Nicole Russell: "I Don't Like Trump, But I'm Voting For Him"

link

Actually, I kinda like him.

Not, y'know, a lot...

But I do like things about him.

The Left in a Nutshell, Again

Just me yammering this time:

No freedom for you! Except for sex stuff! Then all freedom. To kill your fetus at the last minute! To turn into a girl! Or a boy! Or a birl! Or a fox! A sexy fox! Anything! Whatever you want! Next up: pedophilia is just nonstandard, minority sexuality! Or Zoophilia. It's kind of a race right now. But why not both? Underage animals is the new drag queen story hour! And don't forget about polygamy...they're just biding their time with that civilization-destroying idea...

Lemme tell you what a loony pervert you have to be to turn me into Rick Santorum...

Betting Markets: Trump +30%

Basically. Right now. On average.

Right vs. Left in Yet Another Nutshell

This is more-or-less my current view.

  It's not just two teams against each other.

  It used to be.

  Not anymore.

  Now it is--not entirely, but to a significant extent--ordinary people and reason and science and the United States and liberalism and the West and, basically, humanity...against the revolutionary nihilistic death cult that is the radical left.

  And, why, yes...I do realize that sounds crazy...

   Again: only to some significant extent.

Help Us, Obi-Wan TheDonald--You're Our Only Hope

The thing is is: Trump is not merely a lesser evil than the Democrats and their basically-irrelevant, placeholder candidates.

   He comes with massive risks and downsides that I've harped on.

   But if he keeps it between the ditches and does his job even passably well, he has the real potential to be a truly transformative President.

   And that's a massive difference.

   If Harris is elected, then, even if the Dems manage to keep the House and Senate, we know beyond any reasonable doubt that she will continue to implement the lunatic Orwellian agenda of the progressive left.

   If Trump is elected and manages not to shoot himself in the ass overmuch, we know he will begin pushing back against the left's catastrophic, "whole-of-government" / "Whole-of-society"--i.e. totalitarian--agenda. Against the infusion of race and gender pseudoscience into government and all our institutions. Against Lysenkoism. Against climate apocalypticism. Against free speech reductionism/eliminativism--including in its new "disinformation" guise. Against open borders and other elements of globalist anti-Westernism. Against progressivism per se--i.e. rule by "experts" and "elites"...  And that's not yet to mention the possibility that he might be able to appoint successors for 2-3 of: Thomas, Sotomayor, and Alito. Whatever else you think about him, you must admit that he saved a lot of our bacon already with his generally excellent SCOTUS appointments.

   When I can tamp down my disgust and anger at and with Trump the person--for he could, indeed, make the Pope cuss--I'm able to recognize the extraordinary good a second Trump Presidency really could do.

   His downsides are very significant. To say the very least. But ditto his upsides.

   It's easy to slip into I-just-hate-him-less mode--perhaps as a tactic for deflecting criticism/blame if he flames out spectacularly and wreaks havoc on the way out.

   But that's a dishonest thing to do.

"Why the Race Isn't as Close as You Think:" 1980esque Landslide Incoming?

We can only hope.

The Harris Campai[g]n Astroturfs Reddit

Not even surprising.

Reddit is a smoking husk of what it once was.

It's a wasteland of leftist stupid.

And the left is a nihilistic death cult that destroys everything it touches in its relentless quest for control.

[Now with more 'g'!]

Harris Campaign Surrenders in NC

Don't let the screen door hit you in the carpet bag on the way out.

Trump! White Nationalist! Final Hours! Women-Beacons! Trump To Break Up Interracial Marriages, Deport the Brown One! Total Chaos!

Progressivism is a mental disorder.

Did Liz Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson Colluded to Lie About Trump's Actions on 1/6/21?

Kinda sounds that way.

John Stossel: The Crisis Industry: How Activists Profit from Panic

I used to couldn't stand Stossel. I still find his tone rather annoying. But I now think he's generally right. This, for example, isn't the whole story of activism (obviously)...but I think it's a big, important part of the story:

The Editors: "Donald Trump and the 'Brilliant' Dictators"

Agreed.

The Nation: "Michelle Obama is Finally Ready to 'Go Low' Against Trump"

Another fascinating/horrifying peek into the contemporary Democratic mind.

A very incomplete list of puzzles and nonsenses in there:

• Er...so...are we finally putting the "when they go low, we go high" myth to rest?
• Er...so...what you were doing before...calling us all Nazis and whatnot...that wasn't low, then?
• LOL "incandescent"
• "Women's bodies are complicated"? So...women have determinate kinds of bodies now?

And, uh...menopause???

How the hell did that get in there?

A hypothesis: because most of the women they're still trying to get to aren't directly affected by the possibility of pregnancy and abortion.

Some old distortions and lies--now part of the leftist canon:

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn. I hope that you’ll forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior. His obvious mental decline. His history as a convicted felon. A known slumlord. A predator found liable for sexual abuse. All of this while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do, y’all."

And/but: a hilarious new talking-point I've been seeing around the last few days:

“We expect her to be intelligent and articulate, to have a clear set of policies, to never show too much anger, to prove time and time again that she belongs,” Obama said. “But for Trump, we expect nothing at all, no understanding of policy, no ability to put together a coherent argument, no honesty, no decency, no morals.”

The mind...it reels...
This is the problem, you see...Kamala Harris isn't an empty suit/DEI candidate... No! We just hold her to unreasonably high standards...
This is the old women have to be twice as good as men to etc. assertion. It's almost never true anymore. 
But progressives live in an alternate reality of their own creation.
This is just part of the elaborate fantasy landscape they've woven for themselves out of the echos in their chamber.

The Trump is Literally a Fascist Hitler Racist Insurrectionist Faction vs. The Trump is Great and Did Nothing Wrong Faction vs. Me

On the Twixxer it seems like almost everybody [accepts one of the two former positions]. Now, I don't think Trump was trying to foment insurrection, and I do think it was permissible for him to pursue the legal avenues he pursued. So the "he tried to overthrow the government" hysteria is...well...I wish I could say totally false...but I may have to stick with extremely very inaccurate. I continue to be unclear on many details, but it seems to me that pursuing the Eastman strategy was permissible, but showed bad judgment. It's often possible to remain committed to a theory or proposition long past the point at which it would be reasonable to admit error. Notoriously, there's generally no bright clear line past which continued belief becomes irrational.

   At any rate, it seems to me that his actions after the election were, though not insurrectionist, virtually indefensible. For a President, that is. Similar acts in less profound contexts are accepted and defended all the time. But, of course, it's the Presidency we're talking about. It was just too important a f*ck up.

   Sidebar: my position about whether the 2020 election has changed a fair bit. I won't describe the whole trajectory, but: one thing is clear: it was not the most secure election of all time. That's a brainless bit of political correctness. It's simply not true. But that doesn't mean that we're justified in believing that it was stolen.

   But I don't dismiss the idea out of hand anymore. I now think we are justified in believing that our elections are only marginally secure. And Dems have shown a willingness to engage in the most outrageous political shenanigans and dirty tricks (see e.g. Russiagate, the 'very fine people' hoax, lawfare, and now what we might call Nazigate). I really do not doubt that many Democrats would cheat if they could get away with it. I mean, wouldn't you cheat to keep a Hitler 2.0 out of power? I would.

   So anyhoo, I guess I'm a weird voter. I think Trump probably lost the election of '20--but I'm not sure of it. Nevertheless, I think his actions subsequent to the loss disqualified him from holding high office...especially the Presidency. But I think that the Democrats have become like a plague of crazy on the land. Their policies, platform, and philosophy/worldview are Orwellian. Totalitarian. Insane. This is hardly about Harris at all--she's like Biden: a featureless functionary, a smooth-running [cog] at the center of the big blue culture-smashing machine.

