from a newly formed Office of United States Corporations ... . The new federal charter obligates company directors to consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders — including employees, customers, shareholders, and the communities in which the company operates."

Read the whole thing. And when a Harvard economics professor characterizes the bill "as a means for destroying capitalism," then even a blind person can see what the Democrats really have in mind.

Are you retired or nearing retirement? If you vote for a Democrat next year, enjoy eating your Campbell's condensed soup for breakfast after Jan. 20, 2021. And for lunch. And for dinner. Because your retirement accounts will be drained by the socialists. Remember, Warren excitedly exclaims she is not going to tax mere income. She is going to tax every dollar you have, no matter how long you have had it and no matter what taxes you have already paid on it.

Her “Accountable Capitalism Act” would wipe out the single greatest legal protection retirees currently enjoy—the requirement that corporate executives and fund managers act as fiduciaries on investors’ behalf. ...
 
Under this new Warren charter, companies currently dedicated to their shareholders’ interest would be reordered to serve the interests of numerous new “stakeholders,” including “the workforce,” “the community,” “customers,” “the local and global environment” and “community and societal factors.”

Eliminating corporations’ duty to serve investors exclusively and forcing them to serve political interests would represent the greatest government taking in American history. Sen. Warren’s so-called accountable capitalism raids the return that wealth provides to its owners, the vast majority of whom are present or near retirees.

Oh, you say, she is only going to tax "the rich." But in their minds, if you have a job, you're rich.

You won't be able to afford a car, but Andrew Yang is going to take them all away anyway.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang said the United States may have to eliminate private car ownership to combat climate change during MSNBC's climate forum at Georgetown University Thursday morning.

Instead, he wants a "constant roving fleet of electric cars" for everyone to use - as common property, like all proper socialists.

And finally, the Democrat debate:

Racism - or racialism?

Democrat political rhetoric today:

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley:

“If you’re not prepared to come to that table and represent that voice, don’t come, because we don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don’t want to be a black voice. We don’t need Muslims that don’t want to be a Muslim voice. We don’t need queers that don’t want to be a queer voice. If you’re worried about being marginalized and stereotyped, please don't even show up because we need you to represent that voice."

Or as law Prof. Glenn Reynolds explains her position: "Your Skin Color Determines Your Legitimate Opinions." You have no right to make up your own mind because Pressley does not want discussion and inquiry. She demands your un-arguing obedience and submission to her ideology. If you are a person of color or a Muslim or a homosexual, when she wants your opinion, she'll give it to you. And you'd better agree, buddy, or there will be consequences when she and the rest of her "Squad" take the reins of power.

What is the difference between racism and racialism? They are usually thought to be interchangeable, but there is a subtle difference. Racism is bigotry against a person or set of persons based simply on their race identity. Racists assume certain behavior of capacities of other races, but also understand that some persons of that race will not exhibit them.

Racialism also depends on categorizing people into racial identity groups, but then demands that persons of a race conduct themselves in accordance with the assumed "human traits and capacities." That's Pressley. You will act and speak in ways that I demand or you will have no place in the future nor will you ever be recognized as a legitimate member of your race or religion or sexual identity.

So basically she just called black Americans who do not agree with her, Oreos.

Disassembling the Democrats' debate

Andrew Sullivan, who is distinctly liberal-libertarian (and an immigrant) neatly and precisely dissects the grievous, shocking flaws of the immigration plank of the Democrat 2020 candidates as illumined by their recent debate. Read it all -- and remember, the author is a Democrat himself, writing in New York Magazine, "The Democratic Candidates Are in a Bubble on Immigration."

