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Believing in the Unbelievable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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RogerG

Sources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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RogerG

Sources:

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

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Off Our Rocker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From the article:

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

Do ya think?!

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

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

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

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RogerG

Sources:

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

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Trump Won and I’m Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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RogerG

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Radioactive Personality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RogerG

Sources:

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

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

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

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The Limits of the Protected/Unprotected Paradigm

John Kerry Windsurfs On A Sea Of Tears After Trump’s Iran Deal Pullout | The Daily Caller
The Protected: John Kerry windsurfing
East Palestine Residents Chant 'No More Joe,' Wave 'Trump Won' Flags - Slay News
The Unprotected: residents of East Palestine, Ohio, waving Trump flags, Feb. 2023

Peggy Noonan’s growing “political dynamic” of our times (from 2016):

“There are the protected and the unprotected.  The protected make public policy.  The unprotected live in it …. The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it.  They are protected from much of the roughness of the world.  More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created [emphasis in the original].”

Peggy Noonan: Trump 'is the problem,' not his staff
Peggy Noonan in a speech from 2017

She’s right, and it should gall anyone with half a brain.

************

I had a little time Wednesday, 1/3/24, while exercising to listen to Hugh Hewitt’s radio show.  He inspired me to take a third look at Peggy Noonan’s piece from 2016, “Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected” (see below).  Hewitt used the article as a launching point to discuss the fall of Claudine Gay, the disgraced president of Harvard.  His point was that the vast majority of working Americans don’t care squat about the problems of a Harvard president.  If anything, the episode reminds the common person of the rank favoritism of those who have placed themselves above the mire that they have made for everyone else.  Good point, but it only goes so far.

Lets’ face it, Gay was not hired for her high achievements in scholarship or administrative skill.  She fit the new ideologically laced identity standards of our insulated, self-anointed aristocracy: black, female, immigrant-affiliated, and predictably left-wing.  She fits the superficial bill.  She was placed on a fast track to a fully tenured professorship, Dean of the Arts and Sciences, and the Harvard presidency.  Yet, she’s an empty suit with a checkered resumé.  It should rankle the parents of any working-class kid who was booted for the same infractions committed by the appointed sovereign of Harvard College, one whose academic accomplishments are extremely thin and plagued by charges of academic fraud, plagiarism (see below).

The disgraced Claudine Gay, and protected, at a Harvard graduation

Don’t think for a moment that she’s relegated to a bread line after her resignation.  She’ll still garner $900,000 a year as a Harvard professor.  She’s protected no matter how bad she’s been.  If that doesn’t pore salt into the open wound of the “unprotected”, nothing will.

Yet, where does the recognition of this new political battle line take us?  Nowhere, and fast.

Politically, it could easily end in a disaster.  Are the animated “unprotected” sufficient in number to constitute a governing electoral majority?  Recent history makes that possibility very tenuous.  The Trump victory of 2016 was by the skin of his teeth.  With narrow majorities for both parties in Congress during his term, it teetered wildly between Reaganite measures and Trump impeachment.  By 2018 and 2020, the Republican congressional footprint shrunk.  The expected GOP banner year of 2022 would go down as the Great Disappointment.  It is apparent that a rebellion of the bellicose “unprotected” isn’t enough.  Plus, you have to factor into the political calculus what is lost in a stance catering to the shrillest in those ranks.

And that brings me to Donald Trump.  As a character on our political stage, he’s both the middle finger to the “protected” and repulsive, repugnant to large swaths of the voting public open to the GOP being the antidote to the left-wing lunacy coming from our so-called “betters”( the “protected”), the supporting mass of the Democrats’ progressivism.  Is the goal of a political campaign to win or simply be a stage for venting?  Losing leaves only the wallowing in wild conspiratorial excuses.

Chief among the excuses is the charge that the system is rigged.  It is, and the complainers (the “unprotected”) are right to be up in arms.  The pandemic brought it all into the spotlight.  Protests for thee but not for me.  Private and open schools for thee and closed ones and distance-learning for my kids.  Then, parents learned of the hard-core porn and neo-Marxist indoctrination that were being inculcated into their children.  The “unprotected” experienced the loss of one to two years of learning while the “protected” raced forward in their exclusive private academies.  Small and medium businesses were shuttered and jobs lost leaving a monopoly for the bigs.  Cops closing down church services as rioters were free to torch the downtowns and federal courthouses from one megalopolis to the next.  2020 to 21 was a disgrace, courtesy of the “protected”.

