Wall Street had another very bad day yesterday. How bad? Well, the S&P 500 fell to its lowest level of the year, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 500 points, bringing its two-day losses to more than 1,000 points after a bad day last Friday.

Actually, yesterday’s very bad day is only a snapshot of what is officially a very bad month for Wall Street and a very bad year for the S&P 500. The Dow and S&P 500 are on track for their worst December since the Great Depression in 1931, down approximately 7% so far for the month. And the S&P 500 is down over 4% for the year.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is holding its last policy meeting of the year and will likely be announcing an increase in interest rates tomorrow due to economic uncertainty surrounding Trump’s trade war and a shaky global financial market.

So, it should come as no surprise that Trump spent time on Twitter yesterday spreading fake news about the imaginary success of his economic policies while simultaneously criticizing the Feds for tomorrow’s likely interest rate increase.

It is incredible that with a very strong dollar and virtually no inflation, the outside world blowing up around us, Paris is burning and China way down, the Fed is even considering yet another interest rate hike. Take the Victory!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 17, 2018

Trump’s attack on the Feds is not new. When the stock market’s 2018 gains were wiped out in October, Trump blamed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, calling the man he appointed to the job “the biggest threat” to his success. He also issued a warning at that time that he might fire Powell.

I should note here that shortly after the 2016 election and before Powell was appointed, Federal Reserve officials were very concerned about Trump’s economic policies and how they would likely lead to inflation and higher interest rates. Maybe, instead of blaming the Feds for being right, Trump could admit he was wrong and end the trade war.

Yeah, like that’ll ever happen.

Trump’s “no inflation” claim is a complete fabrication; inflation has been steadily rising since Trump’s inauguration when it was around 1%.

The reality is that his trade war has been a primary driver of inflation and has grown to become the true “biggest threat” to the US economy. This threat so real that a majority of 134 business leaders recently surveyed — including executives from companies like Ford, Verizon, and Morgan Stanley — expect a recession to hit by the end of 2018. That’s two weeks, folks.

Meanwhile, Trump can’t really be bothered with the economy right now. He’s too busy tweeting threats against Saturday Night Live because they tell mean jokes about him.

Originally posted on StridentConservative.com.

David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative. His daily radio commentary is distributed by the Salem Radio Network and is heard on stations across America.

Follow the Strident Conservative on Twitter and Facebook.

Subscribe to receive podcasts of radio commentaries: iTunes | Stitcher | Tune In | RSS

I am a subscriber and an avid fan of PragerU. With that being said, I was deeply disappointed in the poor presentation presented by Yoram Hazony. But before I dive into that, I want to make it clear, on a spectrum between nationalism and globalism, a spectrum with which Hazony deviates, I am in full opposition to the latter. America is one nation under God, not any international body. And since, on this spectrum, I would be a nationalist, it became readily apparent, early on in the video, that he was making a fallacious case to advance nationalism.

Bad Appeal to Credibility

But it wasn’t long ago that great political figures such as Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt, David Ben-Gurion and Mahatma Gandhi, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher recognized what I call the virtue of nationalism

Yoram Hazony begins the ascension of his argument by appealing to the credibility of figures who captured his ideal sense of nationalism. Woodrow Wilson was a Klansman who is not ideal when further arguing that nationalism is separate from racism. Teddy Roosevelt was a staunch anti-capitalist, contrary to the”virtue model” later explained by Hazony, and gave us the 16th and 17th Amendments. Mahatma Ghandi was a pedophile and his form of nationalism wasn’t for all peoples in India. Three out of his six role models are misfires.

Denial of History – Literally Hitler

It is agreeable that one can be a nationalist and support trade. But when Yoram Harony plainly states that Hitler was not a nationalist, but an imperialist, Hazony transplants the premises of his argument into a fantasy-land where his fallacious word tangles can thrive. Yes, Hitler was absolutely a nationalist. He was also a socialist. He was also part of a worker’s party (pro-unionized labor). Nazi was an acronym compiling three ideas. One of them was nationalism. However, Hitler being a revanchist was the least of his crimes and the most justified of his actions. Nationalism and racism are not mutually exclusive, as Hazony’s idols demonstrate. He could have delved into Nazism, building a case that the internal us vs them, class warfare, mentality fostered by Adolf Hitler, gave rise to the Holocaust to a far greater extent than nationalism ever did. To the Nazis standing up for the German worker meant that the non-ethnic Germans had to eventually be eradicated. He could have explained the the Holocaust greatly strained Hitler’s nationalist effort. But instead, Hazony made the fantasy argument that Hitler was an imperialist, not a nationalist.

