New Blue Team Talking Point Dropped: Republicans are "Weird"

You know the pattern. Suddenly the whole blue team is on-message, repeating the officially-designated talking-point ('convicted felon,' 'sharp as a tack,' etc.) And that means: all the Democrats and the media, their PR/propaganda arm.

   Then wave two will include the media declaring that the talking-point is devastating! Republicans can't answer it! They are beside themselves! Victory for the blue forces is all but guaranteed!

   Here's that kind of thing from the loathsome L.A. Times.

   Twitter seems to be about 5% Republicans being annoyed by this and 95% Democrats crowing about how annoyed and TOTALLY PW0NZ0RED Republicans are.

   Of course, this is all juvenile and no way for the world's greatest nation to conduct its elections. 

   But it's also par for the course for the Dems. And hey, it beats their go-to unjustified accusation of the last ten years: YOU'RE A RACIST, RACIST

   Occasionally adding or substituting one or more from their Standard Litany of Hysterical Accusations: 'white supremacist,' 'sexist'* misogynist, x-phobe for just about any value of 'x', 'settler colonialist'....blah, blah, blah...

   And, unsurprisingly, Republicans are bit baffled at this particular taunt given that the response should be obvious to anyone:

Of the two parties, there is basically nothing more obvious than that it's the Democrats who are the weird party... The really, really, really weird party...

   The Dems are the party of transanity and gender woo, the indoctrination of children in public schools, sexual mutilation, the racialization of everything, Orwellian neologisms and redefinition of words, and the general rejection of reality. Lysenkoism. Hysterical climate apocalypticism. Russiagate. DEI. CRT. Cancel Culture. "Disinformation" and a general hostility to free speech, free thought, and free inquiry... And, of course, the totalitarian effort to push all of these lunatic ideas into every corner of education, government, business and private life. This is the party whose supporters suddenly "forgot," en masse, what the word 'woman' means...gosh, it's so complicated! I mean, I'm not a biologist... And, of course, the party of political correctness...which means, among other things, there may be no fact of the matter to what extent they have actually come to believe these insane things and to what extent they simply are not allowed to speak the truth...

   But, since they control the media, they get to not only disseminate their new insults/accusations/talking-points, they get to decree them to be real zingers...and also to decree that they're really hitting home! And that The bad guys have no response...

   I mean, J. D. Vance does seem to be kind of weird. He was, I still think, a bad choice. Trump is really weird. It's just that there's really no contest, weirdness-wise, between the parties. 

   Maybe this is some complicated, 4-D chess strategy to try to distract people from the weirdness...actually: the insanity...of the left. I dunno.

   Thing is, the Dems can basically say whatever they want. Via the media they exert almost complete control of "the narrative" (still a stupid term--and a PC term. The fact that we've all adopted it is just more evidence of the control they exert.) They can basically launch a torrent of accusations and insults from now until November. None of them have to be true. None of them have to be smart. The sheer weight of volume will work in their favor.

   It's all so nauseating and stupid.

* WE DON'T SAY 'SEXIST' ANYMORE, BIGOT, BECAUSE TECHNICALLY WOMEN...I MEAN...'UTERUS CONTAINERS'...COULD BE SEXIST TOO BUT THAT CAN'T BE TRUUUUUUE!!!!!

Nate Silver: Current Presidential Odds: Trump 61.3% Harris 38.1%

UnHerd link

A gut-wrenching shift from the last Biden odds he calculated (67-ish%-27%?)...but still a big advantage to the good guys.

Though, more seriously, it's not really good guys v bad guys, really.

I once heard someone--I think it was Kokie Roberts?--say that, when she went off to D.C. for her first gig, her father said something to her like:

Always remember and never forget: 

The Republicans are the bad guys

and 

The Democrats are the crazy guys.

I think that's pretty good. It's kind of known game to figure out the best formulation of this little contrast.

I guess I tend to favor:

The Republicans are stupid guys

and

The Democrats are the crazy guys

 

Of course both parties have stupid and crazy and just plain bad in them...it's about the proportions...but why ruin the joke? (too late)

   Funny that I didn't used to consider the Dems crazy...but people who knew a lot more than I did did. They're batshit crazy now. I wish I had a better view of that they used to be like. But I really did think they were the good guys. They were certainly pretty nutty before Bill Clinton sent them back toward the center... What I wouldn't do for another Bill Clinton Presidency right about now... Of course that's some measure of how insane the Democrats have gone: today, Bill Clinton would have to run as a Republican...and his old party would call him Hitler. He'd be painted a homo"phobe" for not favoring same-sex marriage...and even ca. 2000 Clinton would simply refuse to believe that ca. 2024 transanity was a real thing...

Anyway.

Kamala Harris Explains Inflation to You

wut

Wow
pic.twitter.com/P26JfTjPPJ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2024

RCP: New Polling Shows Harris Narrowing Trump's Lead, Putting PA Back in Play

Very bad news.

But there's a lot of time left.

KAMALAMANIA!!!!: The TOTALLY GRASSROOTS, Like, SUDDEN RECOGNITION That, Y'know, Kamala Harris is the GREATEST THING EV-AR!!!!!!!

So uh...is this not embarrassing for Dems?

Cover of New York Magazine.

Have you ever seen something so fake and manufactured as the “excitement” over Kamala? pic.twitter.com/kJfypQu2Ec

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 29, 2024

Progressive Twitter is Insane

There's a lot of crazy righty, fringe, and even centrist stuff on there, too, of course, The righties do maybe seem a bit worse about spewing out conspiracy theories about everything that happens--e.g. after the attempted Trump assassination. Maybe I'm not seeing a representative sample, of maybe my current greater disgust with the left is skewing my evaluations. Dunno.

