STRATEGY TRUMPS TRUMP

The outcome of the upcoming presidential election will be determined, at its most fundamental level, by the prevalence and intensity of two forces: Trump Derangement syndrome on the one side and perception/recognition of cognitive decline and incompetence of Biden on the other. Ben Shapiro posits that while many people vote based on policy, the majority do it on personality, and he may be right. Both of the likely candidates at this time (and this may change) are tainted by corruption. To me it’s clear that Biden is far the more sullied in this regard, but presenting the evidence for this assertion goes beyond the scope of this dissertation. Besides, while both sides of the aisle demonstrate a willingness to distort reality in favor of tribal leanings, those still wedded to the idea of Biden as the lesser evil have carried it to such an extreme that many of their arguments resemble parody rather than serious critique.

The flurry of charges against Trump, while largely born of TDS and the radical progressivism infecting the Democrat Party, may also be politically astute if the goal is to try to assure a Trump candidacy; his bump in the polls on the right with each new indictment attests to that. With a weak and failing choice such as Biden, a Democrat strategy of bolstering your opponent’s candidate in the primary who is perceived as the most vulnerable in the general election is just smart politics. The move both energizes the Right to support him in the primary while satisfying the Left that hates him—it’s a no-brainer. But Republicans, by placing emotion over, strategy could be playing a dangerous game.

Trump supporters don’t buy in to the vulnerability argument, or their enthusiasm for the man prevents them from entertaining the notion. But it remains a fact that the current, weak, incompetent president beat him once while hiding in the basement (arguments for “stolen election” aside). True, some things have changed. Biden is now more cognitively impaired than on the first go-around and has a track record of almost universally failed and destructive policies. More black and Latinos voters are defecting, and some election law loopholes have been closed. And Republicans now see the wisdom of fighting fire with fire when it comes to ballot harvesting. But is this enough to overcome the smoldering coals of TDS that the Democrats are forever stoking into flame? Modern-day elections are won or lost on the backs of a small cadre of voters in the center. The question is, is it good political strategy to bet on Trump?

In the interest of transparency, I must divulge I don’t like Trump, the man. I find him coarse, and narcissistic to the point that he’s quick to abandon his party when he feels it’s in his best interest. And while he has an amazingly thick skin when it comes to defending himself and his policies against the deranged Left, it’s the opposite when it comes to his perception of “disloyalty.” He’s not the most moral individual (although a saint compared to Biden) but is probably in the middle to lower third of the pack compared with politicians in general. I loved his policies and their effects in the pre-COVID era, and his perseverance in the face of strong political headwinds and an obstructive Deep State. But I’m more a fan of Ron DeSantis, who I feel has demonstrated an ability to govern soberly, without the theatrics that can alienate an uncertain independent or old-fashioned liberal, whose votes will be critical in a general election. DeSantis has been true to conservative ideals, and has had a demonstrably positive effect on the state of Florida’s economy, education, and crime which I believe will port over to the national level. I have no illusions he won’t be tarred and feathered by the progressive Left, and also no doubt the DeSantis Derangement Syndrome will be part of the lexicon should he win the White House, but it’s the swing vote that I’m interested in. I also like Vivek Ramiswamy, but have no clue how he’d fare in the national stage. I suppose I’ll miss Trump’s entertaining tweets (or X’s), but not the blood pressure-raising juvenile ones, of which there were many. Not a small factor to also consider, all the indictments will distract Trump and siphon off much-needed campaign dollars (which is their point), and while all the indictments are clearly banana republic political corruption and bad for the country, Trump is in real legal jeopardy in the Florida classified information suit due to his recorded ill-spoken remarks. Besides, it seems likely that a Washington, D.C-based jury could potentially convict for the January 6^th non-charges (look at the bogus outcome in the NY civil Stormy Daniels trial).

Of course, Trump will have my vote if he’s victorious in the primary, as current polls strongly suggest. But I can still hope that enough of the Right will come to recognize that strategy trumps emotion when trying to win elections.

TRUMP AS USEFUL IDIOT FOR THE LEFT

Once again Donald J. Trump’s ego has stomped on his common sense, or what remains of it. We remember how his egocentric obsession with the outcome of the last presidential election caused him to favor “loyal” candidates in Georgia rather than those that might destroy the Democrat’s slim majority in the Senate. Flawed Trump candidates in purple states in the midterm elections helped shore up the Senate for the Left and mitigate the predicted “red wave” in the House. And now, his ego has shot him in the politico-legal foot.

There is no question that the Department of Justice has been weaponized against conservatives (the asymmetric application of the enforcement apparatus has been laid out in detail in prior rants, and won’t be revisited here). The current legal bludgeoning of Trump is a continuation of the banana republic-type behavior we’ve witnessed since even before the Russia Hoax. Any honest, informed citizen can see the slow-walk of the Biden scandal. The televised hearings on of January 6^th and the prosecution of Trump in NY re the Stormy Daniels debacle were examples of laughable political theater. Politically, the current indictment of Trump over the stored top secret documents in Mar-a-Lago, however, is not a laughing matter. Oh, it’s clearly disgustingly partisan, in keeping with prior Democrat behavior. But Trump, once again, has armed the opposition—and this time sacrificed himself, potentially along with the Republican Party.

