Donald Trump

Our Useless Alliances

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Why are we in NATO and the UN?

It is a question ever more Americans are asking themselves and it is time we really think this one over. The official justification for NATO, UN and all the rest of the international organizations is that collective security is the solution to the World Wars. That is, if everyone was banded together against the aggressor(s) then the aggression would never occur. It is considered axiomatic that if the USA had been part of the League of Nations in the interwar years, WWII would have been prevented. Our absence from the organization, it is said, sabotaged it and left it incapable of standing up to the aggressor. Really?

Suppose we were in the League in, say, 1938…just what would our understrength and obsolescent 100,000 man Army do in the face of Germany’s territorial demands on the Czechs? Given them something to laugh at?

The idea of collective security is based upon an assumption that everyone thinks pretty much the same way. That is, they weigh up the plusses and minuses and make their decisions accordingly. I have no idea how anyone started to believe this because all of history makes a mockery of it. Especially the history just before NATO and the UN were created. Collective security was never going to stop Hitler. It wouldn’t even have stopped a Germany absent Hitler. There was collective security against German aggression in 1914 where the Anglo-French-Russian alliance was overwhelmingly more powerful than the German-Austrian combination. It didn’t work then. It didn’t work in 1939. It never has worked. It never can work. Its a dumb idea.

The Germans attacked – in both 1914 and 1939 – not because they didn’t face a collective alliance against aggression, but because they thought they could win quick and cheap. In 1914, the German ambitions included essentially annexation for Belgium and Luxembourg, slicing off northern France, Poland and Finland to become German vassals and all of central Africa from the Sahara to South Africa. They really thought that if they could get to Paris in six weeks, they’d gain all of this. To put it bluntly, they figured that for 100,000 dead Germans, they’d gain mastery of Europe and a much larger position in the world. In 1939 it was the same thing – Hitler and his Germans thought they could win a quick victory…annul the 1918 results and gain what they wanted in 1914. It was stupid both times – and collective security stopped none of it. They were being unreasonable. Greedy and wicked. You can’t actually stop such people – you can only kill them when they try.

But now lets go forward – we need NATO, it is said, because we have to defend Europe from Russia. Ok. We’ll leave aside whether Europe is worth defending (in my view, it isn’t) and just concentrate on the claim. Did NATO stop Russia from invading Ukraine? Twice?

No.

NATO is overwhelmingly more powerful than Russia. If NATO wants, it could raise a military force large enough to make mincemeat of Russia in short order.

Did this stop Russia from attacking Ukraine?

No.

Of course not. Because Russia knows full well the situation and the bottom line here is that no NATO country is going to actually send an army to fight and die in the Donbas on the debatable issue of it being actually Ukrainian. The only thing that might have stopped Putin from invading wasn’t the existence of an alliance much more powerful than he…but an army in Ukraine either before or right after the Russian attack. Putin might have listened to, say, two German armored corps stationed outside Kiev in February of 2022. Might. He still may have gone right ahead if he felt confident that the Russian army was stronger. People who start wars aren’t noted for their rational thoughts. Even great conquerors like Napoleon get caught up in their own desires; never fully understanding the folly of what they’re doing. If they did understand the folly, they never would attack. Someone who attacks is someone who left off at least most of sanity some time before (even if attacking a much weaker enemy – like say the USSR against the Finns in 1939…no way Russia was going to lose but Stalin still sent men to die – to die – for what was at best a modest convenience for Soviet strategic needs; that’s just nuts). And here’s the real kicker: suppose two German armored corps outside Kiev would have stopped him? Nice. One small problem: Germany doesn’t have two armored corps. The Germans only have two panzer divisions plus one panzergrenadier. That’s pretty much it. Hard to deter anyone if you don’t have any force to deter them with.

