You’re Nothing But a Pack of Cards!

Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

— Lewis Carroll, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

In case you’ve been traversing the Antarctic, and have been without an Internet connection for the last few days, Donald Trump has caused a new uproar in the media and among the chatterati. His latest offense was to tell the “Squad” (four communist congressbabes: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley) that if they hate America so much, they should just get on back to where they came from.

Progressive apoplexy ensued. Even though it was obvious that Mr. Trump had directed his remarks specifically towards the non-native Ilhan Omar, the media went into high dudgeon on behalf of all four “women of color” — as if Occasional Cortex were any more colored than I am.

Further details would be tedious and are not worth listing here. If you’re interested, and can stomach these Progressive outlets, here’s the media’s take on Donald Trump’s latest demonstration of “racism”:

Among the non-Woke, opinion is divided on the effectiveness of the president’s latest sally against the socialist Multicults.

In favor of Mr. Trump: He is forcing Nancy Pelosi to give full support to the four congressgendernonbinaries she had just tried to distance herself from. Last week they were anathema to the Speaker of the House; this week they are victims of racist abuse. The president has driven Ms. Pelosi into a corner where she has no choice but to embrace the four people she knows are destroying the Democrats’ chances of holding onto the House next year.

Against Mr. Trump: The president has played into the hands of those who label him a “racist”. He will alienate those undecided voters who might otherwise be leaning towards the Republicans.

Regardless of whether he is pursuing a winning or losing strategy — only time will tell — Mr. Trump is obviously following my advice and refusing to play the game. The huge furor over his first tweets about the Squad did not deter him in the slightest — the day after his initial tweets he doubled down on his theme, elaborating on the Squad’s hatred of America. He’s not at all concerned about being called a “racist”.

In other words, he declined to play the game — the currently accepted, universal Progressive game of forcing non-Progressives to backpedal and try to prove to the world that they do not deserve to be called “racists”.

While I was reading all the bumf on this — and some of it was really hard to slog through — I started thinking about the Race Card, which is what the Progressives love to play against their opponents. In recent weeks they’ve even been playing it against one another, with the insufficiently Woke being called “racist” by the completely and thoroughly Woke. Occasional Cortex even slapped down the card against Nancy Pelosi, who had had the temerity to criticize her and her communist sistren. If Nancy isn’t getting with the program, she must be a racist!

The Race Card is their favorite, but the Progressives have various others in their deck. “Islamophobe”, “Xenophobe”, “Misogynist”, “Homophobe”, and more recently, “Transphobe”. I figure more cards are in the works — “Incestophobe”, “Necrophilophobe”, and “Pedophilophobe” are probably being printed up right now, or will be shortly.

And there’s another card that is widely used these days, but doesn’t seem to have a specific name yet. I like to call it the “Puir Wee Bairn Card”. Ever since the summer of 2015, when the pitiful corpse of little Ayan was carefully arranged on a beach in Anatolia, the power of the Puir Wee Bairn Card has been displayed on both sides of the Atlantic. When there’s a throng of 10,000 migrants walking across the Balkans, and it contains just a single family with children, that is the group that will be featured in photos and videos on all the major media outlets. Och, the puir wee bairns!

It’s the same on the Mexican border. Just think of the puir wee niñas being ripped from their mothers’ arms by those heartless Republicans! It doesn’t matter that the whole family-with-kids scene at the border is a scam, with people either exploiting their own children or renting someone else’s so as to get into the USA, where they can then grab all the goodies. It’s of no moment that 99.5% of the separation stories are utterly bogus. The Puir Wee Bairn Card trumps everything else. We must open the border to all comers, or else all those big-eyed children will suffer horribly.

It seems intuitively obvious that there is a direct correlation between being childless and getting all dewy-eyed over the Puir Wee Bairns. Adults who have few or no children are more susceptible to having their heartstrings tugged by the thought of suffering (but distant) little children than are those who have raised a big brood. I don’t have any data to back up my theory, but I’ll bet it’s true. Hillary Clinton has used “the children” to great effect throughout her political career, and her target audience probably averaged 0.4 children per woman. Or is there a singular for “wymyn”?

