“I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching. They’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know. They'll say ‘why she wouldn't even hurt a fly.”
It’s Back to the Future in presidential politics. Who can forget the famous debate in 2012 between Clint Eastwood and the empty chair? Still to this very day people talk about that debate as one of the greatest ones in human history. There was nothing anyone could do to top that spectacle.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Yes, it can be topped. Eastwood’s performance was at a party convention. This time the debate will be at the presidential level itself. At least it will be more civil than the first one.
It is common practice to note that the future convict doesn’t live in the real world. It is impressive how many people he has been able to con to joined him in Trumpietown. But despite that there are some connections to the real world that even he can’t deny.
Election Day is only a few weeks away. His preference to delay the election until it was safe again to vote went nowhere. He knows the election is going to be held on November 3 and has already started.
He also knows that the polls show that he will lose the election. It is even possible that a demented person trapped in a basement and only one step from a nursing home could win more votes than the 306 Electoral College votes in the 2016 landslide. A vote total more than a landslide will be difficult to even contest yet alone overcome.
He knows the ghost of Christmas Future has visited him. A son is being forced to testify under oath. His taxes have been disclosed revealing he deducts more in hair care than most Americans earn. The courts continue to rule against him on his taxes. The rape charge slander case continues.
Plus he is drugged on steroids.
Until these circumstances, it is only natural that the prospect of being forced to live in the real world would drive him to more and more extreme actions.
“I think this was a blessing from God that I caught it. It was a blessing in disguise.”
“I’m back because I am a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young. And so I’m lucky in that way. I could’ve been out of the hospital in one day.” It’s a miracle.
If only all Americans would allow this miracle to occur in their own lives, the coronavirus would be banished once and for all.
At this point, it is useful to update the calendar of target dates that I began last May and to see how things are going.
April 2011: Birtherism – reveal Hawaii findings on Obama soon: STILL WAITING
October 2016: sue all his women accusers after the campaign: STILL WAITING
July 16, 2019: Healthcare – “You’ll see that in a month when we introduce it. We’re going to have a plan. That’s subject to winning the House, Senate, and presidency, which hopefully we’ll win all three. We’ll have phenomenal health care.” STILL WAITING but at least he is asked about it.
May 5 2020: “There is tremendous hope as we look forward and we begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.” DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT YET?
May 8 2020: “Those jobs will all be back, and they’ll be back very soon.” WHEN IS SOON?
May 15 2020: Coronavirus deaths drop to zero: WE HAVE PREVAILED!!!
May 25 2020: Celebrate the victory over the coronavirus again after only 6 days of prevailing!!!!!!!
June 2020: Back to Normal economy: STILL WAITING
July 2020: We’re rockin’ now: “We will transition into greatness. That’s a phrase you’re going to hear a lot, because that’s what’s going to happen.” STILL WAITING – how often do you hear about this rockin transition to greatness?
Fall 2020: Deep State Indicted: RUNNING OUT OF TIME – Hannity called on him earlier this week to handcuff and lock the perpetrators of the greatest political crimes in American history. There is no excuse for delaying now that more documents have been released about Crooked Hillary and her collusion with the Russians to undermine the legitimately elected President with the knowledge of Obama and Biden. No sooner had Hannity issued that clarion call then his puppet ramped up the pressure on his Attorney General as time is dwindling down until the election. It is time for Bill Barr to act or he will go down in history as “a sad situation” for not prosecuting these criminals. “Bill has got to move.” Time is running out.
October 2020: announce vaccine cure in election day surprise – DONE but the CDC is not cooperating. Had to make announcement of a miracle cure on his own which he will distribute freely to everyone who has a bad case of the flu.
November 3 2020: Deploy army of real Americans to suppress vote of…you know…those people – Vote Suppressors to become a TV reality show: STILL ON TARGET
November 3 2020: CLAIM VICTORY NO MATTER THE RESULTS
November 3 2020: Democratic coronavirus hoax magically disappears and all lockdowns and restrictions end [I don’t recall who made this prediction on Fox.]
Fourth Quarter 2020: economy will be tremendous: won’t know until 2021 when it will be too late.
January 1, 2021: begin distribution of miracle vaccine
January 20 2021: Nancy Pelosi becomes President
January 20 2021: Arrested by New York, spends night at Rikers
March 20, 2021: Death of a President and the takeover by a monster Communist: “Biden won’t be president for two months. He’s not mentally capable.”
November 2024: Death of the suburbs November 2024: Defunding of police departments November 2024: Takeover by anarchists, terrorist, and criminals – Already underway in October 2020 with the attempt by some fine people in Michigan who stood ready to liberate Michigan. If it weren’t for the disloyal FBI Director they might have succeeded with the attempt.
Time is running out. The real world is closing in. Only one thing he can do before they take him away.
“Trump’s Corona – False Claims and expectations”: Palestinian Authority editorial:
What if the claim that US President Donald Trump was infected with the corona virus is fabricated? Some say President Trump fabricated this news to win sympathy, and to avoid future debates with his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden…
The Washington Post counted 3,000 lies by Trump, a thousand of them on Corona virus… so the fabrication of infection remains possible. Perhaps the thing that most reinforces this is the fact that Trump’s infection with the Coronavirus was published a few days after his first debate with his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, which Trump turned into the worst debate in history!
Of course there remains [the possibility] that the Corona virus has indeed managed to reach the American president, and that there is no fabrication in that regard. If this is the case, and without malicious joy, perhaps we can aspire that the suffering caused by this disease will cause the American president to re-examine the erroneous and aggressive policies towards humanity and its just causes, which he represents while he fuels racist extremist ideas, and sides with falsehood against truth, and with occupation against liberation and freedom…
Whether or not the U.S. president has caught Coronavirus, we will not analyze this news based on wishful thinking. Coronavirus is a disease that we do not wish for the creatures of Allah wherever they are, and we pray for the speedy recovery of all those infected.
[Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Oct. 4, 2020]
In stunning development Donald Trump openly admitted that he was not a very stable genius, he is not the smartest person in the room. This extraordinary admission occurred when he was hospitalized for the coronavirus. At that time, he announced that now he “gets” it.” And it only took eight months! What a remarkable example of mental acuity. He very well may receive a Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery to go with his Peace prizes.
This learning experience has a pedagogical significance.
“I learned a lot about Covid. I learned it by really going to school. This is the real school. This isn’t the let’s read-the-books school. And I get it. And I understand it. And it’s a very interesting thing and I’m going to be letting you know about it.”
Now we now why he doesn’t read the briefing books. He doesn’t learn from writing. He doesn’t learn from reading. He doesn’t learn from adult presentations. He learns from real world experience. Sure, he could say to Bob Woodward that he realize how dangerous he was but he didn’t really. He didn’t learn until he had the disease itself.
Some people took the Susan Collins approach like the Palestinian Authority. Remember how being impeached and then tried was a learning experience too. Maybe this time, he would now realize the seriousness of the virus and be the leader the country we need.
Ben Rhodes said, “They are acting like they can defy gravity. The reality has finally come home.”
On the CNN website, the view was expressed:
For much of this year, Trump has spun an alternate reality about the dangers of coronavirus — disputing science and the efficacy of masks, downplaying the risks to the American people, and making false statements about how 99% of coronavirus cases in America are “totally harmless” or that the virus “affects virtually nobody.
He encouraged his aides and advisers to live in that dangerous fantasy land, pushing his luck to the limits as late as this past week when he again recklessly gathered thousands of unmasked Americans at his political rallies and packed the top officials in government into a Rose Garden ceremony for his Supreme Court nominee. All the while, White House officials embraced the fallacy that administering rapid coronavirus tests frequently at the White House could provide a shield of immunity.
The President’s construct crumbled Friday when he was airlifted to Walter Reed after contracting the virus, while many aides, advisers and allies were testing positive for Covid-19 after interacting with him over the past week.
