How does your garden grow?

As of yesterday, there are green beans. Probably half a dozen or so in the front yard; haven't spotted any actual beans in the back yard (where there's more sun). Not sure when to harvest them, other than "just before the squirrels do." Where's that resublimated thiotimoline when I need it?

Trumpian philosophy

I've frequently said (to myself, and to anybody else who will listen) that Donald Trump isn't a conservative, or a white supremacist, or a libertarian, or anything like that because all of those are ideologies, collections of principles, and Donald Trump doesn't do ideology or principles. He does what feels good for Donald Trump right now.

But that's not quite correct, as he does show one consistent ideological position: might makes right. If you have power over other people, you can and should use it in any way you see fit, including and especially to maintain and expand your power. All the people he most admires in the world are strongmen who have hijacked formerly-somewhat-democratic governments to become Ruler For Life. In any conflict, he will reliably side with the party that currently has more power, and recommend the use of overwhelming force to crush the less-powerful party.

Why does he take these positions?

A country-club conservative might say "people with power are those who, either by themselves or through their ancestry, have demonstrated their superior ability to use it, so those are precisely the people who should have it."

A religious-right conservative might say "people with power got that way through God's favor, so those are precisely the people who should have it."

A "natural-law" conservative might say "Life is competition. If you fail to use every weapon at your disposal to beat the other guy, you'll lose." And I think this is the closest to Trump's feelings on the matter.

To Trump, the world is zero-sum; every transaction has a winner and a loser, and there is no such thing as mutual benefit. There is no such thing as an objectively better or worse outcome, only better or worse for me. All I can do in life is make things better for me at the expense of everyone else, and on the assumption that everyone else is doing the same.

Punching down is fun, you're less likely to get punched back that way, and it serves the purpose of reminding those below you that they are below you, and always will be. So cruelty is not only the privilege but the responsibility of the powerful: you have to be gratuitously cruel to maintain your position at the top of the heap.

White people have more power than black people, so of course they're going to use it to prevent black people claiming a share of that power -- who wouldn't? It's perfectly fair, because we know that if the blacks were on top, they'd use their power to keep us down too. Police have more physical force and weaponry at their disposal than political protesters, so they should use as much of that force as possible and be immunized against responsibility for it. Rich people have more power than poor people, so of course they're going to use it to make themselves even richer -- what kind of idiot wouldn't? If my party controls the State legislature, of course we're going to gerrymander the districts to make sure we stay in power -- if you don't, you'll lose that control and never get it back because the other party will do the same. Men are physically stronger than women, make more money, and are higher in every organizational hierarchy, so of course they're going to use those advantages to stay in that sweet position (and get some Dom/Sub nooky along the way); why would anybody think that was wrong?

By contrast, the American experiment was based on the rationalist, humanist theory that we could do objectively better than "nature red in tooth and claw". The example of Europe's religious wars in the 16th and 17th centuries led our Founding Fathers to design a government that had no national religion. Peaceful transfers of power are better for almost everyone than violent transfers of power, so they designed a governmental system that encourages peaceful transfers of power, even between people who disagree sharply. Having an election system that most people think is basically fair, honest, and open to all makes peaceful transfers of power more likely, so we've re-cast the role of national religion with the honesty of elections and freedom of speech (which, like most religious ideals, are aspirations seldom attained but no less valuable for that). A trusted and impartial justice system is better for most people most of the time than a justice system viewed as the personal tool of whoever's in power at the moment, so we've spent centuries building up the (again aspirational) expectation that justice will be served regardless of the President's personal interest in any particular case.

America was born out of an egalitarian impulse which said that all (white male) men were created equal, and much of its history since has been a tug-of-war between progressives (including 19th-century Republicans and late-20th-century Democrats) who wanted to spread that equality farther and always took the side of the underdog, and reactionaries who wanted to defend their privilege and always took the side of the powerful. In this tug-of-war, Trump's "philosophical" position (if one can call it that) is clear: make the rich richer, the poor poorer, the strong stronger, and the weak weaker. And while you have power, demonstrate and reinforce it with gratuitous cruelty.