And that gets us to the really fatal flaw behind NATO and the UN – they are predicated upon having a force immediately available to be unquestioningly used against aggression. There was a time when NATO had this – but after the Cold War ended, it all atrophied very rapidly. Everyone kept saying that NATO provides collective security – repeating it like an incantation as division after division, wing after wing, task force after task force was cut from NATO’s military inventory. Even if the theory of collective security was true, it doesn’t work without military force. Only the USA still maintains a sizeable military force…and our current force is run down, demoralized and understrength after two rounds (Obama and Biden) of imposing Woke ideology on it while equipment and training went by the board. I doubt our ability to field even a complete division for ground combat right now – and the streaks of rust I see on our ships makes me doubt heavily that we’ve even got a Navy at the moment. But we’re Patton ready to fight compared to the European military forces…did you know that Gibraltar, the gateway to the Mediterranean, is currently protected by 235 British soldiers and two patrol boats? You hold Gibraltar and you control one of the most vital trade routes in the world…and it is currently defenseless. Makes ya feel safe, doesn’t it?

As we enter Trump II, it is time we really started to think again about what we want? And I am certain that NATO isn’t it – there’s nothing in Europe I’d ever send an American kid to defend and if I’m concerned about our global position than alliance with Japan, India and Vietnam seems far more useful than what we have now. But I also think we have to abandon this concept of permanent alliances. NATO and the UN have proved not just useless, but malevolent – actually undermining our power and position in the world. An alliance is a thing for the moment – to do a particular task. I want an alliance with India not so that 50 years from now we’re still allied with India, but because the USA and India share a common need to deter China’s power grabs. Once the China issue is settled, then there will be no need for a USA/India alliance and it can lapse.

It is time for us to stop doing things just because it is what we’ve been doing. I realize that a huge number of people have invested their whole lives – and make their money – off the current system, but the system is to serve the country, not the country the system. What we have now serves no purpose; not even a bad purpose. Dispense with it and look for new ways.

The New GOP

Mark Noonan18 Comments

So, Trump appointed Lori Chavez-DeRemer Secretary of Labor…and much heartache ensued.

This is mostly because she was one of the few House Republicans to sign off on the PRO Act – a union-favorable bit of legislation which has been proposed and shot down in Congress by various means. It polls very well – though probably with the poll questions couched in a way to make it as favorable as possible. The biggest sticking points on the Right are that it essentially voids “right to work” laws and allows independent contractors (the “gig economy” – Uber drivers and such) to organize and strike even though they aren’t technically employees of the company they work for. The first point is the very biggest sticking point – we on the Right fought for years to make it so that unions can’t force people to be union members and pay dues…the PRO Act would essentially undo that and allow the unions to siphon off money even from people who don’t want union representation. So, Chavez-DeRemer is, in my view, wrong on this issue.

Why did Trump appoint her?

Very simple: he knows that the future of of the GOP is tied to working class voters – this is life or death for us. We either retain working class votes (and expand our support among various minority working class demographics) or we’re cooked. This pick is a tip of Trump’s hat to workers…and allows us to talk to the workers over the heads of the labor union bosses. This is worth having someone economically Left in the cabinet. And, in fact, points up the need for us to start to rethink how we do things.

Let us first be clear that we are not anti-union. There is nothing wrong at all with workers combining together to obtain the best deal possible from their employer. But let us also state firmly that public-sector unions are an abomination – any such thing is essentially a conspiracy to defraud the taxpayers as a public-sector union’s goal is to take more money from the taxpayers regardless of performance. That said, it is time for the GOP to become a union shop, as it were. When there is a dispute between workers and a large corporate entity, our sympathies must lie with the workers.

This doesn’t mean we go socialist or do something stupid like that – but we must be seen as the party that will listen to the worker’s concerns and see if a deal can be worked that avoids a strike and keeps a company profitable. We all know that the economy is forever changing and that business must continually adapt to changed conditions to remain profitable…and that profits aren’t bad; they are the only reason anyone engages in business to begin with. But when we have a situation where, say, a company is trying to import workers or export the factory…we should be dropping like a hammer on that corporation and taking the side of the workers. It doesn’t matter if ACME can make the hammer cheaper with slave labor in China…ACME will just have to make that hammer in the USA paying American-scale wages to American workers. Sure, the workers will also have to understand the thin profit margins on each hammer and adjust their pay expectations to that – as well as their productivity requirements. But this is all just the fair give and take that is supposed to happen in an economy built for a sane nation. Nobody is going to get everything they want – but reasonable people will get everything they need.

