Dakota Beacon

Clothed in terms reminiscent of America's storied past - a vast frontier, covered wagons relentlessly and determinedly moving west, development of great cities across our midwest, yada, yada, Donald Trump introduced his far-leftist, big-government plan for enslaving us forever in his "beautiful cities" built on federal land, on our "frontier" (question:  does this product of Queens, NY, realize we have had no "frontier" - since 1890, when it officially closed?).

It is true that our western states are covered with federally-owned land.  It is absurd, but there it is.  It has made it basically impossible for those states so afflicted to develop their natural resources.  North Dakota's incredible energy industry came into being only because North Dakota has less federally-owned land than most other western states.  What land the US federal government owns, it controls.  So valuable resources lie untapped in many of these places to our country's and our people's detriment and for no good reason.  The answer would seem not to develop "beautiful" cities approved of by someone like Trump, who has revealed himself as a utopian, big-government totalitarian dreamer, but to sell these lands to individuals in small parcels which they can use for grazing cattle, drilling for oil, building their own cities with their own investments, or whatever pleases them.  Trump should - if he were a conservative - be looking to incentivize and facilitate private development and use, not some grand real estate scheme complete with Jetson-style "conveniences" and vertical takeoff aircraft and the like.  He seems stuck in a sort of "Get Smart" sixties-style fantasy land.  

This is one of the key reasons why I can now no longer support Trump.  I was leery of him in 2016 already because of his warm embrace of the disastrous Kelo decision in the Supreme Court, which destroyed private property rights.  To be honest, that was pure, typical, quintessential Donald Trump thinking.  So are these "beautiful cities" on our "frontier", full of industry, etc.  With "everything we need", in other words.  It lines up "beautifully" with the thinking of people like Klaus Schwab, actually.  European Parliament member (albeit a strongly dissenting one), Christine Anderson, sees what is coming, and Trump’s concept fits perfectly.

Before you shut down the campaigns of better candidates - and there are some good ones - in favor of the Trump bandwagon and his big brass band of clownworks, consider just what he is.  Trump is a populist.  He is not a conservative.  Not by any means is he conservative.  No conservative would conceive of federally-built cities using your tax dollars, built on federal land on our "frontier".  Just wouldn't happen.  A conservative would say, "The government has no need to own this fallow land.  We should maintain our parks and wildlife preserves and the rest should be sold to private people, preferably individuals, to use as they like."  

A populist - which is what Trump is - basically has no principles or roots in any kind of political theory.  A populist is a guy who twigs to what the majority of the population wants or thinks they want and then advocates for it, regardless of whether it makes any real sense.  They prey on people's frustrations and disappointments.  They typically have no good plan in place for actually fixing anything.  They shoot from the hip and make great speeches to large crowds but they do not have a philosophy or belief in anything but the moment.

I would contrast the reckless approach of Trump, whose appointments or lack of replacing the wrong people in the bureaucracy led to his own crucifixion, with a real conservative, whose actions and decisions and choices are based on a belief system - one that does not include the federal government growing ever larger at the expense of the individual's pocketbook and liberty, one that is based on the tenets of the Constitution and of our laws and customs, including especially our Bill of Rights.  A conservative would not, for example, support grabbing guns first and following "due process" later - this is the approach of a totalitarian.  And even Biden takes a more cautious tack.  A conservative would know that is a contradiction.  Of course there IS no "due process" once the punishment or deprivation of property and rights occurs first.  That's just plain silly, but that does not bother Trump.  

A conservative would not be inclined to dismantle those governmental  processes put in place to protect individuals from dangerous and untested medical drugs or treatments, but rather hold everyone to account under the law, equally.  With a true conservative there would have been no "Operation Warp Speed" and no Dr. Anthony Fauci dictating to the rest of us for two years in dystopian fashion.  A conservative would have held drug companies to account, would have fielded experts who might have disagreed with one another, vetted them and then relied on those who did not have an axe to grind with the pharmaceutical industry.  He would have demanded some documentation.  He would have also gotten to the bottom of the so-called pandemic, the so-called virus, the idea of "gain of function" and the absolute evil that mild and mellow terminology disguised.  A populist, on the other hand, when confronted with the overwhelming evidence of death and destruction of a nation's health, and the strong likelihood that the vaccine he promoted at the expense of normal precautions was implicated in it, would just say, "A lot of people like it," and leave it at that, as though this was an answer.  We have laws to protect people from dangerous products, labeling to inform them of risks in using products.  Not with Covid vaccines, though.  Any questions about their safety were strictly censored and ultimately silenced.  Only as people began to see with their own eyes that something was terribly wrong, has anyone dared to speak of it.  Even now there is an attempt to shut them down and discredit them.  Doctors, such as Dr. Peter McCullough, one of the world's leading cardiologists, was actually stripped of his teaching position and credentials for raising questions about heart health affected by the vaccines.  He turns out to have been very right.  

