One of the things I like to analyze in political events is evidence of strategy. For instance, when Nancy Pelosi says the California wildfires mean that “Mother Earth is angry,” I think that is just reactive -- and primitive, because Mother Earth goddesses go way back.

But when President Trump (or Jared Kushner) comes up with almost one peace deal a week -- first Israel-UAE, then Serbia-Kosovo, and now Israel-Bahrain -- and lo and behold, as if on cue, Swedish politicians start nominating him for Nobel Peace Prizes -- my strategy detector goes crazy. And now the Black Swan guy, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is asking what the betting odds are for an Israel-Saudi Arabia peace deal by November 1.

Or what about 9/11 observance? Trump sent Vice-President Pence to New York City last week to stand next to Joe Biden, but the president headed for Shanksville, PA to celebrate the All-American “let’s roll” spirit of Flight 93. I wonder why?

That is the point about Trump. Everything he does, you have to ask yourself: “I wonder what he meant by that?” Because Trump is the master strategist. That is to say, he seems to be good at seeing around corners.

Plus, he has courage. Generations of U.S. presidents have mumbled about moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, but they didn’t: they were afraid to. Trump did it, and lo and behold, three years later peace is breaking out all over. How did he do it?

Two things: strategy and courage.

To be a competent strategist you have to know yourself and know your enemy. You have to know the lay of the land, how your mind works, and how your enemy’s mind works.

But then you have to have the courage to act upon your knowledge.

I think that our lefty friends fail on all counts.

First of all, they completely misunderstand the lay of the land. We did not get where we are today because of white supremacy and imperialism. We got here -- per-capita real income up by 30 times in 200 years -- through northwestern European competence. And competence is power, especially over medieval or hunter-gatherer societies.

Secondly, our liberal friends do not understand that their minds are going crazy. That is the meaning of the cancel culture, where the cultural hegemons punish bad-think. Hegemons only need to do this when their worldview is collapsing and they cain’t stand it, in the words of Lina Lamont. And boy, what a collapse! Their welfare state is clunking along with debt as far as the eye can see; their environmentalism is burning up California; their green energy is causing blackouts; and their race-card politics is tearing the country apart.

Thirdly, they do not understand the minds of the enemy. The ordinary Commoners of America are not rabid far-right racists, sexists, and homophobes. They are not even the enemy. They are just ordinary people with jobs trying to raise a family, and they have been coming to believe over the last few years that the Democrats do not care about people like them.

What does a business owner do when his business plan fails and he starts getting in a hole? He starts to cook the books. That is how most great frauds get started. And our liberal friends are starting to cheat, big time. Of course they are, because it cannot be that their worldview is Neronian conceit, a mutual-admiration society of the noble sons and daughters of the “striped-pants boys” of the 1940s. They are the good guys, the “allies” of the “oppressed peoples.” How dare, how dare the American people vote against their world-saving protests and elect an ignorant liar like Donald Trump as president?

Okay. So our lefty friends are idiots, and they are starting to cheat, and almost demanding that Americans vote for Trump, what with people shooting cops and BLM peacefully protesting in Trader Joe’s.

But Curtis Yarvin says it’s all in vain, because the System cannot be overthrown. The presidency is too weak, so it doesn’t make any difference when you vote for change, and Congress is so integrated into the System, both of lobbyists and activists, that Nothing Can Be Done. Except that:

...every regime in history -- every dynasty, every republic, even every church -- has considered itself immortal.

Until the day before it died. And why did it die? Oh yeah. Because it ran out of other peoples’ money. Yarvin has also refined his definition of The Cathedral:

Its inner circle, the Brain and the Voice, includes all professors, journalists, serious artists, published authors, etc. Its outer ring, the Conversation, is the whole upper social class. Its funding division, the Foundation, is the whole upper economic class. Its teaching division, the School, gets to indoctrinate almost everyone for over a decade. And its doctrine, the Dream, defines good and evil for all decent people.

Know a Cathedral like that? I do, and it makes me want to puke.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

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