Time to Adjust COVID-19 Restrictions

Plato Academy Palm Harbor closed due to COVID-19, will reopen Friday

Though, admittedly, the rigged-system charge sounds eerily like the banal Marxist complaint, the one wholly embraced by the “protected” Left.  When a complaint goes “systematic”, that’s carte blanche to tear down the society, the system, a totalitarian uprising.  This time from the right, Donald Trump hinted as much when he suggested that his followers should not adhere to the niceties of the Constitution.  To correct the alleged fraud of his election loss, on Truth Social in late 2022, Trump called for “the termination of all rules . . . even those found in the Constitution” (see below).  He quickly took a rhetorical two-step away from it.  But still, root-and-branch actions to upend the “system” was broached by a figurehead on the Right.  The Constitution to the woke snowflakes is a white man’s slavery compact. For Trumpers, and Trump himself, it is a compact for sinecures of the “protected” Left and election fraud.  For both sides, the ends justify the means.  History is not encouraging about the repercussions of that tact.

I’m not quite ready for the Hobbesian life of solitary, nasty, brutish, and short outside the rule of law.  Yet, that’s a possible destination for the country for both sides.

As we head into election season 2024, the faces of both parties – Biden and Trump – appear ugly to overwhelming numbers of voters.  It’s a battle of the repulsive.  FiveThirtyEight’s list of current polls consistently register disgust.  Media and the incendiary commentariat focus on the head-to-head matchup.  Trump is up, Biden is down, but regardless, 52% to 55% consistently view both with a jaundiced eye (see below).  If Biden v. Trump II was pay-for-view, the investors would face a ratings disaster.

In tamer debate, Trump and Biden clash (again) on president’s pandemic response | Salon.com

My worry is the down-ballot.  If Trump should win, it won’t be by much, and he won’t have coattails, never has.  If Biden wins, ditto.  If elected, I expect Trump to be immediately impeached if the Democrats ascend to the majority in the House and Senate.  If roles were reversed and Biden wins, Republicans will impeach not only Biden but his entire cabinet, leaving the VP to giggle and uptalk her way through the next four years.  Unitary GOP government would give us more chief executive flamboyance and impulsiveness, and Trump isolationism and protectionism.  Unitary donkey party rule will be an attempt to turn the country into California.  Either way, the “unprotected” will get screwed either as part-and-parcel of them getting what they want – Trump elected and proving the failure of protectionism, isolationism, and chaos in the executive once again – or being the target of command-and-control social engineering after another Trump election failure and more donkey party eco-totalitarianism.

The “unprotected”, by themselves, don’t make an electoral majority.  Their middle finger to the “protected”, in the person of Donald Trump, is repugnant to the vast center of the electorate.  The goal of politics in democracies is to win and the “unprotected” don’t have the numbers by themselves.  Trump is a divisive figure, not a unifying one.  After all, he’s a middle finger, not a statesman.  Thus, by default, given the narrow appeal of the orange man, the “protected” have a good chance of remaining protected and in power to continue to make hash of our lives.  We need to move beyond a mere repeat of the same contest and practice a little more election calculus.  The equation ends in the unavoidable conclusion: if the “unprotected” want protection, first, win elections!

RogerG

Sources:

* “Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected”, Peggy Noonan, originally published in the Wall Street Journal, 2/25/2016, at https://peggynoonan.com/trump-and-the-rise-of-the-unprotected/

* “Is Claudine Gay a Plagiarist?”, Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet, 12/10/23, at https://christopherrufo.com/p/is-claudine-gay-a-plagiarist

* “Trump Backtracks On Calling For ‘Termination’ Of Constitution Following Backlash”, Sara Dorn, Forbes, 12/5/22, at https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2022/12/05/trump-backtracks-on-calling-for-termination-of-constitution-following-backlash/?sh=7118d1d74161

* FiveThirtyEight latest polls at https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

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On Christian Nationalism in This Age of Trump

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Pro-Trump protest at the Capitol, Jan. 2021

Hugh Hewitt got me going.  I was listening to his interview with Tim Alberta in last week’s program (12/6/23) about Alberta’s new book on the rise of Christian Nationalism (CN) in the evangelical movement.  Hewitt disputed Alberta’s claim of a growing Christian Nationalist sentiment among evangelicals.  Regardless of the trend’s size – and neither Hewitt or Alberta could put a finger on its actual magnitude – Hewitt misses the point.  I think that Hewitt certainly understates CN’s impact, and, more importantly, he ignored the probability of it as a manifestation of Trump’s baleful influence within a good chunk of the Republican base, evangelicals.  Today, Christian Nationalism is religious Trumpism.

