Posted on

A Green Totalitarianism Is Descending Upon Us

Online surveillance bill opens door for Big Brother | CBC News

They are coming for more than your family sedan.  They are going to upend, disrupt the entire system that brings everything to your home, grocery store, et al.  You’re going to be hit big time in your pocketbook and in every facet of your life.  Get prepared for it is coming, if not stopped.

Is Biden determined to turn me into a Trump voter?  Trump, no doubt, is the ugly face of my party, but Biden and his donkey party are trying to construct a totalitarian state on a preposterous green agenda.  Animating the whole venture, as is true with all totalitarian crusades, is a belief system on how best to organize and control people.  To gain popular traction, it’s best for all such crusades to contain a strong apocalyptic element, one powerful enough to justify stampeding the people into acceptance of its dictates and regimentation.  It’s happening before our eyes, right now!  Say goodbye to the republic and hello to the Soviet.

The EPA is the chief engine of the transformation from citizen republic to rule by all-powerful commissars.  Under the guise of “climate change”, we are being ordered to scrap our already immense sunk costs in affordable and reliable transportation for the mirage of something that doesn’t exist, and if it does, it’s a catastrophe as a replacement.  Prepare for a calamity, one that’ll conspicuously fall more seriously upon our children and generations to come.  Your kids will be the real victims.

March is turning into a deadly month for the health of our constitutional republic.  The EPA earlier in the month announced its intention to follow the template of California, one of a few states famous for turning many of its residents into refugees.  Like the authoritarian clown car in Sacramento, tighter emissions for “light duty” vehicles (cars, trucks, many SUV’s) will be imposed from 2027 through 2032, eventually sealing the death warrant for the production of nearly anything with an internal combustion engine (see #1 below).  Say goodbye to more than the citizen republic.  Say goodbye to that thing in your garage that allows you to get the kids to school, or you to work, or pay a visit to grandma for Thanksgiving, for its life will be wrung out of it by regulating and taxing it to death in escalating licensing fees and costs for upkeep, parts, and fuel.  Manufacturers will be forced to eliminate their production.  The comrades in power plan to leave you with no way out but into their approved and glorified golf cart.  This is nothing but totalitarianism “for your own good”.  And, of course, they know better about what’s good for you.  Right?

EPA Says More Diverse Advisory Committees Will Mean More Equitable Decisions - Union of ...

On the heels of that monstrosity, the commissars proclaimed a similar rule for the fleet of big vehicles that bring everything from produce to your grocery store to all things from an Amazon distribution center, everything that fills a shelf (see #3 below).  It’ll be much worse for those people who choose to live outside the controllable and tight confines of an urban area.  Think about it, all that stuff that was affordably made available at your fingertips will be crammed onto battery-powered big rigs (fuel cells create their own immense problems, see #2 below) of limited capacity, range, and tremendous recharging difficulties.

The mammoth costs of so-called “innovating” our way out of these imposed problems will only short-circuit the necessary wealth to satisfy other necessities of life.  These blinkered potentates have no understanding of the gargantuan trade-offs that they are inflicting on us.  Either that or they don’t care.

My bet is that they don’t care.  Why?  They possess a religious fervor for an ideology that justifies, in their mind, taking over more and more of your life.  For them, they are busy saving the planet, even if it means destroying your standard of living.  You see, their religio-ideology is founded upon a robust, promethean definition of “social cost” and “externalities”.  Like a canon law in the church, their “church”, the two doctrines give overriding weight to real or imagined costs for all of society for everything that you do.  Where’s the limits? Practically, there aren’t any.  Thus, the creeds become the supreme, open-ended excuses for the EPA, or any commissariat for that matter, to do anything that they want.

In the past, it was national socialist race justice to prevent defilement of the “race”, or the dictatorship of the proletariat to cram equality of condition on all of humanity to prevent exploitation.  Today, it’s saving the climate, leaving aside the lack of any credible, peer reviewed evidence that anything that they’re doing will positively affect a global atmosphere under which billions of people are acting independently and beyond the reach of the EPA.  Pardon me for concluding that this is nothing but pure stupidity.

In the end, the Biden claque and his Democratic Party are seemingly intent on destroying our way of life and replacing our citizen republic with rule by totalitarian zealots.  It’s Petrograd 1917, Berlin 1933, or Beijing 1949.  Keeping this crowd in power would have us see the end of much that we cherish.  So, if the choice is between the abominable Trump or this gang of totalitarian fanatics, one can be forgiven for preferring boorishness to Big Brother.

May be an illustration of text

May be an image of text

May be a doodle of car and text

May be an image of car and text that says 'ELECTRICY wm HaynE LANL "Plug in to nearby taxpayer's wallet and she's ready to go!"'

May be an image of text

RogerG

Sources:

1. In Orwellian language, the EPA announcement: “Biden-Harris Administration finalizes strongest-ever pollution standards for cars that position U.S. companies and workers to lead the clean vehicle future, protect public health, address the climate crisis, save drivers money”, March 20, 2024, at https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-strongest-ever-pollution-standards-cars-position
2. A survey of the literature on the shortcomings of fuel cells:
* “Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicles: Everything You Need to Know”, Car and Driver, 9/26/2022, at https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a41103863/hydrogen-cars-fcev/
* “A review of PEM hydrogen fuel cell contamination: Impacts, mechanisms, and mitigation”, ScienceDirect, 3/20/2007, at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378775306025304
* “Fuel Cells”, University of Illinois, at https://publish.illinois.edu/fuel-cells/benefits-and-disadvantages/
* “How Fuel Cells Work”, How Stuff Works, at https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/fuel-cell.htm

3. The same Orwellian language for heavy-duty vehicles: “Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Strongest Ever Greenhouse Gas Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles to Protect Public Health and Address the Climate Crisis While Keeping the American Economy Moving”, EPA, 3/29/2024, at https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-strongest-ever-greenhouse-gas-standards-heavy

4. National Review articles that provide excellent overviews of the issues:
* “Biden’s Vehicle-Emissions Gaslighting”, Luther Ray Abel, 3/20/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bidens-vehicle-emissions-gaslighting/
* “Electric Vehicles: The EPA’s Fast Track to Fiasco”, Andrew Stuttaford, 3/25/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/03/electric-vehicles-the-epas-fast-track-to-fiasco/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=capital-matters&utm_term=second
* “Biden Admin Imposes Strict Pollution Standards for Buses and Heavy-Duty Vehicles”, Caroline Downey, 3/29/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-admin-imposes-strict-pollution-standards-for-buses-and-heavy-duty-vehicles/

Posted on

What Does a Lack of Interest in Government Debt Say About Us? Nothing Good.

