trump – sillysocksonfriday

The Trump card

Of course it’s the Joker – but you better laugh or at least smile or it will be the Queen of Hearts: Off with his head!!

There is this surreal feeling that 2026 has plunged us all into a rabbit hole …

One can just see the Cheshire Cat grinning through all the unimagined twists and turns…

The Maduro kidnapping was such a smart operation which suggests significant planning – this is not a madcap spur of the moment whimsy.

Behind the blather there is a whole lot of strategic planning and intent. Maybe the Don’s job is to distract and misdirect? He’s pretty good at that!

We have become too civilised, too reticent, too socially delicate. The best is not equal, it will not be seen as fair by all. It is also fast and centralised and powerful.

Our lives have become clogged by the cholesterol of good living. Bureaucracy has slowed decision making and impoverished us.

We in the Western democratic world have become too soft, forgetting the hard road it took to get to where we are.

Confession time.

I must admit to an awkward admiration for a benevolent despot, a doer who has no hesitation.

It trashes all political norms and conventions of ‘civilised’ behaviour – but it is past time for a major re-set of our perspective of the real world!

Trumping maybe the way to go to save our way of life.

It may not follow conventions and has little finesse but it’s pointing in the right direction.

Heart surgery is not a delicate science: it is basic and brutal and the squeamish may not like it. Sometimes it is necessary.

It looks more and more like a world war may be on the cards. What happens to war survivors is they re-focus on looking after their own communities. Maybe that is what we need to save us..?

Sounds a bit like what I have heard about Fuentes…

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Maybe…

He sticks in my throat, but may be the saviour of ‘our’ civilisation, i.e. the western democratic world.

Ja nee

Lulu got swooped by a butcher bird the other day; it clipped her bum and she leapt away. Quite funny, until it had a go at me..!

Magpies and kiewiets/plovers also get huffy. Being strafed while cycling is not amusing.

My Auntie Bunty said it was very frightening when it was a German bomber doing the strafing, which happened to her in WW2. Obviously they missed, as she told us the story.

It’s going to be one of those days with bits and pieces.

Such a moment in time, when the world makes kiss kiss to that awful orange man. Peace in Gaza was inevitable, there was nothing left. The Donald’s timing enabled him to claim the glory, but he was really only the final straw.

Let him crack the hard nut of the Ukraine and I will echo his own nomination for the Nobel Peace prize

These are quotes from stuff I have been reading lately. Hope they titillate your fancies.

“Journalism largely consists in saying ‘Lord Jones is dead’ to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.” –G.K. Chesterton

“There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.” Umberto Eco

All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

George Orwell

“The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Margaret Thatcher

… the Internet will bring about Idiocracy

Trump ….”tribalist, kleptocratic, authoritarian cultural imperialist? “

” He cares about getting rich, persecuting his enemies, and eliminating threats to his own power—just like his Middle Eastern counterparts do. “

Nick Catoggio

A hit dog will holler.

“Anyone who calls us authoritarian is going to prison,”

“If you can’t call fascists fascists, then the fascists have won.”

Democracy insists upon enfranchising the ignoramuses, who also get a vote on any number of other issues about which they know little or nothing. Two cheers for democracy and all that.

United States and China are firmly locked in a cold war struggle whose outcome will be the most important determinant of peace, prosperity, and quality of life in international politics over the next decade.

The second half of this decade is set to be a critical inflection point in this contest.

Stephen Weber, Cold War Statecraft for the 2020s

We would be better off if we did a little bit more work understanding what people actually think (and why) rather than inventing arguments that are designed to make us feel virtuous in comparison.

Kevin D Williamson TMD 24 Oct ’25

He was talking up the Ideological Turing Test which he believes will help us all avoid unsubstantiated sentimental pronouncements about others’ arguments.

Hope that stimulates some thought, sorry it’s so serious…

No surprises

I worked for several years in the industrial relations arena during the transformation years of the 1990’s in South Africa. Things were raw and stark and there were many horrible deaths…

One lesson about dealing with people that stayed with me is that there should be no surprises.

In practice that means being predictable, highlighting the risks and illuminating desired outcomes.

…. and doing what you say you will.

Predictability and consistence – the hall marks for stability.

Donald Trump gets a big fat zero on both

TACO fits his most outrageous statements….

