Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Among the First Responders

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

Brussels is only 200 miles from London. I live 2,500 miles from Washington, D.C. Perhaps you see where this is going.

We are living in a time of enormous upheaval. Some of it is good, lots of it is bad, and all of it is challenging. The Brexit exit was one of the good things, some of the best news I have heard in a long time.

There were two basic issues in the Brexit vote. The first was the pointy-headed elites in Brussels making life miserable for the yeomanry in the UK, and the second issue was out-of-control immigration.

Perhaps you see those same two issues driving the Trump campaign, and you would not be wrong. That is where a lot of the energy is coming from, but there is a radical difference as well.

The difference is that in the UK the vote swirled around a referendum, made up of a very sensible proposal.
Being words on a ballot meant that the object of the vote could not really embarrass itself. In the US, this same sentiment has gathered around a man who, when mentioned, does not cause the words “sensible proposal” to come to mind. I often don’t know what Trump means, but I know what he means. If you know what I mean.

In other words, when the chemicals get to a point where they are going to coalesce, like it or not, around something, the praiseworthiness of that point of coalescence can vary. Our British cousins are to be praised for the shrewdness of their vote, and to be envied for the opportunity to stick it to the establishment in such a clean way.

So the regular voters remain surly everywhere. Residents in the UK were extremely fortunate that their opportunity came in such a way as to give them a very straight shot. A friend in the UK wrote me that this was a very kind providence — the last chance to get out of Europe without violence. I agree with him, and agree with him also that violence was the downstream alternative.

We don’t have the same situation, but we do have the same dynamic. We do have similar forces in motion. We also have pointy-headed elites and we also have an out-of-control immigration system. Our sorrow is that the point of coalescence was the great American hustler.

Nevertheless, we are far enough into the year for me to dub 2016 the year of the wrecking ball. The idea of Europe is done. Stick a fork in it. Copy cat referenda in a number of other countries are lining up for their shot. Trump has been the wrecking ball here. We don’t know how many swings he is going to get but he has done plenty already. I don’t know if he is going to be far enough down in the polls to inspire a real mutiny at the Republican convention, or if he will manage to carry the banner against Hillary. That is, unless Hillary blows up.

Hillary only seems invulnerable because — read this carefully now — she is artificially propped up in place, a terrible candidate, by the pointy-headed elites. And we all know how omni-competent those elites are these days, right? And how much everybody loves them?

Behind the stage-managed cardboard cutout that is Hillary is a corrupt queen of mendacious graft, someone who really ought to be — let’s be honest here — in prison. Everything out front is artificially scripted and the establishment media lets it be artificially scripted. But imagine this rehearsed-to-Hell-and-back woman on a debate stage with — in the immortal words of Ben Shapiro — the crap tornado that is Trump. He taunts. He insults. He gouges. He bites her ear off. Whatever else happens, I think we can count on Hillary not having any idea of what to do, and acquitting herself poorly.

Still, conventional wisdom has Trump losing big time against Hillary — and we all know how astute conventional wisdom has been this year, right? I mean if ever there was a time when conventional wisdom knew what was going to happen next, it is now. Can I get an amen?

If Trump is elected, the wrecking ball has come to establishment Washington, and not just to the Republican Party. If he is not elected, he will only have wrecked the brand of the Republicans for the next generation, not to mention the dignity of the entire electoral process. As our grandmothers might have said, “that’s quite enough.”

So I do not anticipate being a significant voter in this election. I will vote third party, or a write-in candidate, about which more later as events unfold. But while I do not intend to be a significant voter in this election, I would like to be among the first responders after it.