   Anyway.

   To me, this is a choice between (a) someone whose unreasonable and unpatriotic actions made him genuinely [though probably not legally] ineligible for the office, and (b) a political party that has adopted and is implementing a set of insane dogmas that are actually destroying the nation.

   Oh and: the (a)-guy actually has good policies, and many are correctives for the insane ideas of the (b)-guys....

   So I'm basically running on consequentialist considerations.

   National dignity requires that we never elect Trump again.

   National survival and flourishing, however, require that we keep the Democrats out of office almost no matter what that takes.

   And, specifically: even at the cost of our national dignity.

   Or something like that.

   So, anyway, my sense is that I'm weird in that I really do worry about besmirching my patriotic soul by voting for Trump.

This Basically Seals the Deal: Musk and Government Efficiency

This is just about the only issue I said might change my mind about this election--if the Dems had seriously taken on the debt...or at least the deficit. That might sound like a rather distant possibility, but I was around for Clinton arguing that we should use the "peace dividend" after the fall of the USSR to pay down the debt... I don't trust either party on this issue, but I may trust the Pubs a bit less.
    At any rate: this is extremely important, and the fact that Trump is taking it seriously counts heavily in his favor.

   May I suggest starting by defunding the NEA and NEH? It's chicken feed compared to entitlements (and the military)...but a lot of that money seems to go to leftist ideological projects anyway.

   Just nuke 'em.

The Dems' and Their Propaganda Wing's Hysteria Just Keeps Solidifying My Support for Trump

NAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Bad/incautious/eyebrow-raising talk and good policies beats outright crazy talk and crazy policies.

There's really no reason to fret about this anymore.

I'll never be comfortable voting for Trump.

But he's our only hope of walking back what the Democrats have done, and our only hope of pushing back against the nihilism and cultural suicide-wish of the intellectual left.

RCP: Trump Favored to Win Popular Vote

Everything's still close. NC is closer than I'd like to see it. But the rolling average has Trump ahead in all three Blue Wall states (or does MN count as one of those too?). Betting market aggregate is at 60-38.

   I have every confidence that we'll get at least one more October Surprise from the blues. I do, however, think that they still have limits beyond which they won't go.

   Chatter is that, if the bad Orange Man wins there will be 14th Amendment challenges from the likes of Mark Elias, and a push to get Harris to refuse certification of the vote.

   Frankly, however, I'm more concerned about a Trump loss than I am about a Harris loss. The freakout would be even worse this time since expectations have been engaged and he's so heavily favored. A large sector of the right holds it as an article of faith that the '20 election was stolen*, and they clearly would simply not accept a loss this time.

   The blues are fanning the flames with constant lawfare, resisting efforts to secure the election and correct voter rolls, and anticipatory announcements about delayed election returns. 

* I still don't buy it exactly...but there are plenty of reasons to be suspicious. The right is full of shit to the extent that it claims we know that the election was stolen. The left is full of shit to the extent that it claims it to have been the "most secure election of all time." In fact--so far as I can tell--it was rife with shenanigans and opportunities for worse. Add to this my view, adopted in the wake of Russiagate, that you can't put anything past the Democrats, and...well...again...I don't have knowledge...but I have my suspicions...

DoJ Refuses to Allow VA to Purge Noncitizens from Voter Rolls

These are people who have identified themselves as non-citizens.

It's getting harder and harder to gerrymander innocent explanations for the blue team's actions.

TRUMP IS LITERALLY HITLER PART MCLXVQ%IIIIIII: HILLARY SAYS TRUMP IS HITLER

These people are rabid loons.
They're becoming harder and harder to distinguish from totalitarian leftists.

One characteristic of which, of course, is: all their political enemies are fascists...

The Unhinging of the Democrat Party Part MCVXIII: Michelle Obama: Women Have a Right to Demand that Their Men Vote for Harris

Because Trump is going to take all rights from women and put them in Handmaid's Tale camps and shoot them all with assault rifles and hate speech them and then fire them into space on Elon Musk rockets to another Nazi planet where they will be used for human experimentation.

"Ten more days to end the division between us and the murderous Nazi fascist misogynist authoritarian cannibal heretics who refuse to recognize the sacrament of fourth trimester abortions..."*

* paraphrase

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1850291902358118862

Is Free Speech the Second-Most-Important Issue to U.S. Voters?

Maybe...kinda sorta.

FIRE's not exactly neutral with respect to the question. And apparently things change when controversial speech is at issue...which...of course and also facepalm.

But anyway.

It should be the number one issue, IMO.

The ME Gets Spicy

I dunno, man.

I just side with Israel.

I don't think they're a particularly good ally, and I think we should give them less money, and squelch (what seems to me to be) their excessive influence over our foreign policy.

But I'm pretty much inveterately on their side in other respects.

I suppose that if I got serious about peeling away the layers of the onion I might find that my view of the region is completely wrong.

But it's not a question I've ever been able to manage any particularly clear insight into. Or at least not the kind that significantly challenges my life-long view of the matter.

I will hate to see all those old F-14s shot down, tho...

Trump is Literally Hitler...Again...

Link for the truly bored.

To repeat myself repeating myself:

[1] They lie about what Trump says even when what he actually said is on video for everyone to see. The left maintained the "very fine people" lie for seven years before Snopes broke ranks and admitted what everyone already knew--or should have known. He was on video saying the exact oppostive of what they said he said. If you believe what his critics say about what Trump says off video...well...that is foolish, IMO.

[1'] Oh and don't forget the "Russia, if you're listening" witticism. Lefties went absolutely batshit about that...even though it was obviously a jokey comment. I STILL see lefties refer to that as part of their "Russian collusion" case/fantasy. Trump's sense of humor is probably the source of a lot of this nonsense.

[2]  Kelly and Goldberg were both involved in the "suckers and losers" lie as well.

[2'] I should say "the 'suckers and losers' probable lie"...but, y'know, I'm just done with these people. I'm done listening patiently to lie after lie about people outside the woke-elitist-blue-team circle of trust, only to eventually find out they were, indeed, lies. IMO Kelly was dishonest in this case at the very least, going along with the general story line that he had claimed to have heard the "suckers" and "losers" utterances himself...but never, so far as I can tell, actually having made that claim. So far as I can tell, Kelly is spreading hearsay but trying to make it sound like something he heard personally. The claim was denied by basically everyone else with Trump on the relevant trip.

[3] Kelly says that Trump said that "Hitler did some good things too."

Kelly says that made roughly the following argument to Trump:

(i) you shouldn't say that

and

(ii) That everything Hitler did was done, basically, to aim at establishing a totalitarian state, the Final Solution, etc. So "you could argue" that everything he did was evil.

Suppose, as I doubt, that this is true:

[3a] Hitler (or at least the Nazi state) did, in fact, do some good things. The Nazis were environmentalists, and passed some of the first environmental protection laws. They initiated campaigns against smoking and drunk driving. They were health nuts--you'd think that progressives would at least appreciate that... They implemented animal welfare laws. Also the autobahns.

This is just a partial list from memory. I read a lot about the military history of WWII, but not this kind of stuff. So I don't know which of these we can really say that Hitler himself did.

You've got to be delusional to think that everything Hitler ever did was done for evil reasons. Sure, he discouraged smoking...but he did it so there were more people alive...so he could kill them...

Kelly's argument that you "could" say that everything Hitler did was aimed at evil is just dumb. It's moral grandstanding. You could say a lot of things. You could say a lot of false things.

