The Delusional Democrats of 2017

From Matthew Continetti, at Free Beacon, "Send in the Head Clowns":

Continetti throws a huge bucket of ice cold water on Dems & media attempting to oppose Obamacare repeal & SCOTUS

https://t.co/TkBJdJHsS1

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) January 6, 2017

Democrats have been in power for so long that they’ve forgotten how to oppose. Their party has been on a roll since 2005 when the botched Social Security reform, the slow bleed of the Iraq war, and Hurricane Katrina sent the Bush administration into a tailspin. The Democrats won the Congress the following year and the White House two years after that. And while they lost the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014, Democrats still had the advantage of retaining the White House, a president seemingly immune from criticism, the courts, the bureaucracy, and large portions of the media. The correlation of forces in Washington has weighed heavily in favor of the Democrats for a decade.

No longer. The election of Donald Trump has brought unified Republican government to Washington and overturned our understanding of how politics works. Or at least it should have done so. The Democrats seem not to understand how to deal with Trump and the massive change he is about to bring to the nation’s capital. During the general election they fell for the idea that Trump can be defeated by conventional means, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in negative television advertising and relying on political consultants beholden to whatever line Politico was selling on a given day. This strategy failed Trump’s Republican primary opponents, but Democrats figured that was simply because the GOP was filled with deplorables. It was a rationalization that would cost them.

Republicans control the House, the Senate, 34 governor’s mansions, and 4,100 seats in state legislatures. But Democrats act like they run Washington. Nancy Pelosi’s speech to the 115th House of Representatives was a long-winded recitation of the same liberal agenda that has brought her party to its current low. Give her points for consistency I guess. Chuck Schumer is just being delusional.

Smarting from the failed nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, the Senate minority leader pledged to oppose Donald Trump’s nominee weeks before inauguration day. “If they don’t appoint somebody good,” he said on MSNBC, “we’re going to oppose them tooth and nail.” That would “absolutely” include keeping the seat held by the late Antonin Scalia empty, he said. “We are not going to make it easy for them to pick a Supreme Court justice.”

I suppose it’s too much to expect a graduate of Harvard Law School to grasp the difference between majority and minority. Mitch McConnell was able to block Garland’s appointment because the Republicans controlled the Senate. The Democrats do not. And McConnell was able to hold his caucus together because he was on solid historical ground. Lyndon Johnson’s nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice failed in the election year 1968, and the so-called “Biden Rule” of 1992 stipulated no Supreme Court replacements during the last year of a presidency. Schumer himself, in a 2007 speech, expanded the waiting period to the final 18 months of a president’s term. Now, despite a record of calling on the Senate to confirm the president’s nominees—as long as the president is a Democrat—Schumer has adopted the strategy of no Supreme Court confirmations at all. How does he think President Trump will respond? By caving?

*****

Yes, the first duty of the opposition is to oppose. And I don’t expect the Democrats to roll over for Trump. But I am surprised by their hysterics, and by their race to see who can be the most obnoxious to the new president. They seem to have been caught off guard, to say the least, by their situation. Take for example their willingness to stand on a podium beside a sign that reads, “Make America Sick Again.” By embracing this message, such as it is, the Democrats associated not Trump but themselves with illness. Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

It takes time to adjust. The Democrats may be counting on inertia and the media to slow the Republicans down and force them into a defensive crouch. Worked in the past. But here’s the thing about Trump: He doesn’t play defense.

Excellent. Just outstanding analysis.

I especially like the part about how McConnell can just change the rules to a straight majority vote for Supreme Court confirmations. I hope he does.

And, the Dems sure are clowns. It's the clown-shoe party, lol.

USC Football Should Be Ranked in the Top Three Next Season (VIDEO)

My earlier Rose Bowl coverage is here.

Oh my gosh, what a game.

Here's the sports crew from the L.A. Times, with their post-game wrap-up from Monday night. Bill Plaschke argues that right now USC is in the top three nationally, and thus should be ranked in the top three next season.

