It’s a sad World when the “Not Crazy” flag isn’t safe to fly. The Dems are going to get so hosed in this election they may be forever erased?

Klobuchar was a disaster. She seemed to be on the verge of tears when both the Univision reporter and Buttigieg were bullying her. She needed Warren to come in and defend her. How on earth can anyone look at that woman and see presidential material? Trump would destroy her.

Warren came off the best, just in terms of debating. She was clearly the smartest and most prepared person on the stage. Bloomberg was actually pretty terrible – he let Warren push him around. On Stop and Frisk he is now occupying the worst position of all politically – he won’t claim it worked and he won’t do penance. He just looks weak and flailing. Same on the NDAs. Never apologize – the one lesson you would think Trump would be teaching older male politicians – Bloomberg doesn’t get it. Sanders does get it – do you think he is going to apologize for his idiotic far lefty 1980 positions on the USSR, Nicaragua or even Venezuela now? of course not.

For Gen Xers and our television addled brains it is fairly clear that Bloomberg is Mr Burns, and Warren is Lisa Simpson.

Biden at least beat the low expectations barrier – he didn’t sound demented, he made a few points. He is arguably still alive once Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Warren drop out.

“A Bloomberg White House would be busy 24/7 doing all sorts of things…”

Wouldn’t somebody have to vote for him? The two most popular contenders for 2020 are Bernie and Trump. Republicans won’t vote for Mike. Deplorables won’t vote for Mike. Bernie’s Bros won’t vote for Mike.

Did you notice Bernie winning a majority of Latino’s? This caused me to break out my ceremonial whisky. Soon the Clintonistas will be demanding a border wall.

” I watched the whole thing—all two hours—with fascinated attention.”

John, I told you that watching TV would hypnotize you. Do you believe me now?

“The country at large agreed with me. Almost twenty million people tuned in to Wednesday’s debate, making it the most-watched Democratic candidates’ debate ever, according to NBC.”

Wait now, didn’t you mean that NBC agreed with you? It’s probably more likely that nowhere near 20 million tuned in and of those who did, most of them changed channels or fell asleep within 10 minutes

“I’m sorry, but I think there is some serious wishful thinking going on there. I watched the whole debate with keen attention, and I didn’t think Bloomberg came out of it too badly.”

There’s that hypnotism thing again. Watching TV will make anyone delusional. I hope you swear off of it and manage to recover somehow.

With respect to Bloomberg’s performance, the people wagering money agree the debate was a disaster for him. If you check out https://www.electionbettingodds.com/DemPrimary2020.html#chart

Bloomberg was around 30% before the debate, and 20% after. I wasn’t aware of any major press releases about the candidates during that time, so attribute the shift in betting to his debate performance.

(there is a slider below the graph that lets you zoom in to just examine the past few weeks)

And now let this be the first place you were warned of the looming threat of a Bloombergshchina, in which all the executive and judicial powers of the centralized state are used energetically and ruthlessly to crush all dissent from Politically Correct orthodoxy.

Thanks for putting “Bloombergshchina” in writing. I listened twice at Radio Derb, but its clearer in writing.

I consider myself well warned.

Agreed, although he should have had a response ready about the NDAs going into the debate; that was his one really bad moment. I liked his Turbo Tax line.

Well, the Dems may splinter and be only one of four or five major parties scrapping for a piece of the pie in a declining America. But that doesn’t mean good news for republicans, or for any party that claims to be “conservative” or “American-nationalist or not hostile to white people.

At “best” the Dems could split into a more explicitly socialist party and an establishment party. The Dems could even split into African, Latino, and Asian parties. This could be likelier if reduced social trust, increased racial “diversity”, truly widespread poverty, and increased violent crime cause people instinctively to become more tribal and “circle the wagons.”

As a practical matter, Latinos, of whom a substantial plurality hav a working knowledge of Spanish (accentuating the difference between them and others), will be the majority in California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, maybe Colorado, New York, and Florida. Why would they be willing to let Africans continue getting such a disproportionate share of government jobs? As another 30 million Latinos acquire citizenship and, say, 20 million register to vote, Africans will no longer be the dominant force in the Democrat party and its primary elections.