May be an image of crowd and text
Demonstrators march down Pennsylvania Avenue during a protest against police brutality and racism on June 6, 2020 in Washington, DC. This one end of the voter spectrum. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
May be an image of 8 people, crowd and text that says 'WARD TRUMP SUPPORT PRESIDENT TRUMP PORT DENT'
Trump supporters, the other end of the voter spectrum

Debt. Debt. Debt.  Government at all levels is awash in it.  Mountains of bonds and treasuries, unfunded mandates, and government spending galore is bankrupting the country.  The numbers are in the trillions for Washington, D.C., and beyond millions and into the billions in some state and local hives.  California stands out, and is leading the way to massive, harebrained fiscal imbecility, and a dismal future for anyone too young or unborn to vote.

And to think that nobody really cares.  The public doesn’t, just try and do something about it.  What animates the Trump crowd is rhetorical red meat, sticking it to the libs, and other acts of political theater.  No talk of debt, addressing it, or facing the runaway train of our entitlements.

May be an image of 5 people, crowd and text
Donald Trump waves to the crowd at one of his rallies in Florida, 2024.

Nothing in Trump’s past or in his recent four years at the Resolute desk is promising.  The guy is a real estate magnate who fumbled around in debt and bankruptcy most of his adult life.  As president, he just wanted to spend and spend and spend, even chastising Senate Republicans for balking at another spewing of checks across the fruited plain to grease his reelection campaign.  The only problem with his personality kink is the absence of the discipline of a bottom line in a federal government that can issue more debt and dollars at will. No state has a Federal Reserve Board.  Trump is a child in a candy store, and so are his followers.  Enough of this inane talk of having a businessman in the White House, especially this businessman.

The other choice on the political landscape is a band of neo-Marxist central planners who never met a tax, new bottomless social engineering gambit, and outright giveaway that they didn’t like.  The central planning is bad enough, but the vacuuming of more taxpayer dollars from potentially productive endeavors in the private sector into the hands of politicians and their special pleading lackeys is a recipe to repeat 1920s Weimar Germany, or maybe 1920 Bolshevik Russia.

May be an image of 3 people, the Oval Office and text
President Biden delivers remarks regarding student loan debt forgiveness in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in 2022. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Where are the adults?  Do we really want adults in decision-making posts?  Apparently not.  Adults aren’t popular.  Never have we been more in need of someone who will speak truth to power, and that power means the American public who keep electing these clowns.  We, the American voter, are the real “establishment”.  As before, watch demagoguery short-circuit any come-to-Jesus talk.

The numbers are staggering.  The national debt of $34.5 trillion is not far from the country’s total productive output, increasing $1 trillion every 100 days (see #1 and #3 below).  Meaning, we are close to the land of no return.  Compound the nightmare with rising interest rates adding fatter interest payments to the astronomical total and the magnitude of our fiscal immaturity resembles the black hole at the center of the galaxy.  Democrats and Trump only know how to spend, with the Democrats performing a lethal injection of tax hikes into our bloodstream as we drown in the sea of debt.

May be an image of text that says 'CREATORG. CEM 2016© MY GOODNESS, THEY'RE I.O.U.S NATIONAL DEBT @Ramireztoons michaelpramirez.com'

If there’s one thing both sides agree on, besides the profligate spending, it is, “Don’t touch Social Security and Medicare!”  As entitlements, both are on spending autopilot.  The spending flies on, but the funding source is deteriorating; the revenue fuel tank of the contraption is shrinking in real time.  The program is set up as pay-as-you-go, so the elderly need to stop saying that they are only getting their contributions back.  Balderdash.  Current retirees are receiving the contributions of current workers.  That’s the truth behind the lies.  When the amount of inflow stagnates or declines due to demography or deteriorating prospects for the young contributors, and the outflow prances forever upward, the fiscal tipsiness is guaranteed to add more huge infusions of red ink.

May be a doodle of text

How much of an infusion?  Don’t let the banality of these colossal numbers (trillions) habituate you into accepting them as tolerable.  They aren’t.  Euphemistically referred to as “unfunded obligations” among official bean counters, Social Security is scheduled to pour $19.8 trillion into the master “unfunded obligation” of the national debt through 2095.  Medicare promises another $68.1 trillion.  If we take the trend line into the great beyond, in perpetuity, as far as it can be calculated, Social Security raises the ignominy to $59.8 trillion and Medicare $163.2 trillion (see #2 below).  If this was a drunk, the victim would have long ago expired from alcohol poisoning.

California is paving the way to this sordid future, but in their muddled thinking, in their clichéd mind, it’s a compliment – all the talk about “California is the future”.  Well, they got this one right.  California is likely to be the country’s future.  They went right from a state that could conceive and build the California Water Project to inmates running the asylum.  It’s a playground of the insane.  There’s your future.

May be an image of 1 person, the Oval Office and text
California governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a press conference in Beijing, China, October 25, 2023. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

The state’s popularly elected governor and legislature discovered, like kids coming downstairs to the Christmas tree, an eye-popping $100 billion pot of gold, or “surplus”, in the summer of 2022.  Chief inmate, Governor Gavin Newsom, gushed, “No other state in American history has ever experienced a surplus as large as this.”  And then he and his fellow adolescents went around showering the largesse in a splurge of incontinence.  23 million of its residents received checks worth as much as $1,050 at a price tag of $9.5 billion.  It then would seem only natural for a self-proclaimed sanctuary state for immigration law violators to bankroll $5 billion for the health care of the same immigration law violators (see #4 below).  Foreign nationals in our country in violation of our laws now get bennies.  Got that?

In their unthinking habit of seeing bigger budgets as success in any social venture – not kids reading better or the number of homeless declining – the Sacramento clown car shoveled $20 billion into the pockets of the professionalized homeless “advocates” in their opulent NGOs, with no positive impact on public defecation, open-air drug dealing and use, crime, or the number of filthy encampments littering city streets.  The state’s potentates could go a long way in curing the problem just by being a little more energetic, as they demonstrated recently in sprucing up grimy San Fransisco for the ruling thug of Red China, Xi.  Instead, you’re likely to see an increase in real estate investments by those professionals in their NGOs.  They don’t have an interest in curing the problem for that would only make them get a real job (see #4 below).

The state’s deficit stands at $78 billion, and rising.  Add the state’s massive overspending to local wantonness and the total debt picture throughout the state approaches $1.6 trillion (see #4 below).  I’m not sure if a cliff or wall is the most appropriate metaphor, but the car is more than driven by the mandarins in city hall or Sacramento.  These nincompoops are popularly elected.  The people of the state have their foot on the pedal.  The people want fiscal insanity.

So, let’s stop blaming some abstract others for this dire situation.  The people voted for it, and continue to do so. I’m reminded of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”.

Michael Jackson Man In The Mirror Wallpapers - Wallpaper Cave

As one stanza puts it:

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could’ve been any clearer
If they wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change”

Leave it to the King of Pop to issue a come-to-Jesus moment.  It’s astounding to think that a deeply flawed man, who died of a deadly cocktail of drugs, made more sense than the people do in their elections.  Stew on that for a while.