The main thing here is that the old GOP is dead. It actually died when we got our Trifecta after the 2004 elections and we couldn’t even defund NPR. It would have been nothing to do it – not that much money, we had the majorities…just do it. Nothing. That is when we started to learn that the old GOP had been running a con on us for decades and their only goal was to keep corporate taxes low and defense industry profits high. Now we sit on the cusp of Trump II and it is high time everyone got on board – the old ways didn’t cut it. We lost. Now we have to try something new…and when you try something new, it is going to be difficult and often uncomfortable. Perhaps this or that pick or policy by Trump will fail…doesn’t matter. We have to try things. In the trying will be the education which will get us to our goal…an America where the Constitution is again law (and much more strengthened) and we’re free and prosperous. This will take a long time. There will be failures on the path…but we’re on this path and we have to stay on it, or we’re doomed.

Waking Up From Woke

Mark Noonan25 Comments

So, I’m suspended on X for a week – kinda surprising as I’m a verified account but my assumption is that I got mass reported by the Left. It still mostly works via automated systems, after all! Anyways, I’ve appealed the suspension and we’ll see how that goes.

But, still a great overall site – and one of the things I saw recently was people talking about what made them wake up from Woke. We already know that quite a lot of prominent people who used to gravitate Left are now supporting Trump – but aside from the bigs like Musk and RFK, plenty of small fry are also discussing this. What it is all coming down to, from what I’ve seen, is people hitting that tipping point where the lies about Trump become so absurd that they can’t be ignored. This point is going to vary from person to person, of course; and most people on the Left will swallowing anything and will never hit that point…but the more intelligent do, and I think they all will over the next couple years if they haven’t already.

And it isn’t just lies about Trump – though that is most prominent – but the lies in general. Another big who went from Left to sane is J K Rowling of Harry Potter fame. Make no mistake about it, she’s still Left – and still doesn’t fully see that it was the early parts of the Left program which led to where we are today – but she just couldn’t stand the lies about men in women’s spaces. It is so obviously false to have men in women’s sports and private spaces that she rejected it and now gets massive Left pushback…which she laughs off as she sleeps peacefully on her pile of money. But she, like other bigs, has it easy on that score: having that much money does make you pretty much immune. The smaller people have to have real courage to come out as sane – and all glory to them, even if they do retain many Left positions.

As I’ve yammered on about endlessly, it is the lies that are the problem. We could have full on socialism and it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t built on a fabric of lies (yes, I know; you can only have socialism via lies but supposing there was some perfect world where you didn’t have to lie to be Socialist). Everything is endurable, no matter how tyrannical and even cruel, if the truth is still demanded. It might be harsh to be shot for opposing the dictator…but it is much worse to be socially and financially ruined by liars who are themselves immune from such ruination. You can obey the dictator and live…but under Woke Rule, you can only live peacefully if you agree to lie. I don’t mind people thinking I’m wrong…I can’t stand people lying about what I believe.

I do believe this is going to become an increasing trend – 18-29 year old males went heavily for Trump on 11/5. That is, the people most lied about and most often compelled to lie just to live went for their way out. But so is everyone – I believe the only demographic that didn’t swing to Trump is unmarried, upper class urban and suburban women with college degrees…in other words, only the most relentlessly propagandized people still haven’t shifted. But even they will – there is just so long you can keep the “refugees welcome” sign out as you barricade your door against South American gangsters roaming your neighborhoods. We are waking from woke…sanity is returning…and with it, the chance to really reform our nation.

The Times They are A-Changing…

Mark Noonan23 Comments

Trump has commenced the shake up of the American system. I do expect all of his nominees to eventually be confirmed or at least given recess appointments – this is what the American people voted for. Most estimates indicate that not only will Trump win the popular vote, but will end up just at or slightly over a majority of all votes cast. The people spoke: change is coming. And it really needs to be embraced.

