Trump Wins

Ok.

Good news.

Worst outcome avoided.

Now we're looking at four more years of the second-worst outcome...

But if he can just keep it between the ditches, we'll be ok.

With a bit of luck, significantly better than just ok.

This really could be a transformative Presidency.

Things Are Looking A Little Trumpy

So uh...yay I guess?

Election Day in the OD

...or my little corner of it, anyway.

Hit the polls before office hours this morning. It was a beautiful day here. Chatted with both the blue team and red team folks handing out literature. Went on in and walked right on up to the table--no line whatsoever and only a couple of people already filling out ballots. Did the deed. Had my usual OCD ballot-checking and -rechecking episode. Voted for the bad orange man--in fact, voted straight-ticket red team. The one amendment on the ballot is agreed upon by both teams. Cao is a bit conservative for me, but Kaine will win anyway, so NBD. And Kaine is alright. I wish he'd fight the power in the party more. But he's alright. Fed my ballot into the counter--VA has a great, standard system of paper ballots...dunno why everyone doesn't have it. Walked on out. Chatted with the people again. Petted some dogs. Went on to office hours...

JQ went later. I didn't go with her to monitor her voting as is my husbandly duty...but I'm sure she'll do as told. She's pretty sick, so she said she got there and just sat in the truck reading for a bit--long enough that the cop on duty there came over and checked out the situation. They chatted for a bit and she eventually made it inside and out again.

Voting's always pleasant here.

May the best man/person win.

Whatever happens, the nation will survive.

All best to my blue-team homies.

Nikki Haley: Trump Isn't Perfect, But It's An Easy Call

Yes, agreed.

Hold your nose and pull the lever.

This is about the future of the nation, not your squeamish sensibilities

It's not really that close a call.

Doyle McManus: The Case for Kamala

 Wow.

   I went into this with as open a mind as I could muster...but it's awful.

   I don't mean that it's bad work...I mean it's tantamount to an anti-Harris case: if this is the best you can think of to say about her, you'd have to be a fool to vote for her.

   It's basically a combination of lies about Trump (now de rigueur for Dems) (e.g.: Trump loves Putin) and groundless assurances that she's going to completely change her political stripes...and stop doing the few things she's managed to actually do. She's now all about the border! Inflation bad! Um...

   The only thing McManus mentions that plausible is abortion. She seems honestly pro-choice. And that's something I can generally agree with.

   Though obviously that's not enough.

   Look, here's the only significant argument for Harris: She's not Trump.

   And a weighty argument it is.

   If I even vaguely agreed with the platform and worldview of the new new Democrats, then, awful as she is, she'd be good enough for me.

   But that's a radically counterfactual state of affairs.

A Leftist Group's Weirdly Threatening GOTV Campaign

This is fcked up.

Apparently they're threatening to basically publicize whether people voted or not--revealing the information to their neighbors.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

I have one acquaintance who is afraid to vote for Trump because she's afraid she'll slip up at some point and reveal the fact to her kids and extended family.

Again, there are plenty of good reasons not to vote for Trump...but it's extremely messed up that people have to fear the reactions of their own friends and families.

The majority of my friends and acquaintances will undoubtedly be voting blue. I think this is a mistake, obviously, but I certainly don't hold it against them. Hell, they could well be right. It does bother me that many of them are basically just running down the ruts in the path, listening to the MSM, and that they will basically vote for the Dems no matter what...but, then, it also bothers me that I've turned into a freak about this stuff and have become obsessed about it and waste so much time reading about it and am voting for the orange loon...so there's that...

Tucker Carlson: I was Attacked in My Sleep by Demons

Still more facepalm.

He did go through a brief period of doing some good work, though, IMO. I didn't watch him before that, so I can't speak to that. Just about as soon as I started checking him out, he descended into UFOs and the CIA killed JFK and that sort of thing.

Insty: Harris Would be as Much a Figurehead as Biden--We'd be Ruled by the Swamp

Agreed.
Of course one could reasonably argue that it would be better than Trump.

Seven years ago, I'd probably have agreed.

Did Trump Promise RFK Jr. "Control of Health Agencies"?

facepalm

If so, I certainly hope he was bullshitting again.

Abigail Shrier: The Kindergarten Intifada: The Latest Thing Your Kids are being Brainwashed With

Honestly, I gave up on this.

Just too long.

I got the general idea and moved on.