Anyway… Donald Trump is obviously refusing to play the game that includes all these cards. Slap one of them down on the table, and he doesn’t even look at it — he keeps on going with his own game, played by his own rules, and not the Left’s. His tactics may or may not work in the end, but they sure are appealing.

We should all do the same. As I said back in 2011: “Decline the rules. Refuse to play the game.”

52 thoughts on “You’re Nothing But a Pack of Cards!

  1. Brilliant. And he is, indeed, refreshing. I’m so sick of this idee fix (sp?) that I think I’m going to write an article about it.

    • Idee fixe, Plum. Originated by Berlioz in his “Symphonie Fantastique”, borrowed and extended by Wagner as the “leimotif”.

      I’ll stop showing off now.

      • I’ll stop showing off now.

        Bah! Keep with it, Mark H. As a classical music composer and performer, along with being a chronic etymologist, your reply was just the ticket.

        Speaking of obscure music as performed on a steroidal, over-muscled lute called the theorbo, here’s a two century-old, lesser heard ditty by Couperin called, “Les Barricades Mystérieuses”.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2mGjvrGbcE

        • I’ll take Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or Debussy’s Clair de Lune of course. Or the Lunar Rhapsody from the First Man movie! That theramin is such an otherwordly sounding instrument.

        • Thanks, NR, though I’m not sure you should encourage me!

          Many years ago (1987-95), I worked in a classical cd shop in central London. The Chinese-American owner, who was not as great a businessman as he imagined, thought it a good idea to employ musicians and singers (who mostly don’t collect recordings) rather than collectors like myself.

          Two (so far as I know) went on to successful careers: the contralto Alice Coote, and the harpsichordist Carole Cerasi; her recent cd set of Couperin’s complete keyboard works was very well reviewed. She also had the sexiest, huskiest voice… but I’m wandering!

  2. Maybe I’m missing something here but the Trump quote I read said, “…go back to where you came from…”. I took that to mean the crappy, low rent, crime infested gimmemore districts that elected these baffoons into office; NOT the country of their ancestral origin. Correct me if I’m wrong on the wording of the quote. If I am not this is just another liberal attempt at an [anterior] balloon. Call it what it is.

    • Maybe I’m missing something here but the Trump quote I read said, “…go back to where you came from…”. I took that to mean the crappy, low rent, crime infested gimmemore districts that elected these baffoons into office; NOT the country of their ancestral origin.

      Why couldn’t Trump have meant that this neo-Goon Squad should go back to the “crappy, low rent, crime infested gimmemore districts” IN their collective spitholes of “ancestral origin”?

      Inquiring minds want to know!

    • mean-gurls commie caucus

      Ding, ding, ding we have a winner! Give that man a Kewpie doll.

  3. Yes, I can’t stand these people who gush over little black children in Africa but despise Australian kids in Australia, Our government literature no longer contains pictures of white people. We are now completely ignored and no longer “special”. All jobs given to people of colour, white people/kids need not apply. Also, we are dragging down the white kids so that black/Aboriginal kids feel better about themselves. I sent you the Naplan data. The solution is to destroy the white family structure, their education, their culture and religion so other groups can feel more included. The Chinese aren’t buying it and send their children to coaching after school and Saturdays.

    • The Chinese aren’t buying it …

      And why on Earth should they? The Chinese aren’t into consuming the tripe they sell. That’s the job of Beijing’s marketing department.

      Just let me know when all those Mao Town millionaires trade in their Mercedes and Maseratis for Mainland manufactured motorcars*. Maybe then I might think different.

      * – For endless hilarity, review crash test clips for low end Chinese-made vehicles. –

      There are a hundred points of similarity between Communism and Islam. It is a time-honored tradition for elite parasites from either hive to hawk rubbish for public consumption whilst they fart through silk.

      In that respect, it will be curious to observe the different trajectories of ex-pat Chinese communities in Asia. Whereas those in Australia likely will undergo thorough assimilation, it’s beyond predictable that their enclaves amidst Islamic populations will play the parasitic game just long enough to get their hash settled by seething Muslim mobs.

