The famous old line came to mind as I was listening to "The Joe Rogan Experience" and Joe, talking about the first days of the new Trump administration, exclaimed: "Wild times! Just wild! Like what a fun time to be alive!"
Bret Weinstein followed on:
"It just feels different. I have to tell you, I don't know what's coming, but it's at least, it's at least delightful not to know what to think."
He's got delight, as Wordsworth's French revolutionaries had bliss, but Weinstein professes to find his delight in not knowing what to think. He's distancing himself and enjoying his distance. I think of the spectators who lined the Place de la Révolution. Did they have reservations about the guillotine? Did they think I don't know what to think and find that unknowingness delightful?
Weinstein's thoughtfulness continued:
"The cynicism that was required to understand what was going on two months ago is now no longer required. You actually have to think about what you're, what you're told is coming down the pike and think, well, I don't know. Is that a solution? Is it, is that, yeah. Is it a negotiating tactic or is it a solution that's actually being proposed and would it work?"
Withhold judgment. Meanwhile, 10 more heads will have rolled.
Posts
91 comments:
I’d like to see some heads roll. So far its an o-fer…
They don't have to roll heads if they explode pre-blade.
It takes a lot of mental energy to maintain coherency with fashion statements when the Emperor ain't got a stich on.
"In knowing nothing, life is most delightful" (In nil sapiendo vita iucundissima est), a quote by Publilius Syrus
Wikipedia
"The best lack all conviction...."
I hope and assume Wordsworth wasn't writing about the Reign of Terror.
If they have any sense, the political class will be more careful in future about making people angry.
Just yesterday, there was this thing called US AID dispensing billions abroad (but primarily at home), perhaps the CIA's little helper, perhaps the sugar daddy for various media outlets, perhaps the funder for some of the silliest social initiatives the world has ever seen, an agency that can make $4 billion disappear before it gets to Haiti (show me that voodoo that you do so well). and by today it is gone.
Oh no! Oh well...
"It just feels different."
Men are back in charge
The prof’s selected segment very dramatically misrepresents the tenor and subject of this interview, and I’ve watched most of it.
https://x.com/oilfield_rando/status/1887681433746968828?s=46&t=pOghkxSbQl2pg4CLby5nCA
Of course, the propriety of those ridiculously overpriced Politico Pro subscriptions no longer matters. The users have been fired. Demand has plummeted. There is no longer a market.
When it is socially easier to change your gender than it is a government department, you know the society is in trouble.
People are just so frustrated with the bloat, rot, and cronyism in government that Trump 2.0 feels like, Hey, maybe we don't have to accept managed decline.
“Men are back in charge”
Who was in charge the past 4 years if not men? Biden, Christopher Wray, Obama, William J Burnes, Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley
They have male parts. Big difference.
They have male parts. Big difference.
If Biden is Jill, sure. Joe was a potted plant.
"Who was in charge the past 4 years if not men? Biden, Christopher Wray, Obama, William J Burnes, Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley"
Their manhood is questionable. So says I.
“They have male parts. Big difference.”
So now we on the right are saying gender is a state of mind?
What you are told is coming down the pike …and whose head is on it.
Fixed it!
"The prof’s selected segment very dramatically misrepresents the tenor and subject of this interview, and I’ve watched most of it."
The entire show is embedded right there. Anyone can scroll back before the point where the quote I wanted begins. And in yesterday's post about it, I linked to a whole, searchable transcript. There's no "misrepresentation." Indeed, you "misrepresent" what I am saying and doing. Instead of insulting me, cheaply, you could describe or quote other things that you believe give good context. Why not be substantive and idea-based instead of emotive and attacking?
"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." - Herb Stein
We're in the "what's next" phase, and we all are blinking in the light of a glorious sunrise. Or nuclear holocaust. YMMV depending on your parallax to reality.
One of these. Have a great day! This reader really enjoyed listening to Bret and Joe last evening.
"So now we on the right are saying gender is a state of mind?"
Hair-sniffing dawdertuching leg-hair-exposing finger-nibbling perverts with penises might have them, but most men do not consider them men.
This is one no-true-scotsman argument I am willing to defend.