[3b] But Kelly's right about this much: you shouldn't say those things. Or, rather: if you do say those things, you're either a Nazi sympathizer or people are going to think you're a Nazi sympathizer. You can praise leftist totalitarian lunatics. You can get away with e.g. praising Mao for dragging China into the 20th Century. You can even get away with praising Stalin. But not Hitler. Not for any reason. No way.

But that's just some kind of superstition or something. The fact is that even terrible people are usually not terrible in every way.

[4] Kelly also alleges that Trump said that he wished he had some generals like Hitler's.

Well, again: you can't say that REEEEE...etc.

But...Hitler did have some excellent generals.

Still, I've gotta agree with Kelly: just don't say that shit. You loon.

But, admittedly, I'm basically done.

I'm done with the TDS crowd. I'm done with the big blue media lie machine. And I'm done with spinning everything Trump says into something it isn't. And this isn't fascism, nor is it some indicator of fascism. This is Trumpian logorhea and contrarianism--to the extent that it's anything at all.

Look, it's not prudent to say anything good about Hitler--but that's basically the end of it.

And we have to choose between (a) a logorhean, contrarian candidate and (b) the big blue lie machine. Which, to be perfectly clear, could be telling the truth in this case. Probably not--but it has happened.

When you add that the Democrats are objectively wrecking the country and will objectively continue to do so if elected...and that they are supported by this massive propaganda machine...

I dunno, man.

I'm just done with these damn people.

(Note: not normal blue-team people. But the apparatchiks and nomenklatura and the vanguard.)

Leftist Doctor Refused to Publish Results of her $10m Study that Found Puberty Blockers Don't Help Children's Mental Health

Yet more woke Lysenkoism.

Their commitment to transing children is political, not scientific.

Trump is Literally Hitler...Again/Still/Whatever

Fool me once, shame on you. 

Fool me--or try to fool me--a hundred times...

...well, you see where I'm going with this...

The October Bribe: Student Loan "Forgiveness"

link

The Cartier Family Has Had Enough of Kamala Harris

And I'm right there with 'em.

She really is an empty suit.

Michael Goodwin: Pray for Trump to Win in a Landslide

Well, I guess.

   Though even if I were the praying type...and even though I think the alternative is truly terrible...I'm not really sure it's something I'd pray for...

   What would that prayer look like, anyway? 

Dear Baby Jesus,

Please smite the blue team with a red-team landslide so that the nutty bad Orange Man winneth, because fuck those other guys I'm sick of them...

Your Friend,

WS*

* Yes, I realize that Goodwin's point isn't really about prayer.

Trump Tangles with the WSJ Editors

Definitely worth a read.

If you can control for Trump's weird speaking style, he actually does a really good job IMO.

Many people who shriek about his relationship with authoritarian leaders like Putin and Xi have no idea how such negotiations should go and would get eaten alive by those guys--or start WWIII. The chattering class thinks it knows everything and can do everything. They have no respect at all for domain-specific practical knowledge of the kind people like Trump bring to bear.

   Of course I, uh, don't know anything about it either...so...

   But his approach sounds pretty damn reasonable to me.

   Democrats want him to hate those guys (well, not Xi...that would be raziztz...). Trump seems to try to be as friendly as possible with them while still being tough in negotiations...and leveraging the fact that they think he's a little crazy. I don't know anything about that world either, but, again, sounds reasonable. Adding personal animosity to the picture isn't going to gain us any advantage.

   Noonan asked him about his weirdo fascist-seeming talk about using the military against "the enemy within." Trump says something inscrutable then wanders off into talking about his polling numbers. Noonan refocuses him, and he says that of course he meant that he might have to use them against (leftist) rioters--and that's all he meant. Well, that's what I thought he meant...but the problem is having a Presidential candidate that says unclear things about such things. And gets distracted when asked to clarify. You want someone who won't say such things, and who says, loud and clear, when asked, that he'd never use the military against ordinary, peaceful Americans. Well, that's what one wants...

   He also sounds very reasonable about illegal immigration. We have to deport--true. Unquestionable, in fact. But there will be tough cases and, as he says, "interests of the heart." We won't be able to deport all of them, he says--but as he also says, he can't sound too nice about it or more people will come. Some of the most reasonable things I've heard a candidate--or a President--say in quite some time.

   This puts me in mind of something about tariffs, too: people who don't understand negotiation don't understand that you have to say certain things for the other side. He's even said somewhere that tariff-talk is a threat. That's mostly for China to hear.

   Anyway.

   Pretty heartening interview, IMO.

RCP is a Bloodbath for the Blues

Jeez. Harris's national lead (according to the rolling average) down below 1%--and the Dems basically can't win the EC with less than a 3 (4?)-point lead in the popular vote. Trump significantly up in all the swing states, including by 0.2 in WI. Betting odds average is 58-41.

   In '20 I kept saying that a right good thrashing might be the only thing that could save the Dems. I still think that. Or think it again. So, despite my concerns about Trump, I'm basically hoping for a blowout with coattails. Four years--or at least two--of concentrated attempts to dismantle the leftist machine might actually do something.

   And governing Trump is less horrifying by far than campaigning Trump. IMO.

   But, of course, Trump is a gamble. Not a gamble I want to take. But the best one available to us, I think.

   Also but: a lot can happen in three weeks...

Blue-Team Losing Cues

Trump's winning and there are widespread rumors of anger and panic among party Dems. In public, there are other losing cues, like all the finger-pointing and blame-mongering. Black men, white men, old white men, young white men, white women...who is responsible for this travesty???

   Chirpy lefties on Twixxer are whistling past the graveyard by ignoring the disintegrating vehicle all around them. Who should President Harris appoint Attorney General? one representative tweet asked. Well...I'm not sure that's a problem worth solving...comrade...

   I keed, I keed.

   About the latter part...

   None of this goes for sane people voting for Harris. There are a lot of good reasons to vote for the Democrats. Perfectly good policy reasons, for one. Trump for another. None of this goes for those people, to be clear.

   Just for the chattering-class woketariat.

   The left has come up with some woke psychobabble--wokobabble, if you will--explaining how depressed and disaffected young men just sit around playing videogames and being converted to fascism by Joe Rogan all day...

   The right's ready response is: you jackasses hate men. It's obvious. You've injected your misandry into every institution you've taken over--which is just about every institution. They're done with you. And there's basically no puzzle here: more men are voting against the party that hates and disrespects them and for the one that doesn't.

   I think there's probably turth in that, though I've got a long-standing explanation that's different. Dunno who's right. They're not all that incompatible. My hypothesis (stated in a couple of places that I'm not going to look up) was that males have less tolerance for patent, pious bullshit than females do. There's a certain kind of person--who is more typically male--such that exposing them to nonsense like political correctness / woketarianism is like waving a red flag in front of a cartoon bull. This kind of guy is more likely to rebel against religion when he's young, and more likely to lose patience with politically correct pieties more readily as well.

   Jordan Peterson thinks it's because of differences in the "big five" personality traits--especially that women are more "agreeable," on average, than men.

   Anyway, these explanations are basically consistent because woketarianism is pious, totalitarian bullshit and part of it is contempt for men. The contempt is "theorized" (as they love to say) and expressed in typical postpostmodernist/critical-theory-style bullshit terms...and honestly I don't know which I find more contemptable. Well, it's the latter, really. I'd prefer to be in dialog with a rational woman who hates men than an airhead popomo bullshitter.

   Anyway.

