Author: James E. Miller

James E. Miller is the editor-in-chief of Mises Canada. He works as a copywriter in Washington D.C.

2/7/1986 President Reagan with William F Buckley in the White House Residence during Private birthday party in honor of President Reagan's 75th Birthday

Conservative against the conservative movement

Less than one week to go before the Iowa caucus, and the battle lines are drawn.

On one side is brash businessman Donald Trump. On the other side is the near-entirety of the professional conservative movement – the thinkers, marketers, editors, donor-schmoozers, lawyers, consultants, money-bundlers, tax cheats, business shills, and communication hacks who profess allegiance to St. Ronald Reagan.

As Michael Buffers says: Let’s get ready to rumble!

Ever since Donald Trump announced his presidential bid last June, he has been walloping the hucksters known as Conservatism, Inc. By channeling working class resentment and throwing out the playbook when it comes to raising money and hiring consultants, Trump is turning traditional politics on its head. He isn’t being spoon-fed soundbites; he isn’t begging for cash; he isn’t bending over backwards to appease huge corporations.

He’s doing something few candidates have done in a long time: Advocating on behalf of the entire national community, rather than a few eggheads and CEOs with bottomless wallets.

Meanwhile, the high-salaried Republican brain trust is losing its collective head. This was most pronounced in a recent symposium hosted by National Review eloquently titled “Against Trump.” Conservative luminaries such as Thomas Sowell, John Podhoretz, and Glenn Beck contributed, lambasting the GOP frontrunner and pontificating on the need for a principled leader in the White House. Their polemics were chock-full of the high-minded ideals and a mastery of vocabulary that would have made William F. Buckley proud.

But even for such a long, erudite (and possibly illegal) spread, the message is the same throughout: Trump is not a cerebral conservative, and thus isn’t fit for the office of the presidency.

Years ago, this kind of concentrated effort to derail a Republican presidential candidate would have been a resounding success. But that’s all changed with Trump. The bedwetting Hayek-lovers in “tassel-loafers and bow ties” no longer call the shots. A man with $10 billion and a twitter account now runs the show.

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Will Trump save us from political correctness?

Reprinted from the Press and Journal

Is Donald Trump slaying the beast of political correctness?

That’s what the Washington Post contends. In a piece titled “Why Trump may be winning the war on ‘political correctness’”, reporters Karen Tumulty and Jenna Johnson get to the heart of why the real estate mogul has won the allegiance of frustrated, disaffected Americans.

The reason is understandable: Normal people living paycheck to paycheck have no time for feeling-friendly language. They’re tired of being told to mend their ways by haughty academics and journalists. So they turn to the most brash man on the national stage.

Cathy Cuthberson, a 63-year-old retiree interviewed by Tumulty and Johnson, says that Trump is acting as a voice to “what a lot of Americans are thinking but are afraid to say because they don’t think that it’s politically correct.”

It’s true that no man or woman in the current presidential field speaks their mind quite like Trump. From accusing illegal immigrants of being criminally-inclined (stats from the Government Accountability Office and Department of Justice bear this out) to calling for a blanket ban on Muslim migration to the United States, the billionaire reality TV star has dared to go where few, if any, politicians have gone before.

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What Happened to the Wall Street Sheriff?

Elizabeth Warren is a big fat phony – that’s the topic of my Taki’s Mag piece today. An excerpt:

Elizabeth Warren has spent her congressional career raging against big-bank bogeymen. She was elected from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts based primarily upon her tough stance against the financial industry. “Wall Street CEOs—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors and acting like we should thank them,” she boomed at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

Hallelujah to that, Sister Warren.

I have no qualms with ripping on the coke-addled computer nerds on Wall Street who make money hand over fist without creating anything. I agree with Brit Lord Adair Turner, chairman of the country’s chief financial regulatory body, that most of what goes on in the ledgers of too-big-to-fail banks, trading on amalgamated debt instruments and betting if blue-collar Billy will lose his house, is “socially useless.”

Chief Warren is more or less on the same page. Or so I thought.

Read the whole thing thing here to find out why Sen. Warren whores herself out to Goldman Sachs instead of standing by working folk.

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Brag about leaving the country? Shut up, cause you aren’t going anywhere

Is it finally time to ditch America?

I ask in light of a series of disturbing signs that threaten the national peace. Black activists openly flaunting the law and disrupting traffic; a federal judge ruling that homosexuality and heterosexuality don’t exist; the working class getting squeezed more than ever; a diktat passing in New York City that will fine employers up to $250,000 if they refuse to acknowledge transsexual individuals by their preferred pronouns, including they, ze, or ir; and just plain anti-white animus passing off as legitimate journalism.

There’s no other way to say it: American ain’t what she used to be.

The economic powerhouse that once beat the Nazis to a pulp is now a sniveling brat that can’t win a war. Our level of material comfort inches upward, but our real standard of living – that is living full, meaningful lives as individuals in families and citizens in a country – is falling precipitously. A 2012 report from National Journal revealed how distrusting Americans have become of traditional institutions. Churches, schools, government, and the media have all lost their luster thanks to scandal and corruption festering in the ranks. As one working class interviewee put it, “You can’t trust anybody or any­thing any­more.”

Amen, brother. The knives are out for the regular guy trying to keep a job and raise a family. The elite class want is this way, and keep pressuring the whole country to adopt their cosmopolitan view of human equality.

With America’s social fabric becoming increasingly frayed, is that a good enough reason to pack your bags and hit the road?

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We’re all fascists now

You know. I know it. Everyone knows it. So let’s admit it: The American government is very fascist-like. And Donald Trump’s much-needed candidacy for the White House is not ushering in a Brown Shirt Era any more than the docile campaigns of Hillary Clinton or Marco Rubio.

That’s the topic of my Taki’s Mag piece today. An excerpt:

Fascist-mongering is not exclusive to the left. A national security advisor for illegal-alien-loving Jeb! Bush is guilty of the verbal slander. One of Ohio governor John Kasich’s super PACs is subtly linking Trump to fascism by comparing him to Nazi Germany. Marco Rubio’s war cheerleader Max Boot called Trump a fascist while admitting it’s not a term he “uses loosely or often.” Libertarian writer Jeffrey Tucker says that Trump’s ideology “is best described as fascism.”

With all this fashy talk, one might get the idea that the two sides of the political establishment are working in cahoots to take down the candidate who best represents all those Middle American Radicals. You might also think that Donald Trump is an anomaly—that his creeping fascistic style is new to American politics.

But what does “fascism” even mean? The way commentators toss around the word, you’d think it came with a precise definition. And you’d think that Mr. Trump embodies that definition in his unpredictable, fuck-you-style campaign.

Love the Übermensch and give the whole things a read here. Mussolini would be proud.

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Given how dumb our democracy is, kids might as well vote

Lord help me, I think I agree with a Vox article.

The wonky, smug liberal rag birthed by dweeb Ezra Klein is well-known for its clickbaity style that masquerades as journalism. From arguing that the American Revolution was a mistake to claiming that Hong Kong protesters used the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture without evidence, Vox publishes Salon-style retardation without the depravity.

But by golly, they might be onto something with one of their recent shock pieces.

I’m talking about executive editor and sartorial ignoramus Matt Yglesias’ case for “letting children vote.” There is no good reason for disallowing children to vote for public officials, Yglesias argues. “It’s time to do away with another taboo,” he declares, “and start letting people vote regardless of age.”

I know the proposition sounds insane. Voting should be a privilege conferred on responsible, property tax-paying adults. It’s not a right. And it’s not a ticket to the welfare trough, as many leftists seem to think.

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