In the bygone days of Secretary of State and future presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, we all recall the scandal of secret documents stored on her home server that were eventually found on Anthony Weiner’s computer. Despite the subsequent bit-bleaching of her server and electronic devices to hide the evidence, FBI Director James Comey not only incongruously declared an absence of “intent,” then went on to unilaterally proclaim intent as the measure by which prosecution should be undertaken, allowing Hillary to walk. Now we have an ex-president in legal peril who kept secret documents, as did Pence and Biden (who both returned them). Charges against Pence were dismissed. Biden is being “investigated,” and I won’t hold my breath on that outcome. But Trump, either through hubris or blinding anger from his wounded ego, decided not to defang the situation by simply returning the documents. Instead, he hid a quantity of the boxes from his lawyers, who unknowingly claimed all had been returned, and which were subsequently uncovered by authorities. On top of this political and legal malfeasance, Trump was recorded as sharing some of the content of secret files to an individual who was without appropriate security clearance and then proclaiming he had not declassified them and could no longer do so, countering his own defense that, as president, he had had the right to automatically declassify all documents in his possession. This makes a legal defense going forward challenging, at best.

There is a clear, banana republic-style double standard being used to indict Trump and further divide the nation. The remedy would be a political, rather than a legal one, i.e., a refusal by the DOJ to prosecute, consistent with prior precedent. Instead, Biden et. al. has chosen, as we might expect, to allow this unprecedented indictment of a president to move forward. The effects of this are predictable. The pro-Trump Republican base will be justifiably outraged, likely increasing Trump’s chances of winning a Republican primary. Unfortunately, I fear it will further decrease his chances of winning a national election (I’ve already expressed concerns about his ability, in the setting of TDS, to overcome even a decomposing zombie such as Biden). But I see a second, perhaps even more substantial danger to the Republican Party as a whole: As the understandable ire on the right from this political injustice grows, it is not inconceivable that it will radicalize more disgruntled voters in right wing of the party, increasing the likelihood of politically-motivated violence. This, in turn, will justify, or appear to, the Biden contention that the alt-Right and “MAGA Republicans” are the dominant “threat to democracy,” and will be used to intensify the crack down on conservative speech and potentially alienate more of the centrist and independent votes needed in a national contest.

Trump’s policies were a force for good when he served in the White House. Political and legal stupidity may end up making him a useful idiot for the Left, and cost him and his party an election. Or it may open the door to other Republican contenders. In any case, handing the noose to the hangman for your own lynching is never a great idea.

THE TRUMP RUN—CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

The prevalent wisdom is that the indictment of Donald Trump occurred at this time because the Democrats hate him and are terrified of a second go in the White House. While this is true and true, I’m not alone in maintaining that the indictment is precisely timed by the Left to assist Trump in his quest for a primary win.

The dynamics of a primary election and a national one are vastly different. With Trump’s unflagging base of somewhere ~30% of Republican voters, he undeniably has an advantage going into the primary and polls support this contention. The current indictment, with all available information, is based on flimsy charges and no likely crime, much less a felony. And this isn’t my opinion, but those of more than one attorney not associated with the case. The unequal application of the law is fodder for another rant, but the obvious injustice has triggered the expected primary poll bump for Trump. While the Left in power is abysmal when it comes to governing, this incompetence does not extend to the arena of politics. A small radical contingent would never have been able to control the educational system, the culture, and then the government by planned incremental baby steps over decades without a collective sociopolitical genius that would be admirable if it weren’t so evil. So it seemed a stretch to me that they wouldn’t see the benefit this arraignment will gift Trump in the primary run. And now with the the over-the-top “let’s throw 34 felony charges at the wall and see what sticks” announcement, it became clear that my analysis was on point: They’re not even bothering to hide the politicization.

I was a Cruz man for Trump run #1, but unhesitatingly voted Trump over Hillary, correctly perceiving at worst he was the lesser of two evils. I hadn’t expected his policies to be so spot-on, nor their implementation so successful with the political headwinds he faced and an uphill climb against an entrenched, hostile Deep State. The first businessman in a long line of career politicians in the White House proved to be the recipe our nation needed. While his outsider status gave him the clarity to oppose deep-rooted corruption, his lack of political acumen coupled with an outsized narcissism only rivaled by his predecessor did not serve him well. With his frequently boorish tweets and political gaffs (possibly the biggest resulting in the loss of a Senate majority via the midterm Georgia race when he placed perceived personal disloyalty above the Party and the country), he fanned into flames an already smoldering Trump Derangement Syndrome. TDS is not just limited to the far Left—many moderate Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans suffer from the malady. Its most important symptom is an inability to see, remember, or acknowledge his salutary policies and the attendant favorable outcomes (recall that not a single Democrat clapped during his State of the Union address when the historically low unemployment rates in minority communities were referenced). Although not the sole reason for Trump’s loss to a failing, basement-sequestered Biden on his second run, I maintain it played a major, if not the most crucial, role. Viewing the political landscape through the eyes of a Leftist (as headache-provoking as that may be), the prospect of a DeSantis (or other) candidacy is much more concerning. Trump is a known quantity, with an already failed run (fairly or unfairly) against Biden, and national polls suggest even less across-the-board popularity than in 2020. And the Leftist media benefit in eyeballs and dollars with Trump in the picture. While the indictment will energize Trump supporters and those already committed to a non-Democrat candidate, it’s not likely to swing otherwise receptive but uncommitted voters. Hanging one’s hopes on the ongoing abysmal track record of Biden’s ongoing disastrous reign of tyranny may be a fool’s game, judging by the results of the midterm elections.

