Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. My Last Pre-Election Post

 
America has a tradition of orderly and peaceful transfer of power. I fully expect my side — the right — to respect that, regardless of what happens this week. We on the right tend, after all, to be respectful of tradition, and this is one of our great traditions.
 
I will vote tomorrow for the candidate who expresses love and respect for America and who acts as if he feels it. I will vote for the man who believes America is a good and decent nation, a nation that has made great strides toward racial equality and justice. I will vote for the man who shares my view that people should be free to work and run their businesses and manage their own lives, without the heavy hand of government regulators constraining them at every turn.
 
I will vote for the man who wants to restore, rather than reinvent, my country, who wants law and order rather than mobs of angry lawless radicals. I will vote for the man who thinks America is fundamentally okay, rather than in need of fundamental transformation.
 
I will vote for the man who believes, as I believe, that we have to get our nation back to work, that we can’t hide forever — that neither our economy nor our children nor our spirits can endure that.
 
And I will vote for the candidate and the party that actually likes America, and is willing to say, and say proudly, that ours is a good and a great country.
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  1. JustmeinAZ Member

    The TV news last night showed stores across the country boarding up their windows in anticipation of election results. We all know which side is going to riot if they lose.

    • #1
    • November 2, 2020, at 8:56 AM PST
    • 12 likes
  2. Susan Quinn Contributor

    Hear! Hear! Beautifully said, Hank.

    • #2
    • November 2, 2020, at 8:57 AM PST
    • 7 likes
  3. Bob Thompson Member

    Rioting and looting is not surprising. Standing down from enforcing the law by elected leaders is a disgrace. This is why businesses are boarding up.

    • #3
    • November 2, 2020, at 9:08 AM PST
    • 15 likes
  4. DonG (Biden is compromised) Coolidge

    Henry Racette: America has a tradition of orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

    Ahhh. The good old days of 2008. I remember those days too. We had a 44-0 record of peaceful transitions before 2016. A perfect record! That was something to be proud of, for people that choose to feel pride in anything associated with ‘Merica.

    • #4
    • November 2, 2020, at 9:15 AM PST
    • 9 likes
  5. Bob Thompson Member

    Henry Racette: America has a tradition of orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

    That tradition was violated throughout the period from Nov 9, 2016 to the present.

    • #5
    • November 2, 2020, at 9:20 AM PST
    • 13 likes
  6. Ontheleftcoast Member

    One wonders how this will be accomplished:

    It probably depends on the best way to get to this:

    The Coming Assault on Red States

    “I don’t see red states and blue states,” said Joe Biden in the final presidential debate, borrowing a line from Barack Obama. He must not have examined the policies that he and Democrats in Congress are pushing that would do disproportional harm to Republican states, especially in the South, while favoring Democratic states. Let’s examine four policies in particular:

    That’s the $15/hr minimum wage, banning right to work laws nationwide, restoring the state and local tax deductions. and multiple bailouts for fiscally irresponsible Democrat state and local jurisdictions. 

    Also comprehensively dismantling the Trump tax cuts.

     

    • #6
    • November 2, 2020, at 9:38 AM PST
    • 5 likes
  7. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Henry Racette: America has a tradition of orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

    Ahhh. The good old days of 2008. I remember those days too. We had a 44-0 record of peaceful transitions before 2016. A perfect record! That was something to be proud of, for people that choose to feel pride in anything associated with ‘Merica.

    I don’t think that I’d count 1861 as a peaceful transition of power. Other than that, we’ve done very well, up to and including 2016.

    • #7
    • November 2, 2020, at 10:00 AM PST
    • 8 likes
  8. Henry Racette Contributor
    Henry Racette

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Henry Racette: America has a tradition of orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

    Ahhh. The good old days of 2008. I remember those days too. We had a 44-0 record of peaceful transitions before 2016. A perfect record! That was something to be proud of, for people that choose to feel pride in anything associated with ‘Merica.

    I don’t think that I’d count 1861 as a peaceful transition of power. Other than that, we’ve done very well, up to and including 2016.

    Yes, I know. I didn’t say a perfect, unbroken record, I said a tradition. [ Update: Ah, but I see that you’re responding more to DonG than to me. Yes, Democrats set a bad example in 1861. Let’s hope they do better tomorrow. ;) ]

    • #8
    • November 2, 2020, at 10:07 AM PST
    • 7 likes
    • This comment has been edited.
  9. aardo vozz Member

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Henry Racette: America has a tradition of orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

    Ahhh. The good old days of 2008. I remember those days too. We had a 44-0 record of peaceful transitions before 2016. A perfect record! That was something to be proud of, for people that choose to feel pride in anything associated with ‘Merica.

    Not to nitpick, but there was a bit of rough going during the peaceful transition of March 1861.

    • #9
    • November 2, 2020, at 11:59 AM PST
    • 2 likes
  10. philo Member

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Henry Racette: America has a tradition of orderly and peaceful transfer of power.

