It was a shocker, but the election wasn’t close – Trump rocked it. Those of use who stayed up until the wee hours of the morning waiting for the official word were actually being a bit abused. You see, by about 11:30 Eastern (or even a little earlier), it was already clear that Hillary couldn’t win. You and I were just watching it on TV and the net, but even from such a vantage point, it was clear by 11:30 Eastern that Hillary simply wasn’t getting enough votes in the Philly and Detroit areas to overcome what Trump was doing elsewhere in PA and MI…and with OH, NC, FL and WI already in the bag, there was zero chance Hillary was going to get to 270, regardless of how CO and NV turned out. She should have called Trump right around then…maybe by midnight to make certain the number crunchers had it completely right (and she had the number crunchers – probably very good ones). She knew she lost some hours before she finally fessed up to it. But, she kept us waiting – and kept her supporters waiting. And that was just plain and simple cruel…it was over and it was time to let them know it was over…and let the winners get their celebration. That is how it works – that is how people who care about others do it. Hillary didn’t – it was that last act of petulance, over and above anything else, which demonstrated her unfitness for office.
The MSM is still in complete melt-down over this – and for each lonely MSM voice pointing out the MSM failure, there seem to be a hundred trying to blame-shift. I think they’ve really finished themselves – not just with Trumpsters, but with everyone. They were guaranteeing the Progressives a Hillary victory. It was in the bag – and they said so not just once, but over and over again…without any caveats. Some pollsters started hedging a bit the final weekend, but the MSM just kept right on…and it was clear as we entered the count phase, they were still certain of it. Who the heck is going to trust what they say?
And who is going to believe the polls? RCP still gets my respect because they just report on what’s out there…but the final RCP average had Hillary up 3.2 points. It looks like her popular vote win will be a rounding error – maybe as low as 0.25%. IBD came closest with Hillary at a 1 point lead, but event that was off the mark…and other polls had her up 4, 5 or 6 points! Yeah, “margin of error”…but, seriously, good polling should have shown this thing a complete toss-up on the national vote, and let’s not even start with how badly it missed PA and MI…and OH, where Trump won by more than 8 points! Eight points! The RCP average there had Trump up 3.5. This isn’t a miss – this is malpractice. Polls are useless, as far as I’m concerned – and I do hope that as 2020 rolls around, we just dispense with them. Let’s look at issues, and also (it would seem) at yard signs and rally attendance…and primary voting (though in 2020 with Trump likely cruising to renomination, that’ll only be interesting on the Democrat side…but, here’s a clue well in advance: if Dem primary turnout is down from 2016, then the Democrats are probably in for a lousy year).
The Democrats will now enter the re-build phase – and here’s where it gets interesting. There is a battle in the Democrat ranks as stark as what we had in the GOP ranks until Trump won the election (the Never Trumpers, such as remain, are gone…a few bitter-enders will drift away for good, but most will come home). We had our fight, and one side carried the day – for better or worse, the GOP is now the party of a Conservative-tinged Populism…strongly patriotic, a bit protectionist, semi-isolationist, not opposed to big spending per se, but much opposed to federal government mandates on local communities (this is something I, as a Distributist, can very much work with – some other Conservatives will find it rougher sledding…but, even then, you have an opportunity for education here, folks). You don’t have to like it or be part of it, but that’s what it is, at least for some number of years going forward. But the Democrats didn’t have their fight – the party apparatus, under the thumb of Clinton, Inc., short-circuited the Democrats’ internal fight – now, it will explode with a vengeance. The first battle will be over who will become DNC chair – and the various ultra-left groups who backed Bernie and felt betrayed by Clinton will make a full-court press to get one of their own in the job, and be opposed by the Schumer/Pelosi wing of the Democrat party. It will be fun to watch…the various pressure groups the Democrats created to keep people fired up and divided will now rip the Democrat party apart for at least a year, maybe longer.
Now, all is not entirely rosy for the GOP – we will have to face a mid-term in 2018 where we will be the party on it’s first Presidential Administration. Traditionally, this works out badly for the party in power – one of the exceptions to this rule was 2002, when the GOP made good gains. But that was also in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But, we do have some advantages here. First off, 10 Democrat Senators are up for re-election in States won by Trump – some by crushing margins. Democrats also have far more Senate seats to defend (this being the class of 2012 which was carried to victory by Obama). Anything is possible, but we can justly rely on the Senate remaining GOP through 2018, unless there is a spectacular melt-down. The House is more iffy. Looks like we’ll wind up with 241 House members and so Democrats would have to net 23 to gain a slim majority – a tall order, given the gerrymandered districts out there. But it could be done – we might as well expect a recession next year given that the change in policies will alone unsettle the economy for a while, and we’re also very much due for one given the terrible economic policies of the Obama years. A very severe recession coming in, say, early 2018 could be disastrous for the House GOP…on the other hand, a recession showing up in April of 2017 and largely over with strong, renewed growth in 2018 would help the GOP. Also, if the GOP is really grinding out popular reforms, that will also help protect the GOP from the inevitable electoral backlash coming off a big win.