   Sure seems like what happened is pretty simple:

   The left went bugshit crazy. This didn't matter all that much to partisans, because that's what humans are like. But people not wedded to the blue team tend to be repulsed by their insanity. And those people are somewhat more likely to be male. Because the grip social approval and disapproval have on men is somewhat weaker than it is on women.

   And, a somewhat deeper explanation: the actual doctrines of Woketarianism are more appealing to women because women are more susceptible to appeals to kindness. Including not just reasonable appeals to kindness, but crazy, stupid appeals to kindness. Including crazy, stupid appeals to kindness that are twisted and overextended to the point of cruelty.

   Sane people are looking at what the Democrats have become and seeing it for what it is: madness and cultishness.

   Again: other sane people are thinking Yes, the blue team has gone nuts...but the alternative is Trump...

   Part of all this, IMO, is something I've never quite worked out, but I'm sure someone has. It's something like this: Woketarianism (and, I'd say, a lot of this kind of leftism including even more centrist kinds) involves a slight glitch in the objectivity module. People who think it's important to be evenhanded and fair and not favor yourself or your own group end up going too far in the other direction and actually disliking their own group. Whites--Caucasians is actually a better term--are the only race that doesn't have inordinately positive attitudes about itself. [I could look this evidence up but I'm not going to.] Left-leaning whites actually report more negative opinions of whites--that is, their opinion of white is lower than their opinion of non-whites. They've overshot objectivity and simply latched onto the opposite bias. Non-lefty whites, though, seem to have pretty race-neutral opinions of the races. 

   Perhaps interestingly, some evidence also suggests that men have fairly unbiased views of men and women, but women tend to favor women...

   I suspect this is why the left really hates the center: the center is objectively epistemically superior.

   That last bit is speculation.

   But anyway.

   The left is just lefting. They have a whole worldview now based on a pervasive network of biases, and almost all their "arguments" are accusations of bias. And we know they cannot tolerate people disagreeing with them. So they freak out in the face of disagreement, and cast about for some prejudice that can explain their opponents' appalling beliefs and actions. Only misogyny (racism, white supremacism, colonialism, homo"phobia", "trans""phobia") can possibly explain their evil stupidity!!! They think everyone who disagrees with them is motivated by prejudice and bias...and when people disagree with them, they explain that by accusations of prejudice and bias...

   It's a closed loop of crazy.

   Part of their edifice of crazy involves taking over the institutions that used to act as neutral evaluators of competing cultural and political views--e.g. academia and the news media--and then using those institutions to officially deem their own view correct. Some call this "idea laundering." Opposing views are now officially deemed disinformation, fascism, and all the rest. Not just by the political left, but by the institutions established, you might say, to officially make such judgments.

   This means that, normally, the left would just deem Harris the superior option. Deem her President...

   But we have elections.

   And when they have spoken--when they have told us all what we must do--they expect to be obeyed.

   If the election doesn't go their way, they're going to face a fact that they can't just deem away.

   They hate that shit.

   So, if they do lose, they're going to absolutely lose their damn minds.

   But...

   It's really the right that, in 2020, simply refused to accept the outcome. Trump didn't accept it. Wide swaths of the right didn't accept it. It is now an article of faith among many conservatives that the election was stolen. So this doesn't seem to fit my theory so beautifully well...

   There are ad hoc hypotheses I could deploy to try to save it, but that's a dicey game.

   I mean, for one thing, I'm not saying that the other side can't be stupid and big-headed. Right-wing stupidity and pig-headedness does seem to take a different form--just flat-out stupidity and pig-headedness. Sheer Neanderthal refusal to accept wrongness and defeat. Untheorized. Manifesting itself in a spasm of stupidity like the Capitol riot...

   That doesn't mean that the theory of what's going on on the left is wrong. But it doesn't make for such a neat dichotomy, nor such a neat explanation.

   Also, again and of course: Trump.

   That guy, as my dad would have said, would make the Pope cuss.

   Hm. This post seems to be losing coherence...

   I'm not even sure to what extent this point about the right undermines anything I just said about the left.

   Well, insufficient coffee, for one thing.

   Also I'm just making shit up, so there's that...

[Oh, there's also a conspiracy theory flying around the leftosphere now about how Trump is actually losing but conservatives are flooding the poll-o-sphere with right-leaning polls to skew the averages to Trump. This, they say, will then be used as evidence of fraud when he loses. And this will be the excuse for refusing to accept the outcome. So there's that, too.]

[Oh and: of course this is the nightmare scenario: Harris wins and Trump and the fever swamp refuse to accept the loss. Then: January 6th on a massive scale...

A real possibility. And another real reason to vote Dem / vote against Trump.]

[Also relatedly: there's some chatter--perhaps just righty wishful thinking--that Harris has basically given up. She's not doing as many campaign stops as a candidate would normally do at this point. Sometimes she is--allegedly--talking for only a few minutes. One rumor is that she is exhausted. Another is that they know they're not going to win. I report, you decide...]

Anne Applebaum: Trump is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini

Agreed.

   We could point out that the left says even worse things about all its opponents, Trump included. They don't merely speak like fascists, Nazis, and racists, they are fascists, Nazis and racists. We could also point out that the progressive left doesn't merely speak like Stalin and Mao, it is substantively similar to them, favoring politically correctness, falsehoods deemed official truths, Lysenkoism, censorship, and government/party control of our lives.

But:

That wouldn't change the fact that Trump does speak in these ways. And that's bad. Very bad, I think.

   This alone would make him ineligible for my vote...if the alternative weren't much worse. Trump talks like a loon, but has a basically sane and sound political position. The other guys not only have a basically insane and unsound position...they don't even talk nice. Unless calling people Nazis and racists in the cultured, measured and educated vocabulary, tones and cadences of the elites counts as nice.

   Also, Applebaum ignores the fact that it is the left that has intentionally worked to blur the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. All she pins on Trump is incaution about always making the distinction explicit.

   But, anyway: you can't have someone who talks like that as President.

   Unless, again, the alternative is a lot worse. 

   And, rightly or wrongly, I think it is.

   (And of course: wrongly is a real possibility in this case.)

Trump is Way Wrong on Ukraine War

agreed, though I understand virtually nothing about the Ukraine situation. It's difficult to see how reasonable people can blame Ukraine. It's always seemed to me that the right simply took up the opposite position after the progressive left went all-in pro-Ukraine...probably because they have gone all-in anti-Russia after Russiagate. It does seem to me that the U.S. and NATO may share some of the responsibility, though.

RCP: Trump Ahead in All Swing States

Even Wisconsin, as of yesterday.

Betting market odds average at 58.1-40.4.

Go, second-worst option!

Now it's a sprint to the finish. Can Harris keep up some thin facade of minimal competence longer than Trump can refrain from saying something absolutely beyond the pale?

This should be an exciting one, folks!

Harris Down to +0.1% in WI in Latest RCP Average

If this holds up, it's a landslide.

Martin Gurri: I Refused to Vote in the Last Two Elections; Now I'm Voting for Trump

Gurri has written some really good stuff. (I tried to read his book, but it ostentatiously failed to grip me.)

   I think he's 100% right about this: the real danger is the CTRL-left (though he doesn't use the term).

Trump says a lot of incoherent and alarming-sounding stuff. And he was wildly out of bounds after he lost in 2020. But the totalitarian, Orwellian left is, by far, the bigger danger. Trump says stuff that might indicate authoritarian tendencies, but it's usually not clear what he's saying. Also, he doesn't do those things. The left is in the midst of a thus-far-successful campaign of radical leftist cultural domination. Down to the imposition of obvious falsehoods as official "truths."