The African advantage over US-born Hispanics in total fertility rate, will be easily outweighed by the continuing massive Latino advantage in immigration numbers.

If Africans see that their monolithic block vote for the democrats no longer gets them such a share of the loot, they may leave and form their own party.

Conversely, if the dem party keeps giving Africans a wildly disproportionate share of government jobs, Latinos could get tired of it and form their own, larger party. (And those government jobs will be more important than ever as fewer private-sector,jobs offer a pension and good benefits, and as more private-sector jobs are eliminated by automation and artificial intelligence.)

So you worked with big bankers and you expect to be taken seriously.

Rarely do things get “forever erased”.

One could have said that about the Democrats in 1972 and one would, of course, have been wrong.

The country has been through a civil war that split the Democrats and yet the party survived that. It also survived its transition from “Solid South” to party of diversity. A specific set of circumstances led to the replacement of the Whigs by the Republicans. What specific set of circumstances do we see that would herald the implosion of the Democrats. After all, as things stand now, regardless of what happens in the short term, the demographics are on their side in the long term.

“The Dems are going to get so hosed in this election they may be forever erased”

I believe that is not accurate.

Trump is not wildly popular, and he has been unsuccessful at most of what he has attempted. His crudity and name-calling have grown into a source of embarrassment for many also.

Even Clint Eastwood has given up on him while calling attention to his name-calling and tweeting insanity.

Remember, Trump is a minority President. His base is not large enough to elect him. That’s why he pulled in anti-war people not otherwise in his base in 2016, but he has sure let those people down.

Bernie has a real chance of defeating Trump because Bernie inspires the young and energetic.

If they turn out in good numbers, it can be decisive.

Who else do the Democrats have? There’s absolutely no excitement about Buttigieg or Bloomberg or Warren or Biden. None.

Tulsi Gabbard is a very attractive politician, but the Democratic establishment virtually removed her from the race.

They are now working against Bernie with Bloomberg and Buttigieg, but they are not having a lot of success. However, if Bernie doesn’t get enough votes in the primaries for a first-ballot convention victory, a brokered convention kicks in, and establishment forces will almost certainly displace him.

Bernie is called a socialist, but he is not one. He’s an old-fashioned progressive.

Remember, Trump is a minority President. His base is not large enough to elect him. That’s why he pulled in anti-war people not otherwise in his base in 2016, but he has sure let those people down.

True, but it was his in-your-face immigration stance that appealed to a majority of his voters. And he has definitely let those people down.

Remember that nearly every 2015 and 2016 Trump rally had chants of “Build the Wall!” with Trump saying, “And who’s gonna pay for it?!” with the crowd responding wildly and enthusiastically screaming, “MEXICO!” Trump has lost alot of these voters who will just sit out the election as they did before Trump came along. He’s just another BS politician regardless of his party affiliation.

Trump would be crushed by a non-insane, Democrat candidate who strongly opposed open borders. But that matchup ain’t gonna happen.

The dimocrat establishment is desperate to rid themselves of Saunders. However, it won’t be as easy this time as it was the last to steal the nomination from him and this time I doubt Saunders would once again go quietly into that dark night that awaits him should he fail to get the nomination.

Bloomberg provides a possible way out of this predicament for the dimocrat establishment. They would be very happy with Bloomberg, who agrees 100% with them on all the issues that are important to them. Furthermore, as has been discussed, Bloomberg is a masterful uber-bureaucrat apparatchik, who could probably accomplish much while in office.

The dimocrat establishment will keep quietly backing Bloomberg in the hope that this may lead to a brokered convention where they will have their way. But I suspect that there may be an occult and darker side to this whole strategy. If Bloomberg gets the nomination, the establishment strategy will be to pick either Warren or Clinton as Bloomberg’s VP running mate. This will assuage at least some of the dimocrats’ rad-prog base and ensure the support of the party’s female contingent.

