A blog in defense of western civilization by Roger Graf
Author: RogerG
I am a retired teacher and coach, Social Science Department chairman, community college instructor in Physical and Human Geography. I have attended 4 colleges with relevant degrees and certificates in History, Religious Studies/Philosophy, Education, and Planning and Community Development. I am also a 3rd generation native Californian, now refugee living in northwest Montana.
Case in point: Charlie Kirk. Right out of the gate, all aglow with power in the aftermath of victory, Kirk, like a tom with his chest bellowed, threatened the new Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, with the following:
“John Thune is now Senate majority leader. If he does not support President Trump in these next 30 to 45 days to fill President Trump’s cabinet, we will remove him.” (See #1)
Who’s the “we”? It can’t be the American people. They didn’t vote for Charlie Kirk to be some sort of Tribune of the People. It can’t be a majority of the 76 million who voted for Trump. It’s pure fancy to assume that all of those voters are as enraptured by Donald Trump as he is. “The lesser of two evils” is a vote against something more than it’s a vote for. I’ll bet that’s where most of those 76 million reside. It’s a well-seasoned hunch.
A general distaste for the Democrats isn’t carte blanche for Trump to be crazy. Indeed, he can’t be any crazier than when he nominated the narcissistic, solipsistic Matt Gaetz, neo-isolationistic Tulsi Gabbard, and the magic-for-medicine RFK, Jr., to be in his cabinet. Charlie, these aren’t normal people, not normal in the sense that those 76 million would trust huge swaths of the federal bureaucracy in the hands of a young and dimwitted narcissist, a blame-America isolationist, and a kook in charge of Medicare, Medicaid, and the rest of the federal health care Leviathan. I think that I’m safe in saying that few people voted for this.
Gaetz, Trump, JFK, Jr.
And how are you, Charlie, going to accomplish this forced act of fealty? The Senate isn’t supposed to be an adjunct of the Trump campaign, or an offshoot of Trump’s fickle brain. Charlie, it’s called separation of powers. It has the constitutionally guaranteed power of “advice and consent” for offices like these. Whose advise from the Senate did he seek? Gaetz/Gabbard/JFK, Jr. were out of the blue. No one, and I mean no one, had Gaetz, or any of the others, at the top of their list for anything. If you decide to act looney, don’t be surprised that consent isn’t forthcoming.
Maybe the Senate can save Trump, and the rest of us, from himself. I suspect that Trump was understandably scarred from his first term and immediately thereafter. Some of his troubles were of his own making (Jan. 6). He doesn’t want a solid conservative, learned and experienced on the law and the Constitution, as Attorney General. He wants a toady. No more these principled conservative legal minds such as Bill Barr who couldn’t, for clear lack of evidence, follow him down his imaginary yellow brick road to the land of Stop-the-Steal. If he gets his way, the rest of us will suffer in the chaotic administration of our – not his – laws. The same would be true at DNI and HHS.
The “disruptor” schtick belongs in the play pen, not the presidency. Trump, you don’t have a mandate to do this. And, Charlie, stop plaguing us with the lickspittle hagiography. It’s grotesque.
In graphic form, the 2024 election as a vote-against referendum:
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Charlie Kirk: If John Thune Does Not Fill Trump’s Cabinet In Next 30-45 Days, ‘We Will Remove Him’”, Tyler Stone, RealClear Politics, 11/14/2024, at https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/11/14/charlie_kirk_if_john_thune_does_not_fill_trumps_cabinet_in_next_30-45_days_we_will_remove_him.html
Does Trump play 4D chess? Possibly, but I have to be convinced. The subject was raised in connection with the puzzling Gaetz nomination for Attorney General. Occum’s razor might be the best path to a credible explanation for the farce. It stipulates that it’s far more likely that the simplest explanation is best when facing a quandary. The fact of the matter is that Trump may just like the guy. I don’t know. Who does?
The JFK assassination is instructive. Some people have scrounged and sifted the mountains of evidence like an archeologist at Hisarlik looking for ancient Troy. They’ve connected the millions of dots into elaborate, twisting and turning plots. It’s made a lot of people rich. For them, it can’t be something as simple as a sociopathic Marxist exploiting an opportunity to make a big splash. There’s no money in that. There’s also no doubt Oswald did it; the rest of the mongering is overheated embellishment. Ditto for 4D chess and Trump?
I’m not dismissing any other scenario. Other alternatives can also be in full accord with Occum’s razor. It’s undoubtedly true that the bulk of people in both wings of the Capitol hold Gaetz in a much-deserved low esteem. Gaetz resigned his congressional seat after the nomination, so the House ethics investigation goes away . . . but not the evidence. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that rheams of that stuff will make its way to the Senate. Sitting in the Senate hearing, Gaetz will face some compromising questions that could force upon him the risk of perjury. Voilà, the House gets rid of a two-legged clown car and Trump still gets his second, maybe real, choice.
