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Trump: The King of the Outlaws
If you outlaw common sense and conventional values then only outlaws will express common sense and conventional values. –Not really a bumper sticker but should be.
I have been listening to Democratic post-mortems and find comfort in their inability to learn anything, thus posing no threat of regaining the majority anytime soon. It was not some mythical giant right-wing media machine (e.g., Joe Rogan, Elon Musk) that made people believe the booming economy was not OK. It was not so much the monolithic extreme left values as it was the fact that expressing a contrary opinion or observation of any kind made the speaker a Nazi/racist/xenophobic/[insert-whatever]-phobic, misogynistic, science-denying trash. It was the sheer arrogance and lack of respect and the attempt to crush dissent, even more than the substance of the lame ideology, that drove many to Trump. For example, it was not about whether the system lets a guy wear a dress and lipstick but about the demand that we all say we believe he really is a woman.
The ‘elite’ loved the two years of COVID mandates. Not because they were effective (they were not) nor remotely based on the data or the science, but because all those tiresome democratic institutions and tacky market-based activities were made entirely subject to Expert Rule. It was the ideal world–fully empowered, credentialed people making all decisions consonant with the sensibilities and self-image of the self-appointed elite. Sciencey but not necessarily scientific. Content was filtered. Those who disagreed or did not comply were declared anti-science death lovers who deserved to be ostracized, fired or jailed.
In the present climate, no one in polite society is permitted to object to open borders (Xenophobic Racism!); object to the absence of law enforcement (Racism!); boys dominating girls athletics (Transphobia!); object to merit being tossed in favor of DEI (Racism! Sexism!); trashing America with bogus history (MAGA Racist!); failed, hideously costly green energy policies based on manufactured threat scenarios (Denialist! Anti-Science! Flat Earth Rube!).
The people who have gone to great lengths to shut down the normal give and take of politics and rational discourse, who have demanded sole ownership of the public square, wound up declaring the great majority of Americans outlaws and socially unfit. And now, after the election of the Orange Hitler, they are terrifying themselves with the prospect of being ruled by the ugly caricatures they invented to enforce their bogus monopoly on discourse, hoist on their own canard.
Here’s a pro tip to what is left of the MSM to take the audience back from the dreaded Joe Rogan: Hire people who actually do research, ones who are willing to challenge the elite consensus on issues. Provide a diversity of opinions and views. Encourage articulate, witty, fun, respectful debate by people who are not lefty clones and/or cliche-spewing windbags. Produce quality data. Make fact-checking about facts and not partisan oppo research. Challenge leaders of both parties to be creative and honest. Be worth watching and reading. Have the salutary effect on politics and governance that the Founders expected you to have and that Americans crave.
Published in General
Word.
Dream on, Old Bathos. The leftist confirmation bias ( which has failed them) will continue to assure their inability to follow your good advice.
That’s the most wonderful sentence I’ve read in quite some time. Just beautiful.
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Ha! Good one!
Years ago, when I was frustrated by a client’s idiotic choice to act contrary to both the law and commonsense legal advice and sought guidance how to further respond to this problem, my mentor said “Don’t forget that the client has a right to put himself out of business.” Words to live by if you work for MSM entities.
Scathing and concise, Old Bathos.
Love it.
I am reminded of Kim Davis, a county clerk who, in 2015, refused to sign a marriage license for a gay couple. The form said, roughly, “I approve this marriage,” and Davis would not sign for religious reasons. She was willing to sign if the form was amended to read: “The state approves this marriage.” That was unacceptable to the plaintiffs, but the media never mentioned it. Her appeal against $260K in damages and costs is still being litigated.
In the last paragraph of this CNN article it says
Wow, great description. In fact, I would describe Fox News that way lately. And the news programs are being compensated for all that work with increasing market share.
Over the last few years, it’s been a give-and-take relationship between the Fox News writers, producers, and commentators with their audience–exactly the way a news organization should operate. And they have improved in all aspects of their work.
The program took a lot of heat after the 2020 election coverage. I’m not an insider there, but I’d make a bet that I’m right that rather than have a temper tantrum and get mad at their critics, they doubled down and just worked much much harder this year.
I would give them an A++++ for their news coverage this past year, their commentary, and news reporting, and best of all, their election night coverage.
[All that said, the New York Times can’t be beat for graphics! That election day map with the red and blue arrows was spectacular. What a shame they can’t get the news reporting and commentary right. There is tremendous talent in their graphics department. :) :) ]
I saw quite a bit of grumbling among conservatives on election night about Fox being too slow to call races. I thought, “Of course they’re slow and deliberate after the wide-spread criticism they received for calling things too quickly last time. Pick one.”
Exactly.
The Powers Who Used To Be terrorized their minions with Tales of the Orange Hitler now have to figure out how to talk them down from the window ledges.