I fear that in a national election a candidate with the millstone of TDS around his neck who has lost once to a doddering fool, can lose again.

TOXIC TRUMP

In the wake of the Red Wave that became the Red Ripple we conservatives must pause for reflection. The magnitude of the failure is as astonishing as it is disappointing. Typically, even with stronger opposition, the party out of power has decisive gains. In a time of grossly incompetent leadership, a president who suffers from early cognitive dysfunction with approval ratings in the toilet, and disastrous inflation coupled with feckless foreign policy, one could not be faulted for having assumed, abetted by historically worthless polls, a potentially unprecedented shift in the legislature was coming—only it didn’t. The question is why.

Ben Shapiro gives some insight in his analysis that the strongest candidates were put forth in the least threatened seats, and the weakest in the most contested. His mantra that the quality of the candidates matters has been borne out by the results. Still, as weak a candidate as Mehmet Oz was in PA, it boggles the mind that a radical left, mentally challenged opponent such as Fetterman could decisively beat him. The counterpoint supporting Shapiro’s contention is that in Florida, strong candidate Ron Desantis, having squeaked through to a victory in his first go-around, had a blowout in his second, and carried a purple state into red territory in record time. Ironically, the other state with the most flipped House seats (4 ) was Democrat stronghold New York, potentially preserving a slim lead for Republicans in the House.

The reasons for the electorate’s amazing and suicidal decision to soundly mitigate the shift in power cannot be ascribed to a single factor. Decades of progressive ideological grooming via control of the institutions of learning and the culture certainly play a major role. While the conservative vote in the black and Spanish-speaking communities grew, unmarried women voted 2 to 1 for Democrats, as opposed to their married counterparts who predominantly went Republican. Likely this reflects not only the aforementioned progressive indoctrination and successful vilification of conservatives, but also, in this demographic, a dependence on government in the absence of a committed life partner as well as the an increased impact of the abortion issue since the Supreme Court’s decision. The mainstream media’s mis- and disinformation campaign and censoring or deemphasizing of facts that fell outside the progressive narrative cannot be underestimated. But the “straw that broke the camel’s back” in an election that had razor thin margins in contested areas, in my opinion, was Trump. I contend that the man is politically toxic. This isn’t new, but in the past his populist message was sufficient to overcome this. Now Trump is mainly about…Trump. Yes, he has a loyal base of “always Trumpers,” possibly about 25-30% of Trump voters if the numbers still hold. But in these days of squeaky elections decided by the swing vote from the Independents and moderate Democrats (yes, they still exist but you wouldn’t believe it from listening to the mainstream media) I think the “Trump factor” is fatal. Trump Derangement Syndrome, still prevalent, is the dagger in the Republican heart.

Trump was brilliant policy-wise but has always been a disaster politically. He lost the Republicans the Senate via Georgia in the last election, and this go-around he may again, although it is now moot with the Democrats still in control of the Senate. In the most contested seats, the Republican Party chose to run Trump loyalists vocal about the illegitimacy of the Biden win. While gushing praise for Trump may play well with his loyalists as well as most nose-holding conservatives who see no viable alternatives in the other party, it’s a non-starter for many of the Independents and cross-over Democrats. Adding to this, to our detriment, for many voters personality trumps policy, and I suspect the more uniformed and misinformed the voter, the greater role this plays. Biden’s policies may be juvenile and dangerous, but for anti-Trump voters even the president’s mental stumbling and poor governance is insufficient to overcome their TDS. Trump has done nothing to mitigate this. His ego post defeat has overshadowed his connection with many of the voters who supported him in the last election: In the current race we can see a referendum against Trump-endorsed candidates chosen solely on the basis of their willingness to proclaim loyalty to Trump and decry the legitimacy of the 2020 election. His current outbursts against the biggest star of the midterm elections, Ron Desantis, follows the prior pattern of narcissism and political self-immolation.

While it can be tempting to view the country as potentially lost, it’s important to recognize the few bright spots that may be a harbinger of a new dawn. The margins of defeat remain slim, and Florida demonstrates that with a more strategic approach going forward, with more competent and electable candidates, a shift back to freedom and normalcy is possible, Almost half of the country still holds the view that morality, God and the founding values count (and without which we cannot succeed), recognize the difference between a democracy and a republic and why our Founders opted for the latter (something apparently no longer taught), and value freedom over security. More people will be won over as the social and economic circumstances continue to worsen, as they must with a continuation and potential intensification of current policies (both parties seem to interpret any win as a mandate). While we are in danger of failing from threats internal and external before this transformation can occur, and this is going to be a decades-long battle, there is no acceptable alternative but to keep fighting. Adversity can demoralize or energize. Conservatives and our anti-progressive allies should take a cue from the beleaguered Ukrainians, and move relentlessly forward to drive the progressive enemy from the borders of our republic.