After pointing out that the Democrats' public proposals would render "the distinction between a citizen and a noncitizen close to meaningless" (which is of course the whole point), he continues:

None of this reality was allowed to intervene in the Democratic debates this week. At one point, one moderator tellingly spoke about Obama’s record of deporting ” 3 million Americans.” In that bubble, there were no negatives to mass immigration at all, and no concern for existing American citizens’ interests in not having their wages suppressed through this competition. There was no concession that child separation and “metering” at the border to slow the crush were both innovated by Obama, trying to manage an overwhelmed system. Candidates vied with each other to speak in Spanish. Every single one proposed amnesty for all those currently undocumented in the U.S., except for criminals. Every single one opposes a wall. There was unanimous support for providing undocumented immigrants immediately with free health care. There was no admission that Congress needed to tighten asylum law. There was no concern that the Flores decision had massively incentivized bringing children to game the system, leaving so many vulnerable to untold horrors on a journey no child should ever be forced to make.

What emerged was their core message to the world: Get here without papers and you’ll receive humane treatment while you’re processed, you’ll never be detained, you’ll get work permits immediately, and you’ll have access to publicly funded health care and a path to citizenship if you don’t commit a crime. This amounts to an open invitation to anyone on the planet to just show up and cross the border. The worst that can happen is you get denied asylum by a judge, in which case you can just disappear and there’s a 1 percent chance that you’ll be caught in a given year. Who wouldn’t take those odds?

And as long as we're talking about Democrat hypocrisy on immigration, try to guess what year these two photos of a border-detention facility were taken.

 These and other photos were tweeted by journalist Brandon Darby on July 2, 2019. Here is the full tweet:

When Obama did it, it was compassionate caring. When Trump does the same thing Obama did, it is because he is literally Hitler who puts immigrants into concentration camps. That's the way the American Left thinks, people.

Study the figures of the past 20 years of border deaths and who was president during the years with the highest numbers. Click image for larger view.

NYMag also reported a full year before Trump took office, "Obama Administration Handed Child Migrants Over to Human Traffickers."

See also:

Barack’s ICE chief: Cages were Obama’s idea

All 2020 Senate Dems Absent for Vote to Send Humanitarian Relief to Border

Hillary Clinton actually nails it

Read it here and you will see the constant deflection from what the Left has been doing, and their diversion and projection of accusing their political enemies of doing it, not them.

And remember, Fascism was and remains an invention of the Marxist left, as Adolf Hitler himself said.

Why the Left hates you

Why the Left Is Consumed With Hate, by Shelby Steele

How did the American left—conceived to bring more compassion and justice to the world—become so given to hate? It began in the 1960s, when America finally accepted that slavery and segregation were profound moral failings. That acceptance changed America forever. It imposed a new moral imperative: America would have to show itself redeemed of these immoralities in order to stand as a legitimate democracy.

The genius of the left in the ’60s was simply to perceive the new moral imperative, and then to identify itself with it. Thus the labor of redeeming the nation from its immoral past would fall on the left. This is how the left put itself in charge of America’s moral legitimacy. The left, not the right—not conservatism—would set the terms of this legitimacy and deliver America from shame to decency.

This bestowed enormous political and cultural power on the American left, and led to the greatest array of government-sponsored social programs in history—at an expense, by some estimates, of more than $22 trillion. But for the left to wield this power, there had to be a great menace to fight against—a tenacious menace that kept America uncertain of its legitimacy, afraid for its good name.

This amounted to a formula for power: The greater the menace to the nation’s moral legitimacy, the more power redounded to the left. And the ’60s handed the left a laundry list of menaces to be defeated. If racism was necessarily at the top of the list, it was quickly followed by a litany of bigotries ending in “ism” and “phobia.”

Now, however, the hatred is self-sustaining. Any opposition to what has morphed into a Totalist agenda becomes a target. Read the whole thing.

Difference between communism and socialism explained simply

Headlines you can't make up

Link

Middlebury College has canceled a campus speech by conservative Polish Catholic philosopher Ryszard Legutko in response to planned protests by liberal activists.