   Like Gurri, I think the choice is clear, though, also like him, since I find both party-plus-candidate complexes unacceptable, I expect I'll be neither ecstatic nor despondent whatever the outcome.

Democrats Sue to Allow Noncitizens to Vote in VA

It's more complicated than that...but it's part of the motive, IMO.

They can, of course, say that they don't want citizens accidentally purged from the rolls--and I expect that's part of the motive.

My guess is that it comes down to perceived costs and benefits, as so many things do. Dems think that the cost of noncitizens voting is minimal compared to the benefits of making voting easier for minority citizens. Pubs think the opposite.

I side with the Republicans on this one--and always have. This isn't something I changed my mind about when I became more conservative / left (or was abandoned by) the blue team.

Fox News Harris Interview

From the beginning Harris was evasive and Baier was combative. One excuse for the latter goes like this: she got there late, cutting the interview short, and was excessively evasive, so he had to press her. Could be.

   Harris is completely full of shit about immigration, of course. She's got nothing--if you don't count lies, evasion and ORANGE MAN BAD. The Biden administration was a train wreck, and nowhere more than at the border. Responsibility for the border disaster lies squarely on the shoulders of the administration. And the party. And Harris...

   I almost don't blame her for lying and evading about this--she's got no rational defense.

   Baier, however, seemed overly combative to me. And I though the use of the clip of Jocelyn Nungaray's mother was questionable. I understand that there are good reasons to put a face on the statistics. OTOH, almost any policy is going to be a tragedy for someone. Administrations have to think in terms of the statistics--or so it seems to me. Either side in the Obamacare debate can, for example, probably produce stories about someone whom the other side's policies killed, crippled or immiserated. 

   Re: the "trans" surgeries for inmates, she really had nothing. She actually reverted to the boilerplate ad hominem: Trump is trying to scare people. Nonsense. The point is that your apparent policy preference is objectively surreal. The intention of the party informing people about your surreal policy preference is irrelevant.

Anyway.

   In general, I'd say that this was not a good interview for Harris. (Though I'm not neutral, of course.) Not so much because she's an empty suit but because she had to defend bad policies. She's not wily enough to give a rhetorically effective defense of such terrible policies. Few are. But she did what she had to do: she kept saying words. That's enough to keep her from losing support, and to maybe at least keep undecideds undecided.

   Her best line of attack continues to be the unfitness argument; it has the virtue of being sound.

   The "enemy within" argument is part of that strategy, though it seems to me to be more of the same sort of thing we've seen over and over: Trump says something incoherent, the left puts the worst interpretation on it. To repeat myself: they pretend he said something terrible even when he's on video saying the opposite--see e.g. the "very fine people" hoax. So, when he says something unclear--as he usually does--they have a field day. The left can take even the most innocuous utterance and produce a line of gibberish "proving" it to be racist. This is their forte. And Trump is such an inarticulate dumbass that he causes alarm even among reasonable people.

   And this "enemy within" stuff...that's a phrase no one should want to get within a hundred miles of. Rather like "enemy of the people." It's objectively alarming. WTF does he mean by it? Some say he means illegal alien gangs, some say he's talking about radical rioters... I can't freaking tell. It sounded pretty bad to me. Also it's perfectly reasonable to think: no acceptable candidate repeatedly says unclear-and-possibly-authoritarian things. Say enough such things and the smart money says that you're an authoritarian...

   Anyway.

   I haven't watched the end of the interview yet. I can't deal with that much stupid right now.

Entire CNN Panel Has Never Heard of the Ferguson Effect, Refuses to Believe in Social Science

I've started at the relevant bit, but the whole segment is progressive cluelessness on parade:

Girdusky is incredulous that none of them has even heard of any of this.

Then they get down to utterly clueless accusations and abject misconstrual of everything he says. 

Harris/Walz, Panicked, Pander to Black Men With Free Money and Legal Weed

As somebody else (I can't remember who) said: now this is how you buy votes: $1,000,000 "fully forgivable" loans!

The Dems are done pussyfooting around with ordinary gibs. Now they're coming as close to just saying "We'll give you $$$" as they think the law will allow.

Oh and: legal weed!

Patronizing as hell.

Which is a generally-applicable description of progressive racial politics...

And this on top of free money to Millennials in the form of (illegal) loan forgiveness.

Throw in some free cats and box wine for that one other demographic and they might pull this out yet.

Trump: On Track to Win?

The Once and Future POTUS leads in all swing states other than Wisconsin, where RCP shows him with a 0.3% deficit. His lead has (unless I missed something) been growing in them all other than GA, where it's fallen slightly. He's up by 0.3% in PA and a whole percentage point in MI. The RCP betting markets averages stand at Trump 56.5 Harris 42.5 57.7-41.3. Polymarket says 56-39 58-38.

   It's still a tight race.

   And there's plenty of time for him to blow it.

   There are losing cues on the blue team. 

   But they seem to have switched to emphasizing the Trump's unfit to govern angle...which, IMO, is the only good angle they really have. And it's sufficiently powerful.

   Or would be.

   If the Democrats had not gone insane.

   Now it really doesn't matter so much that Trump's personally unfit to govern. He's basically sane, with basically sane policies, and a proven record of success and good governance. And there are lots of rails in place to keep him between the ditches. The Dems are just cracked. They've adopted the wrong values, a deranged worldview, and some unhinged philosophical ideas. They are now the Orwellian party. If Trump lives up to his promise, he'll do well. Should the Dems live up to their promise, it will be a disaster.

   But...

   The fitness argument is a powerful one, and it's certainly the one I'd lean hard on if I were the blues.

Violent Crime Rates Likely Still Increasing; FBI Stealth-Edits 2022 Numbers

John Lott

   Not from the Lott thing:

Violent crime rates shot up in 2020 as a result of the Ferguson Effect, police defunding, "decarceration," Soros DAs refusing to enforce laws (against nonwhites, anyway). The left, using its reality distortion powers, chose to believe that...somehow...it was COVID...

(Narrator: It was not COVID...)

   Now, with crime rates still higher, and Dems still pushing policies to keep it that way, crime reporting has become sketchy. The more reliable National Crime Victimization Survey numbers are unaffected, but those in the Uniform Crime Report are.

   Crime spiked so acutely in '20 that I wouldn't be surprised if it were dropping...but it doesn't seem to be.

   So weird.

   Stop enforcing the law and you get more crime...

   Reminds me of the (NYT? Atlantic?) headline, roughly: Despite drop in crime, prison populations remain high...

I&I: Noncitizens Will Vote in November; the Only Question Is: How Many?

Dems and the media are still mostly at the It's not happening stage of the now-familiar It's-not-happening-It's-happening-but-it's-a-good-thing-It's-happening-and-you're-a-racist-if-you-oppose-it cycle. Some leftier progressives think noncitizens should be able to vote--and have changed some state and local laws to allow it in some state and local elections. There's virtually no doubt that some have also started working for it at the national level. Nor is there much doubt that such folk would think it a good thing for noncitizens to vote illegally now in national elections.

   I&I:

Yet just this weekend, ABC News ran a piece titled: “In South Texas, the myth of noncitizen voting takes center stage.”
But it’s the media that’s peddling the myth. Voter rolls are criminally outdated and error prone. Some states are so eager to register voters that they don’t put up needed safeguards. When election officials do bother to audit their registration rolls, they keep turning up thousands of noncitizens.
Consider these recent examples: 

• Virginia’s attorney general recently announced the state moved 6,303 noncitizens from its voter rolls in 2022 and 2023.
• Arizona admitted a massive error in its voter rolls resulted in 218,000 registered voters who lacked proof of U.S. citizenship.
• A suit filed in Nevada asserts that as many as 11,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in the state and nearly 4,000 of them voted in 2020.
• An Oregon audit found nearly 1,300 noncitizens registered to vote in that state.
• Ohio’s secretary of state found nearly 600 noncitizens registered to vote.

