* Kristol flinched when the questioner mentioned your name Steve. It was a flinch of shame. He knows he’s a fraud.
* Immigration won Trump the primaries, there can be no doubt.
The Sailer Strategy was his key to victory in the general, but I do not think immigration is what pushed him over the top in the general. My take is that it was the war on political correctness that did it.
Trump didn’t use ethnic or racial fears to drive resentment among working class whites – instead he used political correctness. PC is the cugel used by the (upper class) elites to silence (lower class) whites. Trump stood against the PC overreach of BLM, Trans bathrooms, and all the other slights that have been building since the triumphant celebration of gay marriage. In some ways it was an intra-white class struggle, with lower class voters using Trump to strike back against their betters.
It alienated more cuckservative whites, but activated the passion and enthusiasm of the more numerous lower class whites, enabling Trump to successfully implement the Sailer strategy.
Whether that happened by luck, instinct, or design is an interesting question to be answered in the weeks to come.
* Kristol is unable to understand the complimentary alienation of the economic effects of globalism (outsourcing production to the Third World) and immigration (in-sourcing low skilled labor) which yield an acute loss of dignity and humiliation greater than the sum of the parts. Likely he could understand it if he tries but doesn’t care to understand it.
The sense that you can’t achieve reasonable lifetime milestones while simultaneously enduring the psychic shock of having often hostile, ethnically chauvinist foreigners replace you and overcome you with a healthy assist from your own government, while your relative lower status is applauded as “progress” and just desserts.
* He literally sputters when faced with a question about Japanese standards of living. That’s after getting beet red when asked about immigration. I’m surprised he didn’t cover his ears and start yelling “la la la I can’t hear you”.
You would think when people are consistently this wrong they would eventually lose their jobs instead of doubling down. Post-Trump it seems they may become even more prominent. Peter Principle at play?
* I still do not understand why anyone listens to him ? He has supported one failure after another (Iraq War, Jeb Bush, Hispanics becoming the new Republicans, election predictions, tax cut for billionaires to win votes, ignore white voters, etc), why is anyone listening to him ? I just wish somebody could ask him straight to his face why he thinks he is an expert when he is always wrong.
* Scott Alexander talks about how the left is destroying the future usefulness of terms like “openly racist” by attaching them to Trump, who clearly is not. What words can be used in the future to describe a candidate who is ACTUALLY openly racist, since if you call him “openly racist” people will assume that you mean it in the devalued Trumpian sense of someone who really isn’t? Now six of the last 4 Republican candidates have been garden variety racists, but only Trump up until now has qualified as openly racist so they will have to think of some new superlative.
Anyway, Kristol is destroying the meaning of the word “wrong” in the same way. If Sailer and Coulter are “wrong” (even though they were right) then what do you call an idiot like Kristol who was ACTUALLY wrong, now that the word wrong has lost its original meaning?
Now when the Hillary folks tout the fact that she won the popular vote, that’s understandably trying to salvage some dignity from defeat, but what excuse does Kristol have?
* That was quite a defensive answer. His body language said more than his words.
* Roger Stone said it best.
He learned from Nixon that the candidate has to reach his peak at just the right moment, and Trump did.
It’s like a surfer. He has to wait for just the moment when ride it all the way.
Trump managed to catch the right wave.
At any rate, I do believe Trump would have won much bigger if the media had been at least half-fair. Also, if nevertrumpers(riff on ‘never again’?) hadn’t been so hostile and voted for that fool Gary Johnson.
Winds were against him, but Trump managed to catch the right wave at just the right time.
And there were few winds on his side: Wikileaks and Wiener.
The media try to bury them… but there was the internet.
If Kennedy was the first TV president, Trump is the first internet president.
Some will say Obama was internet savvy due to high-tech community support, but he didn’t need the internet to win cuz all the media and big money were behind him.
But Trump really couldn’t have done this without alternative news and info sources.