I know plenty of very smart, knowledgeable people on the Right who have varied objections to this or that Trump nominee. Gaetz, of course, has the most open opposition and I get it: that is, I understand the underlying reason for being dismayed. But hear me out on this: Gaetz, or someone very much like him, is precisely what is needed. To get the change we need requires a clear and clean break from the past. Those placed in charge of the departments must have zero loyalty to the current structure – the current leadership and the assumptions of that leadership.

It cannot be understated just how wrong we’ve gone – that what we have done, as a people, for many decades has been based upon mistaken or just plain false assumptions. To take one example: Russia. Step back for a moment and think about the situation in 1945: Russia controlled all of Eastern and Central Europe. An Europe that the Anglo-American alliance had proposed to free as a result of the Second World War. We could have done it. Russia was not all-powerful in 1945. The army they had along the Elbe was all they had, and it was weaker than the Anglo-American army right across that river. Russia did not have atomic weapons and had no means of striking effectively at either the UK or the USA. Russia, point blank, was at our mercy – and this before you consider that most of their industrial and agricultural production lay in ruins and the Red Army only deployed because of American trucks and American food. We simply could have ordered them to clear out – they would have had no choice but to obey or face a suicidal fight against us.

This was not done. There were various reasons we kept to the concept of alliance with Russia – some of it orchestrated by Russian agents in the US government – but the bottom line is that we still sought cooperation with Russia. Fine. It was a policy. Maybe a bad policy, but it was the policy. We basically consigned Central and Eastern Europe to Russian domination. And then we decided that this domination was bad and required us to go toe to toe with the Russians for decades. What on Earth for? To stop Communism? But we weren’t even stopping Communism in the United States. We let Communism conquer China. We left Communism in control of North Korea. We let Communism take over all of Southeast Asia. Cuba: still Communist! When you think back on it all it does seem a false show, doesn’t it? that the USSR eventually fell based on its own contradictions just makes what we did even stupider…but, we did it; and now here in 2024 we’re still supposed to stop the Russians (heirs of the Communist Russians) because…why? What are we defending in Ukraine? What are we defending in Europe? A British kid is about to spend years in jail because he attended an anti-immigrant protest…other Brits are being routinely visited by the cops for social media posts. Just what are we doing here?

We’re just keeping on based on the mistakes of the past, now enshrined as if they were holy relics never to be questioned.

We need to break from all that. To start afresh. What, really, is our desire? In both foreign and domestic policy? Perhaps we don’t really know? The only thing we do know is that everything that has happened has gone wrong – that welfare designed for a hand up has become a life style. That tolerance for the odd has devolved into drag queen story time. That welcoming the stranger has become the trial of Laken Riley’s murderers. That NATO morphed from defending the Fulda Gap into trying to eject the Russians from the Donbas. Its all a gigantic mess – and nobody who had a hand in making it or who has accepted this lunacy as normal can be in charge any longer. That we need people totally unconnected to it.

I often use Jacky Fisher as the exemplar for change – though a career Naval officer he was never part of the system of the Royal Navy. He lived in it, he loved it – and he knew it was completely useless for its intended task (maintaining naval supremacy), so when he got in charge of the beast he proceeded to change everything, holding loyalty to no persons or assumptions of the past because those persons and assumptions had all gone wrong. He built an entirely new Royal Navy – a much better Navy and one which saw Britain through the titanic struggles of two world wars. And do keep in mind that he was hated. With a white hot passion. Most of the senior admirals of the Navy despised the man – he was lower class (maybe even mixed race!), he was no gentleman, he was screwing with the stately progression of professional Naval careers and advancing other lunatics! You know: lunatics who thought that a warship should concentrate on combat effectiveness rather than spit and polish.