May be an image of button and text

RogerG

Sources:

1. US Debt Clock at https://www.usdebtclock.org/. You can watch it climb in real time.
2. “The Real Federal Deficit: Social Security And Medicare”, John C. Goodman, Forbes, 2/25/2024, at https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2023/02/25/the-real-federal-deficit-social-security-and-medicare/?sh=25189f695679
3. “The U.S. national debt is rising by $1 trillion about every 100 days”, Michelle Fox, CNBC, 3/1/2024, at https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/the-us-national-debt-is-rising-by-1-trillion-about-every-100-days.html
4. “California’s Deficit: Bring Your Alibis”, Will Swaim, National Review, 3/18/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/03/californias-deficit-bring-your-alibis/

Posted on

The Divide in the Republican Party

Republican Party Has Lost Its Way and Identity | Janice S. Ellis

Much has been made of the divisions in the Democratic Party with the fringe left making life difficult for Joe Biden.  But what of the dissatisfaction in Republican ranks with Donald Trump?  The number of non-endorsements grew beyond Larry Hogan of Maryland and Nikki Haley’s refusal to fall in line, and now includes Mike Pence’s rejection of Trump (watch below).  Biden and Trump must be some of the most detested candidates ever to be foisted on the American public.  2024 is proving to be an election of the abhorrent.

Biden is sliding off into senescence as he flails ever further left.  Trump can’t help being repellent.  Both parties and their candidates are pandering in ways that sacrifice the country’s fortunes.  Biden attaches himself to a toxic cultural revolution, works to bury the country in greenie central planning, is busy driving the economy into the ditch in a flurry of tax/spend/regulate, and in a bumbling incoherence that strives to rescue Hamas in ceasefires as it calls for its defeat.  Whew, what a cognitive mess.

Trump isn’t any more intelligible.  He’s quite prepared to unleash Putin on Europe after stopping aid to Ukraine.  He promises a “beautiful” settlement on abortion which can only mean more sanction of more death for the unborn.  He complains of Biden’s contributions to the national debt while he guarantees an enlargement of it.  He won’t touch entitlements; the two biggest – Social Security and Medicare – will soon be ballooning the debt to such an extent that servicing it, in times of high interest rates, will crowd out defense and most of the other normal functions of government.  Of course, the payback for all the borrowing will fall most grievously on the young and yet-to-born.  But who cares?  Right?  They don’t vote.  The irresponsibility slaps you in the face.

He’s quite happy to trundle down the failed road of protectionism, corporate welfare, and coerced unionization.  Welcome to the new “blue-collar” Republican Party, which is not much different from the “New Deal” Democratic Party, the party with the same combination of 1930’s policies that succeeded in turning a depression into The Great Depression.  The thought of that prospect makes Trump seem appealing, as appealing as the next hit of methadone.

Mike Pence is a throwback to a time when the Republican Party made sense.  Yep, some of that agenda didn’t cater to big business’s claim on the budgetary carcass, or big labor’s demand to rope workers to its chariot.  Free market economics isn’t simpatico with featherbedding or the ladling of undeserved benefits to groups for no other reason than feeding their government-fueled bigness.  Trump, though, is all-in with his tariffs and his groveling at union shops.

Pence represents the approach that gave us one of the longest, if not the longest, sustained period of economic growth.  For decades after Reagan, subsequent presidents were surfers riding the big wave.  Even a Democrat president, Bill Clinton, had to concede as much in his 1996 state of the union address, “The era of big government is over.”

Then, along comes the Obama and Biden Democrats to implement their hostility to success and resuscitate the cult of big government.  Then, along comes Trump to hitch Republican fortunes to the cult.  Big names in the Republican tent are keen to construct a welfare state for hopefully their newfound blue-collar constituency, and even to declare their conversion to unionization and dislike for right-to-work.  The outspoken Sen. Josh Hawley (R, Mo.) burnished his about-face by joining striking UAW workers recently in Wentzville, Mo., and announcing his opposition to any federal right-to-work legislation.  Heaven forbid that workers should not be forced into a self-serving, left-wing labor cartel.  Nixon’s 1971 remark that “we’re all Keynesians now” could be updated to “we’re all for closed shops now” for the now “populist” GOP.

Funny thing, none of this big government agenda ever really worked.  The illusion of success peaked in the 1950s when America’s foreign competitors were still clearing the rubble from WWII.  America was never bombed or invaded so much excess was tolerated in a constricted market without economic rivals.  Fat labor contracts and absurd work rules with much featherbedding larded American manufacturing and transportation.  Hawley is happy to bring it back, with the stagflation of the 1970s tagging along.

Pence is a living reminder of what worked.  There are a few people still breathing who don’t suffer from the amnesia.  But amnesia is in vogue.  Democrats remain hooked on the belief in a coterie of Harvard grads scattered in big government bureaus who will save us from ourselves, or, for some, Karl Marx’s scheme can be magically made to succeed.  Come to think of it, it might be less amnesia than the sheer stubbornness that comes with ignorance.

For Trump partisans, amnesia remains as the lone explanatory contender.  Either that or blatant opportunism of people who should know better.  That’s the divide within the party: those with amnesia and those like Pence.  Please watch Martha McCallum’s interview with Pence, about 5 minutes into it, for a reminder that there are people who remember Reaganomics.

RogerG

Posted on

Fani Willis, An Indictment of Populism

May be an image of 4 people and text
Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis speaks at a press conference next to prosecutor Nathan Wade after a Grand Jury brought back indictments against former president Donald Trump in Atlanta, Ga., August 14, 2023. (photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

* Populism, a common definition: a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.

***********

Other definitions exist, the term being so fuzzy and susceptible to gross generalization.  Today, it’s all the talk among devotees of Donald Trump.  Realistically, though, it also can be applied to deep blue jurisdictions who would like nothing better than to hang the aforementioned Donald Trump.  In Georgia, and pertaining to Atlanta, DA’s and judges are elected, not appointed.  Fani Willis and the judge ruling on a defense motion for her to be removed from the case must face an electorate in a far-left fever swamp.  You can’t get any more populist than that, can you?  Fever swamps and populism go together.

Understanding Populism - Fact / Myth

And we’ve got a circus going on. It’s what happens when popularly-elected demagoguery is confused with justice.  Willis, and her love interest, Nathan Wade, her chosen special prosecutor targeting Donald Trump, may have committed perjury regarding their ongoing tryst.  The judge, facing the same electorate, ruled on a defense disqualification motion to keep Willis but send Wade packing.  As a layman who didn’t sleep at a Holiday Inn, the ruling seems puzzling.  They both stink of graft.  But, then again, that’s populism.  Not much is bound to make sense.