Tim Alberta on with Hugh Hewitt - YouTube
Hugh Hewitt interviewing Tim Alberta

So, what is Christian Nationalism?  Historically, it’s the identification of Christianity with American patriotism.  The concoction is too strong for my tastes; however, I saw a reasonable commonality of interest of the two at a certain point in time.  The term goes back to the Cold War.  At the time, many Americans viewed the contest as a battle between a mostly Christian USA and godless Soviet atheism.  It was a contest of powerful and obviously incompatible ideas.  The latter was a serious threat to the former.  The intersection of Christianity and American patriotism made sense.

In the interlude after the implosion of the Soviet Union, CN went dormant.  In the last five or so years, it was reawakened in fits of despair over failures to break the Democrats’ and their neo-Marxist allies’ grip on political and cultural power.

And guess who appeared on the stage in 2015 to champion the dejected?  Why, of course, Donald Trump.  They wanted a fighter and they got one, and everything associated with it such as combativeness, bellicosity, and bombast.  No deep thought and contemplation here, just in-your-face belligerence.  The desire for drama quickly overshadowed policies and ideas.  The Trump wave particularly spread over evangelicals and a reconstituted Christian Nationalism became just another manifestation of Trump’s cult of personality.

Yes, personality.  Trump’s searing attraction was his pugilistic personality.  It’s no surprise that a tabloid star would garner such loyalty in this combustible atmosphere.  The Cold War’s battle of ideas degenerated into today’s mudslinging between the Democrats’ New Left and the Republican personality cult.

Trump didn’t bring anything to the table but histrionics, and a couple of policy ideas easily grasped and exploitable for visceral effect: the wall and evil foreigners stealing our jobs.  There’s a great deal of truth in the need for a wall on the southern border, and much balderdash about the theft of jobs.  While trade with Communist China is indeed a scandal for national security reasons, tariffing trade with allies is the height of stupidity.  As the CCP becomes a global enterprise in Belt-and-Roads and a 300-ship and growing navy, Trump told our Asian allies to pound sand by taking TPP off the table and threatened tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and on the exports of a host of present and future allies.  The guy loves and brandishes tariffs if all his talk of the glories of them is sincere.

Trump rolls out sweeping tariffs, defying trade war warnings | The Times of Israel
Pres. Trump signs executive order imposing tariffs on imported steel from Canada and Mexico.
President Donald Trump shows the executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after signing it in the Oval Office on Jan. 23, 2017.
Pres. Trump shows signed executive order withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Jan. 27, 2017.

The related issues of outsourcing and offshoring were demagogued; all the while, our contribution to driving American businesses away went down the memory hole.  Alongside empowered NIMBY’s everywhere on American soil, EPA-like commissariats at all levels of American government, armies of neo-Marxist activists cropping up everywhere, and unions driving heavy manufacturing into bankruptcy, we voluntarily bludgeoned our home-grown enterprises with the highest corporate income tax rate in the world (see The Tax Foundation below).  Yes, congressional Republicans and President Trump cut those rates beginning in 2018 (Tax Cut and Jobs Act), but that wasn’t part of Trump’s schtick in 2016 when the Trump sect made its appearance.  It’s much more politically fruitful to blame foreigners than Americans for the situation.  Instead, Trump’s tariffs were always the locus of his heart’s desire.  They fit his style.

His allure washed over Republicans and the evangelical wing of the base.  For the religious-minded, the cultural issues took center stage and Trump delivered the Supreme Court.  For some with an evangelical bent, Trump would be identified with the Old Testament’s King Cyrus, a foreigner, a pagan who nonetheless was God’s agent to do good according to the prophet Isaiah.  That formulation is the seed of a new Christian Nationalism centering on Trump.  Today, when I read Christian Nationalism, I read Trump.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaks the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit held at the Tampa Convention Center on July 23, 2022 in Tampa, Florida.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speaks the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit held at the Tampa Convention Center on July 23, 2022 in Tampa, Florida.

