Draining the swamp

Trump has promised to drain the swamp.

Then in his acceptance speech, he promised not to drain the swamp.

This is less worrying than it might seem, since when you purge powerful people, you don’t want them to see it coming.

From now till the start of the purge, he is going to be playing his cards very close to his chest. Any predictions made from his behavior between now and the purge will be incorrect, because his behavior between now and the purge will be deceptively moderate. The start of the purge will itself be deceptively moderate. And then he will keep on purging. How far he will go, nobody knows. I don’t know.

I would guess the purge starts in March at the earliest. First he has to get his key people into position. Then suddenly, wham, he gets his enemies out of position.

He has for many years been psychologically preparing the American people for massive firings of the permanent government, which firings the courts will deem illegal, but the public will wonder what the hell the courts are maundering about. These firings will happen when those he is about to fire are least expecting it, when they think they have gotten the upper hand over Trump. And during the first months of a Trump government, it will look as if they have the upper hand over Trump.

There may well be a Reichstag fire moment, when something happens that dramatically symbolizes the resistance of the permanent government to the merely elected government. Expect the newspapers to return to their old form and triumphantly announce how Trump has been decisively and humiliatingly defeated, how his policy is in ruins, because impossible to implement. If, as is likely, they announce that, they are falling into his trap, as when the Comintern set fire to the conveniently unguarded Reichstag.

The big known unknown is how thoroughly he intends to drain the swamp.

What we would like Trump to do is purge the government of traitors, bribe takers, degenerates, people on the revolving door between regulators and regulated, enemies of America, and, of course, Satanists. The Ming Dynasty criminalized sects because of the propensity of sect members to attain political power, such as the Ming dynasty itself. Deem membership of a sect that does weird stuff moral turpitude. Then fix numerous consent judgments organized by the Justice Department that make political dissent a violation of the affirmative action laws. Generate a precedent that disparate impact is legal, and unambiguously legalize domain specific IQ tests of the Fizzbuzz type or domain appropriate physical tests of the Marine pull up type. If only 0.1% of female and black applicants pass your company’s Fizzbuzz, you should have a cast iron defense against discrimination charges, even if search of your emails reveal engineers saying hateful things about women and blacks. Generate the legal precedent that evidence of political dissent cannot be presented as evidence of discrimination, and may not be presented in court because it merely prejudices the judgment. Then reverse the degree inflation that forces ever increasing numbers of students to spend ever increasing time in educational institutions that do not educate but merely indoctrinate. then confiscate the endowments, burn Harvard to the ground and salt the earth where it stood. Or redevelop Harvard into shops, offices, and hotels, which is more Trump’s style.

And, of course, use state power over cable and broadcast television to encourage the companies to fire Colbert and replace him with someone with an actual sense of humor and willingness to puncture actual sacred cows, like Pax Dickinson.

But before he gets to making Saturday Night Live funny again, has to get to redevelop Harvard into shops, condos, hotels, and offices.

Currently we have an elaborate system where committees give grants to people who are on committees. This renders power and funding untraceable and difficult to control. To drain the swamp, has to run government money through a direct hierarchy operating on das Führerprinzip.

So the Dean of a university should be appointed by the board, the Dean should have the power to hire and fire professors, and all academic funding should go through university, which is to say through the dean. If the Pentagon wants a professor at MIT to research something, it should pay MIT, not the professor.

We should abolish tenure. Tenure was supposed to make professors proudly independent and capable of dissent, but instead every single academic at every single institution grovels. When the line changes, every professor changes his position and instantly forgets that the line was different yesterday. The line emerges from an amorphous mass of committees, obscuring who has power and who makes decisions.

Outside funding of academics should be seen as corrupting. Would Steve Jobs be happy if one of his executives received large payments from a committee containing people connected to a competing company? All funding should go directly through the board and Dean/CEO.

And when we have replaced hidden lines of authority with direct lines of authority, on das Führerprinzip, we can then hold those with that authority responsible for what they do with it.

After getting rid of committees and outside funding, which hides who has power and who makes decisions, then and only then can we purge academia.

That is what is needed to stop Cthulhu from always swimming left, that is what is needed to make Saturday Night Live funny again. Whether Trump is up to go all the way with this program is, of course, the big known unknown.

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20 Responses to “Draining the swamp”

  1. Jack Highlands says:

    “I would guess the purge starts in March at the earliest. First he has to get his key people into position. Then suddenly, wham, he gets his enemies out of position.”

    Jim, what do you make of it that some of the ostensibly key people he appears to be getting into position seem to be from the enemy side: John Bolton, Jim Dimon, Jim Woolsey, Reince Priebus? Is he setting them up only to knock them down later? Will the cabinet be half real key people and half neutered concessions? If so, how does he keep them neutered?

    • jim says:

      Observe the lack of leaks.

      If these people were enemies, they would be leaking like mad about the outside-the-overton-window rightists on the Trump team.

      John Bolton is part of Groundswell, which is accused by Mother Jones of practicing alt-right entryism, of being an organization of secret shitlords.

      Yes, he has connections to Jewish neocons who want to invade the world and invite the world. He also has connections to people who want to stop immigration and deport illegals.

      Whose side he is really on I do not know. But I do know that Trump knows whose side he is really on.

      • Erik says:

        “Observe the lack of leaks.”

        Hm. Now there’s a barrage of leaks and most of them stink of being made up.

  2. Q says:

    It’s laughable that you think Trump isn’t a Satanist. Christ=Selfless love, Satanism=selfish cruelty. You’re clearly going to burn in hell for your arrogance.