May be an image of 1 person
Atlanta Judge McAfee

Trump’s populism is his particular form of political theater that appeals to a certain crowd.  Fani Willis and the judge have to face voters – the ones that can be cajoled to the polls, that is – who prefer legal buffoonery and corruption to good governance.  Both Trump and Atlanta’s crowd favorites in power have their “populisms”.

Voices: Is Trump a demagogue?

All the talk of RINO, establishment, elites from Trump fellow-travelers is their lingua franca for anyone who opposes their demigod, Trump.  Atlanta’s carnival barkers in power know how to gin up their base in monotonous cries of “white racism” or “white privilege”, etc.  Go for the rich white guy and you’re well on your way to a lucrative book deal, fame and fortune, elevation up the political greasy pole, maybe becoming the next Stacey Abrams and unlimited appearances on MSNBC.  It’s all populism.

Let’s plow through the muck of Willis’s case against Trump – populism meets the legal system.  Well, let’s not scour too deeply that septic tank.  See #1 below if you have the sensory fortitude.  Suffice it to say that a broad, ill-defined RICO case without an alleged major crime is reminiscent of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or Beria’s fawning retort to Stalin, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”  Atlanta’s brand of populism is showing the way to banana republic, just add a jury that is drawn from the city’s mob to a DA and judge appealing and having to face the same mob.

Trump and Willis, with the judge playing along, deserve each other.  Populism is a political rats’ nest.  The less we see of it, the better off we’ll be.

May be a doodle of snake and text

RogerG

Sources:
1. Thanks to Andrew C. McCarthy for his stellar work on Fani Willis’s case against Donald Trump. His columns on the subject can be found at:
* https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-and-georgia-defendants-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=first
* https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2023/09/11/the-trump-indictment-of-democrats-dreams/
* https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/08/why-the-fani-willis-case-is-ill-conceived/
* https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/08/fani-williss-flawed-rico-charge-against-trump/
* https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/09/fani-williss-monstrous-trump-case/

Posted on

What of the Republicans Who Stay Home?

May be an illustration of 2 people and text

It won’t shock you that I’m not a Trump fan.  Still, I’m trying to be dispassionate in looking at the state of our politics.  Much of what we hear, read, and watch resembles the fog of war, a noisy racket that only clouds our perceptions.  Much escapes our view, including how many voters will stay home or not even vote on the ballot’s presidential line, due to the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch being too disheartening.  We get the superficial horse race numbers, but what of this factor, one that could have a big impact on the race?

It’s important for a Republican to ask, how many Republican and Republican-leaning voters will disappear from the total presidential vote, leaving aside the question of the level of Democrat fealty to a doddering Joe Biden?  How much of the Republican base and its normal allies are turned off by a Trump with a third bite at the apple?  One can find very little in the media hubbub.

However, there are hints of trouble ahead for a Trump GOP.  Elections are contests of coalitions of voters, of the party bases, independents, right-leaning Democrats for the GOP, and all sorts of demographic subgroups.  Hopefully, your collection will outnumber the opposition in enough states.  Now in this election cycle, add these groups: the stay-at-homes and the decline-to-states.

Dissatisfaction abounds regarding a second Trump-Biden face-off this time around.  In a late January Reuters/Ipsos poll (see #1 below), half expressed a disappointment in the two-party system; only a quarter was satisfied.  A third of Republicans said that Trump shouldn’t run.  59% of Biden supporters described theirs was a vote against Trump, not an endorsement for Biden.  Conversely, the cult factor in the Trump coalition is reflected in the lesser number of 39% of Trump supporters who stated that their choice would be a vote against Biden.  Trump swells the ranks of those who find him repulsive.  On the Trump legal front, 20% of Republicans have serious doubts about his claims of innocence, and 55% of Republicans leave open the possibility of him deserving of conviction, something that could weigh heavy on his candidacy.

Then, what will Haley voters do if Trump is the nominee, which now seems to be a sure thing?  Her following is a mixture of those who see her as the last remaining obstacle to Trump’s glide path to the nomination: a collection of primary fence-jumpers by Democrats and independents, Reaganite free-marketeers, and those who possess a strong distaste for Trump’s influence on the party.  Ferreting out the getable votes for Trump in Haley’s coalition is difficult to discern.  The big question is, what will voters do once the decks are cleared for the two towering nominees?

We get another hint in the NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll just before the Iowa caucuses.  43% of Haley backers said that they’ll vote for Biden in the fall.  How many of that number were never really open to the GOP to begin with?  It’s hard to say, but it does point to trouble for Trump and the GOP down the way.

Trump’s problem is unity because long ago he typecast himself as a sour provocateur.  He will lower the level of bombast, and already has, in the runup to the general election, but the moderation will have less effect, this being his third time around the block.  He’s a known quantity.  He’s got a packed graveyard of friends and foes alike who were sullied in relationship to him.  Hackneyed blarney like “establishment” that are mindlessly scatter-gunned at anyone in his way won’t hide the repellant nature of his stage persona.  Humiliating subservience isn’t a path to party unity.

Sure, Biden has his own problems.  The looney left, his senescence, and his own dreadful actions and policies will cause him fits.  But Biden’s best political asset is Trump, and the Trump fever engulfing the GOP . . . again.  This might be a race that was decided by who turned off the most voters.  Trump could have the edge in the repugnancy factor.

I’m with voter Sean Van Anglen, a New Hampshire Republican who previously voted twice for Trump, when he stated his desire to leave the presidential line on the ballot unmarked if Trump is the party’s nominee.  He said,

“I don’t think I can vote for Trump. I vote in every election.  I’ve never left a box blank.  And I might have to this time.” (see #2 below)

RogerG

Sources:

1. “Trump vs. Biden: The rematch many Americans don’t want”, Jason Lange, Reuters, 1/25/2024, at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/americans-dismayed-by-biden-trump-2024-rematch-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2024-01-25/
2. “Donald Trump has a big problem ahead”, Sam Stein and Nataly Allison, Politico, 1/23/2024, at https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/23/trump-moderate-republicans-problem-00137112
3. The Des Moines Register/NBC News. Mediacom poll, taken from Jan. 7-12, 2024, at https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24360792-iowa-poll-trump-vote

Posted on

Believing in the Unbelievable

May be an image of text

We’re living in a nutty time.  Alongside the Loch Ness monster, the second gunman on the grassy knoll, free healthcare, Elvis in the land of the living, people believe in the darndest things.  Modern iterations of the same phenomena include a “two-state solution” in Palestine, a wildly popular Trump, “undocumented” immigrants, a successful Marxism, etc.  How can this be?  Do adults actually believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus?

In an aside, attaching “undocumented” to immigrant hides the reality.  This person – “undocumented” – is a citizen of another nation who trespassed our border and our laws to plant themselves in our country.  This person is illegally present in the country, period.  “Undocumented” is synonymous with “illegal”.  “Illegal immigrant” clears the air.  The people who patronize us with “undocumented” are deceptive or they actually believe the unbelievable.