This is about restoring what works instead of destroying like the last few years
Withhold judgment. Meanwhile, 10 more heads will have rolled.
Maybe I'm dense today but I don't understand the guillotine allusions in reference to changes Trump is enacting. Is this just a vivid image for the workers bought out or laid off?
I mean his opponents literally tried to assassinate Trump twice, one nearly blowing his off, no metaphoric flourish needed. So I think such eliminationist rhetoric is out of place for what we are witnessing.
Oh, no, Althouse, you didn't! Wordsworth was fresh and interesting. I can't believe you dug out the hoary, overquoted Yeats. More coffee! Brisk air! Quickly!
I’m convinced that Trump has a big, beautiful binder in the Resolute desk listing all the things he is going to do in his first 100 days. For example, this Sunday he will be the first President to attend the Super Bowl. The crowd will go wild when his face is shown on the screen. Heck, he might even do the coin flip.
Oh, I’d love to see that binder.
There is too much difference between revolutionary-era French government and contemporary American government for this metaphor to be relevant.
“This is one no-true-scotsman argument I am willing to defend.”
That’s fine. Just don’t blame the women, dammit.
(I forgot to add George Soros to my previous list.)
https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1887770874494718112?s=46&t=pOghkxSbQl2pg4CLby5nCA very curious
I'm watching the housecleaning and dragging all this into the light where we can see it with wonder! This is amazing and I never really figured this would really happen.
I'd imagine the French people never figured they'd see the royalty put their heads in a basket...
as the Chinese curse (supposedly) goes:
May You Live In Interesting Times
So instead of investigating the billions of mispent dollars this drone doxes the sleuths
The tone of my comment was not emotive or attacking, nor was it insulting. I merely disagreed with your overall representation of the interview. The tenor of your response is pretty revealing. I merely disagreed with you. I’m still not particularly emotional engaged or angry, not even by your response. It’s OK if you disagree with me.
"That’s fine. Just don’t blame the women, dammit."
Without a defection of a percentage - though small - of suburban white women Trump wouldn't be president. Some women deserve praise for helping bring this sorely-needed course-correction about.
For me, a better metaphor for what we are seeing today is the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 89-90. Just like today, those most hurt were communists.
I'm giddy with excitement unlike I have ever been at the beginning of a Presidency. My vote actually meant something.
a) Any head rolling is figurative
b) Weinstein was a victim of aforementioned head rolling
c) Most of the head rolling will be self-inflicted. Trump has offered a generous bailout package. Anyone not choosing to take it has risked their noggin.
Maybe they should have reflected like this eight years ago. People act like this is some kind of phenomenon that just appeared out of thin air on election day. Remember when government employees leaked Trump's tax returns? One of these USAID contribution receiving organizations was heavily involved in Trump's impeachment. They appear to be some kind of disinformation outfit for the CIA, BTW. Organization to Track Organized Crime or something. I can imagine the CIA saying "Yeah, we have to have control of that outfit sooner than quicker, just to make sure they don't report the wrong organized criminals and maybe we can use it to smear others."
So these are the consequences of using propaganda to delegitimize the 2016 election, and throwing aside all norms, and using the government to attack the Democrat's political opponents. Oh yeah, and funding riots in 2020 that were far worse than J6, letting rioters go who had, for example, thrown live fireworks into Federal Courthouses, used blinding lasers on Federal security personnel.
No. The attack on democratic norms, and the reckless abandon and joy with which it was done did not just start. Maybe the DoJ shouldn't have been sniffing around the underwear drawer of a former First Lady on nonsense charges.
The lies @home press continue…
https://x.com/DanODonnellShow/status/1887342448969466150?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1887342448969466150%7Ctwgr%5Ef18cd06cb848e4d06a31489436a56d3c4bcfa5b9%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F701209%2F
In ten thousand households people look at their mortgage payments and their college bills and sigh. Madison and Jayden may have to drop out or transfer to State U. Reductions in force finally hit the beltway.
Watch Wapoo, NPR, and NYT for articles about fired bureaucrats commiting suicide a la Capitol Police. It is a national crisis! Why can't we ignore reality? Look at Illinois! Why can't DC be like Illinois?