The bright glow of the Trump personality attracted all sorts of imitators like moths to a lamp.  Marjorie Taylor Greene, that Trumper of all Trumpers, pulls no punches in donning the garb of Christian Nationalism in 2022 at a Turning Point gathering when she declared, “We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”

Lauren Boebert prayed Biden's 'days should be few' as 'Christian Center' crowd laughed and cheered
Lauren Boebert

For such people, brashness is a virtue.  There’s no one more brash than Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R, Colorado, 3rd Dist.).  She scoffed at the commonly understood separation of church and state when she announced during a sermon at Cornerstone Christian Center in 2022, “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk — that’s not in the Constitution.  It was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like they say it does.”  She goes further, “The church is supposed to direct the government.  The government is not supposed to direct the church.  That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.”  Brashness has no room for subtleties and nuance.  Trumpian brashness is entertaining.  There’s always time later to clean up the verbose mess.

Lauren Boebert speaking at the Cornerstone Christian Center

I suspect that Hewitt tried to diminish the influence of Christian Nationalism to protect the Trump brand from potential turn-offs to large swaths of the voting electorate in 2024.  He’s got a big job ahead of him.  Overt brashness, conceit, and narcissism invite trouble for those trying to piece together a winning coalition of voters.  Hewitt’s tactic is to dismiss CN’s representativeness in the Trump base, and Trumpism, which is more stage temperament – i.e. personality – than policies or ideas.

We are entering dangerous territory in our current state of hyperbolic politics.  Both parties are becoming extremely problematic.  The Democrats’ neo-Marxism is a national suicide pill.  For Republicans, toxic currents are swirling in their pool.  What do I mean?  The trumpeted marriage of Christianity to nationalism in the bluster of people like Lauren Boebert is, in fact, an inaccurate description.  More properly, it’s nuptials between Christianity and Trumpism, that attempt to peddle the personality trait of brashness as a substitute for adult thinking.  It’ll be a big turn-off once the 2024 campaigns begin in full swing no matter Hewitt’s declaration of Christian Nationalism to be insignificant.

Hewitt’s only hope is a greater loathing for Biden than Trump, a contest between who smells worse.  Hewitt is doing his best to spray Glade over Trump’s pungency.

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RogerG

Read more here:

* “Corporate Income Tax Rates around the World, 2017”, Kari Jahnsen and Kyle Pomerleau, Tax Foundation, 9/7/2017, at https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/global/corporate-income-tax-rates-around-the-world-2017/#:~:text=Key%20Findings%201%20The%20United%20States%20has%20the,percent%20when%20weighted%20by%20GDP%29.%20…%20More%20items

* Marjorie Taylor Greene’s endorsement of Christian Nationalism: “Opinion: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s words on Christian nationalism are a wake-up call”, Amanda Tyler, CNN, 7/27/2022, at https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/opinions/christian-nationalism-marjorie-taylor-greene-tyler/index.html

* Lauren Boebert’s endorsement of Christian Nationalism: “Boebert says she is ‘tired’ of separation between church and state: ‘The church is supposed to direct the government’”, Brad Dress, The Hill, 6/22/2022, at https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3540071-boebert-says-she-is-tired-of-separation-between-church-and-state-the-church-is-supposed-to-direct-the-government/

* The full Boebert talk at Cornerstone Christian Center can be viewed in full on YouTube at https://youtu.be/P-G-oAl9pF8?si=qbQnoTmB4xxRSJE4

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Polls, Polls, Polls, and a Party Gone Bananas

Political Cartoons - Campaigns and Elections - The Shining 2024 - Washington Times

Well, both parties have gone bananas.  The Democrats have gone over to denigrating the entire corpus of western civilization.  They are essentially Marxists in belief with their race/gender hucksterism and eco-central planning. Republicans are in a state of madness, consumed in a cult of Trump.  If you are an actual conservative, and not a cult member, expect to be reviled and abused.  It happened to Mitt Romney.

At times, I have been no fan of Romney.  His decision to march with Black Lives Matter in 2020 was a low point in my esteem for Mitt.  In February 2020, he was the lone Republican senator to vote in support of one of the two articles of impeachment.  I found both charges to be rank partisan prosecutions, something out of Stalin’s playbook.  But at least he had the wherewithal to express loathing for repulsive Trump behavior.  Rumors have been rife among Republican congressional members and staff of their disgust for Trump but were paralyzed by fear for their personal and family’s safety if they came out of the closet.  They have good reason to fear the cult.

