Durham Report: Two Realities

but which reality is real?

This morning, May 16, 2023, I wondered how The New York Times would report the release of the Durham report on 2016 presidential election interference. I checked the nytimes.com front page and there was nothing. So I went by Ken’s Market up the hill and noticed that the NYTimes front page had a headline just above the fold. “Durham Blasts FBI…” I assume that was the same as the article titled “Durham Finds Fault With F.B.I. Over Russia Inquiry” on nytimes.com. The subhead said:

The special counsel’s final report nevertheless did not produce blockbuster revelations of politically motivated misconduct, as Donald J. Trump and his allies had suggested it would.

I think if you substituted “should” for “would” you would come close to what far-right armed insurrectionist crazies like me thought about the matter.

OK. So let’s try to be non-partisan and reflective about the 2016 Russia Russia thingy.

In 2016 our liberal friends up and down the food chain were, as the Brits say, completely “gobsmacked” by the Trump candidacy. And so good loyal regime supporters within the law-enforcement / intelligence community leaned in and did something about it. That’s how political power works. The classic dramatization of how this works is the 1170 quote attributed to King Henry II of England.

Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?

He was talking about Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. And bless my buttons, a couple of knights interpreted the remark as an order, and went to Canterbury and slew the turbulent archbishop.

Like I say: that’s how politics works. Eager young operatives only need a hint from the Big Guy, and off they go. Of course, the Big Guy never actually ordered the eager young operatives to do anything. That’s how politics works.

And I understand you feel, dear liberal friends. Right now you are really feeling the heat. Things are going wrong all over and, to echo Lina Lamont, you cain’t stand it.

Unfortunately, there is more heat to come, dear liberal friends. On the inflation front; on the debt default front; on the interest rate front; on the recession front; on the race front; on the gender front; on the losing the next election front; on the wrecking the economy with green transition front.

Probably the reckoning will come later rather than sooner. Crazy cakes like me are always predicting disaster, and disaster never quite comes.

But the thing is this, dear liberal friends.

There are more things in heaven and Earth, dear liberals, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Your philosophy, dear liberals, assumes that you liberals have the answer in your politics to the question of “life, the universe, everything.”

But politics is just beating up on the enemy and gifting your friends. And there comes a time, as daughter-of-a-grocer Margaret Thatcher once said, that you run out of other peoples’ money to gift to your supporters.

And then what? Imagine, the whole world will fall to the evil designs of Trumps and far-right MAGA extremists.

All because youse guys are utterly clueless, dear liberal friends.

Because, you see, dear liberal friends, it is a category error to think that anything other than defending the border and whacking violent criminals can be effectively done by “democracy,” by politics, and by government.

And if you don’t understand that, dear liberal friends, you really are clueless.