    Ahhh. The good old days of 2008. I remember those days too. We had a 44-0 record of peaceful transitions before 2016. A perfect record! That was something to be proud of, for people that choose to feel pride in anything associated with ‘Merica.

    I don’t think that I’d count 1861 as a peaceful transition of power. Other than that, we’ve done very well, up to and including 2016.

    That one was still playing out four years later also.

    • #10
    • November 2, 2020, at 5:56 PM PST
    • 5 likes
  11. Steven Galanis Coolidge

    The gradual usurpation of the voting system by state election boards culminating in what we see now does not allow me to view this election as a valid one. I don’t see how a peaceful transfer of power is even logical.

    • #11
    • November 2, 2020, at 7:56 PM PST
    • Like
  12. James Lileks Contributor

    I walked around downtown this afternoon to watch the wood go up over the glass. Block after block of boarded up stores and office buildings.

    You can see the prep here, if you wish. 

    Daughter said some people at work expressed fears that the Proud Boys would riot, but I don’t think they really believed it. Everyone knows who the likely actors will be. I mean, everyone knows that if Trump loses, no crowd will surge from Lafayette Square to storm the White House, but it is entirely possible that leftists will do exactly that if Trump declares victory. The soft-handed men typing away in small rooms in big cities are hoping there’ll be violence:

    The amusing thing is that this guy thinks he’s important enough to be killed in the third wave of guillotining, when he’s definitely second-wave material.

    • #12
    • November 2, 2020, at 9:27 PM PST
    • 7 likes
    • This comment has been edited.
  13. Henry Racette Contributor
    Henry Racette

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    Everyone knows who the likely actors will be.

    I usually think that everyone must know. Then I bump into an otherwise sensible seeming person who thinks the problems are mostly on the right. What do you do with that, if you’re a thoughtful person inclined to self-reflection, but not blind to what your own eyes and half a century of experience tell you?

    You stare into the abyss, is what you do. And you wonder how we’ll ever bridge it. And then you decide we don’t have to bridge it. We just have to win.

    • #13
    • November 2, 2020, at 9:43 PM PST
    • 10 likes
  14. Gary Robbins Reagan

    I fully agree with your first paragraph:

    “America has a tradition of orderly and peaceful transfer of power. I fully expect my side — the right — to respect that, regardless of what happens this week. We on the right tend, after all, to be respectful of tradition, and this is one of our great traditions.”

    The Rule of the Law and the peaceful transition of power is the perhaps the greatest contribution that our nation has to offer the world.

    • #14
    • November 3, 2020, at 3:42 AM PST
    • Like
  15. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    I walked around downtown this afternoon to watch the wood go up over the glass. Block after block of boarded up stores and office buildings.

    • #15
    • November 3, 2020, at 5:12 AM PST
    • 3 likes
  16. Front Seat Cat Member

    I love your post and it is worth saving and printing out, because it’s worth remembering not just today, but for the future. Newt Gingrich had a good article with Lincoln quotes that are very appropriate for today:

    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-lincoln-mobs-newt-gingrich

     

    • #16
    • November 3, 2020, at 5:59 AM PST
    • Like
  17. Bob Thompson Member

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    Everyone knows who the likely actors will be.

    I usually think that everyone must know. Then I bump into an otherwise sensible seeming person who thinks the problems are mostly on the right. What do you do with that, if you’re a thoughtful person inclined to self-reflection, but not blind to what your own eyes and half a century of experience tell you?

    You stare into the abyss, is what you do. And you wonder how we’ll ever bridge it. And then you decide we don’t have to bridge it. We just have to win.

    Is this otherwise sensible person able to explain to you why those on the right creating most of the problems are allowed to do so without being arrested by city and state Democrat administrations? It has even been documented that in the few cases where they have been arrested, no charges have been filed or where bail has been required it has been provided by organizations of the Left.

    These rioters and looters are not The Proud Boys.

    • #17
    • November 3, 2020, at 7:22 AM PST
    • 1 like
  18. Matt Upton Inactive

    Henry, if you could have run Trump’s campaign I think polls would have looked much different leading up to today, and I could have voted for the President with less internal conflict. You summed up the best Trump can be, and wish it could be the one I see more often. 

    • #18
    • November 3, 2020, at 11:54 AM PST
    • 2 likes
  19. Flicker Coolidge

    Matt Upton (View Comment):

    Henry, if you could have run Trump’s campaign I think polls would have looked much different leading up to today, and I could have voted for the President with less internal conflict. You summed up the best Trump can be, and wish it could be the one I see more often.

    Wait until you’ve spent forty years voting for people who don’t do anything for you or keep their words, but actually let the things they promised and the very positions they held slide into the abyss. Then you may see men like Trump stand out in a better light.

    • #19
    • November 3, 2020, at 12:57 PM PST
    • 3 likes