That’s the best pro-Trump spin. On the other hand, in the meantime, Trump’s reputation takes a hit. Is it worth it to risk scarce political capital on a complicated venture that could blow up in your face? But honestly, it’s nice to know that Gaetz is out of the House and Gaetz’s nomination will be dispatched like so much junk mail. Now that’s a possible two-fer for the rest of us.
Donald Trump is often referred to as a disruptor. He is, but “disruptor” is another one of those vacuous words waiting to be filled with whatever biases a person wishes to pour into it. A lot of people are disruptors, up to and including criminals. It’s nonsense. Well, the “disruptor” Donald Trump nominated the “disruptor” Matt Gaetz to be the nation’s Attorney General. Moving beyond the adolescent titling, Gaetz as AG has got to be a joke. He’s about as fit to be AG as Baby Huey heading the National Science Foundation.
Matt Gaetz? Our next Attorney General? Next head of the National Science Foundation?
The guy is a prima donna, a narcissistic attention-getter on a continual hunt for a camera and mic. He’s a better fit to be a kid’s birthday clown, scarry and funny at the same time. He’s responsible for the chaos in the majority Republican House caucus and coup against Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R, Ca.). Gaetz and his few fellow dimwits (including Matt Rosendale, R, Mt.) were rightfully called the “Knucklehead Caucus” by Hugh Hewitt. Now, General Secretary Knucklehead is nominated to be America’s top cop. Is Trump paying too much attention to Laura Ingraham of Fox News fame? Has he lost his mind?
The guy has some skeletons, and maybe a few teenage girls, in the closet. He’s been under investigation for allegedly inducing the travel of an underage girl (age 17) across state lines for the purpose of a “relationship” (see #1). The investigation ended with no charges recommended. That doesn’t matter. If the Democrats can turn the actions of an unruly crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, into “insurrection” and “the worst threat to our Constitution since the Civil War” and entangling Trump in lawfare for the next four years, imagine what they can do with this.
Speaking of titles, “pervert” isn’t a glorious start to a nomination (Is a “pervert” a disruptor?). There’s an entire House Republican caucus that had to put up with the self-destructive antics of Gaetz and his Knucklehead Caucus. I wonder what House Republicans are whispering in the ears of Senators in the other Capitol wing. Some Republican House members called it a “a reckless pick”. One responded with “no good comment”. Max Miller of Ohio was quoted as saying, “I think he has a zero percent shot of getting through the Senate.” Key Republican Senators were left speechless or rolling their eyes. Few if any kudos rolled off their lips. If Politico can be trusted (an iffy proposition), stunned disbelief is probably the more accurate descriptor (see #2).
A roll call of important Republican Senators tells the story. Sen. John Cornyn was said to roll his eyes. Senators Tom Cotton and Shelley Moore Capito refused to comment. Sen. Susan Collins was “shocked”. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that “it’s [not] a serious nomination for the attorney general.” Sen. Thom Tillis: “I think he’s [Gaetz] probably got his work cut out for him to get a good, strong vote.” Sen Ron Johnson was more guarded: “We’ll go through the process. Can’t make any predictions.”
If Ron Johnson won’t, neither will I. The Gaetz nomination, though, is proof that a “disruptor” can also be a “fool”. Maybe Trump’s head has been turned by too much worship in the usual right-leaning outlets. For all you classicists, the weakness in the human character is distilled in Hubris-Atis-Nemesis-Tisis. In short, arrogance leads to self-destruction. For Trump, success can breed failure. Trump, be careful. Withdraw the nomination.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Matt Gaetz Accuses Former DOJ Official of Extorting Him with Underage Sex Allegation”, Zachary Evans, 3/30/2021, National Review, at https://www.nationalreview.com/news/doj-investigating-matt-gaetz-over-potential-sexual-relationship-with-17-year-old-girl/
2. “‘Reckless pick’: Lawmakers express doubts that Gaetz can get confirmed as attorney general”, Anthony Adragna, Politico, 11/13/2024, at https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/13/matt-gaetz-attorney-general-confirmation-doubt-00189382
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks on Oct. 7, 2022, in Sacramento, Calif. (photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
Why the focus on California? Simple, California is the head of the progressive snake. Its ideological tendencies permeate the national Democratic Party. Our Vice President, and their losing candidate for president, was politically bred in the specialized, socio-political one-party petri dish of – you guessed it – California. California Democrat muckety-mucks populate Biden’s executive branch posse with a left coast view of the world.