WHAT! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? He already is the leader the country needs. He rates himself a 10, an A, and A+, he would change a thing that he did. His construct didn’t crumble. He is more sure than ever that he is on the right course.
Nothing has changed. He said he was going to let us know what he learned and he has.
“Don’t be afraid of it. You’re going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment, we have the best medicines.”
“Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!”
DON’T LET IT DOMINATE YOUR LIFE!
Remember that word “dominate”? Remember how he dominated Lafayette Square as no President in American history ever has dominated a battleground? Remember how he told the governors to “dominate” their cities or else he would do it for them. Remember how he dominated the first debate scarcely allowing the basement-dweller an opportunity to speak, the greatest Presidential debate in American history. Now he has dominated the virus.
What has he learned?
Real men don’t get Covid-19. Only weak people get sick.
Real men don’t go to hospitals. Only weak people do.
Real men don’t get oxygen. Only weak people do.
Real men don’t wear masks. Only weak people do.
Real men don’t have doctors who tell the truth.
Real men don’t have a chief of staff who tells the truth.
He’s back, stronger than ever, stronger than he has been in 20 years. He is raring to go full-steam ahead to put the virus behind us where it belongs. Let’s get America moving again.
Is followers are ready. Over at Fox, Clueless Jim Jordan mocked Joe Biden about when he learned about the positive test result:
He wakes up, has a cup of coffee, and calls it a day.
He closes his campaign at 9:30 in the morning.
Hannity was gracious enough to give Biden a 10:00 AM end of the day. Business as usual.
In fact, Hannity tonight launched an all-out assault on the perpetrators of the greatest political crime in American history, the Russia hoax. It’s time for the Deep State to be hauled off in handcuffs and be locked up. Soon the cry will heard again at Trump rallies: “LOCK HER UP!” and the rest of them, too
There will be no change in policies and procedures on the virus.
There will be no stimulus package until after the election, if then. The stimulus package is not as important as a Supreme Court judge anyway. And since he is going to win, there isn’t going to be a relief package.
This infection has been a learning experience for America too. We now know how important it is for him not to appear weak. Yes, his base wants a warrior leader and he is pretending to be one with his rip-the-mask-off production. But we should keep in mind that it is always about him. He had the opportunity to exhibit sympathy and empathy and he didn’t take it. He had the chance to reach out to the female voters whom he has lost in droves and he didn’t take it. He could have tried to get back into the game as his polls plummeted. But he didn’t even try. Why not? It is more important to him that he not appear weak. He would risk his health and his reelection rather than appear weak. Let that realization sink in: he would jeopardize his reelection, his stay of jail for four years card, rather than appear weak. He dominated the first debate and was not weak when infected. And he trails by 14-16%. What a deal.
"Then the catcher makes an error, not a bit like Yogi Berra." From a 6th grade poem by the future Coronavirus President (picture by Sam Falk/The New York Times)
A catcher’s mask is not a coronavirus mask. Does our Coronavirus President know that?
When he was in 6th grade he was a catcher. He even wrote a poem including Yogi Berra, who was then a star catcher for the New York Yankees. They were probably his favorite team since they were winners.
He knows what a football helmet is.
He probably knows what a goalie mask is.
He probably knows what a helmet on a knight in shining armor is.
What do all these objects have in common?
What they have in common is that they are designed to protect the wearer. That function is significant. It means that it was imprinted on him at a young age that masks were designed to protect the wearer. They had nothing to do with anyone else. He has known that for over 60 years.
It is important to recognize that the idea is fixed in his mind.
No matter what Fauci says to him about masks, he knows that masks are to protect the wearer.
No matter what Birx says to him about masks, he knows that masks are to protect the wearer.
Try telling a teenager not to text and drive. You can say the words all you want. The teenager can even repeat them back to you. The teenager can even take a test from the Motor Vehicles Bureau and demonstrate knowledge of these words and their meaning. So what. What does mean for the teenager’s behavior?
The same applies to any advice about drugs, drinking and driving, smoking, or any other behavior you don’t want the teenager to do. “OK, Mom. I hear you. OK, Dad, I won’t do it.”
And then guess what happens?
Telling Woodward the words of recognizing the danger of the coronavirus is not the same as understanding them. If you think with your gut and not your brain, the words never sink in. He is still the sixth grader who knows that masks are designed to protect the wearer. Nothing will ever change that.
You think I am nuts, spinning absurd interpretations worthy of a conspiracy website or Fox. Listen to what he actually said to Hannity when he learned that Hope Hicks had the coronavirus. He was surprised.
“She is a hard worker, a lot of masks, she wears masks a lot. But she tested positive.”
How could she test positive? She wore a mask! What do you mean “BUT SHE TESTED POSITIVE”? Wearing a mask doesn’t protect the wearer from getting the virus, it prevents the wearer from spreading the virus. Hope Hicks wore a mask, therefore she should have been protected from the virus. For over 60 years, he has known that masks protect people.
Now consider what he said about Joe Biden during the debate.
“I don’t wear a mask like him. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
Yes, masks protect people, but real men don’t wear masks because real men don’t need to wear masks. Wimps the weak Joe Biden need to wear a mask even when they are 200 feet away from anyone. What a loser. He finally crawls out of his basement and is so terrified of the real world around him that he has to wear a mask. And you think he has the right stuff to be President!
This is how his mind works.
Look at what he did before the debate. He attended a superspreader fundraiser in New Jersey maskless. Why should be wear mask? He didn’t need protection. Hanks to the coverup, we still don’t know the sequence of how he and Hope caught the virus in the first place.
For an adult to wear a mask is to admit weakness. The alpha male wannabee will never admit to being weak. He didn’t retreat to the bunker for security purposes, he was on an inspection tour. And then he dominated Lafayette Square as no other President in American history had ever dominated a space before. And if those governors couldn’t dominate their cities, he would dominate them for them. Never show weakness. Dominate.
Look at how he dominated the two presidential debates in 2016 and 2020. Here is what I wrote about the 2016 debate as a variation of the 1960 debate. This time instead of a radio versus a TV winner, there was a verbal versus a physical winner (Predator in Chief, Our Lady of Perpetual Victimhood: A Presidential Election Retrospective).
During the high school debate while one candidate jabber jabbered, the other candidate was unleashed. He did not remain bound to his lectern. He did not remain a prisoner of the rules of debate. Instead he roamed the arena stalking his prey. A known predator who felt and feels free to grab females whenever and wherever he chooses [and get away with it because he is a celebrity] was now stalking his newest victim. A physically-larger person was circling the smaller victim. What would she do?
It wasn’t as if she didn’t know she was being stalked by a known predator. She knew she was and she knew she had a decision to make. She was now in the arena. She now needed to show if she had the right stuff or not. As she later would write:
Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space. Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly: ‘Back up, you creep, get away from me! I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’
Perhaps she remembered when a candidate in a Senate debate had violated her space and it had reverberated to her advantage. Not this time.
As she acknowledges, she chose Option A. Now with hindsight she realizes maybe she would have been better off if she had chosen Option B. On radio, no one would have noticed the dilemma she faced. On TV, many people did. Regardless of who won the high school debate, they knew who had won the game of Survivor. When asked in an interview in 1987 whether he would rather be appointed president or run for office, he replied:
“It’s the hunt that I believe I love.”
When he stalked her, he knew what he was doing. When he prowled the arena, he knew what he was doing. When he circled around her, he knew what he was doing.
The same scenario played out earlier this week. This time the opponent was a male plus there was the coronavirus. The option to dominate by physically stalking the foe had been removed. Instead he would dominate through words and bluster. He would bully his opponent into submission by not allowing him the opportunity to get a word in edgewise. And he succeeded. He declared the debate to be the greatest presidential debate in American history. He was the dominant one, not the weak one.
Previously I had predicted two possible moments when he might be forced to live in the real world (The Trump Doctrine versus the Truman (Jim Carrey) Doctrine Update).