My largest hope for the next four years is in “drain the swamp” activities. Trump should make sure that Hillary, the IRS, Holder, the EPA and a host of other things are investigated. We also need a full push on investigating voter fraud – we know its out there, but GOPers have always been afraid to look into it. Hopefully, that will change. Just getting rid of the pay for play corruption endemic to our government will do a great deal to restore America – because it would allow real issues to be addressed, rather than just getting whatever someone was bribed to push.
I also hope that we get a couple or three Supreme Court picks – and that they are picked with a mind towards genuinely restoring the Constitutional order. And I’ve long felt that we need to increase the size of the Court – to at least 11 members, maybe as many as 15. And increase the number of circuit courts, and especially break up the 9th circuit…let that court represent San Francisco and Los Angeles, and get the rest of the 9th’s territory out of there. I’d like to see Roe go, of course, but also I’d like more expansion of individual rights…that the people, as individuals, really do have the right to say what they want, believe what they want, do what they want and that they can’t compel anyone to help them say, believe or do things.
We also need to bring the bureaucracy to heel. They work for us – all of us; this means they can’t even by accident favor one side of the political divide over another. They must be neutral in thought as well as action…and anyone who can’t set aside their personal views has no business serving the American people. The weaponization of the IRS during Obama’s term has laid it bare – and we must go to work making sure that government employees never so much as even think of favoring one side over another. It can be done – after all, our military obeys whomever is the constituted authority and would never dream of working against it…or against any political view. We can enforce this ideal throughout the bureaucracy – and we must enforce it. In addition to ensuring neutrality, we also must ensure honesty – we have to be able to swiftly fire bureaucrats who prove corrupt or incompetent. One of the most pathetic things about the last 8 years is how the bureaucrats, no matter how badly they messed up, never paid any serious price…no loss of pension, often no loss of job. I’d prefer to end the defined benefit pensions they have and put them on 401k’s, and put them into the Social Security system, as well. Public sector unions must be curbed as Walker did in Wisconsin.
I’m sure you’ve all got your hopes, dreams and worries for the next four years – but this is what comes to my mind, at least this early in the process. I’m glad we stopped the Clinton’s, cautiously optimistic about Trump and very hopeful for our nation’s future.
Blogs For Victory 
I think a lot of the changes will be fairly easy to implement. For example, political appointees like Lynch and Comey are gone with the stroke of a pen, if they haven’t already quit and headed for the hills.
I don’t know what it will take to cut back on agencies, if it will require votes in Congress or if much of this can legally be done through the Oval Office. You hit on something I had not considered—the militarization of the IRS, which also happened in other agencies as well.
I’d start not by reforming the IRS but by passing a Fair Tax bill which would effectively gut it, and then rebuild it into a different kind of machine. Without guns, thank you very much. Going after businesses which are not collecting a consumption tax would be a pretty mundane task, not needing rifles and grenades. (Not that these were needed to go after citizens, either.)
We need to start with limiting the bureaucracy by legislation to get rid of the Civil Service laws. Both incompetence and insurrection are protected by the law, which makes it impossible to fire the troublemakers and the layabouts.
I think voter fraud has to be at the top of the list, as corruption of the voting process undermines the entire structure of our government. I think it will be easier to have the winning party push this, as it doesn’t sound as much like sour grapes. I’ve written several times of my experiences in a Colorado DMV, when I helped several young people from other countries get their temporary drivers’ licenses. Every time, after I laid out the person’s passport showing him or her to be a citizen of another country and his or her temporary work visa and explained that the person was allowed to get a drivers’ license that would expire when the visa expired, and the clerk finally got it sorted out and issued the license, the clerk would then ask the foreigner “Would you like to register to vote?” And I would ask why anyone would ask that of someone who couldn’t legally vote, and the answer was always “That’s the law. It says I have to ask everyone who gets a license if he or she wants to register to vote.” “But he’s not a citizen!” “I know, but that’s the law.” I don’t know if this IS the law, if this is just how it was interpreted by the state or the county supervisor of that department, or how widespread this is. But I doubt that it only happened in one county in one state in the entire country.
I don’t know if it is possible to cross-match visas with voter registrations, but something has to be done. We need to purge the registration rolls, and we ought to do it before the midterm elections, when we know Leftist voter fraud will be kicked up into high gear.
I’m a big Mike Rowe fan, and his take on the election is, as usual, filled with common sense.
I liked Rowe’s article, but I do quibble with part of it.
” That’s why it’s very dangerous to argue that Clinton supporters condone lying under oath and obstructing justice. Just as it’s equally dangerous to suggest a Trump supporter condones gross generalizations about foreigners and women.”
I don’t agree with this statement, because
(1) Hillary did lie under oath, Comey even admitted as much, and she did obstruct justice, and that was evident as well. Therefore, people who voted for Hillary did in fact condone her actions, by supporting her in spite of them.
(2) The “gross generalizations about foreigners and women” didn’t really exist as they were portrayed by the Left, and many voters understood this. Therefore, voting for Trump didn’t imply any condoning of these things, because they never existed as they were presented.
