The new axis of evil

The Guardian has a piece discussing the sort of people involved in the Putin-Trump-Orban alliance:

A notorious Hungarian racist who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals” and used racial epithets to describe Black people, was a featured speaker at a major gathering of US Republicans in Budapest.

Zsolt Bayer took the stage at the second day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, a convention that also featured speeches from Donald Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Trump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. . . .

When he was awarded the Hungarian order of merit in 2016 by the country’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the star speaker on the first day of CPAC Hungary on Thursday, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum protested, saying it “reflects the longstanding refusal of the leadership of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party to distance itself from Bayer, in spite of Bayer’s repeated pattern of racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, and anti-Roma incitement”.

The leader of America’s Republican party sees Orban as a model:

The last featured speaker of the conference was Jack Posobiec, a far-right US blogger who has used antisemitic symbols and promoted the fabricated “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory smearing prominent Democrats as pedophiles. . . .

Addressing the conference by video shortly before Bayer’s appearance, Trump poured compliments on Orbán, who was recently elected for a fourth term as prime minister.

“He is a great leader, a great gentleman, and he just had a very big election result. I was very honored to endorse him,” Trump said.

Republicans are also addressing the issue of what to do about 13-year old girls raped by their father.

Georgia Senate candidate and former football star Herschel Walker said Wednesday he supports abortion bans without any exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother. 

“There’s no exception in my mind,” Walker told reporters after a campaign speech. “Like I say, I believe in life. I believe in life.”

And every time you think the GOP has hit rock bottom, we find there’s another level.

PS. You might wonder where all this “pedophilia” stuff is coming from. The NYT has a good piece on how the evangelical churches are being affected by this new culture war:

FORT SMITH, Ark. — In the fall of 2020, Kevin Thompson delivered a sermon about the gentleness of God. At one point, he drew a quick contrast between a loving, accessible God and remote, inaccessible celebrities. Speaking without notes, his Bible in his hand, he reached for a few easy examples: Oprah, Jay-Z, Tom Hanks.

Mr. Thompson could not tell how his sermon was received. The church he led had only recently returned to meeting in person. Attendance was sparse, and it was hard to appreciate if his jokes were landing, or if his congregation — with family groups spaced three seats apart, and others watching online — remained engaged.

So he was caught off guard when two church members expressed alarm about the passing reference to Mr. Hanks. A young woman texted him, concerned; another member suggested the reference to Mr. Hanks proved Mr. Thompson did not care about the issue of sex trafficking. Mr. Thompson soon realized that their worries sprung from the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that the movie star is part of a ring of Hollywood pedophiles.

So it’s not just Democrats; Hollywood people are also pedophiles. (And some commenters claim that I’m one too.)

Apparently, this nonsense is splitting the evangelical movement:

Across the country, theologically conservative white evangelical churches that were once comfortably united have found themselves at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions. The disruption, fear and physical separation of the pandemic have exacerbated every rift.

Many churches are fragile, with attendance far below prepandemic levels; denominations are shrinking, and so is the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian.

The Democrats have certainly picked an inopportune time to commit suicide.

Predictions:

Trump elected in 2024

Newsom elected in 2028

In 2029, pot made legal and tobacco made illegal.

But of course all my political predictions end up being wrong. All I know is that the 21st century is turning out really bad (after a great 1980s and 1990s.)


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11 Responses to “The new axis of evil”

  1. Gravatar of ee ee
    24. May 2022 at 18:09

    It seems impossible to me that Newsom could be elected President. He should have no crossover appeal with moderate Republicans, and California’s governance is not widely respected even with democrats AFAIK.

    I also thought it was impossible that Trump could be elected. One thing that boosted Trump: primary voting is FPTP, and there wasn’t a clear opposition candidate. I remember gaming it out when I voted in an effort to block Trump (Cruz? Rubio?), but it was difficult for other candidates to establish as clear a lane as Trump did.

  2. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    25. May 2022 at 06:22

    If Trump wins in 2024, the Democratic primary in 2028 could be quite a circus. AOC will be old enough to run for President. I bet Stacey Abrams would run, as would Eric Adams, who might actually be a good candidate in a general election. And Harris would run too.