   But damn...

   Progressive TwiXXer is mostly a firehose of lies about Trump (and, now, Vance). Trump wasn't hit by a bullet...the shooter was in on it/a Trump plant, Trump cut his own ear on the podium, Trump cut is own ear with a hidden blade as part of the plan, PROJECT 2025 PROJECT 2025 PROJECT 2025, Trump said if he's elected it'll be America's last election!!!!, Trump and Epstein, Trump and RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA...and many more.

   Here's their current favorite:

If you ever want to vote again, if you want to live in a country where one day your children and grandchildren can vote, you need to vote for Harris this November. https://t.co/lNnLqr57FJ

— Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) July 27, 2024

  This one is everywhere, retweeted thousands of times, generally with some variation of: 

Trump is saying quite clearly, in unequivocal terms, that he plans to be a dictator and stop all future American elections. This is our last chance to vote...etc. etc. 

This fits their pattern. Trump--or anyone they disagree with--says something a bit unclear--or, for that matter, perfectly clear, their interpretation drives spin up to overdrive and they spit out some contrived, preposterous quasi-interpretation, and they insist that IT'S PERFECTLY CLEAR THAT THIS IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE THING HE COULD HAVE MEANT!!!!!!!

   Of course it IS perfectly clear what he means in the clip--that this election is important, that conservatives (and, in particular, Christians) need to vote in it, and that, given four more years, he'll improve things so much that voting won't be so crucial anymore.

   Again: progressive twitter is a deluge of this kind of nonsense--basically of them making up crackpot shit about Trump and scaring themselves with it. Reddit is starting to get posts from hyseriac, unstable alphabet youth saying that they plan to kill themselves if Trump wins. Y'know...so they don't get thrown into the Gay Concentration Camps...

   They really have lost their collective mind. The public mind of progressivism is now disordered to the point of insanity.

[Oh and: as I'm sure you know, Snyder is kind of a big deal. History professor at Yale, author of Bloodlands...which nobody I know has quite finished because the brutality is just too relentless...and the book is too long... But it's an impressive achievement. Unfortunately, he's also the author of a pamphlet, On Tyranny... It starts out pretty good, but just becomes a thinly-concealed anti-Trump screed. I remember thinking that there was maybe some good stuff early on, but I can't now remember what...]

Freddie DeBoer: Candidates Should be Chosen Democratically; Neither Biden nor Harris was

I wasn't paying enough attention to this important point.

   But the You have always loved Kamala campaign really got my attention.

First the Dems decreed that Joe was the Beloved Leader, a great man who all Democrats adore and support. Then, like flipping a switch, it was Harris. And they're selling her like an iPhone.

   I'm getting more and more fed up with Trump...which, a priori, I might have thought impossible. The stupid comments about the Ten Commandments in school, and about flag-burning in particular revolt me. Admittedly, I don't know much about Vance, but I don't much like what I've seen. (Again, I haven't yet read his book. Gonna go pull that off the shelf as soon as I'm done with this screed.) I continue to think that Trump really blew that one, choosing a Mini Me Trump instead of someone who would take the Trumpy edge off and appeal to centrists--Youngkin, Vivek, Tulsi, maybe Rubio...

   But the Dems now just seem to always one-up him, revulsion-wise.

   The brainless Hey, kids, Kamala is cool! stuff...holy crap...

   If this strategy wins it for them, it'll be a reductio ad absurdum of American democracy.

   And all this without any real primaries, without any significant chance for the Dem rank and file to have their say.

    The Democratic party elites--the source of much of our current predicament--are basically just selecting candidates.

   I rather hope there's a train-wreck convention in which this is challenged, even though that could produce a stronger candidate. For one thing, I'd like to see them have to switch to a third candidate and insist that Democrats have always love him/her/zxxir, too... 

You Will Love Harris...You Already Love Harris...You Have Always Loved Harris...

The Woketarian cult is just creepy as shit.

They exploded out of the gate with this stuff. It's like they're marketing a new iPhone.

Political persuasion is gross, of course, but I think this may be even grosser and creepier than anything I've seen previously in American politics.

A few weeks ago, Trump was hanging out with Jake Paul, getting standing ovations at the UFC, etc. When the comparison was with Biden, Trump was the cool one in tune with pop culture. Kamala is twenty years young, fresh and diverse. She’s destroying him on vibes. pic.twitter.com/Ewh9ErdXzt

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) July 26, 2024

Harris Gains on Trump, But is Still Behind

link

German Government Knew Masks Didn't Work, "Pandemic of the Unvaccinated" was False...but Hid the Evidence

Apparently, anyway.

Peter Savodnik at TFP: "Gaslighting the Public on Kamala Harris as 'Border Czar'"

Straight outta Oceania...

This isn't just one incident.

This is representative.

This is what we're dealing with on the left

Progressives treat 1984 as an instruction manual.

Who controls the past...controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.

"Kamala Harris Was Never The Border Czar" Edition

The Ministry of Mis/Dis/Mal/NaughtyInformation is hard on the case.

Trump Leads Harris in Key Battlegrounds

Too early to tell, really.

Down to +2 in PA.

She's gonna pick Shapiro, isn't she?

Trump's an Idiot: Flag-Burning Edition

Trump's an idiot, and more than capable of losing to Kamala Harris.

Honestly, who doesn't know about Texas v. Johnson? 