One guy, Robert Malone, MD, on Joe Rogan’s podcast, deposited his pet theory of “mass formation psychosis” (mfp) as an explanation for a broad belief in the unbelievable (see #1 below). I don’t know whether I accept the idea, but it certainly is intriguing.  Malone used it to explain much of the mania during the pandemic.  It could convincingly be applied beyond Covid and right into 2024 and our roiling election-year controversies.

Gundlach says Wall Street’s suffering ‘mass psychosis’ - MarketWatch

So, what is it?  Mfp is a psychotic condition on a mass scale in a time of deep divisions when events seem monumental yet poorly understood.  Someone or some explanation arises, goes viral, and the impressionable group runs the danger of being detached from reality.  The resulting behavior is often delusional to the point of derangement, or a state of mass hypnosis.  As Malone says to Rogan,

“When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it, and then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.” (see #1 below)

Welcome to 2024.  Are Republican primary voters in the grip of mfp?  How else to explain the popularity of Donald Trump in the party, in spite of the clear evidence of his toxicity?  He romped to a 20-point win in South Carolina after his other big wins in Iowa and New Hampshire.  Nothing holds promise of derailing his rush to the nomination. It’s odd given the fact that, post-2016, Republicans appear lining up for a four-peat of the miserable performances in 2018, 2020, and 2022.  A very powerful constant in the previous three election cycles is Donald Trump as the face of the party.  No one scares suburban voters and women more than the prospect of Trump in the White House.  Yet here we go again.

How did the party get to this juncture?  Nothing provides more proof of the presence of mass psychosis formation in Republican ranks than an enduring faith in Trump’s electability.  The previous losses didn’t penetrate the rational faculties of their brains, or the fact that a semi-functional nursing home patient is competitive with Trump.  Clinging to the unreal, South Carolina GOP voters in exit polls believe Trump is more electable than Nikki Haley (87% to 57%), in spite of national polling showing Haley slaughtering Biden by double digits (see #2 below).  Trump’s advantage over the senescent Biden is within the margin of error.

Trump Needs White Suburban Women. His Indictment Splits Them. - WSJ
Trump needs but frightens suburban women

A record of repeated failures won’t shock these people into reality, and neither will foul behavior diminish their fervor, even among people who profess the need for moral rectitude.  Trump recently went before religious broadcasters (Christian), laced his talk with the promiscuous use of “hell” before many pastors, and was met with laughs and cheers (see #4 below).  No admonitions, not a lick.

His responses to rivals are not arguments but insults.  We were reminded of his chronic incivility when he referred to Nikki Haley as “birdbrain” and tried to be derisive by ridiculing her ethnic name.  This is par for the course for Trump.

At a rally in South Carolina, Trump mocked Haley’s husband for not being around to support his wife.  He scoffed, “What happened to her husband? Where is he?”, and added, “He’s gone.”  In fact, he’s deployed in service to his country.  This isn’t the only time that he’s reached for the use of invective in an effort to be humorous, with the target being people in uniform, and a loved one of his opponent.

There’s more.  John Kelly, Trump’s former chief staff, confirmed earlier reports of Trump bad-mouthing those who suffered in war defending our country (see #5 below).  In the inner sanctum of the oval office according to Kelly, Trump referred to John McCain and H.W. Bush as “losers”.  John Kelly again: “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’”  More incidents will remain on the cutting room floor for lack of confirmation.

Before you dismiss Kelly, remember that he was a widely respected commander prior to his association with Trump.  Suddenly, he’s on the outs with Trump and the object of abuse by Trumpkins, who just yesterday held their hats at their hearts when a soldier was laid to rest.  Trumpkins are required to sacrifice their personal integrity in an allegiance to a lout.  It’s another example of believing in the unbelievable, in the righteousness of a man who exploited five deferments to avoid military service in time of war.

The coarse disrespect from his mouth is a green light to churlishness in his supporters.  It’s a pattern now common in all his campaigns from the beginning in 2016.  For instance, during a 2016 New Hampshire rally, he was lambasting Ted Cruz, a rival for the nomination, when a woman in the audience yelled, “He’s [Cruz] a pussy”.  Trump feigned a criticism and then happily repeated it to laughter and applause.  This is unthinkingly dismissed as “Trump being Trump”, and the behavior rubs off on his followers.

Achieving laughter through invective is a recurring Trumpism of those seeking the brass ring in his wake, like Kerry Lake who has the ambition to be one of Arizona’s senators.  Trump bashes McCain – “[McCain is] not a war hero.  He was a war hero because he was captured.  I like people who weren’t captured” – so Lake piles on with, “Boy, Arizona has delivered some losers [McCain], haven’t they?”  She prefaced that doozy with, “We don’t have any McCain Republicans in here, do we?”  She answered, “Well, get the hell out!”  Out Trumping Trump is considered an asset in this twisted little eco-system. (see #6 below)

Believing that it is endearing and won’t cost you elections, by someone who’s already lost one, is an amazing feat of delusion.  She’s the reason for an uptalking lefty occupying the governor’s mansion – in a state where the previous Republican governor won reelection by double digits – along with the Trump fealty claque in the party primary who put her on the general election ballot in the first place.

No wonder the party is plagued with over-the-top Trump worshippers in office in the likes of Lauren Boebert, Majorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, J.D. Vance, and others.  They embrace flamboyance as a substitute for civility, good judgment, and seriousness.  Clowns now rule the roost in the party.

The previous losses don’t seem to penetrate the fogged-up part of the logical brain. Cults of personality don’t have coattails; it’s in their nature.  The down-ballot for Trump has been a disaster.  He may win in a squeaker in November but expect a Democrat Congress to quickly impeach him.  I don’t relish the sight of the bloody aftermath of that imbroglio.  And to think that it is all due to people believing in that which ought not to be believed.  The Democrats believe in a successful Marxism.  Republicans believe in a popular Trumpism.

