Been dazed and confused for so long, it’s not true…
Wanted a president, never bargained for you
–Led Zeppelin, “Dazed and Confused” (more or less)

Oh, the poor Democrats. Here’s The New York Times lamenting their fate.

Come on Dems, you can do this. Just pretend that Donald Trump is a Palestinian ER physician, and that the White House is a pediatric trauma center in Gaza. How hard could it be?

An irony no one could have made up: just a few days after the death of Jimmy Carter, the grandfather of our Afghan wars, a veteran of one of those wars launches a terrorist attack on the United States.

Asked about the possibility of blowback from the proxy war he had devised in Afghanistan, Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi had dismissively asked his (French) interviewer what was more important in the grand scheme of things—a bunch of “agitated Moslems” or the “liberation of Central Europe”?

The lesson here, I take it, is that as long as we keep the proxy war in Ukraine going, New Orleans is a trifle. What’s one agitated Moslem in the French Quarter to the liberation of Central Europe?

It’s amusing how many obituaries of Jimmy Carter mention ruefully that it was Carter’s idea, inspired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, to support the Afghan mujahidin against the Soviets. It seemed like such a great idea at the time, but look at Afghanistan today. Brzezinski was widely hailed as a strategic genius and moral prophet for devising that jihad, like Robert McNamara before him, and Paul Wolfowitz after. Three wizards. Three catastrophes.

My barber is a twenty-something Jersey girl from “down the shore.” A conversation:

Her: So you doin’ anything fun this weekend?

Me: Well, I’m finishing up a presentation I’m giving this week.

Her (pause): Oh. (pause). That should be fun. (pause). What’s it about?

Me: Machiavelli.

Her: What’s that?

I was at first going to call this post “And So It Begins,” except that nothing’s begun. What’s happening right now in America is just a continuation of what’s been happening all along. President Biden’s true-believing Democratic boosters keep reminding us that a Trump presidency betokens fascism, but someone needs to tell these people that fascism is already here, care of their favorite cantankerous, incoherent, amnesiac president. Biden has recently taken to bragging about the draconian, quasi-Trumpian quality of his “border enforcement” policies. I don’t doubt that Trump’s policies will be worse, or even much worse. What I doubt is that the difference matters enough to be worth a vote for Biden. What I don’t doubt is that he’s not getting one, at least from me. Continue reading →