He steamrolled his way to the nomination. He (IMO) blew his VP pick. He fell for the early debate ploy. Now he could well be in trouble. He had it won against Biden, so the Dems just forced a do-over by revealing what they'd been concealing--Biden's impairment. Now the left has cranked up its distortion-field generators to 11. News media and their "fact-checkers," Hollywood, pop music, lefty Twixxer, TikTok...and academia/"public intellectuals" (I'm sure) are all on-message: Harris is cool (and Trump isn't). If this works--if it actually catches on--it's a tough message to beat. Because there's basically nothing to it. She's young(er), reasonably attractive, female, black(ish), and far to the left. She is "unburdened by what has been" in the sense that she can, just by being vague, represent herself as kinda sorta pro-Palestine...and that may well be enough to get back the disaffected youth vote.

The least Trump might do is to stop saying overtly retarded shit.

But that, of course, has always been asking too much of him...

We coulda had DeSantis...

RCP: Republicans Should Expect Democrats to Make it a Closer Race

Agreed.

Biden, Harris, etc.

I was inclined to think that Biden would be replaced, though I'm not sure I said it here--so doesn't really count. For a couple of days, I leaned the other direction when it sounded like he was prepared to go to the mat. But I thought the decisive factor was: he was losing. Bigly. Dems were whistling past the graveyard, proclaiming their undying allegiance to him, and insisting that he was going to win... But he wasn't. He was losing in every swing state other than MN, and losing by a lot in PA and some others. VA now seems back in play. If he had been winning, he'd still be the candidate. Now they are all proclaiming their undying love for Kamala, greatest and most perfect and beautiful and perfect candidate of all teh timez...

   Harris doesn't seem like a great candidate to me, but she doesn't have to be. The media covered up Biden's decline until it couldn't be covered up anymore--or perhaps until it wasn't worth the risk. The early debates were, IMO, a way to get rid of him, the Pubs fell for it, and it worked. I suppose that's a bit conspiratorial-sounding--so maybe take it with more grains of salt than normal... Then media turned on him and did the Dems' work by getting rid of him. I think it was basically clear that was what was going on in the Stephanopoulos interview. Just about all GS did was grind away on the age/health stuff.

   Now Kamala is a younger, hipper, DEIer, female, blackish leftist--the perfect canvas onto which the media and the left (but I repeat myself) can paint the picture they want. The Dems have turned on a dime re: the age issue, and now they proclaim Trump too old. And, of course, an old rich white guy is the worst thing you can be, demographically, in the eyes of contemporary Dems and the kiddies (but, again, I basically repeat myself.) And, of course, he is Trump... That whole thing. In addition to unhipness, he's a genuinely terrible candidate in all the ways we already know about. He shouldn't even be in the conversation. (Which isn't to say that he isn't right about a lot of things...for he is, he is...)

   Though the blue team is in a spot of trouble they are very, very good at these kinds of political tactics, and they've managed to snatch uncertainty from the jaws of near-certain defeat. With the help of their media propaganda wing...well, I'm very concerned is the thing. Pop culture is already on the job. Beyonce has apparently given the Harris campaign permission to use some song or other. I'll bet anyone $100 bucks that at least one pop song will be written (or modified) for her. She'll probably show up at Taylor Swift concert. 

   Oh and: there's speculation that she could pick the PA governor as her running mate... Which would be a disaster, especially after Trump chose a veep who doesn't help him at all.

   Basically the Dems lost the election and now get an anticipatory do-over. It's rather like the Pubs have to win two elections to win. Well, at least two. If Kamala polls bad, they can have a third go at it at their convention. Maybe this is a glimmer of hope: they've basically gone all-in on Harris, probably because they know they'd incur the wrath of their racialist, identity politics base by going around a black woman. But...if she's losing convincingly by the convention, the Democrat elites might, as I suggested, take a third shot at it...angering young, female progressives they stirred up for her...

   But that's a stretch.

   Also: speculative.

   And, as should go without saying, they've already started with the inevitable All opposition to Kamala is racism.

   I'm thinking of giving up on politics, actually. This shit is all stupid. And a waste of time. We used to have Presidents like Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln... Now we've got a reality show con man vs. a far-left DEI hire.*

   I tremble for my country when I consider that God (metaphorically speaking) does not like dumbassery, and that his righteous disgust cannot sleep forever.

* Of course it has been decreed: admitting that Harris was a DEI hire is...do I have to say it? No, I don't...

Harsanyi: By the Way, Harris is a Dangerous Authoritarian

I haven't seen any convincing refutations of these sorts of arguments yet, so I probably don't have the whole picture. But the half of the story I do have is prima facie alarming.

   I was against Biden mainly because it was clear that he would be basically a rubber-stamp for the policies of the extreme progressive left. But I've also long said that he was probably the least-bad of the plausible Democrat options.

   Thus far, Harris does seem worse.

   But I honestly haven't paid much attention to her, so I'm willing to have my mind changed.

WashEx: Kamala the Extremist

link
I really don't know much about Harris, TBH. She was supposed to be Border Czar, but didn't seem to do anything. Unless you count deploying to the border one of the left's favorite bits of BS, the "root causes" fallacy: when there's a problem that the left doesn't consider a problem, or doesn't want to solve, or especially when it doesn't want to do what's necessary to solve it, they tend to argue that we shouldn't work toward the obvious solution "because that won't address the root causes." Then they pick a "root cause" that they already want to do something about, and that will allow them to advance their agenda and work toward a solution they do like. Their favorite "root cause" of the flood of illegals across the Mexican border was...you can guess it... Climate change! Yes, see, these are climate migrants! We mean refugees! Chased out of their homes by the searing heat waves producing instant desertification, the frigid cold waves freezing whole cities and regions under miles-thick glaciers, the 1,000 mph hurricanes, and the rampaging giant monsters awakened from their millennia of slumber beneath the melting Arctic ice.