May be an image of text

RogerG

Sources:

1. “What Is Mass Formation Psychosis? Robert Malone Makes Unfounded Covid-19 Vaccine Claims On Joe Rogan Show”, Bruce Y. Lee, Forbes, 1/2/2022, at https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2022/01/02/what-is-mass-formation-psychosis-robert-malone-makes-covid-19-vaccine-claims-on-joe-rogan-show/?sh=4077085d1d4c
2. “Exit Polls: Exit Poll Results for 2024 Presidential Primaries and Caucuses”, CNN, at https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/exit-polls/south-carolina/republican-primary/0
3. Thanks to Philip Klein for his analysis regarding the electability question in “South Carolina Results Show Why It’s Hard to Run on Electability”, National Review, 2/24/24, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/south-carolina-results-show-why-its-hard-to-run-on-electability/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=fifth
4. Trump’s speech at the convention of the National Religious Broadcasters can be viewed at https://youtu.be/x1xKn6LR5gY?si=8bAv8muBXKRwXpjI
5. “Exclusive: John Kelly goes on the record to confirm several disturbing stories about Trump”, Jake Tapper, CNN, 10/3/2023, at https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/02/politics/john-kelly-donald-trump-us-service-members-veterans/index.html4
6. “‘No Peace, B****,’ Meghan McCain Tells Kari Lake”, Haley Stack, National Review, 2/21/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/no-peace-b-meghan-mccain-tells-kari-lake/

Posted on

Latest Poll: Trump Up Over Biden by Four, But So What

May be an image of 2 people

2024 is proving the nation to be rudderless.  Much of what is happening must seem befuddling to the mass of adults still in possession of their wits.  Our upper crust has merged with the Left, aligning with neo-Marxists without necessarily realizing it.  The reaction on the Right is a vulgar gesture in the person of Donald Trump.  Much of the media is an accelerant to both sides alongside dominant cultural institutions – the schools in particular, which are groomers of the Left.  Much of the media has become unwatchable and unlistenable.  The year 2024 is a time of the vulgar gesture versus the Left’s scheme of national extinction.

The nation’s suicide begins in the culture, especially cultural curators in the media.  It’s easy to write off much of the legacy media for their convergence with the progressive Left.  But the media on the Right has its own problems.  As stated before, I listen to Hugh Hewitt in podcast form more regularly than any other, but even he has become increasingly disappointing.  He’s a Republican booster, no holds barred, and that means a near subservience to Donald Trump if he is the nominee.  It leads to stunted conversation and information.

Let me explain.  A party is deserving of loyalty only if it remains respectable.  The vileness of Trump is beyond question; it’s part of his schtick (Trump being Trump).  Trump is disgracing the Republican Party making Hewitt’s subservience disgraceful for a now disgraced GOP.  So, this plays out on Hewitt’s show by his steering of interviews, conversations, and information away from criticism of Trump, even among guests who are well-known for blasting the mercurial man of Mar-a-Lago.  Airtime is almost exclusively filled with the monotony of anti-Biden banter to the exclusion of everything else.  Trump’s and the GOP’s complicity in many of these matters is absent.

The stance of right-leaning media is probably a commercial decision.  The talk radio audience is Trumpy in the extreme.  Speaking of suicide, it’s commercial self-murder to tick off an audience that’s mostly limited to spewing Hannity or Tucker Carlson talking points.  This crowd dominates the talk radio listenership and the GOP.  At this juncture, the party and its fellow-travelling talk radio base has made itself unrespectable and undeserving of Hewitt’s kid-gloves treatment, which only ends up soiling Hewitt as he does it.

Don’t think for a moment that the Democrats are a respectable alternative.  It used to be said that America is alone in not having a viable socialist party like the Labor Party in the UK or the social democratic party clones throughout Europe.  Wrong.  We’ve got the Democratic Party.  An American social democratic wannabe will remain a nonentity because that space is occupied by the sprawling donkey party.  Socialism has a following in the muddled brains of adolescents and among the party’s base and leadership.  Peddling an ideological poison pill isn’t a prescription for respectability.

Now, let’s take a look at the latest Marquette Law School Poll.  What does it say about the state of the race?  Trumpers are giddy about Trump being up by 4 over Biden nationally.  But Haley sends Biden packing by 16 (see #1 below).  There’s more to this race than the betting-line favorites, much more.

The poll-takers asked a push question to force more of the fence-sitters into a choice between the two leading contenders.  From the poll summary:

“These results include voters who initially said they would vote for someone else or would not vote but were then asked their preference if they had to choose one of the two candidates.  In the initial question, 13 percent said ‘someone else’ or that they would not vote.” (see #1 below)

Got it?  13% had to be cajoled into embracing one or the other.  How much of the rest of the 52% for Trump or 48% for Biden actually were facing the same dilemma but made a choice just to send the polltakers packing?  These guys, both of them, are castor oil to the public.

Age is one problem . . . for both.  In an ABC News poll, 86% of respondents say that Biden is too old to be president.  No surprise there.  It also applies to Trump.  At an age of 77 at the time of inauguration, 62% think that Trump is aged out.  Octogenarians behind the Resolute Desk doesn’t present a pleasing prospect for most Americans (see #3 below).

May be an illustration of text that says 'BIDEN 2024 TRUMP 2024 MATSON caglecartoons.com CQ ROLL CALL'

May be an illustration of 1 person and text

The reason is obvious.  Biden is going from infirmity to dementia before our eyes, while Trump is getting cruder and more caustic by the day.  Both are exhibiting crotchety-old-man syndrome.  Biden leaves the podium in a daze after regaling us in slurred and attenuated speech and mangled memories.  Trump has mentally locked himself into a junior high locker room.

If either one gets elected, will they survive the full four years?  Biden has already had one massive stroke.  Given his current semi-functional status, another one wouldn’t be surprising.  Then, we’ve got Kamala, polling worse than Biden.  She could amaze us, but nothing in her years in the public eye is encouraging.

Trump is different. He may serve in leg irons, which will present an interesting conundrum for the Congressional Republican Caucus.  The Democrats’ lawfare stable has 91 whacks at him from Jack Smith to DAs and AGs in New York and Georgia.  Do you want to bet that at least one of them won’t be made to stick by some dim-witted jury?  A mass of the charges is despicable, agreed.  But it’s a reality.

Think of it: America not much different from Nicaragua, or taking a page from Putin’s playbook.  But I digress.

Anyway, Trump could free himself of the evil Jack Smith with a pardon, unseemly as it will be.  Federal charges are within the president’s purview. State and local actions are an entirely different matter.  We are probably on untrodden ground here.  Since legal actions began before the inauguration, or sentencing awaits, what will happen if a felonious and possibly convicted defendant were to win the Electoral College?  The Republican Caucus may have to decide if they really want to shield a convicted defendant from impeachment and removal from office.  As for the Democrats, they stand in the wings in glee.

Sir Walter Scott, 19th century Scottish author, said it best: “Oh what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive”.  Are Democrats and the Trump gaggle in the GOP deceiving us as they make a clown car of our politics?  We may have to replace the eagle with Bozo as our national symbol.

Trump is slightly up, Haley trounces Biden, but so what.  She won’t get the nomination; Trump may serve in an ankle bracelet; or Biden will have to serve from a chronic care facility.  When you think about it, nobody is doing it to us.  We are doing it to ourselves.  It’s a democratic republic; we are responsible.

How responsible?  Each Republican primary, including the recent one in South Carolina, is proving that the rot has deep roots beyond the muckety-mucks.  The parties are marching toward a general election ballot that I will leave blank at the top, and maybe elsewhere.  No neo-Marxists and no Trumpers.

May be an illustration of text that says 'Bramballkkas IF THE 2024 ELECTION WERE HELD TODAY, HOW WOULD YOU KILL YOURSELF?'