I don't need to be convinced, actually.

Rufo: How Gender Ideology Captured the State Department

Thing about the progressive left is: it's not only filled with shit ideas, it's totalitarian.

"DEI" and gender ideology would be crazy and bad enough if they were relatively isolated ideas.

But the totalitarian tendencies of the left drive it to force its bad ideas into every crevice of every institution.

Not only can boys be girls, but brainwashing people into believing that boys can be girls must be the #1 goal of every institution in America.

Ditto "antiracism," climate hysteria, etc. etc. etc....

They're all the most important thing ever.

This is basically what "intersectionality" does: elevates all the left's crackpot ideas to the rough equivalent of #1 most important thing e-var. "Intersectionality" basically says that you can't fix any one of them without fixing all of them. Thus if any one of them is the most important thing e-var, they basically all are.

Isaac Schorr: No, Trump Didn't Call for Liz Cheney to be Executed

Agreed.

I've now seen the clip instead of just reading quotes.

Doesn't change my mind.

I still think, as I said yesterday, that Trump was caught between (a) a chickenhawk ad hominem and (b) stupid, f*cked-up quasi-fantasizing about Cheney facing a firing squad.

The Dems are lying about what he said because that's what they do.

But the people defending him are, IMO, letting him off a little too easy.

What a f*cking choice we have.

Trump Says He Will Protect Women "Whether They Like It Or Not;" Harris Lies About it

All they do is lie.

Trump is a paragon of truthfulness compared to these people.

Even Jake Tapper pushed back on this one.

WSJ Editors: How Risky is a Trump Second Term

Seems pretty right to me.

America is Like Antelope, OR; Progressives are the Rajneeshees

Democracy works passably well (not that we're exactly a democracy, of course)...until the cult moves to town...

Sasha Stone: The Democrats Deserve to Lose

Agreed on basically all points.

Though I'm not sure how right it is to put so much blame on middle-aged cat ladies...

I don't care about it being insulting or politically counterproductive, of course.

I'm just not sure it really captures what it needs to capture.

Maybe it does, though.

Zach Beauchamp: A Second Trump Term Really is an Extinction-Level Threat to Democracy

It is, of course, hard to say who the stupidest person on the internet is...

The competition is stiff.

But Beauchamp has at least got to be in the running.

Anyway, as many have pointed out, the left likes to accuse its opponents of the very things it is doing. And it's impossible to keep a straight face when Beauchamp suggests that Trump might take over all of our institutions and turn them to his political ends.

Honestly, progressives live in a fantastical alternate universe they have woven for themselves out of the contents of their echo chamber.

There are plenty of reasons not to want Trump to be President. Fear of him taking over our institutions is not among them. That's not how the right operates.

It is, of course, exactly how the left operates, and how it is operating right now, and for the past several decades.

That they seem so incapable of seeing this--and seeing it about themselves--is yet another aspect of their unhinging.

Iowa Flipped to Harris?

Big if true.

Probably just an attempt to infuse hope into the blue team...but could be.

[Incidentally this could make Nevada matter...]

Trump Down to +9% in RCP Betting Market Average

Polymarket still has him at +14...but I have no reason to think it's any better than the others...I just happen to know its name.

I liked +30 much better.

Basically a toss-up.

Peanut the Squirrel Murdered by NY Bureaucrats

No, they did not do it to test for rabies.

That's a fucking lie.

You don't have to kill an animal to check for rabies.

Even if it were absolutely necessary, you'd euthanize the rescue coon first; if it's clear, you don't have to fucking kill the pet squirrel.

This was some bitch-ass bureaucrat punishing the owner for failure to bend the knee.

I hope all the people responsible are sued until they're living in cardboard boxes on the side of the road.

Actually, they belong in jail.

More Trumpian Stupidity: Liz Cheney / Firing Squad (?)

link

   He's largely an idiot, and nobody can tell what he's saying half the time. He just blathers endlessly, rally after rally. The left, of course, pseudointerprets everything he says in the worst possible way. I say 'pseudointerprets' because even in cases in which Trump clearly says that p, progressives just ignore it and claim that he said not-p. This isn't limited to Trump, of course. Perhaps because of their Freudian and postmodern roots, they assume that their opponents have reprehensible beliefs and motives, and they don't quite believe that words have meaning...independent of the preferences of the "interpreter," anyway. Scare quotes because: that's not interpretation, that's fabrication.