   Of course this fallacy is, well, stupid.

   First, and re: this case in particular: no. There are basically no "climate refugees." Climate change isn't effecting that kind of change. This is part of the left's general strategy of attributing all extreme weather to anthropogenic global warming. This strategy is of course applied selectively. Is it cold? Just weather, bigot! Don't confuse climate and weather! Is it hot? EVIDENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIIEEEE..... Though also: is it cold? ALSO GLOBAL WARMING BIGOT!!1 WAIT, WE MEAN CLIMATE CHANGE...

   Even the IPCC says that there's no known link between CC/AGW and observed extreme weather (with the exception of heat waves, which they say we might be able to link to it.)

   Not to put too fine a point on it: we don't tend to solve immediate practical problems by shunning immediate, effective practical solutions in favor of addressing "root causes"--even the real ones rather than the politically correct ones. Trump mitigated the illegal alien problem by beefing up border security, getting to work on a bigger and better wall, and, basically, making potential border-jumpers understand that they weren't going to be welcome here. Biden undid all that by inviting illegals to "surge to the border." (Technically, he only urged asylum-seekers to do so...but they basically all say they're asylum-seekers...) And catch and release. And...and...and...

   News flash: people react to incentives.

   Which brings us to the other, realer alleged root causes: violence and shitty economies. Now, these are real and, if we can afford it, I'd like to see us help nations south of the border address them. But it is idiotic to pretend that this is our only option for stopping the deluge. To stop the deluge, we need more enforcement--including more fencing. Lots more fencing. Basically, to stop the flood we need to close the flood gates rather than learning to control the rain. Once we've done everything immediate that's cost-effective, then we can consider addressing putative "root causes." The real ones, anyway. I recommend not addressing the imaginary ones...

   If you fall off a ledge and break your leg, the solution is to have a doctor set the bone--not to build a guard rail. If a cop stops a drunk driver, the important course of action is to get him off the road, not to start lobbying for prohibition. Got a test tomorrow? Study! Don't start reading a book on your procrastination problem... 

   Well, you get it.

   Basically, the Dems want us to spend money and resources on climate change, and give aid to countries south of the border...but they don't particularly care about stopping the migrant invasion. It's not a problem to them--or wasn't until it got so bad it harmed their electoral standing. So their policy was: hey, we don't wanna spend money on that! We'd rather spend money on things we care about and say it was to address that problem that we don't consider to be a problem...cool?  

   Anyway...uh...Kamala...

   She'd be worse than Biden.

   No sale.

How Twitter Generates Lunacy

Well, two of the most prominent ways, anyway:

   Spin and conspiracy theories.

   As soon as there's some event, announcement, whatever, the two major sides, red and blue, get to it.

Red-teamers start spinning The New Thing hard rightward; blue-teamers start spinning it hard leftward. Many different angles of spin will emerge on each side--along with some unaffiliated spin elsewhereward--but most of it will be in a major-partisan direction.

   And much of the spin will be tangled up in conspiratorial thinking sooner than later.

   Trump shot!?

   Red team: heroic Trump! USSS DEI!--lookit that woman who can't find her holster! She is small and pudgy! What's she doing there? Biden denied Trump additional agents! BLUE-TEAM CONSPIRACY!! Why didn't they take out the shooter faster? Fist-pump Trump--hooray!!! Bravest and "most physically courageous President since Teddy Roosevelt!* 

   Blue team: Trump not shot at all! Hit by glass! Much less heroic! In fact: a hoax! He cut his own ear with something concealed in his hand! Or the shooter was a red-team plant who...[checks notes] uh...nicked his ear on purpose [looks off-stage, incredulous; you people expect me to read this stuff?] Not heroic at all! Trump stood up and pumped fist--endangered USSS agents! Shooter was Republican!! Ha ha why did he want his shoes? Lifts?

   Now...granted, the Trump shooting was weird, to say the least. I've been taking a wee break from the madness...but...USSS saw the shooter on the roof twenty-nine minutes before he shot??? That degree of (seeming) incompetence is just gonna produce conspiracy theories... 

   Um and...not to go easy on the red team here, but: this Biden disappearing act...it's pretty weird. Of course I do not think that Biden is dead. Ha ha! No! That would be nuts! But...making the announcement via Twixxer and then...nothing? Alread against the background of age and illness?

   Anyway.

   Yes, some conspiracy theories are less crazy or at least more understandable than others.

   But that's a different point for a different time.

   Here I'm really more interested in the spin than the conspiracies.

   The immediacy and diligence with which the team spin everything in a way that's favorable to their tribe is a sight to behold.

   When Biden dropped out, it was suddenly Heroic! Noble Joe puts country first! Trump would never do this! [Sidebar: this is actually pretty much exactly what I expect Trump has in mind...but that's just speculation.] NOW TRUMP IS THE OLDEST CANDIDATE EVER AND YOU WERE JUST COMPLAINING ABOUT THAT WITH JOE SO...!!!!!

   The other guys: We told you Biden was too old and demented! The Dems lied to us all! If he can't campaign, he can't run the country! 25th Amendment! The MSM is blue-team propaganda! Why didn't they know? Why didn't they tell us?

   Of course there's a grain of truth in a lot of this from both sides. And if you sift through it appropriately, you can find ideas and arguments worthy of consideration. But it's the routine partisan dogmatism that's so stupid and tedious.

   Oh and: the conspiracy theorizing.

   Twixxer is like an irrationality generator/amplifier.

   Blah blah blah.

