FF Podcast, Special Edition Trump President-Elect
In this reaction to Trump’s election, Dr. Fleming reflects on Election Night, what this means for Trump voters and for the country, whether Hilary will (or should) be pardoned, whether this is the beginning of a counter-revolution, and whether Mr. Kurtz has been replaced by Long John Silver.
Because of the special circumstances of this election, this podcast is being made free to the general public.
Show Sponsor: Members Who Support Our Work
Original Air Date: November 10, 2016
Show Run Time: 35 minutes
Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming
Show Host(s): Stephen Heiner
The Fleming Foundation Podcast℗ is a Production of the Fleming Foundation. Copyright 2016. All Rights are Reserved.
I did not expect Trump would win, but I remain apprehensive about his cabinet choices. I am eager to see if he will choose crazed hawks like Corker, Gingrich, and Bolton for State and Defense. Of course, he could order his lieutenants to end police actions, withdraw, and renegotiate treaties, but the bellicose worry me. Trump could easily find himself acting like W, with a mandate for peaceful behavior yet drawn into quagmires nevertheless. He has pledged to dramatically increase military spending, and this is very disheartening to me. The military-industrial complex is running over half of the show in the swamplands of DC, and this is the root of our foreign policy stupidity and wastefulness. I am reading speculation that another Goldman Sachs operative is favored for the Treasury Department. We will learn much from the Trump’s choices for cabinet officers, but the more hawks and globalists I see there, the more I suppose we are meeting ‘the new boss, same as the old boss.’
Dr. Fleming,
Thank you for doing these from time to time. It makes me wish I did not live so far away or that you would head South more often. Also reminded me my subscription dues are late. I guess Captain Flint has to eat too.
In the conversation about all the potential targets of a Trump administration, I haven’t heard much about targeting Big Education and the neo-Marxist culture in the schools universities. Some of his detractors might think Trump’s election itself was an attack on education. Still, if there is a keystone holding up this entire rotten system, it might be the education system. That’s where our journalists, lawyers, politicians, and rioting snowflakes are developed.
I have read speculation that Trump could move to abolish the Department of Education. The abolition of any department would be most welcome. This is unlikely, in itself, to affect the student loan scheme, but good could come of it. This would free public schools across the country to have more control over their own curriculum and methods. In a strange twist of fate, I happened to sit in a staff meeting of public school teachers. I myself teach in a private school. These teachers were challenged by an administration official who announced that a government civil rights office was “investigating” their school because of a racial disparity in their advanced classes. She then read off the percentages of black and white students enrolled in various classes. The teachers were exasperated and defensive. One brave teacher began to rattle off his own facts and figures about the behavior of the black students in his classes, which he had obviously carefully memorized for the occasion. He cited phone calls with the parents of students that chose to drop out of his AP classes because of the workload. He also cited specific cases of students who were coddled because of the color of their skin and stuck into classes where they did not have the preliminary knowledge required to succeed. This cut no ice with the administrator, who demanded racial advancement on the pain of government penalties and possible lawsuits. I was astounded. Under those circumstances, I imagine I would be under tremendous pressure to give grades based on skin color and not performance. This is profoundly racist as well as unjust for all of the students. Any self-respecting black should be outraged at the double standard. A reform of the DOE could cut out this kind of rot, and that would be an improvement.
The meeting I mention was yesterday.
I would like to see some of the crooks in office where they could be watched and controlled. Corker could go to Defense and Bolton could once again become UN mouthpiece–and fired as soon as he went back to his old lines. Remember: Trump loves to fire people. I think Giuliani would be a good attorney-general, especially after I heard Mark LeVIN screaming hysterically against the idea. The office of AG is often held by crooks–why not by a professional old school Sicilian? Rats only leave a sinking ship.
President elect Trump won the electoral vote by 62 ( 290 vs 228), yet H. Clinton won the popular vote by 2/10ths percent (47.7% vs 47.5%).
I think the country will still be divided because the west coast in particular can’t accept the results and are demonstrating about it. Pres. elect Trump wants to bring the country together again after such divisiveness. There will be a conciliatory tone and decisions made to unite the country, after all, he won’t want to kill his goose. He’ll want to be re-elected again. All that was said by H. Clinton and Trump was just rhetoric or false rhetoric. “Take things as they are and disregard what is irrelevant”.
The good thing about Giuliani as AG is that it is easy to imagine him cracking down on rioters, race gangs, and disturbers of public order. The promise of deportation for criminal aliens is especially appealing. Trump’s insistence on the efficacy of Giuliani’s ‘stop and frisk’ policy gives credibility to his law and order platform.
Lee Circle in New Orleans was vandalized this week with spray paint that said “Die, Whites, Die!” Monument Avenue in Richmond was hit by hooligans as well, with “Your vote was a hate crime” painted on Jefferson Davis’ monument and “KKK” painted on Lee’s. I would like the new AG to declare that policemen need not fear to do their jobs, and that law enforcement, not abstract and impossible civil rights goals, are the purpose and priority of the Justice Department. My brother-in-law is a police officer, and is threatened with charges of racism constantly because he arrests black men who are breaking the law. His department goes to extreme lengths to hire black cops in order to avoid “appearances” of civil rights violations. Perhaps reforms will end the double standard. The bitter fruit of multi-culturalism is that painting all problems as a war of races must eventually lead to white identity politics as well as black or hispanic identity politics. This is the solvent of multi-national empires like ours. It will Balkanize the country. In order to remain a united empire (I doubt the good of this goal, but I’d like peace.), we absolutely must have equality before the law and reasonable rule of law. Law enforcement cannot excuse criminal activity based on race.
Yes, I agree entirely. I well recall how NYC was sliding into the sewer under David Dinkins–I saw psychotics molesting and robbing people a block or two from the Harvard Club. There was human excrement on Park Avenue. Then Rudy got elected, and simply by cracking down on disturbers of the peace, druggies, psychotics, and petty criminals in Manhattan, the place seemed like paradise. The Democrats have concocted a narrative in which all that was an illusion, but Giuliani, whom I have never liked at all, made a difference.
When the current attorney general is gone and replaced by anyone reasonable (please Lord be Giuliani), that alone will cause more good than will ever be measured or seen by most. The crime rates are climbing not because police don’t know what to do, but because the police administrations around the country have tied the hands of officers in a state of fear of being federally investigated. This election became a matter of life or death for some inner city cops. Deo gratias was my reaction for that reason alone. I enjoyed this and will share it!
Thank you officer Said!
And, by the way, events in Portland reveal the mindset of the Trump-hating class. When the snowflakes leave college and go to their hippie sanctuary cities, they and their allies in the crime-ghetto feel entitled to block any street, break any law, whenever an election of verdict does not go their way. As toddlers, no daycare worker ever told them “NO.” As students, they were never forced to learn anything useful or true, though they were taught that the future belongs to them, even if they refuse to work, and that they should nevernevernever have to be exposed to reality. Most of my life I have taken a pretty laissez-faire attitude toward the counter-culture, but these brats need to be repressed.