   And, of course, he'll say basically anything about his opponents when he gets mad.

   Now, I haven't looked up the video. Basically I don't have the heart. This shit disgusts me. IMHO we have no alternative but to vote for him. I just can't bear to listen to him right now.

   But: it sure sounds bad.

   Kinda sounds like he got caught halfway between saying something about (a) the willingness of war hawks to go into combat and (b) the firing squad thing.

   It's angrifying and disgusting to have to even try to parse such stupidity...but the first thing he said was about giving her a rifle. So that's not at all consistent with (b). OTOH...why nine? That's in the vicinity of the size of a firing squad, anyway, if I'm not mistaken...

   What a cesspool American politics has become.

   Of course he has no intention whatsoever of putting anybody in front of a firing squad. Anyone who doesn't understand that is delusional. The problem is that he can't control his mouth. He babbles inanely and ends up saying stupid bullshit like this.

   And that makes him unfit for the Presidency.

   But, of course, you know the other half of the story: IMO the other side is much worse.

   No need to go into that again.

J. Peder Zane: Democrats in the Grip of Madness

This is basically right.

Though there's a fair bit of gaslighting/strategic lying in there as well.

You've got true believers and you've got those who will say whatever is politically correct despite what they think about its truth. And you've got people in a superposition of those states.

It's no longer two equally sane-but-all-worked-up teams fudging the truth a bit in different directions. Now it's the basically (but by no means entirely) sane team vs. the basically nuts team.

Polls Tightening?

Looks like the popular vote and all the blue wall races may be tightening up...but it all seems to be on the strength of a late Marist poll that is out of line with most of the other polls. Marist gets an A+ rating from 538...though 538 now leans even farther left than when Silver was running the show...so...who knows? I'm assuming that Marist leans left, since I don't know them to be right-leaning...and a left-lean is the standard (as in all things now). Media Bias / Fact Check gives it a least biased rating--which probably means it's somewhat left-leaning.

   If the late Marist poll is right, the Dems will win.

   Trump just needs to peel one of the blue wall states away...but I've read that they've voted together since '88 or something. So the new Harris lead in MI and WI, and the diminished lead in PA seem like very bad news.

   Of course, Trump's now positioned much better than he was in '16, and much much better than '20, when he barely lost.

   If the polls underrate him as badly as they did last time, he's fairly likely to win even given the Marist results.

   And, given that Marist is basically at odds with the RCP rolling averages...I'm guessing...and hoping...that they just botched the samples.

   Betting market average odds have reverted to Trump plus 20+, down from Trump + 30.

   It's hard not to be apprehensive given how important this election is, and how bad for the country a Dem win would be. But I'm trying to remain stoic about it.

   Another important factor is that, if the right gets Hillaried on this, they're going to lose their minds. I expect that'd make the Capitol riot look like church social. The fever swamps simply will not ever accept a loss on this one.

   I expect Trump to win. It's hard to look at the numbers and the history and the Dems and Harris and Walz and the campaign they are running...and come away expecting them to win. Trump's bad (in important ways), but they're terrible. And fake--or at least fake-seeming. Maybe, God help us, they're not...

   Anyway.

   I'd say we'll know on Tuesday...but some Democrat strongholds have already told us that they won't have the votes counted for...quite some time. This sort of anticipatory foot-dragging may be based on good reasons, or it may be to troll Republicans...or it may be an indication of shenanigans in in the offing. I just don't know what to think of it anymore. But I can't see how anyone can trust the system implicitly given what we know about it. I used to. But anomalies have piled up to such a point that I don't know what to think anymore. We know that the Dems cheat in ways that permit them to maintain plausible deniability. We know they're willing to engage in outright dirty tricks of great consequence. It's as if we have all the other pieces of the puzzle in place. We just don't know what the center looks like--don't know whether there's any outright cheating. Or, rather: we know for sure there is some--we just don't know whether there's enough that it might actually matter. This is an untenable state of affairs.

   It's insane that there weren't much more extensive investigations after '20. We needed to crush all the fraud hypotheses to restore faith in the system--not that I think it would be possible to do so completely given the swamps' inability to admit error. But we could have improved the situation a lot. And, in fact, the resistance to investigation by the blue team--and its preposterous insistence that it was "the most secure election ever"--leads otherwise-normal people like me to lose faith.

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.