As IF Times

Source: Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy – The Washington Post

Now that The Donald has secured the GOP nomination for President,  the onslaught from the mainstream media outlets begins. They’ve clearly put as much thought into their attacks as Trump puts into any given speech.  While Trump just riffs off his original main theme of Make America Great Again, the media seems to subscribe to a central talking point source for their material. Observe the following headlines from the ‘major’ news outlets:

We know that the news business is not exactly robust these days, especially among the liberal outlets and now we know why.  As these headlines from the different sources show, there’s no need to read all of them.  If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.  This could in fact be a cost saving measure as it’s possible that only one poli-sci college student is responsible for writing the story and the news outlets just syndicate it.

In this respect, the media has adopted the Russian Pravda news model; one central source for news, no thinking needed. Instead of news collection, it’s the news collective. One of the most effective techniques of creating a reality from nothing is to flood the news space with the same repeated message until it becomes so familiar to people that over time, the narrative becomes the truth.  Good is bad, Whites are evil, hands up don’t shoot, global warming; the whole George Orwell thing.

Amusingly enough, the liberal left seems to have run up against an opponent in Donald Trump who is as adept at manipulating the message as they are accustomed to.  So, Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco and now Crooked Hilary will be part of the public discourse.  How soon before Crazy Trump is trotted out by the left?  That should be easy since all of his stated platforms are way out there; build a wall, restrict access to unknown immigrants, bring jobs to America,  America first; all crazy objectives.   The previous guy claimed to halt the oceans’ rise and lower global temperatures… yeah, that was sane stuff.  If anything, the knock on Trump may be for his lack of ambition by comparison.

Source: Nice Death Toll Rises as France Mourns After Truck Attack – NBC News

Within the body of the linked story is this statement from Prime Minister Mauel Valls: “Terrorism is a threat that weighs heavily upon France and will continue to weigh for a long time.”   This is a preposterous statement and probably the worst example of classic Gallic insouciance made by someone whom is supposedly charged with protecting his constituency.

But unfortunately, he is not alone in his delusion. The entire mindset of western governments over the past few decades have come to accept that institutionalized violence by a very defined segment of people must be accepted within the larger aims of integration and tolerance.

Imagine if a rancher decides to allow the infiltration of wolves onto his property and accepts that on a regular basis, he’ll likely lose some of his livestock or maybe one of his kids. If this seems preposterous,  then you are obviously unsuited to set policies for a western government.  The mindset that terrorism and mass violence should be a normal aspect of daily life is Monty Python-esque if it wasn’t so tragic.  Politicos who adopt this mindset treat institutionalized terrorism as if it were merely spots on bananas or flies at a picnic; just minor annoyances to deal with.

Beginning with the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France over a year ago, each incidence of Islamic terrorism worldwide  since then, with their increasingly larger casualty counts, results in the same predictable inane comments from Politicos everywhere including ‘standing with the victims’ and offering prayers and sympathy.  Oddly, this tack seems to work for many of the incumbent politicos because they keep getting elected.  They’ve been able to convince their minions that death by minding your own business is the new normal.

Even as directed violence continues to be aimed at innocents in the West by declared Islamic militants, the denial of the danger posed by encouraging undocumented immigrants/refugees from high risk parts of the middle east continues by the U.S., Canada, Germany and yes even France.  Britain recently decided to call a halt to the process only to be labelled racist and insular.  As I write this, Turkey is in the process of ousting their Islamic leaning leader, Erdogan.  Turkey! Even they can’t take it any more! This is akin to bar owners kicking out drinkers.

It happens that Brexit and the upcoming US elections may signal significant changes to the mindsets of the existing ruling classes in many western societies, or at least to the people that elect them.  Once people’s insular lives are affected, it forces them to think more critically about those that they put into leadership roles.  When this happens, expect the R word to be thrown around a lot by Politicos against people who oppose their naïve and dangerous worldviews.  Expect that all kinds of explanations will be offered as to the root cause of terrorist activities from gun access, to disenfranchisement, to mental instability, to racism; but never the ONLY reason that is common to 99% of terror activity.

The odds are slim that institutionalized terrorism can be effectively stopped unless there is a change to the worldview of those handful of gullible leaders in office today in the major western powers. Having witnessed the increased  scope and brazenness of terrorist activity over the past generation, it’s clear that policies of appeasement and negotiation are not only ineffective, they seem to invite more violence. The roots of terrorism can be destroyed if there’s a collective willingness to do so; that’s a reality.   It’s the naïve ideologues and apologists that are the real scourge.

Update: Someone else who thinks that random death should be an expected hazard of big city living.