One incident stands out. On January 5, 2021, one day before the January 6th riot, Mitt Romney boarded a plane in Salt Lake City for a flight to Washington, D.C.  So, to were others who were flying to D.C. for the Trump rally that devolved into the infamous riot. He was met with boos and chants of “Traitor” and “lowlife” on the plane (see below).  Is finding merit in one of the two impeachment charges, or expressing disapproval of Trump’s conduct, “treason”?  Is disagreement with Trump a measure of “lowlife”?

Apparently, Romney is more attuned to popular sentiment than the Trumpers on the plane.  Polls consistently show Trump’s disapprovals to hover around the mid-fifties.  It’s just that at this juncture, Biden has attained a level of repulsiveness equal to or slightly exceeding Trump’s.  So, in a contest limited to Biden v. Trump, Trump edges out Biden – and the celebrity pundits on Fox News are in a party mood.

They miss the point.  In a contest against a clearly, mentally and physically wobbly opponent, Trump can only eke out a narrow lead within the margin of error.  Don’t mistake these results for a suddenly growing and popular embrace of Trump.  That would be a big error in judgment.

The most recent NBC News poll (see below), like all the others going back a year or so, show a consistent distaste for Trump and an overriding dislike of Biden to match.  In this binary matchup, Trump is ahead by 2 points for the first time in this poll.  But lying in the poll’s weeds are some other interesting findings.  Any generic Republican facing Biden is 11 points ahead, and any generic Democrat forges 8 points ahead of Trump.  A no-name Republican does 9 points better than Trump against Biden; a no-name Democrat enjoys a landslide vis-à-vis Trump.

For the Democrats, the task is simple: remove Biden from the ticket.  They may do it.  Democrats are nimbler on their feet. Republicans seem to be hellbent on running their Trump Titanic into the iceberg.  On the other hand, he could win if Biden is on the ballot, but don’t expect any coattails if the Trump personality is evident down ballot.  Trumpism is a personality cult, and a not very endearing one.

RogerG

Read more here:

* “Kornacki: First Time In 16 NBC News Polls Over Four Years Where Donald Trump Leads Joe Biden”, Tim Haines, Real Clear Politics, November 20, 2023, at https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/11/20/kornacki_first_time_in_16_nbc_news_polls_over_four_years_where_donald_trump_leads_joe_biden.html

* Steve Kornacke on X about the NBC News poll at https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1726247457414414630

** Also in my Substack feed, The Golden Mean, at https://rogerlgraf.substack.com/

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Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” and the Coming Contest of the Abominable

While listening to a podcast of the musical career of Simon and Garfunkel, up popped a segment of their song “Mrs. Robinson”.  The verse struck me as oddly reminiscent of today.  Think of the looming contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  The verse:

“Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates’ debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you’ve got to choose
Every way you look at it, you lose”

I don’t expect much practical wisdom from rock stars, but this verse hits a chord.  A verse from 1968 comes full circle to meet 2024.

A week ago, I happened to be watching an episode of Fox News’s “The Five”.  A new Fox News poll had just been released showing Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden. Four of the five hosts were almost dancing a jig on the table about the results, as if votes had already been counted and Trump was preparing his coronation speech.  Is Trump becoming popular, or, more likely, is this a choice between the most abhorrent candidates of all time?

Look at the candidates’ negatives.  They are far and away more detested than loved. A smattering of polls from the Nov. 8-14 shows these guys to be stinkers (see below).  Biden’s detestability hovers between 53% and 59%. Trump’s swings from 54% to 56%.  Biden has achieved a level of loathsomeness slightly greater than Trump’s.  And the hosts of The Five are dancing a jig over this?

The contest is a consequence of the parties foisting on the general voting public execrable nominees.  The Democrats can’t come around to jettisoning their enfeebled sellout to the party’s neo-Marxist Left.  The Republicans can’t shake their enchantment with a narcissistic lunatic.  Now, the public has experienced both behind the Resolute desk and the bully pulpit.  If the contest is reduced to this binary, then the choice is about the least reviled.