* Sigh. This ridiculous claim may have irritated me most of all... As other have pointed out: Eisenhower, SHAEF Commander? Bush '41, dive-bomber pilot? Jimmy Carter, submarine nuclear technician? I'd add: Harry Truman, artillery Captain, WWI? Even Bush '43 was an interceptor pilot... That's not even trying. Just about everybody up to Clinton served in some way or other, no? [Almost forgot: JFK.]

Well, I Guess I'm Finally Gonna Hafta Read Hillbilly Elegy...

Though, being from the Ozarks, I am skeptical about the existence of Ohio Hillbillies...

That Woody Allen Quote Again, Mostly Tongue-in-Cheek

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Back

Went on vacation. Been trying to ignore the political turmoil...mostly unsuccessfully...

My best wishes to Joe Biden. This has obviously been a difficult time for him. Though I've disagreed with him about most things over the last few years, he's earned a peaceable retirement. I don't think this is a time for him to be so much in the limelight. We should all be pulling for him, generally speaking, in his last few months as President.

Well...

 ...so much for forgetting about politics and shit...

Trump Survives Assassination Attempt

He was going to win anyway, but he's definitely going to win now.

REPUBLICANS POUNCE on: Trump Assassination Attempt

MAGA REACS WITH OUTRAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111oneoneoneoneuno

I hate the MSM so very much.

Assassination Attempt Against Trump?

Unsurprising.

The Gourds, Gin and Juice

Let's forget about politics and shit for awhile.

Youngkin Back in VP Contention?

An exciting possibility, IMO. Youngkin is a good candidate with exactly the kind of reasonable, civil, centrist approach and demeanor that could help offset Trump's intemperate nuttiness. VA is currently considered back in play, with Biden +2.2, but with no recent polling. And importantly: Winsome Sears, VA Lt. Governor, would become governor and be eligible to run in the next gubernatorial election. (Governors in the OD are normally prohibited from serving two consecutive terms.) Sears is, herself, a strong, compelling candidate.

   And a Sears governorship would have very important effects on SCHEV (the State Council for Higher Education of Virginia), and on the Boards of Visitors of VA public universities. Youngkin has moved them in the right direction, but, of course, a Democratic governor would just move them right back again.

   I don't know much about J. D. Vance or Bergum. They may be great, but neither seems likely to move the Electoral College count. Rubio could help with Hispanics--and that could be big. He's from FL, but there are ways to get around the prohibition against POTUS and VPOTUS being from the same state. Cheney, recall, was actually from TX. I dislike that sort of thing, but whatever.

   So Youngkin could, plausibly, bring in more centrist votes and bring Virginia.

Batya Ungar-Sargon: The Truth About Trump? He's a Moderate

Yes.

   He's basically a '90s liberal.

   Biden may be, too...what's left of him... But (as I predicted back in 2020) he's basically a rubber stamp for the Dems' progressive-left platform and the ideas of the progressive leftists on his staff.

   Personally, Biden's always been a clown--and he's been a crook for some time. Trump, OTOH, is a clown and a long-time con man. Neither person is admirable. But Biden can usually keep it together in public and act like a normal human being. Trump often can't. In terms of temperament and demeanor, Biden wins.

   But in terms of policy, Trump is largely on target, Biden is, well, again: just a rubber stamp for the insanity that has possessed the Democrat party. And the Democrats don't even realize how radical they've become. Mainly because they always paint the Republican candidate as Hitler...and then they believe their own hysterical fabrications.

   They're currently driving themselves berserk over the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. People keep trying to tell them that it's not Trump's plan, that he doesn't agree with it, that it's largely at odds with his Agenda 47 and the GOP platform--not to mention Trump's long-standing policy positions... But you know them. It's always hard to tell whether they actually believe something or are saying it to be politically correct--or for political effect. The polls and Biden's decline are making them desperate. They're grabbing hold of Project 2025 like a life preserver.

   ELECTING TRUMPITLER MEANSTHE END OF OUR DEMOCRACY(tm)!!!!1111

   WHAT ABOUT THE (trans, of course) CHILDREN?????

   Democracy, you see, cannot survive without brainwashing and sexually mutilating children.

   I think Montesquieu says that somewhere...

   Anyway. They're very good at propaganda.

   So I guess we'll see.

Do Dems Want Noncitizen Voting?: Biden Officially Opposes SAVE Act

Hm. Flood the nation with illegal aliens and oppose proof of citizenship for voting... There does seem to be a readily-available explanation for this...

   Each of the Dems' actions on illegal immigration is bizarre individually. Taken together, however...connecting the dots...it doesn't look good. At all.

   Honestly, the mad spiral the Democrats are in is perhaps the most horrifying thing I've seen in American politics in my lifetime. Even just on this issue, their descent has been dizzying. From the standard, sane: legal immigration is good, but illegal immigration is bad, to, basically: you are a racist if you oppose or impede illegal immigration in any way, to: Sanctuary cities! Refuse to enforce racist immigration laws!, to, in some Democrat strongholds: Illegal aliens can vote (in local elections)... And it's becoming more plausible to think that they've got designs on pushing to normalize illegal aliens voting across the board. Some lefties have already argued that everyone in the world should be able to vote in American elections, on the grounds that our actions affect them so much. And all this in, what, about 15 or 20 years?

   There's a slippery slope element in that argument. Contrary to popular believe, slippery slope arguments are not always fallacious. Some are, some aren't. Since the left tends to move leftward, that makes such arguments stronger in that context than they ordinarily are.

   I got lots of flack for arguing, about 15 years ago, that the progressive/Democrat position on this was becoming more and more difficult to distinguish from open borders. But I was right.