Meanwhile, the national debt keeps ticking up. And Social Security and Medicare are off the books.
It may be too soon to tell how things are shaking out until Trump’s cabinet heads settle in — but Senate Democrats are doing their best to delay confirmations.
The David brooks - Peggy Noonan lament:
"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
I'm not even sure heads will roll, and I not sure I care. Simply dismantling this method of financing the progressive agenda through taxpayer dollars takes away their power. Prosecuting them will be difficult, because they put a lot of work in obscuring how the money was laundered. Sure, a few wiz kids that know how to program AI to associate patterns can detangle the network but conviction will require explaining to a jury what the AI accomplished.
In the meantime, these lazy progressives have lost their gravy train, and they don't have many other skills other than complaining about it. The more they protest too much, the more likely they'll commit ordinary crimes that piss off the public already getting mad at being fleeced like this. That's when heads might roll; when they lose them first.
Trained with Yoda, Wordsworth did.
Right now, the forces of reaction are doing a good job of stopping almost everything Trump and the American people want. Of course, GOPe doesn't like Trump or his voters and never have. So, sabotage is on the table.
At least we don't have to worry about WW III with Russia. I was concerned dumbo Harris or Senile Joe would've blundered into war.
People act like Trump's picks approved by the Senate in 2016 didn't work to undermine him from day one. That their disloyalty didn't ruin his presidency, actually, he had a pretty good presidency until Fauci's now pardoned illegal funding of bat virus research under the Obama Administration showed up.
Now we have had four years of Hell and wars, and a senile dotard dragged us to the brink of WW3, the European economy has been recked, we were launching missiles into Russia using US personnel, at a minimum providing targeting information and letting the Ukrainians know the best time to launch and what paths to use to avoid air defenses. And four years of reckless spending that has led to inflation and may have set us on a course to hyperinflation and maybe DOGE is the only way to cut this spending so that economic growth has a chance to catch its breath and catch up with our deficit spending.
Its amazing what Leftwing Judges can do. I never thought identifying FBI agents who were part of an investigation was somehow against the constitution or commone decency or whatever.
Even more strange is the attitude of the acting FBI director, who thought the FBI was a 4th branch of Government and not under the direction of the DoJ and the POTUS.
If USAID has been brought under democratic oversight, instead of being a playground for neocon operatives and a slush fund for Democrat insiders... I wouldn't be surprised to find out that USAID money was used to buy and neuter the Drudge Report. So many of these organizations that were said to be funded by "private donors" and therefore not subject to constitutional restraints now turn out to be government funded? Well, guess what, France survived and got rid of a parasitic class of rulers and became a democracy.
"Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,—the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!"
I never knew Wordsworth was such a pagan and non-Christian.
My favorite Wordsworth poem:
Sonnets from The River Duddon: After-Thought
"I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away.—Vain sympathies!
For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish;—be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know."
I said that to my wife, when the Covid idiocy was at its height (and we--well, mostly she-- were planning our daughter's wedding, and I was out of work).
It took a long time to stop. A lot longer than I thought was possible.
Yeah, that was unnecessary, Althouse.
We've been freed from the tyranny of the corrupt left and their tranny pro-noun police.
The rage-filled tyrannical left are spoiling for another deadly pandemic.
https://x.com/BenTallmadge01/status/1887697330318811331
Just like all the Capitol police who were beaten and murdered by the January 6 "insurrection." (sarc).
Any rolling heads are purely metaphorical. Losing a job is no picnic, but it happens every time the Presidency changes from one party to the other, every time there is a corporate buyout, every time there is a significant policy change. There is nothing sacrosanct about the federal bureaucracy.
Sounds like we were working on co-opting their elections, err, I mean "strengthening their democratic processes" and the ChiComs outbid us. The ruthless foreign policy of the United States has undermined our "soft power" in Africa and across the global south far more than shutting down USAID will.
"https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1887770874494718112?s=46&t=pOghkxSbQl2pg4CLby5nCA very curious
https://x.com/BenTallmadge01/status/1887697330318811331"
Hangin's to good for 'em...