So, why does Trump appear to be allegedly riding high?  Biden is in the seat of power, more immediate, before cameras, at the head of the nightly newscast, the subject of much conversation, and people get a daily dose of the failures of the party’s neo-Marxism: an overrun border, inflation, climate-change central planning, the unraveling of civilization, the group-guilt shaming, the international scene coming unglued, etc.  The present soon overwhelms the past.  Trump slides into background noise amid court appearances.  As a consequence, if the election were held today, the possibility of a president taking the oath while wearing an ankle bracelet looms large.

What’s there to like?

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It is said by many that people prefer Trump’s policies but personally dislike Trump.  There’s a lot to that, but those cherished policies are a reflection of longstanding GOP platforms.  Prior to 2015 and Trump’s grandstanding on Obama’s birth certificate, Trump had few if any policy ideas other than the border and trade protectionism.  His ignorance was profound.  In a 2016 debate, he couldn’t name the legs of the strategic triad. He was befuddled by the term “triad”.  When he amazingly got elected as a Republican, he not surprisingly turned to Republicans to fill out his administration.  From a guy who was a policy empty suit, many of his “wins” were crafted by the input of others who would later be insulted into oblivion.  Bill Barr, John Bolton, Mike Pence, Kelly, McMaster, et al, and the congressional leadership who were the fount of these ideas such as Paul Ryan, won’t be around for a Trump second bite at the apple.

In a Trump term #2, who will he turn to, the clown caucus of Matt Gaetz and company?  A person still possessing their wits would be a fool to get too close to Trump.  Expect any future Trump presidency to be filled with “fighters”, fighters who are a bit too punch drunk: the clown car caucus moves from Congress to the executive branch; the extended universe of isolationists and sycophants; and the rule of the Democrats’ craziness would be replaced by those who romanticize 1932’s Smoot-Hawley Tariff and the American Firsters of 1940.  Mmmm.  What would that world look like?

I have to amend my prediction that Trump is a loser.  Er, he is; you just might have to look down ballot for the misery.  The guy has no coattails because he’s kryptonite at the state and local level.  As long as Trump is far from you, he might be tolerable, even if you’ll only see him on parole or probation.  Yet don’t count out that Democrat vote-harvesting machine so quickly, or the possibility that they’ll do a switcheroo replacing the enfeebled with a fresh-faced, milquetoast neo-Marxist from the party’s ranks.

RogerG

Read more here:

* For the latest polls turn to https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

** Also in my Substack feed, The Golden Mean, at https://rogerlgraf.substack.com/publish/home

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The Trump Personality in Politics

Ilhan Omar calls on House leadership to take action against Lauren ...
Part of the House Republican clown caucus (l-r): Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Majorie Taylor Greene

As a public-school teacher for 30 years, I know the critical rule of classroom management.  If one kid’s bad behavior is left unattended, it won’t take long for the classroom to become a zoo.  A parallel is Trump’s entry into the Republican presidential sweepstakes in 2015.  More than Trump entered the race, also came his personality.  It has left an impression on certain adolescent-minded clusters of grownups in the Republican Party – both registered voters and some in elected office.  Think of the clown caucus who engineered the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.

“Trumpian” boils down to braggadocio, bombast, simplistic and blunt issues in a blunt style with a lot of bullying of friends and foes alike.  It’s the over-the-top behavior of a person who craves the tabloid limelight.  The Obama birth certificate dustup is a classic example of a simplistic and blunt issue to be exploited for personal gain, which would be Trump’s signature approach to modern politics.  The only thing is, the bombast that drew so much attention ended in Trump scaping egg off his face when Obama produced the document.

Few, however, would predict that a windbag’s curtly rudeness would have an appeal among the rank and file.  And the whole style seemed to be electorally validated when Trump won in a 2016 black swan event.  Success can bring out the worst in people, and “Trumpian” came to be as fashionable as the John Wayne swagger in the 1950s.

While the personality type is appealing to certain party voters, it’s a big turnoff to getable swaths of the general electorate.  After 2016, Trump’s appeal down ballot was a disaster.  Let’s not forget 2022, at a time when the Democrats have made a shambles of the country, the Republicans could only squeak out a bare majority in the House leaving the clown caucus in a position to put their Trumpian hijinks on public display.  The Republicans are proving that neo-Marxism is survivable if Trump, his political personality, and the clown caucus are the face of party.