Meanwhile, a local news investigation found mailers sent to noncitizens by their union – LIUNA – urging them to “Stop the Steal” and vote for Kamala Harris in November.
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project gathered video evidence of noncitizens in Arizona and Georgia admitting on camera that they are registered to vote. They also found fliers in an illegal immigrant staging area in Mexico urging them to vote in November.
Dozens of lawmakers are pressing Attorney General Merrick Garland about what he is doing to stop noncitizens from voting. “Clearly, there is a non-negligible amount of voter participation by noncitizens in federal elections,” they say, “which is not only a serious threat to the integrity of our elections and the democratic process they represent, but also has the potential to reduce Americans’ trust and confidence in election results.”
But the Biden-Harris Justice Department appears more interested in preventing states from cleaning their voter rolls of noncitizens.
Last week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued a statement:

“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls.”

And Democrats blocked a bill – the SAVE Act – that would have simply required some proof of citizenship in order to vote.
It’s almost as if Democrats want to let noncitizens vote.

Bill Ackman: Why Support Trump?

A number of my good friends and family have been surprised about my decision to support @realDonaldTrump for president. They have been surprised because my political giving history has been mostly to Democrats, my voting registration has typically been Democrat (in NY, you must…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) October 11, 2024

DoJ Tells Four Police and Fire Departments That It's Racist to Expect Employees to Know Basic Math

We're going to get more of this from progressive bureaucrats no matter what...but way more of it if Harris wins.

*Science* Promotes Bogus Claims of Racial Discrimination in Academia

link

Joy Reid is Losing It

I mean...the little bit of it she has remaining...

Psychopath Who Tied Couple to Anchor and Drowned Them to Get Money for "Sex Change"...Gets a Taxpayer-Funded "Sex Change" in Prison

Behold, the left.

Conservatives Pounce! on: Kamala Harris Plagiarism. NYT: Only 500 Words! Not the Worst Kind of Plagiarism! Criticizing Plagiarism is Racist!!!!11

LOOOOOOL

My favorite part is about how it's not the bad kind of plagiarism! Because it...and here I want to emphasize that I'm not making this up...doesn't involve stealing somebody else's ideas...

   Now...this is a "rule" I've never heard before in my (broadly construed) forty years in academia.

Harris clearly plagiarized whole, huge passages from e.g. Wikipedia.

   Word for word.

   Now, people unconsciously pick up ideas here and there and eventually forget that they got it from somebody else. This happened e.g. to Thomas Nagel with respect to the central example of "What is it Like to Be a Bat," IIRC. Honestly, I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often.

   If there is a worst kind of plagiarism, it's the kind in Harris's book, word-for-word stealing of entire passages from elsewhere and misrepresenting them as your own.

   The New York Times is a gigantic piece of shit. It has pretensions of intellectual seriousness, but it is just making up bullshit rules about scholarly work to save its favored empty-suit candidate.

   Ripping off someone else's ideas might be more harmful to the wronged scholar, but it is Harris-style plagiarism that reflects most badly on the plagiarist--there's no excuse for it. It couldn't have been a mistake. It shows that you're a lying, stealing, lightweight jackass.

   All the more so when you're plagiarizing Wikipedia and advertising brochures...my God...

Harris Plagiarized Extensive Parts of Her Book *Smart on Crime*

We can begin with a passage in which Harris discusses high school graduation rates. Here, she lifted verbatim language from an uncited AP/NBC News report: pic.twitter.com/pZv5mD3m5t

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024

Trump Babbles; James Carville and Jen Psaki: HE'S LITERALLY HITLER

Behold, our options.

The State of the Race

I'm pretty calm about it, largely because I dislike both options, but largely because I'm pretty confident that the less-bad one is going to win. There seems to be some loser-talk showing up in blue-team chatter, along with rumors of panic and bad internal polling data (and good data on the other side). The turbo-cringe Harris ads aimed at men seem to me to be destined for the American political loser hall of fame...alongside e.g. Dukakis in the tank. RCP puts Trump up by at least a little bit in all the battlegrounds except for Wisconsin.

   With a little luck we can soon go back to merely worrying about Trump. On the whole, a less-unsatisfactory state of affairs, IMO.

"White People are the Problem"

To whom to attribute this? Well, the post seems to be by Nia-Malika Henderson. I don't know whether people still generally write their own columns when they achieve a fair-to-middlin' state of notoriety--but either she wrote it or at least endorsed it by putting her name on it. But columnists, we're told, don't generally write their own headlines. So she may well not have written the sub-headline...which isn't even all that bad:

African American men aren’t the voters the former president should be worried about. It’s White men and White women.

Then there's a tweetquote from Wendell Peirce:

The party has to stop scapegoating Black men. Black men aren’t the problem. White men and White women are. No other group votes at 87-90% for Dems but Black folk.

Here's the two most important 'grafs from the body of the essay: 

As a candidate, this type of condescending approach to Black voters, who overwhelmingly backed him and still adore him, was a balm to White people, who saw in Obama a figure who could fix the problem that Black America has supposedly posed to the body politic. Columnist Jonathan Alter wrote in 2008 that Obama’s “most exciting potential for moral leadership could be in the African-American community.” Because, of course, Black Americans needed this the most. (Speaking of moral leadership, fast forward eight years to when the majority of White Americans would cast their ballots for Donald Trump, something they are poised to do again.) 

But as Harris, who has run a nearly flawless race in a compressed timeline, tries to take her turn at history, it is Black voters, specifically Black men, who are being scapegoated. Remember that in a state like Michigan in 2020, Black men were 5% of the electorate, and 88% of their ballots went to Joe Biden. White people were 80% of the electorate. Are there any lectures for them on racism or sexism from Obama? It’s true that Obama, at times, was speaking to all men, but he landed most harshly on Black men, the most pro-Kamala group and one of the smallest voting blocs of the electorates.

Now, I can't help but ridicule the bit about Harris running "a nearly flawless race." You've got to be deeply enchambered to even be able to type that sentence. And the compressed timeline is to her advantage. It's not some burden she is overcoming. Without it, she'd be in even worse shape.

   But the point I've been building up to is this: 

   It's not really clear how bad the claims of this essay are, nor who's really responsible for them. To some extent NMH, of course. To some extent someone else's tweet. To some extent an anonymous headline-writer.

   And Real Clear Politics shows its rightward lean (IMO) with its inflammatory headline: 

"Dear President Obama: White People are the Problem."

Nice work, RCP. Way to help calm everybody down.

   Not sure it's even worth moving on. But I will anyway.

   This is part of the whites suck and men suck projects of the left. The overlap ('intersection' being another handy word ruined by the left) of the two classes is a group they really love to hate...but to avoid stepping on their own faction's toes, they really want/need straight white men as the enemy. But NMH doesn't shoot for the trifecta here.

   The particular way we suck, according to this post, is: 

(a) We don't vote overwhelmingly for Democrats

(b) (Too) many of us are voting for Trump.

   No doubt these are in addition to our other myriad flaws.

   Now, the obvious response is that it is a matter of some disagreement, and less than perfect clarity, whether (a) and (b) are bad or good. I think that the preponderance of evidence indicates that (a) and (b) are good...

   And imagine that I wrote a piece for a national opinion outlet titled something like: White women, black men and black women are the problem.

   That'd go over great.