      While the West may turn a blind eye to it, Islam has no compunction whatsoever about disposing of those who bow before another god. Sorrowing EU apparatchiks are learning to call this the Notre Dame Effect.

  4. Baron,

    I have to share the thoughts that have been dogging me. The pony show with the 4 communist clowns of color is a distraction. It’s so obviously a losing game for the Democrats, one wonders why all the attention is still on it.

    So, where is the game really going to be played?

    Question: how many of Andy Ngo’s attackers, some caught unmasked on video, have been arrested? Hint: zero.

    How many Democrat politicians or MSM entertainment stars, outside of Fox News, have condemned Willem Van Spronsen, the ANTIFA member attempting to blow up an ICE facility in Washington? Or, better yet, have condemned Antifa itself for violence? None.

    There is a systematic campaign to install states attorneys by Soros funded groups, states attorneys who will not prosecute crimes by protected group members and crimes against conservatives. Antifa and related groups are forming gun clubs and systematically arming themselves for lethal street fighting. Any attempt on the side of conservatives to protect themselves are met with federal prosecutions for organized violence.

    Routine death threats against conservative members of Congress are not prosecuted, even when the identity of the threatening person is known.

    The only conclusion I can draw is that the leftists are massively organizing on multiple fronts for widespread, lethal street violence during the 2020 campaigns. Conservative rallies will be actively and violently attacked, with anyone resisting the attackers arrested and charged. Death threats, violence, perhaps murder, will not be prosecuted. There is already a network in place of elected, communist, states attorneys thoroughly on board with political violence against conservatives and nationalists.

    So, I can only conclude the next campaign will be fought as the last campaign of the Wiemar Republic, with organized fascist thugs ruling the streets. If Trump and Attorney General Barr focus only on prosecuting FISA abuses, which are indeed in need of prosecution, and neglect building a structure of law enforcement truly meant to protect security, the elections will be decided by threats and violence, rather than public opinion.

  5. I love what he is doing. Make them call everyone racists until the word is completely devalued. Trump isn’t saying anything anyway that Deplorables aren’t already saying to each other at the bar over their beers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Republican part doesn’t quietly fund the reelection campaign for Ilhan Omar because even more so than Evita from the Bronx she is the gift that keeps on giving.

  6. It’s all just good, old-fashioned mid-summer entertainment. Mid-summer is the time for maximum popular-cultural nutiness.

    As for PDJT being labelled as a racist, so what? Not even the accusers are able to define what being a racists means.

    By the way, can ordinary American citizens be censured in Congress? If so, where do I apply?

    • It’s all just good, old-fashioned mid-summer entertainment. Mid-summer is the time for maximum popular-cultural nuttiness.

      I’ll ask The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to confirm it, but I do declare that Heinlein used to call this the “Silly Season”. Goodness knows that a combination of full moons and high temperatures always sees the police on overtime.

      As for PDJT being labelled as a racist, so what?

      If you really want to cause meltdowns (on both sides of the aisle), merely argue that American citizens have a Constitutional right to be racist. Just as a man’s home is his castle so, too, are a person’s thoughts their sole property and domain (unless they voluntarily deign to share them).

      Every US citizen from the residing Oval Officer on down is entitled to be more racist than the entire KKK combined. How that mindset is acted upon or expressed within the public sphere is an entirely different and too frequently legal matter.

      Not even the accusers are able to define what being a racist means.

      Mayhap that’s because all of them are so consumed with anti-White bigotry to where the racist log in their own collective eye blinds them to it despite a global pattern which proves that chicken lips are more common than racial diversity. A glance at most of Africa and Asia reveals a deep-space vacuum of melanin related speciation whose paucity is barely rivaled by a typically equal lack of innovation or (with reliable repulsiveness) even simple tolerance.

      Rest assured that anti-White morons like Nancy “the Madrid Atrocity was a train accident” Pelosi (yes, they hate all Caucasians with a passion you can only imagine), achieve their status as race traitors through a rigorous program of academically inculcated self-loathing.