In Orwell’s “1984”, Big Brother had a face. In today’s rendition of the Republican Party, its face is that of Donald Trump with the likes of Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Majorie Taylor Greene, Matt Rosendale, and Nancy Mace in a chorus line behind.  Big Brother wouldn’t be laughed at; the picture of Trump and the Trumpkins elicits guffaws at first, followed by beads of sweat from the realization that they have actual power.  To be sure, these are not the kind of people that I would trust with my kids.

IBM software patch upgrades power grid to version 2.0 - ExtremeTech
Big brother from 1984

95,000 words, many of them ominous, from Trump's tongue ...

The despicability of the Democratic Party and a sizeable faction in the Republican Party is registered in polls, something that you’ll recognize if you rely on more than Laura Ingraham for your news.  She doesn’t hesitate to bellow a poll with Trump ahead of Biden.  Yet, the reality in the most recent Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll presents a more complicated picture (see below).  Yes, among Republican primary voters, Trump is far and away the favorite with 58%.  Metrics of enthusiasm for Trump are high among these voters.  But – here’s the key number – among the general electorate, Biden squeaks out a tiny lead, essentially a tie.

Trump is favored on a host of issues – the border, economy, foreign affairs – but when offered a choice between Biden and Trump, it’s essentially a dead heat.  What’s holding Trump and the Republicans back from a sweeping lead?  Look at Trump’s negatives.  He’s even more reviled than Biden in a recent NBC News poll (see below).  Biden’s negative rating stands at 49%; Trump registers a 54% downside.  Megaphones like Laura Ingraham of Fox News would mention a Trump lead in a poll’s head-to-head matchup, but nary a word about Trump’s unlikability.  Does “putting lipstick on a pig” remind you of anything?

The Trump personality is only appealing to a sizeable portion of the Republican Party base.  It’s reviled nearly everywhere else.  Trumpian bluster might carry a candidate through the primary, but in places other than a crimson district, it’s the kiss of death.  If you want to stop the Democrats’ neo-Marxism, first win elections.  What’s a turn-on for primary voters can be poison in the general election.

Democrats know this.  That’s why they’re interfering in Republican primaries to elect Trumpians.  In my home state of Montana, mysterious ads are appearing that throw mud on Tim Sheehy, who’s challenged in the primary by the Trumpian Matt Rosendale.  Not a word in these hit pieces about Rosendale.

The group – Last Best Place PAC – is an undercover Democrat operation (see below) to help get Rosendale the nomination and, thus, an easier challenger for incumbent Democrat John Tester.  It’s the same Democrat tried-and-true tactic from 2022.  It’s not out of distaste for Sheehy that drives Schumer and company to stick it to Sheehy.  He knows, like everyone else who are not fans of the Trump schtick, that a Trumpian is a weaker candidate.  What worked in Arizona, Pennsylvania, et al, in 2022 has a good chance of succeeding in 2024.  Watch Republicans rush headlong into the trap.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Further, watch an example of a boisterous Trumpian on full display, Lauren Boebert from September of this year.  After this, is she like Trump – “I could stand in the middle of 5th Ave. and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters” – and therefore immune from the voters’ wrath?  Are some Republican voters that morally stunted?  Is the Trumpian personality that hypnotizing?

The Trumpian personality came through the door in 2016 and has entrenched itself.  At this point, the party will have to face a disaster before the malignancy can be removed.  Like a classroom under the control of hellions, we have a party that has allowed this element to run roughshod.  And we will pay the piper.

RogerG

Read more here:

* For deep dive into the Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll, see the full text of the poll at https://www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suffolk/documents/academics/research-at-suffolk/suprc/polls/national/2023/10_24_2023_marginals_embargoed_2.pdf?la=en&hash=ABF93DCEAAFCA91DBE9BD17A2A10E4E4A2C6189E

* The NBC News poll can be read at https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/poll-overwhelming-majorities-express-concerns-biden-trump-ahead-2024-r-rcna111347

* “Nine months before the Montana GOP primary, a mysterious super PAC is on the airwaves attacking Tim Sheehy”, Ally Mutnick, Politico, September 12, 2023, at https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2023/09/12/congress/montana-senate-sheehy-pac-ads-00115276

* More on the Democrat-affiliated PAC: “Dems Look To Meddle in Montana’s GOP Senate Primary”, Meghan Blonder, The Washington Free Beacon, September 13, 2023, at https://freebeacon.com/elections/dems-look-to-meddle-in-montanas-gop-senate-primary/