Let’s take a look at California’s election results to get a hint of the chaos and what could have been in store for the rest of us. Wait, they aren’t finished counting in the golden state, and won’t be till Dec. 3, maybe not even then. Speaking of chaos. The state has turned itself into a model of election incompetence, and the national party has adopted it, seizing the COVID panic as an excuse to nationalize the falderol. Much vote fraud was legalized, or made easier to go undetected. Mail-in ballots, election season instead of election day, ballot harvesting, a profusion of provisional ballots, failure to clean voter rolls, and, here’s the kicker, the “curing” of ballots, were pioneered in California.
What’s the “curing”? “Curing” is how the entrenched party discovers new votes. First, the state’s Democrat honchos know the state’s blue precincts, for there are many, and target the “curing” on them. “Curing” refers to seeking out a voter who didn’t properly submit their ballot – missing signature, unmatched signatures, wrong envelope, etc. – and is allowed to correct the mistake (Hmmmm!), and, all of a sudden, a Republican victor on election day wakes up to their loss a couple of weeks later.
Millions of dollars in Democrat war chests exist to fund the cherry-picked treasure hunt. Gov. Newsom has millions left over from his recall treasury to devote to combing blue precincts for more votes. Interesting question: Why vote in elections that have more in common with the shams in Maduro’s Venezuela? California, Californezuela.
If Venezuela’s lefty caudillo, Nicolas Maduro, was California’s governor – no, it’s not as crazy as you think – he’d probably adopt Gov. Newsom’s appropriation of John C. Calhoun. Remember the nullification crisis of 1832? South Carolina asserted the power to prevent the enforcement of federal law (the tariff) within the state at the urging of the influential John C. Calhoun. That’s “nullification”, and blue state fiefdoms in the mold of California have been doing a form of it for decades regarding immigration law. Newsom doubled down on nullification-lite when he blustered after the election (see #1 below), “The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack [after Trump’s victory] — and we won’t sit idle.”
What freedoms? The “freedom” to obstruct immigration law by blocking the cooperation of state and local authorities? The “freedom” of government employees (teachers, administrators) to hide from parents the porn curriculum in third-grade classrooms or the transition of their daughter into a son, all backed up by the Democrat AG Rob Bonta? The “freedom” of XY “girls” to occupy girls’ spaces and sports? The “freedom” of the state to undermine out-of-state parenthood by its self-designation as a transgender sanctuary state for minors from anywhere? The unlimited “freedom” of a woman to end the life of her baby up to the exit from the birth canal, maybe after, who knows? The “freedom” of the state to force you onto government mass transit or into dopey EVs? The “freedom” to experience bankrupting utility bills, blackouts, brownouts, and hypothermia after the nuking of nuclear power and fossil fuels? The “freedom” of the state to be the missing link in the supply chain from ship to shore at its ports by mandating EV 18-wheelers and locomotives, something that doesn’t exist or is impractical beyond measure? The “freedom” of the state to run you out of business? The “freedom” to pay more for everything and fewer jobs to accomplish the feat? The “freedom” to be harassed on everything you say or do, especially religiously? Thanks, Newsom, for the “freedoms”.
Biden followed the California script. Biden’s version of fiscal responsibility is additions to the national debt going from $1 trillion every 100 days in 2021 to today’s $1 trillion every 200 days. Either way, your kids are being robbed.
California is tax-happy and adores the issuance of gobs and gobs and oodles and oodles of bonds. Propositions 2 and 4 (school building, water/flood/drought projects) on the California ballot appear to be headed for approval. It’s astounding that the state’s current budget of $311 billion and its panoply of taxes, taxes everywhere aren’t enough. $25 billion in more debt will be added to the outstanding total state bond debt of $79 billion, and more than $1.6 trillion if you combine state and local obligations (see #3).
California pulls out its credit card, and so does Biden/Harris/DNC; only the feds have a much more robust one, one without limit. They can gin up the money supply by making dollars appear out of thin air. They’ve got a Federal Reserve. Thus, they borrowed California’s fiscal philosophy to achieve new heights of inflation. The old Keynesian adage of spending in bad times and saving in good times was jettisoned. It’s just the spending now, no need for the saving. With the pandemic over and recovery well under way in 2021, and Biden filled with delusions of FDR grandeur, the Democrats jumped at the chance by piling $6.17 trillion of new debt onto the backs our kids (see #5). What did we get for it? Problems . . . and a few EV chargers. Sounds like California.
The country became a goat rope in the manner of California. Every celestial grouping in the radical-left progressive universe was hyped up on taxpayer dollars and deficit spending. It was enough to make drunken sailors appear judicious.
They were doing everything but the bottom-line function of government’s existence. Namely, safety and security. We have a Vice President who personally gave money to bail out rioters, under the euphemism of “protesters”, who were responsible for making hell zones of our metropolitan downtowns. It did nothing but cause the price for out-bounded U-Hauls to skyrocket.