Denial of History – “Nationalism stops at a nation’s borders”

Yoram Hazony asserts that imperialism and nationalism are opposite. This argument is perhaps as bad or worse than the former. It is essentially: a=/=b and a=/=c, therefore b=c. Except history shows that nationalism and imperialism are not mutually exclusive, no more than socialism and nationalism (fascism). Did the Germans practice imperialism? Sure, though the British, French, and Soviets (who would have eventually invaded Europe) were all threats to a rising Germany and other axis powers. One cannot be a German-nationalist and insist that Germany abide by the Treaty of Versailles. The Japanese are a much clearer example of imperialism, though they were a poor imitation of the British Empire.

The once mighty British people are a shadow of their former selves. But it was not the rejection of nationalism that caused the sun to set on the British Empire, rather the rejection of imperialism. British imperialism made the isles a formidable force in Europe winning campaigns in World War One while simultaneously fighting a stalemate in Europe. In World War 2, Britain, because of its global expansion was able to combat the axis powers in Europe, Africa and Asia. These policies kept the British well supplied in World War 2, along with American friendship. After the Second World War, Britain relinquished its global grip creating international trade out of what was once domestic. It is much more clear that this policy shift contributed to the British eventually joining the EU.

America too practiced imperialism. We didn’t reach from sea to shining sea by our national interest staying within our nation’s borders. In, fact during our nation’s founding, our diplomats wanted Britain to cede Quebec to the United States during the negotiations that ended the American Revolution. The Treaty of Paris did not appease these ambitions, and America later invaded Canada during the War of 1812, rekindling this idea. But through the Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, various Indian wars, it would be difficult to argue that America did not advance its national interest through the practice of imperialism.

Every Nation is Equal Mentality

Yoram Hazony argues that nationalists prefer a world of many nations, each one believing that its government should seek the interest of its own nation. I wholeheartedly would discount myself from nationalism if this were the case. I believe in nationalism, opposed to globalism, because the United State of America is the greatest civilization in history, without equal. America is a nation built on values: God, liberty, and union. These values make America great. The nationalism that Hazony supports is an ethnic group fighting for independence with the hopes of becoming freer. Only this doesn’t happen all that often in history. In fact most rebellions under the guise of freedom are really just “we want different rulers, ones that look like us.” They don’t advance liberty and don’t always end well. The Dutch independence praised in the video was scathed by the Founding Fathers in the Federalist Papers. One would be hard-pressed to argue that Iraq is better off independent than a British or French colony, same with Libya, Syria, Haiti, Cuba. We could also examine the Liberia experiment. History demonstrates that nationalism does not inherently lead to freedom. In fact, his own examples of Wilson and Roosevelt were terrible for individual liberties. This is why nationalism is not mutually exclusive with so many ideologies, both evil and benign.

A nation is only as good as its values, and without these values, Americans would be celebrating mediocrity. No nation is entitled to an individual’s unwaivering support, just because their rulers look like you. However, in America, nationalism is an ideology that celebrates and seeks to protect the values that America is founded on. Yoram Hazony failed to build up a substantive case for nationalism, instead devoting his life’s work to raising a false idol, rooted in fantasy, to a pervasive though incomplete ideology. PragerU chose a poor spokesperson for this message, giving ammo to critics with claims that “Hitler wasn’t a nationalist.” That is the first PragerU video I’ve hit the dislike on, not simply because of disagreement, and hopefully the last.

If the Unaffordable Care Act [Obamacare] didn’t work properly, why replace it with more of the same?