That is what Trump is trying to do here: insert people into office who are not at all loyal to what is and has been. I have called someone like Gaetz a hand grenade and there is that aspect to it…but he’s not just a grenade. He wasn’t chosen to be a bomb. Trump sees something else in him – maybe he’s wrong, but Gaetz wouldn’t have been picked just to say outrageous things…he was picked because he and Trump think that he can change the way things are done. In other words, that Gaetz has ideas for executive actions that will turn the Department of Justice around – to make it into something it currently is not. We know that nobody at Justice is remotely interested in the word…the whole system is designed to destroy identified enemies, increasingly those who are political enemies of the Democrat party. We want a Justice department that is dedicated to justice…we can’t get one with the current personnel under the current rules…we need someone who will go in, ruthlessly fire the worst actors, and simply insist that those remaining and brought in dedicate their lives to justice. Maybe Gaetz will fail, but that is why he was appointed…so, too, all the rest.

It is going to be a wild and bumpy ride! The hatred and fear of the current Ruling Class will cause them to try every expedient to thwart change. This will not be easy. We will lose a few rounds. But if we stand behind Trump and his team, they will have the underlying political mandate to continue. This doesn’t mean blank acceptance of everything Trump and Co do, but it does mean that anyone with an ounce of patriotism will be wary of contradicting Trump and only stand athwart on the most crucial of issues. That has to be our test, as a people: our willingness to ratify our own votes. We gave Trump a majority – we must sustain him in carrying out what we elected him to do. If we don’t, if we let the Ruling Class scare us off, then what we did 11/5 was meaningless.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan66 Comments

Trump’s cabinet is starting to shape up and it is already more solid than his first – naturally, some people already have objections to this or that pick on varied grounds but, hey, its much better we’re complaining about Trump picks than watching in dismay as Harris picks one corrupt lunatic after another. Rubio at State surprised me but I think he’ll be fine. Noem at DHS is also a bit of a surprise but also fine. On and on like that.

Trump is also laying out some agenda items and his education reform proposals – to force colleges to actually teach rather than be mere indoctrination centers – are key to the long-term survival of the United States. I’ve said for decades that we have an American Left because it is taxpayer subsidized. There are massive numbers of people who are perfectly useless being paid big money ultimately from taxpayers to advance Leftist causes in spite of popular disapproval. Just forcing colleges to cut their bloated administrative staff will be a huge victory for sanity. Deportations of illegals by the million is definitely on the agenda and I hope Democrats try to stop it – the more they are perceived as defending illegals, the better for us long term. Nobody other than corrupt fools wants illegals in country…getting them out was one of the main issues decided by this election and the people want them out. Preliminary moves are being made to bring the Ukraine war to an end (shaping up as de-facto recognition of Russian territorial gains; the cost of trying to expel the Russians being just too high for such a marginal issue – most of the people who live in Russian-occupied territory are ethnic Russians; its basically returning Ukraine’s eastern border to where it had been under the Czars).

Our House majority is terribly narrow – and it is the result of Democrats getting a lot of really good gerrymandering…some of it forced by judicial decisions. Basically if we got this House vote in 2016 it would have been 250 GOPers…now it is, at best, going to be 222. The Red States were also screwed in the census redistricting…there are 8-10 House seats sitting in Blue States which should have been assigned to Red States after 2020. This does make it crucial that we win in 2028…we must control the head count in 2030 and ensure a legal distribution of House seats (and, of course, Electoral Votes…Trump could have won without WI/MI/PA if House seats and resultant EV’s had been legally distributed). We will naturally have some House RINOs try to screw us…but we do have the power of victory. Trump won, and decisively – even the most RINO GOPer is going to be terrified of crossing Trump, at least early on…and that is when most of the work has to be done.

The Senate battle right now is over Majority Leader – I would prefer Scott but that will very much be decided by the internal dynamics of the GOP Senate. I’m looking on it calmly because even if we get ultra-RINO Cormyn, the bottom line is that common sense dictates cooperation with Trump. In 2017, McConnell didn’t go that route because he and the rest of the GOPe were convinced that Trump was a flash in the pan and a mistake…nobody looking at election results can say that now. Trump represents a huge electoral constituency which the GOP will need to retain if they want to win going forward. Failure to back Trump at least on the crucial votes would be catastrophic for the GOP.