There are people who defend voting for Hillary because they don’t believe she did anything wrong, but these people are delusional. They might be able to justify their disbelief in some areas, but some are incontrovertible, and they are just ignored by her apologists. She DID lie under oath, she DID obstruct justice, she DID violate the oath to which she swore and signed her agreement to follow protocols to protect the secrets and security of the United States, and none of this can be denied. She DID show premeditation and intent to hide her activities from FOIA requests by refusing to use servers which can be accessed by those requests, a violation of the law and her sworn oath.
So I do not believe it is “dangerous” to argue that Clinton supporters condone these proved misdeeds. There is no other way to look at it.
Great article Spook, always liked that guy and I think his take is spot on. To Ama’s point, I think the danger he’s alluding to here is the danger of further dividing this country along it’s already precipitous fault lines. If we can avoid doing that it will be a good thing. His preceding sentence was:
“I think a majority of people who voted in this election did so in spite of their many misgivings about the character of both candidates.”
He’s recognizing that the majority of people on both sides knew they favored flawed candidates but voted for them anyway, therefore it’s dangerous to view them, in aggregate, as complicit to those flaws.
Now to be sure there ARE plenty of Hillary supporters who are complicate in those flaws (in that they completely forgive them with no hesitation) and suffer from a certain Trump derangement disorder; I’m currently surrounded by them. I’m in the process of slowly coming out to many of my friends who just assumed I was on board with the glorious groupthink of urban Seattle.
“… the glorious groupthink of urban Seattle….”
What a great phrase. I remember the first time I went to Seattle and realized this is where all the daisy-painted VW vans went to retire.
I also like the imagery of “coming out” to your friends. Let us know how that goes.
I am going to a family thing this weekend out of town, and took up a cousin-once-removed’s summer invite to stay with her when I am in town. I thought “Cool”. She had moved to NYC and I never have had a chance to catch up since she has been back. Yesterday my conservative brother warned me that she is a rabid Lib. Ordinarily no one at a family do would talk about politics, as in spite of most of us being conservative there are a couple of really emotional Libs in the mix, but after this election I am sure someone will bring it up. As well known as I am for my tact and subtlety, I am sure I can pull it off, but…………
You can pull it off Amazona, just nod and smile. There’s no point in arguing with an over emotional liberal, something of which I learned the hard way.
My first reaction was the same as Amazona’s, but I like your take, Rusty. Mike Rowe is an entertainer; not JUST an entertainer, but an entertainer nonetheless. But he IS trying to bring people together, which is more than a lot of the people in the entertainment industry are doing.
I didn’t realize you were from Seattle. We visited your fine city in August, departing from Pier 91 at Smith Cove for an Alaska cruise up the Inside Passage. Beautiful area, and we were blessed with nice weather.
Just speaking for myself, here—when I voted for Trump, part of my decision was my belief that a little vulgarity did not disqualify him for the job of president. We’ve had equally vulgar men in the White House and many of them have been looked back on as good presidents, even heroes. We don’t know the language JFK used when he had his Secret Service agents procure women for him and bring them to the White House for his entertainment. By most accounts LBJ was a coarse, vulgar pig. When Trump said that Bill Clinton used worse language on the golf course, I believed him.
I looked at all the things I didn’t (and don’t) like about Trump and decided they did not mean he would be a bad president, so I voted for him.
So I extrapolate that to Hillary voters. I have to think that they looked at lying to Congress, lying to the FBI in a criminal investigation, lying to the American public about what happened in Benghazi, lying to the families of the dead, violating her oath of office, and recklessly endangering the security of the nation, all as things they found acceptable in a president. Note that I left out the other criminal charges, understanding that Hillary supporters will claim that they have not been proved in a court of law. I am only referring to the things that we know. And I have no other choice but to think her voters indicated that these actions are acceptable to them in a president.
It’s not a very big leap, then, to think they wouldn’t care if she continued these behaviors while in the White House. And yes, that does engender a level of disrespect for them.
This is the mentality we’re up against with many on the Left.
We’ve temporarily dodged the bullet, but these people NEVER GIVE UP.
I started off thinking, of Zach, “good for you, challenging Brazile for her actions” but quickly realized that Zach was really a loon, claiming that somehow Brazile would be responsible for him losing 40 years of his life expectancy because her actions somehow contributed to the dangers of climate change.
Even if he believed that a Clinton presidency would somehow result in his growing 40 years older than he will under a Trump presidency, even if he believed that Brazile’s conniving and dishonesty resulted in Sanders not being president and therefore helping Zach live longer, in general this is just another example of the clueless incoherent rage of so much of the Left.
But it also shows that they actually believe the nonsense…those who are out there protesting really believe the boxcars are already lined up to deport people, the FEMA camps are already on the drawing boards and that a bit of CO2 is really the death sentence of the planet. They believe it because it is what they have been taught and they’ve never been around anyone who disagrees…furthermore, as they know that to disagree with them means you get hounded and oppressed, they are figuring that we’ll do the same to them. One of the benefits of President Trump may be to slowly educate a whole generation of Progs into understanding that they’ve been relentlessly lied to.
“One of the benefits of President Trump may be to slowly educate a whole generation of Progs into understanding that they’ve been relentlessly lied to.”
While showing us that he lied to us.
