Starvin Larry

Trump’s ship of state will be beset by a relentless barrage of torpodoes.

Donald Trump took on the Clinton machine and the Democratic party, his own party’s insiders, and the mainstream media. His personal appearances, tweets, uninhibitedness, and ability to articulate widespread frustrations inspired voters whose enthusiasm dwarfed his opponent’s rote support. She massively outspent, out-polled, out-focus-grouped, and out-endorsement-received Trump, but he outsmarted her. Her team was flattened by arrogance, overconfidence, and underestimating Trump. However, his supporters make a similar mistake if they now dismiss them as political roadkill.

The bodies on the highway are cartoon corpses; they spring, Roger Rabbit-like, back to life. Giving Trump his best case—that he’s motivated by a steadfast mixture of idealism and animosity towards the powers that be, and deeply concerned about the state of America—the problems he confronts are enormous and virtually intractable. They fall into three categories: trenches, human nature, and…

The early history of what would become the United States is fraught with stories of folks breaking away out of want or need, in each case being built on Men ready for a fight. Never did such a move happen peacefully, even those relatively minor, normally with violence incurring nearly immediately. In each case, these moves were caused by little representation of economic interest from centralized power, weak or ineffectual defense by that power in their daily lives, or the notion that self-governance was more fit to the frontier than from a King afar.

Such is the fascinating history of pre-Revolution  North Carolina and present day Tennessee. Not usually told outside of academic conversation among Historians, even then limited to footnotes, the story of the Regulators, later the Watauga Association, and the rise of the Overmountain Men Militia just prior to and early within the American Revolution provide a historical…

“This light of history is pitiless; it has a strange and divine quality that, luminous as it is, and precisely because it is luminous, often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance; out of the same man it makes two different phantoms, and the one attacks and punishes the other, the darkness of the despot struggles with the splendor of the captain. Hence a truer measure in the final judgment of the nations. Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form.” ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Let’s talk about President Obama’s legacy, shall we?

This was a candidate who was ushered into office promising hope and change, pledging to put an end to the endless wars that were bankrupting the country (he was actually awarded the Nobel…