Stinkballs

The history of Big Man government is rarely marked by grace or success. When normal people let other people make important decisions for them, the decision makers are almost always grifters.

Thursday, May 1st, 2025

Bill Bonner, from the ranch at Gualfin, Argentina

Getting back into the rhythm of ranch life, we spent part of yesterday vaccinating calves. The law requires vaccinations against diseases which, thanks to its high and remote position, are not present in the valley.

Like so much else at the ranch, many hands are required. Seven of us worked on the ‘manga’ — the cattle chute — yesterday. Alas, the Milei revolution has made those hands much more expensive — in both local and dollar terms. The peso has been going up against the dollar, making a day’s wage more than twice what it was a couple of years ago. From about $8 a day in 2023 when we were last here, each cowboy now costs around $18 per day.

But at least, they are good, hard workers.

Back in the USA...

Back when Marco Rubio thought he might be president, he foresaw a future that has not yet happened:

“For years to come, there are many people on the right, in the media and voters at large, that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump.”

And now it’s ‘Lil Marco’ who will have some ‘splaining to do. This is what he said about Donald Trump before he sold out:

“He runs on this idea that he is fighting for the little guy. But he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy...If you all have friends who are thinking about voting for Donald Trump, friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”

One day, a Ph.D. candidate will focus his thesis on how rapidly two legged leopards are able to change their spots. And how do proud and intelligent people sit through a White House cabinet meeting and still hold their heads up? Consider the poor Secretary of State. Now that he’s joined the White House team he has nothing but praise for the con artist:

“You know in time, you grow to appreciate how Trump gave voice to that sentiment that needed to be heard and that needed to transform our party.”

“Thank you @POTUS for standing up for America in a way that no President has ever had the courage to do before. Thank you for putting America First. America is with you!”

Yesterday, we began looking at the way Big Man leaders are able to get the flunkies, yes-monkeys, and suck-ups to go along with them...even when their policies are disastrous to almost everyone.

We shiver to think of it. Dear Readers may shiver too...as they consider Stalin’s show trials and gulags. As cruel and pointless as they were, ‘the people’ went along. And Mao’s crazy ‘cultural revolution’...its chaos, starvation, and ‘struggle sessions’ left 50 million dead.

Again, hardly any organized opposition appeared. And even with the stench of so many cadavers still fresh in the Far East air, along came Pol Pot to rehearse an even deadlier version of the cultural revolution in Cambodia. The ideas were crackpot. The leaders were bloodthirsty ideologues. But the new Marxist elite...and the peasants... submitted, even as their friends and family died. Before it was over approximately one out of every three men in the country was dead.

And what about the Covid lockdowns? Barely one month into the pandemic and it was obvious that there was nothing to be gained from stopping people from working. People of working age rarely died from the ailment...and those who were vulnerable could easily stay home.

And yet...critics were accused of ‘mass murder.’ Doubters kept their own counsel. People went along (partly under the influence of generous ‘stimmies’ and loans that didn’t need to be repaid). And the lockdowns cost the US an estimated $16 trillion.

The history of Big Man government is rarely marked by grace or success. And it may be that when normal people let other people make important decisions for them, the decision makers are almost always grifters or imbeciles.

The Big Man has little trouble finding his lieutenants. One of the most remarkable turnabouts in the history of fickle suck-up-ism...came about in the USA recently, as Lil’ Marco and other leading Republicans joined the MAGA crowd.

Here’s another example: Lindsey Graham. The Atlantic:

Short and pudgy... [in school] they nicknamed him “Stinkball.” He always gravitated to custodial, larger-than-life figures, or “alpha dogs,” as he called them.

Graham had been a fierce ‘never Trumper.’ He said Trump was a “complete idiot” who was a “xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot.” It would be a “total disaster” if he were elected, he predicted.

But Trump was elected. Twice. And now, says Graham, Trump is “doing a really good job on multiple fronts...I’ve determined we really can’t grow without him.”

Of course, the leading stinkballs — Graham, Rubio, Cruz, Musk, etc — have something obvious to gain...power. Trump has it. They want some of it. And they’re willing to trade whatever trace of dignity or independent judgement they once had for a bit of it.

But what of the rank and file...the water-carriers and hewers of wood in Congress? Why do they so readily toss off their traditional values — like cockroaches climbing out of their carapaces, revealing even more hideous insects?

Rather than risk being out-of-step with the Big Man, by sticking to principles, good taste or traditional good sense, the creepy crawlers sweat, as Graham put it, to remain “relevant.”

What does that mean in a late, degenerate empire? What disaster does it portend?

Stay tuned.

Regards,

Bill Bonner