All kinds of bedlam were celebrated on Capitol Hill and the White House. Gatherings of the transgendered were held at the White House with participants exuberantly baring their surgical scars and implants to the world and the assembled press. In the midst of the 2020 riot season and later, the Democrats went full neo-Marxist in Capitol kneelings, calls to defund the police, “reimagining” policing, and full DEI racism. Hiring practices throughout the executive branch were altered as part of the war on merit. A candidate for air traffic controller was golden so long as they exhibited the appropriate intersectionality.
As for the border, it became the apex of bedlam. Not only was the border patrol turned into the Welcome Wagon, but the border jumpers were rewarded with gifts and jet flights to the country’s interior to the chagrin of local officials. Certainly, in this instance, crime does pay. And to think that there’s an entire wing of the Democratic Party devoted to California’s favored position on immigration law, which is decriminalization. They’d like it to be the equivalent of a jaywalking ticket. Harris, their choice to accelerate the misrule, tried to hide her own calls for California-style immigration chaos but failed. Chaos, chaos everywhere, from girls’ bathrooms to the border.
This election was a repudiation of the worldview of 60-65% of the California electorate. The rest of the country rejected the state’s favorite daughter and its approach to governance. When the donkey party decided to go full California, the rest of the country said, “Whoa, whoa there! We won’t sign onto a California neo-Marxist revolution.”
There, that’s my take on what happened November 5.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “‘We won’t sit idle’: Newsom goes on offensive against Trump”, Wes Venteicher, Politico, 11/7/2024, at https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/07/newsom-california-legislative-session-trump-resistance-00188119
2. “2023-24 State Budget”, State of California, at https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/2023-24EN/#/Home
3. “Overview of State Bond Debt Service”, California Legislative Analyst’s Office, 2/27/2024, at https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/798
4. “California State and Local Liabilities Total $1.6 Trillion”, Edward Ring, California Policy Center, 2/28/2022, at https://californiapolicycenter.org/california-state-and-local-liabilities-total-1-6-trillion/
5. “U.S. debt by president: dollar and percentage 2024”, Annabel Burba in Consumer Affairs, 11/7/2024, at https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/us-debt-by-president.html
It’s “See ya”, or so it seems according to the outlook for the 2030 census. Don’t expect California’s current allotment of 52 congressional seats to stay there. It lost one after the 2020 count. The next census will probably be more brutal (see #2). Look at the map below.
After the last census, the numbers were explained away by the state’s chattering classes by emphasizing that the state actually gained population. It just didn’t grow as fast as others, they say. Yes, but according to the website San Fransisco Gate, its population has been generally static since 2017 while our country’s South and Southeast have blossomed (see #1).
Something about population decline: it doesn’t happen in a mad dash for the exits, all at once. The gradual slide begins with a birth dearth and flights to other areas of the state. Whereas before, the state benefitted from foreign migration, not, mind you, an influx from other states. That has slowed, so the total population numbers start to bend south (see #3).
Now add the numbers who’ve skedaddled. Who’s left the state entirely? It’s the socio-economic backbone of any state: the middle class and families. Even the left-of-center California Public Policy Center acknowledges the shrinking middle of the demographic pyramid. Raking in all the numbers results in a guesstimate (California Dept. of Finance) of a decline of over 57,000 in 2023 alone. After that, they expect the numbers to rise, which is normal, but not enough to keep from losing additional seats (see #4).
Thus, by the 2030 census, hopefully, the rest of the country will be saddled with 4 fewer Adam Schiffs (now a plague on the US Senate). One outcome of the last election is that the state of Gavin Newsom is slipping into irrelevancy. Really, who cares how California votes, even if they’re still counting at Christmas time? As far as the race for president goes, there are more than enough states who don’t want to be like it. The so-called “blue wall” has given way to a red wall abutting the socialist republic. Whew, what a relief.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “What everyone is getting wrong about California losing a congressional seat”, Amy Graff, San Fransisco Gate, 4/27/2021, at https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2021-04-California-House-Seat-Census-Population-16133275.php
2. “2030 Apportionment Forecast – 2023”, The American Redistricting Project, 12/19/2023, at https://thearp.org/blog/apportionment/2030-asof121923/
3. “California’s population shrank in 2020, but don’t call it an exodus”, Ben Christopher, Cal Matters, 5/27/2021, at https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/05/california-population-shrink-exodus/
4. California Dept. of Finance: Report P-1A, “Total Projected and Estimated Population for California: July 1, 2020 to 2070”, at https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fdof.ca.gov%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F352%2F2023%2F07%2FP1A_State_Total.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK
Right now, in the aftermath of victory or defeat, things look rosy or depressing. Clear away the fog of euphoria or sadness. Settle down. Here’s what I take from the results:
I was wrong about Trump’s chances. I overplayed Trump’s negatives. Not that he doesn’t have any. He’s got plenty. Not that he wasn’t the weakest general election candidate in the GOP stable. He still is. The fact remains that the country is center-right, and the Dems fell off the left cliff. Trump had the advantage of a thoroughly discredited opposition party. At this moment, I wonder if the great bulk of the country just had enough of the left’s culture war; its eco-assault on the kitchen table, shelter, the gas tank, electricity, and the family sedan; and the socialist spending spree fueling an out-of-whack economy.
