Yesterday I presented a summary of a very lengthy panel discussion of geopolitics, which featured Tom Luongo, Alexander Mercouris, and Alex Krainer. In addition to the purely geopolitical aspects, which I summarized in Is It Over Yet? the panel engaged in some interesting discussion of prospects for the upcoming 2024 presidential election. Here I’ll repeat some cautions that I’ve presented in the past, while incorporating some new views from Luongo’s remarks.
Re Schryver's comment in his "Jig is up" post, I don't track the idea that 'Germany is on a trajectory of becoming a failed state'. Far too cohesive a culture. The outcome Schryver points to - a German shift that fractures the EU - yes, I can see that: a loss of faith in climate change theology brought on by the policy damage to economic vitality plus the badness precipitated by the Ukraine war, Germany turns away from alignment with the EU/US; not the same as turning toward Russia, yet their engagement there will grow via economic necessity. Note that Putin early in his career spent years in East Germany.
Germans are no longer a majority in Germany. Its political system is seriously dysfunctional with no remedy in sight. Its cohesive culture--among the now non-majority German population is also dissolving just as in the rest of the West.
Thank you for the comment and, sincerely, what you provide us here, Mark.
With respect, from April 2023 (ref: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-immigrants-made-up-over-18-of-2022-population/a-65383249) is the stat that 28+% of the German population is from elsewhere. A very large %, and is what I think we might agree is among the centripital political tensions tearing at Germany, but the idea of Germans being a minority in their own country doesn't appear to come out of that lens on demographics. A case of my mistake (lies, damn lies, and stats)?
Thank you, I appreciate the explanation. Pace Lincoln's "Electric Cord" speech of 1858 in Chicago, I agree there is a big difference in what it means to be an American via immigration vs a German: the Heimat is a specific German cultural pillar, and may well become a foundational crack. As these things go, a region's 'ownership' goes to those that bother to show-up (that is, have babies).
It's possible that what was meant is that babies born in German now are majority non-ethnic German. But I was also reading an article that suggested that Germans are outnumbered in schools, also that a public swimming pool had to be closed in Berlin due to attacks on Germans by non-Germans.
Thank you Mark, it’s all over really. I’m having this debate with my hubby since the start of the war. He is Dutch and so loves the EU, a true believer and though I have mostly red pilled him on Covid, he is still enslaved by the evil Putin trope! Any advice accepted
You foresee possible disaster for the GOP as a political party. I foresee a probable disaster for America as a Country going forward. The midgets running our government will continue in power, and they are kids when it comes to running an economy, conducting foreign policy and stumbling into unwinnable wars, not to mention throwing away any advantages gained by our military in previous wars. Their expertise is political, everything they do is political, and for professional politicians they can't even manage to muster the support of a majority of the citizens. These citizens, imbued with American values, will arrange their lives going forward paying taxes and avoiding anything that might bring the Law, no longer observing or enforcing the Rule of Law, down on them, and otherwise paying as little attention as possible to wokeness, the government and whatever imbecilities our government engages in in our name.
I just came across this article on "The New Criterion" site. The new secession
by James Piereson "On the decline of American pride". He writes:
"The American Civil War decided the question of whether states have a right to secede from the American Union. The answer was no. That has long been settled. Yet today, more than a century and a half afterward, another kind of secession is playing out across America: individuals are seceding one by one from the national enterprise. Americans, to a surprising degree, are no longer proud of their country and do not trust their government, these misgiving being two crucial aspects of their disenchantment that portend troubling implications for America’s future."
I wish Piereson had been more thoughtful. Trust in gov't is gone, but pride in the American ideal as manifested by We the Peeps, that I think remains strong. The notion of the peeps doing a walk-away from paying attention to the gov't is already culturally obvious, and a quintessentially American act
"Trump will not be allowed to run" ... the real problem is that they cannot afford to lose. There are too may skeletons in the closet - and some real ones......
They will do Whatever is Necessary to win - and will, unless we can anticipate their moves and thwart them
Yeah, here's the thing. You might say to yourself, how can they not prosecute Zhou for all the obvious corruption? Well, think what he knows about what the intel agencies were doing, what other politicians were doing.
