Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

When Francis Fukuyama declared history to be at an end, he was speaking as a political scientist.  But political science is bunk.  Geopolitics and oil are what’s real.  And now that Americans have begun to realize that North American energy independence has at last arrived, the postwar world order will collapse.  It’s not just NATO.  As Peter Zeihan points out in his marvelous The Accidental Superpower, the postwar world was created by the United States acting in its own self interest.  That self interest was first and foremost devoted to fighting the Cold War.  For that we needed allies around the world, and these allies needed a secure supply of energy, and access to the American market for exports.

25 years after it ended, we’re at last coming to grip with the fact that the world order we created to fight Communism is no longer in our self interest.  Zeihan all but says it flat out:  we don’t really need to be involved in most of the world.  The world may need us, but we don’t need it.

If you like statistics read his book.  We are not an export economy.  Exclude what we export to Canada, Mexico, and Latin America, and it’s not that big a number.  The world needs our market a lot more than we need its.

I haven’t finished the book, and I’m not sure what specific trade policy Zeihan recommends.  But, no matter.  I’m a free trader, but I want fair trade, and I think there’s a very good argument that the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to help big American business more than the American worker and consumer.  It’s an extension of Bretton Woods, which was a 1944 gift to a war torn world by the American economic colossus.   But the world has healed, and the burden is too heavy.

I highly recommend this book.  He writes entertainingly, and knows a lot.  He’s certainly an original thinker.  He thinks Poland should seek an anti-Russian alliance with Sweden, and Sweden should go nuclear.  Poland’s got to do something.  We’re not going to fight the Russians for them, or anyone else.

The world of the future as Zeihan sees it is all hell breaking loose, all over the globe.  Except the USA.  We’re in the catbird seat.

Politically, the nice thing about all this is that the Libertarian candidates, Johnson and Weld, are both smart enough to understand this, and to explain it to the voters.  If they make Zeihan’s analysis the center piece of their foreign policy it will have an impact.  Trump doesn’t read books, and is ignorant, but the fact that he wants out of NATO means he has the right policy in his gut.  But he isn’t smart enough to talk about it, and the Libertarians are.

People should understand geopolitics more.  The United States is uniquely blessed by geopolitics.  We have no enemies, everything we need, and two oceans for defense.  My God, what more do you want?  Why in the hell are we running all over the world getting into wars?

Germany is the tragedy of the 20th century.  In 1914 she was in the catbird seat.  She had everything she needed, and was so strong that no one wanted to fight her.  She had absolutely nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by war.  But to war she went, and from there it’s been one damn thing after another.

We’re in the same position the Germans were in in 1914.  Why in the name of God would we ever go to war?  We want to rule the waves, and control the sky, and own space.  And we have legitimate interests and friends around the world.  But none of that is worth an actual war.

Reagan Project Co-founder Darren has been to London on business, and has connections there that are important to him.  We are the daughter of Great Britain.  I think we should fight to protect Britain and the Anglosphere.  They’re our cousins.  And Israel, of course, if absolutely necessary.  But that’s it.  Everybody else is on their own.

It will be a libertarian world.

The student of American politics should begin by reading Colin Woodard’s American Nations: A History of the Eleven Regional Cultures of North America.   Woodard is no conservative, but he’s smart as hell, and knows his subject in detail.  He doesn’t make the point himself, but a central lesson of his wonderful book is that this country is one that requires federalism in order for it to work.  There are eleven American subcultures, and we’re quite different from one another, always have been, and should plan on being so in the future.  What makes sense in Texas doesn’t work in Maine, and vice versa.

I think maybe that’s why everybody is so pissed off.  I know that’s why I am.  I’ve never cared for authority, and the idea that some pinheaded bureaucrat in D. C. has some control over  my life drives me to drink.  I figured this was the year we all got together and started rebelling against these bastards, but that was B.T., before Trump.  Now it will have to wait until 2020.  Even if the blowhard is elected, he won’t accomplish anything, and we’re probably going to be in worse shape than we are  now.

For our purposes, 2020 may, in fact, be ideal.  Peter Zeihan, in The Accidental Superpower, says that 2020 is the year when everything starts going to hell. That’s the year when Boomers really start retiring en masse, and the demographic problems of an aging population and shrinking work force really take hold.  This seems like a very smart guy, and I’m only half way through his book, but everything he says so far makes sense to me.  That’s how I can tell if a guy really knows what he’s talking about.