  3. Gravatar of foosion foosion
    25. May 2022 at 12:22

    “Michigan election bureau says 2 leading Republican candidates for governor filed fraudulent signatures, disqualifying them” https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/michigan-election-bureau-says-two-leading-republican-candidates-for-governor-filed-fraudulent-signatures-disqualifying-them

    Nice to see another example of the importance of voter and election fraud to Republicans and another example of figuring out what they are doing by observing what they claim others are doing.

  4. Gravatar of Sean Sean
    25. May 2022 at 13:32

    I literally read 6 minutes into that poso piece and can’t figure out what he’s doing that’s antisemetic. No smoking gun. Maybe posted some meme? Has criticized leftist Jewish journalists in the past?

    Stick to monetary policy. Political hot takes might be fun but I don’t think you have the gift.

  5. Gravatar of Sarah Sarah
    25. May 2022 at 13:50

    You have two choices:

    1. You can continue down the same path of centralization, interventionism, supranationals, and globalization — essentially a return to mercantilism and fuedalism, to an age of anti-capitalist, anti-enlightenment dogma. If you prefer this model, your ideal candidates are democrats and the neo conservative movement, predominetly the Romney’s, the Cheney’s, the Bush’s, etc. These are the people who don’t respect individualism; they support the WEF, WHO, Bilderberg, and other supranational actors. Supporting these people will lead to more and bigger wars, because these institutions don’t respect other cultures, traditions, and their natural right to self determination. Their agenda is holistic and homogenous — in short, it’s global power!

    or…

    2. You can respect people’s right to self determination. You can siphon power away from supranationals and federal governments that seek to strip those rights, and return that power to the communities people live in by reducing federal taxes, aid, and subsidies. And in the process, you can remove yourselves from unelected supranational organizations, and weaken a bloated military industrial complex that favors war over peace. You can decentralize industry by revisiting patent laws that create monopolies and by removing subsidies. People who believe in liberty, who want peace instead of war, who want a night watch men state focused on protecting the inalienable, who seek to take care of the poor through community programs instead of big government programs, who want free markets instead of mercantilist markets — these are the people who are more inclined to vote for the Old-Right: that is, the classical libertarians. These are folks who vote for Trump, Paul, Cruz, and blackburn. They are not Nazi’s, or racists, xenephobes, or other poorly articulated fear mongering terms thrown around by the uneducated radicals; no, these are folks who want liberty and peace, above all.

    Orban is well liked in Hungary, not because Hungarians are Nazi’s as Sumner would have you believe, but because the hungarian people remember the horror of the soviet union. It wasn’t that long ago. And these people see all too well, that the rhetoric of global instutions resemble the rhetoric of the old soviet union. They don’t want any part of it.

  6. Gravatar of bb bb
    26. May 2022 at 03:50

    Sarah,
    Orban’s government has been undermining the courts, targeting the press, and violating peoples right to speech and assembly. He has used Pegasus on his own citizens. He does not support people’s “right to self determination”. He is a fascist.
    And Trump is not a classical libertarians. And Trump is an aspiring fascist. SMH

  7. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    26. May 2022 at 06:09

    Orban is getting uglier and uglier. I didn’t think that was possible, but he really is becoming more and more extreme. His siding with Putin is simply disgusting.

    He is not a conservative. Hungary has so revolted against the USSR rule. And now Orban betrays all former Hungarian values. What a savage.

    What is someone like Orban doing in the EU? What is someone like Erdogan doing in NATO? The Western world should stop talking about values when we tolerate such despots for decades in the alliances.

    What is needed here is a clear edge to the peoples concerned: Either you vote these despots out of office or we formally reestablish the alliances, but this time without you — and with adjusted rules that prevent such things in the future. That can’t be so difficult. What are the other politicians thinking? This is so embarrassing.

    And America should finally abolish its stupid natural-born-citizen clause. Then Elon Musk could try to run as the GOP candidate and oust Trump.

  8. Gravatar of Ricardo Ricardo
    27. May 2022 at 19:07

    It doesn’t feel to good to be slandered does it? It’s not nice when someone calls you a pedophile.

    Now you know what it feels like when people call you a misogynist, a rasicst, a xenophobe, and other insane epithets ALL DAY LONG on bizarre Orwellian ministry of Truth channels like CNN, simply because you prefer free markets to mercantlist markets, because you want sound money instead of Federal Reserve manipulation, and becuase you believe that big governments, big industry, and their socialist derivatives will lead to tyranny.

