What will be interesting to see is how successful the Trump government is in reducing the power of the imperial state. It's noteworthy that his latest executive order rescinded the guidance on transgenders and bathrooms, not because he was making any sort of judgment (he personally seems indifferent to the issue), but because it was not the proper concern of the federal bureaucracy. If he follows through by restraining the agencies in regulation, and reduces the size of those bloated entities, then we may be headed in the right direction. the only question will be if the states can exercise their atrophied responsibilities in the absence of a "daddy" federal government.

Even if Lori Heine weren't one of the best writers I know, I would recommend this article by her for its title alone.
And if anyone doesn't get it, please let me know and I'll tell you the reference.
Freedomforall, thank you for posting this.

I pray that you are correct. I will however remind you that just 8 years ago similar things were said about the Republican party; yet, here we are with them in firm control of both Houses, the Presidency and most importantly soon to be in control of the Supreme Court.

Everything is cyclical. I just hope that on this rotation of the cycle we swing far enough Right to correct the extremeness of the latest Left swing. Additionally I pray that we can somehow damper the wild variations of these swings.

This all makes sense except the part that says the Democratic party is a in a death spiral. On the contrary, in less than a decade the pendulum will swing the other way and Democrats will use the authoritarian precedents to be even more authoritarian. Articles like this will point out "The same people who are outraged by President Gillibrand's executive orders uttered not a peep when President Trump did the same thing in the late 10s. This hypocrisy and demographic trends have made the Republican party nearly irrelevant." Then the pendulum swings the other way, the cycle continues, and the presidency gets ever more powerful.

Good post Freedomforall,

When the left and the right has the attitude that the end justifies the means. Integrity is sacrificed. The forcing of subjective agenda's that are intended on dividing the people (the real power). The balance of power should be four legs :the people , the judicial , the exec. and legislative.
All holding the stool up equally.
What goes around comes around push aside tradition for your cause and your new precedence can cut both ways. BTW my opinion is we need more laws like we need a hole in the head , I would like to inventory the existing infringements on us and start cutting the cords.
Re: Brady's hat
From your article one thing that struck me and has been much maligned and laughed at around the world is the revulsion of a leader who wants his country to be the best.

I would want my leader impeached if he didn't want our countries self interest to come first.

"Democrats are currently beclowning themselves with artificially manufactured outrage over President Trump’s temporary ban on travel to the US from seven predominantly-Muslim countries. They uttered not a peep while President Obama dropped thousands of bombs on Muslim countries and instituted his own immigration ban on Iraqi refugees (see paragraph 5 here). Their hypocrisy has all but completely destroyed what little remained of their credibility.

And they keep coming at us with fresh outrages: Trump’s plan to deport known criminals who are here illegally was morphed into a pogrom against all brown people, his pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, was accused of plotting the end of all education everywhere in America, and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was thrust into the media hot seat because a “Make America Great Again” cap was spotted in his locker. I could go on with the examples, but why? Our nation reels from them, like a punch-drunk boxer on the ropes. Because we can absorb only so much outrage, the cumulative effect is that many of us are merely numb. The Democrats hunger for relevance, but the cruelest blow that karma is inflicting is that they have made themselves irrelevant."

The GOP, what's left of it - and do not think for a minute that the Republican Party is anything close to healthy - is perhaps The King Of Blown Opportunities, and over the last two Presidential elections, 2016 and 2012, they blew, twice, the absolute no-brainer of: Black Republican Presidential and/or Vice-Presidential candidate.

With Herman Cain we had an excellent prospect for 2012, despite the third of his "nines" and the lack of experience in government, and when he surged to the head of the pack after the first of the 2011 debates, someone, somewhere, decided he had to go. So he got "Thomased," and unlike Clarence Thomas, Cain was not willing to subject himself to months of public defamation. But from that character-assassination ploy (Forget the fictitious stable of "unnamed corroborating plaintiffs," where is his "accuser" now? She fell off the face of the earth the moment he ended his campaign, which latter was the goal...) we learned that there is little the Democrat-Socialists fear more than a principled Republican President (or Vice-President) who happens to be black. (Yes, race remains utter trivia - a collection of measurements - but in context of politics it is an undeniable stategic element regardless.)