Trump will be as he is – and the good news is that we, as Conservatives, are free to support or oppose based upon what he actually does. I’m not too worked up over the ObamaCare thing – but I can see why some are. I just never figured we’d be able to get rid of such things as covering pre-existing conditions, even though such a thing is a negation of what insurance is supposed to be. One step at a time – if we can just get some free market reforms in there then that’ll be a long, first step towards getting people to understand that taking care of themselves is best.
There are ways to deal with pre existing condition problems that don’t require the feds to step and pile on regulations.
For example, a long range solution might be to open up insurance sales so plans can be sold nationwide, and then removing the insurance benefit tax break for companies. In other words, if Junior has to buy his own insurance when he is 25, which he can afford because his company can pay him a little more as it is no longer paying for insurance, then no matter where he goes in the country he still has his original policy, and there won’t be a pre existing condition problem because his “condition” would have developed while he was insured.
It does put the burden of responsibility on Junior, buy why is that a bad thing?
If Junior lets his policy lapse, then he can be covered under a plan similar to the one Colorado has had for years—if you get turned down by two, or maybe it is three, insurance companies then you are guaranteed coverage in some kind of plan, though it will cost more.
If there is a concern about Junior being unemployed or between jobs for a while, then his state could have a program where he can borrow the money to keep his plan active, through a low-interest state fund. Again—burden of responsibility on Junior, but with a helping hand (nor charity) if necessary.
It’s an idea that would depend on children growing up to be adults, which is clearly not likely in this nation as it is now.
Where is the Left’s “tolerance” that they speak about?
http://www.newsmax.com/politics/electoral-college-vote-hillary-clinton/2016/11/10/id/758289/
If I understand correctly, the electoral college was put into place so that the heartland would have a voice. So that states with large cities, who have an enormous number of liberals could not silence the voices of all the other states. So, if we do away with the electoral college, then it will be just a hand full of states with the big cities that speak for all the rest of the country, right?
You are right, and that is the intent. We have often heard urban Liberals declaring that those of us out in the heartland aren’t qualified to make such big decisions as who should
rule uslead us, and those big important decisions should be left to those in the cities,with their Ivy League degrees.Okay. I kinda thought so. Well, wouldn’t it be going against the Constitution then if the electors listen to the petitioners, and decide to elect Hillary on December 19?
Next question … is it true that President-Elect Trump has already hinted at a reversal of his promise to repeal Obamacare? Or is that just made up?
There are certain parts of ObamaCare we kinda have to keep as ending them would be politically toxic – most notably, the part where people with pre-existing conditions can get care. In the end, however, a properly done reform will lower premiums, increase options and allow the necessary revenues to ensure that those who can’t afford care can still get it in a regular, easy-to-access way. Trump is just being smart about this – the Democrats were pledging all out war to “save” ObamaCare…likely with the MSM featuring endless stories of people who will DIE!!!!! because of Trump’s health care reform…by essentially saying he’s going to keep the actually popular parts of ObamaCare, he completely de-fangs any such effort.
What a cheerful happy spin on the way Trump is approaching Obamacare.
Did he say during the campaign that he thought we should keep parts of it? No. No, he never said a word about it, only talked about getting rid of it. Now he is backtracking. It is this kind of thing that makes people distrust him. If it IS the smart thing to do, it should have been part of his campaign pitch. If it’s smart now it was smart then. For that matter, if that was his intent he might have gotten more votes by talking about it. But by promising one thing and then reneging on it three short days later he looks dishonest.
Three days in and I am already feeling a little skeptical, as if the swooning over how wonderful Hillary is wasn’t enough. On Monday she was a crook, and Tuesday night she was wonderful, smart and kind. And now we have Giuliani talking about giving her a pass on her crimes. I expect this from Christie, but really, Rudy? Three days in and the top folks are already talking about hanging onto that time-honored tradition of different strokes for different folks—in this case, if you are rich and powerful you can get away with anything. Scooter Libby lost everything—job, reputation, and a million dollars or so, on a bogus trumped-up charge, prosecuted to a great extent on claims of a much less serious “crime” the prosecution knew he didn’t commit, by the same political whore who then said Hillary shouldn’t be prosecuted for very serious crimes he acknowledged she committed.
There’s no change here. It’s looking like business as usual, just with an R on the door.
Three days in and I am already feeling a little skeptical
I was skeptical when I walked into the voting booth, and now you know why I had to hold my nose so tightly. I am willing to cut him some slack until, say, the end of the first 100 days, but my gut feeling is that he is going to be like the carnival barker who promises you the giant Teddy bear, and you end up with the 6 inch plastic snake.
Well I hope both of you are wrong and I think you are. From what I have read and heard is that any healthcare reform will have to be extensive due to the entanglement of the ACA, Medicare and Medicaid. An adjustment to one, will have to be a major adjustment for all, and getting rid of the personal mandate will require a fundamental change and wont be just working around the margins. I like the fact that a reform to the ACA will require a reform of the entire health industry, it is long over due.
Re: Hillary. I think the investigation into CGI will continue as it should, but all investigations need to be conducted under new FBI and DOJ leadership and should be kept under the radar. I don’t want any media or political influence so I just hope they go about their business quietly.
Re: the protests. Progressives have short attention spans, so these wont last long.