We'll see. There's some turnover on the team, and some key players may opt for the NFL draft. But QB Sam Darnold's definitely going to be around, and I think that's key.

Watch:

Nine People We're Hoping Will Just Shut Up and Go Away in 2017

Just nine?

I'm sure I could think of a few more, lol.

From Stephen Green (Vodkapundit), at Instapundit, "I’VE GOT A LITTLE LIST, THEY NEVER WOULD BE MISSED." (The link goes to a David Forsmark essay.)

Rules for Righties — a War-Winning Manifesto for 2017

From James Delingpole, at Breitbart London:

"The bad news is that wars are hard, costly & ugly. The good news is we’re on the right side & we’re going to win." https://t.co/ukHwHy6GcU

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 1, 2017

Orange County Saw Another Day of Heavy Rainfall and Cloudy Skies (VIDEO)

It was raining pretty good this morning when I dropped my kid off at school.

I hope there's no flooding, but the rain's good. The more rain, the less we'll be hearing about how climate change is causing the "drought."

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Heavy Rains Blanket Orange County."

Plus, a weather report with Garth Kemp, "Garth Kemp's Weather Forecast (Jan. 5)."

Obama Claims Race Relations Haven't 'Gotten Worse' Under His Administration (VIDEO)

O's living in his own private Idaho.

Asked point-blank, he denies race relations have gotten worse during his administration.

At CBS News 2 Chicago:

Obama Calls Facebook Torture Video 'Despicable', But Optimistic About Race Relations In U.S. https://t.co/2nqdutelde

— CBS Chicago (@cbschicago) January 5, 2017

However, the president remains hopeful about the future.

“I take these things very seriously.”

“The good news is that the next generation that’s coming behind us … have smarter, better, more thoughtful attitudes about race.

“I think the overall trajectory of race relations in this country is actually very positive. It doesn’t mean that all racial problems have gone away. It means that we have the capacity to get better.”

Actually, public opinion polling consistently finds that race relations have deteriorated during the Obama regime. Indeed, a majority of white Americans say race relations have gotten worse over the past eight years, according to a report at Gallup last August, "In U.S., Obama Effect on Racial Matters Falls Short of Hopes":

Americans' optimism about the effects that Obama's election and presidency would have on race relations has ... declined significantly since he was elected in November 2008. At that time, 70% of Americans expected race relations in the U.S. to get better, while only 10% believed relations would get worse. Now, more say that race relations have gotten worse as a result of his presidency (46%) than say they have gotten better (29%).

Whites, by more than a 2-to-1 margin, now say race relations are worse rather than better. Blacks are more charitable in their evaluation of the effect of Obama's presidency on U.S. race relations, but they are divided on whether things are better or worse. Both blacks' and whites' opinions are more pessimistic than they were in October 2009, nine months into Obama's presidency...

A Pew report last June found Americans only slightly less pessimistic about race relations, with fully one third of whites saying race relations have deteriorated, with another 24 percent saying Obama tried but failed to improve relations between the races during his administration. See, "On Views of Race and Inequality, Blacks and Whites Are Worlds Apart."

And even the far-left New York Times, last July, found a large majority saying race relations are bad. See, "Race Relations Are at Lowest Point in Obama Presidency, Poll Finds":

Sixty-nine percent of Americans say race relations are generally bad, one of the highest levels of discord since the 1992 riots in Los Angeles during the Rodney King case, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The poll, conducted from Friday, the day after the killing of five Dallas police officers, until Tuesday, found that six in 10 Americans say race relations were growing worse, up from 38 percent a year ago.

Racial discontent is at its highest point in the Obama presidency and at the same level as after the riots touched off by the 1992 acquittal of Los Angeles police officers charged in Mr. King’s beating.