Thus, this was actually a change election, a dash away from what the Democratic Party has become. Trump didn’t have to be loved. He only had to be viewed by a majority as better than the alternative. Now, no longer facing a billion-dollar smear campaign and a recent history of radical left policies to lambast, I expect Trump’s negatives to eventually revert to norm. Where I went wrong is in not recognizing the very simple and smart calculus of it being either him or them.
But don’t forget, tomorrow is another day.
And don’t dismiss the fact that the Republicans were better organized this time around. The craziness of running an election during a pandemic, and given the Democrats’ chomping at the bit to “never let a crisis go to waste” by pushing through wild election law changes, left the Republicans flat-footed in 2020. Legislative changes were made at the state level to smooth the rough edges, but the asinine mailed ballot remains. Still, kudos to the RNC. It’s proof that even Republicans are open to life’s lessons.
Will Trump II be a repeat of Trump I? The guy may be either more unhinged or older and wiser. We’ll see. Will he be as stubborn as Biden, who forced an Afghanistan bugout at all costs, in imposing a rash of protective tariffs on friend and foe alike? All of this without addressing our own role in hampering American manufacturing. American mismanagement, unions, and regulation did more than Asia to wreak havoc on GM and USX. Will he sellout Ukraine to Putin? What about federal spending which is putting America on a path to Argentina? Early indications aren’t promising.
Storm clouds, many of them possibly of Trump’s own making, loom over a second term. Good luck, America.
Oh, and I don’t blame you for not listening to me.
Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is hot across streaming channels proclaiming “democracy is on the ballot” in a dash to get everyone to vote. Well, Eddie, if there are people who shouldn’t have driver’s licenses, there are people who shouldn’t vote. If you don’t care enough to know anything, don’t plague the rest of us with your choices. Also, not voting can be very rational and the best option.
It’s more than that. Democracy is not on the ballot. Democracy is a factor in our system of governance, not the determinant, especially when we choose a president across the 50 different states. Eddie, it’s a republic under law. 50%-plus-one isn’t how we govern ourselves. We choose representatives by popular vote in single districts apportioned to each state after every census per The Constitution. Senate representation, though, is equal among the 50 states, regardless of the number of warm – and maybe not so warm – bodies on its sacred soil, and is not subject to amendment (Article V, last phrase). The Electoral College ensures that we are governed by more than New York City, California’s coastal plain, and Chicago’s Democratic political machine.
Eddie needs a civics education. And maybe some History too. The dividing line between a mob/mass tyranny and democracy is a blurry one, shifting with the groupthink tides. Popularly elected tyranny is still tyranny. The late 18th-century Parisian mobs – the soldiers of the Reign of Terror – and going back further to the Melian Massacre (416 B.C.) by Athens are but two examples of popular brutalities. History is festooned with democratic inhumanities. The Jews have been victimized by them for centuries.
As we gear up for the November 5 election, two things stand out about our “democracy”: the drive to circumvent the states in the Electoral College in the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact” (NPV) and the simple fact that the popular vote is a fiasco. The second one undermines the first.
The NPV is an enthusiasm of the Left (liberal, progressive, socialist, whatever) due to the occasional breakthrough of the Right in the Electoral College. They’d like to close off any avenue of escape from their clutches each 4-year election cycle. With the NPV, the choice of president would reflect the norms of the Acela Corridor, Chicago, and the California coastal plain. All other urban nodes imitate them. That’s right, run up the score by hook or by crook in a few congested spots and, voilà, the mayor of Los Angeles is next in line to be president. I jest . . . or am I? (See #3 below)
30-point margins in New York and California might do the trick. Right now, these two states are shedding residents like my dogs shed hair in the summer; yet, they still possess a wreaking left-wing critical mass to make a neo-Marxist the betting choice to run the executive branch and much more. Xi is more popular in these places than a Republican.
Any state to vote for this thing (NPV) outside these hotbeds of left-wing activism is by implication violating their oath of state office in sacrificing the choice of their people to the whims of New York and California. It’s an impeachable offense, or should be. It’s probably unconstitutional as well. The NPV violates the 14th Amendment’s privileges and immunities clause, and as a compact, it must be approved by Congress. This one skips over Congress.
The compact is a conspiracy among states equaling 270 electoral votes to gang up on the others. It creates the likely scenario of someone with the barest of majority to lock in the presidency, even though he or she reflects the worldview of only a quarter of the states.