A professor of philosophy at Jagiellonian University and a member of the European Parliament, Legutko was scheduled to speak Wednesday at the Vermont college's Alexander Hamilton Forum, delivering a lecture entitled "The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies." A member of the anti-Communist Polish resistance during the Cold War, Legutko warns that western democracy is also susceptible to creep towards totalitarianism.

But in the days leading up to the speech, some Middlebury students and professors wrote an open letter demanding the university rescind its sponsorship. The liberal activists took issue with Legutko's pointed critiques of multiculturalism, feminism, and homosexuality, calling them "homophobic, racist, xenophobic, [and] misogynistic."

I am sure you can fill in the rest.

Segregation returns, George Wallace smiles

My alma mater, Wake Forest University, was founded in 1834, taking its name from the North Carolina town where it was first located. In 1956 it moved to in Winston-Salem, N.C., where it prospered as its reputation for first-class liberal-arts education became established more strongly over the years. By the time I graduated in 1977, WFU was ranked as one of the best universities in the southeastern United States; today as one of the best in the nation in the fabled USNews rankings.

Now, however, Wake Forest has decided to throw that all away and return to its Jim Crow past - in the name of diversity and inclusivity, of course. How? "University hosts no-whites-allowed faculty and staff listening sessions."

The listening sessions come amid ongoing racial tensions on campus, including a protest Monday at which some students decried the “white supremacy” that allegedly runs rampant at the private, North Carolina institution.

“Dear faculty and staff colleagues, this is a reminder about our upcoming listening sessions on inclusion that I am holding for faculty and staff of color over the next several weeks,” stated an April 18 email from Michele Gillespie, dean of the college, to campus employees.

The email, a copy of which was obtained by The College Fix, continued:

Here are the upcoming dates and information:

–For faculty/staff who identify as faculty/staff of color: Monday, April 22 at 4:00 pm in ZSR Room 476 (we will be joined by Associate Dean Erica Still)

–For faculty/staff who identify as faculty/staff of color: Thursday, May 2 at 11:00 am in ZSR 476 (we will be joined by Associate Dean Erica Still)

–For staff who identify as staff of color ONLY: Monday, May 6 at 4:00 pm in ZSR Room 477

Please know that I have requested that all department chairs provide staff release time to be able to attend a listening session.

Thankfully, the faculty is not in lockstep with this (though faculty dissidents will not risk publicity).

One professor at the school who asked for anonymity said the situation is absurd right now.

“It’s hard to respond to the ridiculous accusation that Wake Forest tolerates or encourages ‘white supremacy’ and inflicts ‘trauma on students of color,'” the professor said in an email to The Fix. “I question whether it is worth responding to people who use such hyperbolic and hysterical rhetoric. Though the more you placate them, the more they escalate their rhetoric and demands.”

Well, yeah. Welcome to Leftism. What the school is encountering are what I termed "destructors."

 Understand that demands from destructive persons cannot ever be satisfied. For their real goal is not an actual solution to the putative issue, for as the old SDS slogan explains, "This issue isn't the issue." The real goal, very cleverly concealed behind aggrieved tones of voice and claims of how moral/spiritual/right minded/self-denying/unselfish (the list goes on an on) they are is always the same: "I must get my way, all the time."

But that's not the heart of the issue, either. These persons simply must have an enemy, someone or some group who opposes them. For the "my way" that destructors must get is inextricably linked to triumph over an opponent. That's why anyone who does not agree or assent to their demands is a target: the issue is not the demands, but the opposition.

Every issue is personal for destructors. It is not possible to hold a reasonable, contrary position. To resist a destructor's demand is not mere disagreement. It is to oppose the ordering of the world itself in some sense: the Constitution, human decency, morality, even to defy God himself.

"The issue isn't the issue." Demands are only a pretense to evoke the fight. The fight itself is the goal. It is the only goal. Destructors never consider any issue closed for which they do not achieve total victory. They die in every ditch. Every fight is to the death because their very concept of self is woven into it.