TL has a hatred for Trump not sure why. My guess is that all the Jack Smith BS will make it up to the Supreme Court and get tossed. I am also noticing their are allot of stories on how the Midgets are having fund raising problems I wonder if when the dept was switched from Libor to the new one everything is priced much higher so that all the Hedge Funds, Private Equity guys are finding out they were not as flush as they thought. Everything switched 6/30 but have not seen anything about it.
FYI, TL does not hate Trump. I suspect he considers him a failure, partially due to events beyond his control like Russiagate and the Deep State, but also due to personal failings like vanity and personnel choices. He considers Powell to be Trump's greatest success.
The anticipated Jan 6 Trump indictment must be the backup plan if the Mar a Lago raid plan backfires in Florida. As this sequence of events unfolds, the Deep State/DNC/Uniparty look more desperate with each contrived indictment. Dementia Joe is falling apart more rapidly now. Bonchie at Red State posted this morning with some clips of Biden and the Israeli president. The cabinet and congress should be questioned on how much longer they can ignore the obvious.
Same thought occurred to me after seeing Biden’s head drop! I thought he had dozed off, but whew, he was just muttering incoherent jibberish, REALLY? What does the guy have to do before someone finally says, “ Ok, that’s it, this shit-show is frickin over!! Get this clown the hell outta here. Now!!” That mess last week with the little girl and whatever in hell he was supposed to be doing her was so far over the top!! Can you imagine the uproar if Trump had done anything even remotely close to that? What do we get from the press and the Republicans? Crickets.
I guess when he shows up without his pants on and starts yodeling an aria from Puccini we’re gonna get, “Boy, oh blue collar Joe’s a real kidder isn’t he.” Seriously, this is getting close to becoming a total farce. And yet, every day it’s some new outrage added to the list.
I’m repeating myself, but what the hell is it going to take before someone with a functioning brain cell pulls the plug on the national embarrassment?
I finished it. Just today I started on the just released 2023 edition, a complete write-through and half again as long.
In retrospect, from the vantage of 26 years later, I think they got 50%-60% right, which is astounding.
What they got wrong, well, I don't think any of us would have guessed, for instance, that government sanctioned, errr encouraged child sexual mutilation would be the norm. Thus, I can hardly blame them for some glaring lapses in prediction.
I'm looking forward to Howe's work. Strauss passed some time ago, but fortunately (I trust) Howe gave us this update.
Read it a few years ago and was intending to get the new release by Howe.. Thanks for the reminder. It was a pretty good assessment and your perspective seems to align with mine.
It could be that Trump is encouraging this development. It may well be a huge 'tiger trap.' Trump was President at the time. He even had superspies working for him. He probably has the tapes and other evidence of this 'Reichstag fire' event staged by Pelosi, the Capitol police and the FBI, a phony 'insurrection' designed to forestall any delay in the certification of votes. They are unwise in milking this event instead of covering it up and releasing the J6ers. If the truth comes out....
Nice idea, but I haven't seen any evidence that Trump has a plan for J6, MAL, or any other deep state plot. He seems to thrive in the chaos, but he does almost nothing to prepare it.
Sun Tzu: Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt. Of course, if the general public is not on board and not really interested in taking our Country back, why bother.
Comedy gold from yo and pretty narrow minded thinking. Shallow and bombastic? Name any recent president who wasn't shallow and bombastic? Show me a president that made cabinet selections that were invaluable for their expertise and integrity. So, who's your pick to lead us out of this morass made by people who think like you?
Maybe it's because I've just downed a bottle of good red wine, but I have to say I'm getting rather tired of all these 24D chess-style theories about 2024. Maybe it's time to stop parsing and pontificating about who will run against whom. None of this matters because none of the candidates has anything to offer in the way of a solution for America's deep ills. Any Dem will merely continue to keep the leftists' foot on the nation's head as it; any GOP candidate will find themselves unable to make headway against the Deep State monolith. And don't even get me started on voter fraud, which no-one on the GOP side is even talking about. The system will continue until it can't and any energy spent on political predictions is wasted.
Yep, that was impressive. I'm not so surprised about Russia's advances in this kind of stuff. In the West, we've spent a lot of time patting ourselves on the back about how we brought 9 years with the Minsk Declarations to get Ukraine ready as a proxy to overthrow Putin. However, we forgot that the enemy always has a vote, and that the Russians have been busy too. Also, Russia is fighting a real war and it's on a massive scale that few in the West can comprehend. Bakhmut was the biggest battle since 1945. Meanwhile, the West is still stuck in Desert Storm mode.