I had a nice talk with Jeff Fields of the Texas Public Policy Institute.  They may  be more tightly involved with the Task Force than they thought.  That’s very good news.  Jeff will be travelling to Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana promoting Article V.  Jeff can’t figure out why there should be any problem in some of these states.  He’ll learn, soon enough.  To tell you the truth, I’d rather not travel to any more State Capitols to talk to legislators.  Jeff sounds like he’s primed to go, and will do a better job than I did.

The best part of Zeihan’s book is his analysis of the source of the post war world order  —  America as the world dominant superpower.  But those days are over.  The Free World got a free ride on the backs of the U. S. taxpayer, and that’s going to end.  It no longer makes sense for us.  We’re energy self-sufficient, and can no longer afford to be the world’s policeman.  Local powers need to develop their own defenses.  This idea  —  that NATO is dead   — is going to take a while for people to digest, and adjust to.  By 2020 it will be obvious.

I haven’t read the part of the book where he talks about international trade, but I’m pretty sure he thinks the U.S. is getting the raw end of the deal, giving everyone else a free ride.  Maybe that’s why nobody’s heard of this book.  He’s like Trump, but with real brains.  For all I know, he may be right.

NRO’s Jonah Goldberg had a piece out today about Constitutionalists.  I like that word.  And the thing is, if you can say it, you’re smart enough to be one.

 

There are hints that the Republican donor class is showing unusual good sense.  Trump doesn’t need money.  He says he’s worth $10 billion, let him spend some of it.  The money needs to go to keep the House and the Senate, and, if they’re really smart, the state legislatures.

I read a while back that either Soros-funded Democracy Alliance or one of its offshoots is going to spend a lot of money helping Democrats win state legislatures.  That effort needs to be countered, and will be.  There’s no reason on earth we couldn’t keep what we’ve got, and pick up Kentucky as well.

It feels as though the hundred year political tide we’ve been riding has been hit by a hurricane, or a seismic shift.  I don’t think anyone knows how this all turns out, but I believe when it blows over we’ll  be worse off than we were before.  My only concern is an anti-Trump landslide that costs us down ballot.  The closer the Republicans embrace Trump, the more they’ll be stuck to him if he goes down.  Risky business, with an unpredictable man.

We haven’t got much of the Constitution left and both Trump and Clinton would do further damage.  Article V is the only way out.

And 2020 can’t come soon enough.

We’re sending two combat battalions with a thousand men each to Poland.  They’re hostages, acting as a trip wire.  Any engagement they take part in will have the full backing of the United States military.  Why us, you ask?  Why are we defending Poland, and not the Germans and French?  Because we’re trapped in the 20th century, and the post World War II settlement, and the Cold War.  All relics that we worship for some reason.  But the American people will not send their sons and daughters to fight for Poland, and we don’t expect the Poles to come to our assistance if we’re attacked.  NATO has been dead a long time.  Trump just pointed out the obvious.

I’m from the Vietnam generation, but was 4-F with a pin in my ankle.  Before I broke it, I planned on joining the Marines and going to Officer’s School.  When I met my Uncle Fritz I asked him if hadn’t done my duty, and he said, “No, it was a bad war.”  There are no good wars.  And if nothing else comes out of 2016, if we can all recognize that NATO is kaput, we’ll have accomplished something.

I believe there is a strong, bipartisan, anti-war consensus in this country, and I’m glad of it.

Reagan Democrats are with Trump today, driven to this extremity by Bush Republicans.  These kinder and gentler, compassionate “conservatives” have not only refused to secure our border against millions of illegals, they conspired with Democrats to pass the so-called Civil Rights Act of 1991, which overturned a series of Supreme Court cases that had refused to recognize claims of racial discrimination based on nothing more than statistics.  In passing this bill, Congress created the pernicious doctrine of “disparate impact”, and for 25 years non-discriminatory employment practices have been under legal attack if they result in a work force too white.  A Republican President, named Bush, signed it into law.  This treachery has never been forgotten by working class whites.

For a time Bush 1 had stood firm, threatening a veto.  But in an incident only reported by National Review, Alaskan RINO Ted Stevens stormed into the White House, demanding the veto threat be lifted.  Bush caved, and the white working class was betrayed.  When Clinton had his “Sister Souljah” moment the next year, they saw in him someone who at least had a minimal amount of courage when confronted by black racism, and the Republicans lost the Presidency.

Stevens had failed in Alaska at enshrining racial discrimination in the Alaska Constitution in 1987, and Alaska has been a solid red state since.  But he succeeded at the national level, and the seed of the Trump vote was planted.  The rights of one group  — whites  — would have to be sacrificed to appeal to another group — blacks.  The repudiation of the Reagan legacy Party would continue with Bush 2, ruining the Republican brand by overseas adventurism, expansion of the welfare state, and a domestic spending binge.