A ticket like this might possibly beat Trump and this scares the hell out of me.

Bloomberg got pwned by the hectoring school librarian.
This pic > 1,000 words. She’s looking down at him.

“Big Mike is watching you. Er watching out for you.”

“The Dems are going to get so hosed in this election they may be forever erased?”

We live in hope, Renoman.

Not even Tucker Carlson will “speak frankly abut race and crime,” nor would he be alloed to do so by his bosses even if he wanted to tell the truth about black and brown violence and criminality. And if he did so in private, just once to the wrong person/persons, he’d be fired and his show would be cacelled and he’d be devastaed financially and professionally.

Imagine the impact if Tucker Carlson, Mark Steyn, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbough, Sean Hannity, Lew Dobbs, and most or many Republicans and conservatives suddenly began to tell the truth about black and Mestizos/Amerendian violence and criminality and also average Negro intelligence and black and “Hispanic” culture as the predominant causes of this violence and criminality, and were allowed to do so by their bosses and fellow conservative and Republicans.

And also, especialy in the UK and Western Europe, the truth about Islam and Islmaic culture in regard to acts of terroism and the epidemic of acid and knife attacks in London and Rotherham, Telford, Oxford, etc., the epidemic of rapes in Sweden and the sexual assaults of hundreds of German women in girls in Cologne and other German cities, and much else.

But that will never happen, of course. Instead they say nothing or argue that leftists and Democrats are the “real racists” and denounce Bloomberg for simply telling the truth about black and Mestizo/Amerindian crime statistics in NYC without mentioning the biological and cultural-political determinants.

“Warren came off the best, just in terms of debating. She was clearly the smartest and most prepared person on the stage.”

Were they really that bad? Lord help us when Liz Warren is the smartest person in any gaggle of candidates. The woman is an absolute mongoloid and you and renfro were impressed with her “intelligence”.

I know that there has to be a very low standard for democrat candidates, but debating which of them is the smartest is like debating which turd is a nicer shade of brown.

Bloomberg let himself be humbled. He had to shake his image of being an uncaring elitist. Now he can join Bernie as his vice president. Bloomberg will remain tough on black and latino crime. Trumps base will defect if Bloomberg changes his anti-gun and open border statements.

“the country at large”?

20 out of 330 = about 6.6%.

Warren blew a big chance: she should have brought a box for the malignant dwarf to stand on. Just leveling the playing field.

Bernie is a mortal lock.

Good point. 6.6% is hardly “the country at large”, if the claim of 20 million is even true. John references NBC which is, of course, a bastion of veracity.

MiniMike standing on a box, stammering in reply to Liz’s retarded comments: now there’s a priceless picture.

On Fox News, Mondy 2/17/2020, sancitmonious race-denying ignoramus and broken record Sean Hannity was “shocked” and appalled and entraged that Michael Bloomberg, in defending “stop-and-frisk” as Mayor of New York, told the truth about black and “Hispanic” crime statistics, yelling and talking as if what he said was false and that the crime rates of whites in NY and other cities were roughly equal to those of blacks and “Hispanics.

And he was “shocked” and appalled on Tuesday and Wednesfay and Thursday and Fridayevery day, saying one night that he’s lived in many cities and knows that whites commit crimes -implying, slanderously and ludicrously, that Bloomberg thinks whites commit few if any crimes. He also argued that if blacks commit more crimes than whites, the cause is not race but “socio-economic status. The implication is if whites and blacks are exactly the same part from skin-colore and ther superficial bodily differences, but blacks as a group commit far more crimes and are far more impoverished, the reason is “racism,” systemic and structural, and discrimination -after over half a century of systematic reverse-discrimination against whites, especially white males: e.g., quotas, “set-asides,” “affirmative action,” double standards, preferential treamtent.

And not having a car or a radio at home, I don’t know what he said, exactly and in detail, during the week on his 3-radio broadcast, doubtless much of the same, likely some or much of it even worse. So his views on race are the same, essentially, as his leftist adversaries.