I’m not seeing the technical advances on the Western Side, that I’m seeing on the Russian Side. Seems the 9 year delay benefited Russia a lot more than the West. And lots of improvements in the Russian forces in the last 2 1/2 years.
The US defense industry seems more focused on using older products, and not developing new ones. Clinton’s merger fever of defense manufacturers has resulted in a few giants, and a lack of innovation. Not to forget the golden parachutes for top defense personal, when they are scooped up by defense manufacturers upon retirement.
This is true. Not surprising at all. The US girls team (HS, I think) recently took first place in an international competition. Every single member was ethnic Chinese. Guess what? There are plenty more of those where they came from, and they all work hard.
Things may be coming to a head with news today of another grand jury appearance order. This time the J6 farce. This will lead to a certain indictment and jail.
The TDS is going past 10 for the deep state; wild that this scenario has purchase in a rational discussion, but it does. ... airplane accident ... this would be a path with bad consequences.
I’m feeling lately like a citizen of Constantinople while it becomes changed to Istanbul.
Re Schryver's comment in his "Jig is up" post, I don't track the idea that 'Germany is on a trajectory of becoming a failed state'. Far too cohesive a culture. The outcome Schryver points to - a German shift that fractures the EU - yes, I can see that: a loss of faith in climate change theology brought on by the policy damage to economic vitality plus the badness precipitated by the Ukraine war, Germany turns away from alignment with the EU/US; not the same as turning toward Russia, yet their engagement there will grow via economic necessity. Note that Putin early in his career spent years in East Germany.
"Far too cohesive a culture."
Germans are no longer a majority in Germany. Its political system is seriously dysfunctional with no remedy in sight. Its cohesive culture--among the now non-majority German population is also dissolving just as in the rest of the West.
Thank you for the comment and, sincerely, what you provide us here, Mark.
With respect, from April 2023 (ref: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-immigrants-made-up-over-18-of-2022-population/a-65383249) is the stat that 28+% of the German population is from elsewhere. A very large %, and is what I think we might agree is among the centripital political tensions tearing at Germany, but the idea of Germans being a minority in their own country doesn't appear to come out of that lens on demographics. A case of my mistake (lies, damn lies, and stats)?
There's a difference between "immigrants" or "people from elsewhere" and residents--2nd, 3rd gen--who are not ethnic Germans.
I got the stat from Macgregor or The Duran.
Thank you, I appreciate the explanation. Pace Lincoln's "Electric Cord" speech of 1858 in Chicago, I agree there is a big difference in what it means to be an American via immigration vs a German: the Heimat is a specific German cultural pillar, and may well become a foundational crack. As these things go, a region's 'ownership' goes to those that bother to show-up (that is, have babies).
It's possible that what was meant is that babies born in German now are majority non-ethnic German. But I was also reading an article that suggested that Germans are outnumbered in schools, also that a public swimming pool had to be closed in Berlin due to attacks on Germans by non-Germans.
Thank you Mark, it’s all over really. I’m having this debate with my hubby since the start of the war. He is Dutch and so loves the EU, a true believer and though I have mostly red pilled him on Covid, he is still enslaved by the evil Putin trope! Any advice accepted
I hesitate to state this, political assassinations have been out of fashion in America for decades, my fear is that a new trend may be about to start.
A modern American version of Hassan Sabbah and his cult, yes?
You foresee possible disaster for the GOP as a political party. I foresee a probable disaster for America as a Country going forward. The midgets running our government will continue in power, and they are kids when it comes to running an economy, conducting foreign policy and stumbling into unwinnable wars, not to mention throwing away any advantages gained by our military in previous wars. Their expertise is political, everything they do is political, and for professional politicians they can't even manage to muster the support of a majority of the citizens. These citizens, imbued with American values, will arrange their lives going forward paying taxes and avoiding anything that might bring the Law, no longer observing or enforcing the Rule of Law, down on them, and otherwise paying as little attention as possible to wokeness, the government and whatever imbecilities our government engages in in our name.
I just came across this article on "The New Criterion" site. The new secession
by James Piereson "On the decline of American pride". He writes:
"The American Civil War decided the question of whether states have a right to secede from the American Union. The answer was no. That has long been settled. Yet today, more than a century and a half afterward, another kind of secession is playing out across America: individuals are seceding one by one from the national enterprise. Americans, to a surprising degree, are no longer proud of their country and do not trust their government, these misgiving being two crucial aspects of their disenchantment that portend troubling implications for America’s future."
