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It does not mean "good old American practical know how", but has had an enormous influence on American culture and progressive politics that dominates the political parties and the bureaucracies today. Be sure to listen to the Peikoff lectures on the history of western philosophy to see where Pragmatism came from and why, and what is wrong with it in all essentials.
That Trump has a dictatorial mindset is obvious from listening to him. It doesn't make him a full fledged dictator and no one said that. The trend, this time the ongoing Trump idolatry in the name of conservatism pretending to be "free market", is alarming.
You might guess that I do not accept her whole philosophy as somehow proved as completely objective. It being a religion if not questionable. Perhaps Conservatives are right to pick and choose what they can accept of the philosophy and discard some of the atheistic metaphysics and of the selfishness oriented ethics. +
No president has pushed for "full throttle on bringing the entire country under state control." That does not make Trump and advocate of limited government and freedom. He is not a pro-freedom president. He supports a mixed economy run by a dictatorial mindset, as if the country is now his personal family business. Conservatives who support this because they expect or assume that he will do things they like are only revealing their own statism.
Some of his cabinet selections are the best that can be expected under current circumstances and are not what Clinton's continuation and intensifying of the Obama agenda would have been. Others are much worse. But they are all conservatives and Pragmatists with the typical view of government as a tool to make things "work" in whatever realm they think is important, selected to impose Trump's own executive decrees in how he will "run" the country.
His recent choice of Secretary of State is suspect at best: It's another Trump emphasis on "making deals" without regard to principles and enunciated policy, let alone respect for the rights of individuals such as his dealings with his crony Putin. Principles and foreign policy have not even been discussed -- only deal making.
His latest announcement of Zinke nominated as Secretary of the Interior is terrible, but few are paying attention to it. Zinke, like Trujmp, is an advocate for permanent Federal control of the land and expanding its domain. As a Republican on the House Resources Committee he has fought reforms of the Federal land agencies and has pushed for expanded funding for Federal acquisition. His support of energy production is not the complete lock it up preservationist mentality of the viros, but is still the Federal authoritarianism of control over the land and its use. Eco-fascism is not the only form of fascism.
Zinke was selected under pressure from the Trump "kids" who see the 30% of the land base under direct Federal control as their domain for upscale hunting expeditions while wallowing in the scenery. Rep. McMorris Rodgers, who had previously been reported as the selection, would have been much, much better, but was pushed out under this family pressure and the Federal land lobby the "kids" associate with.
The vast and expanding Federal lands are to be the plaything of the new Trump family business under Trump's assumed executive authority to do what he wishes, and the rest of us are to do as we're told.
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