Relations between black Americans and the police have become so brittle that more than half of black people say they were not surprised by the attack that killed five police officers and wounded nine others in Dallas last week. Nearly half of white Americans say that they, too, were unsurprised by the episode, the survey found...

There's been saturation coverage of the Chicago black thug Facebook beating and torture all day, and so expect new polling on race to be at least as bad as last July, when the Dallas police officers were massacred by a Black Lives Matter supporter.

Democrats Consider Another Challenge to Donald Trump's Victory in the Electoral College

Bizarre.

At Twitchy, "House Dems are NOT giving up hope for Hillary (She could lose AGAIN?)."

pic.twitter.com/u6821aLmkV

— Jason C. (@CounterMoonbat) January 5, 2017

Here's the Politico piece, "Democratic lawmakers considering challenge to Trump’s Electoral College victory."

Like I said, truly bizarre.

Democrats are literally clinical at this point.

On the Structural Safegaurds of the U.S. Constitution

From James Piereson, at the New Criterion, "Populism, V: A bulwark against tyranny":

The framers of the Constitution did not use the term “populism,” but they were aware of the phenomenon it describes—that is, an uprising by the voters against what they judge to be a corrupt or out-of-touch elite. James Madison, for example, referred to something roughly similar in his extensive discussions in the Federalist of factions and “factious majorities.” To a considerable degree, the challenges posed by “populism” were front and center in the debates that eventually produced the Constitution. For better or worse, the framework Madison was instrumental in creating does not easily allow for the kind of popular referendum through which a majority of voters in Great Britain decided to pull that country out of the European Union, or the more recent referendum in Italy through which voters turned down a package of constitutional reforms. In this sense, the U.S. Constitution operates as an impediment to populism because it substitutes representation and deliberation for national referenda and direct democracy.

In the United States, of course, voters can decide to pull out of a treaty or an alliance or repeal a law, but they must do so indirectly by first electing a willing President and Congress, and then hoping that the two can find enough common ground to enact a program—and then sustain that program through subsequent elections. Under the U.S. Constitution, a populist “moment” is not sufficient to win the long game; the moment must be sustained over a sequence of elections such that a temporary uprising of voters is translated into a durable governing majority, which is a difficult thing to accomplish in a country as large and diverse as the United States, as the Founders well understood.

The populist moment that we seem to be in, here and abroad, is a propitious occasion to reconsider some contemporary assumptions about democracy and majority rule in relation to the arguments advanced by the Founders on those same subjects. Many today are instinctively inclined toward democracy and majority rule but are also worried about the implications of “populism.” Can they have it both ways? After all, populism, to the extent that we use it in a pejorative way, implies that majority rule is not always a good thing, and that, as James Madison argued in the Federalist, there can be “bad” majorities as well as “good” ones. How do we tell the difference? And how does one design a system to deter or to deflect these “bad” majorities? Once we raise such questions, we enter into the political and intellectual world of Madison and the Founders...

One of the key points I made repeatedly last semester, when lots of people were freakin' out about Donald Trump, is that our Constitution is strong enough to handle whatever comes along. We survived the Civil War, the Great Depression, and World War II. I expect we'll survive the Trump regime just fine. Indeed, all this talk about "fascism" on the left is really leftist extremism in defense of favored progressive policy priorities. Seriously, these people are unhinged.

But keep reading.

Kendall Jenner Snake Tattoo for V Magazine

At Drunken Stepfather, "KENDALL JENNER, JOAN SMALLS AND LARA STONE FOR V MAGAZINE OF THE DAY."

.@kendalljenner, @joansmalls, @larastone, and more get inked for V's January issue: https://t.co/EeNk4v6n0g pic.twitter.com/MRZCQqc9CE

— V Magazine (@vmagazine) January 5, 2017

Watch @KendallJenner​, @JoanSmalls​, @LilyAldridge​ & more get the tattoo treatment for #V105: https://t.co/jR6aZc31FX pic.twitter.com/oZhV4CXXjp

— V Magazine (@vmagazine) January 5, 2017

Struggling with the Costs of Growing Old: Many Slip Out of Middle Class as Aging Takes Its Toll

A fascinating column, from Steve Lopez, at the Los Angeles Times, "Not rich, not poor, and not ready for the cost of growing old."