Just keep in mind that we’re only past the first step here – we won. But the task of reviving America is going to be a long and difficult one. It won’t be remotely completed during Trump’s term. All we’re really doing here is stopping the bleeding and laying the groundwork for the future. Keep faith, keep smiling and keep praying.

America, 2.0

Mark Noonan55 Comments

First off, it wasn’t even close.

I did a search of my X account and found a post I did 9/18/2024 where I figured that Trump was going to win 312 Electoral Votes with a 50/50 shot at a popular vote win. Keep in mind that I didn’t know. It was a guess – a rather sophisticated guess but I was talking about the future. But ever bit of factual data I could see on September 18th suggested a significant Trump win.

I did a bit of another search and on X as early as 8/22/2022 I was suggesting that Pennsylvania was the next Florida – that is, the next Purple State to go Red. Why did I think that? Because really since 2016, all voter registration trends in Pennsylvania favored the GOP. You can’t ignore crucial data like that – not if you want to understand American politics. The major political parties invest huge amounts of time and money registering voters and they don’t do it for fun: power and money are at stake at the end of the process. It is a crucial aspect of political power in the United States…and the Party that is gaining voters is the Party getting ready to win…if not now, then soon. Pennsylvania is still not Red…but if the GOP keeps up the effort, then by 2032 it will be – that is, a State where Democrats will find it increasingly difficult to win anything, let alone the State’s Electoral Votes.

I’m not some super genius. I know that lots of political pundits like to make it seem like they are possessed of esoteric knowledge, but it is really no more than checking a Secretary of State website. It is right there for anyone to see…and you really don’t even have to do your work here because there are data nerds all over the place – Left and Right – who handily collect the data and provide it in easily read graphs. What I saw in September – and in 2022 – was something anyone could see. And yet all through this election cycle, almost the entirety of the MSM and the pundit class was telling you the Democrats had the advantage. They were just lying. Nothing more. They were serving the Democrat Narrative.

Which turned out to be a pretty bad idea. As was once famously said: C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute. It is worse than a crime: it is an error.

You know how many times I have said that they lie, they lie all the time, they lie about everything, they lie when the truth would work better? Well, this was definitely one of those cases where the truth would have served them better – had they simply told the truth, that Trump was doing well right out the gate, they might have ditched Biden earlier, or found a better replacement, or run a very different campaign. But, the thing about liars is they’re rather stupid – they mostly only get away with it as long as nobody calls them out on it. Trump called them out.

What will the new Trump term look like? No idea, really. MAGA covers a lot of ground. My biggest concerns are reigning in the Deep State – especially America’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Firing lots of people. Hiring patriots. Making strict laws and rules about how such agencies must have as their first duty obedience to law and protection of the rights of the American people. It really is better that a hundred guilty men escape than one innocent be jailed. Right now, any American coming up against federal law enforcement is essentially guilty unless the federal government decides to let them go. That has to change. Those who enforce the law must be most committed to restricting their own activities and only acting against an American citizen when they have iron-clad proof of law breaking.

Everyone else will likely have different primary concerns but to me the first goal is to make certain that if we lose in 2028 or later, the federal government will simply lack the capacity to oppress me.

This is, no matter how you slice it, just the first of very many steps. A very long process. It took a century for the American Left to destroy Law and make the Constitution a dead letter. It will take us a while to restore it all – and restore it in the face of an American population which doesn’t fully understand the reason for certain Constitutional requirements. But they do understand basic justice – and that is the pivot we can use to advance our reforms.

I feel proud to be an American today. My people proved they are still free – not serfs in waiting. We can save our nation.