      That, in turn, is drip fed by the MSM’s corporate campaign finance machine such that it blossoms forth as cultural sabotage—all of which is broadcasted as virtue signaling of the highest water.

      • From Heinlein’s novel “Friday”.

        “What are the marks of a sick culture? It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population. A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it. Dominance of males over females seems to be one of the symptoms. Before a revolution can take place, the population must lose faith in both the police and the courts. High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that’s old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way – even though there are always endless attempts to wish it way by legislation. But I started looking for little signs and what some call silly-season symptoms. I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort.”

        Unbelievable how prescient Heinlein was. He could have written this last week for how relevent it is.

        • Thenk ewe, Lunar Dominatrix. (Is it ok to call you that?)

          Unbelievable how prescient Heinlein was. He could have written this last week for how relevent it is.

          Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

        • It’s many years since I read “Friday”, written when Heinlein was quite old. Passing over the sexual appeal of a powerful female android (Friday) to a gentleman who was, shall we say, less vigorous than before, I recall that he predicted the US’ breaking up into several substates, the most “liberal” incorporating not only the US West Coast but British Columbia.

          I should ask my brother in Vancouver- whose politics are not easily predictable- how he feels about this!

  7. Excellent article. Yes, that’s why he is a appreciated by normal, ordinary people all over the world.HE DOESN’T PLAY THE GAME.

  8. Yes sir! I have been using “I do not accept your premise” to great effect. The numbskulls frequently cannot explain what it actually is they are demanding we adhere to. Great fun.

    • Me too. It drives the leftists wild. On Facebook the other day, somebody with whom I was having a difference of opinion pulled out the various race and culture cards to which I responded ” I do not accept the concept of Cultural Marxism,” to which he went bananas and lost all control. The disintegration of his argument and his composure was beautiful to see – PhD and all.

      • The disintegration of his argument and his composure was beautiful to see – PhD and all.

        PhD = Pile high and Deep

        Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week. Please try the veal.

    • I have been using “I do not accept your premise” to great effect.

      Being the base individual that I am, my tastes run straight downhill to even more rudimentary ripostes. Even the usually reliable gauge of olfactory odoriferousness (i.e., a smell check) cannot rival the derisory potential of one simple question.

      To wit, in the high tech arena of Silicon Valley—where Sominex™ factories parade as state-of-the-art R&D (“breaking wind at the leading edge of technology”)—those interested in retaining their sanity quickly learn to apply a most simple immunoassay. It’s called:

      The “So what?” test.

      Moonbats can be driven into a full around-the-bend lather by that simple, two-word interrogative. And, like extreme sports, it can become dangerously addictive to provoke apoplectic bafflement from supposed Leftist gunslingers—whose sole weapon is a paring knife.*

      * – Oh, to be a fly on the (morgue’s) wall when any of these frothy social engineers come up against one of their stabby, imported termite confrères. –

  9. The president has driven Ms. Pelosi into a corner where she has no choice but to embrace the four people she knows are destroying the Democrats’ chances of holding onto the House next year.

    Let’s call this, “The Art of the Squeal”. Trump will have these sows at each other’s throats faster than ships from a sinking rat.

  10. And there’s another card that is widely used these days, but doesn’t seem to have a specific name yet. I like to call it the “Puir Wee Bairn Card”.

    The Simpson’s covered this pretty well with:

    Won’t someone pleeease think of the children!

  11. Yes, and speaking of a pack of cards, the president just ‘Trump”-ed them all. Yes, he played his “Trump” Card. Joyful and I’m Trumphant.

  12. The only definition of “racist” I ever heard that makes sense, I read on this website many years ago. It says:-

    A racist is a person who has just won an argument with a leftist.

      • A racist is someone who puts his own kith and kin first.

        This is all summed up rather well by the following trope:

        Everybody I don’t like is Hitler.

        Gots to love those power memes. Speaking of catchphrase catechisms, here’s the 1%’s game plan in a nutshell:

        Make sure the 99% dies before they ever earn their first million.