1. When he left the White House on January 20, 2021.
2. When he would be investigated under oath with no immunity and the prospect of jail or prison.
No tweets or phone-ins on Hannity would save him then.
It turns out, there may be a third way in which he comes face to face with the real world. It is in a way the flippant President expected. Now that he is in the hospital. Now he is being given experimental medications under special consideration. This is for real. He knows he can’t tweet or bully his way out of this virus. He knows he might die. Will he learn anything if he lives?
Will he change his behavior now that he knows coronavirus that no curve has been rounded and that no miracle has occurred?
Will he decide to pay taxes since they are what pay for him to get the medical care he needs?
Will he stop trying to take away people’s health care and instead promote genuine health care plan?
Will he wear a mask and require everyone else to do so too?
Will he tell the truth about his own health from his mysterious hospital visit last year to his hospital visit this year?
Will he inform his followers that the coronavirus is not a hoax, not the flu, and that people should knock of the masks-are-slavery nonsense and listen to the scientists?
Will he apologize to the country?
Or will he claim that no president in American history ever overcame a greater medical threat than he has and go back to his normal? Unfortunately for him, “back to his normal” won’t work and if he is unable to grow from this experience to become a better person than he was then the country will continue to pay the price.
Now we know why Fred Trump put his son in military school. Everybody knows his son is immature child. He has been one for decades and will be until the day he dies. For whatever reason certain portions of his brain never developed during the maturation process. As a result through no fault of his own, he is trapped at the level of a seventh-grade smart-aleck-dumb-aleck, frozen in time, unable to change. Now the world has had the opportunity to witness him being his true self.
THE PUBLIC DISPLAY
The public displays of his immaturity as President are well documented. They can be seen in
1. his tweets
2. his press conferences
3. his rallies.
In each case, he is able to operate freely, unencumbered by adult supervision or even the pretense of it. He can tweet impulsively at any time of the day or night with no checks and balances on his thinking or, more appropriately, lack of thinking. If it feels good to his gut then it is worth tweeting or retweeting, no questions asked, no research required.
When Trumpicans say, as they do, they wish he would tweet less, they are saying they are aware he acts like a teenager and wish he would grow up. Still, he appoints the judges, builds the wall, and leaves the treaties they don’t like. Trumpicans overlook everything even when he calls them suckers, losers, and disgusting people.
Sometimes at press conferences, he will try to be adult. That can last for a while. Then he is asked some questions. The next thing you know, it is “Fake News” and “Nasty Cutie-Pie.” There are limits as to how long he can fake being an adult.
At his rallies, there is no control. He is in his element as a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb aleck. He can carry on for as long as he likes. You can’t send him to the principal’s office. He is the superintendent.
All these examples mean, he has limited experience in a discussion between equals. And if the press gets uppity, he simply walks of the stage. Show over. He can’t do that in a debate.
THE PRIVATE DISPLAY
As to what he is like in private meetings, we have to rely on the reports of others. Many people have described a damming picture of the immature child with limited attention span who is focused only on himself. The reports from former people in the intelligence services, the military, and the White House are fairly consistent. They paint of picture of a person out of his league who lacks the mental necessities and cognitive skills to do his job. They only task he seems to good besides promoting himself is being subordinate to Putin.
Thanks to the debate, we now have a glimpse of what those meetings must have been like…and still are. It is one thing to read about them in a book or hear someone describe them on a talk show; it is quite another to see such behavior first hand in the presidential debate. There were supposed to be rules. We saw how meaningless that idea was. Now imagine what it must be like in a meeting run by the person the country and the world just saw live on television. What a frightening thought. It is easy to understand how people who went to military school as adults and then made the military their career would have problems functioning in a meeting led by the person on display in the debate. How long do you think you would last in such a setting?
TRUMPICANS WITNESS THE TRUTH
Presumably Trumpicans watched the presidential debate for themselves. Presumably they did so on Fox. Presumably they know the moderator was from Fox as well. In other words, when it comes to the debate there is no Fake News, no rigged format, no terrorist/anarchist/socialist participant. They saw with their own eyes how their Lord Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, acts. They are quite capable of drawing their own conclusions about what they witnessed without having the Fox Triplets tell them what to think.
Just in case they do need some help in understanding what “really” happened regardless of what they think they saw, the Fox Triplets are ready to show them the truth. After all, he “turned in the greatest debate performance in presidential history,” he said so himself.
In my last blog, I suggested there was one way the pending Constitutional crisis could be avoided. The more Fox News reports that unrigged non-fraud Fox polls (and other ones) decisively show a Biden victory, the more Trumpicans will become resigned to the uncomfortable truth that Joe Biden is going to win. That process may have started already.
The debate exposed some false stories the Fox Triplets have been peddling for months. I was going to write a blog entitled “How Long Can One Person Be on a Deathbed and Not Die?’ I refrained from doing so because that blog would have been posted the day Ruth Bader Ginsburg died after months of McConnell patiently waiting for her to do so. Still, the issue of the fraudulent claims about Joe Biden may finally have come back to undermine the validity of the Fox Triplets.
For months now, the pre-teens and friends have been having rank out contests: who could demean and insult Joe Biden the most. He wasn’t just hiding in his basement, he was in his nursing home. He wasn’t just in a nursing home, he was moments from death. He wasn’t just moments from death, he had died but no one could tell. The childish glee of the supposed adults was fascinating to watch not simply for its foolishness but for its shortsightedness. What did they really think would happen at the debate? Did they expect Joe Biden to keel over and die on national television? What did they think their credibility would be if it turned out that Joe Biden was quite capable of standing and surviving a 90-minute assault?
At some level, some Trumpicans must realize that the Fox Triplets’ description of Joe Biden was in error. Even the triplets know it. Hannity has abandoned that tact just as he once abandoned his attacks on Seth Rich. When the focus had switched to the tax returns prior to the election, the triplets were busy anticipating the Lindsay Graham its-almost-October bombshell on the Russia investigation. Meanwhile Durham’s investigation won’t be completed by Election Day. He knows what he has to deliver or be fired. Instead he is waiting until after the vote. That way when he announces there is no “there” there, just mistakes, omissions, and sloppy work but no Deep State conspiracy, he won’t pay the price for telling the truth.
So what Breaking News is left between now and Election Day? Just today, Pennsylvania and Texas announced they are going all out to suppress the Biden vote. They know the truth. The pandemic is not over. Ask Hope Hicks. There will be more disclosures from the Muller Report by November 2. What will be in them as to why the President wasn’t charged? And there are more polls. More polls delivering the same message: Joe Biden will win.
THE TOWNHALL DEBATE
Given the performance in the first debate, what can we expect in the second one? Suppose ordinary Americans ask questions that can be ignored when asked by the press? Will he just walk off the stage? Here are some possible questions real people might ask.
1. All the polls show that Joe Biden is going to win. Are they rigged?
2. I (or a loved one) served in the military (and was wounded or my loved one was killed). You avoided military service by pretending to have bone spurs. Am I (or my loved one) a sucker and loser while you are the smart one?
3. I paid $7500 in taxes last year, ten times more than you paid when you did pay taxes. Am I stupid?
4. Why are you subordinate to Putin? Does he have something on you? Is it because you want to build Trump Moscow? Is it because the alpha male is a father-figure to you?
How insulting will he be to the people who ask him questions? The town-hall format provides another opportunity for Trumpicans to witness the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck in his element unless he has developed for extremely strong self-control between now and then. As the stakes get higher and time dwindles, the greater the pressure becomes.
The big mysteries are
1. Is there a straw that will break the camel’s back?
2. Are we reaching that point in these debates?
After all, what does he have to look forward to on the night of January 20, 2021? He will be a loser politically as he has been in business. His future is in court, jail, or prison and testifying to the FBI, the Senate, the House, and Adam Schiff. The closer that date comes, the more likely he is to self-destruct after having nightmares about polls and the loss of immunity. We may look back on the first debate as his calm one.
