The above cartoon is from Josh who is always on target, and reminded me of this one:

Robert Tracinski puts all of this into context in his June 2 Federalist article Paris Climate Withdrawal Re-Triggers Global Warming Doomsday Cult  So what are the consequences of Donald Trump pulling America out of the Paris Agreement on global warming? Bad news: the planet is going to die.
The article first displays a sample of the many extreme, fantastical reactions to POTUS declaring the Paris Accord null and void. I especially liked the proposed Headline:  “World to End, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.“  Then Tracinski gets down to the heart of the matter.

This is certainly out of proportion to President Trump’s actual announcement. Pulling out of the Paris Agreement was the right thing because no one has actually proven that human emissions of carbon dioxide are warming the globe or that this is driving us toward a global catastrophe. But that’s not why Trump did it. He drew us out because he thinks the agreement is “unfair” to America, imposing too great a burden on us rather than other countries, and he specifically left open the idea that he might work with the international community to come up with a better deal. So he’s okay with an international climate agreement, he just thinks—as usual—that he could do a better job of negotiating it.

But the hysterical overreaction is instructive, because somehow the backers of the global warming cause can’t manage to remember the scientific substance of their own claims—or much of anything else about the science and history of the climate. If they did, they might know that there is absolutely no reason to think the very viability of life on Earth is at stake. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the geological record knows that the atmosphere has previously had far higher levels of carbon dioxide, particularly during the years when life originated. The Earth has also been far warmer during periods when life was even more abundant. That’s where all the vegetation came from to support giants like the dinosaurs.

The actual claims for global warming in the foreseeable future involve an increase in average global temperatures of 2.6 to 6.4 degrees Celsius and a rise in sea levels of 26 to 50 centimeters. (So far this century, temperatures have remained below the low range of those predictions.) To put this in perspective, at the end of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago, global temperatures rose 10 degrees Celsius, and ocean levels rose by nearly 100 meters. Yet this previous episode of massive natural warming was good for humans, and I doubt it’s an accident that our current period of warm weather coincides with the rise of civilization itself.

As for the planet, it doesn’t really care what temperature it is, and life will adapt to warmer or colder temperatures. The good news is that the historical record also shows that we humans have adapted and survived through significant variations in climate, even before we had modern science and technology. That’s good news, because we’re eventually headed back into another ice age.

Given the assumption that long-term global warming is actually happening and is caused by human activity, which is itself dubious, you could reasonably claim that it will lead to some significant costs: flooding in some areas, drought in others, the loss of coastal land to rising seas, or the cost of rebuilding cities to protect them from rising waters. Maybe there will even be an increase in big deadly storms like hurricanes—though the last time somebody predicted this, hurricane activity immediately fell to historic lows. Those costs may be significant, but they would have to be counterbalanced against the costs of global warming regulations.

Maybe that’s why the global warming alarmists have to crank it up to eleven. If we can point to billions of dollars drained from the U.S. government and diverted through an international bureaucracy, or trillions of dollars in lost production and regulatory costs imposed on the world economy over decades, the global warming alarmists have to be able to claim negative consequences so great that they dwarf these massive costs. There’s nothing bigger than the planet dying. It’s a claim that automatically wins the argument—or so they think.

But it’s so comically exaggerated, so over the top, that it actually has the opposite effect. It convinces a lot of us that claims about global warming have become a hype machine stuck at its maximum setting. This looks less like science than like a crackpot doomsday cult perpetually claiming that the end is nigh.

Since the US election “identity politics” have been on full display.  It actually goes beyond politics in the sense that social media has brought us a global culture where who you are matters while what you accomplish does not.  We have had many celebrities like Paris Hilton who are famous for being famous.

In the political realm, this takes the form of identity politics, defined as (dictionary.com):
Political activity or movements based on or catering to the cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, religious, or social interests that characterize a group identity.

Thus in the last US election, Hillary’s slogan was “I’m with her.”  And when she lost, women took to the streets in protest, believing that their gender lost.  And in their shock and dismay, cyberspace is overwhelmed with messages reminding people that Trump is not “one of us.” Sadly, that refusal to identify with the victor and now President extends to his wife and children as well.

Unsurprisingly, for two months before taking office, Trump was criticized for things people imagined he would do once in power.  And that goes to the core of identity politics.  A subgroup, be they Hispanic, or LGBT, expects that one of their own should be in office, ensuring protection of their group’s interests.  The reality is, elected officials do not become competent due to an identity. Moreover, people belong to many groups, and each person has their own mix of opinions and interests.