* Having been involved in politics since the 2000 election, every Republican presidential candidate is literally Hitler. Each candidate more like Hitler than the last. Calling opponents racist and sexist have been watered down for a long time. The key difference is that the GOP of 2000-2015 would flinch whenever they were inevitably called a racist or sexist where Trump just plowed right through it. I’m sure to guys like Romney or McCain, they liked to have considered themselves non-racists and non-sexists to a fault so they would eagerly try to dispel the labels the best they can, even if it meant throwing their base under a bus. Trump has been the only guy so far to just keep on plowing through and looks like it worked for him. The Democrats are going to panic when they find that calling someone a racist no longer works.
* BTW, @Steve_Sailer, I’m seeing you name-checked more and more. Are you no longer an unperson after last Tuesday? Can people now admit that you exist without fear of disappearing themselves?
* Kristol predicted failure for Trump before Super Tuesday,
over the summer (remember Carly Fiorina accepting the invite to be Ted Cuz’s vive president), after Khazir-Kahn-gate, during the formation of the Renegade Party, and after all three debates before the general election. One of Nate Silvers writers at five-thirty-eight were talking up Evan Mcmullin’s chances not only in Utah, but a path to actual victory nationwide even two weeks before the national election. Silver had one article after the second debate entitled, “Hillary Clinton probably finished off Donald Trump last night”. Kristol assured everyone the entire GOP ticket would be pulled down by Trump.
What has Bill Kristol been right about again? Nothing in the past year. If he didnt have a name magazine and a perch at Fox, he would be a ranting fool on a sparsely read blog.
* The Weekly Standard cult really does seem to have a problem with those 2 (Coulter; Steve). I don’t doubt in the latter case the consternation is less pronounced and less uniform With Ann it’s obvious they hate her on every front and the style vs. substance reasons could never be unpackaged– recall her pro-McCarthyism book. Yet I think there’s about a half dozen or so regular contributors of theirs now following the unspeakable Unzian blog if only furtively; Caldwell, Carlson, and Last have openly quoted from these dark outlands. Alt-Rights may come and go but the ‘Sphere never stops turnin’.
* Kristol has supported one failure after another for twenty years and it gave us Barack Obama and almost gave us Hillary Clinton.
Now Trump has triumphed and have given the GOP it’s biggest victory in nearly three decades and is poised to pull the party in a new direction.
Kristol having failed to make any impact on the primary recruited a nobody solely to give Utah to Hillary and thus cost Trump the electoral college and he couldn’t even succeed in that.
I suppose I’d be angry too.
* Trump basically addressed the issue in a way that was theretofore verboten and won the Presidency.
So one is left with the undeniable conclusion that the two party consensus on immigration which totally excluded the Trumpian policy was a falsified preference – a fabrication they nearly made law.
What they can’t allow is a legal immigration pause in the same manner as the 25-65 pause because the people might like it.
* I love it when the questioner asks, “What have you ever been right about in decades?” and Kristol answers, “Most things.” Maybe he’s been right about where he left his car keys, but he’s been wrong about every issue of national significance. If I had been in the audience I would have shouted, “Hear, hear!” after the questioner asked him that one.
* According to OpenSecrets, Bill Kristol lives in 22101 (McLean, Virginia). There are 232 pages of properties in 22101 currently listed for sale on Zillow. The cheapest single family home is going for $697k. It’s 1655 sq ft and was built in 1956. On 176 of the 232 properties the asking price is $1 million or more, and the median asking price is $1.5 million. Zip code 22102, right next to 22101, is the wealthiest zip code in the D.C. Area, which is one of the richest metro areas in the country.
So yeah, it’s safe to say Bill Kristol gives zero shits about your average working class American. The funny thing is that he talks up his opposition to the Gang of Eight Amnesty Bill while providing us with no reason why he actually opposed it. He certainly didn’t denigrate Gang of Eight supporters in the same way he derided opponents of the 2006 amnesty bill, which he called “yahoos.” Probably he just realized that if he openly supported another attempt at amnesty that no one would ever get caught dead reading his magazine again.
* When really pressed – when the questioner pointed out the success of homogenous nations such as Japan and pre-Merkel Germany- Kristol, Galston and sympathizers in the audience respond with laughter and ridicule. This is a time worn tactic of the left, particularly the (((left)). I have seen it in action at debates for decades.
One cannot have a good faith debate with these people.