The Apocalypse is coming. Or so one would think based on the words and actions of the non-believing President who mocks the values of the white evangelicals who accept him as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed be His Name. The election is rigged. The only way he can lose is due to the greatest act of political corruption in American history replacing the 2016 election as the greatest political corruption in American history.
The son who is being compelled to testify under oath in court, apparently the first of many many times to come, has graciously shared with the American people that his father would accept the election results and participate in a peaceful transfer of power if Joe Biden won in a landslide. Since everyone knows that 306 electoral votes constitutes a landslide that means if Biden wins 306 votes or more in the Electoral College, its game over. Don’t hold your breath. However it does permit Biden an easy counterargument to the coming assault: You can’t contest a landslide election. Of course as we know from the statement in the 2016 by the still-Republican Party on fulfilling a Supreme Court vacancy, Republican promises aren’t even worth the used-toilet paper they are written on.
“LEE’S” CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
The present plan to divide the United States into two – a house masked and a house unmasked cannot stand – calls for a two prong strategy.
The Initial Assault
The initial attack will be to deny Biden sufficient votes to win in the Electoral College. The exact points of engagement won’t be known until after the votes are tallied. Remember how in 2016, the number of supposed fraudulent votes changes as more were needed to claim victory in the popular vote. Still it is possible to make some predictions even before the actual number of votes needed is determined.
Presumably, some of the same states that pushed him over the top in 2016 will be the ones where the vote totals are challenged. Pennsylvania for sure, probably Michigan, and then Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona, Florida and Georgia if needed and if they voted for Biden. This list, of course, is subject to change. The goal of this engagement is to call into doubt as many states as are needed with an overwhelming number of lawsuits.
The Judicial Campaign
The second phase of the campaign is to have “my Court” rule in favor of the loser. Interestingly, the vacancy on the Court needs to be filled for this portion of the campaign to succeed. Supposedly it would be better to have ninth judge to prevent a 4-4 tie. That means the Chief Justice is presumed to support the Democratic-appointed judges so that the Court does not have a 5-3 split. Thus the ninth judge is needed on “my Court” to effect a split 5-4 decision and not a 6-3 one.
Regardless, the intent is to so overwhelm the Supreme Court with so many lawsuits that they cannot be resolved in time for the Electoral College convenes to vote. Therefore the Court will rule that the votes from the contested states cannot be included in that vote. The result is that Joe Biden did not win the majority of votes needed to be voted into office as President.
The Contingent Election
Obviously, someone briefed our ignorant President on the intricacies of Constitutional and electoral law. There is no way he could have known this on his own. For him to mention the 26 Republican state votes he would receive in the present Congress in the Contingent Election shows he was paying attention in this briefing. True, no one knows what the division will be in the new Congress. True, Nancy Pelosi will decline to seat the exact number of supposed Republican winners needed to shift the states to Democratic. True there will be a rash of lawsuits contesting that action. True, it will not be possible to resolve all the disputed Congressional seats in time for the January 20 inauguration. Hello, President Pelosi.
HOW CHRIS WALLACE AND FOX NEWS CAN PREVENT A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS
Lately, there has been some discussion about what Fox News can do on Election Night to prevent the Apocalypse Now scenario where armed-people are rioting in the street throughout the country both for and against the results. The typical response is twofold.
1. don’t call the election prematurely – wait for the votes to be in even if it means not calling the election on Tuesday night
2. call the election for Joe Biden if the votes show he won.
Trumpicans like the Chinese only get their news from one source, the government propaganda outlets. If a tree falls in the woods and it is not on Fox, then nothing happened. They don’t know about the $413 million from Fred Trump that he lost or the $427 million from The Apprentice. So the hope here is that Fox News won’t launch the Apocalypse Now spiral into chaos through an incorrect call.
This analysis overlooks what Chris Wallace and Fox News can do between now and Election Day. How is it we are going through all these doomsday scenarios anyway? Would we be going through them if everybody expected Joe Biden to lose? No. We are going through them because everyone expects Joe Biden to win including his opponent.
Why does everyone expect Joe Biden to win? Because of the polls showing it. They show it nationally as well in the battle states. Even the Fox polls show Joe Biden winning.
Are the polls rigged? Does all the ranting and raving about the rigged elections apply to the polls? Is there any mail-fraud in the calculation of the polls including the Fox polls? Are illegal aliens voting in the polls including the Fox polls? Are people voting twice in the polls including the Fox polls? Is there any fraud at all involved in these polls that show Joe Biden ahead?
Will Chris Wallace and Fox News show their audience the results of the polls? Will Chris Wallace and Fox News show their audience the results of the Fox polls showing Joe Biden is winning? Will Chris Wallace and Fox News show their audience day by day until the Election that Joe Biden is winning?
I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I can speculate on the results if it does. If Chris Wallace and Fox News show their audience day after day in its own unrigged polls that Joe Biden is winning, by Election Day, their audience will know what to expect. They won’t like the results but they will have seen for weeks what is in in-store for them. The more Chris Wallace and Fox News tell them that the unrigged Fox polls show Joe Biden is the winner, the more likely they are to accept those results on Election Day. At some point, the truth of those numbers may sink in. You will see in the body language. It will go from exultant to defiant to resigned. I am not saying it will happen; I am saying it could happen. The more Chris Wallace and Fox News report on the polls and the real world (coronavirus, taxes, disgusting people, etc.), the more the wind will be taken out of the sails of the Apocalypse Now scenario.
Consider this hypothetical. The current 49-42% popular split [it might even be more for Biden] converts to a 53.8% to 46.2% vote in a two-person race with the total of 100% of the vote. Incidentally, this remarkably means no change on the Republican side despite everything and the Democratic increase is due to the absence of a significant third party vote. It makes me wonder if there really are 9% undecided or not.
Now suppose 140,000,000 people vote, a slight increase from 2016 but who knows what the turnout will be. The 53.8% to 46.2% split means a popular vote roughly of 75.4 million for Joe Biden and 64.6 million for his opponent. Do you think the Supreme Court will overturn a roughly 11 million popular vote spread? Will the House of Representatives? Will the country? The more Chris Wallace and Fox News tell their audience the truth before Election Day, the less likely there will be a Constitutional crisis after Election Day.
Will Donald Trump succeed where Robert E. Lee failed?
Crunch time is coming. America’s Third Civil War is fast approaching the moment of truth. After weeks, months, and years of writing about it, the battle is now taking shape to determine if America continues to exist as a single country. Lincoln’s adage that a house divided cannot stand is true but not appropriate. We are not “a” house. We were two houses when we constituted ourselves in 1787. We were two houses when we fought the Civil War/War of Northern Aggression. We were two houses when we celebrated the Sesquicentennial of that war. And we obviously are two houses now in the coronavirus pandemic.
OUR BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
Election Day will be our Gettysburg. The preliminary skirmishes have already started. The rhetoric anticipating the battle is being heard. Our historically ignorant President praised Robert E. Lee to an audience in Minnesota. The title of the local news article covering that story was:
Trump’s praise of Robert E. Lee gets pushback from Minnesotans proud of state’s role at Gettysburg: Minnesota soldiers played a pivotal role at Gettysburg, a major Confederate loss
Standing in the heart of a state that has gloried in its role in helping save the Union at Gettysburg, President Donald Trump extolled at length Friday the battle prowess of a seemingly odd hero — Gen. Robert E. Lee. Some Minnesota veterans and Civil War historians were surprised to hear the commander-in-chief lavish praise on a man who led the Confederacy’s fight against Americans trying to preserve the Union. “Had he won, we would be two countries,” state Sen. Jerry Newton, a veteran who served in the Vietnam War and the Middle East, said Saturday. “That’s just unconscionable for me, for him to make those statements.”