That is why university President Nathan Hatch's appeasement efforts are doomed to failure.

Indeed, a month prior to Monday’s protest, President Hatch had already capitulated to numerous demands regarding the university’s racial unrest, including granting the Black Student Alliance control of an exclusive and highly sought after campus lounge space next to one of the main dorms. He also promised more diversity and “unconscious bias” training.

But there can never be enough concessions or "bias training" to placate the protesters. (To his credit, I will say that President Hatch's statement responding to the Sri Lanka massacre of Christians was excellent.)

Wake Forest is walking where North Carolina State University already trod two years ago: "Now the Left thinks George Wallace was a trailblazer." There, the administration pledged to create a segregated housing option for “women of color” only.

Wallace was first elected governor of Alabama in 1963. In his inaugural address that year, Wallace spoke the words that would come to mark his legacy: "I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny... and I say ... segregation today ... segregation tomorrow ... segregation forever."

And now, in 2019, in keeping with the segregationist tradition and antebellum values of the George Wallace wing of the American Left, I give you Wake Forest University.

"I'm George Wallace and I approve this action!"

Update: The Wall Street Journal weighs in on, "Segregation by Design on Campus, 

How racial separatism become the norm at elite universities like Yale, Brown and Wesleyan."

The coming mosque of Notre Dame?

Bruce Bawer on the French government's response to  the fire of Notre Dame cathedral:

One thing that jumped out at me, as I watched Notre Dame burn in real time on BBC and Sky News, was the statement of some reporter or commentator or architectural expert that the cathedral could and would be rebuilt, although perhaps the new structure would be “more modern” than the old one. Later that evening, in his speech to the nation, President Macron vowed: “We will make the Cathedral of Notre Dame even more beautiful.”

More modern? More beautiful? My alarm bells went off, and they weren’t fire alarms. ...

 So it is that when one hears talk of a the construction of new Notre Dame that will be “more modern” or “more beautiful” than the original, it’s only natural – especially given that the cathedral, like all such structures in France, belongs not to the Catholic Church but to the French state –  to picture a building that, in the eyes of national and municipal officials, their interfaith advisors, and whatever cockamamie commission of postmodernism-loving architectural experts they end up putting together, ends up being some multipurpose multicultural monstrosity centered on a non-denominational worship area and/or containing different spaces for different faiths, with plenty of prayer rugs, wudu units, etc., for Muslims.

After all, in today’s Paris, Muslims already make up the majority of people who go to a house of worship at least once a week, n’est-ce pas? And given the way that these things work in most of Western Europe nowadays, it seems a foregone conclusion – barring some powerful, persuasive, and unprecedented movement to the contrary – that the voices that prevail as this project goes forward will be those arguing that the new Notre Dame must be a Notre Dame (although of course something needs to be done about that name) for the twenty-first century, for an increasingly non-Christian Paris, for an era of fundamental transformation in regard to matters spiritual. Why, after all, resurrect a cathedral that was already mainly a museum, a tourist mecca, a reminder of dead glories, when you can replace it with a spectacular mosque that will be a living place of worship for armies of believers, and will thereby serve as a dynamic, forward-looking symbol of the Paris, the France, the Europe of the twenty-first century and beyond, and hence affirm Paris’s place as the heart of a dramatically transformed Europe and – Allah willing – usher in a new Belle Époque?

Read the whole thing. I have maintained for double-digit years (though not on this blog) that Notre Dame cathedral will become a mosque during my lifetime. France's Muslim population is growing far more rapidly than ethnic French. In 2016, 8.8 percent of France's population were Muslim; in 2050 the figure will approach 20 percent.

Update: The question, "Why build it back the way it was?" is already being asked: How Should France Rebuild Notre Dame?

Much of the structure survived the blaze — but as rebuilding efforts move forward, the country will be left with a big question: What does the cathedral mean to 21st-century France?