* What’s not mentioned is that he’s a so-called neocon Jew who cheerled America into the ill-/un-conceived and ultimately disastrous ‘War on Terror’ (aka ‘Invade the World, Invite the World’) — Kristol has always seemed to be dogmatically stupid and obtuse — also dogmatically malevolent re what is best for America and its people — yet he still appears to be a member of the punditocracy and retains influence — and people wonder why Trump won.
* Well, Kristol lost it pretty quickly. His first tack was to insist that “Sailer and Coulter were wrong” (that the vote was about immigration), because Trump didn’t get over 50% of the vote, and the other three candidates were all pro-immigration. Ergo, the American people are pro-immigration.
When he got pressed on this issue, he started getting accusatory (“what kind of euphemism is ‘third world’), dismissed the Somalis by referencing refugees, and then started getting sarcastic.
* So, according to you, “every other democracy” has the “same” open immigration policy? That’s news to me.
Look, American Jews tend to get a great many things wrong. Their curious attitude toward Israeli immigration policy (if they indeed have one, and if it is the same restrictionist policy you assume they hold) might be one of the few things they get right. What’s the point, therefore, of wanting to punish US for THEIR perceived ideological misdeeds, via this alleged “same” open immigration policy? No need to answer; your motives are clear.
* …the point about bringing up Israel with these people is that either they’re hypocrites or they practice cognitive dissonance. It’s a rhetorical dagger to point out the double standard, because there’s really no excuse for it except to say “Israel is special.”
* Perhaps Kristol should listen to what Netanyahu has to say on the matter:
The Israeli prime minister has stoked a volatile debate about refugees and migrant workers from Africa, warning that “illegal infiltrators flooding the country” were threatening the security and identity of the Jewish state.
“If we don’t stop their entry, the problem that currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000, and that threatens our existence as a Jewish and democratic state,” Binyamin Netanyahu said at Sunday’s cabinet meeting. “This phenomenon is very grave and threatens the social fabric of society, our national security and our national identity.”
Yohanan Danino, the Israeli police chief, said migrants should be permitted to work to discourage petty crime. Nearly all are unable to work legally, and live in overcrowded and impoverished conditions. “The community needs to be supported in order to prevent economic and social problems,” said Rosenfeld.
But the interior minister, Eli Yishai, rejected such a move, saying: “Why should we provide them with jobs? I’m sick of the bleeding hearts, including politicians. Jobs would settle them here, they’ll make babies, and that offer will only result in hundreds of thousands more coming over here.”
Yishai repeated an earlier call for all migrants to be jailed pending deportation. “I want everyone to be able to walk the streets without fear or trepidation … The migrants are giving birth to hundreds of thousands, and the Zionist dream is dying,” he told Army Radio.
Netanyahu said the state would embark on “the physical withdrawal” of migrants, despite fears among human rights organisations about the dangers they could face in their home countries. Yishai said: “I’m not responsible for what happens in Eritrea and Sudan, the UN is.”
* NYT: Trump’s Biggest Test: Can He Build Something That Inspires Awe?
Build something awe-inspiring. Something Americans can be proud of. Something that will repay the investment many times over for generations to come.
Uhhh didn’t Trump mention something about building a huge wall?
* Concern/paranoia about Japan in the 1980′s centered on two observations: (1) American cars were terrible, while Japanese cars exhibited high quality design and manufacture, and (2) the Japanese government’s industrial policy (through the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, or MITI) seemed to point to a strategic command of a national economy that we would need to emulate.
The first issue was dealt with by much needed reform in Detroit and the Japanese companies building effective factories in the US. (You would not believe the crappiness of American cars. Every car had a clock, but no clock continued working for more than six months. I was astounded to see a working clock in my friend’s Honda Civic in 1974. The clocks in American cars shook apart from road vibration. When a colleague consulting for GM recommended a more expensive clock on Cadillacs, GM told him “Nobody buys a Cadillac for the clock.” They were right. People bought a Lexus.)
The second issue was a constant concern of people like James Fallows. MITI was already losing leverage over Japanese companies, however, and the emergence of companies like Apple and Microsoft convinced most people that central policy in the form of Industrial Policy was more likely to prop up staid companies like IBM than to generate something new and important.