A painting at the Minnesota State Capitol depicting the First Minnesota Volunteer Regiment’s historic firefight on July 2, 1863, in the Battle of Gettysburg.
The Minnesota Republican Party and several GOP legislators and officials didn’t respond Saturday to requests for comment on the president’s remarks.
The very stable genius who speaks about Lincoln to Confederates now speaks of Lee to Unionists. But he is right to sense in his gut that we are at a Gettysburg moment.
WILL DONALD TRUMP SUCCEED WHERE ROBERT E. LEE FAILED?
Gettysburg marked the turning point of the Confederacy’s invasion of the North. Ultimately the United States did not become a legally divided country. The Union prevailed. The current un-Lincoln President favors the Confederacy over the Union. He has been quite open on his admiration for Confederate generals and the Confederate way of life. He practically sighs in disappointment over how close Lee came to triumphing over the Union.
This preference is not actually because he personally knows anything about the Confederacy beyond Gone with the Wind. What appeals to him is the same thing that appeals to him with QAnon and white Protestant evangelicals: they support him. What else matters? By contrast, the Union States tended to vote against him. The longtime faux Democrat and Clinton supporter naturally prefers the people who worship him over those who mock and investigate him.
The coronavirus provides the perfect dividing line for America. The talk about how a virus doesn’t know politics is nonsense. As we have seen, the virus has been very targeted in the people it kills. It preys on the weak. It preys on the unhealthy. It preys on people who are vulnerable. The virus imprinted itself in the American culture as a New York disease that primarily effects people Trumpicans don’t care about anyway. Even after seven months, the virus has only minimally effected Trumpicans. The biggest impact has been economic due to the lockdowns. The political impact is to make the dividing line quite clear. Corvid-19 highlights that we really are two countries masquerading as one.
THE ELECTION THAT COULD BREAK AMERICA
For several weeks if not months, people have been gaming out various “what if” scenarios for the post-election world. By and large, the results have been terrifying. Many existing laws and rules have never been tested. We never have had a President who is a law unto himself with no ethics, no conscience, and no morals. Truly the country will be in uncharted waters after November 3.
The one precedent is the election in 1876. At that time there were rival slates of electors just as there were from Mississippi in the 1960s at Democratic conventions. Just a little over a decade from the end of America’s Second Civil War, the country stood on the brink of beginning another one. In that situation as the clock wound down a deal was struck whereby the South would no longer be occupied territory. Violence was threatened. The newly-freed slaves were collateral damage. It was an ugly moment in American history. Neither of the two candidates then was the incumbent unlike the situation today.
So Tilden got something for stepping down. What does our incumbent want and what would he get if he steps down?
1. He wants to be president for life just like Putin and the leaders from Trumphole countries.
2. As the greatest President in American history, he wants to be President for four-terms (he probably doesn’t know that FDR didn’t actually serve for 16 years but somehow he does know that FDR was elected four times. Maybe his mother told about what life was like under Roosevelt.)
3. He never loses. He didn’t lose the popular vote in 2016, it was rigged and he is not going to lose in 2020 either unless it is rigged.
Is it just coincidence that just as the son is about to be hauled into court that the father reveals that there will be no peaceful transfer because there will be continuity? As the days dwindle to election, he can see the ghost of Christmas future more clearly in the legal problems of his son. He has nothing good to look forward to after leaving the White House so he has nothing to lose by doing everything he can to remain in it.
POSSIBLE SCENARIOS
1. What will California do if Pennsylvania attempts to steal the election? And New York? And so on? Regardless of all the legal shenanigans detailed in Gellman article in The Atlantic, there is the one scenario he only mentioned in passing: the threat of secession. Don’t expect the states to stand by idly if one tries to pull a fast one.
2. Who will Europe support? That’s obvious. Romney already played the Belarus card. The world laughs at America and pities the country because of its simpleminded immature child president. The world favors Make America Adult Again.
3. Who will Russia support? That’s also obvious. We just saw how the pro-Union people of Minnesota reacted when Robert E. Lee was praised in their presence. How will Trumpicans react to the world supporting Biden except for Russia?
4. Who will the American military support? It knows the incumbent is a moron who never stands up to Russia. Only one person can have the nuclear codes. Who will they be given to on January 20?
5. By that point the American people will have whipped into a frenzy. If Biden wins a plurality or majority of the vote, are his supporters going to accept a Biden defeat regardless of the various legal rulings? Will Trumpicans accept the Antichrist as President and life in hell on earth as their future?
Will it be time to recognize that the United States can no longer function as a single country, that we can’t live together?
Perhaps instead of discussing what to do if there are two claimants for the presidency, we should be discussing how each person can be president in separate countries over the people who voted them. Maybe we should be discussing dividing peacefully rather trying to be unified by force? Let’s ask the American people what they think.
How will THE DONALD adjust to the real world? https://www.imdb.com
Time to update the situation of the Trump state of mind versus the Truman state of mind. When last I looked (The Trump Doctrine versus the Truman Doctrine June 14, 2018), Truman was faring better in living in the real world. How are things now?
TRUMAN AND THE REAL WORLD
In case you have forgotten, Truman Burbank was a TV reality star. The difference is that Truman didn’t know he was a celebrity reality star. He thought the world in which he lived was the real world. The suspense and drama were in the moment of truth when the reality show star came face to face with the fact that he was living in a no longer sustainable artificial reality. What would he do then? Could he succeed in banishing the real world and in continuing to live a lie in the fake world or would he seek for better or for worse to live in the world as it actually existed?
We know what happened to Truman. SPOILER ALERT! Through a series of events, the adult Truman seized the initiative and took control over his life. He set sail onto the open sea that had always frightened him only to bump into the sky and learn that someone had built a wall. He pierced it and entered the real world. In Truman’s case, the truth sets him free. He left the fake world that had governed his entire life, took a chance on real emotions, and went forth to live a better life.
Over two years ago in that blog, I wrote: “Nothing like the Truman Doctrine will occur in the TRUMP FIRST, TRUMP ALONE reality.” Let’s see what happened.
TRUMP AND THE REAL WORLD
What is there to say about America’s greatest president?
Nobel Peace Prize for getting his North Korean lover to denuclearize.
Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to the Middle East.
The greatest conservation President since Mount Rushmore President Teddy Roosevelt.
Did more for black people than any President since Mount Rushmore President Abraham Lincoln.
Greatest economy in American history.
Victim of more hoaxes than any President in American history.
Victim of the greatest act of political corruption in American history in the rigged 2016 election.
Victim of the new greatest act of political corruption in American history in the rigged 2020 election.
Wouldn’t change anything in his handling of the coronavirus.
Grades himself a 10 in his handling of the coronavirus.
Grades himself an A in his handling of the coronavirus.
Grades himself an A+ in his handling of the coronavirus.
All things considered, he truly is our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. We are indeed lucky to share the same space-time continuum. Think how many more Americans from Democratic states would have died without his leadership.
HOCUS-POCUS and FRISBY: Where Are the Martians When You Need Them?
Twilight Zone Season 3 Episode 30 Original air date April 13, 1962
The only person who can match the very stable genius is Somerset Frisby. He is a teller of tall tales. He spins his experiences, from his heroism in war despite his bone spurs to his drug cures because of his super-genius uncle to his unsolicited advice via tweets to presidents and captains of industry, all of which he fabricates. His friends gather in the general store to hear him spin his stories, which they find very entertaining, and he never tells the truth except by chance. But he means no harm, is not a horrid, nasty, cutie pie, but no one would vote for him for President.
However, remember this is The Twilight Zone. His reputation transcends the planet Earth and even the solar system. Really illegal aliens have been monitoring human communications especially from Fox. They have heard all his stories. They accept his tales at face value. They have heard him claim eight doctoral degrees despite paying someone to take his SATs. They have heard his being the greatest baseball player in New York City because he doesn’t have a heart. They have observed that he is the smartest person in the room. When he said “person, woman, man, camera, tv,” they practically swooned in ecstasy to have witnessed such a dazzling display of mental brilliance. Naturally, they wanted to take him back to their planet as the outstanding example of the human race.