But that is just one arena where a populist is dangerous.  The border wall didn't get built.  Why not?  Now we have a far worse danger than we did in 2016.  Sure, the Biden government has made it worse, but where is that wall?  

We finally heard what Trump's cryptic promise to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours entailed:  He said he would first go to Zelenskyy, who he gets along with, who attested to his "perfect phone call", back in the day, and tell him he had to make peace with Putin because there will be no more military aid.  Then he would go to Putin, who he "knows even better" and would tell him to get to the peace table with Zelenskyy and that if he didn't make peace the U.S. would give Ukraine all the help it needed to win the war.  In other words, he has no plan.  His plan is the same as Biden's or Lindsey Graham's.  Give Ukraine everything we have and more.  We can't come up with enough ammunition to defend our own country and this is his peace plan?  

Trump has had appeal for voters and it is understandable.  Lazy Americans who have never taken the time to really participate in their government, beyond a small percentage of eligible voters exercising that right, who have never attended a caucus or a local political convention, who don't read about issues and can't find Texas on a map, say nothing of Ukraine, rallied to Trump's candidacy and celebrated everything that didn't go wrong while he was in office.  I will own that Trump's administration had successes.  Some great ones.  But one gets the feeling that they were almost accidental victories and "givens".  After all, it does not take a 4-D chess champion to figure out that it is good to promote energy independence, and I join his supporters in applauding and appreciating the importance of this and the success we had when government got out of the way.  Our foreign policy was far better - we just didn't look for a war to get into.  I think a genuine conservative (as opposed to neocons like the Bush family or Pence or Nikki Haley) would see the need to stay out of wars that don't concern our national interest.  It does not take a genius to see that.  

So Trump had some notable successes - but he also had some terrible failures.  In the summer of 2020 our cities were burning to the ground.  He did not reform the FBI and most likely would still not do so.  He says the "jury is out" on Chris Wray.  What???  He surrounded himself with people dangerous to our republic, like Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr, Anthony Fauci, et al.  He has no judgment.  He feels no need of judgment or of principle or of beliefs.  He is a populist, so these things are irrelevant to him.  He nurtured the seeds of his own political takedown and his continuing battle for his own due process.

One wonders why he hasn't taken up the cause of those unfortunate followers of his who answered his call and showed up in Washington on January 6 to rally for him.  The FBI is still going around looking for faces that could be identified (or not) of people they can arrest for that and many are rotting in the most disgusting hell holes of jails as this is written.  Where is his advocacy for them?  He has, it would seem, left them to twist in the wind while he goes on the campaign trail and promises to fight his own fights with the Justice Department.  We should all be shocked at his treatment by the DoJ, but where is his concern for anyone else who has been there for him?  Crickets.

And one thing a populist is very, very good at, is sticking his finger in the air and changing with the wind.  What you see one day is likely not what you will see the next.  What terms come to mind to describe Trump?  Be honest.  "Mercurial?"  "Unpredictable?"  "Bombastic?" Pick one.  Add some more.  I don't think you can honestly apply the term "principled", "reasoned", "organized" to him.  These attributes will have to be sought elsewhere.

In the meantime, DeSantis has initiated an inquiry into the "bio weapon" status of the C-19 "vaccines".  The Florida GOP has taken up the issue and there is a resolution on DeSantis's desk to ban them.  He has taken up the cause of grooming of schoolchildren and has demonstrated the administrative ability to get that done.  He has promised to reform the FBI and other agencies.  He wants to get rid of the failed Department of Education instituted by Jimmy Carter's administration.  Conservatives have been advocating for this for decades now.  And there are some who had no idea we didn't always have one.  When we didn't, our education system was far more effective and successful.  Perhaps most importantly of all, DeSantis has gotten his state's legislature to ban CBDC - Central Bank Digital Currency - because it would be the death knell for our freedom.  This takes a certain amount of organized thinking and planning and the right principles.

So the world does not revolve around Trump and our future as a nation does not depend on him and his candidacy.  He has other ways to contribute.  We should all support him in his battle with the DoJ and against violation of his rights as an American citizen and former President.  This does not mean he is the right person for the presidency in 2024.  If he prevails and wins the GOP nomination we will have to evaluate our options at that point.  There may be no options by then.  Just give it some serious thought before you burn bridges for other candidates.