Enabling the Perpetual Political Pendulum
(Part Two of Three)

Excerpted from The Unfounding of America, by Michael Russell
TheSecondDeclaration.org

I had a friend, now deceased, who for 27 years was a prospector in the Yukon Territory. We met in the Alaska Interior in 1995, where he lived with his wife in a rough log cabin forty minutes by road from the nearest town. I fondly recall conversations about life, philosophy, politics, grizz, gold, and my friend's failing heart, but most poignantly I remember his answer to my question about where to find gold. With the certainty of a man who knows from long experience the conditions required to repeat a previous achievement, he replied, "I can't say where you're gonna find it, but I can say where you're not gonna."

Since the principles responsible for the creation of America are required in equal measure to sustain America, it is not difficult to identify behaviors, ideas, actions, and policies that are not gonna save America, and to see that the list is long. Prolific among these "not gonnas" are "pushing back" against unconstitutional government aggression when only an aggression-ending counter-blow will do; "just doing" one's taxpayer-funded job while denying personal moral responsibility; enlisting unformed minds to engage in conflicts requiring mature powers of discernment; attaching political-party allegiance to judicial and law-enforcement careers; attempting to parry one brand of journalistic bias with another brand rather than with unfailing objective presentment; framing life-or-death-consequence ideas as shows; sanctioning the politicization of group identity; failing to separate Church from State in earnest political discussion; casually and incrementally trading autonomy for convenience; lending one's name to pro-censorship media enterprises while claiming to be opposed to censorship; and, most self-destructively, substituting "I know" for "they say" in matters of life and liberty.

Topping the list in the realm of political representation, however, is evaluating political candidates by what they say rather than by who they demonstrably are. Why do voters seldom seem to grasp that hearing what they want to hear from someone who knows what they want to hear should result not in the gift of a vote, but in a healthy skepticism demanding answers to critical questions?

Is it, for example, relevant that the Republican candidate for America's forty-fifth presidency had as a private citizen sought and been granted the unconstitutional eminent-domain seizure of private property for the construction of his private casino? That his mentor had been the cartoonishly corrupt political fixer Roy Cohn, chief legal counsel to Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, eventually a New York Mafia-boss lawyer? That he had been rescued from massive failed-business debt by the globalist Rothschild corporation? Or from a casino-investment disaster by globalist Carl Icahn? Or that his biggest campaign donor was Israel First casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson? Or that a pharmaceuticals giant kicked in a cool million?

Should it come as a surprise that this Artist of the Deal, once elected, rewarded a Rothschild functionary with a Commerce Secretary appointment? Or that Savior Carl, informally made Special Adviser on Regulatory Reform, dodged a multimillion-dollar steel-stock loss by selling just before his quid-pro-quo Pres announced a steel-imports tariff? Or that Pal Sheldon, described at the time by columnist Timothy Egan as "now having more influence on American foreign policy than even the Secretary of State," was granted his wish to have the American Embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and Neocon John Bolton appointed National Security Advisor?

Should it come as a surprise that The Don's Operation Vax-the-Nation — with his "millions of lives saved" claims despite mountains of evidence proving not only efficacy failure but tragic side-effect harm — netted massive taxpayer-extorted profits for pharmaceutical giants? Or that while bestowing presidential pardons to financial criminals and Israeli spies he chose not to pardon Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, two men whose "crimes" were the courageous exposition of the government corruption candidate Trump had promised to eradicate? Or that his alleged Christianity flowered just in time to warm Christian Conservatives?

This president, after campaigning on a what-we-desperately-wanted-to-hear promise to rid Washington of "swamp" creatures, promptly surrounded himself with swamp creatures only to later claim he didn't know they were swamp creatures.

Really?

Is it possible, after a half century of eyeballs-deep immersion in billion-dollar loans, favor swapping, influence peddling, palm greasing, reality-show posing, bankruptcy deflecting, platinum-plated shoulder rubbing, and personalized tutoring by a scumbag political-fixer Mafia lawyer, that this America First pretender did not then and does not now know the game, its players, and his part? That his comical need for an ego-affirming spotlight any way he can get it is not a telling indicator of the all-about-me force that drives him?

No, it is not possible.

And yet, massive crowds of trusting hopeful Americans would rather believe what they want to hear than credit the orator's history as relevant to probable outcome.

Question: What does "Make America Great Again" mean?

Answer: Whatever anyone wants "great" to mean.

By natural extension it is assumed that its contriver intended that particular meaning. Leaving aside the contriver's annoying use of the word "great" to describe whatever pleases or serves — he's great, she's great, it's great, you're great, we're great — and that his devotees enthusiastically imagine strategic reasons for his seat-of-the-pants, speak-first-think-later blunders — as if, preposterously, the man is "playing 5D chess" — it is obvious that to Donald Trump "Make America Great" means "Make America Useful."

Useful to whom?

To anyone the Trump Package owes. And if voters derive a term or two of Political Pendulum-granted benefits, well, "Thanks for voting MAGA."

That so many believe the answer to a presidential cadaver is a reality-show opportunist — who compared to the men who made America possible is a spoiled plump child in a red-white-and-blue sailor suit — is as telling an indicator of the health of America as is her debased culture. And since the first step toward recovery from any condition of critical diminution is to unsparingly name the condition, Part Three of this essay will do so.

(to be continued)