How accurate is that popular vote? Who knows? These left-wing one-party states don’t clean their voter rolls, exceedingly complicate the voting process by allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, and created barriers to voter verification. Once deposited and stripped of its envelope (if mail-in), the ballot from whatever source, by whomever, cannot be retrieved from the humungous pile. The culprit could even be convicted of vote fraud but the vote will still count. It’s untraceable.
Mail-in ballots
How often does this happen? Who knows? It’s rarely found out due to the nature of the secret ballot – a godsend but makes the fraudulent vote untraceable once deposited. Since the process is so loosey-goosey in these states, the malefactor must admit to it and bring it to the attention of authorities before anything is done, but the illegal vote will still be counted.
Left-wing donkey party registrars and secretaries of state try to allay fears by saying that voter fraud is so rare. The percentage number is bogus. They take the number of discovered incidents, which are infinitesimal, against the total number of votes cast to produce a statistical piece of nonsense. It’s a lie because they, and no one, can ever know the full picture of fraud given the way they have set up and run show. Without a culprit standing out like a sore thumb or walking up to them and admitting to the crime, life goes on and the donkey party candidate wins by 30 points. There’s your “virtuous” national popular vote.
We have a recent and shameful example (see #1 and #2 below). A University of Michigan noncitizen student voted and submitted his ballot. Later, he asked for it back, maybe after realizing that it was illegal, or simple second thoughts. Only then were authorities aware of the criminal act, when the offender brought it to their attention. And he won’t be getting it returned; it can’t be; it’s dispersed into the ocean of early-vote ballots.
What happens in a close election when a tidal wave of ballots flood the thousands of local voting bureaucracies around the country? Well, get ready for a months-long battle in the media and courts as our embarrassment of a “democracy” plays out in full view to the rest of the world. Recently, we have a habit of close presidential elections. In 1960, JFK beat Nixon by a scant .17% in the popular vote. The 1968 election was won by Nixon by .7%. Trump and the Dems have been locked in an evenly matched embrace since 2016. This election might continue in this pattern. Our democracy is a debacle.
That’s our “democracy” for you. We get to vote on things and offices that we don’t understand. Campaigns don’t inform, only gaslight us. Every election is not decision time. It’s a looting expedition in how much we can load up on the national debt, and thus on our kids, or on the backs of the “rich”. The NFL has a 5-month season, just like our election “seasons”. Ballots are thrown about in the mail; monster blue states won’t verify identity; and early voting is a ticket to rashness.
I long for the days when we had a deliberative republic. We elect representatives to debate, deliberate, and decide the great issues before the republic. We choose a chief executive that reflects the wishes of a broad swath of the country, and who stays in his lane of the administration of the laws. And all within a matrix of rights. Instead, we’ve gone from republic to shame.
Good luck, America.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Joint statement of Secretary Benson and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Savit on charges filed in noncitizen voting case”, Michigan Department of State, 10/30/2024, at https://www.michigan.gov/sos/resources/news/2024/10/30/joint-statement-of-secretary-benson-and-washtenaw-county-prosecutor-savit-on-charges-filed
2. Thanks to Jim Geraghty of National Review for the information and sources In “The Election Crimes of 2024”, 11/4/2024, at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-election-crimes-of-2024/
3. “The National Popular Vote Idea Is Unconstitutional and Should Be Abandoned”, Peter J. Wallison, National Review, 6/27/2023, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/06/the-national-popular-vote-idea-is-unconstitutional-and-should-be-abandoned/
*Californization: noun, becoming more like California in the mind and NOT necessarily in its geo-spatial characteristics, such as Bozeman morphing into “BozAngeles” merely because it grows to accommodate an influx of interstate refugees. Far worse and much more troubling is the manipulation of a state’s popular biases, even their prejudices, to adopt California policy preferences.
I am fearful that America is being bribed and forced to be more like California. California used to be held in high esteem, the “shining city on a hill”. That’s certainly no longer true. The state is synonymous with dysfunction, decay, decline, and colossal misgovernance. It’s hemorrhaging refugees to other states, most of them middle class and families. Its social and economic life is feudalizing. Its electorate over decades has consistently chosen to eviscerate its quality of life. The result is a basket case, a Third World state within the world’s premiere First World nation. The question is, are electorates in other states desirous to join the “golden state” in this internal Third World?
My newly adopted home state of Montana could be getting ready to make the slide. No, the influx of new people or urbanization aren’t the culprits. It’s big, big campaign money from radical plutocratic barons in progressive bastions (Silicon Valley for instance) who have an outsized role in selling California-style dysfunction to the rest of the country, the same people who’ve made their urban bubbles and bi-coastal expanses unlivable, unaffordable, and inhospitable.
They’ve perfected a deceptive style of political packaging to pour their money into: sell California’s one-party jungle primary with a well-funded Montana ballot initiative (CI-126); sell California hedonism by sanctioning through another Montana initiative the elimination of the inconvenient consequence of sex: the baby (CI-128). Just think, in it, one human being would be legally empowered to destroy another with few, if any, restraints.