    I’ve never heard of Pax Dickinson before you insane fool, try going outside for once in your life instead of living in your delusional echo chamber.

    • jim says:

      Trump risked his life and his fortune to save America.

      Had he lost the election, political power would have been applied to destroy his fortune. If he has not yet been killed, it is because before launching this run he got the praetorians in his pocket.

    • peppermint says:

      out of a time warp from 1950, it’s this asshole explaining why the right wing couldn’t get anywhere before people like him died

  3. Dave says:

    The English language distinguishes between “politics” = the process of acquiring power, and “policy” = the use of that power toward some goal. Most languages use one word for both.

    Do you think two words are necessary, or are they just slight variations of the same thing? Or is the distinction itself an artifact of a uniquely English style of governance?

    • jim says:

      It is an artifact of Britain’s long tradition of relatively civilized governance, which is fading away as the stakes keep getting higher.

  4. Alan J. Perrick says:

    “Draining the swamp” means term limits, supposedly. That’s something I want, only because the Constitution (document) ensures that the civil government here is an evil and unstable system. There was only a certain amount of time that the Constitution could provide a backbone, but then it was doomed to fall, trapping anyone caught still inside the country. That’s where the U.S. is now…

    The greatest Humpty-Dumpty of all time, even greater than the original.

  5. Kristor says:

    PS: you know his Secret Service detail has gotta love this guy already. And why? Because Trump knows how to treat vassals right. The word is spreading through all the agencies that Trump gets it and he likes us.

    Clintons OTOH were like the criminal masterminds in all the movies, who shot underlings for making a mistake. Not smart.

  6. Kristor says:

    Jim keep brainstorming, this is good stuff. Well, some of it is, and the rest (we can’t know what yet) is not going to stick to the wall.

    Best thing Trump could do is put Rudy in as AG, tell him to prep the ground with the assistance of the NY Atty, NYPD, and the field hands of FBI and Secret Service (his Praetorians), and then strike circa March.

    Is it Harvard or NY that is the center of gravity? I lean toward NY. As you say, the professoriate will turn on a dime when the winds blow orthogonally to what they have been suffering their whole careers. Lots of those guys are just trying to survive so that they can study x or y in relative peace. They are like Havel’s grocer. I’m thinking we ought to shoot for *converting* Harvard et al. No telling what can happen within an individual intellectual’s cognitive system once a preference cascade gets under way. Red pills liquefy everything. Cf. phase change, paradigm shift, etc.

    Like I said, keep brainstorming. This is the liquescent period. Anything is possible now. Throw it all into the mix.

    Thanks for your work, BTW. I have profited.

  7. Cavalier says:

    May the current year never end.

  8. It will take longer than a few months to make a purge in the absence of extraordinary events. Trump’s biggest obstacle right now is assembling his party. He’ll want establishment types to vote for his agenda but he knows they’ll turn on him if they get the chance. Consider Paul Ryan for instance. Trump has to do business with a man that’s already stabbed him in the back multiple times and if he pushes his hand, Ryan just switches sides and helps block all the legislation he wants. The 2018 midterms will give him his next best opportunity to clear out some dead wood. Trumps biggest ability to enact a purge will be through all the appointments he gets to make within the government. If he can get friends where he needs them over time, then he can close the net. Hopefully he can keep an impatient public placated while he does his thing.

  9. vxxc2014 says:

    “The big known unknown is how thoroughly he intends to drain the swamp.”

    Both his way and where that road takes him.

    They’ll probably be fighting so get ready and organize for War. Nothing is certain but I put this to my small number of followers.

    We have our War Captain. That’s all. Helps that he’s President. We haven’t won. We’ve gained superior position. That’s all.

    Now lets ask ourselves Questions: If this had gone against us>
    1] Would we quit?
    2] Could We Quit?
    #3:Can we quit?
    Think they will? Can?

    If Trump is to achieve his goals then his “army” may well have to be exactly that. Rest. But do not Quit. Organize as if we’d lost=for War.

  10. Wilbur Hassenfus says:

    There are already far too many shops, offices, and hotels in Harvard Square. Granted, I would sooner see it a radioactive crater then see Harvard remain in business there, and I guess shops, offices, and hotels are no worse than a smoking radioactive field of glass.

  11. Dave says:

    Hillary would have drained the swamp much more thoroughly by starting a nuclear war with Russia, thus turning Boston/Harvard, NYC, and DC into smoking radioactive craters. Would you be saddened to see DC vaporized, where Trump got four percent of the vote?

  12. Texas says:

    I heard from someone that somebody shouted “Build the wall!” at acceptance speech and he was ignored. I hope it’s because he wants to play it cool like you say, it makes sense, but it also makes me a bit nervous.

    One of the other things that makes me a bit nervous is that Mike Pence is his Vice President. I hope you’re right about all of this, I feel a bit uneasy though. Drain the Swamp! Purge the Criminals!

    • viking says:

      Im also skeptical Trump is a dummy and lazy we held hope based on alleged billions until debates confirmed lazy dummy he also desperately wants to be loved and respected by elites, so lots of reasons to worry.
      However with people like coulter gulianni around him maybe. JIms right it would be stupid to move before power is consolidated, cucks like ryan are probably better kepts but made to pay the danegold until enough danegold accumulated to start making moves on people. cucks like ryan want to stay in power and can see how badly they miscalculated the situation they can be forced to use their own danegold for trumps purposes as victories accumulate he can begin to act on more controversial projects with the people behind him.hes too stupid but some around him are not lets hope they gain not lose influence

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