How has Trump let the anti-war people down? He’s started one less war than Obama, who overthrew Gaddaafi (to deafening silence from progressives).

He also stopped funding Al-Qaeda in Syria, the same Al-Qaeda Obama lavished with all sorts of lethal goodies. And launched fewer drone strikes in Yemen, and cut aid to Afghanistan. (Recall Obama’s surge there)

I’d say he’s batting over .300 compared to sub-Mendoza Obama.

But then, you’re just another Philip Giraldi who sees what you want to see. The giveaway is you lodge the same kinds of vacuous complaints (“crudity,” “tweeting insanity”) that signify nothing and do zero to build your case. And LOL at the Clint Eastwood mention.

It hardly matters whether Bloomberg did well at the debate. Clever rejoinders, high-minded lefty principles are unimportant. That stuff can come later. The first, most important thing is that Bloomberg gives the Dems their best chance to grab overwhelming power. He’ll fork over his billions, and the left will lap it up. Not to mention that he gives the Wicked Witch of the West another chance to ooze into the White House on his coattails. Bernie and his soyBros will be handed a few hundred million to slink away, quietly or otherwise; if they don’t like it, certain measures can always be taken. Hell, they can appeal to his vanity and offer him a cabinet position to make him stop squawking.

Then come election time, the left knows every trick in the book to steal votes. They’ve practiced diligently over the years, and have their networks already in place. With Bloomberg money they’ll pull out all the stops. Bloomberg could yet usher in the final death of America, and the only thing that could counteract it is Civil War II.

“Trump is lazy, inattentive, and easily swayed… So far as he has any ideas at all, he is mostly on our side; but he hasn’t sufficiently mastered the machinery of executive politics, or perhaps just isn’t interested enough, to actually do very much on our behalf”…and whose “our side” is it for which he should be doing so much on behalf of? The Israel Lobby that Derbystein is always sucking up to? Actually, Pres.Trump has done very much for your side as the latest sham ‘peace plan’ attests; & all the other sell-outs to your side that preceded it. And maybe that’s why ‘da’ Derb’ has a soft spot for Matzo Mike too, who just last month declared to a Jewish audience, “So it’s with a personal attachment to Israel that I say: As president, I will always have Israel’s back. I will never impose conditions on our military aid, including missile defense – no matter who is Prime Minister. And I will never walk away from our commitment to guarantee Israel’s security.” So if there’s a ‘Bloombergshchina’, it’s more likely to be one in which “all the executive and judicial powers of the centralized state are used energetically and ruthlessly to crush all dissent from” Israel first. Which should make Derbyshylock very happy.

There is a reason why Warren is a senator and a professor. She would probably smoke every one of the 2016 Republican candidates on a standard IQ test. That doesn’t mean that she would be a good President of course, but it is well past time people stop confusing their political biases with intelligence. Both Lenin and Churchill were born within 4 years of each other and both almost certainly had IQs > 130. Did they come to anything like similar conclusions about how the world works? Not at all.

“20 out of 330 = about 6.6%”

No. 20/330 = 6.06%, not 6.6%.
A calculator is a reader’s tool, kind of like having a dictionary handy.

“Tje Dems are going to get so hosed in this electin they may be forever erased.” The Democratic party is in “terrible shape,” in “chaos” and “disarray,” “imploding,” etc., as hosts and guests on Fox and others tell us every day and night. And, contra “the Derb” and demographics, whoever is the nominee in 2020, probably Bernie if they fail to derail his campaign, will almost surely lose to Trump on November 3. But given the invasion of millions of legal and illegal aliens that will soon transform the U.S. into a nonwhite-majority hell-hole and dystopia, the future of the naiton and culture belongs to leftists and Democrats, overwhelmingly and increasingly nonwhite, who are and will be even more radical and extreme and anti-white than the likes of Sanders and Warren and ultimately even the likes of Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.

That’s why he pulled in anti-war people not otherwise in his base in 2016, but he has sure let those people down.