The libertine deep pockets of California and New York prop up Jon Tester. As such, Democrat Senator Jon Tester has a campaign war chest 4 times his opponent. He’s a reliable vote for his party’s main policies and leadership, the same ones that seek to remake the country in California’s image.
They try to sell this dumpster fire of thought to the “rubes” by using the rustics’ vague social and political prejudices against them. Don’t like wealthy out-of-staters? Well, figure this: Tester uses his out-of-state millions to bash his opponent as an out-of-stater. Wrap your mind around that. And put a double-hex on his challenger by attaching “wealthy” to the pejorative. Class warfare works, even in red states.
Why are these progressive billionaires and zillionaires so interested in showering millions on Tester’s reelection? Answer: he thinks and votes more like them than us.
Tester: a two-faced Janus
The numbers are astounding in the effort to keep the guy in the Senate. According to Open Secrets, Tester vacuumed up $32.6 million in contributions in the first 3 months of 2024, about 70% of it are high-dollar (over $200) and a quarter, probably more, from super zips in California and New York (See #1 below). His Republican opponent, Tim Sheehy, garnered a mere $2.1 million. Clearly, a call went down the Dems’ deep-pocket pipeline to Big Entertainment, Big Finance, and Big Tech and up gushed the dough. The Democrats’ richly endowed blue-bubble political war machine have the wherewithal to have you vote for your own demise.
No wonder streaming anything results in a deluge of Tester spots. Ditto broadcast. Tester has more cash than he knows what to do with. The estimated $315 million to be spent on this Senate race makes it per capita the most expensive in history, $487 for each one of the state’s 648,000 registered voters (See #2 below).
With cash like that available to the initiative front, they can flood the screens, your text message platform, and airwaves with a tidal wave of appeals to popular prejudices which are crafted to have you vote for California dysfunction. The license for unlimited abortion (CI-128) is couched in anti-government verbiage by people who have the rustic look, waiting to manipulate our prejudices. Bear in mind that the reality is actually about one generation claiming the power to take the lives of those in the newest. Appalling. A country appearance and mannerisms disguise the push for California debauchery.
I suspect that the gambit sells. Our blue bubbles are mired in a deep quagmire of their own making. But in vast stretches of red states lies a population with their own dark strains of thought. Protectionism in tariffs and subsidies are popular. Interstate xenophobia lurks below the surface, ready to be exploited by the dump trucks of cash from blue-state bastions.
If the Big Lie succeeds, expect your children’s fortunes to worsen, and you won’t have a clue that you had a hand in it.
*P.S.: This piece was written before the November election.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Tester outraises GOP rival in high-stakes Montana Senate race”, Jim Cloutier, 4/25/2024, at https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/04/tester-outraises-gop-rival-in-high-stakes-montana-senate-race
2. “Voters Drowning in Ads From ‘Obscene’ Amounts of Cash Flooding Montana U.S. Senate Race”, AP, USNWP, 10/29/2024, at https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2024-10-29/voters-drowning-in-ads-from-obscene-amounts-of-cash-flooding-montana-u-s-senate-race
en. Jon Tester (D, Mt.) at the far right and Sen. Chuck Schumer (center) at the lectern
Sen. Jon Tester is a Democrat, duh! As a Democrat, and after the great national ideological sorting by party that has taken place over the last few decades, that says a lot about him. Where are the conservative Democrats? They’re gone! He insists on being a Democrat while one is left groping for a reason. He runs as a Trumper when running for reelection back home, and he absolutely fits the MAGA-clichéd look: grizzled, flat top, overhanging belly, pickup truck with gun, white farmer. But he votes as a national Democrat, which is nearly identical to being a California Democrat.
Being a Democrat today (California or otherwise) ranges from taking on the policy preferences of Europe’s Social Democrats – i.e., socialist – and enviro-extremist Greens – i.e., socialist – or the UK’s Labor Party – i.e., socialist – to the neo-Marxism of AOC, Elizabeth Warren, etc. His ads stress the part of the far-Left agenda that will sell in Montana: class warfare, interstate xenophobia, and abortion, abortion, and more abortion. If a person ever sat down to actually give them some thought, they’re a collective hot mess.
For instance, an endless Tester spot plugging his support for abortion-and-more-abortion shows him gently touching a baby in her mother’s arms. Think about it: pushing abortion and a mother with baby. It’s the logical equivalent of joining matter and anti-matter. The baby can’t understand how close she came to not being in her mother’s arms, or anywhere. The baby’s existence hung by the delicate thread of whether her mother would use her “right” to end her existence. The scene is so bizarre. But it sells in a state hung up on the freedom of the individual to exterminate the next generation.