I wish Piereson had been more thoughtful. Trust in gov't is gone, but pride in the American ideal as manifested by We the Peeps, that I think remains strong. The notion of the peeps doing a walk-away from paying attention to the gov't is already culturally obvious, and a quintessentially American act
"Trump will not be allowed to run" ... the real problem is that they cannot afford to lose. There are too may skeletons in the closet - and some real ones......
They will do Whatever is Necessary to win - and will, unless we can anticipate their moves and thwart them
Yeah, here's the thing. You might say to yourself, how can they not prosecute Zhou for all the obvious corruption? Well, think what he knows about what the intel agencies were doing, what other politicians were doing.
It's not just our Glorious Leader - it's all the rest. I'd be happy to just let him go to the Old Presidents' Home and fade away. The others.......
TL has a hatred for Trump not sure why. My guess is that all the Jack Smith BS will make it up to the Supreme Court and get tossed. I am also noticing their are allot of stories on how the Midgets are having fund raising problems I wonder if when the dept was switched from Libor to the new one everything is priced much higher so that all the Hedge Funds, Private Equity guys are finding out they were not as flush as they thought. Everything switched 6/30 but have not seen anything about it.
FYI, TL does not hate Trump. I suspect he considers him a failure, partially due to events beyond his control like Russiagate and the Deep State, but also due to personal failings like vanity and personnel choices. He considers Powell to be Trump's greatest success.
If Trump was such a failure why is the Uniparty making up laws to get rid of him.
I guess he did not like the mean tweets
The anticipated Jan 6 Trump indictment must be the backup plan if the Mar a Lago raid plan backfires in Florida. As this sequence of events unfolds, the Deep State/DNC/Uniparty look more desperate with each contrived indictment. Dementia Joe is falling apart more rapidly now. Bonchie at Red State posted this morning with some clips of Biden and the Israeli president. The cabinet and congress should be questioned on how much longer they can ignore the obvious.
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/07/18/biden-deteriorates-rapidly-during-meeting-with-israeli-president-n778400
Same thought occurred to me after seeing Biden’s head drop! I thought he had dozed off, but whew, he was just muttering incoherent jibberish, REALLY? What does the guy have to do before someone finally says, “ Ok, that’s it, this shit-show is frickin over!! Get this clown the hell outta here. Now!!” That mess last week with the little girl and whatever in hell he was supposed to be doing her was so far over the top!! Can you imagine the uproar if Trump had done anything even remotely close to that? What do we get from the press and the Republicans? Crickets.
I guess when he shows up without his pants on and starts yodeling an aria from Puccini we’re gonna get, “Boy, oh blue collar Joe’s a real kidder isn’t he.” Seriously, this is getting close to becoming a total farce. And yet, every day it’s some new outrage added to the list.
I’m repeating myself, but what the hell is it going to take before someone with a functioning brain cell pulls the plug on the national embarrassment?
Hey Barr, thanks for nothing!
Caligula installed a horse as a Roman Senator ... we have a ways to go yet ...
Feinstein? There may be smarter horses at this point.
DJL,
MANY THANKS for your recommendation on
The Fourth Turning (1997) by Strauss and Howe.
I finished it. Just today I started on the just released 2023 edition, a complete write-through and half again as long.
In retrospect, from the vantage of 26 years later, I think they got 50%-60% right, which is astounding.
What they got wrong, well, I don't think any of us would have guessed, for instance, that government sanctioned, errr encouraged child sexual mutilation would be the norm. Thus, I can hardly blame them for some glaring lapses in prediction.
I'm looking forward to Howe's work. Strauss passed some time ago, but fortunately (I trust) Howe gave us this update.
MOST STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Fourth-Turning-Is-Here/Neil-Howe/9781982173739
Again, many thanks.
Read it a few years ago and was intending to get the new release by Howe.. Thanks for the reminder. It was a pretty good assessment and your perspective seems to align with mine.
It could be that Trump is encouraging this development. It may well be a huge 'tiger trap.' Trump was President at the time. He even had superspies working for him. He probably has the tapes and other evidence of this 'Reichstag fire' event staged by Pelosi, the Capitol police and the FBI, a phony 'insurrection' designed to forestall any delay in the certification of votes. They are unwise in milking this event instead of covering it up and releasing the J6ers. If the truth comes out....