Then they are stupid. Trump has been the most peaceable US President in many decades. Indeed, he has been one of the most peaceable leaders of the major power in human history. This has been his prime achievement. It is in immigration that he has failed.

The Israel lobby isn’t successful because they are immensely powerful and dealing with an important issue. They succeed because they have minor power but deal with a very minor issue.

The US effort for Israel consists of kind words/hit air and a rounding error in the US budget. It is hardly Bloombergshchina.

Exactly. White America elected affirmative action President Obama expecting, finally, an end to being called “racist.” It didn’t work out that way, but our political and cultural “leaders” still won’t lead, leaving the field to the cowards and race traitors among us and to the white suburban soccer moms who support them.

All together, everybody: “Kumbaya!”

I fear you may be right. It’s possible that Bloomberg will spend billions to buy the nomination and steal it from Bernie and defeat Trump on November 3. I doubt that a cranky old Jewish commie who honeymooned in the Soviet Union (did he visit the gulag?) would defeat Trump and become the first Jewish and communist President. But Bloomberg, who is sane and “centrist”/”moderate,” compared to Bernie and Warren, could defeat Trump. Bernie’s fanatical Leninist-Trotskyite supporters, Jewish and gentile, who talk of enslaving and reeducating millions of “Nazis” and Trump supporters in concentratio camps and burning down Milwaukee if Bernie is denied the nomination, would be enraged. But giving them millions of dollars to pacify them and the lure of power and influence in a Bloomberg administration could encourage most of them to vote for a multi-billionaire they detest.

Both Lenin and Churchill were born within 4 years of each other and both almost certainly had IQs > 130. Did they come to anything like similar conclusions about how the world works? Not at all.

Actually, there’s rather a lot of similarity between the two murderous bastards.

Sanity is a weakness for a Democratic candidate and getting pummeled by the likes of Elizabeth Warren is a weakness for everybody else.

Including Rand Paul and Ted Cruz?

Sir Derb misses the real question: whether the tribe feels secure enough to install one of their own (Bolshie Bernie or Billions Bloomie) in the White Hooch, or thinks its time is not quite here yet and sticks with their crypto-jew useful idiot, Trumpstein. The tribe owns the media, finance, and both political parties……so with a little effort, TV time, and lots of money could easily repackage Bernie or Bloomie as the “new FDR”…….the working man’s friend and champion of the all those left behind by the STEM racketeers. Toss in all the aggrieved special interest groups and you come up with a plurality of voters. A stock market crash and recession could easily be engineered by the tribe …….and the masses of asses would demand real change. Or maybe a little corona virus unleashed in say Des Moines would turn the public mood surly with a demand for a new direction. And voila….the yid takeover of the US would be complete…..the official arrival of the New Jerusalem.

“I normally report on these events in world-weary mode, telling you how much I hate them and what a struggle I had to keep awake.”

I’ve got the cure for this problem. You and your Chinese family must move to China. China has only one political party and a dictator so politics will be easy for you to follow. Your sleep will improve.

Also, your Chinese family can help the other Chinese affected by the coronavirus.

“I want an immigration moratorium…” I do too, but we have to repatriate non-Western people from America. This means your Chinese family has to go to China. You can help America by helping your Chinese family move to China.

They both knew that power comes from the barrel of a gun.

Bloomberg did well, but Buttigeg scored with the best zinger of the night.

After talking how the party was being hijacked by a socialist and a billionaire Republican ex-mayor, he asked, “Aren’t we supposed to be nominating a Democrat?”

Attila cracks me up.
Although I actually agree with her overall point that Derb’s interracial marriage seems to stand in stark contrast with the white and “citizenist” positions touted on Unz, her obsession with Derbyshire’s Chinese wife and kids has to be driven by some issue much larger and personal than the actual man himself. At the risk of being rude, Attila please tell us what that issue is. Did your father or some other significant white male figure in your life abandon you for an Asian woman?

Each achieved mastery, Lenin of the Soviet Union, Churchill leadership of the Allies, deftly pulling the strings of CharlieM…..FDR

LOL!!! There are no Chinese in my family.

