Trumped

US Citizens Giving the Finger to Globalist Statist Elites – Big Time

Back in late August we posted something about Mr. Trump’s chances probably being a lot better than was generally assumed (see: US Presidential Election – How Reliable are the Polls?). You know what the say about a headline that ends in a question mark; most often, the answer to the question is “No”. And so it was in this case – the polls were not reliable.

We should point out that Bill Mitchell, the man who showed why the polls were so extremely flawed, is really deserving of a lot of praise in this context. Yes, he may have been a bit biased himself, but he was working all of this out all on his own, and his interpretations of the polls and the forecasts he derived from them managed to beat the pants off every mainstream poll we are aware of.

Interestingly, the New York Times gave Ms. Clinton an 80% chance of winning on the eve of the election, somewhat lower than the 90%+ chance accorded to her by numerous other papers and TV stations. This happens to be equal to the chance of surviving a round of Russian Roulette. Just saying. 🙂

We have given Trump’s success some thought, and have realized that in spite of his low-brow delivery (some journalists have e.g. pointed out that he employs a rather limited vocabulary in his speeches), his seeming inconsistencies and his rudeness, his campaign has probably been planned very well from the beginning. He is definitely not the bumbler many of his critics think (or thought) he is. He actually has a strategy, and so far it has worked very well. It’s like a very well-executed business plan, getting the most bang for the buck.

Well, the plan has kept working – presumably not least because the time was ripe (recall our remarks last year about the shift in social mood that had become evident in election results all over the world). In a recent interview with Stefan Molyneux, the above mentioned Bill Mitchell points out (we are paraphrasing): “Voting for Hillary would have been like voting for a third Obama term; under such circumstances, the candidate who stands for change always wins”.

Readers may remember that similar allegations about Bill Clinton exercising his conjugal dipstick in extramarital activities couldn’t derail his election victory in 1992 either. Alas, even though the allegations were actually not made up in his case, they weren’t published similarly close to the election date.

Bill Clinton’s campaign therefore had enough time to mount a successful defense – which was convincingly supported by his wife to boot, who was actually easy on the eyes at the time (she hasn’t aged well, probably due to all her conniving, corruption and doing deals with the devil. Contrary to us we might add: the older we get, the younger and more beautiful we look…:)).

So we wavered, although we shouldn’t have. We began to think we might need to get a fall-out shelter, since we reside in an area of the world which in the event of a war between Russia and NATO would be uncomfortably close to the radioactive clouds. We were also saddened by the prospect of potentially losing the enormous entertainment value embodied in The Donald. He is without a doubt the most formidable entertainer on the political stage since the Cavaliere Silvio Berlusconi, and that is really saying something.

Numerous forecasters have been quite consistent throughout the process though – such as Bill Mitchell and also Scott Adams, who regularly delivered very astute analyses prior to the election, or famed conservative pundit Ann Coulter – not to mention the master himself, augury-in-chief Donald Trump, who seems to own a crystal ball, as inter alia evidenced by this August 18 tweet:

Ann Coulter makes what at the time was quite a stunning prediction on Bill Maher’s talk show, to the great amusement of all present (presumably they are not laughing anymore). Note also her remark that it would have been much harder for Trump to win against Bernie Sanders – an assertion that once again met with disbelief, but we think she was 100% correct on that point as well. Similar to Trump’s supporters, the supporters of Sanders were excited and enthusiastic, even though they were quite misguided (socialism is economic suicide and utterly suffocates individual liberty). By contrast, status quo standard bearer Hillary Clinton evoked precisely zero excitement.

Passive-Aggressive Snowflakes

Shortly before the election, when it still looked like Ms. Clinton would win, many of her supporters magnanimously started calling for “unity” and tackling the difficult but necessary “healing process”, once their preferred candidate was safely ensconced in the White House. In the safe space provided by the Clinton campaign headquarters, many awaited Madame’s certain victory with bated breath, eagerly looking forward to a night of heavy partying.

Here are a few photographs of the scene later that night. As you will see further below, we are actually trying to get at something beyond inviting you to share in a modicum of Schadenfreude here. But let’s get to the Schadenfreude first:

Countless images of crying snowflakes emerged by the time Trump took Florida. The Clinton campaign saved a lot of money on fireworks, but at that moment, no-one seemed to be thinking of this not insignificant upside. We don’t get it, frankly. Donors who have invested millions into buying off Hillary perhaps have a reason to cry, but these people don’t look like they belong to the ultra-rich donor class that had Hillary in its pocket.