        This one formula encapsulates so much of the Tranzi Globalist agenda that at times it’s simply breathtaking. Here’s an unprioritized list:

        • Pull up the socioeconomic ladders

        • Destroy traditional wealth creation processes

        • Make high-finance into a guild-mentality, closed shop

        • Eliminate the slightest viable competition

        • Impoverish R&D to paralyze all disruptive innovators

        • Entrench crony-based, financial (not industrial) Capitalism

        • Divert concentrated wealth into narrowly controlled interests

        • Control or curtail all but the least threatening forms of mobility

        • Withhold opportunity at every level of external threat

        • Rigidly maintain this and the bought-off political status quo

        Right off the top, that’s almost a dozen crucial objectives all realized through one rather easily implemented policy. Of course, everything’s much worse than just these previous conditions because part of crippling the Great Unwashed is snuffing all education and learning.

        The state of this world’s schools and their curriculum (two separate issues) is all the proof that’s needed to determine how revisionist Tranzis (Trans-National Socialists) will usher the new dark ages if no one opposes them with potentially brutal force.

        At this point, a comparison with Islam seems appropriate. As in: Life in a world controlled by either Globalists or Muslims represents slavery on a scale which merits World War.

        Far worse is how the doctrinal convergence between these two menaces only dissolves after things have gone all pear-shaped. Giving either of them the least free rein will see the humanity’s horsecar speed straight over a cliff.

        Will Western Civilization be the next Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump? Are we just along for the ride as these material and spiritual predators herd us to the brink of intellectual extinction? Like those who defy the savannahan scavengers, which lionhearts are left amongst us to chase these hyenas from the global kill?

        By then, it will be too late anyway. Better that the honorable Western warriors who guard us make a pyre of our very lives’ work than leave such treasure for these vultures to squabble over. Let them eat ashes and sand as they quaff their oil. Just our bones—bleaching ungnawed in the sun—would be the Whitest pearls to cast before such swine.

        In an evil beyond comprehension, this is where Political Correctness and its Newspeak handmaiden play patty cake with the enemies of a civilization once destined for other galaxies.

  13. Many of those who profess to care about the children very likrly aborted their own. We can guess how much their care means.

  14. Who are all these “undecided” morons who might think Trump’s entirely wise and justified remarks to be “racist”?

    If America really is full of people stupid enough to swallow the media lies and hype then there would be little hope left–and indeed Trump would not have won the first time.

    Stop ANY migrants of ANY origin or ethnicity AND their offspring getting the vote for 100 years after they arrive. They can still work and have a better life which is why they say they want to come. But they wont be voting about anything. That will sink leftist scum trying to bring in and pay off migrants to vote for the left. The President should use all power to amend the Constitution and save America

  15. I think Trump is keeping the marxist losers all whipped-up with identity politics as a distraction while his administration makes moves on cases involving Seth Rich & Julian Assange, Jeffrey Epstein, and the deals with China and the DPRK. As long as the progs are shrieking and clawing at the walls, they can’t pay attention to anything of importance.

    When Trump really gets into campaign time for 2020, he’s going to have some truly devastating data on his side. We all know Epstein was running a child rape club on his island. I wonder how many dead kids are in those concrete-filled tunnels there, and how many globalists are in Epstein’s records. We all know the DNC assassinated Seth Rich for giving the emails to Julian Assange at Wikileaks. I wonder whose heads in particular will roll for that. China is losing its [tush] in trade negotiations and the DPRK is inching ever closer to being free of China and achieving peace on the peninsula.

    Globalism is dying. The ideology of the parasites is dying. And I think 2020 may provide the final hammer blows to end it for decades to come.

    • Globalism is dying. The ideology of the parasites is dying. And I think 2020 may provide the final hammer blows to end it for decades to come.

      A bit too optimistic for even my Pollyannaish druthers. Then again, you may be onto something, John. It’s a dead cert that this worldly cloaca makes it vital for us to retain some degree of optimism. After all, life is like a sewer, innit? You get out of it what you put into it.