The issue I have with Derbyshire is his statement that Asians are smarter than Caucasians. https://www.unz.com/jderbyshire/of-course-harvard-discriminates-against-asians/

This is so incredibly stupid that the only reason he could make such a statement is because he really believes he imported a better genetic race into the West. The West is not black/Asian/Jewish/Muslim. Blacks/Asians/Jews/Muslims had nothing to do with the development of Western civilization. When he scribbles about his asinine Asian-Artic alliance, he cannot see that his own Chinese family would never be part of such an alliance. They are Chinese and believe they are superior to Westerners. Derbyshire never scribbles about the Chinese entering the country illegally and stealing our technology. He wants more Chinese in the West. This would make his Chinese family feel more at home.

I point out his Chinese family in case there are new readers. When I first started reading Derbyshire, I did not know about his Chinese family. At first I thought, he was really interested in saving the West. When I found about his Chinese family and his fear of the Jews, I realized this guy is a loser.

Another example of Derbyshire degeneracy is Elizabeth Warren. When she babbled about being American Indian, it didn’t matter. American Indians are not a thing. However, her daughter Amelia Tyagi is married to an East Indian guy and she has East Indian offspring. There are pictures online of her daughter’s family.

Always cherchez la femme/le homme/la famille of a person.

I am only for the West and will expose anyone who is working against it. If you cannot say that the West is the best, you do not belong in the West.

Fair response to my post. I agree with your observation – who a person chooses to create a family with speaks much truth about their real positions on important issues like race. I used to live in the Bay Area and got a real kick out of the black panther types walking around with their white blonde girlfriends in dashikis and kente cloths. Knew immediately that whole movement was a fraud.

>>Bloomberg did well, but Buttigeg scored with the best zinger of the night.

After talking how the party was being hijacked by a socialist and a billionaire Republican ex-mayor, he asked, “Aren’t we supposed to be nominating a Democrat?”<<

That would have qualified as a zinger 15 years ago. Now, no. The two big American political parties have always been coalitions of people with some similar ideas, some not. As the neocons and Deep State operators became more entrenched, both parties lost focus and effectively splintered. The Dems by Identity Marxist politics (gender, race, sexuality) which has crushed the classic economic basis (labor versus business) and even social divides (who cares about pot? Abortion? gays?). Now the Dems are bonkers for zero borders (gee, what about pandemics? *crickets*) and pro criminal measures (let them vote, no bail, live anywhere they like for free, etc.). Oh, and free stuff for everyone, just don't ask who's going to pay.

Trump came along and crushed the Old GOP. They were exhausted and intellectually bankrupt. Mitt Romney? Jesus, just some nutty rich guy who somehow passed himself off as a conservative.

So the GOP and Dems have lost most of their prior meaning. Trump once was a Democrat, Bloomberg won office as a Republican. The new reality. Buttigieg's crack seems funny only to those of us boomers and maybe Gen Xers. To everyone else, it makes little sense or irony.

Agree. I don’t care about Trump’s tweets or his poking fun at politicians who attacked him. He hasn’t started any wars and Hillary would have started several. I don’t believe Putin did anything that was a big deal to interfere in the 2016 election but keeping Hillary Clinton out of the presidency was justified if he had. Moving the Israeli embassy turned out to be no big deal.

Of course I have complaints about Trump. The daughter and her husband shouldn’t be senior advisors in the White House. They are political negatives and even Biden used them to deflect from his own son being a crook. I didn’t like it when he went on about his great heart for the Dreamers. It’s offensive that 2 years in a row at the SOTU he’s had Congress applaud criminals he released from prison.

All of the Democrats are so much worse. The Kavanagh episode — Not one Democrat in the Senate believes that man ever tried to rape anyone. The ones who are former prosecutors know they would never have touched such idiotic lies. Going along with that story said a lot about character.

The issue I have with Derbyshire is his statement that Asians are smarter than Caucasians.