I've got a least 10 more years before retirement, and probably quite a few more, if I'm feeling well. I take the winters and summers off. Basically, I'm working eight months out of the year. I can hack it past the traditional retirement age, and meanwhile I can be socking away money into my retirement accounts. My wife's seven years younger, and healthy, so we've got a while to plan for those "drought" years (although, as noted, if things stay as they are, I think my family will avoid the "drought" years, thank goodness).

CHS Dept. Chair Steve Wallace addresses the "hidden poor" in today's @LATstevelopez @latimes https://t.co/ZDP4LFFfDh

— UCLA Fielding School (@UCLAFSPH) January 4, 2017

Boomers are crowding the retirement turnstiles just as safety nets may get a haircut from a Republican Congress fixated on an Obamacare repeal that could whack Medicare and Medicaid. And although President-elect Trump has defended entitlements, a key advisor once called for privatizing Social Security. California has been a national leader in supporting in-home care and expanding medical insurance to wider populations, but federal funding cuts could jeopardize those advances.

“Everything is a wild card right now,” said UCLA professor Steven Wallace, chair of the school’s Department of Community Health Sciences.

Wallace co-authored a report published last year on what he refers to as California’s “hidden poor,” approximately 655,000 older adults who are above the federal poverty level and ineligible for some government programs, but not wealthy enough to live comfortably in a region with such high housing costs.

I know those people. I’ve met many of them and written about some of them.

Doris Tillman comes to mind. She’s the South Los Angeles retiree who went nine months without running water after losing a job and falling behind on a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power bill she disputed.

“I’m going to write a book about how to survive in L.A. without water,” the 71-year-old Tillman told me at the time. She learned to get by on 50 gallons a week of water she purchased, lugging heavy five-gallon jugs into and out of her car and into her home.

Deirdre McCloskey: Economic Growth Saves the Poor

A great essay, at the New York Times:

Growth, Not Forced Equality, Saves the Poor. https://t.co/nd90GXokj4

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 5, 2017

Playboy Playmates Pick the Best Songs of All Time (VIDEO)

I feel like making love!

Via Playboy:

Nina Agdal Bonus LOVE Advent 2016 (VIDEO)

The lovely Ms. Nina brings us back to some babe blogging for the afternoon.

The news out of Chicago is just too sickening.

Jeff Sessions Faces Onslaught from the Most Ugly and Dishonest Political Activists in America

From J. Christian Adams, at Pajamas, "Pray for Jeff Sessions":

Pray for Jeff Sessions: Liars on the Left are Attacking https://t.co/Vz7BvrmSbc #Catholic #Christian #CivilRights #VoterFraud

— J. Christian Adams (@ElectionLawCtr) January 5, 2017

Everyone who believes in prayer should say some for attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions. Senator Sessions is experiencing the full wrath of the worst hateful lies that the modern Left and Democrat Party can conjure. Lies, half-truths, and smears have become the strategy to attack his nomination.

The age of Obama has seen the rise of bricks-and-mortar operations with deep cash reserves designed to permanently transform the nation, and the Justice Department has been ground zero. That's why Jeff Sessions is the perfect pick for attorney general, and that's why the liars on the Left are willing to smear this good man. They've served up all their familiar charges against him from their phobia smorgasbord: homo-, xeno-, Islamo- or trans-.

That's why the NAACP decided to trespass and occupy his Senate office -- an action far worse than the one that landed James O'Keefe in jail (banner photo above). Don't expect Loretta Lynch to do anything. Who commits the crime is sometimes more important than what they did. O'Keefe played for the wrong team.