Re: Trump. Despite his character flaws and vulgarity of which were on full display over the last year, I believe his heart in is the right place and given a chance he will unite the country and accomplish some good things. If we can get tax reform and healthcare reform in 2017 then I will know that my vote was not wasted.
I’m not arguing the details of reforming Obamacare, I’m talking about the attitude of “say what you have to say to get the crowds happy” and then changing it later.
When he says “WE will KEEP” this or that, he is saying that the federal government will still be in the business of health care, in addition to Medicare and Medicaid—both of which are in trouble, by the way. Who is this “WE”, Kemo Sabe? Why, Uncle Sam, of course. Taxpayers. What happened to that oft-repeated promise to “get rid” of Obamacare? Now it isn’t “get rid of”, it is “reform”. Big difference.
It’s a lot like the original “I’ll deport all illegals”. This was the hook upon which so many Trumpers hung their hats, what got their blood boiling and had them standing on their chairs and shrieking in support. “Cept within a couple of weeks he admitted he never meant that at all, and only said it “to start negotiations”. Well, as far as I am concerned when you say something you know is not true, that is a lie.
Now, if he really means that he meant what he said about getting rid of Obamacare, and his plan has some element that will protect pre-existing conditions, then he needs to start saying what he means—-and meaning what he says. Colorado, for example, has for years had a plan where, if you were turned down for coverage for a pre-existing conditon, you qualified for it, and it guaranteed you coverage. It cost more, but it was there. A plan like that, since we will never wean people off the gummint teat, that would subsidize the difference in cost would be one thing, but even that should be at the state level.
If he said “We will find a way to make sure people with pre-existing conditions can get health insurance” I would be fine with that. But to say, of Obamacare, “We’re going to keep coverage for pre-existing conditions” is a reneging on his promise.
What does “repeal and replace” mean? Why, all of a sudden, does it mean “keep but reform”? Talk about a shell game!! It’s like the difference between “I’m going to tear down that house and build a new one” and “I’m going to put a new roof on that old house and paint the shutters”.
And Giuliani and Christie are talking about the same thing that Mark Moser was, about how we need to move on, heal, blah blah blah. Not about just keeping ongoing investigations “under the radar” but about dropping the whole thing. Check out what they said. They said nothing about just keeping an ongoing investigation “under the radar”. One of them actually, if I remember correctly, used the phrase “move on”. This isn’t draining the swamp, it’s spraying it with Fabreeze and pretending it isn’t there.
Same old same old, business as usual. Loretta Giuliani as AG. What a refreshing change!
Shortest honeymoon on record, except maybe for the guy who drowned his bride on their scuba diving honeymoon. I kind of know how she felt.
Wow, so 3 days into this we have an “all is lost” attitude? For God’s sake let’s give him at least a month, how about that? Then we can throw the SOB out of there.
Oh, calm down, Cluster, and try to get away from that Leftist tactic of restating something in melodramatic (and inaccurate) terms so you can have a melodramatic response to it.
No, I never said all is lost !!! . I pointed out that it is foolish for Trump to start backtracking on the very promises that got him elected. I pointed out that he is now talking out the other side of his mouth. And he is.
I’m sure it would make life a whole lot easier for him and his supporters if the rest of us would just ignore things like this, as they do. But he ran on some specific promises, and one of them was to get rid of Obamacare and now suddenly that has morphed into, using your own words, mere REFORM of Obamacare. My house analogy was spot-on.
One of my problems with Trump from the get-go is his short attention span. He has always had a tendency to say one thing one day and something completely different the next, with no apparent realization that the one contradicts the other because that is not how his brain works. To him, he meant what he said on Monday and then he meant what he said on Tuesday, they are separate things, he wasn’t lying, he was saying what he thought on each day. New day, new idea. Fine. I get that.
But when you are running for office and you garner votes based on what you promise, you have to stop doing that constantly-shifting-personal-reality thing and realize that other people don’t think that way, and if you say something on Monday you’d better say the same thing the next day. He made his get rid of Obamacare pledge the central thing in his campaign. If he is going to turn away from that now and present us with a reform, he has to accept the fact that it will not make him look credible or trustworthy.
Fuss at me all you want, I am not the one weasel-wording that pledge. I’m also not the one dodging questions about his pledge to continue to investigate Hillary and prosecute if the facts point that way. I am not the one who said, on national TV, if he was president she would be in jail, and now being coy about whether she will even be investigated. I am not the one reputed to be thinking of appointing an Attorney General who has openly said he thinks we should just “move on” and that prosecuting her would be a bad idea, after running on criticism of an AG who would not prosecute her. I am also not the one who ran on the constantly repeated refrain that she is a crook only to come back literally the day after the election to rave about her general wonderfulness.
I have not written him off. I have, however, taken note of the fact that he is starting off on the wrong foot, in many areas.
If he thinks pandering to the Left by praising Hillary and some aspects of Obamacare will make them like him, he is a fool. Nothing will ever make a difference in how they feel about him. But what it WILL do is discourage and disappoint the people who already like him.