And forgo nominating Trump.

Addendum:

Addendum:

Shortly after posting this I learned of another important factor contributing to the Congressional upset: Redistricting. As Mark Levin pointed out, pollster Frank Luntz (who got it wrong, like so many others) in his post=election analysis pointed out that the redistricting gerrymandered seats that favored the Democrat Party (I now recall reading about this at the time). The favorable result in New York as opposed to many other purple districts may reflect the fact that the NY judiciary prohibited this redistricting favoring the Democrats. Supporting this is the fact that voting favored the Republicans by 5 million votes (4-5%) with disproportionately worse outcomes in contested districts. So this should be added to the mix of variables that may explain the unexpected outcome.

I GUESS I’M MAGA

It seems quite few of my family members and I agree on little when it comes to the state of affairs and its causes. Fortunately, while we can rarely discuss social, cultural and political issues, we’ve not become disenfranchised, still share a bond of love, and certainly don’t see one anther as evil. Still, it seems they must regard me as sociopolitically deluded as I see them. In the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid one of them posted on Facebook yet another anti-Trump diatribe, a satirical piece from The Shovel that laments:

We are certainly no fans of Donald Trump – let’s make that clear from the outset. But yesterday’s raid by the FBI on the home of a former president sets a dangerous precedent.

A precedent which now means that anyone who evades taxes, attempts to undermine an election, sexually assaults women, manipulates the value of their assets, uses state resources to enrich themselves or aids and abets the overthrow of a democratically elected government will be subject to investigation.

Is that the world we want to live in? Where anyone accused of insurrection can be subject to questioning from law enforcement officers?

It’s a slippery slope. Before we know it, regular citizens accused of defrauding the government, concealing evidence, manipulating financial documents, tampering with witnesses or perverting the course of justice will also be held to account.

Because Trump’s so evil, they’ve decided that Biden (his history of plagiarism and shady business dealings notwithstanding) and team are the lesser evils. So be it. Personally, while I agreed with the sentiment of making America great again, and having recognized the increasingly large rent in the fabric of our great country’s values, I was never a Trumper. Partly because I ally myself with values and policies rather than people, who are all imperfect and likely to disappoint. But also because I found him often undiplomatic to the point of boorishness, and a slave to his gargantuan ego. Having said that, his policies as a rule were spot-on and he achieved more in 4 years against unprecedented political headwinds than most of his predecessors. It was reflected in a booming economy, laudable unemployment statistics for all (especially minorities), no new wars, and a breakthrough in Middle Eastern diplomacy (the Abraham Accords) by abandoning the long-failed traditional approach, to name only some accomplishments. This was dangerous to the entrenched powers, demonstrating that a businessman could be more successful at policy than those who had never held a job outside of government and trying to regulate things they could barely understand, their many academic degrees notwithstanding. There is emerging evidence that fear within the deep-state bureaucracy of exposure of buried scandals and illegalities to the light of day may be playing at least as large a role in Trump resistance, but that’s beyond the scope of this rant.

So when the demonization of the Right that has been so successful for the Left as a marketing tool to shield them from the poor results of decades of failed policy intensified with our Commander-in-Chief defining “MAGA Republicans” as fascists and a threat to democracy, I had to do some introspection. I already knew I was racist, misogynist, and a member of “the Deplorables,” having voted for Trump not once, but twice. And now I was learning that I might be a fascist, anti-democracy threat to the nation as well. I didn’t support the trespass at the Capitol on 1/6, and I denounce the violence of the few of the few trespassers out of the much larger group of peaceful protesters out that day. Still, the characterization of “insurrection” rang obviously political, coming from those who supported the much more widespread and damaging violent protests of 2020. And I do mean supported—our vice (love the term, in this case) president even went so far as to encourage bailing out violent offenders. And I understood the mindset of the peaceful protesters, with clear and still mounting evidence of election fraud (that the Left denies), especially in the setting of pre-election media-suppressed evidence of Biden’s corruption via Ukrainian and Chinese business deals undertaken by son Hunter. Still, it remains a fact that a lot of smoke pointing to surgical election fraud is insufficient to illegitimize an election unless proven in a court of law. But those currently throwing stones in this regard reside in a glass house: It must not be forgotten how the Democrat-activist media was all over Trump as being an “illegitimate” president while they aggressively pursued various fake leads such as the Russia Hoax to try and legitimize the fantasy.

Anyway, after introspection, I had to decide if I was really a “MAGA Republican,” with all the attached negative baggage that it implies. Before, I’d just considered myself a constitutional conservative. To release myself from the bondage of being an anti-democracy fascist, a national security threat, and a racist, I know from Biden’s own words that I had to be “someone he could work with.” So I had to analyze his beliefs and actions to see if I could “work” with him.

Joe Biden believes that the planet is doomed by Climate Change, that diversity of color and sexual preference is preferable to merit and competence, that equity trumps equality, and that subjectivity trumps reality. I was getting off to a bad start: I didn’t agree with any of these things. But to improve, one must open one’s mind to foreign ideas. So I decided to examine his accomplishments.