Therapists are going to make a mint.
“I have been listening to Democratic post-mortems and find comfort in their inability to learn anything and thus pose no threat of regaining the majority anytime soon.”
I think we all need to remind ourselves that neither left or right actually have a majority. There is this band of folks known as “the undecided” that swing back and forth over election cycles which end up deciding the election. I certainly don’t understand how they can swing back and forth with no discernable beliefs nor do I believe that they understand themselves. Like baby ducks, everyday is a new day and so are their political desires.
Spectacular post and I love the header!
Of course the secret weapon of each major party is the incompetence and idiocy of the other party so no one stays in power indefinitely. I should have said that currently Democrats do not merit majority support. They could still receive if the GOP out-stupids them while in power.
That is true of the parties, yes. But the situation is asymmetric. Democrats run by dancing around their policies, trying simultaneously to reassure their more radical constituencies that they really are hard-left while also trying to convince the normal voters that they’re some kind of moderate. In contrast, Republicans tend to run as what they are: when was the last time you were surprised by how unexpectedly conservative the guy elected to office turned out to be? (Let’s see. Donald Trump. John Fetterman. That’s two.)
Point being, while the parties are both incompetent, I think the Republicans have a much better chance of overcoming that incompetence. The American people are much closer to a center-right sensibility than the are to the outlandish positions of the left.
I don’t think it’s the idiocy of “the other party” though both parties talk about it in this way. It’s the idiocy of that thin group between the parties that has been consistent for the last few decades. These are folks that really have no firm political beliefs and swing from one side to the other because their one consistent is that they are dissatisfied…every cycle. I don’t know to solve this but it is, as I see it, the problem with our politics.
Well said.
Trump is also the king of the Heretics, as he has defied the psuedo-divine order of the Left.
“Maybe we can finally afford a cabin on the lake.”
Start by firing everyone presently on staff.
Keep one. The loudest, wokest bore. And station them in a dunking booth at the end of the pundit table.
With respect to the original post, it wasn’t any of those things, as much as I wish it were, that was the primary cause of Trump’s election. It was that Kamala is so incredibly stupid, just as Hillary was so incredibly unlikeable. That’s 80% of the reason. If Kamala had any charisma at all, she had a very good chance of winning.
I was baffled that Harris was polling as well as she was in August and September given that she had a had already demonstrated that she could not be coherent even in carefully structured settings. But I experienced a creeping fear that vapidity, incoherence and sporadic caricatured attacks on her male opponent were traits with which millions of women strongly identified, enough for her to muddle through.
Harris and Hillary’s negatives alone could not be entirely dispositive given that Trump also carries enormous negative baggage. His ceiling is probably lower than that of any Democratic nominee so he has had to max out support more than did his two arrogant, politically tone-deaf, largely incompetent female opponents, especially that last one who was unable or unwilling to separate herself from offensive woke policies.
It’s sad how many people would vote for an empty (pant)suit with “charisma.”
I don’t know.
Yes, Harris was a very poor candidate. But what made her a poor candidate was, I would argue, two things: she was a far-left progressive, and she was unable to answer a direct question in a competent manner.
Those are both defects of Harris, but they are also defects of the current Democratic Party. That is, a candidate who isn’t a far-left progressive doesn’t represent the current Democratic Party base and so loses the “woke” vote. But a candidate who is a far-left progressive doesn’t represent normal Americans, and so loses the normal-American vote.
In other words: Yes, Harris was a terrible candidate, but the only Democrat who won’t be a terrible candidate is one who can convincingly lie about his or her intentions and reassure the voters that he or she isn’t a far-left progressive, while simultaneously communicating to the activist base that he or she really is a far-left progressive.
Biden was a fluke, I think, for two reasons. First, because he was a known quantity that could convincingly appeal to normal Americans but who just happened to be feeble enough that he of necessity ceded leadership in his administration to a cadre of far-left progressive underlings who shaped his administration. Secondly, because the woke agenda soared and was emboldened under Biden’s figurehead administration and is now the de facto standard for the Democratic Party. Someone as apparently moderate as Biden was purported to be when he was elected probably couldn’t run as a candidate for that Party now.
If all that’s true, and I think it is, then this election was more about the poor quality of the current Democratic Party than about the poor quality of its miserable candidate.
Newsom.
Although he may already be well-known enough to defeat that.
Kamala couldn’t answer questions about her core beliefs because she doesn’t have any.
That may be true. But she couldn’t even respond, because one of two things would happen: she would reiterate support for her own far-left record, in which case she would alienate normal Americans; or she would contradict her own far-left record, in which case she would risk alienating her woke base.
That latter would have been the better move, probably, but she was unwilling or unable to do that. Why not? I don’t know. Stupidity, some kind of weird reluctance to overtly lie in a big way about her own record, fear of backlash… no idea, really.