Bush Republicans, along with Trump, are big government conservatives, meaning they’re not conservatives at all.  They’re the Fortune 500 Republicans, happy to use the powers of the federal Leviathan to feather their own nests.  At least 80% of Congressional Republicans are beholden to big business, and are unwilling to stand with the working men and women of this country.  They won’t fight for much, although their corporate masters do oppose higher taxes on themselves.  That’s about all they’re not willing to bend on.

The failure of the Cruz candidacy, and the continuation of Boehnerism ( a form of Bushism) in the person of Paul Ryan, means that the only politically practicable way of  getting the federal government under control is from the ground up.  Congress, regardless of which party is in the majority, is controlled by powerful special interests who profit from the system as it is.  The Supreme Court, in upholding Obamacare, has demonstrated that it will not stand in the way of the expansion of federal power.

So we’re down to Article V, our last resort, the emergency brake crafted by the Framers for precisely the situation we find ourselves in.  Republican State legislators are the last bastion of Reagan conservatives, and they are slowly beginning to understand the role the Framers gave them in our federalist system.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott is prepared to help provide the leadership of an Article V movement with his Texas Plan, nine proposed Constitutional Amendments which, together, would restore limited and constitutional government.  One of them, the Balanced Budget Amendment, has 28 of the required 34 State Resolutions, and if six more States are added, the first Amendment Convention in American history will convene to draft the language  of a BBA.

Seven states whose legislatures are under complete Republican control have not passed the Article V BBA Resolution — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, Wisconsin, Virginia and South Carolina.  Unless 2016 is a Democratic landslide, all should remain Republican in 2017, with the possible addition of Kentucky.

Because no Amendment Convention has been held in our history, some state legislators hesitate to support Article V, fearful of a runaway convention.  The John Birch Society and, under Phyllis Schlafly, the Eagle Forum have led the resistance to Article V.  In order to allay these concerns, the Assembly of State Legislatures was formed, and will meet in Philadelphia on June 16th to adopt a set of proposed rules for the Convention to operate under.  Most important is the principle of one state, one vote, one Amendment.  Every state has an equal vote, and only the subject matter contained in the Call for the Convention can be considered.

Regardless of the outcome of the Presidential election, Congress, under either party, will not make the reforms we so urgently need.  They will only come from the states, and the people, using the Constitution’s last resort  — Article V.

(This was up at American Thinker today.)

Cartman must be Cartman.  And Trump must be Trump.  He is, by nature, a belligerent loudmouth, and he is true to his nature.  It got him to where he is today.

It doesn’t always work.  When he went into Wisconsin and trashed Scott Walker, I think he paid a price.  I have a hunch there are a lot of voters in New Mexico who really like Gov.  Susana Martinez.  I do.  At the 2012 Convention she told the story of working for her family’s small security firm as an undersized teenage girl, packing a Smith & Wesson .357.  Our kind of gal.  If you insult her to her own voters, in her own state, you should pay a price in November in New Mexico, a purple state.  But, says the Donald, I gotta be me.

Sometimes there may be a method to his madness.  The Hispanic federal judge presiding over the Trump University scam lawsuit didn’t like being insulted by Trump, and it may well hurt him in the court case.  Trump understands litigation, and knew he was hurting his case.  But he may figure he needs a scapegoat if he loses, and now he can blame his loss on a biased Hispanic judge.

But Trump continues to go with his gut, and his gut tells him to insult people.  His tribe likes it.  He’s a tough guy.

The Johnson-Weld ticket has appeal, but when Johnson mocks the idea of building a wall he loses me, and I imagine a lot of others.  That’s not how you peel votes from Trump.  Trump is basically with the people on the issues, including refugee immigration, the wall, and NATO.   The Libertarians need to appeal to tea party Constitutionalists.

A Constitutionalist is a person who believes in the strict construction of the Constitution, and is willing to base his vote on that principle.  Since neither Trump nor Clinton even understand what strict construction even is, a Constitutionalist can’t vote for either one of them.  I believe Gary Johnson is a Constitutionalist, and I want to vote for him on that basis alone.   But he’s got to understand that lax immigration policy is a killer, politically.

Reagan Project Co-founder Darren Pettyjohn will be married in September, and this weekend Babbie and I met the in-laws.  The fish are jumping, and the cotton is high.