   It's beyond any doubt that the radical left wing wants noncitizen voting. And undoubtedly it's already happening to some extent--though the evidence I've seen indicates that it's not enough to matter much. But, all other points aside, elections are as much about transparency and confidence as about the final tally--elections must not only be fair, we must have good reason to be confident that they're fair. So we should pass the SAVE act.

   Less-radical, more pragmatic Dems probably realize that the act will impede their efforts to squeeze votes out of indifferent, uninformed populations that they've come to rely on. The GOP probably realizes that, too. Neither side can really say this, though. At any rate, that's my guess. To some extent this fight isn't about what it's about. 

   I side with the GOP here on both issues, though. I actually don't want either party to extract votes from the uninformed and unmotivated. Basically, if you don't care enough to vote, I don't want you to. Even before I was redpilled, I sometimes said to my students: don't vote if you don't know what's going on. Be informed. And if you're informed, you'll probably be motivated to vote. But motivating yourself to vote just to vote, without any understanding of the issues, just makes things worse.

   Hell, I shouldn't have voted until like ten years ago, truth be told...

The Once and Future President

45: 56.8% chance of being 47.

Harris, now with more percentage: 18.5%

Biden: 11.8%

At RCP

Agenda 47: Trump's ACTUAL Agenda; Much More Reasonable Than Project 2025

Not that I agree with all of it...but it's pretty freaking good.

link

Trump on Project 2025

 I think Trump should turn this around on them--he should relentlessly emphasize his disagreements with it, and hammer them on falsely linking him to it. Just brutally, repeatedly emphasize that they're lying about his polices, and they've always lied about them.

   I'd go with something like: They don't want you to know what my agenda is...just as they don't want you to know what their agenda is. 

Mine: secure the border. Theirs: de facto open borders. Mine: keep leftist indoctrination, including gender pseudoscience, out of K-12. Theirs: brainwashing kids with it and permitting their sexual mutilation. Mine: Reject climate apocalypticism. Theirs: Wasting $1 trillion on a largely fictional problem. Mine: Eliminating DEI indoctrination and racial preferences everywhere. Theirs: expand them even farther. They do now want you to know what they would do. They do not want you to know what I would do...

   Just keep hammering on this so that every time they bring it up they put their own dishonesty on display.

   Trump, as others have noted (not my point), is basically a 1990s Democrat. He has swerved right to pick up votes--e.g. approving of the Ten Commandments being posted in schools. But I just don't think he's serious. He's not going to pursue it.

   Jeez, can you believe all this? Imagine being told 15 years ago: Yeah, your choice in 2024 is going to be between Donald freakin' Trump--now a Republican somehow--and a Democrat party that has gone full-on Orwellian, and now believes, inter alia, that women have penises...

   Nobody would have believed it.

MSNPC Freaks Out Over "Project 2025"

The stench of desperation is thick in the air.

   They're crazy...but so is a lot of the Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025"--which Trump has repudiated, though, to be clear. His platform is called Agenda 47, actually. 

   Of course neither team much cares what is true and false about the other team--at this point it's a rhetorical battle. Trump's made it clear that Project 2025 isn't his platform. He clearly doesn't accept a lot of it, and has been on record rejecting such policies for years--e.g. a nationwide abortion ban. And no one in his right mind could think that Trump wants to ban birth control or put people in jail for looking at pr0n LOL.

   Trump's plan does overlap with Project 2025 in certain important respects--e.g. firing a lot of left-leaning bureaucrats and restaffing with conservatives. (That concerns me--but it's not a crazy idea.) Also re: some pretty standard conservative stuff: Securing the border. Deporting illegals. Cutting taxes. The first thing is significant. The boilerplate agreements aren't.

   Substantively, Trump's been clear that he doesn't accept Project 2025, and his own platform is a matter of record, easily available. The left believes about half its own bullshit, so to some extent their failure to believe this is delusion. It's their TDS talking. But lots of it is just politics--they don't care whether he accepts it or not. They're losing big, and this is an opportunity to claw back some voters. I detest this shit about politics...but I also recognize that this is the way the game is played, and part of me has come to accept it. At least to some extent. The Pubs do the same when they can.

   In general, though, I do think it's important that the red team is largely making its case on the basis of the disastrous things Biden and the blues have done over the last 3.5 years, whereas the blues are largely making their case on the basis of TDS-addled hyperbole about imaginary concentration camps, Orange Man = Hitler, and now a platform Trump has never accepted but has explicitly rejected. Trump has been President, of course, and none of the hysterical predictions came true--no prosecutions of left-wing journalists, no rounding up of non-heterosexuals, no dictatorship, no none of it. He couldn't even get "the wall" built.

   Which isn't of course to say that Trump doesn't make me nervous... Yet again: Trump concerns me because I don't know (exactly) what he'll do; the Dems concern me because I do know what they'll do... 

Caitlin Dewey: Gamergate, Wikipedia, and the Limits of Human Knowledge

link

In fact, the Wikipedia entry on Gamergate is just about 100% bullshit and just about 100% the leftist distortion of the story. Your first clue should be that they inserted the leftist distortion/lie/propaganda about the incident into the title of the entry itself:

"Gamergate (Harassment Campaign)"

These people are fucking crazy.

Biden's Student Loan Giveaway Stole 11 Ford-Class Supercarriers From Us

11 Ford Class carriers
83 Burke Class destroyers
167 frigates
35 Virginia Class submarines
The recapitalization of the ICBM force

That’s the level of security we passed up to buy 10 million votes from people who made poor education decisions. https://t.co/ruOLkOMyTe

— Jerry Hendrix (@JerryHendrixII) July 6, 2024

Michael Cuenco: Donald Trump Never Bought Into Project 2025

This seems right to me.