   I don't like that kind of shit, but I do have to admit that, if I'm right about our current cultural and political strife...well...white dudes would get credit for voting mainly for the lesser evil. If we're eligible for blame here we should also be eligible for credit. Though I'd rather we not play that game.

   To repeat myself: Trump doesn't belong anywhere near the Oval Office.

   But Trump, together with his agenda, is a lesser evil than the progressive/Democrat agenda together with whoever their candidate is. Harris is largely irrelevant, IMO...though she is a bit of an extra negative given that she seems to be (a) a hard-core lefty at heart and (b) a minimally competent DEI candidate at best. (Though one could argue that she's better than a much-diminished Biden, I suppose.)

   Finally, Obama's alleged concern--that black men not voting for Harris is caused by sexism--well, bullshit. There are clear and cogent reasons for not wanting to vote for the Democrat ticket. Those are sufficient to explain such a decision. Undoubtedly some people are motivated by racism and sexism...some people are motivated by just about any motive you can think of. But there's no reason to take the left seriously about this anymore, given that it's boilerplate for them now: anyone who disagrees with them about anything is motivated by one or more components of the Standard Litany of -isms and -"phobias". It's a joke at this point. It was a joke 40 years ago when this nonsense was mostly limited to academia. If you're still taking them seriously, that's on you, bud.

   And probably Obama's just trying to apply rhetorical pressure to get more votes for Dems. Does he really believe that sexism is a significant factor? Maybe. I don't know. But it's at least as likely to be campaign-season bullshit as it is to be a serious claim. I still have certain fond feelings for Obama. And to some extent I want to excuse him thusly: don't hate the player, hate the game.

Obama Speaks to Black Men re: Kamala, and: Two Leftist Pathologies: (a) No One Disagrees with Them for Good Reasons; (b) Obsession with and Fabrication of Hidden Motives

link

Well, like the title says.

   The postpostmodern left thinks that it's impossible to reasonably disagree with them. This meshes well with their obsession with the fabrication of hidden motives--if you do disagree with them, no matter how cogent your arguments, it must be because of some hidden prejudice (here insert The Standard Litany of -isms and -"phobias").

   This tendency to freestyle speculation about motives may be partially grounded in Freud--a hero of recent Continental philosophy. That's always been my guess, but I really don't know.

   It's not quite true...but it's almost true...that they only have one argument: You're a ____ist/phobe.* They simply repeat the same nonsense over and over and over... It shouldn't work, but it does. We've turned things like racism etc. into such horrible moral crimes that people are terrified to be accused of them, no matter how preposterously. As long as this remains true, they'll keep making ungrounded accusations, and they'll keep winning.

* The incidental joke there is, of course, that that isn't even an argument...

Big WSJ Poll Pretty Good For Harris

Not great news.

Kamala Harris's Disastrous Town Hall

I've only seen some clips...but they are catastrophic

E.g. her answer to the guy who was skeptical about the process by which KH became the Democrat nominee.

I almost could not believe what I was hearing.

It's like the Republicans got ahold of her teleprompter controls and set out to make her sound as dumb as possible.

Oh and: did she use a teleprompter?

Dunno. 

Of course the wingnut echo chamber goes from zero to religious conviction about such nonsense in like a minute and a half...

Oh and: now she's saying that she was "working class..." Middle class was one thing...that term is used very broadly. But now her Stanford academician/scientist parents were "working class"...

She actually makes Trump look good.

Which, antecedently, I would have thought impossible.

Christopher Steele Still Believes

link

And a fair number of true believers on the left agree, actually.

John Nichols at The Nation is Whistling Past the Graveyard

I don't understand how Democrats can be comfortably smug given the current shape of the race...but here we are...

Dems Eyeing The Panic Button?

I mean, could be.

There's chatter that both the Dems' and the Pubs' internal polling has Trump winning. 

Silver says that there's always chatter about internal polling...and, like most chatter, it's unreliable.

RCP Rolling Average: Trump Up in Michigan

This apparent lead in MI has been percolating its way through the rolling average for awhile.

It does seem that the tide is turning in Trump's direction.

Walz: Eliminate Electoral College

A catastrophically bad idea.

The Devibing of the Joyous Brat

link

Prediction: Trump FTW

I'm pretty calm about the election. Which is a measure of my belief that the worst outcome will be avoided.

I.e.: Trump will win.

I can worry about that, the second-worst outcome, later.

Right now I just want the devil we know back in the White House, appointing judges, enforcing the border, purging some Demo/bureau-crats, lowering taxes and trying to stamp out DEI.

Oh and: maybe...just maybe...abolishing the Department of Education...

How did we end up in a fix such that an election-denying reality TV conman is the preferable candidate?

I dunno, man, but here we are...

Evan Barker Shouldn't Have Raised Money for the Dems; They're Harming the Country

This is apparently published under various titles; the one I use above is a kind of synthesis.

Anyway...yeah.
I'd read it all, but here are some highlights/lowlights:

During the summer of 2020, I worked as a consultant for multiple progressive DA candidates backed by George Soros and his foundation. In the places where they won, these DAs have since done immeasurable damage to the local communities. They failed to prosecute offenders, especially surrounding drug use and distribution, and allowed crime to run rampant, hurting communities of color the most—the very people they were supposedly trying to help.

...
Unfortunately, the Soroses are just the tip of the iceberg.
...
I spent years fundraising for Democrats. I raised millions of dollars. And in the process, I routinely saw and heard about inappropriate relationships between donors and candidates that would bust anyone's bubble about the independence of our leaders. There is an entire donor ecosystem working against the interests of regular Americans—and it's the one top Democrats are swimming in.
...
Consider the long-time friendship between Kamala Harris and billionaire donor Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs. The New York Times described the women as being so close that they've gone on vacation together and consider each other family. Powell Jobs sat in Harris' exclusive friends and family suite at the DNC last month. She was also instrumental in getting Biden to step down to clear the way for Harris; one of her top aides circulated a polling memo to other key influential donors that allegedly showed Biden's inability to win.
...
Another name I've seen pop up many times in my years fundraising for progressive candidates is the San Francisco based Democratic donor and influencer Steve Phillips. Phillips has written books that focus heavily on the importance of race in politics, with titles like Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority and How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good. [My emphasis] [Note that those are two separate crazy titles, not one really long crazy title.]

Damning as this all is, of course it doesn't do us all that much good without knowing what things look like on the side of the red team for comparison... My guess is: bad...but not as bad. That's sort of the background state of the two major parties, so far as I can tell. The center of crazy has shifted way to the blue end of the spectrum. There doesn't, for example, seem to be any analog of George Soros...nor of his son...

Is Dough Emhoff a Sexist Jackass?

Maybe.

Accusations are cheap.

The left is a nonstop firehose of such bullshit...I give it no credence anymore. But...when the accusations are flying leftward...I do take them a little bit more seriously.

The left seems to have a substantial supply of crazy cat ladies (e.g. C. Blasey Ford, E. Jean Carroll) who will make such accusations at important Republicans. And, hey, why not? It might be painful if the accusations were true...but not if they're not. And they'll get fame and adulation (and money) from our cultural overlords...

But, when the accusations are made against a powerful (or at least strategically valuable) lefty...well...again, I'm a little less skeptical.

"The Republicans are Drowning in Donald Trump's Lies"

I agree--though this article is pretty unimpressive on the subject.

That dude barely even tries to approximate the truth. We don't even expect it from him.

Dems Fear Harris Failing to Break Through With "Working Class"

Ya don't say...

   Here's one thing I noticed when I moved from the real world to academia: the real people back home would sometimes speak of "the workin' man." Only in academia (and the media) did I hear people say "the working class." Or, worse: "the workers." LOL. Why not "the proletariat"?