Election Day Open Thread

Mark Noonan45 Comments

I fell asleep on the family room chair last night at about 9 pm – just been doing a lot of running around of late and got a bit worn out. Normally, I can never fall asleep any place outside a bed. But I woke up at near midnight and got myself into bed and then slept soundly until 5:30 am. I woke up. Brushed my teeth. Put on some coffee. Opened up X…and then saw this:

He goes on to note that every metric of the election is more favorable to Trump than in either 2016 (when he narrowly won) or 2020 (when he narrowly lost). Which is pretty much what we’ve been saying here. Still not a done deal, of course; it is just the start of election day and maybe a Blue Tsunami suddenly shows up here to alter this…but I have my doubts such a thing will happen.

Not much to say, now. Go vote if you haven’t! Drag a friend with you! Unless its a liberal friend.

UPDATE: LOL at Selzer and her Harris +3 Iowa poll.

UPDATE II: I think Casper’s prediction of 350 EV’s for Harris will fall a little short.

WE DID IT!!!!

WE WON!!!

Are You Ready?

Mark Noonan55 Comments

There’s really not much to say now, is there? I mean, what is going to happen is pretty much set – we’re either going to win a magnificent victory for sanity or we’re going to find ourselves much further down the road of totalitarian insanity. I believe we’re about to win – I just can’t look at early voting numbers after the surge in GOP voter registration and figure we’re going to flop on Election Day turnout. We could! The Electorate could also be 55%+ women just waiting to get out there and sweep Harris into office. But that is a very unlikely outcome, in my opinion. Why? Because the Democrats are bragging about how many millions of doors they’ve knocked and it just hasn’t shown up in the early voting. They’ve shot their bolt – they’ve done everything they can to generate enthusiasm for Harris and it doesn’t seem to be working. Not really much chance it’ll suddenly work on Tuesday. But as in all things of the future, we don’t know until it happens.

Do keep in mind that Harris wasn’t inserted into the nomination as some super brilliant, 3-D chess move…it was a desperate stop-gap after Biden fell apart and placed at risk downballot Democrats. Gotta remember the situation – back then, pre-debate, it looked like Joe had an even money chance of winning while the Democrats chance of taking the House were better than 75%…all along it looked as though the Senate was out of reach (West Virginia being gone before the cycle started and Tester facing his first Presidential-year electorate since Obama won his second term in 2012, there just wasn’t much chance of him surviving; he only won in 2012 by about 18,000 votes out of 476,000 cast). But the House looked solid for the Dems and Joe looked ok…once Joe fell apart then the White House became a vanishing prospect with a good chance that a Biden poll collapse would not only cost the White House but also drag House Democrat candidates down with him. Enter Harris: who was supposed to generate enough enthusiasm to save the House, limit Senate losses and only after about 3 miracles win the White House for the Democrats.

Also remember that the day Biden dropped out, Trump’s campaign issued a memo indicating that they knew this was a possibility (there are no actual secrets in DC, after all) and were prepared to run against Harris. They also pointed out that the MSM would be awash in pro-Harris polls and reports to boost her up and make it look like she was the Second Coming, and the Trump people were ready for that and to counter it. Overall, I think they were ready and clearly had a plan – the most obvious aspect of it being to tie Harris to Biden as much as possible, play to her inability to win anything in 2020 and then just smoke her out – the Democrats wanted to basement her as much as they did Biden in 2020 but Team Trump goaded her into going public, with disastrous results for the Harris campaign.

However Tuesday comes out, Trump has definitely fought the good fight. He even took a bullet for us. We owe him an undying debt of gratitude. The GOP will never go back to the way it was. We are done trying to please the Chamber of Commerce while Democrats destroy everything that made America both good and great. We are now firmly set on a populist, America First path and we will win – the nation will turn to us. I firmly believe that America will turn to us on Tuesday but no matter what happens Tuesday, our time is coming. The whole global ruling class is collapsing under the weight of their lies and stupidity. If we don’t win now, we will win eventually. We are right. We are the good guys. We are the actual diverse coalition of voices who just want liberty and justice for all – this will prevail, in God’s good time if not in ours.