Sessions' opponents hate that he understands them better than most in Washington, and understands the damage they have done transforming the nation in the last eight years...

Keep reading.

Sessions is perhaps the best pick of the entire cabinet. I can't wait until he gets to work!

FLASHBACK: "Why Jeff Sessions Has Conservatives So Fired Up."

Greta Van Susteren to Join MSNBC

Just now, via Greta's Twitter feed:

.@greta joins MSNBC after leaving Fox News https://t.co/g2RsJVTabf pic.twitter.com/a12pIrIl5X

— Bloomberg (@business) January 5, 2017

And at Politico:

Greta Van Susteren to join MSNBChttps://t.co/q1EHbVGKNG

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) January 5, 2017

How the Democrats Became the Anti-Israel Party

From Daniel Greenfield, at FrontPage Mag, "The Left can’t stop hating and killing Jews":

Democrats have come down with a wicked virus. Somewhere along the way they caught Nazi fever.

It’s not the Nazi fever of the fevered headlines in which Trump is the new Fuhrer and Republicans are the new Third Reich.

The truth is that there’s only one major political party in this country that supports the murder of Jews.

The Democrats demand the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem. They fund the mass murder of Jews by nuclear fire, rocket, bullet, bomb and bloody knife. And they collaborate and defend that terror.

President Clinton was the first to openly fund Islamic terrorists killing Jews. Men, women and children across Israel were shot and blown up by terrorists funded by his administration. And when terror victims sought justice, instead of protecting them from Iran, he protected Iran’s dirty money from them.

And he was not the last.

Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice collaborated with the leaders of a terrorist organization, with American and Israeli blood on its hands, on a UN attack on Israel that demands that Jews be banned from moving into neighborhoods and areas claimed by Islamic terrorists.

A leaked transcript showed Kerry conspiring with Saeb Erekat, who has praised the mass murderers of Jews and spewed anti-Semitism. Erekat is called a “negotiator”, a strange term considering that the PLO and its various front groups, including the Palestinian Authority, refuse to negotiate with Israel.

Erekat has made his position on the Jewish State quite clear. “We cannot accept the Jewish state – Israel as a Jewish state – not today, not tomorrow and not in a hundred years.”

Instead of reproving Erekat, Susan Rice warned him about Trump. Rice, like the rest of Obama’s team, was not only closer to the terrorists than to Israel, but was closer to the terrorists than to Trump.

Obama praised PLO boss Abbas despite the terrorist leader’s own admission, “There is no difference between our policies and those of Hamas.” The terror organization headed by Obama’s pal had honored a monster who butchered a 13-year-old Jewish girl in her own bedroom as a “martyr”.

The White House backed the Muslim Brotherhood whose “spiritual” witch doctor had praised Hitler and expressed a wish that Muslims would be able to finish the Holocaust.

Sheikh Rashid Ghannouchi, another beneficiary of Obama's Jihadist Spring, endorsed genocide. "There are no civilians in Israel. The population—males, females and children... can be killed.”

When this monster, who had called for the extermination of the Jews, visited the United States, he was honored at a dinner whose speakers included Obama’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.

If the left really wants to find Hitler and Nazism, it ought to look in the mirror. The Democrats have become a political movement that aids and celebrates the mass murderers of Jews.

And they keep playing the victim...

Keep reading.

Black Chicago Thugs in Facebook Live Beating Charged with Hate Crimes (VIDEO)

The Chicago press conference is live on television right now. More on that later.

Meanwhile, at the Chicago Tribune, "Hate crime, kidnapping charges filed in West Side attack streamed on Facebook Live":

4 charged in attack streamed on Facebook: Kidnapping, hate crime, unlawful restraint, battery with a deadly weapon. https://t.co/1ZFM0EMRv2 pic.twitter.com/BKaQzWhwfj

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) January 5, 2017

Hate crime charges have been filed against four people shown in a Facebook video attacking a mentally disabled man, cutting his scalp with a knife and punching him while yelling obscenities about Donald Trump and "white people."