RogerG

Sources:

1. “New Marquette Law School Poll national survey finds Trump at 51%, Biden at 49% in head-to-head matchup; each leads primary challenger by more than 50 points”, 2/21/24, at https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2024/02/21/new-marquette-law-school-poll-national-survey-finds-trump-at-51-biden-at-49-in-head-to-head-matchup-each-leads-primary-challenger-by-more-than-50-points/
2. Thanks to Jim Geraghty of National Review for bringing the poll to my attention, “Oh, No Big Deal, Just a Survey Showing Haley Beating Biden, 58 Percent to 42 Percent”, 2/22/24, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/oh-no-big-deal-just-a-survey-showing-haley-beating-biden-58-percent-to-42-percent/
3. “Overwhelming majority of Americans think Biden is too old for another term: POLL”, Meredith Deliso, ABC News, 2/11/24, at https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/poll-americans-on-biden-age/story?id=107126589
4. Thanks to Christian Schneider for additional information in “America Is Running Two Presidential Elections at Once”, National Review, 2/22/24, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/america-is-running-two-presidential-elections-at-once/

Posted on

Off Our Rocker

May be an image of 2 people, beard and suit

Are we off our rocker?  Republicans sound like the 60s New Left and Democrats come across as Ronald Reagan (regarding Ukraine).  Both Democrats and Republicans go off the cliff respectively into a crazy neo-Marxism and blind fealty in a cult of personality.  I give you a few examples.

Right off the bat, Sen. J.D. Vance (R, Ohio) is clearly off his rocker.  He took to the conservative American Spectator to burnish proof of his bonkers state of mind (see #1 below).  In his mind, nearly everything goes down a conspiracy rat hole, particularly aid to Ukraine.  The fact that the funding goes into next year is, in the twists and turns of his brain, proof of a Democrat plot to trap Donald Trump in impeachment if he should be elected this year.  Here’s a shocker: it’s normal for funding to go beyond the fiscal year since it takes time to pass through the intestines of the federal Leviathan and make the stuff – in this case, munitions.  It’s true for the aid to Israel in the bill which Vance incongruously, without a hint of embarrassing hypocrisy, supports (as do I).

The alleged trap assumes Trump will be elected and while in office turn the screws on Ukraine and by acts of omission assist Putin’s conquest of Russia’s “near abroad” – which, by the way, is strangely reminiscent of Lebensraum from another quarter of eight decades passed.  Furthermore, it unwittingly presumes that Democrats will control the House and Senate to give us another impeachment parade, which might happen if Republicans continue to serve up candidate looniness and stage ugliness (Trump being Trump).  For a good portion of the American public, who would want to check the Democrats’ neo-Marxism with the bestial and batty?  Vance, without thinking and saying it, assumes that voters will prefer the neo-Marxists and thus they’ll be in position to oust Trump.  Vance’s reasoning inadvertently slaps himself as he attempts to slap Ukraine.

What a strange way to quietly show affection for Putin and isolationism, albeit of the incoherent variety.  What a strange way to make yourself unelectable as a party.

And in the Republican stable, more craziness awaits.  Rep. Matt Rosendale (R, Montana), a stalwart of the House Republican suicide attempt in the toppling of Kevin McCarthy (R, Ca.) from the speakership, that didn’t make a lick of sense, announced that he’d like to bring the same looniness to the Senate chamber (see #3 below).  Brandishing all the Trumpy jargon of the “establishment” drivel, he’s challenging Republican Tim Sheehy, who’s been running since summer last. So, the state Republican Party will be asked to place on the November ballot a man who lost to Montana Democrat Sen. John Tester in 2018 in a state Trump carried by 16 points in 2020.  We’ll see if the state’s Republican voters are hungry to replicate 2022 when getable seats were lost by choosing the bestial and batty to carry the party flag.  A sizeable chunk of Republican voters has proven to be the Democrats’ best allies.

Potentially Illegal Mailer Sent To Montana Voters Causes Upheaval In Senate Election | The Daily ...
Rep. Matt Rosendale (R, Montana)

In the end, ironically, after election 2024 passes from the scene, the Democrats might still be in a position to ruin the country, or make it look like the hellscapes of California and New York.  Businesses and people are fleeing these bastions of insanity.  When will we ever learn that lefty policy is a ticket to societal carnage?  These states are governed by people who hate the Second Amendment and economic activity that isn’t directed by them.  Lawbreaking, adolescent genital mutilation (“gender-affirming care” in the jargon of our time), eco-central planning, our schools as Marxist preparatory academies, the filth and crime, and the secessionist flouting of federal immigration law emanate from these metropolitan and bi-coastal enclaves.  These places are a mess.

Their favorite whipping boys are people who bring us our energy and those who produce the means for us to protect ourselves from the miscreants coddled by them.  Defund the police?  The targets, especially the arms industry, are escaping a bevy of regulations, punishing taxation, and massive state-law sponsored lawsuits.  Smith and Wesson fled Massachusetts for Tennessee.  Now, Remington is abandoning New York for Georgia (see #4 below). Ilion, upstate NY, will shrink further.

No photo description available.

Our newfound passion to make everyone whole (in legal eagle lingo) in the extreme is driving whole industries into bankruptcy, literally.  The fact that a wacko used a Bushmaster to kill 20 kids and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School is the excuse to squeeze $73 million from Remington and, by extension, its employees.  What of the car manufacturer of the vehicle that the killer drove?  What of the gas station that the killer accessed to get him to the school?  What of the fuel manufacturer?  What of the maker of the shoes, clothes, and food that kept him alive and well to perform the heinous deed?  What of all the hammers and steak knives that have been utilized to commit mayhem throughout history?  In states like New York, we have a web of law and a jury pool, indeed a population, curated on hostility to certain industries.  Remington became the target, less so the killer.  Well, they are getting out.  Masochism shouldn’t be expected to be a requirement for economic activity.

From the article:

“My mom worked there [Remington, Ilion].  My dad worked there.  My wife works there with me now.  My daughter works there with me now.  My second daughter works there with me now.  And my son-in-law works there,” said Brown, president of the United Mine Workers of America Local 717.  “So it’s a double-hit for me and my wife: two of us out of a job.”

Do ya think?!

In statements to the press and employees, Remington cited New York’s threatening “legislative environment” and the fact that Georgia “supports and welcomes the firearms industry” (see #4 below).  As a result, the State of New York is giving its residents much more than they ask for.

It’s much more than a shrinking tax base.  It’s a clear field of play for criminals after non-prosecution, hostility to self-protection, and suppressed bail requirements under the puffery of “equity”.  Where’s the “equity”?  Right now, some people have greater rights to steal and destroy your property than you do in desiring to keep it.  If the numbers don’t break down “equitably” by race, then hell is turned loose on the law-abiding, and good number of those are in so-called “protected classes” supposedly in need of “equity”.  It’s laughable, if it wasn’t also so tragic.