Like a lot of people, I had the jitters but they started to calm in the last week and on Sunday, during Mass, a complete feeling of peace came over me. We’re going to be fine. And, heck, we’re doing pretty well – if I would have told you in, say, May that Trump would have banked a lead in Nevada early votes, you would have shouted for joy at the prospect. Post-facto attempts by Democrats to spin this – and Doomers to downplay it – don’t change the fact that it happened and it is a stunning reversal of the norm.

Anyways, lets have at it. It has been an enormously fun and interesting election cycle, we’re poised for our biggest victory since 1988…and maybe since 1980.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan87 Comments

The Republican Statewide early voting lead in Nevada ended up last night at 44,500. That is a lot. That is unprecedented. In 2020 Democrats had an 87,000 vote lead going in and Biden ended up winning the State by 33,000. Today is the last day for early voting in Nevada and if the Democrats don’t have a massive turnout then Trump is going to win this State and its 50/50 on Brown beating Rosen.

Republicans lead in North Carolina early voting.

Democrats aren’t allowed to look at Florida early voting totals because it will make them cry.

Jobs report came in at 12,000+…and you know that will be revised down to show job losses. Inflation also remained high. Employment and income are rather important election-drivers. Perhaps even more than the desire of a blue haired middle aged lady to get an abortion.

Via manipulated data, the Administration has tried to make out they’ve been an economic success and we, sadly, know that this propaganda line works to a certain extent – but only with people who are not having a hard time. And people are hurting out there. My bet is that we’ve had no real economic growth at all since COVID. And it will be reality that will ultimately drive this election result – you can hide this in this stats month by month, but it is real:

If you attend to social media, do keep in mind that there will be Dooming. It is infectious and we GOPers have been conditioned to accept it. None of us are immune to the propaganda no matter how wise we are…and deep in our hearts has been set the notion that we just can’t win. Doomers – most of whom are paid by Dems – play to that. To discourage…to, if nothing else, save a couple marginal seats downballot for the Democrats. Don’t fall for it! Bolt a smile on your face, say your prayers, vote and lets see what happens.

Are You Ready to Rumble…Nervously?

Mark Noonan101 Comments

Nervous? I think most of us are – but it is time for calm. Most of the early voting is either wrapping up now or will very soon. Do keep in mind that early vote estimates are just that: estimates. Sure, we can roughly assume 95%+ of GOP and Dem votes will go to the Party…and while we have polling of Indys, we don’t know how they’ll actually vote. On balance, I’d rather be GOP right now than Dem…but until those votes are counted, it is all just guesswork, some more sophisticated than others.

Heard that Harris is moving money from North Carolina to Virginia – if so, then she’s got to draw an inside straight to get to just 270. What such a move means is that AZ/NV/GA/NC are out of reach and so she needs all of WI/MI/PA and can’t lose VA (or NH/MN/NM). And if this is the case then any of WI/MI/PA (or reach States VA/NH/MN/NM) gets Trump to victory. Trump as of this moment appears to have far more paths to victory than Harris.

The Senate looks solid for the GOP – with GOP pickups in MT and WV getting the GOP to 51 (presuming we don’t lose TX – I think Cruz will be fine, but Dems are talking it up as a chance). But the GOP has real opportunities for upsets in WI and PA – with both Baldwin and Casey running desperately away from Harris and the Democrats. NV and AZ? Very much long shots – with Brown in NV having a much better chance than Lake in AZ.

House? Your guess is as good as mine: though I expect a Trump win to drag sufficient over the finish line to get a GOP House…a Harris win doing the same for Dems but with a slightly higher chance that Harris would come in with a GOP controlled Congress if it goes that way.

Naturally, right after I wrote that about Lake, we get this:

It is very much an outlier – everyone else shows Gallego comfortably ahead. But if it is like this, then a Trump win would drag Lake over the finish line. The trend line on it is interesting. And it is in line with the general thrust of polling which shows a shift to the GOP increasing over time.

And that is where we can get to dare to dream big – there is a chance (call it 25%) that we’re heading to a 1980-style result for the GOP. But we’re just going to have to wait and see!