It’s a pattern replicated far too many times. There is a small expansion of government based on a ‘new’ idea that inevitably fails to work as promised. This is replaced with an even bigger expansion of government to solve the issues of the original program. When this also fails to work, an even bigger government expansion fails even more spectacularly. Each time the ‘new’ idea repeatedly fails making the situation far worse.

Instead determining what actually can work, the same mistakes are made over and over with the futile expectation of different results. If an idea is flawed, the results will always be the same no matter it’s size or overreach.

Old ideas have to be shown to work BEFORE they can be tried again

There is a perfectly easy way to avoid repeated failure. Look at what works and reject what doesn’t. If the basic idea of a law or government program is a known failure, why bother trying it again? Ever-expanding government programs of failure only lead to ever-expanding failure.

Consider just a couple of examples of this pattern:

• Government controlled healthcare systems.
• Government controls on Liberty [i.e. ‘Gun confiscation’]
• Ever increasing taxation that has led to ever diminishing tax revenue.
• And the Great, Great, Great, Granddaddy of them all: Socialism [Collectivism]

Government controlled healthcare

In the case of the Unaffordable Care Act [‘ACA’ or ‘Obamacare’] there would be no need for a new overarching system if it were functional. But it’s promises never materialised, so the Left is now clamouring for something even worse. With it now being ruled unconstitutional, the whole concept of government control of health care has been called into question. We should always take into consideration other ideas that actually work instead of heading down the same dead-end road.

The Left’s ideas on healthcare have been a series of ever-increasing failures of ever-increasing over reach by the government. They never admit to failure, they just keep on clamouring for more without any word on funding

For example, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) agreed with the contention that the Democrats should now push for an even bigger expansion of government control over everyone’s life with “universal health care”. Medicare and Medicaid failed to solve the problem, so the Unaffordable Care Act was layered on top. That is also failing, so the ‘solution’ offered by the nation’s Left is even more control of Government control of healthcare. Never mind that we cannot afford the $42 trillion price tag for a new government monstrosity over the next decade, never mind that it violates the basic precepts of the Constitution. History and logic tells us that it cannot work, so is there is no point in trying it all over again.

New Ideas based in Liberty

There is no point in going in the same direction, repeating the same failure with the same ancient ideas. However, as JD Rucker pointed out, we need to support positive ideas instead just acting in opposition. In that context, these are some examples of alternatives to healthcare under the control of the government.

Direct care or Concierge Medicine

This is a system where patients pay a retainer fee to a physician for personalised care. The retainer fee lets the medical professional work with a smaller number of patients so they can have far easier access with lower co-pays. This type of practice would be combined with catastrophic care for emergencies.

For most people this sounds far better than impersonal service and high deductibles of a government-run system with far lower costs. The individual would be the priority rather than the collective. A much better system than one that combines the customer care of the DMV, the empathetic demeanour of the IRS and the cost efficiency of the Postal service.

Other plans to fix the mess of government-run health care

Then there are alternative ideas such as those in a recent Heritage foundation report that outlined some of their ideas to to replace Obamacare. The main point here is to return to plans that put choice in the hands of individuals.

The takeaway

Thus we have two contrasting visions of how things should work (or not in the case the ancient ideas of the Left). The nation’s Socialist Left wants to pile on a new overarching government plan due to the failure of the existing overarching government plan. We can’t afford the cost in Liberty and dollars of the old plan, nor can we even begin to afford the cost in Liberty and dollars of the ‘new’ plan. History tells us that the ‘new’ version of the same old ideas will fail to work as promised. This will cause the need for the Left to have another go at the problem that will also fail to work.

The Left can talk all they want about fighting for people, but the results of their ancient ideas speak for themselves. Only needs to cite the horrific conditions of Venezuelan healthcare to see how much they ‘care’ about people. We of the Pro-Liberty, Conservative Right have the advantage of ideas grounded in Liberty that have been proven to work. These can reverse the trend toward freedom crushing government systems that do not work no matter how expansive or expensive.

The choice is clear, keep on going in a direction will see everyone paying dearly in dollars and Liberty for a ‘new’ government program that won’t work. Or trying a new approach with fresh ideas that actually work and maintain our freedom.