We need a leader, not an appeaser. What we need is someone who will stand up and say “I have been a friend of Hillary Clinton and in many ways I still like her and respect a lot of what she has done. But I was not elected to let personal feelings interfere with my duty, and one of my duties is to make sure the law is followed no matter who is involved. One of the biggest problems in this country today is loss of faith in our judicial system, and one reason for that is that for too long the rich and powerful have not had to face consequences for what they have done. We can never turn the nation around if we let that continue. So I am going to honor my word, appoint a special prosecutor, and we will see where an objective investigation will take us. ”
Tick tock tick tock. Time will tell if he has what it takes to LEAD this nation, or if he is just going to continue down the same road. It’s not my fault he has gotten off to a bad start.
I am just joking with you. Honestly I am worn out by all of this
Here’s a really interesting article that actually gives me some hope for the future.
Personal Liberty Digest has a long and comprehensive list of suggested actions for Trump’s first 100 days. Some of them are a little over the top, but I generally agree with most of them.
I agree most of them look pretty good, at least to some degree. I would not close down our bases in allied nations, for several reasons, I don’t think we HAVE “corporate welfare” and dislike the term. I don’t think we can or should eliminate all those agencies, and some of them do some important work, but some can go and some can be combined.
The first thing I would like Trump to do is what Cruz promised, and on his first day repeal every single Executive Order issued by Obama which exceeds presidential authority.
Ben Crystal has a great way with words. He reminds us not so much why Trump won as why Hillary lost.
You’re right, this is a really good analysis of Hillary and the campaign she ran. I particularly like the last paragraph.
Of course I do. I could have written it myself, though probably not as well.
Here’s some additional insight on the post-election protests.
I am so glad to see a public statement linking American rioting to the International Left. Our domestic trolls sneer at this kind of thing, but anyone who has studied the International Left and the influence of Soros and people like him can see the relationships.
It is now becoming evident that the protests and riots occurring nationwide are being orchestrated in part by a rouge (sic—I am sure he meant “rogue”) party of the political elite that is determined to subvert the will of the American people. Inspiring revolution in Poland and again in the Ukraine provided the political elite with the needed funds to initiate a color revolution here in the United States. The Soros’ methods have been successfully repeated in numerous nations, and the U.S. is next.
Following our extremely successful Operation Sabot 2016, we realized that the same individuals involved in voter intimidation and birddogging activities originally exposed by Project Veritas were initiating “post-election” bird-dogging activities aimed at generating unrest in major cities.
“Protesters” who tend to be males in their mid-20s to late 30s, who show up in “protests” all over the country and in Europe, are ignored by the run-of-the-mill Dems who think we are paranoid, or worse. Evidently without jobs, given their presence at so many sites of “protests”, they still manage to have nice clothes, designer shoes, top of the line cell phones, laptop computers, transportation, food and shelter. I’m not talking about the brain-dead youth who show up wearing North Face jackets, Nike shoes, carrying thousand-dollar iPads and $700 dollar Galaxy Edge cell phones to declare a desire to “kill off the corporations”. They are just puppets, profoundly ignorant, often stupid, and very easily led. I’m talking about the people who pull the strings.
Get a grip, People.
Awwww, that is just so freakin’ SWEET ! Those fragile flowers, those delicate snowflakes, must feel ever so much better knowing that there is a Safe Space with milk and cookies and the large staff of this department to hold they tiny little paws and wipe they tiny little noses. (Purposely mixed metaphors, by the way, as I know that neither flowers nor snowflakes have tiny little paws and/or noses.)
However, a look at the staff of a wholly unnecessary department of this school might just give a clue as to why those student loans are so high. Costs a lot of money to keep Libs in the style to which they, as elites, have aspired and now become accustomed.
And so the latest Silly Season begins.
An email, Spook, from a mutual friend:
The University of Michigan offered its traumatized students coloring books and Play-Doh to calm them. (Are its students in college or kindergarten?)
The University of Kansas reminded its stressed-out kids that therapy dogs, a regular campus feature, were available.
Cornell University, an Ivy League school, held a campus-wide “cry-in,” with officials handing out tissues and hot chocolate.
Tufts University offered its devastated students arts and crafts sessions. (OK, not kindergarten — more like summer camp.)
At campuses from elite Yale to Connecticut to Iowa and beyond, professors canceled classes and/or exams — either because students asked or because instructors were too distraught to teach.”
http://nypost.com/2016/11/11/scenes-from-the-liberal-meltdown
Perhaps if parents were to withhold tuition money when classes are canceled because “instructors were too distraught to teach” they could keep some of those absurd college costs down. You know, replace them with grown-ups.
Side note: How do these events, and the “protests”, compare to the widespread hysteria and violence from the Right after Obama was elected?
I saw that – and I was stunned. Really. I didn’t think they were that infantile.
I don’t think that we realized how far the rot had gone on college campus. We knew it was bad, but none of us suspected, I think, that they had become such nauseating beds of cowardice and ignorance.
They already have a diagnosis…
Are You Suffering From Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder (TARD)?
Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder is a pattern of pathologically dissociative and psychotic behavior, first observed in the late hours of November 8th 2016, and increasing in severity with passing time. Sufferers of Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder often exhibit pronounced cognitive dissonance, sudden bouts of rage, uncontrollable crying, suicidal ideation, and extreme sadness. Signs and Symptoms: People with Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder are characterized by a persistent unwillingness to accept that Donald Trump is going to Make America Great Again. Individual sufferers often display signs of paranoia and delusion; in acute cases psychotic episodes have been observed. Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder is different from being upset about the results of the 2016 presidential election; People with TARD are unwilling or unable to accept reality, despite irrefutable evidence. According to the DSM-V, individuals with TARD exhibit most or all of the following symptoms:
– Telling others they are moving to Canada
– Fixated on fantasies about the Electoral College
– Protesting an election no credible source contests the outcome of
– Exclamations that “Someone” should do “Something”
– Acute change in demeanor from pompous and arrogant to fearful and combative
– Claim that anyone who disagrees with them is some combination of Racist, Sexist, Bigoted, Homophobic, and actually some sort of Hitler persona
Causes and Mechanisms: Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder was directly caused by the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America. For many, both in America and worldwide, this was a shocking and unexpected outcome; their preferred news sources having failed to inform them that the alternative candidate was a criminal parasite in such ill health she got chucked into the back of a van like a kidnap victim.
Research is ongoing, but TARD appears to correlate closely with the following environmental and behavioral factors:
– Membership in the Democratic party
– Identifying as a Feminist
– Currently enrolled in college, and/or – Possession of a Liberal Arts college degree
– Cuckoldry
– Living in a densely populated metropolitan area
– Massive student debt
– Spotty or non-existent work history
– Hipsterism Diagnosis:
Diagnosis of Trump Acceptance Resistance Disorder is straightforward. Ask the patient if Donald Trump is going to be the Next President of the United States of America. Some patients will become agitated, and may attempt to deflect. It’s critical you press them on the issue, even if they start babbling about ‘muh triggers’. A sufferer of TARD will begin to ramble incoherently, often displaying three or more of the symptoms within a short period of time. Treatment: The only known effective treatment is exposure therapy. The patient must be repeatedly exposed to reality, and should wear a Make America Great Again hat as long as they are able to tolerate it. Each exposure should increase in length, after a week the patient should be encouraged to be seen in public wearing the MAGA hat. Coach the patient to refer to Donald Trump as President-Elect Trump. Patients with TARD are very resistant to treatment, and dangerous in large groups. Any possibility of treatment requires that they be separated from their hive-mind support apparatus; they cannot begin the process of accepting reality in the presence of encouragement towards delusion and irrationality. Separation may require the assistance of law enforcement. If you have a friend or loved one suffering from TARD, urge them to seek treatment. Together we can beat this scourge, and Make America Great Again!
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The drama over this election has reached heights I never thought possible. I have seen on TV and on my Facebook page, over emotional people who have lost all sense of objectivity and are making complete fools of themselves. Ironically, they are acting exactly in the manner that so many of us were accused of acting after Obama’s election. But of course we didn’t. If you have the chance, please remind all of these hysterical anti Trumpers that the origin of their hate stems from their self superiority complex which demands that they consider everyone else of different opinion to be morally inferior and that of course is a completely fascist tendency. I think it’s time that all Obama supporters sit down, STFU and listen for a change.
We have an interesting paradigm playing out in this country right now. The predator class is growing, the warrior class is shrinking, and much of an entire generation is too helpless to tie their shoes. As I said in an email to several friends, the Left is into evolution and survival of the fittest. Perhaps the rest of us should just sit back and let the snowflake/buttercup class experience it first hand.
The left believes in natural selection only in theory. In real life, they practice unnatural selection and prefer to be protected and coddled from the realities of life.
The great thing about natural selection is that you don’t have to believe in it for it to work. Kind of like gravity.
Our most difficult challenge going forward will be to deal with people who are so self deluded, so detached from reality, and so immersed in self superiority that they simply refuse to accept accountability. Case in point is the following quote from a NYT commentator:
The G.O.P. obstructed progress for eight years and convinced people government is broken. They broke it. America bought it.
I also don’t remember Obama’s extensive outreach to conservatives following his victory, as the Democrats are now insisting that Trump do for liberals.
On my family visit, my hostess did bring up politics, in a very late-night talk at her house after the party, that covered a lot of things, and it turned out to be a very cordial and productive chat, at least from my point of view. (When she said we needed to rein in lobbying I said it is hard to do that because lobbying is the only way people can get their messages through to their representatives because each member of the House, in particular, now often represents a million or so people. Oh, she said, that’s too many people for one person to represent, which was a lovely door into the 10th Amendment [naturally, she had no idea what it meant] and a suggestion that if the issues at hand were moved back to the states, where they belong anyway, the people could be heard because they would be working with their state legislatures, where citizens have much more access to their state senators and representatives. She was curious about the process and the reasoning, asked a lot of questions, agreed with the principles, and then I put my hand on hers and said “Congratulations. You are a conservative.” She grinned and said “I guess so—but don’t tell anyone.” Some of this will dissipate, no doubt, outside the coziness of a late-night chat, but the seeds were planted and it was a really nice talk.)