Oren Cass: This is What Elite Failure Looks Like

Interesting.

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about e.g. manufacturing policy.

I don't pay enough attention to this general line of explanation, that elites are pursuing their own self-interest at the expense of the interests of ordinary people...and the nation.

I tend to think in terms of the philosophical failures of the postpostmodern progressive worldview. So I could be missing the real (or more important...or at least equally important) explanation.

I'll mention just one of Cass's points that I think is obviously right. Lots of people (me included) have pointed this out--it's not that hard to see. Goes like this: progressives think (or at least assert) that they are promoting democracy; we, on the other hand are [spit] populists... And populism is somehow presupposed to be bad. Well, that's bullshit. If the left weren't so good at the manipulation of language and opinion, centrists or centrist conservatives would win the vast majority of national elections. Cass and I agree that our "elites" have gone bad--or gone dumb. We also agree that "Mr. Trump is by no means an ideal tribune of the popular will, especially considering his own efforts to defy it after the 2020 presidential election." But we're stuck with a choice between him and, well, the other guys...who think that women have penises, America is made of racism, and the climatological End Is Nigh... Well, there I go focusing on the philosophical stuff, again...occupational hazard, I guess...

Biden's Age Makes a Democrat "Come to Jesus" Moment Less Likely

I think it's extremely important for the Dems to regain their sanity.

It's largely the lack of two sane parties that makes Trump (IMO) the less-craptastic candidate.

So I'm among those who have been hoping for the Dems to get absolutely crushed in November.

Of course (as I say every four years) the losers typically learn less from losses than they should. They always reflexively--and sometimes reflectively--blame superficial shit. Typically "messaging."

We just didn't get our message out there effectively, Bob.

Rarely do they admit that they got their message out fine...it just sucked.

Generally, losers try to find the most superficial and contingent explanation they can--the explanation that leaves their high self-regard and worldview most intact.

But sometimes, in a cool hour, people do recognize such things...even if they can't bring themselves to say them.

I mean--the Democrats dalenda est anyway... I'm not hoping for their defeat just in order to improve them. They've completely lost their collective mind and are destroying the country. I just think that slapping some sense into them could also have the beneficial side effect of forcing some clarity onto them.

Anyway:

My concern is probably pretty clear.

NOW, even if the Dems get destroyed, they've got an extremely convenient excuse: Biden was old.

It wasn't all the Orwellian Newspeak and reality-denial, Bob. And it damn sure wasn't the deluge of third-world illegals. It wasn't the totalitarian speech restrictions. And it sure as hell wasn't the child sexual mutilation... What it was was: our candidate was old.

So anyway, there's a prediction: if the Dems lose--and even if they get crushed--they'll blame Biden rather than their lunatic ideas.

Of course we could response: well, your delusional refusal to recognize Biden's decline is of a piece with your general detachment from reality--your subordination of evidence to political dogma. Political correctness, in short.

And maybe so.

But I expect that's an explanatory bridge too far. Every possible offramp (to mix metaphors) is another chance to avoid facing the real problem.

Anyway.

"Decolonize Philosophy"

Oh fuck off.

Another link.

The Politicization of Snopes.com: Snopes Gets Gamergate Completely Wrong

Snopes, like Wikipedia, gives you the politicized, leftist lie about Gamergate uncut.

USN Develops Air-Launch SM6

Wow, this thing needs to chill the **** out...

Meet the AIM-174:

NYT: Democrats and Republicans React Very Differently to the Debate: A Hilariously Self-Serving Democrat's Perspective

You see, the thing is: Democrats are good and Republicans are bad.

DCX: Biden Lies, Too

Merely a partial list.

Very Fine People

I'd have at least added the "very fine people" lie.

Anybody who's still repeating that one is, as we'd say back home, a lyin' sack a' shit.

Suckers and Losers

   I'm tempted to add the "suckers and losers" business as a lie--it's certainly unproven and there's plenty of evidence against it. Even Snopes can't pin it on him--though of course they don't label it unproven nor, heaven forbid, false... The WaPo strangely reverts to doing a bit of investigation and analysis here. Unfortunately, it's all in the service of basically concluding that, despite denials from several people who were with Trump on the trip, it's a conceptual possibility that Trump said it. I mean, we could all be in the Matrix, right? And then he could have said it, but the Matrix masters could have prevented anyone from hearing it. Or made it sound like he said "Please pass the poi." So, really, we can never prove that anyone said--or didn't say--anything, right? 

Too bad Biden's patently false denial that he had anything to do with Hunter's business dealings didn't get half this much scrutiny.

To repeat myself repeating myself: 

They lie about things Trump says when what he actually said was said in front of the entire nation and is on video. As with the "very fine people" lie. It took Snopes seven years to admit that was a lie. TNR is still trying to claim it's true, as are innumerable Democrats across social media. Despite Trump specifically saying that he was not saying the thing they are accusing him of saying...

So:

You've got to be nuts to believe some third-hand BS attributed to him--by someone he fired, no less.

   Anyhoo: Even Kelly doesn't claim to have heard the assertion in question first-hand. This is a guy Trump fired alleging to have heard someone else say that Trump said something that Trump would have to be an idiot to say.

   Now, Trump is an idiot...

   And he often seems capable of saying almost anything.

   But he almost certainly didn't say this.