And you better believe that a lot of answers are about to be offered.

Update: As the cathedral burned, there was jubilation from the strange alliance of Islamists and Leftists, because of what French philosopher " Bernard-Henri Lévy calls Islamo-Leftism, an 'anti-American religion' opposed to the existence of Western Civilization itself."

Meanwhile, Arab posts on an Israeli friend's Facebook page cheered Notre Dame's destruction: “This church was the HQ for the Templar Knights and was their operations room for carrying out attacks on Muslims wherever they were. We kneel (in prayer) thanking Allah and (hope) the same thing happens to the Vatican only this time the Pope is inside it.”

“God rain fire on it”.

“We’re all in solidarity with the fire. We are all the fire”.

Likewise, Social Justice Warriors posted taunts on Twitter:

“Notre-Dame burning is cosmic karma for all the historical sites and artifacts France destroyed and stole when being colonialist scum.”

"The most aesthetically pleasing visually (sic) I’ve ever seen.”

Which reminds me of destructors. "These persons simply must have an enemy, someone or some group who opposes them. For the 'my way' that destructors must get is inextricably linked to triumph over an opponent. That's why anyone who does not agree or assent to their demands is a target: the issue is not the demands, but the opposition."

The deliberate destruction of women's sports

This track meet was in Connecticut in February:

>

The story:

Two male runners from Connecticut continue to dominate the field in high school girls’ track competition.

Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood are juniors in high school. Both are biological males who identify as transgender females. And, according to a report by the Associated Press, they took first and second place in the recent Connecticut open indoor track girl’s championships held on February 16.

One of their fellow athletes, high school junior Selina Soule, told the AP it isn’t fair that female runners have to compete against male runners. Soule missed qualifying for the New England regionals by just two spots.

“We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it’s demoralizing,” said Soule. “I fully support and am happy for these athletes for being true to themselves. They should have the right to express themselves in school, but athletics have always had extra rules to keep the competition fair.”

As someone remarked elsewhere, "Men - better at being women than women!"

It also needs to be noted that neither of these transgender runners' times would distinguish them at all compared to the times of other male runners. They would be decidedly middle of the pack.

If the door is opened full-wide to boys in public schools declaring themselves female and entering girls' sports events, then it will mean the end of women's sports. Instead, there will simply be two categories of men's sports.

And that is exactly what seems to be the goal of some House Democrats:

Understand that "allow" is the wrong word here. Schools across the country will not have the option to "allow." They will be compelled to admit. The photo here, btw, shows a high school girl "transitioning" to male by taking high doses of testosterone. But she still competes on in the girls' events, where she has never lost. So it works only one way, really: boys who want to compete against only girls can do so, but girls taking male-strength drugs still get to compete against girls.

As for girls who want to remain girls and compete against only girls? Sorry, no can do. Because equality and fairness, comrades!

A large number of Democrat politicians in Congress want to take away the power of local schools to make their own rules, regarding gender and sports. House Democrats overwhelmingly voted for a bill on Wednesday, that would force all schools to allow boys who claim to be transgender, to compete against natural-born female competitors.

All but one of the 235 members of the Democrat caucus along with two left-wing Republicans are co-sponsoring a bill they are calling the “Equality Act.” The bill would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to force schools to allow transgenders to play on school sports teams that correspond to their “chosen” gender.

 Once again, we will learn that everything that Leftism touches, it destroys. On purpose.

Update: PJ Media, "Transgender Privilege: Why Must We All Be Forced to Bow to It?"