Nice idea, but I haven't seen any evidence that Trump has a plan for J6, MAL, or any other deep state plot. He seems to thrive in the chaos, but he does almost nothing to prepare it.
Sun Tzu: Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt. Of course, if the general public is not on board and not really interested in taking our Country back, why bother.
Comedy gold from yo and pretty narrow minded thinking. Shallow and bombastic? Name any recent president who wasn't shallow and bombastic? Show me a president that made cabinet selections that were invaluable for their expertise and integrity. So, who's your pick to lead us out of this morass made by people who think like you?
yes, he is so barely capable he has barely managed to survive all the uniparty/media/lawfare attacks to-date, barely.
Maybe it's because I've just downed a bottle of good red wine, but I have to say I'm getting rather tired of all these 24D chess-style theories about 2024. Maybe it's time to stop parsing and pontificating about who will run against whom. None of this matters because none of the candidates has anything to offer in the way of a solution for America's deep ills. Any Dem will merely continue to keep the leftists' foot on the nation's head as it; any GOP candidate will find themselves unable to make headway against the Deep State monolith. And don't even get me started on voter fraud, which no-one on the GOP side is even talking about. The system will continue until it can't and any energy spent on political predictions is wasted.
You save us so much time with your run-downs!
Good job Mark!
The video on the Lancet is terrifying, and a huge game changer. I’m surprised at the Russians pulling ahead on drones, both in quantity and quality:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/kerch-bridge-deja-vu-breakdown
What's scary is that there is literally no place to hide on the modern battlefield. Fieldcraft and camouflage skills don't count for much now.
Yep, that was impressive. I'm not so surprised about Russia's advances in this kind of stuff. In the West, we've spent a lot of time patting ourselves on the back about how we brought 9 years with the Minsk Declarations to get Ukraine ready as a proxy to overthrow Putin. However, we forgot that the enemy always has a vote, and that the Russians have been busy too. Also, Russia is fighting a real war and it's on a massive scale that few in the West can comprehend. Bakhmut was the biggest battle since 1945. Meanwhile, the West is still stuck in Desert Storm mode.
I’m not seeing the technical advances on the Western Side, that I’m seeing on the Russian Side. Seems the 9 year delay benefited Russia a lot more than the West. And lots of improvements in the Russian forces in the last 2 1/2 years.
The US defense industry seems more focused on using older products, and not developing new ones. Clinton’s merger fever of defense manufacturers has resulted in a few giants, and a lack of innovation. Not to forget the golden parachutes for top defense personal, when they are scooped up by defense manufacturers upon retirement.
It’s worse than I thought:
No stinger missile orders for 20 years.
To avoid a lengthy recertification the same parts / methods need to be used from 40 years ago.
And their having to pull in retired engineers to get the assembly line going.
https://cdrsalamander.assembly.com/p/why-no-productions-lines-can-go-coldest
Not surprised that the Russians are ahead. Look at the names of the tech wizards in this country. If they are not Chinese they are Russian.
This is true. Not surprising at all. The US girls team (HS, I think) recently took first place in an international competition. Every single member was ethnic Chinese. Guess what? There are plenty more of those where they came from, and they all work hard.
Agreed. The neocons were too clever by half and twice as dumb. Not for the first or last time.
Hmmm. Not sure how to do the math on that.
They both bring you back to zero.
Winner takes All ALWAYS gives Democrats the advantage. With a 45/55 margin (OK, not in CA), all 55 go to the winner.
Things may be coming to a head with news today of another grand jury appearance order. This time the J6 farce. This will lead to a certain indictment and jail.
Like JFK? Or suicide, like Epstein?
The TDS is going past 10 for the deep state; wild that this scenario has purchase in a rational discussion, but it does. ... airplane accident ... this would be a path with bad consequences.
As for Carville, classic FUD smears.
Unfortunately, he's David without the slingshot.
Hope you're right, Rascal.
The Duran vids are usually quite succinct with plenty of meat. And Alex M does look like a big cuddly teddy bear!
LOL! Tx. Yes, it can be time consuming. I suppose I shouldn't criticize anyone else for being too long ...
You pull it all together very well, Mark.