   For one thing, he was surrounded by high-ranking military men who would never have let him get away with it. It would be reported to the media instantaneously--at the very least. One source points out that Kelly would never have stood for it. Only then does the WaPo suddenly see fit to note that, hey, Kelly doesn't say he was there! Now, see, your man in the street might have thought that'd have been worth noticing and emphasizing right off the bat...but your professional journalists, see, they know better...

   Anyway. Trump has said something similar and similarly stupid about John McCain... Though Trump will say just about anything about powerful people who oppose him. He usually doesn't say such things about ordinary people. Though there was the weird incident of the Gold Star family...which I'd have to look up...

   Ruling: 

   Unproven and probably false.

   But who knows with that guy, really?

Independence Day!

Have a good one.

RCI: How James Clapper Rigged the 2016 and 2020 Debates Against Trump

link

Miranda Devine: "How CIA Interference with the 'Spies Who Lie' Letter Made Biden President

link

Some of the 51 Lyin' Spies Were Active CIA Contractors at the Time of the Hunter Biden Laptop Letter

This is what's meant by a "whole-of-government" approach...

Wikipedia's Leftist Bias

link

Biden Has Turned the Military into a Vast DEI Bureaucracy

link

Biden Decline / Debate Disaster: How Did Democrats Let This Happen?

Again: the failure to accept that sometimes that which is politically correct is not correct correct.

TNR: Ignore the Video and the Evidence of Your Senses, Comrades! Trump DID Call Nazis "Very Fine People!"

Hey, remember when The New Republic used to not suck?

   When my copy used to come I'd basically drop everything and dig in, often reading it from cover to cover. This was back in the Andrew Sullivan days. Tom Toles was a real treat (though he kind of (understandably) petered out when he went to the Post and a cartoon every day.)

  Anyway, TNR went to hell years ago. Now it's just another lefty rag in basically the Mother Jones/Vox mold. Apparently they tried to keep the old idea going but there was just no market for it anymore in the age of the Woketarian reign of terror.

   Anyway, the left just will not give up on their articles of TDS faith. TNR spends a whole lot of electrons arguing that what Trump said was not now what he meant, and that, if you carefully (but not too carefully...) assemble a lot of pieces, really devout leftists can produce a picture that allows them to continue believing that Trump said what they so passionately want him to have said...

   I've said for a long time that a political catastrophe is, perhaps, the only thing that can slap some sense back into the Democrats. Perhaps this Biden thing is exactly what the doctor ordered: a political disaster directly caused (in part) by political correctness--their unwillingness/inability to face facts...their substitution of political orthodoxy, echo-chamber groupthink, and suppression of dissent for facts and evidence. 

Republicans Pounce!...on: Illegal Aliens Raping and Murdering Children

Is there anything the Republicans won't pounce on?

WaPo: "How the Biden Administration Let Right-Wing Attacks Derail Its Disinformation Efforts"

The ambiguity in the title is [chef's kiss]

Increased Use of Strike Eagles for Air-to-Air Missions

link
Seems like the only real disadvantage compared to the C model is maneuverability...but when was the last time a U.S. fighter went to the merge?

F-15Es Now Sometimes Flying Air-Defense Missions (Often Without CFTs)

Lots of info here.

Israel to Buy 50 5EX Eagles?

This would be huge.

European Media and Political Elites in Panic After Le Pen's Party Wins Big in French Election

link

"Far right" now means, inter alia: against open borders, invasion by hostile foreigners, and the dissolution of Western nations.

   One wonders whether the alliance of "socialists, communists, and Greens counts as far left...

Thomas Sowell, Speaking a Fundamental Truth

"Democrats are the only reason to vote for Republicans."

And, right now, a very strong reason indeed.

The Economist: Trump has a Clear Lead Over Biden

308-230308-230

There's a lot of time left. And the Blue Team is very, very good at this.

So, as Insty would say: 

Don't get cocky.

Trump at +3.0 in PA per RCP

Not a permalink.

He's uncatchable in OH. If he moves PA out of contention, that's basically it.

Read it!: Martin Gurri: "Dear Elite Apocalyptic Teeth-Gnashers: The End of the World is Just a Matter of Where You Stand"

Right on target:

Trump is a dictator who aims to smash the constitutional government of the United States. Immediately after, he’ll move the White House to the Mar-a-Lago golf course and appoint bearded reality TV characters to the cabinet.
But what, one may ask, is his subversive plan? We are told that he will fire 25,000 federal bureaucrats and bend the rest to his presidential will. And that would be completely unheard of.
It might occur to some that the man was president for four years and none of these horrors happened. In fact, except for the shouting and gnashing of teeth, the impeachments and the pandemic, it was a fairly peaceful time.

,,, 

Given the hysteria surrounding the subject, it’s probably a good idea to take a deep breath and count to ten. Is the US in the grip of a psychotic episode? No question. The output of our finest minds adds up to an incomprehensible babbling. Is the human race, at the moment, stuck in multiple simultaneous messes? It sure feels that way.
But before we ratchet things up to a Doomsday scenario, let’s ask: Whose world is it, exactly, that’s about to be demolished?
It certainly isn’t the one I grew up in. In the last few years, a sect of political mystics, with dotty Joe Biden as their nominal head, have tried to erect a New Jerusalem out of climate fundamentalism, racial stereotypes, sexual weirdness, monkish poverty (“degrowth”), censorship of the truth (“malinformation”), wooing fentanyl start-ups from Honduras, feeding children to butchers, and making it a capital crime to be Trump.
To succeed, they had to try to abolish society as it actually exists. Hence the recurrent pain normal people today feel in their hind parts.
But behold: the normies are making trouble. The New Jerusalem, it turns out, resembles a Hollywood set: all front and no depth. And piece by piece, it’s being torn down. [my emphasis]