One of the first things he did was close the Keystone pipeline and throttle our fossil fuel energy supply, hampering our energy independence. He limited leases, discouraged investors, and, not understanding supply and demand (or ignoring it), blamed the oil companies, and then Putin, for the rising prices. The result of his policies, abetted by Europe’s absurd reliance on oil from a Communist dictator, will be starvation, hypothermia, and death for millions in the most vulnerable areas in the world. But Green trumps death.

He than decided it would favor his legacy to abruptly withdraw completely from Afghanistan, against the recommendations of his military advisors. He assured the people there would not be a chaotic, bloody scene like our withdrawal from Vietnam. Not understanding international affairs (Robert Gates, an Obama former defense secretary, stated Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades”), there was a chaotic, bloody scene like our withdrawal from Vietnam. People fell from landing gear wells, soldiers died, and the fascist Taliban whom we and allies fought for years at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars was entrusted with running the nation. Millions of Afghani women (not to mention the native LBGTQ+ community) were subjected to political slavery and death, rather than leaving a contingent of 20,000 troops to support the current rulers. But legacy trumps morality.

Next, with the economy and the American people suffering under the boot of crushing inflation not seen for decades, Biden resorted to the only tools he understood, never having worked outside of government: distraction and spending. He blamed COVID, Putin, Trump, Climate Change…and MAGA Republicans. He then doggedly pursued spending after spending bill, trillions of imaginary dollars through printing and borrowing, all the while insisting these inflationary practices were really disinflationary (the most recent bill was actually labeled as an Anti-Inflation Act!). While reality might beg to differ, redistributing wealth we don’t have (our grandchildren can’t not vote for Biden nor complain) to people likely to keep the current party in power is a smart political move. In that vein he’s just signed an illegal (even characterized as such by none other than Nancy Pelosi) executive order to erase college tuition debt by immorally taking money from those that either never went to college or paid their own way (but votes don’t come cheap). Power trumps fiscal responsibility and morality.

With the international scene deteriorating, and not understanding international affairs, he reacted too slowly and with characteristic weakness as Putin under cover of vague nuclear threats amassed troops around Ukraine, by employing sanctions that ultimately strengthened the ruble, and by a policy of late, incremental arming that has assured a long, expensive, but not necessarily successful war. But at least he’s working to prevent a nuclear Iran by trying to bargain with the Ayatollahs. Appeasement trumps deterrence.

Perhaps we can look to Biden, the champion of the downtrodden to offset all this. He purports to be a friend of the “most vulnerable,” the IPOCs, the rainbow LBGTQ+ coalition (except in Afghanistan). He’s “anti-racist.” He encourages the teaching of CRT in our schools underscoring the victimhood of people of color, the “white privilege” of the oppressors, and favors affirmative action (the soft bigotry of low expectations), social policies that encourage fatherlessness, forced attendance for the more indigent at public schools (when the Teacher’s Union allows them to be open) rather than more effective private institutions, and racial quotas that are the antithesis of our Constitutional mandates. He sees freedom as being able to choose your gender over reality (at the point of a government gun, when appropriate), and supports mutilation of children to achieve this if necessary (after their parents get them home from their drag queen event). Equity and subjectivity trump reality.

Throughout the unfolding debacle, he’s studiously avoided (along with his border czar, Harris) looking at the border crisis. Early on, he halted the “Trump border wall,” already commissioned, and stopped Trump’s hold-in-Mexico policy. As the country became inundated with millions of illegal immigrants he tried to quietly move them throughout the country. Untold numbers of criminals (and COVID-infected individuals) accompanied the hordes of people entering to better themselves economically at the expense of those patiently waiting, and with them came hundreds of thousands of ODs from smuggled fentanyl, prospering drug cartels, and women raped and sold into slavery through human trafficking. Only the cynical among us could possibly believe this is continuing because the political calculus is for future votes and continued Democrat party power.

So, if I’m willing to work with a corrupt and immoral man who’s facilitating the enslavement and deaths of millions, the spiritual debasement of our children, and the worsening economic status of almost everyone, especially the most indigent, I too can be anti-racist, non-fascist, and no longer a danger to the greatest country in the history of the world? [Sigh] I guess I’m…MAGA. It’s a difficult transition, I admit. The term carries with it the heavy Trump baggage. But I’ll adjust. Besides, by comparison the Biden baggage renders it featherweight. And the alternative is just too painful.

A WELCOME IMPEACHMENT

Finally, now that Trump’s gone, the Congress can get down to business. The long overdue impeachment—second impeachment—of the president—ex-president—is now in process. It’s not like there’s other pressing business right now. Pandemic? Unemployment? Precarious debt burden? These will all still be here. No more can our Congress be labeled as “do-nothing.” Now they are doing something. And they might as well, since we’re still paying them.

Actually, the second impeachment is a great idea. It distracts all these foolish people we’ve, in our foolishness, employed from doing what we’re paying them to do—legislate. A now-deceased friend once told me how our legislators did their best work while on recess, or something to that effect. I thought at the time it was a joke, but now realize it was an observation. And an impeachment is the next best thing. It takes up their time as well as a recess, it accomplishes nothing of value, and, more importantly, it accomplishes nothing of detriment. Because out of any 10 interventions the government makes to “better” our lives, I estimate that 8 of them do the opposite. Of course they won’t impeach Biden (or maybe they will with Kamala as a backstop), but we have to take what we can get.