Jordan Hill, 18, of Carpentersville, Tesfaye Cooper, 18, of Chicago, Brittany Covington, 18, of Chicago, and Tanishia Covington, 24,  of Chicago were charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Hill also was charged with robbery, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and residential burglary, while Cooper and Brittany Covington were charged with residential burglary.

The victim, an 18-year-old man reported missing by his parents in Crystal Lake this week, is shown crouching in a corner on a video carried on Facebook Live.  His wrists are bound and his mouth is taped shut.

As a woman shoots the video, two men cut the man's shirt with knives, then take turns punching him and stomping his head.  One of the men cuts the victim’s hair and scalp with a knife, and it appears the man is bleeding.

As the man crouches against a wall, someone shouts, “F‑‑‑ Donald Trump” and “F‑‑‑ white people.”

The attackers on the video appear to be black and the man appears to be white, though police declined at a news conference Wednesday evening to give the race of the attackers or the victim. The attack appears to have taken place on the West Side...

Still more.

And at Memeorandum.

Chicago Teens Post Racially-Motivated Hate Crime Against Special Needs Man on Facebook (VIDEO)

It's black Chicago teens. This is the real racism in America today, not the alleged racist fascist Nazi violence of Donald Trump supporters.

This is the logical result of the left's cancerous politics of hatred and division.

Dana Loesch is sickened and angry, plus the CBS News 2 Chicago report below:

What is WRONG with people???? Sickening. I’ll discuss this tomorrow on air.https://t.co/wHatqbJwp0

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) January 5, 2017

This is the result of shilling identity politics 24-7. People making bank off of division. It’s a hurt and rescue scheme. No $ w/o conflict.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) January 5, 2017

A rant. Read it. https://t.co/xizlsSCeyv

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) January 5, 2017

If you’re angry at these words but not the incident they discuss, your’e part of the problem.https://t.co/xizlsSCeyv#BLMKidnapping

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) January 5, 2017

& don’t troll me with your stolen Google images. You bots are so basic. If ur fighting me, ur not fighting the left, so u picked your side.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) January 5, 2017

It's even sicker: The white victim of the kidnap-torture attack has special needs. https://t.co/xXhF2gaAYk

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 4, 2017

More at World Star Hip Hop, "Chicago Teens Allegedly Kidnapped a Man and Beat Him on Facebook Live!"

Full video here.

Refuse Fascism

Following-up from previously, "Fascism vs. Right-Wing Populism."

I think it's important to nail down exactly what we're talking about. Professor Sheri Berman is right that Donald Trump and right-wing populist movements are not fascist. She's wrong when she demonizes Trump and right-wing populists as threat to current democratic norms and institutions.

Getting these things right is particularly important, since the smear of "fascism" is being thrown around like so much confetti on New Year's Eve.

Here's this big push by the leftist interested group "Refuse Fascism," which published a full-page advertisement in today's New York Times.

As I've said, Trump's not fascist. But if leftists keep pushing and pushing, publishing these smears in all the "correct" outlets, then even your non-political teenybopper down at the mall with be denouncing Trump supporters as "fascist" threats to the "democratic order."

Talk about fake news. Sheesh.

See, "Call to Action to STOP Trump and Pence BEFORE they Come to Power."

Call to Action 2 STOP #Trump #Pence BEFORE #J20 published today in @nytimes! Say NO! Read-sign-spread #NoFascistUSA https://t.co/9mZtw9tTBZ pic.twitter.com/DnPAw4PceL

— #NoFascistUSA (@RefuseFascism) January 4, 2017

(Frankly, since the election, the most significant threats to democratic norms --- like the legitimacy of the Electoral College --- have come from the left. But that doesn't matter to all the "correct" people at the "correct" outlets and institutions, like the MSM and academe. Frankly, the truth doesn't matter to the left, unless it's a truth that advances their agenda. We're in for a wild ride.)