The US used to be a merit-based society, where people were recognized and rewarded for their achievements, not simply for their style.  But recently it is more about style, not substance.  Thus the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Obama, not for achieving peace, but for getting elected US President while being black/white, Christian/Muslim.

I liked Obama, and thought he kept his cool guiding the US out of the 2008 financial crisis. He was re-elected not so much on identity as on achievements, referred to in his 2012 campaign slogan:  “Bin Laden is dead, General Motors is alive.”  Unfortunately, in his second term, he went off the rails on climate change, seeking to be a hero in the eyes of environmentalists, a key liberal identity group.

Hillary promised more of the same, and that is why people voted against her or abstained.

The Onion takes a humorous look at identity politics (here):

 

 

 

 

There’s an old joke about a donkey trainer known far and wide for training donkeys in a gentle way, a “donkey whisperer.” One day, a man who had a defiant donkey brought him to the donkey whisperer for training. The donkey trainer immediately pulled out a two-by-four and whacked the donkey right between the eyes. The man was taken aback. “Why would you do that?, he asked. Your’re supposed to be the donkey whisperer!” he cried. “Well,” said the donkey whisperer, “before you whisper, you need to get their attention.”

After watching President Trump’s inauguration speech, I am guessing he is already thinking beyond draining the swamp. The federal bureaucracy is immense and set in its ways. Like a donkey, it digs in its heels and refuses to cooperate. Trump knows his presidency is an hostile takeover, not the first one in his business experience.

We see lots of push back from climate alarmist senators in the confirmation hearings, a torrent of trashtalking posts from Podesta’s blogs, internet sales of “Resist” T-shirts, scaremongering by journalists, along with street protests, defiant celebrities and fearful outbursts from government employees.  He seems to be getting their attention.

Let’s see how well Trump follows the advice of Teddy Roosevelt.

 

Since the US election there has been much consternation and hand-wringing over what Trump may or may not do as President. Little has been said about what Hillary was promising and the ruinous effects directly upon the US and indirectly Canada, whose economic prospects would have suffered collateral damages. Kevin Libin corrects that omission in his National Post article: Cheer up, Canada — President Donald Trump just might be good for you (here)

It’s still impossible to tell which of Trump’s often-wild promises he will actually keep, given how unpredictable he has demonstrated himself to be. But the risk with Clinton was always the opposite. It was her political determination. Had she been allowed to govern as she was resolved to, Canada would have paid the price for as long as eight more difficult years — probably more than they will under even a loose-cannon amateur like Trump. A president Hillary Clinton would have implemented policies that would have been sure to drag down the economic growth of an economy upon which Canada overwhelmingly relies for its own.

She has been unapologetic about her plan to increase taxes, promising to raise the estate tax and capital gains taxes (where she planned to hike the top rate from 23.8 to 43.4 per cent) and she had proposed to tax high-frequency stock-market trades. She had said she was open even to new payroll taxes, which would have injured American competitiveness yet further. And her campaign said she would “take a look at” a carbon tax, if Congress had proposed one. Congress, still firmly in the hands of the Republicans, will now entertain no such thing.

Throughout her campaign, Clinton also distinguished herself as the candidate of multiplying regulations to rein in Wall Street, and more spending on entitlements: Where Trump said only he would not cut social security, Clinton went further and said she would “expand it.” She showed no interest in tax relief for corporations or personal incomes, focusing instead on raising tax revenues, $1.4 trillion over 10 years, another trillion dollars the following decade, in an attempt to reduce inequality through redistributionist schemes.

All of these were growth-killing policies overlooked by Canadian pundits who prioritized their distaste for Trump’s vulgarity and jingoism over the prospect of a robust American economy that could help Canada enhance its own prosperity. The U.S. GDP has been growing at not much more than two per cent a year for over a decade, much to Canada’s economic detriment; under Clinton, that seemed bound to continue.

Summary

Will a Trump administration, as unhinged as some might fear it will be, prove more propitious for Canada? There is at least now some reason for optimism.