Now, Ford pardoned Nixon in the name of national unity, and no one impeached or imprisoned Obama (re more journalist sources prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act than in all previous administrations combined, the IRS scandal, or Benghazi) and Hillary (Benghazi and server-wiping), in the name of unity. But Pelosi says there can be no unity without pursuing a second impeachment of Trump. So even in the wake of his administration, he continues to support the American people with this imperfect, but welcome recess. Thank you, Donald Trump.

The only bad thing is, once it’s over, they’re going back to work. Perhaps the only thing more dangerous to the country than the current pandemic.

ELECTION FRAUD VERSUS IDEOLOGICAL DELUSION

If nothing else, the current election fraud debacle has highlighted the risks and dangers of succumbing to ideology. And none of us is immune.

We know that widespread early mail-in voting, easier to manipulate, was used for the first time with the easily disprovable argument promulgated by the Left that it was required due to the pandemic. We know that observers in swing states were blocked from observing, that dead people voted, postmarks were ignored, specious addresses were used, and that signatures were not always checked. We know that some precincts allowed ballots to be “cured” while others were not. We’ve been told of middle-of-the night vote dumps in Biden’s favor that occurred outside the realm of statistical probability, and that video evidence supports this. There is conjecture that the voting machines and software used in critical precincts were flawed and easily manipulated. We’ve been told that the judiciary has been unwilling to examine the evidence, with the credible example of at least one instance of a PA state court ruling that operating outside established election law is permissible. There is no question that irregularities and fraud occurred (despite the Left’s claims of a “perfect” election that would clearly have been riddled with corruption had their candidate lost); the question is the extent. And we’ve been assured that the unproved (and possibly unprovable) malfeasance involves at least hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of votes, enough to upend the results. Nothing of substance, to date, has been proved in court.

In light of the apparent dense smoke of circumstantial evidence in search of fire, and my firm belief that Trump did an amazing job policy-wise (but uneven politically), and the knowledge that Biden is more of an anti-Trump placeholder than a real candidate for the Democrats, I’ve found myself willing to accept the notion of a “stolen” election. After all, it seems improbable that this figurehead who couldn’t attract more than a few dozen supporters at a rally would garner the most votes in history, even more than the venerated Obama. Or, alternatively, I’m becoming the deluded ideologue I’ve labeled the Left.

For 4 years the Left and its servants, the mainstream and social media, have caricaturized and demonized the president, ignored and hidden his accomplishments, exaggerated his evident flaws, and manufactured elaborate hoaxes such as a Russian collusion investigation and as impeachment trial. While right-wing sources demonstrate bias, the ones on the Left have become so contaminated that they’re useless sources of information, with the wheat being buried so completely in the partisan chaff (or absent entirely). The final preelection evidence for this was the absent coverage of the Hunter Biden/Biden family corruption. Not only was an FBI investigation of Hunter hidden for 2 years (in a system that leaked like a sieve when it came to Trump), polls showed a depressing minority of Biden voters were aware of this reported faux “Russian disinformation” and enough admitted they might have changed their votes that the election would have gone to Trump. In light of this, it’s easy for conservatives to believe the believable but unproved allegations about a stolen election, since the opposing “information” sites have a strong track record of unreliability. Nevertheless, belief does not equal reality. As left-wing ideology becomes more prevalent and powerful there is an inevitable, necessary, and appropriate right-wing backlash, but no guarantees it won’t overreact. And it’s easy to be manipulated by either side. For example, here’s a reasonable argument of how statistical improbability as a defense of a stolen election may be flawed. Adding to this, for me, that at least two respected, reliable sources of balanced right-wing commentary I’ve followed refuse to accept the idea of sufficient fraud and/or irregularities to reverse the election without proof, and my personal ideological programming alarms go off.

Ultimately, these are issues we all have to sort out for ourselves. Part of me believes we conservatives should choose not to waste our time and effort with cries of election illegitimacy and instead focus n fighting against the policies and values of the Left, with better than even odds of reclaiming within a few years not only the White House, but the Congress. The other part cries out for no capitulation lest we lose forever the ability to believe in in the sanctity of future elections, for with even the widespread perception of doubt, the country cannot stand.

WHAT NOW IN A DIVIDED AMERICA?

It’s over—sort of. What have we learned? Right now there’s a lot of smoke indicating election fraud but pending fire. It’s clear that state election laws regarding monitoring were ignored in some blue cities. It’s clear that it’s odd that Biden’s margins in those cities were high compared to other blue cities such as New York and Miami making them suspicious statistical anomalies. It’s less clear if the claims are true that Biden had a vertical overnight climb in votes in certain contested locales with hundreds of thousands of ballots appearing overnight only in his name (the Tweets supporting this have been deleted, no surprise there). It’s also not clear if the amount of voter fraud did reach, or can be proven to have reached levels that fall into the margin of error that would invalidate a Biden victory. I predict that after the dust of the litigation settles, the court(s) will not invalidate the election. A Biden presidency will be seen by many on the Right and some on the Left as illegitimate, just as many Democrats felt about the Trump presidency, although with perhaps more than manufactured reasons for the allegation.