Update: "Trans 'Woman' Demolishes World Records; Olympian Decries 'Pointless, Unfair Playing Field' "

Update: And now it has come to this: "BIOLOGICAL MALE IS TOP-RANKED NCAA WOMEN’S TRACK STAR"

Four socialism links

Ignoring socialism’s countless corpses

Socialism’s Bloody History Shows Millennials Should Think Twice Before Supporting It

Castro, Chavez, and 'bad luck'

Related: Postmodern Religion and the Faith of Social Justice

And a few more:

Socialist or Fascist

Nazism's Marxist Roots

Read A Pile Of Top Nazis Talking About How They Love Leftist Marxism

Hitler and the socialist dream

Leftists Become Incandescent When Reminded of the Socialist Roots in Nazism

Either by choice or force, you will conform

The Totalist Party again reveals itself in Nancy Pelosi's latest utopian nightmare, the "Equality Act," which will remove freedom of conscience from everyone who will not toe the Leftist line. Read the whole thing.

The appalling fantasy of the Green New Deal

Well, when the Left has lost New York Magazine...

With the announcement and publication of the Green New Deal, released to much fanfare by the socialist "It" girl, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.- Twilight Zone, the GND's principal designer, Sean McElwee, has gleefully announced that, “The Green New Deal is what it means to be progressive."

So the curtain has been pulled back and it ain't pretty. NY Mag's Jonathan Chait, who is not exactly a charter member of the VRWC, went straight for the jugular: "Democrats Need an Ambitious Climate Plan. The Green New Deal Isn’t It."

The operating principle behind the Green New Deal is a no-enemies-to-the-left spirit of fostering unity among every faction of the progressive movement. Thus, at the same time, the plan avoids taking stances that are absolutely vital to reduce carbon emissions, it embraces policies that have nothing to do with climate change whatsoever. The Green New Deal includes the following non-climate provisions:

–A job with family-sustaining wages, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security

–High-quality education, including higher education and trade schools

–High-quality health care

–Safe, affordable, adequate housing

–An economic environment free of monopolies

–Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work.

Let all that sink in while we return to Sean McElwee, "a socialist organizer with a penchant for colorfully threatening to destroy his enemies," who --

... designed the Green New Deal as a framework to encompass every maximal demand of the left. “The Green New Deal is what it means to be progressive. Clean air, clean water, decarbonizing, green jobs, a just transition, and environmental justice are what it means to a progressive,” he tells Vox. “By definition that means politicians who don’t support those goals aren’t progressive. We need to hold that line. Get on the GND train or choo-choo, [expletive] we’re going to go right past you.”

And then Mr. Chait grossly understates:

It is difficult to see how the task of finding 218 votes in the House and 50 in the Senate is made any easier by attaching a plan to such goals as economic security for people who are "unwilling to work.”

Gee, yuh think?

Alas, I just do not have the time for disassembling the parts of the GND of which I could write with some expertise. But the GND and its proponents seem to me to betray a fundamental fallacy that progressives/Leftists/liberals/socialists (all the same thing these days) share: they seriously seem to think that the masses chafe and suffer under the present order and eagerly await their liberation at the hands of the enlightened, oh-so-altruistic progressives/Leftists/liberals/socialists who will make a new day dawn and inaugurate a political, social, and economic Age of Aquarius. As I explained back in 2010 in, "Where Obama dropped his molasses jug,"

I think that the Democrats' most fundamental mistake is twofold. First, they did not understand that "Hope and Change" was a catchy campaign slogan but can never be a governing philosophy. Second, they made the most common Leftist mistake there is: they really believed that "unwashed middle" America (in Katie Couric's eloquent phrase) truly wants statist control of their daily lives.

The former first. Barack Obama did not understand that people say they want change but almost never actually mean it. Anyone who has become the chairperson of a volunteer organization, whether a civic club, the county chapter of a political party or, say (cough) pastor of a church, soon learns that what people say they want and what they will actually support are extremely divergent.

What they really mean is that they want change to affect other people but not themselves: "change for thee, but not for me." Each wants more of what he already has with no adversity in his personal situation.

One quick point of the GND's utter buffonery -- it wants its goals accomplished by 2030, including this:

Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high- speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.