There you have it.  Current events are a chronicling of absolute lunacy.  Are we off our rocker?

May be an image of 2 people and text

May be an image of 2 people and text

RogerG

Sources:

1. “The Republican Plot Against Donald Trump”, Sen. J.D. Vance, The American Spectator, 2/12/24, at https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-congress-is-pursuing-endless-war-in-ukraine-and-trying-to-stop-a-trump-election/
2. Thanks to Noah Rothman for the reportage and commentary on Vance’s claim in “J. D. Vance Thinks You’ll Believe Anything”, 2/12/24, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/j-d-vance-thinks-youll-believe-anything/
3. “Rosendale’s entry into Montana Senate primary sparks GOP furor”, Julia Mueller, The Hill, 2/11/24, at https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4459261-matt-rosendales-montana-senate-primary-donald-trump-tim-sheehy/
4. “Remington leaves the upstate New York village where it made guns for 200 years after a PE takeover and 2 bankruptcies”, Michael Hill and AP, Fortune, 2/11/24, at https://fortune.com/2024/02/11/is-remington-in-business-who-owns-leaving-new-york/

Posted on

Trump Won and I’m Out

Republican caucuses live updates: Why Iowa matters
Trump supporter in Iowa, 2024

Iowa Republicans tromped to their caucuses and chose . . . Donald Trump.  They’re hungry for a repeat of 2020 and the dismal results of 2022.  As I’ve said before, if Trump is the party nominee, I’ll leave the presidential line on the ballot blank.

Please don’t press the same old tired binary (if not him, then it’s them).  I did that calculation twice.  I can’t do it a third time.  His protectionism and isolationism, alongside his repugnant behavior in and out of the Oval Office, make him a poison in the party.  Personality cults are not a healthy thing when it comes to governing.

A discouraging outcome in November, maybe outright defeat, could be very therapeutic for the party in removing his baleful influence.

Bottom line: he’s the best chance for the Democrats to remain in power.  Whole demographics can’t swallow him, never could.  The Democrats ruin the country, and the Republicans choose the least electable candidate.  Go figure.  A vote for Trump is a vote for the Democrats’ campaign strategy.

I’m out, from being a voter in the presidential contest that is.  I may have to rethink my party registration.

May be an image of text that says 'RAIRZ V GOP X@Ramireztoons A FISH ROTS from the HEAD FIRST. michaelpramirez.com'

RogerG

Posted on

Radioactive Personality

Trump Meeting With Mueller Could Be 'Radioactive,' Allies Say

The term (radioactive personality) comes from the National Review editors’ op-ed on the eve of the Iowa caucuses (see below).  Indeed, Trump is a radioactive personality.  It bodes ill for the GOP in November.

No doubt about it, it’s true, and it’s true not because Trump drives the Left – which means the root-and-branch of the Democratic Party – nuts, but because everyone, even his friends and loyal supporters, recognize his self-absorbed boorishness and then run to a banal recitation of his accomplishments.  The reprehensive demeanor is hard to avoid.  This simple fact has profound repercussions.  Going into this election’s primaries, Trump is the weakest rival to Biden in a general election, also, no doubt about it.  If the Democrats should change their standard bearer, all bets are off for even the rosiest Trump scenario of a narrow victory in November.

How radioactive is he?  His avid fans are giddy about his head-to-head slight lead (within the margin of error) in some major polls.  Remember, he’s running against a guy who every day reminds the public that he belongs in a nursing home and not the oval office.  In addition, look at the hash Biden’s party has made of the country and our national security.  Everything from Abbey Gate (the deadly Kabul fiasco), inflation, the uncontrolled border, the assault on our standard of living in eco-totalitarianism, the neo-Marxism in DEI, the boosterism for transgenderism’s teenage genital mutilation in “gender affirming care”, the orchestrated annihilation of American education, et al, doesn’t leave much for the donkey party to run on, except the looming Trump ascendancy if he is the GOP’s avatar.

The tone for the general election is set.  Biden’s speech last week in Blue Bell, Penn., made Trump the focus of evil in the world. It’s a replay of the strategy in the 2022 midterms.  Did it work then?  I don’t know, but the expected GOP banner year turned out to be The Great Disappointment.  Apparently, it’s safe to assume that enough people fell for it.  If anything, the person of Trump animates the Democrats and sends shivers down the spine of at least a sliver of Republicans.  Not good for someone who’s already a close-run thing.

Trump Falsely Claims Biden's Speech Threatened His Loyalists With Military Force
Biden’s “Jim Crow 2.0” speech from Sept. 2022 in the runup to the 2022 midterms

The polls tell the tale, and have been telling the same tale for quite some time.  The second-place candidate in the Republican primary contest does significantly better than Trump in a face-off with Biden in the general.  The crazy Trump indictments and other Democrat shenanigans have certainly contributed to a heavy sympathy vote among Republicans for Trump.  While they have contributed to Trump’s political ballast among GOPers, once Trump gets out of the safe confines of the Republican primary, expect Democrats to cater to the electorate’s already deep disdain for the man from Mar-a-Largo, if only they can successfully distract the voters away from Biden’s catastrophes – a big “if”.

Follow the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of polls and follow them from 2023 on (see below for the latest).  The trend is clear.  At best, Trump eeks out a lead in the margin of error.  The polling details vary (for instance, registered vs. likely voters) but the direction is obvious.  Biden screws up, Trump improves, slightly!  Yesterday (Jan. 10), the YouGov/The Economist poll registered a Biden and Trump tie at 43%.  Both are stinkers with negatives in the mid to high 50s.  The last time, December 2023, a general pairing of Haley or Trump versus Biden by the Wall Street Journal shows Haley smashing Biden by 17% with Trump squeaking out only a 4-point lead (see below).  For the life of me, why are Republicans determined to make their election prospects so difficult?  It makes me wonder if this is populist sadomasochism at work.

Trump Encourages Nikki Haley to Abandon Her 'Honor,' Launch 2024 ChallengeNikki Haley (l)

I’ll leave the prognosis of sadomasochism to the field of psychology, but, at the very least, one must conclude that we live in crazy times.  Trump is still radioactive, and Biden is a bumbler after having surrendered to his party’s neo-Marxism.  Oh, America, why are we so gun-ho for mediocrities, and repulsive ones at that?

RogerG

Sources:

* “Republican Voters Can — and Should — Rethink Nominating Trump”, The Editors, National Review online, 1/10/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/01/republican-voters-can-and-should-rethink-nominating-trump/

* Latest FiveThirtyEight polling at https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

* “Why Nikki Haley polls better against Joe Biden than Donald Trump does”, Steven Shepard, Politico, 12/9/2023, at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/09/haley-electability-trump-biden-polls-00130926