It’s more than this. He takes the party line on January 6th, which is as close to a party sacrament as one can get. Babylon Bee satirizes it as “January 6: The Most Deadliest Day” [sic]. What did Tester say on its anniversary in 2021? He released on his website the following: “January 6, 2021 was one of the darkest days in our nation’s history . . . .” (see the full statement here: https://www.tester.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/pr-8833/)
Please watch the Babylon Bee’s parody for counterpoint and perspective. Go to the link:
Jon Tester is a California Democrat in muddy boots. Looks great but people like him are destroying our way of life. Montanans have a guy in Washington who looks like Montana but votes to turn us into California.
*P.S.: Facebook doesn’t like the Babylon Bee or the New York Post, which included a story on Tester raking in Lefty California campaign cash. A quarter, maybe more, in his treasury came from California. You’ll have to search “Montana Democrat Sen. Jon Tester rakes in cash after California soiree, New York Post” to get the story. Censorship is alive and well on Facebook.
In Rob Reiner’s “This Is Spinal Tap”, the character of Nigel Tufnel (guitar and vocals in the faux group) divulges their secret in being “one of England’s loudest bands”. They stenciled their amp dial scales to end at 11 and not the usual 10 – not increase the actual power output, mind you. Thus, “We go to 11.” The difference between the regular Right and the most recent edition is that the newest vintage will “go to 11”, always on the lookout for new opportunities to be loco.
The New Right is content with the batty isolationism-lite, the battle against those mysterious and formless “neocons” and the “establishment”, and a zeal for protectionist tariffs. Their political darling is Donald Trump and prominent mouthpiece in the academy is Victor Davis Hanson. Hanson has twisted his intellect into knots to turn Trumpian incoherence into coherence. The old wisecrack “Give him enough rope and he will hang himself” could be rejiggered to apply to Hanson in “Let him talk long enough and reasonableness is overtaken by bunk”.
It was on full display in the October 26 podcast of the “The Victor Davis Hanson Show”. Hanson loves the term “reestablish deterrence”. I do too. In a dangerous world, bad actors need to understand that they’ll pay a heavy price for harming you: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” But it’s strange to the point of incredulity to apply it to only two of the three theaters of Cold War II: Israel and the Middle East, yes, of course; Taiwan/CCP/South China Sea, yes, of course; but Ukraine/Putin/Russia, no. What’s with that?
For Hanson, “reestablish deterrence” somehow stops when considering Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Hanson’s logic is a ball of confusion. He blathers about the “scared soil of Mother Russia” as quicksand for Ukraine and their supporters in order to justify a replay of 1967’s Vietnam War micromanagement when then-president LBJ chose bombing targets in North Vietnam and restricted efforts to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail and clean out NVA and Viet Cong sanctuaries in Cambodia. According to Hanson, we should not be supplying offensive weapons nor should Ukraine in any way, no matter how modified, adopt the tactics of the invader. Is there at least a hint of inconsistency here? Hypocrisy?
Weapons are weapons, whether labeled “offensive” or “defensive”. Is it “offensive” to strike Russian airbases, supply depots, missile sites, command-and-control centers, or occupy areas near Ukraine’s borders that are essential to keep Russia’s murderous juggernaut rampaging in Ukraine well-supplied? That’s defensive, Victor!
For Hanson, “reestablish deterrence” only applies against Iran or the CCP. How does Putin deserve a free pass? It’s the strangest thing. Putin’s desire to resurrect the Soviet empire is somehow different in Hanson’s mind from the mullah’s ambition to bring back the caliphate over the bodies of millions of Israelis or Xi’s craving to rebuild the Middle Kingdom of earth. Putin is decimating Ukraine as Iran would like to see done to Israel. Instead, Hanson strays off into a gripping fear of stepping onto the “sacred soil of Russia”. No word about the “scared soil of Ukraine”.
Try to make sense of it. You can’t. Emotions must account for it. Angers, resentments could be swamping the brain. Col. Vidman is Ukrainian and testified against Trump. Hanson must have been grinding his teeth. (Honestly, me too!) Zelensky visits an American factory that’s viewed favorably for Biden and Harris. The Left hates Russia for magically electing Trump; therefore, the Right automatically loves the place. Putin, manly man, versus XY “girls” and XX “boys” regaled at the White House. The faculty lounge flies Ukrainian flags at their homes while blue-collars languish in joblessness and meth. Hanson is seething.
Hanson tries to use the national debt and an open border as an excuse not to have a foreign policy, at least one that makes some sense. He’s actually saying, until all our problems are solved, to hell with Ukraine and foreign affairs. We’ve done it before regarding the continent of Europe, circa the 1930s prior to the fall of France, Pearl Harbor, and the Holocaust. It’s a theater of the absurd, and Hanson is begging to play a key role in the sordid drama.