Faced with this prospect, Frisby has his “Truman” moment. He wants to live in the real world. Frisby pleads that he is simply a shameless liar, but the aliens have no concept of lying. He manages to escape from them before they take him away. When he tries to tell his friends what happened, they enjoy a laugh at what they of course take to be another of Frisby’s tall tales. This is after all, The Twilight Zone.
WILL TRUMP HAVE HIS TRUMAN FRISBY MOMENT?
The Donald is now in the eighth decade of his life. He has been an immature child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old longer than most people have been alive. The chances of him changing before he dies are between zero and non-existent. He did get to be President as a successful businessman despite squandering $413 million dollars. He did con suckers, losers, deplorable and disgusting people with bozo religious customs to worship him. So give credit where credit is due. He could even win the election fairly.
Nonetheless, there are some moments that might force him to live in the real world for the first time in his life.
1. Leaving the White House January 20
Suppose despite Putin, Biden wins both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Suppose the loser contests the results through the courts. Suppose that process drags on because there are so many disputes and challenges and there is no judicial resolution despite his control of the Supreme Court, then Nancy Pelosi becomes President and he has to leave the White House.
Suppose to forestall that contingency, the Commander in-Chief orders the military to seize ballots so he can steal the election, will the military obey him?
Suppose to forestall that contingency he orders the National Guard to seize ballots so he can steal the election, are there enough of the right states governed by Trumpicans so that would work?
Suppose to forestall that contingency, the Mafia Boss of Bosses unleashes the Attorney General. But he is only one person. Suppose the attorneys he commands rebel and refuse to help him steal the election (or take away health care from their fellow Americans)?
Suppose Trumpican states select alternate electors who will provide the margin of victory if accepted? Who will make the decision if there are two claims of victory? Will Nancy Pelosi become President?
Suppose there is no Electoral College resolution by the time the new Congress is installed and a Contingent Election by the House is required? Trumpicans control 26 state delegations in the House today. What will the number be in January? How many Congressional seats also will be contested? Will Pelosi convene the House to hold a Contingent Election if Biden has won the contested Electoral College?
Suppose despite all of the above, come January 20, 2021, Joe Biden becomes the President of the United States? If that happens, that action will be a moment of truth for the would-be four-term President. There will be no peaceful transition in the government to the new President. There will be no peaceful transition to the new President in the mind of the outgoing President. He will be fighting tooth and nail to the very last moment. How will he respond to then having to leave the White House? Given his disconnect, the abrupt change to the real world will be impossible for him to accept.
2. Investigations
Previously, I asked suppose Hannity write a tell-all book (Will Sean Hannity Be Howard Baker?: Suppose He Wrote a Tell-All Book?) Suppose instead after January 20, Hannity and Fox simply cutoff his oxygen? No more commandeering the talk shows. No more interviews. No more arena rallies – who is going to pay for them? When Truman finally leaves the alternate reality for the real world, the faithful viewers seeing that the show is over simply ask, “What else is on?” Of course, the loser will declare his candidacy for 2024 making all the wannabees who sold their soul very unhappy, but what can they do? Push him off the stage? He will become the new Lost Cause for tens of millions of Trumpicans sucking all the oxygen from the room leaving them trapped in the past as Democrats expand the Supreme Court to counteract the recent appointments.
Being investigated will mark a major change in the life of THE DONALD. It will be hard to keep track of all the House committees, Senate committees, federal attorney generals, state civil and criminal courts that want a piece of him. No immunity. Restricted to home. Ankle monitor. Rikers. Welcome to the real world.
No wonder America’s greatest President who wants a four-term presidency and who deserves to be on Mount Rushmore will do everything he can to preserve the alternate reality he has lived in all his life. He has nothing to look forward to after the presidency except a painful reality; no wonder he stop at nothing to remain in the White House.
Imagine a hypothetical where the experts are wrong. Yes, I know how difficult that must be to grasp, but try. Suppose there is a disconnect between what actual people in the real world do and what the experts say the people should do. Naturally, the difference can’t be due to an error by the experts so it must be due to the people. They are too stupid to know what is in their own best interests. If only they would be guided by the wisdom of their betters, everything would be alright.
STRANDED ON THE MOON
I first became aware of the shortcomings of the experts at some corporate retreats/training programs. There we were, a group of strangers gathered together to learn from the experts. As part of the training in one exercise we were divided into smaller groups of probably ten people each. The problem posed to us was that we were stranded on the moon (pre-Matt Damon on Mars) or at another training session in the desert. We were never stranded on an island after a three hour cruise.
The instructors then gave each group a list of 20 items. They asked us to rank the items based on their potential contribution to our survival. After a short time, each group presented its rankings to the collective group. Then the instructors compared our rankings to those of the experts.
One of the 20 items was a gun. I always ranked it last. I always was outvoted. The experts also ranked it higher. On the moon, the gun’s recoil could propel someone across a crevice. In the desert, the sound of the gunshot might attract the attention of the search party.
At this point, I suspect some of you have realized the absurdity of the expert opinion in the real world. Even Hollywood knows such expertise flunks the reality test. In the real world, the gun represents power. Assuming the existence of alpha males in the group or mean girls/queen bees, the gun meant there would be a battle to control it and therefore the group. It would not be used to propel someone across a crevice or to attract searchers, it would be used to kill or threaten to kill someone. Maybe at some point there would be a struggle for the gun, the good guy would prevail, fire the last bullet to get the attention of the searchers just before they disappeared over the horizon, and get the girl but that was not what the experts had in mind. Interestingly, I never proposed giving one person the gun and another person the bullets but as I recall the exercise did not allow for such creativity. Anyway, the lesson learned was that people may be experts in the lab without knowing squat in the real world.
WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS (2004)
The book What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank was another exercise in false expertise. The thrust of the book was to resolve the dilemma of why so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests. There had to be something wrong with these people since culture war issues trumped their economic and social concerns. It would be like supporting candidates who consistently favored tax cuts for the rich while giving you nothing. How could people be so dumb as to be shafted again and again while cheering the very people who exploited them? What’s the matter with these people?
The publication date of 2004 is most revealing. That election year was the last time and only time in the Baby Boomer Era a Republican presidential candidate won a majority vote. If it was written say a year before the publication date, then it was five years before Sarah Palin called for taking back the country and 13 years before the then long-time Democrat and Clinton supporter conned Republicans into thinking he cared about the little people the elitists fly over. To put those years in perspective, it means the Democrats had 13-year notice on the 2016 election and learned nothing during the interim except to pour more oil on the fire. Still it is questionable whether or not the Democrats have learned that there is nothing wrong with the people of Kansas except the way they have been treated by the elitists.
THE WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION
With Civil War, the smug superiority of the condescending arrogant self-righteous elitists really shines through. Everyone knows the war was really about slavery. Everyone knows the claim abut state’s rights was just a smokescreen for the real cause of maintaining slavery. Everyone knows that the proponents of the Lost Cause are really backwards subhuman racists who should not be welcomed in polite society.
Now try listening. Confederates call the war the “War of Northern Aggression.” Why? Maybe they assigned that name to the conflict because it genuinely expresses how they felt. Just as we know from feminists that rape is about power and not sex, so we should consider that for the Confederates, the war also was about the violation of their home. In the Union, the exploits of Sherman and Grant are heroic, to the people who lived on the lands ravaged and devastated, the view was different. “Damn Yankees” is not a slavery-based approbation. It is a response to the mentally and morally superior people who are the elect of God (or the goddess) who never tire of telling Southerners that they are inferior people. Today there are two peoples it is still acceptable to demean and insult: Nazis and Southerners. And then the mentally and morally superior people wonder why such degenerates vote for Trump. Obviously it’s because they are racists who want to bring back slavery. Then the superior people pat themselves on the back and bask in their moral superiority.