A Republican House and Senate are even more apt to stand firm for continued free trade with Canada than a Democratic Congress would have. And in the most probable scenario, if our exporters can maintain open trade with the U.S., Trump’s preference for economic growth looks far more likely to benefit Canada than Clinton’s preference for an expanded welfare state ever would have. It is too early yet to be certain whether these promising economic changes come to pass under Trump. But on Tuesday night, Canadians at least won some hope of finally escaping from the last 11 years of more muddling along, with our largest export market politically fated to remain underperforming and torpid.

blob:http://business.financialpost.com/d6df2d9f-72ba-491b-9e0a-507ede0c385e

 

Lots of scorn, slurs and insults directed at Trump’s appointment of his chief advisor, Steve Bannon. The invective is so pervasive and intense, it exemplifies a new phenomenon in the global village: the Lie Swarm.  From the Streetwise Professor (here)

Bannon, and especially Trump, are primary targets of the Lie Swarm, especially since Trump had the temerity to actually prevail in the election. Don’t get me wrong–there is much about Trump to criticize. But there has been a kind of Gresham’s Law at work here: the bad criticism has driven out the good. Screeching “racist!” “Anti-Semite!” “Fascist!” on the basis of the most twisted and biased interpretation of the flimsiest evidence has overwhelmed substantive argument.

And the Swarm really hasn’t figured out that their attack will do little to get Trump supporters to change their minds. If anything, it will do the opposite, because the “deplorables” know that they are being attacked and smeared as much as Bannon and Trump. Furthermore, the Swarm seems hell-bent on living out Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. Hillary’s whole campaign was based on personal attacks on Trump and his supporters, and she enlisted the Swarm in this endeavor.

Bannon in his own words

Martin Luther King said people should be judged by the quality of their character, not superficial identifiers like race, gender or religion. So someone like Steve Bannon should be evaluated by what he himself says and thinks, not by the words of others. And in fact if you listen with a mind to understand him, you discover why Trump values his advice on world realities and strategies to move America forward.

This Is How Steve Bannon Sees The Entire World is a transcript of an extended presentation by Steve Bannon from 2014, published at Buzzfeed (here). Some excerpts that struck me as particularly insightful.

Inclusive Capitalism Saved Us

That war (WWI) triggered a century of barbaric — unparalleled in mankind’s history — virtually 180 to 200 million people were killed in the 20th century, and I believe that, you know, hundreds of years from now when they look back, we’re children of that: We’re children of that barbarity. This will be looked at almost as a new Dark Age.

But the thing that got us out of it, the organizing principle that met this, was not just the heroism of our people. . . The underlying principle is an enlightened form of capitalism, that capitalism really gave us the wherewithal. It kind of organized and built the materials needed to support, whether it’s the Soviet Union, England, the United States, and eventually to take back continental Europe and to beat back a barbaric empire in the Far East.

That capitalism really generated tremendous wealth. And that wealth was really distributed among a middle class, a rising middle class, people who come from really working-class environments and created what we really call a Pax Americana. It was many, many years and decades of peace. And I believe we’ve come partly offtrack in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union and we’re starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism.

Modern Perversions of Capitalism

But there’s a strand of capitalism today — two strands of it, that are very disturbing.

One is state-sponsored capitalism. And that’s the capitalism you see in China and Russia. I believe it’s what Holy Father [Pope Francis] has seen for most of his life in places like Argentina, where you have this kind of crony capitalism of people that are involved with these military powers-that-be in the government, and it forms a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people. And it doesn’t spread the tremendous value creation throughout broader distribution patterns that were seen really in the 20th century.

The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing, is what I call the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism. And, look, I’m a big believer in a lot of libertarianism. I have many many friends that’s a very big part of the conservative movement — whether it’s the UKIP movement in England, it’s many of the underpinnings of the populist movement in Europe, and particularly in the United States.

However, that form of capitalism is quite different when you really look at it to what I call the “enlightened capitalism” of the Judeo-Christian West. It is a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people, and to use them almost — as many of the precepts of Marx — and that is a form of capitalism, particularly to a younger generation [that] they’re really finding quite attractive. And if they don’t see another alternative, it’s going to be an alternative that they gravitate to under this kind of rubric of “personal freedom.”

Crony Capitalism Gives Rise to a Populist Revolt

General Electric and these major corporations that are in bed with the federal government are not what we’d consider free-enterprise capitalists. We’re backers of entrepreneurial capitalists. They’re not. They’re what we call corporatist. They want to have more and more monopolistic power and they’re doing that kind of convergence with big government. And so the fight here — and that’s why the media’s been very late to this party — but the fight you’re seeing is between entrepreneur capitalism, and the Acton Institute is a tremendous supporter of, and the people like the corporatists that are closer to the people like we think in Beijing and Moscow than they are to the entrepreneurial capitalist spirit of the United States.