So many people have sent off tweets asserting that they are “literally shaking” after hearing about the election result, that one would expect earth tremors to develop. California in particular should be in danger of, well, literally decoupling from the mainland US, on account of the San Andreas fault finally coming apart (we are enlarging on a remark by Stefan Molyneux here, concerning news that some Californians are considering secession). “Literally shaking” has in the meantime evolved into a Twitter meme that has been eagerly adopted by Trump supporters.

We would note to all of this that people who demonstrate such extreme emotional attachment to a professional politician, particularly an obviously corrupt one who has plenty of blood on her hands as well, should perhaps consider visiting a therapist – or at least stop to think for a moment. It is a bit disconcerting that they are actually voters, but we are prepared to concede that they are probably misinformed.

Boo-hoo!

Given the election outcome, it was Mr. Trump’s turn to speak of unity and healing, which he dutifully did on occasion of his acceptance speech. Even lame duck president Obama got his act together and uttered a few friendly and encouraging words after meeting with his successor. As an aside, we suspect that Mr. Obama’s private and public positions on Hillary are quite possibly just as inspired by Abraham Lincoln as Hillary’s positions on everything are…:) To wit:

Obama opines on Hillary Clinton in 2008…

Naturally they don’t want the majority to impose its will on them, but they wouldn’t have thought twice about doing the very same thing to their opponents if their side had won. If one seriously wants to get rid of majority rule, one has to campaign for the abolition of the State; only a society without political rulers can be truly free of this type of oppression. A world free of government coercion is not on the left’s agenda though, so tough cookies.

As an aside to this, in an anarchist society, socialists would be perfectly free to do what they want on their own justly acquired property – nothing and no-one would stand in their way. If they want to enslave themselves voluntarily, so be it. They would however not be able to coerce others who disagree with them into living under their system. For obvious reasons, such voluntary socialist enclaves would likely remain quite small.

As it turns out, many of the poor crying safe-spacers actually seem to be passive-aggressive types. As soon as their eyes were dry, rioting broke out in cities across the US. People unhappy about the election result happily proceeded to torch their own cities. Maybe they were hoping to attract a larger share of Trump’s infrastructure spending by making short shrift of some of the existing infrastructure?

When they spoke about unity and healing they apparently didn’t really mean it, or maybe they simply neglected to mention a qualifying clause attached to this promise: only if our malfunctioning android wins!

What Will Happen Under the Trump Administration?

The question what Trump will actually deliver remains open of course. We will discuss the truly remarkable market reaction separately, but so far the markets appear to regard the Republican clean sweep as akin to the second coming of Ronald Reagan.

This is probably not the correct interpretation, not least because the contingent circumstances of today are quite different. However, the longer we think about it, the more we are convinced that Trump is quite likely to exceed everyone’s expectations – given that these expectations are quite low, that should admittedly not be too difficult.

There is also the fact that The Economist magazine published the following cover shortly before the election:

Along similar lines, there is a theory that the “elites wanted Trump to win so the upcoming economic collapse can be blamed on him”. It is not the first time this argument is being made: Let the “populist” win just before the big downturn, then blame it on him, and offer a globalist solution (including the Keynesian wet dream of a global fiat currency issued by the IMF or a similar institution).

As the Daily Bell has frequently pointed out, since history is “directed” up to a point (and when the directing occasionally fails, history is often subsequently falsified), such concerns should perhaps not be dismissed out of hand. And there is no question that economic fundamentals are very fragile and that it will be easy to make missteps that tip the economy over.

But there is also a wild card: what if whatever Trump ends up doing actually works? Never underestimate the power of the market economy when it is truly unshackled. We admit that Trump has some crazy ideas about trade and is likely to spend like a drunken sailor, but he also wants to cut taxes and push back regulations.

Funny enough, altering trade relations is not so easy for the president. International treaties cannot be ripped up by presidential decree, it is a rather laborious process – and he is going to get an earful from US industries, given the global integration of production. But with Congress behind him, he will definitely be able to cut taxes and push back regulations and this is extremely important.

Consider also that socialists all over the world are completely flabbergasted and in heavy yammering mode. They realize that their plan to achieve full-scale socialism through the backdoor has just been rudely interrupted – for the second time since the Brexit referendum. Just listen to their whining in Europe.

From Mr. Francois Welfare-State-Incarnate Hollande (the guy with the 4% approval rating!), to the clown running the show in Brussels, Mr. Jean-Claude We-Lie-When-Things-Get-Tough Juncker, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth all over the continent. The desperate hand-wringing and arm-waving is highly enjoyable.

In other words, the people complaining the most and the loudest about Trump’s election victory are essentially a collection of the biggest statist douchebags on the planet (including the economists who unanimously denounced Trump ahead of the election.Consider that Hillary Clinton’s economic plans were an unmitigated socialistic disaster, while Trump’s offer at least a few bright spots).

One would think that something these people dislike with such intensity just has to be good.