I’d posited that the election would be a referendum on the current state of our values. The good news is that we haven’t lost America, yet. We’re an evenly divided nation. Regarding values, we may even be faring better when one accounts for those who’ve simply been duped. This is reflected in the unexpected small Republicans gain in the House and the small (hopefully) retained majority in the Senate,with some voters splitting their tickets. It is also noteworthy that Trump gained votes in the black and Latino communities. Enough Democrats turned were turned off by the sharp lurch leftward of the party that they wanted to limit its power, underscored by the reported dissension within the party ranks following the election results.

Biden now has a binary choice. He can move to a more moderate position, like Bill Clinton did, or he can continue to support the far left positions he’s been espousing and incorporating into his platform (before Harris takes over). With a Republican majority in the Senate, the more radical path will be made more difficult, requiring robust use of the “pen and phone.”A lot of damage can be done with executive orders, as we’ve seen. However, in the post-Trump era of conservative judicial appointments, these executive decrees will hopefully be checked by equally robust litigation. If the Democrats continue to acquiesce to radical left demands I think they will continue to bleed members. A road back to a former detente is possible, but if the policies and cultural shifts remain on the present trajectory, I see at best a bifid country with leftist and conservative businesses, social media, and schools, an unsustainable situation. At worst, I see violence or secession.

On the pandemic front, I see no change. The people will continue to mask and socially isolate as they see fit, the virus will do what it does despite our efforts, and a vaccine will hopefully suppress or eradicate it in time. Biden may choose to exhort the states to lock down again. If so, the economy will suffer. The schools will probably reopen now that the election is over. I can’t predict if the alarmism will increase (since fear is a useful political tool to support power) or decrease to support the beneficence and efficacy of the new, non-Trump president. In any case, as the pandemic resolves, Biden and team will surely take full credit.

On the economic front, both parties overspend, but the Democrats extol and double down on the practice as a perceived “solution” while simultaneously favoring government over the private sector in terms of taxation and regulation, so we can expect the vigorous recovery we’re experiencing to be blunted or critically wounded.

On the foreign affairs front, Obama’s former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said of Biden, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Biden has followed a policy of appeasement toward Iran; if he returns to that I expect to see destabilization in the region. The “October surprise” of the Biden corruption with respect to China sounds political and conspiratorial. But when you look at the facts and the primary data being used to support them, the concern that Biden might be compromised is very real (and a friend who attended at least one meeting that included Hunter Biden confirmed this to me). Had the full electorate had the benefit of clear, unbiased reporting, I believe the presidential outcome would have been different. Now it’s unclear if the investigation will just be buried, like with Hillary, or will come back to bury him, like Nixon.

The election results show America isn’t gone, but divided. We’re a big enough country for differences; in fact, they’re our strength, and keep us centered, when not commandeered by extreme elements. The road back to equilibrium, if possible, could be peaceful, violent or a dead end. Stay tuned.

LEFTIST VERSUS LIBERAL—A VANISHING DISTINCTION?

I’ve lost 2 childhood friends simply by posting my views. A third, despite past agreements on immigration and law enforcement, maintains steadfastly that he can’t stand Trump and will be voting for Biden. He proudly considers himself a centrist and underscored this with the statement that he feels California has been governed too left for too long and felt my time would be better spent thinking of ways to instantiate more right-wing governance for balance. When I questioned how he could then wish the same fate for the country, he took umbrage and used my own formulation of a Leftist filter against me, clearly implying he thinks I’ve become an ideologue. Like the my other left-of-center friends and family, he’s smart, so this engenders in me a feeling of cognitive dissonance, and yet another reassessment of the validity of my current beliefs. Each time this journey has become shorter.

The dichotomy between Left and Right has become so great, it’s now hard to imagine a middle. I cannot reconcile a true liberal voting a Biden/Harris ticket. I could understand, although (the stakes being what they are) would disagree with, a symbolic write-in vote or abstention. The true, or witting, Leftist believes we’re a systemically racist unjust nation in need of fundamental change, has lukewarm support for or is downright antagonistic toward law enforcement, believes in equity over equality of opportunity, and has no compunction about changing the rules of government (i.e., trashing the Constitution) if it serves the purpose, and that the judiciary should be activist in this regard. They are complicit in hiding and distorting facts that don’t support the cause, and willing to prevaricate outright in its service. They minimize or support violence when it furthers the agenda. Many old-school liberals, as their party has acquiesced to the extreme elements, don’t share the core beliefs of the far Left, but absent another home and saturated by the disinformation with little or no exposure to the other side (or repeated hyperbolic misrepresentations of it), go along. I consider them the unwitting Left. So, by this definition, an unwillingness to vote Biden/Harris would distinguish the witting and unwitting Left from the liberal.