Well, if we’re taking you as evidence….

Are you an Asian poontanger?

A Western movement means defending all Western people. There will be some lower IQ people, i.e., you, but if you are Western you belong. Asians will never belong

You’re another cucked Western male looking for an excuse not to fight for the West.

And you’re a stupid, pathetic little prick. Derbyshire hardly makes a secret of his marriage; he writes about his wife all the time. Anyone but an idiot, e.g. you, would become aware that he’d married a Chinese woman right away. Also, he writes interesting and entertaining things, as opposed to posting variations on the same goddammed comment over and over again.

If you’re unwilling to do the right thing (namely, hang yourself), why not just post “DERB MARRIED A CHINK!” in every thread? You’ll save time.

Once again, you prove your low IQ and cuckery.

When I first started occasionally reading Derbyshire on VDare (about 10 years ago), I don’t recall him mentioning his wife. It is only in the past five years that he has been scribbling a great deal about his Chinese woman and offspring. Many other commentators were surprised to find out he was married to a Chinese woman.

The Takimag website used to have a comments section. Derbyshire’s columns were published at one time and I would comment that whatever he scribbles is nonsense because of his Chinese woman and family. Except for the insane anti-Semitic commentators at Takimag, the next most insane and degenerate commentators were those involved with Asian females. Your response is mild compared to the ones I read about me at Takimag.

“If you’re unwilling to do the right thing (namely, hang yourself)…” I’ll leave the vulgar language to buffoons like you. I am doing the right thing by continously exposing the degenerate Derbyshire. Also, I am exposing the type of people who run VDare. VDare is Jew-controlled opposition.

Liberals should be getting nervous. They seem to take this nonsense about “progress” and “progresiveism” seriously. There are some areas where there is real verifiable progress. For example my first personal computer was a an Altair. I now have a computer called a cell phone that is maybe a billion (trillion?) times more powerful and useful. But in political and social areas there has been vanishingly small real progress. There has been some. For example we are generally less harsh than we were previously, as Steven Pinker keeps writing (at great length). In the the twelfth century England introduced judicial torture as a reform. Previously trial by ordeal was considerably more nasty. So in some areas things are getting better. Progress.

But in many areas we have progress in one direction followed soon by progress in the other opposite direction. When I was a youngster I accepted that sexual etiquette was becoming freer. We all knew that we were living in a sexual revolution. Later however, I learned that Elizabethans were lusty and quite unlike Victorians. We used to be loose and free about sex in the sixties but we are entering a neo-Victorian phase (see Harvey Weinstein). There is no true progress in these matters, just oscillation.

We used to be open and accepting about race. It’s easy to demonstrate that the most humane and decent treatment of slaves throughout the six millennia of slavery was in that brief period in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in the American South. The Middle Passage was not a pleasant means of travel but it was far less painful and deadly than the march across the Sahara into Arab lands. An American cotton plantation was infinitely preferable to an ancient Roman latifundia or a Caribbean or Brazilian sugar plantation. The Arabs castrated their black slaves. Others in the Americas simply worked them to death and ordered some more. But in the American South in the best plantations there were united families, good food, good housing, medical care, religious instruction and more. The current US liberals spread the fiction that American slavery was the most brutal period in world history whereas it was undoubtedly the most humane and civilized. Slavery is bad and we should be glad that it is mostly gone now and we shouldn’t lie about it.

So I’m expecting a major reversal in race relations. We today have blacks killing whites and feeling good about it. But attitudes can change. Al Jolson is excoriated today for appearing in black face. But what was he singing about? Hatred for the black man? Nope. He sang as an ersatz black man about his love for his mother. He sang a whole series of sentimental pop songs flattering to black sensibilities. The reality is that blacks kill, rape and rob at rates that set them apart from Caucasians and East Asians – five to ten times the rate of heinous crime among the advanced races. This is the reality. Some day this reality will reemerge. Maybe we’ll get some new songs too.

I like Bloomberg too. He doesn’t seem to care whether he is well liked or not, a good quality in a politician.