I’m convinced that Trump has a big, beautiful binder in the Resolute desk listing all the things he is going to do in his first 100 days.
If that's the case I bet Democrats yearn for Mitt Romney's binder full of women.
Rogan should have Benz on again. The man knows all of this inside and out.
Limited government is preferable for good reasons. One of them being the lack of necessitated head rolling when it eventually and unsurprisingly gets out of control.
It's better to find delight in things that have less of a chance to turn deadly, or at least, find your delight in ways that leave the rest of us out of it.
"I don't know what's coming, but it's at least, it's at least delightful not to [be required] what to think."
While I somewhat agree with the analogy to the French Revolution, particularly in comparing the various parts of the apparatus of Government Bureaucracy to the French Aristocracy and their cronies, this still feels more like an American Revolution to me and not a French one.. Elon tweeted out a clip of Milton Friedman warning of the dangers of expansive government and advocating for eliminating or reducing all the Federal agencies down to three or four. The energy of Milton Friedman is incompatible with a Mob of head-choppers. Though it does work for a Mob of Government slashers.
boatbuilder: "There is nothing sacrosanct about the federal bureaucracy."
Oh, but that's exactly why all the hysteria is erupting. To Democrats, the federal bureaucracy IS sacrosanct. The Natural Order of Things. Lifetime employment. The ultimate sinecure. Followed by the long, fluffy landing with the Golden Parachute.
Now gone. Just gone. IT'S WAR!
Also, if we are going to talk about something in recent memory that best captures the energy of the Mob in the French Revolution, I would say that is the reaction of the Leftist hoi polloi to the murder of the United Healthcare CEO. I think a lot of the folks who consider themselves part of the elite, tastemaker-class on the Left saw that energy too and were a little trepidatious about it, as they apprehended how easily that could be turned on them. **cough cough** California Emergency Management Administrator who makes $700k a year but couldn't keep Fire Hydrants working during a fire.
"Rogan should have Benz on again. The man knows all of this inside and out. " Rogan mentioned on his Weinstein broadcast that he's planning on doing this soon.
I am really not sure what this is all about. This moment of our era seems more like Thermador when Robespierre was overthrown, not the time of "bliss" Wordsworth was recalling - the time of the Third Estate forming the National Assembly or the crowd storming the Bastille. Take Trump's two DEI executive orders. Their language is a restoration of the terms of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, not some call to set up the guillotine.
Also by Wordsworth:
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.
Politics is like a seesaw or a rollercoaster. When you're up you're up, but eventually you come down. The tide rolls in and then rolls out. I don't mean to be a downer
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot drawing near
Who are "the best" today?
I don't think there's a lack of conviction these days. There's too much conviction.
Well, we're not French...so we've got that going for us.
As with investing advice, those subscriptions are designed to stroke the egos of executives and provide rapid "insights" to guide their day. They want to feel they are special or have an edge over others. This is also why many people pay 2% annual fees to retirement advisors -- who then just plop their money in a standard portfolio that could be had for 0.10% and a couple hours of homework.
Elon Musk dictated 70% of the content of that binder to short-attention-span COVFEFE Trump. Much of the content is good, but some of it favors a new group of billionaires over the prior group of billionaires. Trust but verify.
Several thousand political appointees are expected to be replaced, and they retreat to think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation (right) or Brookings Institute (left) between turns in office.
Trump's reaction is distinct because of the rank insubordination, corruption, and partisanship revealed in the nominally "apolitical" career positions from Obama - 2025.
Most of those below that are either those who follow the rules (and left-leaning), or given jobs expressly as political tools or payback (e.g., DEI hiring, EPA, FEMA, Veteran's Affairs). The most insidious sacred cow may be Veteran's Preference hiring, as they are often seat warmers that require contractor support, and they reduce government performance overall. But veterans. But disabled when defending the country. Political third rail.
Not a fitting analogy, Professor.