Fascism vs. Right-Wing Populism

Sheri Berman is an excellent political scientist. I like her work a lot. But in two recent pieces on the surge in populism she can't resolve some key inconsistencies in her writing. The main thing is (1) she wants to argue Donald Trump (and right-wing populists in Europe) are not fascist, but (2) this same surging "right-wing [populist] extremism," in Berman's terminology, is still a threat to democracy.

I don't think you can have it both ways. For Berman, if the structural variables that were present in the Interwar period in Europe --- countries in physical ruin after WWI, extreme economic crisis, including the Great Depression, the breakdown of traditional hierarchy, especially aristocracy, absent the consolidation of democratic regimes --- were present today, we'd see the return of fascism.

She doesn't say in so many words, though. She only goes so far as to say that Trump and European "right-wing extremists" threaten current democratic norms and should be challenged, lest they threaten the democratic order.

See for example, Berman's piece from the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs, "Populism Is Not Fascism," and especially the conclusion:

The best way to ensure that the [Marine] Le Pens and Trumps of the world go down in history as also-rans rather than as real threats is to make democratic institutions, parties, and politicians more responsive to the needs of all citizens. In the United States, for example, rising inequality, stagnating wages, deteriorating communities, congressional gridlock, and the flow of big money to campaigns have played a bigger role in fueling support for Trump than his purported charisma or the supposed authoritarian leanings of his supporters. Tackling those problems would no doubt help prevent the rise of the next Trump.

History also shows that conservatives should be particularly wary of embracing right-wing populists. Mainstream Republicans who make bogus claims about voter fraud, rigged elections, and the questionable patriotism and nationality of President Barack Obama in order to appeal to the extremist fringes are playing an extremely dangerous game, since such rhetoric fans citizens’ fear and distrust of their politicians and institutions, thus undermining their faith in democracy itself. And just like their interwar counter­parts, these conservatives are also likely enhancing the appeal of politicians who have little loyalty to the conservatives’ own policies, constituencies, or institutions.

Right-wing populism—indeed, populism of any kind—is a symptom of democracy in trouble; fascism and other revolutionary movements are the consequence of democracy in crisis. But if governments do not do more to address the many social and economic problems the United States and Europe currently face, if mainstream politicians and parties don’t do a better job reaching out to all citizens, and if conservatives continue to fan fear and turn a blind eye to extremism, then the West could quickly find itself moving from the former to the latter.

Actually, democracy is not in trouble.

Donald Trump is not an "also-ran" but the president-elect who will take office as the 45th president of the U.S. on January 20th.

Berman's problem, I would argue, is that she sees populist rejection of left-wing policies as threats to democracy. They are not.

Her other piece, which specifies the nature of fascism much better than at Foreign Affairs, is at Vox, "Donald Trump isn’t a fascist."

The always excellent Sheri Berman: Trump is a right-wing populist, not a fascist. https://t.co/CyQgOcBQcH

— Daniel Nexon (@dhnexon) January 3, 2017

It's good, but like I said, Berman fails to persuasively explain why so called "extreme" right-wing populist movements threaten democracy.

These movements, at least in the U.S., don't even threaten democratic norms, and her examples (like Trump's rejection of intelligence findings on Russian hacking) aren't in fact cases of deviations from such norms. And of course, the same things that Berman claims right-wing populist are doing, like rejecting election results, are exactly what Democrats and leftists have done since the election. So, why aren't far-left movements, socialism, neo-communism, and anti-neo-liberalism, in fact threats to democracy? The reason is that leftists have double-standards, and for them threats to democratic norms are only seen when populists reject leftist policies.

Until Berman and others can offer an even-handed argument for fascism vs. right-wing populism (or left-wing populism, for that matter), their commentary and research will be rejected as nothing more than partisan hackery.