  16. A pity that the 4-Raceiteers are not running for president. Would have been even more fun.

  17. The newist TV show for fall ’19, “THE BROAD SQUAD”, starring those zany congresswomen and their real life reality daily actions in congress and beyond. The four women of color fight the Social Justice fight against the Orange man President. Drama and laughs at their best.

    • The newist TV show for fall ’19, “THE BROAD SQUAD”, starring those zany congresswomen and their real life reality daily actions in congress and beyond.

      I’m going to green light your pilot episode, but only on one condition…

      I get to choose who’s gotta wear the ‘fro.

      PS: I trust that, in keeping with this season’s Leftist doctrine, none of them will be allowed to carry a gun.

  18. The President is saying pretty much what most are thinking/whispering. If these people don’t like it here, why are they still here?

  19. If these people don’t like it here, why are they still here?

    Like Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, they’re only in it for the money.

  20. I quit wearing my MAGA hat for a long period of time. Was just being careful! After the deranged MSM comments against President Trump, and the support the left has given to the squad, I now wear it daily everywhere I go. Could be fun!!

    • I now wear it daily everywhere I go. Could be fun!!

      Hell, who needs a MAGA cap to get folks all spun up? Just walking down the street, I encounter wing nuts who get unhinged—to the point of directing unprovoked physical threats at me—just because they’ve overheard a snippet of my conversation with some random stranger. True story!

      Conversely, during a phone call last week, I had this nighttime police sergeant (i.e., someone who’s seen it all), entirely unprompted and spontaneously suggest that I run for political office. My mind hovered somewhere between being gobsmacked and cracking wise with the famous retort by LA water man, William Mulholland (of Mulholland Drive fame): Who—when urged to run for the Lost Angeles mayoralty—famously quipped, and I quote verbatim:

      I’d rather give birth to a porcupine backward.

      Barely restraining myself, I instead regaled the sergeant with tales of my neighbor up the street using his front porch for a wood shop … at midnight! And these weren’t just any quick cuts, the ruckus went on for over half an hour (which was my original reason for calling the cops). Plus, if it wasn’t him ripping it up with a chop saw, there were his neurotic twin bulldogs yapping their heads off for similar lengths of time and around that same late hour.

      Every week for the past month!

      Meanwhile, back at the actual topic, all of this was a balancing act because—having to walk up the street several doors after hours, I refuse to leave the house without carrying but also dislike walking up to responding officers with any weapons on me (as in keeping one’s hands away from any pockets).

      Anyhoo, Paul Gianakas, stay safe and let’s certainly hope you’re not leaving the house without carrying legal weapons on you. I feel naked without my Puma General folding hunter and a classic Victorinox Swiss Army tool at hand.

      • You might want to have a nice Glock on you instead of bringing a knife to a gunfight. 😉

  21. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”.
    Rule 13 of “Rules for Radicals”, by Hillary mentor and communist activist, Saul Alinsky.
    Donald Trump has read their playbook and is now using their own tactics
    against them. How sweet it is!

    • Rule 13 of “Rules for Radicals”, by Hillary mentor and communist activist, Saul Alinsky.

      It’s long past tea for Conservatives to write their own, “Rules for Ridicules”.

  22. I’ll take Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or Debussy’s Clair de Lune of course. Or the Lunar Rhapsody from the First Man movie! That theramin is such an otherwordly sounding instrument.

  23. That theramin is such an otherwordly sounding instrument.

    Little known to most non-musicians is that: A theramin is the only musical instrument which is played without touching it.

    Far less-well-known is my eternally damning sacrilege of turning the Moonlight Sonata’s bass clef into a hellaciously rollicking boogie woogie.

    Though not so celebrated as the Beach Boys’ intro of “Good Vibrations”, here’s the inventor of this eponymous instrument giving it a whirl, Earl.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5qf9O6c20o

    • Theramin was a Soviet spy, but at this distance, we should be able to enjoy the other-worldly sounds of his invention; it featured in several classical compositions and horror/science fiction movie scores.

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