The bottom line is, either I’m in a Rightist bubble surrounded by my filters, essentially the cult member that CNN’s anchor Don Lemon has branded me, or the Left is. I keep waiting for the convincing arguments to bring me back, and it always boils down to Trump is bad. The supporting fact-based arguments for this, as far as I have been able to ferret out, are the following: Trump was a philanderer. Trump made a racist comment regarding an American judge of Mexican descent of not being able to fairly adjudicate Trump University. Trump made a clumsily-worded remark regarding the Charlottesville protests that was (falsely) interpreted as supporting while supremacists for whom he’s been ludicrously and repeatedly asked to deny allegiance. He’s made remarks concerning the pandemic that downplay the danger to prevent “panic” and has demonstrated a laissez-faire personal attitude toward masking and social distancing. He has a heavy Twitter finger generating mountains of stupid, egoistic tweets. The rest, the manufactured Russian hoax, the Ukraine phone call-associated impeachment, were all elaborate smoke-and-mirror campaigns with provable Democrat malfeasance. The arguments in his favor: He kept most of his campaign promises. His economic policies, including a reduction in taxes and federal regulations and formation of opportunity zones, triggered an unprecedented economic boom pre-pandemic and improved the lot of minorities arguably more than any prior administration in decades (and may be promoting a V-shaped recovery). He started no new wars, moved the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, and opposed Iran, allowing him to broker a Mideast peace deal after decades of stalemate. He’s kept sanctions on Russia and aided Ukraine in the Crimea, extinguished Isis, and recognized China’s adversarial status and instituted appropriate countermeasures. He shepherded the crime reform bill. He replaced NAFTA with the USMCA. He stopped emigration from China and Europe earlier during the pandemic than his political opponents wanted and helped provide the necessary supplies and ventilators to the states while fostering fast-tracking of a vaccine. He strengthened the border policy and the wall, reducing illegal immigration and criminal entry. And he did all this in less than 4 years, despite hurricane-strength political headwinds. What has Biden accomplished of note over his 44 years of service?

If my right-wing filters are the problem, how is it a recent poll showed that 51% of those questioned believe the unfolding Biden scandal (re Biden family Chinese influence) is Russian disinformation despite clear evidence it is not, based on disseminated misinformation and with links to the facts at the NY Post censored by both Facebook and Twitter?

No, I’ve thought and rethought it, and if there’s ideologic brainwashing, I keep coming back to a left-wing source at this point in time. This does not mean that the Right couldn’t pose an equal or even greater threat in the future, especially since the rapid accession of a far Left agenda could arguably have a slingshot effect promoting the fantasy that Leftists imagine currently exists. Hence the ever-present need for both sides in a dynamic struggle to remain centered. If and when the facts support it, I’ll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my liberal brethren to fight that, too.

FINDING THE CENTER

I am at the center politically, philosophically, and ideologically. Or was. Or will be. Because it manifests as a moving target, constantly defined and redefined. The far Left views me as far Right, or alt-Right (or worse). The far Right views me as not Right enough. The further you get from the center, the more it sits on the horizon. So, what defines the Center?

Throughout history, even prehistory, there have been the dueling concepts of order and chaos. They have been represented in many ways. Perhaps one of the most familiar is the Taoist yin and yang, the symbol being two serpents, head to tail.

• 

I thank one of the great probing minds of our generation, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, for reminding us that the goal is to traverse the narrow road between the two, because one side leads to anarchy, and the other to tyranny. That narrow path is the Center.

If the Center were easy to find and negotiate, there would be no Left or Right, no tyranny or anarchy. The primary tool for balancing on this tightrope is the yardstick of Truth. But finding truth isn’t always an easy task, either. So having a Right and a Left is important, each to keep the other in check, and to keep us centered.

No one side is the repository for truth. At different times and in different places, those on the Left and on the Right have sought to lure the unsuspecting to its side with “truth.” It isn’t until anarchy or tyranny is the end result that the illusion of this false truth is exposed, and the road back to the Center, if it can be found at all, usually takes generations. The most prominent but not the only examples in our time of tyranny on the Left are the Soviet Union and China. The most prominent on the Right were Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Recent references I’ve received from a local professor attest to new tyranny on the Right developing in Hungary and Poland (although, as per my last rant, the Leftist analysts use this for rather perverse assessments of the current situation in America). Examples of anarchy on the Left can be found in the French Revolution, and the Communist Revolution prior to the consolidation of power.

Today, here in the US, we’re entering a period of anarchy on the Left which, if not checked, will lurch into Leftist fascism and attendant tyranny. The signs are everywhere. The manifest racism of the Left is being defined as anti-racism, divisive doctrines of intersectionality are being defined as tolerance, and supporting criminal over lawful behavior in the name of social “justice” is now becoming mainstream. To maintain this, there is selective reporting and suppression of events and dispensing outright lies as truths. It’s not that unchecked Rightism can’t go from order to tyranny (the Handmaid’s Tale paradigm) or degenerate from it’s own seeds of corruption (it clearly can), it’s simply that that’s not where we are at this time and this place, where the abundance (not the totality) of truth currently has found a home on the Right.

The checks and balances instantiated in our Constitution to keep us moving forward between the yin and the yang will not be supported by a Biden administration. And in fours more years of a Trump administration, I assure you, there will be no roving bands of breeding handmaids.