Anyway, she did say that she thinks the Republicans blocked Obama for eight years because he is black. This is the kind of odd, distorted view of Republicans that has been so successfully planted in the minds of Liberals. I just said no, his race had nothing to do with it, it was just opposition to his policies and the political system he represents, and let it go at that.
A cousin, who lives in LA with a black man, said in another conversation that when she hears the term “states’ rights” she thinks of Jim Crow. I just said what was true a long time ago just isn’t true today. She looked skeptical. I said that a couple of hundred years ago a big entertainment was bear baiting, where a bear was trapped and put in a pit for dogs to tear it apart—it was an accepted part of that society, is not part of this one, we have rejected it as wrong on many levels, and we shouldn’t dwell on what other people did in other times. Now is now, and Jim Crow, if not completely dead, is so weakened and isolated it has nothing to do with today’s politics or ideas. She just said something like “you always have such a different way of talking about things” and hugged me, and we went to get another beer.
But again—–here is a perception of malignant motives grafted onto innocent and even principled decisions and beliefs, not to further a political system by convincing people it is better but by churning up hatred and distrust of its opposite.
A word of caution to everyone. While all of us and most of America are rejoicing in the complete repudiation of liberal policies and rightfully so, the Trump movement is not a conservative movement. It is a pragmatist movement. A non ideological movement comprised of people with conservative leanings, but people who simply want common sense to prevail and for Americans to be put a head of the line in all matters. It will be incumbent on conservatives to gradually educate this movement and put in place effective conservative policies to capture this voting bloc in future elections. Our work has just begun.
The other day I mentioned friends, a husband and wife who both passed away last year. She had a Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a degenerative neurological disease similar to ALS, and her death was not unexpected. A couple months before her death her husband, who never had any health problems, went to the doctor complaining about stomach pains, ended up in the ER with a bowl obstruction that burst before they could get him to surgery, and died of sepsis a few days later.
The two of them and my wife and I had gone to the same church and had known each other literally all of our lives. They both had careers in academia at the University of Kansas in Lawrence after a stint in the Peace Corps. If you look at an electoral map of Kansas, there are a handful of blue cysts in a sea of red, and Lawrence is the brightest blue of them all.
As children the four of us were all children of conservative Republican parents, but after a lifetime of non-stop exposure to Progressivism, our friends became unabashed Liberals. But as they got older, particularly the husband, they became more open minded, and at least willing to entertain other points of view. During the year before he died, the husband and I engaged in a series of email chats, generally aimed at finding out why each of us believed what we believed. I suggested at the start that we set up some ground rules, starting with what principles govern the way we think and the way we live our lives. Surprisingly we both agreed on essentially the same moral and ethical principles, It became evident early on that our differences revolved around how we applied our agreed upon principles. His thrust was from a position of fairness while mine was from a position of equality under the law. He was having a difficult time expressing how it was OK to support politicians who violated those principles if they had a “D” after their name, and It was just starting to get interesting when he died.
Cluster, that is very well said and a very good point. Thank you for phrasing the situation that way.
My point in relating the two conversations is that when I don’t talk about issues it is a lot easier to find common ground, or in the case of the cousin determined to find racism everywhere at least to acknowledge her feelings and provide a counterpoint without arguing.
I also wanted to relate the experience, which was a complete accident, of learning that the 10th Amendment/state sovereignty topic can be approached via talking about lobbying being the only way to present a position to your representative if the subject of your presentation is something legislated at the federal level. When she opened the topic of lobbying, it kind of fell into place, and it was very easy to accept that approach because it acknowledged the problems of lobbyist corruption and led into a way to address it that happened to revolve around moving authority to the states, where we have easier access to our legislators. Just thought I would pass that on, to those of you who find yourselves trying to support restricting the powers of the feds.
Amazona mentioned the other day about helping employees here on a work visa get a driver’s license, and how the BMV offered to register them to vote. There’s widespread speculation that somewhere between 2 and 3 million illegals voted in this election, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientists to guess how the vast majority of them voted. I’m not sure how or even if that could be determined, but, if true, given that such illegals registered to vote while getting a driver’s license, even a voter ID requirement wouldn’t stop them from voting. The first step must be getting rid of Motor-Voter.
I’m putting together a list of things to give to my Senator, hopefully to be considered by the Trump team for its first 100 days push. One of them would be to have someone—-a Senate staffer, a Trumper, whoever—– find out some things about Motor Voter registering foreigners. It would probably be a big job, and I am not sure if state officials would answer honestly if asked outright if they register non-citizens, but I think it would be a very valuable thing to know. A survey showing an approximation of how many foreigners were registered to vote in the last ten years would really open some eyes and knock a hole in the argument from the Left that voter fraud is a myth.
That’s why I am wondering if there is a way to cross-reference visas with drivers license records. Each system is digitized, so it might be possible to create an interface to compare the two lists.
An ID requirement would stop those whose licenses have expired, though they have overstayed their visas, as it would or at least should require a current ID. A few years ago I had left my license out at my ranch so when I went to vote I took an expired passport, thinking that this would be adequate to prove my identity, and they would not accept it. I had to drive out and get my license. But a system that would accept an expired license, or not require anything other than a utilities bill or something like that, or not require any ID at all, would allow anyone who had been registered to keep on voting.