    Or maybe it is because we believe in good immigration — you know, the kind that actually makes your country stronger, not weaker. We have enough dummies in America. Low skilled labor, gangsters, and ghetto thugs are in abundance. In fact, we have so many of those marxist losers that we nearly died from their vicious rampages last year. One of them threw a brick into my office window. I presume my brown skin must have been “oppressing them”. It must have been a form of “reparation” for having a white skinned wife. Who knows. The socialist thugs never make much sense anyway. Today, they claim we should “kill whitey” because he’s “oppressing us”. Tomorrow, the socialist thugs will come after “Browney”.

    If you drop the federal social safety net, and you return that safety net to the community, then you will suddenly have less malingerers and losers. Mr. Joe fentanyl, nearly dying every time he sleeps from his apnea, a symptom of his disgusting obesity, will soon get off his ass, work the farms, serve meals, wash dishes, and other fine, respectable jobs that he’s been taught by modern day degenerate democrats to deplore. According to the democrats, these jobs “lack dignity”. Bizarre frame of mind, because farm work is 100 times more respectable than the officer paper pusher.

  9. Gravatar of Thomas Thomas
    27. May 2022 at 20:50

    Yes, you are always wrong.

    The constitution doesn’t give the Federal govt the power to make pot legal or illegal. The federal government does have the right to ban its importation, but that is not the same as banning its use. This is a state issue. Once again, you are trying to take power from the states. Why? Are you that afraid of the farmer in Idaho? Is he “beneath you”, Scott? Does he really need you to make laws for him?

    You were wrong about the Russia hoax. Durham has already destroyed you.

    You were wrong about Bolton. If there was a jury, the lawyers would call in about twenty five witnesses to rebut his poorly written book. It’s literally EVERYONE ELSE against Bolton wouldn’t even be able to find a lawyer to defend him. Despite this, you continue to use his statement as “evidence” of wrong doing on your blog.

    You are totally wrong about China. Somehow you want to separate the Chinese people from the CCP. It doesn’t work that way, Scott. Enriching the CCP will certainly help the poor Chinese, but it will also bring us closer to a global dystopia. Even your buddy (I presume) the hard left Soros can recognize the Chinese threat. You should be rooting against that idealogy, not for it.

    You are wrong about Eastern Europe and Russia. Orban loves liberty. That man has been a fighter all his life. He fought bravely against the Soviet Union, and now he’s fighting bravely against the big western supported supranationals.

    The governor of California is not well liked in his own state. He was nearly recalled. Obviously, he has NO chance to win any moderate states. He will poll the same as our not so bright Vice President, who was picked for her immutable characteristics, like the recent Supreme Court judge, not her vast policy knowledge, accomplishments, or extraordinary intelligence.

    If you want the democrats to win in 2024, then you might choose someone like Tulsi gabbard, a politically moderate combat veteran, instead of another war hawk, globalist, or woke degenerate.

  10. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    27. May 2022 at 21:36

    Ricardo, You said:

    “It doesn’t feel to good to be slandered does it? It’s not nice when someone calls you a pedophile.”

    Actually, I find the charges to be hilarious. Did you think I actually took those trolls seriously?

    And please provide some links to articles about people being called racist for advocating sound money and free trade. LOL.

    Thomas, You also don’t understand the pot laws. The federal government currently refuses to allow states to legalize pot.

    I’m the one who wants to return that power to the states.

    “You were wrong about the Russia hoax”

    I never once commented on the Russia hoax. That makes me “wrong”?

    And Trump’s statements are more trustworthy that Bolton’s? Orban loves liberty? He’s Putin’s poodle. Thanks for providing some comic relief.

  11. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    28. May 2022 at 12:32

    I’m curious, is the Southern Baptist Convention a conservative or liberal organization?

    https://apnews.com/article/baptist-religion-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-southern-convention-bfdbe64389790630488f854c3dae3fd5

    It appears they protected pedophiles for decades, while attacking the victims.

    The Catholic Church is economically liberal, but socially conservative, and did likewise, obviously.

    Is there a similar scandal concerning a social liberal organization?

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