   Most "working class" people I knew considered themselves middle class. Middle class is a broad category in the U.S.--though I hear less so e.g. in the UK.

   Anyway.

   Trump, for all his myriad failings, seems like a normal person.

   Harris...not so much.

   I mean, look: you're not going to be hanging out with her. You don't have to like her. And if she had good policies and record of competence and accomplishment, I'd vote for her despite her odd demeanor.

   But, yeah, it's surprising that anyone would find it surprising that she's not exactly resonating with regular people.

Democrat Abortion Lies

It's just a torrent of lies from them on the subject. Even when they get called on 'em, they just keep lying 'em.

Gotta keep farming those low-information lefties and the abortion hysteriacs.

I'm still basically a meataxe libertarian on the issue...so I guess not all that far from the current progressive extremism. But I have little confidence in my position, such as it is, and am not happy with it.

Probably just one of the many things I'm wrong about.

RCP Betting Average Shifts Significantly in Trump's Favor

So, y'know, good and/or bad.

Trump/Harris: RCP Betting Market Average Tied

Seems to me that things have been shifting Trumpward for some time.

I've heard speculation that the blue team has been gaming the markets...but I have no idea.

They shifted Harrisward after the debate, but only recently started to new polling. Well, seemingly, anyway.

A lot of the optimism on the red team is based on Trump's historical overperformance in polls. On the one hand, you'd think that pollsters would have corrected for that by now. OTOH, I'm sure there are still "shy" Trump voters--that is, voters who refuse to tell a stranger (or anyone else for that matter) that they're voting for Trump. That can mean the end of your job, your career, and/or your personal life.

I'm still trying not to care much. But I do remain reasonably confident that Trump will win, hence we'll end up with the bad outcome rather than the terrible outcome.

Keep yr fingers crossed!

10/7 One Year On

That's all.

Coleman Hughes on Ta-Nehisi Coates

I used to like TNC. But that was some time ago now.

I haven't read his new book. I'd never even consider spending/wasting the time.

Coleman Hughes read it so you don't have to.

Turley: Jack Smith's "October Surprise" Wasn't That Surprising...And That's The Problem

I gave up long ago trying to sort through the details of every aspect of the anti-Trump jihad.

A failing on my part, without doubt.

But I just don't have the requisite time, energy, or understanding of the law.

Now, to be honest, I basically just try to see the big picture.

Which kinda sorta looks like this:

A wacky, crackpot con man who's probably guilty of something or other...but who is right about a lot of things...

vs.

A massive and deranged, well-oiled machine that operates across almost all of our major institutions to destroy him by just about any means necessary...

...because he really, truly, should not be anywhere near the levers of power.

Though also because he opposes their hegemony...and that they just cannot abide.

Not bending the knee to them is an affront.

They will not tolerate it.

Am I going to dig into the details of the latest salvo from the machine?

I am not.

To switch metaphors yet again: I guess I've already picked my poison.

On the bright side, I have absolutely no power to influence the  outcome.

So, no matter what happens, I'll have recourse to the favorite defense of incompetents everywhere:

It's not my fault!

Wingnuts Freak Out Over WNC and Helene

Jeez, these people.

The number one conspiracy theory in the fever swamps right now seems to be that the feds are going to use eminent domain to seize huge chunks of Western North Carolina to get at large lithium deposits there. Slightly conspiracy-er theories say that the government seeded clouds to make Helene worse to facilitate the plan.

It's like these people are on a hair trigger. They just love this stuff and jump at the chance to accept it and assert it as indisputable fact.

On top of everything else, it's the dogmatism that's stunning. Concern about voter fraud isn't enough--it's proven! that the election of 2020 was stolen. Skepticism about the vax isn't enough--FDA and CDC know that it's a killer and are...for some reason...hiding it. The stuff about Helene hasn't seemed to reach that level yet. But it may well get there before all is said and done.

I guess the left did the same with Katrina...but I'd say to a much lesser extent. The theory didn't seem to extend beyond: The Bush admin dragged its feet to make sure that as many blacks as possible died. That's insane, of course...but it doesn't rise to the level of, e.g., Congresswoman Space Laser contending that Democrats control the weather.

Oh and: it's "ridiculous" to say they can't...

Though Katrina happened before the full-blown cultural freakout that is "social media"...so hard to compare.

Helene and WNC

The scenes and footage from e.g. Asheville and Castle Rock are just unbelievable. I really had no idea how bad it was. Parts of I-40 are just gone, and one estimate I heard from an informed source was that it might take a year to reopen.

One of (the?) major E-W interstate could take a year to reopen.

In the USA.

Not Uzbekistan...not Venezuela...

Amazing.

Some of the footage I saw actually made me think If they can fix that in a year, they're wizards...

Hundreds (or so I've read) sections of other roads are closed.

Again, hearsay from a local news snipped: Expect to have power again in about four months.

We've got two very off-road-capable vehicles...but a lot of the roads I saw footage of...no chance. Neither of them would stand any chance of getting through.

UNCA disaster relief donation page

I'm trusting that they'll use this buy stuff like water and not to put on drag shows and stuff...but...with UNCA you can never tell...

Y'know what? On second thought:

NCgov donation page

NCDPS page

Doug Emhoff, Mr. Kamala Harris, Accused of Slapping Ex-GF

So he allegedly had an affair with the nanny, allegedly impregnated her, and she allegedly got an abortion...now he allegedly slapped another gf at the Cannes film festival.

   Maybe true. Maybe false. Obviously I don't know.

   But if this were a Republican, it'd be all hands on deck in the MSM...

   Also, there's been a lot of slobbering coverage about him allegedly "redefining masculinity" by...[checks notes]...supporting his wife?

   Really?

   Who thinks that's some notable thing?

   Who the hell doesn't support his wife?

   Are we living in the 1950s?

   They're not talking about financial support, incidentally, but...psychological (or whatever) support.

   But also they keep talking about him "offering a softer masculinity" and shit.

   Listen, uh...that's no compliment, blue team...

   Though, NGL, the guy does seem like a wimp.

   So, among other things, the kind of guy who might just hit a woman...

   Anyway, gotta say, I'd laugh my ass off if these allegations turned out to be true after the bizarro tongue bath the lefty media has been lavishing on him.

   Jen Psaki's interview of him was positively nauseating.

Vance Still Won't Admit Trump Lost

*%&#@?~%!@#&*ing dipshits.

Let alone Trump admitting it.

That's just beyond the pale at this point.

I don't blame anyone who won't vote for these jackasses.

Vance/Walz

Didn't watch it. Needed to sleep. Knew I wouldn't if I watched it.

I gather that the mods cheated again, breaking their own no "fact"-checking rule to try to undermine Vance...but it sounds like he turned it around on them pretty deftly. I saw the clip and that seems like a fair assessment. But the whole video might show something different.

Dunno.

Kerry: The First Amendment is Getting in the Way of Censorship; If Dems Win Elections, They Can Change That

I voted for this guy and contributed a lot of money to him.

This should be sufficient reason to never listen to me about politics.

Trafalgar: Trump +3 in PA?

Big if true.

Vance/Walz Debate

Seems kinda no-win to me.

For Vance, that is.

Nobody thinks Walz is Vance's intellectual peer--do they?

Vance trounces him, so what?

Walz holds his own--win!

Vance is capable of what Trump isn't--sticking to the point and hammering it home.

Of course we know what we'll get from the moderators--all kitty-eatin' all the time...

Now, that's Vance's stupid fault...but it's a tiny drop in the bucket of this nutso election.