Which begs the question – is he promoting chaos?

Certainly, it is a means of bringing about change, until now favoured by Marxists seeking totalitarian power.

Is that what Trump is doing?

His statements about war on Democrat cities are troubling. He claims these cities have supposedly fostered illegal immigrants. This indicates he believes nearly half of US citizens are traitorous!

Now he is playing peek-a-boo with his will he/ won’t he decisions. He is contemplating whether to smash the Iranian underground nuclear facilities. Oh! And by the way, he may ‘take out‘ their Head of State, (obviously not on a date!)

I believe in his stated objectives on reducing:

uncontrolled immigration
sclerotic government bureaucratic swamps
the woke culture which has invaded universities and teaching, medical and legal professions
the overly simplistic climate goals
the influence of Big Pharma.

I also agree that global economics need to be changed with a view to prioritising national productivity.

The fact that these target conditions have become entrenched over a number of years, means that they will be extraordinarily difficult to eradicate.

I also believe that radical change cannot be effected gradually or gently.

So maybe Trump’s wrecking ball politics is crashing in the right directions?

Do we need to justify the means if we get the ends we desire?

The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.

Aldous Huxley

How will he be stopped from turning into a dictator?

Partial support may drag followers into the vortex of fascism, particularly if the military become enmeshed in the steps.

I reckon that if Trump drops the buster, he will go on to become a full blown dictator.

(I also believe that he must drop the bomb to cut off the head of the Iranian snake that has been bedevilling the world for a loong time)

How about that ? Topple one regime and start another on a different continent!

Purge

At a time when most Western democracies are burdened by disillusion, poor economic and social outcomes and leadership that lacks either conviction or courage, Trump arrives as a giant on the stage of history

In his campaign Trump has promised “… savage public-sector cuts, a reduction in federal bureaucratic numbers, a purging of regulation, cutting taxes…extending tariffs… dismantling environmental obstacles to development, a domestic war on ..identity politics, boosting defence spending..”

If Trump succeeds …

“the governance model for Western democracy will be shaken to its foundations “

Paul Allan Western Australian 16 Nov 2024

A purge will not be before time, I say. And this should pave the way for all Western democracies to see the writing on the wall and change.

For decades governments have swung back and forth from Democrat/Labor to Conservative/Republican. Each victory led to a replacement of supporters and sponsors. The public service bureaucracy grew because each policy promise required an executive department.

Stalin used the Secret Police in his ‘Great Purge’ in Russia from 1936 to 1938. – his methods were a bit drastic -up to 1 million people were killed.

Politicians, intelligentsia, critics, government officials and the army were targeted.

President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order in 1947 to screen federal employees for possible association with organizations deemed “totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive

Primary targets were government employees, prominent figures in the entertainment industry, academics, left-wing politicians, and labor union activists. McCarthy was his hit-man. Public servants were screened…

So now we will see another purge in a democracy, not a totalitarian state ! Interestingly, the same as it was before, it will be the same types and classes of people who will be purged: the bureaucrats, intellectuals and professionals….

Trump has appointed Elon Musk who said he’d cut $2 Trillion from federal bureaucracies . That’s about one third of all employees! Tell me that won’t cause a riot!

He did it to Twitter / X seemingly without crippling industrial action. Maybe he can do it on a much bigger scale.

“Progressives are no longer the party of the working class or the non- college educated…

… the incompatibility of identity politics with the liberal principle of equality … citizens’ trust in mainstream institutions has been absolutely shattered..corporations and the military, universities and the courts .. trust is gone

When people look (at these institutions) they see progressive values shoved in their faces. It’s not the democracy they voted for.”

Politicians don’t purge, because those purged are voters.

Now it seems that this has changed, Trump doesn’t want re-election after this term. He is backed by the working class and opposed by the elites. He wants to change what the elites have done and he doesn’t care about the political risk.

Here in Australia it was reported recently that:

An estimated 70% of jobs growth since 2022 has been government funded….The 2024-25 budget showed the number of public servants had grown by about 25% since the COVID-19 pandemic

Dan Power, The Mandarin, 18 October 2024

Now we see how politics works! Vote for me an I’ll give you a job!

I hope the Coalition ask Elon Musk for some tips before the next election!