THE POLITICALLY CORRECT AND 2016
By now there is no excuse for not knowing that Politically Corrected People (PCP) were more of a determinant than Putin in deciding the 2016 election. I am not going to repeat here example after example from previous blogs or from the ones I have been saving, where Trumpicans express their revulsion at the PCPs. If anything, that revulsion has intensified. Snowflakes in schools and colleges cringing at the mere sight of murals or sound of words! The toppling of statues! The declaration of superiority with the capitalized B in black! Truly the American world is coming to an end. Democrats have expressed no desire to celebrate America…such declarations would only antagonize the Woke who want to replace July 4th with 1619.
Trumpicans may not know anyone who died from Covid-19, but they all have stories to tell about another action against America taken by the PCPs, they seen them on Fox.
As it turns out, Trumpicans are voting for their self-interests but no one until the candidate who thinks with his gut actually listened and understood what those interests were. If people are voting against their economic and social interests perhaps something else is more important to them. Perhaps telling people over and over again they are backward, inferior, and consigned to the demographic dump heap of history isn’t an inspiring message. Perhaps telling people they have nothing to look forward to isn’t an inspiring message. Perhaps elevating people here illegally to the same level as those who are here legally isn’t an inspiring message.
If this country is to remain a single country, a big “if’, then it will become necessary for people to talk to each other. That is not possible now. Neither party is attempting to transcend the differences that divide us. Centrifugal forces rule the day. Thomas Friedman suggested Joe Biden should go on listening tours to Trumpican areas. Not preaching tours, nor haranguing tours, nor lecturing tours, but listening tours. Even Donald Trump tried a town hall with people who are not loyalists. Never again. It didn’t go well. He will never expand his base. Can Biden do better? Does his empathy and sympathy skills extend to people who oppose him? If he expects to govern then he will need to listen to the Trumpicans as well as to the Woke.
Lincoln Has Fallen: What Will Never-Trump Republicans Do?
Over four years ago, on March 2016, I wrote a blog entitled R.I.P. Party of Lincoln (1856-2016). At that time, I did not know the Republican Party would become the Trumpican Party. I did know that the Republican Party was no longer the party of Lincoln. His name was rarely invoked. Even today it rarely is by the President of Malice except when he favorably compares himself to America’s greatest President.
Still, the legacy of Lincoln lives on among the few Republicans left who have not succumbed to becoming Trumpicans. Within the Party, their resistance is futile. They have made themselves known through ads which effectively exposes the shortcomings and dangers of the current President. However those ads will not reclaim the Republicans who have become Trumpicans. Any deprogramming efforts will require substantially more resources, time, and effort than a mere commercial provides…including the desire of the Trumpican in the first place to become a Republican once again.
Ironically, the showcase for the Never-Trump Republicans was the Democratic National Convention. On that virtual stage, these Republicans were welcomed. However in a time when all the Republican presidential nominees in the 21st century are persona non grata in the Trumpican Party, it is difficult to know where these Never-Trump Republicans will align themselves after the elections. Will they continue to support Joe Biden and the Democrats for the next four years? Will they start a third party?
Back on February 29, 2020, I wrote
Rick Wilson, Richard Conway, John Kasich, and Bill Weld can struggle all they want to regain control of the Republican Party but it is not going to happen. At present Lincoln Republicans have no political party. Neither do admirers of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, or even the Bushes. So how will they vote? What will they do now that the Republican Party despises them? (The Socialist versus the Trumpican Smackdown: What Are Democrats and Republicans to Do?)
Now we know how they will vote. Bu we don’t know what the plans are for the future.
In a well-meaning op-ed column, David Brooks wrote:
My guess is that if Trump gets crushed in the election, millions of Republicans will decide they never liked that loser and jerk anyway. He’ll get relegated to whatever bargain basement they are using to hold Sarah Palin (Where Do Republicans Go From Here?, August 9, print).
There is a lot of wishful thinking in those guesses. Think of what has happened in the short interval since those words were first printed. Now think of the impact all those events have had on his popularity. Try “unchanged” since last year at this time.
The one possible glimmer of hope for Brooks is the idea of “loser.” If, and it is an “if,” Trumpicans lose the White House and the Senate and fail to retake the House and if there isn’t a national melt down and Joe Biden does become President, then Trumpicans will be faced with the prospects of Democratic control. Will Trumpicans be content to remain loyal to the loser through 2024 even while he is being prosecuted and perhaps jailed? In my last blog, I asked the question of what Sean Hannity will do if confronted with a Democratic sweep and only a loser to oppose them. At that point will Hannity’s desire to stop the Democrats trump his loyalty to a loser? No one knows now but it is possible to support some Trumpican ideas without supporting the person who has no power future political future.
If, and only if, he is pushed off the stage or is confined to OAN broadcasting from Rikers, who, then, will fill the leadership void? Will the Never-Trump Republicans then be able to regain the support of the former Republicans? Such a prospect seems unlikely. More wishful thinking. One should keep in the mind that none of the multitude of Republican candidates in 2016 assuaged the angst the Republicans felt. All those candidates fell by the wayside. Nothing that has happened in the last four years indicates that Never-Trump Republicans can wrest the leadership position from the defeated and criminal loser or that the party members will follow them. Everyone now is jockeying for position to be the successor who will save the party from ruin< Meanwhile he is not leaving the stage and still could win. You don’t hear much talk about 350 Electoral College votes for Biden now do you?
To return to the Brooks column, in it he dutifully identifies four possible prospects for the future leadership of the Republican Party:
The post-2020, post-Trump Republican future is … is embodied by a small group of Republican senators in their 40s, including Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse. They all came of age when Reaganism was already in the rearview mirror. Though populist, three of them have advanced degrees from Harvard or Yale. They are not particularly close to one another. They may be joined by a common experience, but they are divided by ambition.
Brooks then proceeds to examine the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. This analysis would be perfectly legitimate in normal times, but the one critical lesson of the last four years is that these are not normal times. It is not possible to develop a modified Trumpism to reach out to a larger share of the electorate when the main actor still hogs all the attention. No Trumpican can stand up to him. Besides, one should keep in mind that the Republican presidential popular vote electoral record in the baby-boom era is abysmal. If the boomer candidates leave the stage, there is no inherent reason to believe that next generation will do any better. Remember THEY ALL WILL CARRY TRUMP TAINT. They will have to explain their support as even more and even corruption and criminality is revealed in the ongoing investigations.
Strange at it may seem, there are some Republicans left in the White House. Consider the following excerpts from the acceptance speech at the Trumpican National Convention.
Because we understand that America is NOT a land cloaked in darkness, America is the torch that enlightens the entire world.
Gathered here at our beautiful and majestic White House – known all over the world as the People’s House – we cannot help but marvel at the miracle that is our Great American Story. This has been the home of larger-than-life figures like Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson who rallied Americans to bold visions of a bigger and brighter future. Within these walls lived tenacious generals like Presidents Grant and Eisenhower who led our soldiers in the cause of freedom. From these grounds, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on a daring expedition to cross a wild and uncharted continent. In the depths of a bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln looked out these very windows upon a half-completed Washington Monument – and asked God, in His Providence, to save our union. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt welcomed Winston Churchill, and just inside, they set our people on a course to victory in the Second World War.
What united generations past was an unshakable confidence in America’s destiny, and an unbreakable faith in the American People. They knew that our country is blessed by God, and has a special purpose in this world. It is that conviction that inspired the formation of our union, our westward expansion, the abolition of slavery, the passage of civil rights, the space program, and the overthrow of fascism, tyranny and communism.
In the left’s backward view, they do not see America as the most free, just, and exceptional nation on earth. Instead, they see a wicked nation that must be punished for its sins.