Hysterical response to change and/or adversity is never a good strategy. Once again, Kipling's "If" is the go to blueprint for to maintain an even strain when the fit hits the Shan.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
“Cruel neutrality” my ass! Elitist university professor equates 10,000 government drones being forced to find real work with ten people being beheaded. Affluent white female liberals (AWFLs) may care more about the plight of people who shelled out besucoup dollars for a Ivy degree in bullshit, knowing that they could, through connections, get a bullshit job in the federal government than they care about the people whose taxes pay for this woke, make-work bullshit.
Watch Wapoo, NPR, and NYT for articles about fired bureaucrats commiting suicide a la Capitol Police
I have been watching, so far no joy.
Althouse, ever careful in her word use, writes "reservations about the guillotine," which is quite different than "reservations at/for/on the guillotine." Bureaucrats don't get a tumbril ride, their heads don't actually roll; the personnel are simply escorted from the building by security. That is as close to "getting the axe." so to speak, as they will come.
Probably the first time these shitbirds have ever been to the dept. of education, but only for the photo op. Said shitbirds must not know the dept. is in the executive branch…
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawmakers-denied-entry-into-department-of-education/ar-AA1yBxbz?cvid=b713ed4acbdc49c3bf38e9c19cd032d2&ocid=hpmsn&ei=12
Shorter DT response to Althouse critique: "Althouse pounced!"
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1887885463874044023?s=19
Also Wordsworth, words well worth remembering:
Now do I feel how all men are deceived,
Reading of nations and their works in faith,
Faith given to vanity and emptiness.
O laughter for the page that would reflect to future times
The face of what now is.
******
The story is not about Donald Trump personally, he’s the show pony.
The story is the well-planned coup being executed to decapitate the legitimate state in the name of destroying the deep state by a powerful plutocratic elite seizing the bureaucratic heights of power in Washington. It is a two-pronged attack taking over the fiscal machinery on one hand while capturing direct control of all of the police and judicial power. The Republican Congress is being put through the succession of purity tests with ever greater degrees of submission being achieved with each successive confirmation vote and policy vote. Both the legislative and judicial authority have been neutered.
Heather Cox Richardson in her Substack yesterday quoted Trump verbatim on expressing his views on giving the air traffic control system to Elon Musk. One can see for one's self that Trump's mind is completely addled.
Trump's public performances are distractions — and meant to be. There's no mind at home in the Oval Office. Trump is the manipulee; the cabal are the manipulators.
Who really rules the roost in the White House?
Wait until something bad happens before complaining. Otherwise you're just imitating The Bulwark - everything that happens is an outrage.
Wordsworth, like most famous poets, is admired for his best work. This isn’t it. Parts of The Prelude hold up well.
At the rate we're going, we will be treated to 'The Outrage Of The Day' for the next 4 years. It will go from department to department, and the wellspring will never run dry.
So my question is, will there even be a prosecution/sentencing/penalty phase? Or is the American public going to be so relieved to see some of the grift end, they'll be happy to just let most of the offenses ride? The size and scope means the DOJ will become a Cecil B DeMille-sized production.
@ Kaki sez :"The story is the well-planned coup being executed to decapitate the legitimate state in the name of destroying the deep state..."
Now that's interesting..... Who is the 'coup' being conducted against, dude? Who is the target? Who is the perp? Draw a picture, please?
Aggie. He can't. The thoughts he types are not his own.
Things bravely begun oft gang agley as Robert Burns would have said if he had my gift for language. I have positive thoughts about the revolution so far, but, as a matter of principle, I'm more in favor of evolutionary change than drastic corrections. We'll see how it goes, but, from what I understand, no society has yet achieved a perfect balance of justice, prosperity, and good will to all......I like Elon Musk, but he's like AI. The probablilities are that AI will make life better, but there is the real possibility that it will take us off a cliff.
TL;DR: "We lost an election after using the all of the mechanisms of state power that we. could marshal against our opponent and now we are screwed."
"Who really rules the roost in the White House?"
This is the guy who thought the Joe Biden should get another four years until that position was shown to everybody to be a complete joke, so why should we listen to you again?
Post a Comment
Comments older than 2 days are always moderated. Newer comments may be unmoderated, but are still subject to a spam filter and may take a few hours to get released. Thanks for your contributions and your patience.