Soros apparently poured a ton of money into the successful effort to steal Rep. Allen West's Florida House seat via voter fraud in 2012, and the importance the retro-collectivists place in taking down black Republicans of principle - particularly a black Republican with all of the charisma and unflappable self-confidence of Ronald Reagan that is Allen West - was again underscored for us in that effort.

If a black Republican of principle (like West,) or even of moderate-to-conservative ideology like Cain or Carson, were to ascend to the Presidency, it would catalyze a long-term disintegration of the "Democrat Plantation" (as Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson named it,) that would sideline the jackasses for a century, if not permanently. There would be violent opposition and endless character-smears to a black GOP President for certain, but deep down, inevitably, a generation, maybe two, of black American voters would see demonstrated before their eyes the simple, undeniable fact that "You do not have to be a goose-stepping Left-Wing lunatic just because you're black." Over the long haul that message would effect a sea change that would be an absolute death-knell for the Democrat Party, at least as the party of frothing irrationalists that we're seeing today.

I won't go into my indescribable disgust at the installation of Donald Trump as the 2016 GOP "nominee," but his choice of Pence as running mate illuminates yet another Perennial Stupidity-lurch among Republicans: Obliviousness to the concept of "planning ahead."

Much has been written about the valueless, mostly ceremonial nature of the VP office, but however you evaluate the actual office, there is an extreme strategic importance in a Presidential candidate's choice of running mate, in the fact that that running mate will need to become the frontrunner in the Presidential campaign once his boss' two terms (assuming he gets two,) are completed.

IOW, when a Presidential candidate chooses a running mate, he is not just choosing his would-be Vice President, he is also choosing the frontrunner candidate, the baton-pass, for the Presidential election that follows his second term (again, assuming he gets one.)

So I'm wondering what the hell George H.W. Bush was thinking when he picked Dan Quayle, what... I won't bother with 1996 because Dole himself was an absurdity... G.W. Bush was thinking when he picked Cheney, and what Trump was thinking when he picked... Pence?

Granted that Trump is even more of an absurdity than Dole could've hoped to be in his wildest Viagra-besotted dreams, his sole mitigating factor thus far has been his excellent cabinet picks. So WTH was he thinking seven months ago when he picked an arch-RINO with all the charisma of a '70s-era Sunbeam toaster, as his VP?

It speaks to Trump's utterly pragmatist nature, obviously, but it's also a cautionary lesson in unwarranted overconfidence.

Something to keep in mind is that the 2016 Democrat roster was the absolute lamest lineup of misfits since Mondale was busy nailing down his single-state victory and Gary Hart was sailing off on the "Monkey Business" with Double-D-Donna... And Trump only squeaked by in an electoral vote win.

Think about that. A bright nine-year-old should've been able to wipe the floor up with Hillary Clinton, and Trump got through in a squeaker.

Not meaning to dampen a bit of would-be happy news, but reality says the Democrat Party will not conveniently fade into oblivion for us without significant reason. And the current condition of the Republican Party is not significant reason to hope for anything of the sort. And of course it is the school system that drives all of this, and America's school system has been nearly 100% the playground of America's most borderline-psychotic of goose-stepping Left-Wing lunatics for at least two decades. That's what has to change first.
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look for mark cuban to lead the ticket in 2020...

Like the character from "Arsenic and Old Lace," the Dems charge up the staircase thinking they're Teddy Roosevelt and the stairs are San Juan Hill. It is not. Yet they keep charging but never get there. That'd Einstein's definition of madness. It gives Trump and the Republicans an enormous advantage if they will use it. Yet, because of Trumps larger than life demeanor, many prominent Republicans are fighting him worse than Democrats, lead by McCain..

What about this thought?...What if a lack of totalitarianism on the part of Trump created a void that would be filled by the Democrats? Sounds nuts, huh? But, I've been cognizant of the fact that the American people want desperately to be lead by a overbearing structure. They seem, to me, to beg for it. Meanwhile, the minarchists like me sit on the sideline wringing our hands and trying to figure out where to escape to. Kind of funny...in a sick way. What made me think of this was the speaker's suggestion about Trump softening his rhetoric. "Oh, we don't agree with the court. We hope to find a work-around." The left doesn't play by those rules...or am I missing something?