Wikipedia says there are presently 263 million cars and trucks in the United States. Statista adds,

However, of the 68.6 million passenger cars produced worldwide in 2016, less than four million automobiles were produced in the U.S. 

So at present rates of production it will take more than 65 years of domestic production to replace the cars and trucks on the road - but remember, GND does not want to replace the present fleet with better versions but with electric vehicles that use no petroleum fuel at all.

Where, exactly, will the industrial base to do that come from? Out of thin air, apparently, just like everything else in the GND. And an electric-vehicle industry exists less overseas than it does in the US, so don't count on foreign manufacturers to make up the shortfall.

But we can have this just because we want it, right?

What makes this appalling is that to accomplish even a small fraction of these goals means a government the micromanages every person of the country. Every economic decision of even marginal significance, including family finances and spending, comes under the socialist thumb.

What of any consequence would remain beyond the state’s reach? Not wages, working conditions, or labor-management relations; not health care; not money, banking, or financial services; not personal privacy; not transportation or communication; not education or scientific research; not farming or food supply; not nutrition or food quality; not marriage or divorce; not child care; not provision for retirement; not recreation; not insurance of any kind; not smoking or drinking; not gambling; not political campaign funding or publicity; not real estate development, house construction, or housing finance; not international travel, trade, or finance; not a thousand other areas and aspects of social life.

Sean McElwee is correct: this is the stark reality of progressivism unmasked in its undiluted form. What cannot be discussed honestly and succinctly is couched in lies and fraud, and then sold to the public as benevolence and compassion and saving the world. In the end, all that matters is that the leftist agenda, of which this document is now the cornerstone, incrementally becomes the law of the land.

That's progressivism, comrades, in all its fully-revealed horror. Here are links, see for yourself.

The actual text of the GND.

The authors' own FAQs.

How does air travel become "unnecessary"?

The real political goals

The 10 greatest insanities of the GND

OTOH, maybe AOC is really a covert Republican plant whose mission is simply to ridicularize the Democrat party! I mean, look who she roped in!

Update: Tom Maguire writes,

But this proposal, and especially the accompanying (and withdrawn) fact sheet isn’t merely ludicrously ambitious and devoid of common sense (Eliminate air travel?!? Retrofit “every” building in America?!?). It also reveals a stunning absence of basic knowledge of history and public finance.

One wonders whether Ms. AOC actually has the time and temperament to collaborate with experts and study an issue (yet another reason she is the Trump of the left!). Or did Democratic leadership cut her loose and send the real Washington hands off on other projects? Let her primary herself!

On to specifics. This passage on how the extreme environmental makeover might be financed may have sounded great in a college dorm. A freshman dorm. But this is a frightening level of ignorance about the structure, legal authorities, independence and role of the Federal Reserve when it comes from a Congressperson as part of a legislative package.

To which law Prof. Glenn Reynolds accurately appends, "She wasn’t elected for her knowledge or her competence."

And remember history's main lesson about socialism:

Democrats want to kill Democrat voters

I mean that literally: serving Democrat politicians want laws to allow the deliberate, pre-meditated killing of future Democrat voters. How else to explain the words of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who openly ...

endorsed infanticide and tried to make it sound as harmless as he could. When asked by a radio host if he supported Virginia legislator Kathy Tran’s proposed law to permit abortion while a woman was in labor, Northam replied:

This is why decisions such as this should be made by providers, physicians, and the mothers and fathers that are involved. When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of the mother, with the consent of physicians, more than one physician by the way, and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus which is non-viable. So in this particular example, if the mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen, the infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if this is what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physician and the mother.

Here is the video:


Please note that Northam thinks this is perfectly okay because, after all, "The infant would be kept comfortable" right up until it is destroyed. Maybe the SS should have taken that tack at Auschwitz because, "We will be nice to you right up until we brutally kill you" can't possibly be wrong.

The Federalist points out that the bull being discussed here was presented by Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran, who said this during a subcommittee hearing:

“How late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion if he indicated it would impair the mental health of the woman?” [subcommittee chairman Todd] Gilbert asked.