The underpinning of this populist revolt is the financial crisis of 2008. That revolt, the way that it was dealt with, the way that the people who ran the banks and ran the hedge funds have never really been held accountable for what they did, has fueled much of the anger in the tea party movement in the United States. . . In addition, I think you really need to go back and make banks do what they do: Commercial banks lend money, and investment banks invest in entrepreneurs and to get away from this trading — you know, the hedge fund securitization, which they’ve all become basically trading operations and securitizations and not put capital back and really grow businesses and to grow the economy.

I think it’s particularly more advanced in Europe than it is in the United States, but in the United States it’s getting pretty advanced — is that when you have this kind of crony capitalism, you have a different set of rules for the people that make the rules. It’s this partnership of big government and corporatists. I think it starts to fuel, particularly as you start to see negative job creation. If you go back, in fact, and look at the United States’ GDP, you look at a bunch of Europe. If you take out government spending, you know, we’ve had negative growth on a real basis for over a decade.

And that all trickles down to the man in the street. If you look at people’s lives, and particularly millennials, look at people under 30 — people under 30, there’s 50% really under employment of people in the United States, which is probably the most advanced economy in the West, and it gets worse in Europe.

So you can understand why middle class people having a tough go of it making $50 or $60 thousand a year and see their taxes go up, and they see that their taxes are going to pay for government sponsored bailouts, what you’ve created is really a free option. You say to this investment banking, create a free option for bad behavior. In otherwise all the upside goes to the hedge funds and the investment bank, and to the crony capitalist with stock increases and bonus increases. And their downside is limited, because middle class people are going to come and bail them out with tax dollars.

And that’s what I think is fueling this populist revolt. Whether that revolt is in the midlands of England, or whether it’s in Middle America. And I think people are fed up with it.

Secularization and the Rise of Islamic Fascism

The other (worrying) tendency is an immense secularization of the West. And I know we’ve talked about secularization for a long time, but if you look at younger people, especially millennials under 30, the overwhelming drive of popular culture is to absolutely secularize this rising iteration.

Now that call converges with something we have to face, and it’s a very unpleasant topic, but we are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. . .That war is expanding and it’s metastasizing to sub-Saharan Africa. We have Boko Haram and other groups that will eventually partner with ISIS in this global war, and it is, unfortunately, something that we’re going to have to face, and we’re going to have to face very quickly.

Because it is a crisis, and it’s not going away. You don’t have to take my word for it. All you have to do is read the news every day, see what’s coming up, see what they’re putting on Twitter, what they’re putting on Facebook, see what’s on CNN, what’s on BBC. See what’s happening, and you will see we’re in a war of immense proportions. It’s very easy to play to our baser instincts, and we can’t do that. But our forefathers didn’t do it either. And they were able to stave this off, and they were able to defeat it, and they were able to bequeath to us a church and a civilization that really is the flower of mankind, so I think it’s incumbent on all of us to do what I call a gut check, to really think about what our role is in this battle that’s before us.

I’m not justifying Vladimir Putin and the kleptocracy that he represents, because he eventually is the state capitalist of kleptocracy. However, we the Judeo-Christian West really have to look at what he’s talking about as far as traditionalism goes — particularly the sense of where it supports the underpinnings of nationalism — and I happen to think that the individual sovereignty of a country is a good thing and a strong thing. I think strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong neighbors, and that is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the United States, and I think it’s what can see us forward.

Global Center-Right Populist Movement

Look, we believe — strongly — that there is a global tea party movement. We’ve seen that. We were the first group to get in and start reporting on things like UKIP and Front National and other center right. With all the baggage that those groups bring — and trust me, a lot of them bring a lot of baggage, both ethnically and racially — but we think that will all be worked through with time.

The central thing that binds that all together is a center-right populist movement of really the middle class, the working men and women in the world who are just tired of being dictated to by what we call the party of Davos. A group of kind of — we’re not conspiracy-theory guys, but there’s certainly — and I could see this when I worked at Goldman Sachs — there are people in New York that feel closer to people in London and in Berlin than they do to people in Kansas and in Colorado, and they have more of this elite mentality that they’re going to dictate to everybody how the world’s going to be run.

I will tell you that the working men and women of Europe and Asia and the United States and Latin America don’t believe that. They believe they know what’s best for how they will comport their lives. They think they know best about how to raise their families and how to educate their families. So I think you’re seeing a global reaction to centralized government, whether that government is in Beijing or that government is in Washington, DC, or that government is in Brussels.

And that center-right revolt is really a global revolt. I think you’re going to see it in Latin America, I think you’re going to see it in Asia, I think you’ve already seen it in India. Modi’s great victory was very much based on these Reaganesque principles, so I think this is a global revolt, and we are very fortunate and proud to be the news site that is reporting that throughout the world.