We must reclaim our independence from the left’s repressive mandates. Americans are exhausted trying to keep up with the latest list of approved words and phrases, and the ever-more restrictive political decrees. Many things have a different name now, and the rules are constantly changing. The goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated, and driven from society as we know it. The far-left wants to coerce you into saying what you know to be FALSE, and scare you out of saying what you know to be TRUE.
Our country wasn’t built by cancel culture, speech codes, and soul-crushing conformity. We are NOT a nation of timid spirits. We are a nation of fierce, proud, and independent American Patriots.
We are a nation of pilgrims, pioneers, adventurers, explorers and trailblazers who refused to be tied down, held back, or reined in. Americans have steel in their spines, grit in their souls, and fire in their hearts. There is no one like us on earth.
I want every child in America to know that you are part of the most exciting and incredible adventure in human history. No matter where your family comes from, no matter your background, in America, ANYONE CAN RISE. With hard work, devotion, and drive, you can reach any goal and achieve every ambition.
Our American Ancestors sailed across the perilous ocean to build a new life on a new continent. They braved the freezing winters, crossed the raging rivers, scaled the rocky peaks, trekked the dangerous forests, and worked from dawn till dusk. These pioneers didn’t have money, they didn’t have fame– but they had each other. They loved their families, they loved their country, and they loved their God!
When opportunity beckoned, they picked up their Bibles, packed up their belongings, climbed into covered wagons, and set out West for the next adventure. Ranchers and miners, cowboys and sheriffs, farmers and settlers – they pressed on past the Mississippi to stake a claim in the Wild Frontier.
Legends were born – Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Davy Crockett, and Buffalo Bill.
Americans built their beautiful homesteads on the Open Range. Soon they had churches and communities, then towns, and with time, great centers of industry and commerce. That is who they were. Americans build the future, we don’t tear down the past!
We are the nation that won a revolution, toppled tyranny and fascism, and delivered millions into freedom. We laid down the railroads, built the great ships, raised up the skyscrapers, revolutionized industry, and sparked a new age of scientific discovery. We set the trends in art and music, radio and film, sport and literature – and we did it all with style, confidence and flair. Because THAT is who we are.
Whenever our way of life was threatened, our heroes answered the call.
From Yorktown to Gettysburg, from Normandy to Iwo Jima, American Patriots raced into cannon blasts, bullets and bayonets to rescue American Liberty.
These are not the words of a Trumpican, they are the words of an anonymous Republican in the White House. That writer shows Never-Trump Republicans a way forward. It is not possible to regain leadership in the Republican Party by replacing Trumpicans. It is not possible to expand the electoral reach by being Trump-lite. It is not possible to be a positive force for America’s future simply by stopping the malice. To regain control of the Republican following an electoral ruin, a Lincoln for the 21st century is needed or else the country will remain divided into two houses that can’t live together.
Tis the season of tell-all books. We have heard from the niece, the fixer, the national security director and will hear from the Watergate reporter again. There have been disclosures from the sister and about the military. Even the former BFF of the trophy-wife First Lady has weighed in with tales of corruption. All these testimonials to President Swampbuilder are impressive. None have made any political difference.
But suppose Sean Hannity wrote a book about his experiences with THE DONALD. Hannity has had extensive contact up close and personal, enough to see the truth. Certainly he has had as much opportunity as Putin, the European leaders, and various people who have worked in the White House and who all know the truth about THE DONALD. According to some reports, Hannity knows that he is dealing with a “battrump” bozo. So why not write a book about it and make a fortune?
One reason why he can’t write such a book now is precisely because that book could make a difference. Millions of people via radio and TV rely on Hannity for the truth. His blessing counts. If he withdrew that blessing now during a presidential election, the odds are it would negatively impact the vote for the wrong side. The beneficiary would be Sleepy Creepy Joe Biden, the corrupt one-step-from-death lackey of the younger Socialists really running the Democratic Party. Hannity opposes that victory regardless of whether the opposition is from a Republican or a Trumpican. Under no circumstances would he do any anything to aid and abet the enemy.
But what about after the election? Suppose come January 20, 2021, Hannity is faced with the trifecta of Democratic power: the House, the White House, and the Senate. Then what? Hannity has faced this situation before. He would stand ready to oppose the Democrats just as he did during the Obama years. The question he would ask himself is what is the best way to do so after the vaunted Red Wave sweeps the Trumpican Party from power? What is the best way to resist the Democrats going forward given the likely changes due to the 2020 census? What is the best way to resist the Democrats in upcoming elections in 2022, 2024, and beyond?
Previously I have suggested that even Senator Ron Johnson might return to the real world after the 2020 elections [Mitch McConnell: Howard Baker (Time to Go) vs Stay the Course (Go Down with the Ship), June 8, 2020]. If Wisconsin votes Biden, the champion of it was really the Ukraine who meddled in the election might want to reconsider that position if he intends to run for reelection in 2022. Similarly his sidekick in stupidity, Senator John Kennedy also might want to express in a folksy way that he had been a blithering idiot when reciting Putin talking points.
By contrast, one person would remain as unchanged as his hair (unless he is caught in the wind and rain). THE DONALD will keep ranting and raving that he was defeated in a rigged election, the greatest and most corrupt political scandal since the one perpetrated against him in the 2016 election. He immediately will begin campaigning for his comeback in 2024. In between all his court appearances in the civil and criminal courts in New York and who knows how many federal districts (Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Washington?), he also will appear before various Senate and House committees that now will be unleashed against him. Yet somehow, he will find the time to launch his 2024 campaign.
Similarly Sean Hannity might face a moment of truth after the election as well. He may have no choice but to tell the truth about his meetings and conversations with the President of the United States. After all, he is not a lawyer so they are not privileged. There is no freedom of press issue since these conversations were as an advisor and not a reporter. Subpoenas will be issued against him to compel testimony about his participation in the Ukrainian extortion, abuses of power, and whatever strikes the interest of the Congressional investigation committees. If Hannity chooses to defy the subpoenas, Attorney General Adam Schiff with great glee and satisfaction will add criminal charges to the list and throw him in jail.
Therefore at some point fairly soon after the election, it may be in Hannity’s best interests both personally and politically to tell the truth about his contacts with THE DONALD. Whether he likes the political results or not, there is a part of Hannity that has enough sense and expertise to be aware of the lay of the land in the real world come January 20, 2021. Even if the masses of Trumpicans profess loyalty to their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, Hannity will realize the necessity of charting a new path. He will recognize the futility of having a serially indicted/convicted/incarcerated criminal as the leader of a successful comeback against the Democrats.
At that point, Sean Hannity might become Howard Baker. To do so, he will have to do what no Trumpican has been able to do or is likely to do. No elected Trumpican, no formerly elected Trumpican, and no appointed Trumpican, is going to tell THE DONALD enough is enough. Hannity might. He would inform the Trumpicans that if they want to oppose the Democrats, that it will be in their best interests to become Republicans again. He will inform them that they need to put THE DONALD behind them and move on or else the Trumpicans will become as irrelevant nationally as the Republican Party now is in California or New York. He will thank THE DONALD for what he achieved but assert that for the good of the country – not that THE DONALD would ever sacrifice his own personal interest for the country. What’s in it for him – it is time for him to leave the stage and let others carry on the battle against AOC, Biden, and Pelosi. And that means all the Trumps!
I am not saying that Hannity will pursue this course of action in the event of a 2020 Democratic trifecta and Red Wave drowning Trumpicans. I am saying that Hannity will have arrived at the proverbial fork in the road. One should not doubt the heady experience it was for him to have the President of the United States at his beck and call. On a strictly psychological level, these four years had to have been a rush, a constant high. Now it will be over. He will feel the disappointment. He will feel the Trumpican pain. He may even decide to wallow in it on a show that nobody in power cares about. Or he may chose not to retire from relevance but to fight on in the real world by becoming Howard Baker and announcing to the world that it is time for THE DONALD to go. Depending on the election results, we will know soon enough what choice Hannity makes.