“Through the third trimester,” responded Tran. “The third trimester goes all the way up to 40 weeks.”

“Where it’s obvious that a woman is about to give birth, that she has physical signs that she is about to give birth, would that still be a point at which she could request an abortion if she was so certified?” Gilbert asked.

“She’s dilating,” he continued, using the term for a woman’s cervix naturally opening to allow a baby to exit his mother during birth. “I’m asking if your bill allows that.”

“My bill would allow that, yes,” she said.

Which is to say, Tran wants the law to allow the mother to tell the doctor to kill the being-born or newborn (Northam: "the infant would be delivered") infant. While Northam said that more than one physician needs to be consulted, Tran insisted that only one be permitted for the go-ahead.

I do not know words nearly harsh enough to condemn the overt, public murderousness of today's Democrat party specifically and progressives generally. And on the same day that Gov. Northam, considered a rising star in the Democrat party, said that just-born babies should be killed on the mother's whim, the extraordinary hypocrisy of this party was on full display by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D.-Ohio, who said, talking about President Trump,

"Real populists don’t engage in hate speech and don’t rip babies from families at the border."

But the law already allows babies to be literally ripped - as in ripped apart - inside the womb and now Democrats want to allow living, delivered infants to be ripped from life itself.

The Left is already howling at we who explain what Tran and Northam said - accusing us, of course, of being the wrongdoers here.

I used to listen attentively to by left-of-center friends and ministerial colleagues on the matter of public policy, even though I hardly ever found that I could agree with their positions. But I did try to understand their point of view and how they justified it, whether on secular or biblical bases.

That door is now slammed shut. After Tran/Northam/Brown, there is no "understanding" possible that stays on this side of insanity. Starting now, I absolutely refuse to tolerate any lecturing by a "progressive" on the subject of morality on any issue, and this is now my number one reason why.

But back to my title for this post, "Democrats want to kill Democrat voters." Why do I say that? because according to the Guttmacher Institute (2014 data), of women who had an abortion,

Thirty-nine percent were white, 28% were black, 25% were Hispanic, 6% were Asian or Pacific Islander, and 3% were of some other race or ethnicity. ...

... three-fourths of abortion patients were low income—49% living at less than the federal poverty level, and 26% living at 100–199% of the poverty level.

Which means that minority infants were killed in the womb far out of proportion to the share of those demographics in the general population, and these minorities are by far super-majority voters for Democrats.Same with income levels - the demographic described as obtaining three-fourths of abortions are Democrat voters to a very high degree.

That's why I sometimes refer to the murdered infants as "Unborn Democrats." I New York City, for example, more black babies are killed in the womb than are born alive.

But Democrats won't talk about that because shut up.

Doctor Anthony Levantino performed 1,400 abortions until he abandoned that practice. Here is part of his testimony to Congress on how second-trimester abortions are done. (For third-trimester abortions, the baby is chemically killed in the womb and two or three days later the mother's body ejects the dead infant through the birth canal, usually with inducing drugs' assistance.)

When someone demands that a woman must have "the right to choose," remember that this is what that choice means:

  As Lincoln said about slavery, "If this is not wrong, then nothing is wrong." But "wrong" is far too wimpy a word to describe this. This is over the edge of evil.
Update: Virginia Delegate Kathy Tran says she was surprised by the pushback to her comments to the subcommittee and has tried to walk back her statements, but in so doing winds up more twisted around than an octopus playing Twister.

This is my shocked face: "No Democrats In Congress Seem To Have Heard Ralph Northam’s Abortion Comments," including this Democrat:


And yet, House Democrat warns ethics committee about Steve King promoting white nationalism website. In Democrat fantasy world, only Republicans have the duty to renounce members of their own party. When a Democrat does, every other Democrat pretends do not even know there is a problem.