* Japan’s MITI notoriously tried to get its 10 or so car companies to merge into just two under Toyota and Nissan. Honda refused.
* I didn’t have the heart to listen to the whole thing, but I flipped through it. My God, it was dreary and platitudinous and utterly conventional. In contrast there’s a Milo/Ann Coulter podcast out that was recorded just before the election. (“In this tiny corner of the world, Ann gets to be the voice of reason.”) The conversation was sparkling, funny, and had at least a couple real insights.
I get that the great and good can’t and shouldn’t let it rip to quite the same extent a couple epater le bourgeois specialists like Ann and Milo do. But the Kristol/Galston/gal talk reminded me of a Brezhnev-era colloquium in which the whole point is to drone on while avoiding saying anything either interesting or true. That could result in you getting into trouble with the authorities.
* Steve keeps mentioning a high-low tag team to screw over the middle. I noticed some historical parallels, with Jews trying to screw over other Jews through the involvement of outsiders. One could probably make a whole article out of something like this if you find more examples, at the risk of sounding like a conspiratorial nutcase (perfect for Unz.com!)
From a Wikipedia article on Pompey’s military career (He was Caesar’s opponent in the Civil War):
“A conflict between the brothers Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II over the succession to the Hasmonean throne begun in Judea in 69 BC. Aristobulus deposed Hyrcanus. Then Antipater the Idumaean became the adviser of weak-willed Hyrcanus and persuaded him to contend for the throne…The people supported Hyrcanus and only the priests supported Aristobulus…The ambassadors of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus asked for [Pompey’s] help.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompey#Judea
From a Wikipedia article on the last two Jews of Afghanistan:
“Simintov had lived with the second last remaining Jewish man in Afghanistan, Ishaq Levin… Levin had initially welcomed Simintov but the two fell out permanently when Simintov offered the caretaker help to emigrate to Israel to join the rest of the former Kabul Jewish community…the older man took umbrage, claiming Simintov was trying to take over the synagogue. A feud ensued, with the Taliban becoming involved after both men reported each other to the authorities for alleged wrongdoings ranging from running a brothel to misappropriating religious objects.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zablon_Simintov#Afghan_Jewish_conflict
* Criticizing Jewish double-standards on immigration policy is a valid debate tactic, as long as Jews simultaneously support lax border laws here and strict border laws in Israel to a noticeable degree. Even Netanyahu said that Europe had a responsibility to accept Syrian refugees, at the beginning of the crisis last year.
You imply that the motive of this line of questioning is antisemitism. That is a shaming tactic meant to discourage legitimate criticisms. I assume that you are hijacking this conversation with shaming tactics because you are paranoid, neurotic, and because you are anti-Gentile. I’m willing to say that openly.
* Free trade and immigration are the one-two punch of globalism. Free trade moves the portable jobs, e.g. manufacturing, overseas for lower wages and environmental costs. Immigration lowers the price point of labour for the less portable jobs, e.g. construction. They both need to be in place for globalism to be running efficiently on all cylinders.
* Can we demonize and punish American Jews for their hypocrisy in holding the “Israel is special” attitude with regard to immigration?
* Respectfully, could people stop using abbreviations without having previously indicated what they are talking about? I see these on iSteve frequently. If the comment is uninteresting, I don’t bother doing a Google search on what they mean by “BYMOAT” or whatever. If the comment is interesting, I try to figure it out in context. Example: “And that was the danger of SS.” My mind raced through possibilities–Social Security, Secret Service, uh, oh yeah, Steve Sailer, but that doesn’t work in context, wait a minute, “Sailer Strategy.” So I got it. It only cost me a minute. Am I just slower than everyone else? Possibly. But why not give slow guys like me a break and write “Sailer Strategy (SS)” the first time, since Sailer Strategy had not previously appeared in this post or comments?
* The presence of Bill Kristol at this Harvard symposium highlights the desperate need for a new generation of intellectuals who can articulate and expand upon the vision of nationalism that Trump, and corresponding populist movements in Europe, embody.
There is no place for a Bill Kristol after 2016 — if there ever was. He and his are artifacts of an elite bubble, and have no basis in the larger polity. This was always so, but became indisputable in 2016.